Chapter 12

The Emberwood Trials

Interesting, a named dungeon has a history and an echo of its past stamped into it when ambient mana concentrates and turns it into a dungeon. Random locations just get creatures and traps, no history or story behind them. Most dungeons are Named though, Named ones also give out quests, unlike the graveyard one. All we could see was a wood floor and darkness, fully stepping in, brought us to the anteroom, a warm room entirely carved of wood, with mana lamps embedded in the walls to give light. Carved vines and mushrooms adorn the walls, and water drips from the ceiling into what looks like a wooden birdbath in the center of the room.

“Well, we have much to do and not that much time, a trial dungeon is a type where you have to pass, you guessed it, trials. They can be in the form of obstacles, monsters, puzzles, or anything else really.” I pointed at the carvings and the birdbath, “The decoration of the anteroom will always hint towards what you will find later in the dungeon. This will always be true, if you think it isn’t you aren’t looking hard enough. Most of the time it’s obvious, sometimes the anteroom can be the clue you need to progress. The nice thing about trial dungeons is that they directly give loot, complete a trial and you get something, nice and simple. In other types of dungeons, you have to search for things or loot bodies and hope you get lucky. The bad part of trial dungeons is that, like this one, they often have a timer or some other sort of gimmick, some you can’t leave once you enter, some take away a sense, it can be anything.” I walk towards the door into the main dungeon as I ask, “So what can we tell from this room?”

Kate hesitantly offered, “Well, there are carvings of plants and fungus so that means there will be vegetation, right?”

“Exactly, either monsters or obstacles, plants and fungus will be there somewhere. Anything else?”

“The birdbath feature must mean there will be water, or a lake or pond, right dahling?” Angel asked.

“Correct, but what else could it mean, Dave how about you?”

“Well, a wooden bird bath is unusual, they normally come in stone, so that could mean something, the fact it’s a birdbath could also mean there be birds here.”

“Correct once again, and with that, we shall explore.” I open the door and quickly closed it again. “Right, no one here is afraid of bugs, are they?”

“Why do you want to know?” Katenip asks.

“Because there is a pair of giant beetles right outside this door.” I answer.

“Oh…” Her face pales.

Dave chuckles, “For blood and glory, and to keep from being taken over by a ruddy plant.” He throws the door open and charges through.

“Right…what he said.”

I followed him through the door and sent a stone spike into a giant beetle. It looked like a cross between a scarab and a rhinoceros beetle, but it had bladed ridges on its carapace. The one Dave was fighting was trying to bodyslam him to grind him into the wall. Being a tank Dave was just fine and cutting large chunks out of it as he pushed it back. I heated the spike impaling the other oversized bug and it flailed. By the time Dave had killed his, mine was a smoking ruin.

Level 36 Grinder Beetle Killed!

“That was easy.” I say, as the beetle husk falls off the spike and crashes into the ground.

Kate just ignored me, while Angel looked at me with wide eyes. Heh.

There was only one way to go so we followed the wooden hallway into a small room full of grass, vines covered the walls and odd designs covered the ceiling. As we stepped into the room the designs lit up and the grass started to grow, really fast. It also started to cling to us, and as it grew it started to bind us. Dave just tore it apart, I burned it off, and Angel wasn’t even touched as the grass withered around her. Kate exploded with suds and the angry plants couldn’t manage to hold her once they were all slippery. After a minute the glow on the ceiling faded and the plants retreated.

You have completed the Trial of Growth.

3 Minor Health Potions Awarded

Nice, potions are always useful. A door revealed itself in the wall, it was marked with a mushroom. Opening it led us into a large circular room full of stumps and various mushrooms, some small, some with stalks larger than Dave. When we were all through the door sealed behind us and the shrooms started to shake.

A dense yellow powder filled the air, and we all felt a horrific burning sensation on our entire bodies, it was fairly damaging too. I was about to tell Kate to try to cleanse it when I saw the speeding form.

“Duck!”, I choked out, accidentally inhaling some of the spores as I dropped to the ground. The others followed my example, and six small figures flew over our heads. When they landed, I could finally get a good look at them, two feet tall, with spindly limbs made of braided vines, with a blue mushroom for a head, and wielding twin wooden scimitars dripping a nasty looking purple liquid. My life sense was useless because even the spores were alive, I was standing in a fog of life and couldn’t make out a damn thing. The short fungi monsters were level 52 and were on us again by the time we finished getting up. I shifted to stone and grabbed two out of the air. Heating up, they started to smoke, and I forced oil out of my palms, soaking the vicious things as they tried to stab me ineffectually. I lit one on fire and tossed it into one that was harrying Dave, knocking it over. The one I still held I tore to shreds and scattered its pieces. Katenip had her mop shining with holy light and was keeping a small area around herself clear of spores, occasionally firing a wave of sharp bubbles at the creatures. Angel was having a bad time, for some reason her skill wasn’t really affecting them and so she had to curse them individually, this also wasn’t doing much. With my flaming gift basket, Dave was able to kill three of them, leaving just the ones attacking Angel and Kate. I tossed Angel the staff I had found in the graveyard dungeon and managed to choke out, “If your spells aren’t working just whack them.”

I then spread a mist of oil into the air around us, the spores got trapped by the oil and the air around us started to clear a bit. I turned to take on one of the remaining little shits when I was bowled over by a much larger mushroom creature. It was level 61.

Eight feet of spongy flesh studded with bone ridges tossed me into Dave, he managed to fall and crush one of the little shits, I managed to fall on him. I dismissed my stone form as fast as possible and rolled off Dave, I pulled a large stone block out of the ground to stop the thing’s charge, it didn’t work. The hulking thing smashed through 3 feet of reinforced stone and came to a stop, dazed. I threw lava at it from one hand and oil from the other in a continuous stream. It burned. I increased the pressure and knocked it back into one of the large shrooms, setting it alight. By this point my oil mist had fallen to the ground and caught fire as well, the fire was spreading, and thick cloying smoke was coming from the surrounding mushrooms as they burned.

Katenip unleashed her cleaning spell, pushing away both spores and smoke briefly, the brief bit of visibility let me see Dave engaged with another massive shroom monster, and Angel beating the last of the little ones to death with her staff. Both Kate and Angel had several purple cuts and looked to be in a lot of pain. As I noticed that Dave shouted, “Kate! Destroy the shrooms, it weakens them!” right before removing the arm of his foe.

Kate didn’t disappoint, she let out a flood of her tiny, bladed bubbles and started directing them randomly around the room at high speed by waving her mop wildly. Immediately the number of spores in the air lessened, and the hulking brute visibly deflated, like a rotten pumpkin. Dave managed to cleave it in two on his next strike. I sent out a wave of churning earth to take care of any small shrooms, and then I did it again and again. Between Kate and I, the field of shrooms was destroyed in short order. Only then did we get the popup.

You have completed the Trial of Spores.

Random Fungal Spellbook Awarded (Aura of Growth)

As we rested, we compared spell books, I got a spell called Aura of Growth, which increased the growth rate of all seeds or spores near the caster and scaled off of Int and skill. A solid spell for some druids or fungal casters. Kate got Organic Feeding, a spell that let you directly absorb energy from anything organic, it was a utility spell since it wasn’t that fast, but it would keep you from starving if you could eat a meal by touching a tree for a few minutes. Dave got Fungal Regeneration, a spell that let you buff yourself with a rapid regen effect, it made you more vulnerable to fire though and the healing part of the buff would end if you were hit by heat damage. Angel got the fungal magic version of a spell she already had, Vampiric Spores, it allowed the caster to release spores and siphon health from those affected by them, something she could already do with her class skill Vanity Vampire that worked based on attention.

Overall, the spells weren’t that useful to us, I could use them, but it wouldn’t fit with my style, and Dave didn’t have the Int score to make the regeneration spell work well. Together though they would make someone a pretty decent start if they were trying to be a Fungal Mage or some sort of Fungal Spellblade.

“Well, that didn’t go so well, it seems we were supposed to destroy the mushrooms all along. I bet if we hadn’t, more enemies would have popped up until we died, or the battle destroyed the shrooms.” I sighed. “By the way nice observation Dave.”

“Thanks man, that thing was annoying until some of the mushrooms got burned.”

“Well, we don’t have time to hang around, time to check the next Trial.” I stood up and walked across the shredded field of shrooms. The next door had a picture of fruit-bearing trees on it, with little question marks between the trunks. It must be a puzzle room.

Opening the door we were met by a big room with three sets of three trees in a row, one behind the other and separated by golden barriers. In front of the trees was a pedestal with a large wooden fruit bowl on it. In the bowl were three fruits, and in front of each tree was a small basket.

“Well this seems fairly self-explanatory, match the apples to the trees….I know nothing about apples though. I could commune with the trees and apples using druid magic, but that would take too long, we only have,” I look at the clock, “an hour and a half left. We also don’t know how many trials there are.” I look around at my companions, “So… anyone know about fruit?” I asked.

Katenip just shrugged, and EpicDave shook his head.

“Actually dahling, I happen to know quite a bit about fruit, you don’t live on a diet to keep a figure like mine for so long and not learn a thing or two about quality produce.” Angel piped up.

“Great! It’s your show then and try to make it quick.”

She quickly went and collected the orange, banana, and pear and stuck them in the correct baskets, the first golden barrier disappeared, and the first three trees changed. Six fruits appeared in the bowl. Two different apples, a lemon and a lime, and a peach and a mango. Shit, we should have tested on the first one what would happen if we got one wrong. Puzzles like this could give you infinite chances, or only one, before imposing a penalty. Focusing on my life sense I had a bad feeling I knew what the penalty was, those trees had a lot more life in them than a normal tree.

Angel was fairly quick about these as well, although she hesitated on the apples. After a minute she placed them, and the next barrier disappeared. The trees changed once again and the bowl filled with nine different types of apple….fuck.

“Um, I may be a star but I’m not sure I can get this one right sugar.” Angel said while looking at the nearly identical fruits, and then at the trees.

“That’s okay, just do your best. The rest of us will get ready for a fight, I’m pretty sure any wrong answers will have those trees attacking us.” I reply.

Right before Angel placed the last apple I cast the buffs I knew but had been forgetting on everyone, increasing speed, con, and strength. I also tossed my Mantel of Healing Waters on everyone for extra protection. This turned out to be a good idea because five of the trees grew arms and threw the apples at us, where they exploded. I guess these are the ones she got wrong.

Angel drew the attention of two as they uprooted themselves and charged her, This left one for each of the rest of us. With her increased speed Angel would be alright, the treants only seemed to have the one ranged shot. Katenip bombarded an angry tree with bubbles, and EpicDave rushed forward shield first and crashed into one with a mighty clang. I shifted to stone and followed his example with my own tree. Crashing into it I used my minor grasp of oil magic to pump oil aspect mana into the plant as I pummeled it. When it was full enough, I spat lava at it and used earth manipulation to hurl the tree away on a pillar of stone. It erupted into flame as the lava caught the oil mana on fire, making it explode from the inside out. It didn’t move after that. I turned and fired lavabolts at the two slowly chasing Angel, bark and leaves were falling off of them and branches were splintering. Kate soon joined in as she finished her opponent and the first one fell, then Dave cut the last one in half from behind and ended it.

You have completed the Trial of Fruit.

Random Fruit Item Awarded (Pearwood Staff)

I got a minor nature aspect staff, not bad but nothing great. Dave got a spellbook for a Fruit Spell called Tough Rind, that increased con and gave some minor damage reduction. Angel got a bracelet that boosted decay magic on organic targets by a bit, and Kate got a spell called Water-Melon that created a fruit full of endless drinking water until the spell expired. Nothing exciting but not bad loot all the same. The next door had trees and a compass on it. Shit, a navigation-type room.

We emerged onto a wide branch and could immediately see that we were high up in a tree. There were other overly large branches that made paths leading away from the one we were on, the first problem was that they were not connected, and we would have to jump from branch to branch, the second problem was each branch in the forest seemed to have large red fruits hanging off of them in multiple places. The fruits were oval-shaped and glowed from the inside with a steady slow pulse, the skin had a pattern on it that reminded me of a grenade. Fuck this all, there is no way my noobs were doing a delicate jump course that explodes. I toss a stone spike at the nearest fruit and it exploded in a five-foot blast, triggering all three other fruits on that branch to explode as well. I grinned, Navigation or Maze rooms were a bitch, but low-level ones don’t have protections against unorthodox solutions. In this case, the fruits didn’t grow back.

“Dave, shield Kate. Kate, send out a massive wave of sharp bubbles into the trees. Angel, get behind me.” I ordered as I changed into stone.

Kate gave me a questioning look and then shrugged as she aimed her mop around Dave and let loose a torrent of weak bubbles, they were so weak at that volume that they would hardly do a thing to any monster over level 15. The fruits weren’t that sturdy though. A massive chain of explosions cooked off, and the shockwaves of so many explosions set even more of the fruits off, clearing most of the small forest of danger. The paths were somewhat the worse for wear, but most of the branches survived and left enough of themselves to serve as stepping-stones. I scooped up Angel, since her dex wasn’t quite up for this yet, and started hopping from branch to branch. Dave and Katenip followed.

The trip through the forest only took 10 minutes this way, and it only took so long because we had to backtrack and try a different route after the first one was a dead end. We ended up on a large branch with a door set into the trunk, the picture on the door was of fish. Sort of an odd thing to find in a tree but dungeons are like that.

You have completed the Trial of Trees.

Random Tree Item Awarded (Nitrotree Seedling)

I got a potted tree of the same kind that made the bomb fruits. Kate got a wooden pin shaped like a shield that improved resistance to nature spells, and Dave got a ring that gave him minor explosion resistance. Angel got a peridot necklace that let her move slightly faster in a forest.

Crossing into the next area revealed a wide room with six large pools of water and tall grass. Within seconds the grass erupted in tiny, two foot tall, boar men with sharp wooden spears. They were level 5.

Fighting them was easy as we walked towards one of the ponds, they were basically harmless even though they were endless. When we got to the pond, we found the danger of this room, a large tentacle with an eye and fanged mouth on the end rose out of the water. The thing lunged for Angel, but Dave intercepted it with his shield. It pushed him back a step. I got a read on its level and paled, it read as level 125. In panic Angel started tossing the boar men at it, she mostly missed, and they fell into the water, but they didn’t surface, the water gained a red tinge. The tentacle thing backed off a bit though, so we all started tossing the tiny boar men into the water, it wiggled happily and sank down as the whole pond turned red.

“Well, I guess this is what we need to do for this room.” I said as I kicked a boar man that was stabbing my leg.

“Yup! Its always important to feed the wee fishys. Ya ken?” Dave agreed, I think. Kate gave him an odd look for calling the tentacled monstrosities ‘wee fishys’.

We went from pond to pond and tossed living and dead boar men into them, when we did so from far enough away multiple tentacle things rose up to catch them midair. It was disturbing. When all six ponds were red the trial completed, and the boar men stopped spawning.

You have completed the Trial of Fish.

Random Fish Item Awarded (Belt of the Herring)

I got a belt that drew attention to the wearer, very minor, and it doesn’t keep the attention, I gave it to Angel since it would be useful for her. Kate got a bracelet that gave a minor boost to water affinity. Dave got a silver fish pin that let him hold his breath longer, and Angel got a coral hairpin that increased the severity of bleed effects the wearer caused.

The door at the end of the area looked ominous, it depicted a spider on a web. I hate spiders.

With 48 minutes on the clock, we entered a tall room with a massive tree in it. The branches were far apart and the bark too smooth to climb but there was a fairly obvious solution, multicolored webs formed bridges between every branch, often multiple webs connected to a single branch. There were so many webs in the place that even being able to fly wouldn’t have helped much, since you would likely just end up stuck. From the lowest branch, a blue web bridge stretched to the floor right in front of us.

Testing the bridge, I found it was slippery like ice. I looked up at the many webs above us, in colors of green, grey, blue, red, yellow, and purple. This was not going to be fun.

I conjured a thin layer of dirt over the web so we wouldn’t slip.

“This is gonna suck guys. The webs are different based on color, and with this many webs there are sure to be spider monsters.”

Kate grumbled something about creepy spiders and Angel patter her on the shoulder.

I led the way onto the bridge and sure enough, a spider the size of a large dog crawled out from underneath the web to challenge us. It was about the size of a large dog and had icy mist wafting off its body.

Worried about the clock I formed a long hammer out of stone and when it leaped at me, I smashed it out of the air and onto the floor. Without having to be prompted Kate shot a trio of bubble bolts at the stunned spider, and I tossed a few eruption disks at it for good measure. It didn’t get up.

The next branch gave us a choice between yellow and purple. I conjured some dirt on them, but I wasn’t that hopeful that it would work for another color. These sorts of things tended to need a different solution to each problem, but I would remain optimistic.

I tested the purple bridge and felt a magical poison invade my body. Fuck, that didn’t work. Dave had tested the other one and immediately hopped back, and then his leg gave out and he fell over.

“Ah, that one there be a paralysis trap, gets worse the longer you touch it, what was yours Laz?” Dave asked as he struggled to get up without a fully functional leg. Kate then cleansed him in golden froth, and he managed to stand up.

I winced, “Ouch, that’s a nasty one, this one just poisons you for as long as you are on the bridge. Manageable but annoying, with Kate to heal us it shouldn’t be that bad though. I don’t like the sound of that yellow one, so I vote purple.” The others agreed and we marched across it, it hurt but it was only a mild poison and Kate healed us once we were on the next branch, so it wasn’t bad.

The next choice was between green, red, and grey. Dave tested the red while I tested the green one. Nothing seemed to happen when I walked onto the green one at first, and then I was distracted by Dave screaming. I looked over and saw he was on fire before he leaped back onto the branch. Luckily the fire went out but that was obviously not a good route to take. Just as I was refocusing on my bridge to figure out what it did the damn thing broke underneath me. I ended up falling onto a lower branch. Okay, so green is weak and will break with either time or weight, best not to consider green webs to be paths at all.

I called up to the others to wait for me and looked at my options on this branch. There were three, one was the yellow web to the branch we had been on before although it was free of dirt now and occupied by a large spider with sparks crawling all over it. My other choices were a red web with a smoking spider and a green one with a spindly spider that looked like a cross between a bellows and a skeleton in the shape of a spider.

The only real option was the yellow path since that would lead me back to the group, so I changed into my stone form and charged the creepy crawly. As I touched the bridge, I could feel a numbness start to spread up my leg, but it seemed to be hampered slightly by my stone body.

I barreled into the spider and it tried to bite me but couldn’t get through my hard skin. It got swept along on my charge to the other branch and when I got there the numbness in my legs was enough that I tripped and fell onto it. It didn’t do much more after that.

After a moment to shake off the numbness I ran across the poison bridge and caught up with the others. “So green is a no-go, and yellow isn’t so bad as long as you run quickly. Did you test out the grey one?” I asked.

“It seems to just be really sticky so it’s hard to walk on and you can’t make sudden movements. Other than that, its fine. We also killed that nasty spider that popped up.” Kate said.

Angel chuckled, “Darling I am sure we shall see worse fiends in this game, best prepare sooner than later to face our foes. No matter how unsettling they may be.”

“Well, clocks ticking.” I said and led the way across the grey bridge.

It took 20 minutes to make it to the top, we ran into a few dead ends and places with only green bridges where we had to turn back. Throughout this, we had to kill several different types of spiders. Kate liked to blast them off the web bridges after we got high enough that the fall would kill them.

When we got to the top there was a grand door embedded in the trunk with colorful birds painted on it. Since this door had color it would be a fair guess that it was the boss room, a deviation from the pattern like that was a pretty big clue.

We also got our notification.

You have completed the Trial of Webs.

Random Spider Item Awarded (Boots of Steady Tread)

My reward was some boots that made it easier to walk on uneven terrain. While it wasn’t great it wasn’t terrible.

Kate got a spell called ‘Hidden Trap’ that hid traps in an illusion of the surroundings. Useful if you use traps, not great for us though.

Angel got a spell called ‘Phantom Legs’ that gave you giant spectral spider legs that sprouted from your back, the number of which was however many were required to bring the casters total number of limbs to eight. An interesting bit of magic that might be useful for her to aid in dodging once her dex was higher.

Dave got a pair of gloves that made it hard to be disarmed, something very useful for a warrior that uses any type of weapon.

“This is probably the boss room, it should be a hard fight, although not nearly as bad as that shit in the mine. Since this is a Trial Dungeon it will give us the XP from all of this at the end after the boss. We are also likely to get rewards other than the fungus cure but everyone needs to take the cure as soon as we get it.” I explain.

“With the experience we get from this Angel you might not need Dave as a protector afterwards, you should have the stats to dodge things properly. Anyway, let’s get to this, same strategy of Dave tanks while Angel taunts and does damage. Kate will be the healer and blaster and I will be up close to mid-range damage. Let’s do this so we aren’t taken over by a nasty mushroom.”

I’m not the best at impromptu pep talks but with a little under half an hour, we didn’t have time for anything better. At times like this I miss GloryHole, that old bastard had great leadership skills that had nothing to do with the system. Without him, the Protectors would never have formed, and the remnants of humanity would probably have been wiped out.

With a sigh I tossed open the door and shifted to my Stone Form, looking around to see what sort of bird-related threat there was.

As I looked around the large room, I saw six wooden pillars at least twenty feet high. They radiated a sense of malice. The walls and ceiling were a giant dome made of roots, vines, and leafy branches. My life sense was mostly useless again since the whole damn place was alive. A strange wind blew slowly about the room, and wisps of mist hung randomly in the air. I heard a whisper from the wall beside me and as I turned to look at it a giant wooden claw grabbed me and hauled me into the air.