There were three tunnels extending out of the imp chamber. One on the left side of the chamber, one almost directly across from the entrance, and one to the right, only about five feet from the entry. “I think we should keep to the left. In any dungeons I’ve been in, in my games, I always kept to the left. Any objections?”

“Nah, Bro, I’ve always done the same. It’s usually the long way to the Boss room, but then you clear the rooms so the boss can’t call any adds to hit us from behind.” Magnus said. The others agreed, so without further ado, we went forth in the same formation.

Well, we were going to go forth, but right as we set out, another damned Imp flew in from around the corner. “Shit,” I said, startled by the sudden appearance. The Imp saw us and tried to turn around and go back the way it came.

Tess flashed forward, literally. She disappeared from Rowan’s shoulder and appeared directly over the imp, latching on with all four claws and bit in to the creature’s neck while using her wings to bind up the Imp’s.

The dragonling and the imp hit the ground with a fleshy plop, and Rukia Darted forward to play with her new chew toy. Once she got her fangs around the Imps neck, Tess flashed away again and landed back on rowan’s shoulder, looking proud over its quick reactions.

I reached down when I got to Rukia and looted the Imp. Rukia gave me a very disapproving look when the Imp dissolved to nothing in her mouth. I chuckled softly at her expression before sobering up and looking around the bend in the tunnel.

The tunnel extended at least seventy-five feet before it ended in another cavern. The cavern seemed to be bigger than the last one, but I couldn’t tell how much bigger from my position. Stalactites and stalagmites merged, forming columns in the bit I could see. I could hear the echoes of shrieking and guttural speech coming from the cavern.

We approached as silently as we could. Once we reached the mouth of the cavern, we could finally see what was going on.

Spread out throughout the cavern were clutches of six to eight eggs, the size of footballs, filling depressions on the stone floor. About a dozen Imps fluttered between the clutches, casting their fire shield spell right over the eggs. Occasionally an imp would fly up to a shelf high on the wall, disappear for about a minute, and then return carrying a softer looking egg and placing it in another depression under a new fire shield.

I was going to keep watching the room for longer, but once one egg hatched, it joined in with the other imps flying around tending eggs. As one new Imp joined the tenders, another Imp, the largest of the group, broke off from its egg tending duties and fluttered towards the tunnel where we were crouched.

I quickly gestured for everyone to go back down the tunnel before we were spotted. I didn’t want to raise a ruckus right at the entrance and agro all the monsters in there before we were ready.

We quickly took care of the lone Imp before returning to the entrance to watch. It looked like a new Imp hatched about every ten minutes, leaving the biggest to move on to the first chamber. After using Identify on the newly hatched Imp and several others in the room, I came to a conclusion. It looked like they hatched at level one, and over the course of two hours, they reach level five. That was pretty quick leveling, but I assumed it was a function of the dungeon.

I used Identify on the eggs as well and a horrible plan came to mind as I read their information.

Dungeon Imp Egg

Warning: Explosive if damaged before maturity.

If I followed through on my plan, we would have to be ready. The odds were that if we detonated the room’s worth of eggs all at once, we would kill off the flying imps, and really piss off whatever was laying those eggs. We would probably go straight into a mini boss battle. There was no way in hell that this would be the ultimate boss of the dungeon; it was way too early with too many other passages to explore first.

Once I came up with my plan, I gestured for the others to fall back once again.

After reaching the first chamber, I began outlining my plan. I just had to confirm one thing with Rowan before I did. “Real quick, Rowan, are there any penalties for your Aeons or you when they die in combat?”

Rowan thought for a moment before answering. “There is a five minute per level cool down before I can summon them again if they discorporate. If I end the summoning early or their timer elapses, then I can summon them again right away. Why?”

“Well, you know those dozens of Imp eggs?” I asked.

“Yeah, what about them?” Concern entered Rowan’s voice.

“Well… you see… they are explosive.”

“EXPLOSIVE?” The others chorused, almost in perfect sync. Apparently I was the only one to use Identify on the eggs.

“Ok, so here is my idea. If we detonate the eggs, then they will probably clear out all of those imps all at once. But we don’t want to be in the room or even in the tunnel when they go off. So my idea is to send in the two Aeon dragonlings and have them damage the eggs, hopefully setting off a chain reaction, taking them all out at once.” I explained. “That will only leave, what is likely, the mini-boss over that ledge. The one that is making all those eggs.”

“I don’t like the idea of sending Sparks and Ember in there to die. I may have created them from pure magic and astral stuff, but they have their own personality and feelings. They are always so happy when I summon them, like puppies when you get home from school.” Rowan said, reluctance painted across his face.

Great. Now I felt like a total asshole for suggesting using them, effectively, as suicide bombers. But I didn’t know a better way to do this. One stray hit and those eggs will probably blow. It’s likely to be a trap designed to kill off any dungeon divers. If we skip the room and just go down one of the other tunnels, then we leave these things to come up on us from behind, and while we are distracted with fighting some other dungeon mob. We had to clear that room before going on.

“Does anyone else have any ideas? Seventy-five feet is a long way to run, and none of us are faster than the speed of sound yet. The force wave from the explosion will hit any of us before we can clear the tunnel.”

Everyone stood there in silence for a minute as we all tried to come up with a better idea.

“Maybe I can shoot one with one of my special arrows?” Cody asked.

“If the tunnel was straight, then that might work, but it curves back and forth. There is only about thirty feet of mostly straight tunnel to shoot down, then having to immediately run back forty-five feet before the arrow hits. What’s your current Agility?” I asked.

“Still just fourteen,” Cody answered. His head dipped down. He knew his agility wasn’t high enough to pull that off.

“I can do it,” Magnus declared while stepping forward, war hammer gripped in his hands. “My Agility is eighteen, Thorbjorn has a returning property, and so if I throw it at a clutch of eggs, I can call it back to me once I’m safe. I also have my explosive stride that lets me cover up to sixty feet in a single step. I also have the highest constitution out of anyone here.” Magnus nodded to rowan and strode towards the tunnel entrance. “Take cover to either side of the tunnel. It’s probably the safest place in this room.”

Rowan had a guilty look on his face. He didn’t look like he wanted Magnus or anyone else to take the risk personally, but didn’t want to sacrifice his summoned pets. Just before Magnus entered the tunnel, Rowan called out.

“Wait, you don’t have to do this.” Rowan took a deep breath, then began summoning his Aeons. “They will be ok, they don’t remember getting killed.” He muttered to himself. “They are always fine when the cool down ends.” Rowan met Magnus’s eyes with a new look of determination. “I may not like it when they get killed, but they always come back, no worse for the wear. But no one else here can say the same.”

Rowan took another steadying breath and finished summoning Sparks before going straight into summoning Ember.

Once the Two Aeons were hovering in the air before Rowan, he made eye contact with each. Something passed between them without rowan having to speak. Once they broke eye contact, they flew into the tunnel. We all took that as our cue to move against the wall on either side of the Imp tunnel.

It didn’t take long for the first BOOM, followed quickly by another. Then a rapid staccato of explosions sounded, triggering faster and faster until there was one mighty roar coming from the tunnel. In just a few seconds, a wave of force shook the cavern we were in. debris pummeled the other side of the cavern in a cone pattern. If any of us had been standing in the way, we would have had more holes in us than a colander.

-5

My ears were ringing in the aftermath. I took five points of damage just from the intensity of the rebounding sound. I spent some Ki to restore my damaged ears and let it do its thing.

Following the wave of force and shrapnel, a billowing cloud of sulphurous yellow grey smoke left the tunnel.

Everyone gagged over the rotten egg smell. I dropped to my knees to get below the level of the smoke. My stomach quivered, and I nearly vomited, but I cycled my Ki through my stomach meridian and it settled down. It didn’t help with the stench, but at least I didn’t have to spew anything forth, unlike Rowan and Cody. They both seemed determined to throw up everything they ever ate in their lives.

Rukia didn’t gag, but she had a sneezing fit that lasted for almost half a minute. The then shook herself and looked at me with an air of disapproval. She was not happy with the smoke or the smell.

I looked up and saw the smoke drifting to the domed ceiling, where it escaped through nearly invisible cracks. At least there was some kind of ventilation in here. We won’t have to worry about suffocating, for now anyway.

Once the smoke billowing from the tunnel lessened, I tried to speak to the others, but their hearing didn’t seem quite recovered from the explosions, so I sent a message to the others.

John: Ok, we should all get in there and make sure everything’s dead. If the mini-boss is still alive, we take it out.

They turned and gave me a nod, Cody and Rowan rinsing their mouths out with a swig of water before getting to their feet. The look of revulsion on their faces from having vomited was clear. They weren’t happy with that result. They looked at each other, squaring their shoulders, and we all entered the still somewhat smoky tunnel.

The Cavern looked absolutely wrecked. Smoking goo plastered the walls and the pillars, cracks showing in the latter. Bits of singed Imp were scattered everywhere, almost none of it recognizable. I looked up at the ledge and saw one of the ugliest things I had ever seen.

Dungeon Imp Brood Mother

Level 10

HP: 195/200

Stam: 432/432

Mana: 192/192

Defense: 20

The Brood Mother stood five feet tall, had a massive pear shaped body covered in rolls and wrinkles, with disproportionally skinny limbs. Short, bristly hair stuck out in random patches all over its pale reddish skin with putrid green splotches. A pair of useless saggy breasts hung down almost to its knees. Why would something that laid eggs need breasts? Worse than that, was the cloaca. Instead of a slit like in reptiles or a flush sphincter like in birds, this was a short pulsating cone that was covered in a viscous slimy substance that dripped down in phlegmy globs.

It flapped its undersized leathery wings in agitation and screeched at us in its guttural tongue. That thing was absolutely pissed at us. In the moment we took each other in, the Brood Mother’s cloaca spasmed and it reached down with its spindly hand and extracted a football shaped egg. It quickly brought up its arm like a quarterback and lobbed the freshly laid egg right at our group.

The surprise lasted only a moment as we all scattered and took cover behind the pillars in the room. The egg impacted the floor, where we stood, with a squishy splurgch before detonating in an explosion.

The yellowish green yolk splattered everywhere, sizzling on contact. I shouted to the group, “KILL IT!”

The shelf was only about ten feet off of the floor, and there were a few good sized boulders scattered around the room. While Cody was readying his bow, and Rowan was charging up his spell, Magnus used his Explosive Stride to appear on the shelf with the Brood Mother, swinging his hammer. I activated my Grace in Combat movement technique, ran forward and used one boulder as a step to leap onto the shelf, my steel spear leading the way.

A three foot wide fire shield interposed itself between the Brood Mother and Magnus’s hammer. The hammer still blew through the shield, but it caused Magnus’s arms to smoke from the retaliatory damage.

As my spear thrust forward, going right for the chest, the fire shield slid around and blunted my attack. The spear point barely penetrated the creature’s flesh before I ran out of force and had to pull back. Drops of fire from the shield splashed onto my leather armor. Fortunately, the armor’s defense bonus was higher than the damage from the shield. It got hot, but not enough to lose any health.

The shelf was bigger than it looked from below. I had enough room to step to the side of the Brood mother. As ugly as the creature was, its appearance paled compared to its stench. Imagine a Dumpster behind a sea food restraint in Phoenix, Arizona, and then set it on fire. That might get close to the nauseating odor coming from this thing.

A pair of arcane bolts launched from Rowan and Tess, impacting the Brood Mother as soon as I stepped to the side. They seemed to deal no damage between the fire shield and its own natural defense.

Cody raised the Radiant Bow, infused with his own blessing ability and the Bow’s ability to imbue holy energy into its arrows. He sighted down the shaft of the concussive special arrow and released. At only forty feet away, he didn’t need to worry much about missing a five foot tall target that was almost as wide as it was tall. The arrow launched, leaving behind a brilliant golden streak of light. It impacted and penetrated the shield with a dull boom and lodged into the Brood Mother’s gut. Its vulnerability to holy damage showed itself as the wound smoked around the arrow as its light bled into the monster.

The Brood mother dropped another egg out of its ghastly orifice and this time let it fall to the ground as it leapt back with more nimbleness than a creature of its dimensions should have. The detonating egg blew Magnus and me off of the ledge and back into the cavern area below. As we fell, I could hear its guttural language as it chanted a spell.

-22

I flipped my body around while I was in midair, thanks to my movement technique. My feet hit the pillar instead of my head. I flexed my legs as I came into contact, and just before the force was fully spent and I fell, I pushed off with all my strength and shot back at the Brood Mother, spear point first.

In the briefest of moments before I left contact with the pillar, I saw Rukia. She had her own movement technique going on and huge icicle fangs jutted from her mouth as she sprang up at the monster, causing so much havoc.

Rukia latched on, breaking through the fire shield with ease, her body giving off an icy glow as her ice Ki neutralized the fire magic. She sank her fang into the creature’s outstretched arm, the start of a fireball spell forming between its hands.

As Rukia pulled the creature off balance, and just before the fire shield could shift to block my attack, my spear penetrated its chest with the full weight of my body and the force of my jump. The Spear head sank fully and pushed out its back. It coughed out a mouthful of black blood and slumped back, falling over and twitching. The attempt at the fireball fizzled away into nothing.