** ** ** House of the Mask, Chicane ** ** **

Chicane was quite pleased with his towns development. The town was composed of several round pillars that had a different floor every six feet up. It went all the way up to the ceiling which gave them five rooms for each pillar. They had only made four such buildings so far since they were so time consuming. It was all built off the principal that had been given to them. The knowledge was called ‘a-brick’. Only the most important people were allowed to live in the ‘a-brick’ housing. However, his dream was for all of his kind to live in the ‘a-brick’ housing.

He was currently on his way to see his favorite three. That had also been the first to create the ‘death stick design’. The ‘death stick’ was a revolutionary attacking weapon that worked in tandem with their ‘phalanx’ formation. It was created after viewing the stone models in the first room. They had cut off smaller parts of the trees and attached sharpened stones to them and their ‘death stick’ was invented! It had been in use ever since the battle with the larger and more hairless versions of themselves. These creatures that they had decided to call ‘hoomins’. The ‘hoomins’ still held much more elite versions of these ‘death sticks’. Some were composed of only of long sharpened rocks with a handle, while others were smaller and propelled through the air, lastly there were also large lopsided ‘death sticks’. They also encountered forces and elements that acted on the ‘hoomins’ words and motions. He entered the forge, “I am here, I was told you had some things to show me?”

First was the intimidating sculptor renamed Fleshstone, to honor his profession. He was their best sculptor and had recently earned them a new amazing item with his revolutionary ‘Nut Art’. He had one of the gifted toolkits with him with tools from the god. By his side was a scrawny scientist named Shrood. The top scientist, Shrood was responsible for new designs and trying to replicate gifts. Lastly the sturdier of the three, he held a sculpted gift called a ‘hammer’ and was renamed for using it. Everyone now called him Fleshhammer. Shrood was the first to respond, “Why yes, yes! You will be thoroughly delighted with what we have made. The first piece is the improved ‘death stick! You see after borrowing some of their weapons we discovered that the ‘hoomins’ use the metal instead of stone. Fleshhammer has already began banging out some new iron tips to replace the stone ones!”

Shrood brought out a iron ‘death stick’ tip for him to inspect. Which he compared to his own stone tip. Not only did it looked shiner, which is an impressive feat, he was informed that they could be repaired and would last longer than the stone ones. This was indeed a step forward in their technology. He was looking forward to see their other creations, “This alone is enough to celebrate. This is quite the improvement, you three have truly earned your ‘a-brick’ housing.”

They continued to go through their new inventions. A lot were designed from the ‘hoomins’ forgotten items. These items had been forgotten to be watched closely and were adroitly snatched up from the unsuspecting ‘hoomins’ from the ‘Shadows’. He himself had taken to picking up forgotten items. His favorite story to tell was when he had removed a strange wiggly contraption from the individual’s waist, which caused the ‘hoomin’s’ leg coverings to fall down after trying to retrieve what he had called a ‘my-belt’. All his people were now equipped with ‘my-belts’ made from the fur of ‘nut-cheekers’. The ‘my-belts’ allowed one to hold a small version of the ‘death-stick’ on their waist.

The next few inventions he was shown was a replica of the ‘death stick launcher’. All their attempts to make a stick launch other sticks had resulted in shitty versions and the actual item required so much effort and strength to utilize, but they had come up with an alternate way to achieve the result. Using the main part of the fern they hollowed out the middle making it tube like. All the death sticks they tried using failed, but they discovered that the defense of the spiked creature worked well in it. You would put the spike in the tube and blow air through it and out it shot. It was still quite weak and could only puncture skin. Using stone bottles, they collected the venom in the water creatures hind legs and douse all the spikes with it. After all this was put together they were capable of paralyzing creatures for a few seconds.

This would be used in hiddenly while the ‘phalanx’ is being used. The natural look of it would hide the user well. They deemed the new weapon the ‘spatter’ and Chicane ordered the Shadows to start learning it along with a few commoners as well.

The last invention however was the greatest of all. They had managed to understand the newest weapon the god had given them. The parasol! At first they were confused at what its purpose was, but after Shrood began his research he realized that it was similar to the objects the ‘hoomins’ used to block attacks with. After creating a design that could be forged in parts and put together after they had made a collapsible iron shield that would help prevent them from the flying ‘death sticks’ and the element controlling.

They were still heavy, but they could be used to set up an area to protect their phalanx. It would take two to operate it though and it had a slow completion time as well. Overall, they were ready for the new wave of ‘hoomins’. They would teach them the meaning of defeat.

** ** ** Unsuspecting Adventurer ** ** **

“What the actual Goddess of fuck?,” Jackson screamed.

They had been wandering around and this was the third wall they had hit that was supposedly ‘not supposed to be there’. He believed the one reading the map was just incompetent, “Hey Michael you want to maybe not fuck up the directions that Destiny had no problems with just the day before?”

They decided to switch map readers for the day to give him the chance to gain the Innate Map skill that let them keep an accurate map in their head mentally. Destiny had just gained the skill after three days of directing them. Destiny spoke up, “Jackson I don’t think it’s his fault, I’ve been falling the map mentally and all the directions should have been right… I think the maze changed…”

Jackson snorted at the notion, “It hasn’t changed for the past two weeks for the other groups. The dungeon doesn’t just suddenly change. You’re obviously unskilled at Innate Map and the fucktard over hear is just illiterate.”

Michael’s face grew bright read as he exclaimed, “I am not! You are just mad cause you’re a… a… a…”

“Ha you can’t even come up with a comeback,” Jackson smirked.

He was about to continue belittling Michael, but suddenly the adventurer just fell over sideways. “Wait what the,” he didn’t get to finish talking before Destiny screamed ‘Ambush’.

The two others that had been keeping themselves out of the argument grouped up around Michael to protect him. Jackson hurried over to the group as he looked behind him and saw the approaching Racoonoid Spearmen. After joining the protective circle, he smiled as he began to smile, “Eat this you oversized Racoons!”

He began to poor his mana into his favorite spell, fireball! He channeled it through his right arm, which he used for casting. Some mages focused on using both arms, but if you made it a habit of only using one arm then it made one’s spells much more powerful than if they used both. Like strength training using magic could strengthen parts of you that were used often. By only using his right arm his spells were twenty percent more powerful.

He was aiming for the middle of the six by two grouping of spearmen. Michael began to gain use of his body and stood back up and drew his bow. As Michael began to release an arrow, Jackson finished his spell. Suddenly formation split in half and two racoonoids ran up through the center with the other raccoonoids converging on the two.

The two had a long pole held between them with the front end looking thicker than the end. Just as the arrow and ball of flame was about to erupt on the racoonoids the poles head erupted outward and an expanse of iron pieces formed a large twelve foot shielded area completely blocking the projectile and flame. The iron melted a bit, but it held sturdy. Six spears erupted from either side of the large shield as they began charging the group. “Michael shoot them you fucktard! I can’t cast another fireball in time,” he yelled, but as he turned he noticed two little spikes poking out of Michaels forehead as the archer fell over again.

Shining spear tips were quickly gaining on the group. They had destiny a healer and two axe wielders. They normally decimated groups of spearmen with a well-placed fireball and arrows picking off the others. The axe wielders were awful against the spearmen. Jackson knew there was only one solid way to make it through this. Without much consideration he took off running away from his companions using every little bit of brain power to find his way back to the exit.

It's better that the leader escapes with his life then falling down with his team. I can rebuild a team, but you can’t re-build a natural born leader.

He was running through each room. There had yet to be any casualties so far and he wanted to keep himself out of that statistic. After hitting some dead ends, some with a chest guarded by an elite, he finally began to see familiar terrain.

Yes! I am close to the exit! I remember this room with the pond and the statue of the fox!

Just as he was about to leave the room he saw a beautiful chest sitting in the middle of the room. He stopped in his tracks and looked around. He couldn’t see any likely ambushes. This room was fairly open, and it wasn’t near the pond either. He had encountered a water ambush before. Focusing every ounce of perception he had he approached the chest. It looked like he would survive and exit with treasure. He began thinking of what he would tell the others at camp.

We were ambushed, and all my comrades were on the ground bleeding badly. They told me their dying wishes and forced me to leave them. I couldn’t say no to their dying wishes that they needed me to repeat to the parents they loved dearly. How could I not obey them? After sending off several more fireballs I retreated only due to their wishes. Yes, that will sound good.

There were absolutely no creatures around him and he was standing right in front of the chest. Keeping up his vigilance he kept watch as he opened the chest and reached in with his right hand.

And they say nothing comes free in this world, but luckily, I am blessed by the goddesses.

He felt a dagger along with jewels in his palm and looked down to see his prize. While he did see lots of gems and a beautiful dagger, he also happened to see that his arm was reaching into a chest with sharp teeth! Screaming he went to pull his hand out, but not before the chest bit his hand clean off. Blood started rushing out as he began to feel light headed. For the first time he cast a spell with his left hand and cauterized the wound.

While tears were streaming down his face the beautiful chest began hopping away from him. He sort-of remembered crying and screaming occasionally on his trek out, but for most of it he had no memory. He finally trudged out of the dungeon with his mouth just hanging wide open and stumbled around until people found him.

A short while later the rest of his party came out of the dungeon complete with dozens of cuts and scrapes. Apparently, the spearmen subdued them and took everything on their person before letting them go. While they were beat up and cut nothing was too serious and they made it out fine. They kicked their leader out of the group and informed everyone of what had happened. Jackson was left with no group and no one wanting to join him.