Countdown until level collapse: 3 days 18 hours 32 minutes

“Alright, follow my lead and stay behind me.” Darryl said.

Darryl looked at the red dot that was rapidly headed for them, and heard elastic stretch behind him. Elise sent him six slingshots looted from the Clurichauns, and unsurprisingly the people preferred fighting dangerous foes from afar.

The brindle vespa appeared from around the corner and three rocks went flying. One had been shot before it even appeared, and went over the critter’s head. For humans it was a natural assumption that the creatures would fly at eye height, but the vespas flew at knee-height until they spotted a taller foe. The other two actually aimed, but missed as well.

“Damn it, don’t draw before you shoot! Don’t you listen?” One of the women in the group said.

“Real easy talking from the sidelines, Grace!” One of the men that missed shouted at her as the last three drew back and fired. They too missed, though one got close enough that the vespa made some pre-emptive manoeuvres to dodge.

What Grace said was true, they noticed it during a quick practice session. Which turned out to be a good call as it took several tries before someone even managed to shoot one of their pebbles further than they could’ve kicked it. Childish and small as these slingshots looked, it still took some of the stronger people here to use the slings.

As such, the same principles and disconnect applied as with bows. The idea that people could just draw back a bow for half a minute waiting for enemies to get in range was ludicrous, human muscles simply couldn’t accomplish such a feat with medieval bows. Draw, aim and shoot in quick succession, or your arms would start to shake so badly that you couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

But hopefully things would improve soon enough. Once someone gained a skill level firing these things, their accuracy would improve massively. And hitting anything that was alive would surely help gaining one, or at least Darryl hoped so.

Darryl kept his shield up while the others huddled behind him as the vespa spat its acid, because apparently someone decided that giant hornets weren’t terrifying enough with only finger-long stingers. The acid ran down his shield as smoothly as the krutnik spit had before, and the vespa shot forward.

One of the three early shooters managed to load and fire again, the rock flying just past the vespa. It veered towards the right flank, and Darryl quickly jumped in the way before it could stab one of the lambs. They already lost one person to acid in the face, too many deaths and these people would likely break.

The vespa bounced off his shield, and staggered back as Darryl tried to stop as gracefully as he could. Which was to say, not very.

The bug took little damage as his Stalwart Protector skill, arguably his greatest offensive ability, only worked when Darryl was standing still. The vespa were unfortunately disinclined to run headfirst into anything or stab at shields, so he couldn’t really damage them with his good skill. And his half-baked attempt to shield-slam it while jumping to the side was just that, half-baked.

Still, the vespa was stopped in its tracks for a brief moment, which was enough for the braver amongst the lambs to capitalise on the opening. Darryl heard at least one lamb grumble behind him that Darryl was in the way, but there were two melee lambs that took a swing.

Both were wielding bax axes. The axes were solid steel with a good edge, and thus generally better than the junk people got at the beginning. One of the axes carved straight through the vespa’s left wings, and the other tried to go for the centre mass to instead carve off two of its feet and clip its lower right wing.

The vespa fell to the ground, and the two axe-wielders ganged up on it. Others seemed inclined to join now that the hornet was harmless and prone, but there were rules about this stuff. There had been some discussion on whether to have there be an order so everyone could get the kill for the achievements, or allow slingshots to fire at grounded foes from point blank to get a ranged skill-up, but Darryl put his foot down about the matter.

If someone were to be allowed to kill a vespa that others downed, then there would be no motivation to step up. They’d trade it for bickering on who was next while no one would gain actual combat experience. Not to mention, Darryl and Belinda didn’t have the build to down the foes, so the lambs had to step up and fight themselves.

Not to mention, the AI would likely punish unearned first kill achievements with crappy rewards.

So instead they made the rule that the kill and loot went to whomever downed the vespa. The three axe-wielders that were eager to step forward would form their own party before some of the others would score a single kill, which would give them another direly needed team to deploy while Darryl could focus on training the rest.

“Alright, good work.” Darryl said. “I see a few brindle vespa coming from the right, let’s go there. Oh, and pick up the vespa corpse itself as well. We don’t know if the grubs feast on their own.”

No one argued, and the group started moving. Darryl at the front, Belinda in the rear and the lambs in between. Darryl wanted them to split up in two groups to cover more ground and foes, even if the second group would only go for the easier targets, but when Belinda seemed disinclined to guide a group by herself that plan had been dead in the water.

So instead they had this one bloated group where only a few people got the opportunity to step up while others were too slow or too indecisive to benefit from the easy grinding, and the group was going around trying to kill all the vespa in between the camp and the northern Safe Zone.

It had been the soundest plan once they learned that there were pupae turning into vespa all around in distressing numbers and the Bax hunt was called off. The numbers around the camp were low, courtesy of the lone and cowardly crawlers with revealed maps going around killing pupae for easy experience, but the trickle of vespa from beyond the fog of war were more than making up for it.

The main group was already struggling to deal with vespa coming from the sides as they were moving, so clearing the path was imperative for the evacuation to keep moving before Martin and the Clurichauns would reach them.

“Alright, I think we’re close enough.” Darryl said, turning around.

He started hopping a bit to make sure he stayed in motion and not prompt his Stalwart skill, while one of the lambs took out her Dwarven Rattler. The hammer was small and not suited to be used as a weapon, despite coming from a Bronze Weapon Box, but it served just fine to clang against a bigger piece of metal.

The Paladin Plate Protector was far from an efficient gong, but the sound seemed to echo further than their screams lest the lambs shouted themselves hoarse. The crawlers that were keeping an eye on the map gave a shout once they saw the fast red dots move their way.

Darryl could’ve struck his shield by himself if he wanted, he was slowly starting to regain the ability to move his right arm now. The scars were still visible and about half a thumb’s length deep, but he regained most of his arm’s abilities. Soon enough he’d be able to wield his spear and shield at the same time again, and be more than just a shield bearer with little offensive options.

But he didn’t want to force his recovery for stuff like this. He could still feel his muscles clamp up and burn when he tried to do too much, for example he could hold on to a torch but holding it up in the air would make his arm tremble after less than a minute.

There were three vespas headed for them, and he thought that they could take out at least one before the other two would arrive. That would be risky, and the reason they never came too close to the fog of war where vespas could surprise them with greater numbers. But with sixteen against two, it would be pretty shameful if they couldn’t handle this situation.

“Look sharp, everyone. Last battle before we head back to join with the camp. Even then we’re going to cut it close to get there before Martin does.” Darryl said.

There were some grunts in response from the lambs, and when the first vespa appeared six pebbles shot out to meet it. One of them actually managed to clip the vespa, and it immediately fell down.

The three melee units ran forward, and Darryl quickly ran after them.

A splooge of acid flew, barely dodged by the first lamb while the second caught a stray drop and immediately hit their heal spell. Too soon, they should’ve let the acid burn until it stopped. Now they healed for a second only for the acid to corrode through the recently healed flesh again. Well, it wasn’t a huge deal as their health remained in the green, hopefully it would turn out to be a lesson learned for a low price.

A few seconds later the vespa was massacred, and the melee lambs bickered a bit on who would get to loot it. The little girl amongst them got the honours before they rallied behind Darryl again and readied themselves for the second wave.

Which turned out to be a little more potent than what Darryl was expecting.

Potent Brindle Vespa, lvl6

The brindle vespas are a devastating plague when they get out of hand, which is rare considering they’re not that strong and tend to survive only in harsh ecosystems where they’re the eaten rather than the eaters! You know, on account of them killing and devouring all fauna with an unstoppable exponential growth if they appear in easier biomes! They need their life cycle to be a harsh one to not eradicate everything and then die themselves!

This has resulted in a natural balance where only one in four vespas ever manages to lay eggs and one in ten hatchings produces fully grown vespas. Most grubs and pupae are eaten by scavengers, and many vespas starve to death or die fighting bigger prey.

For this place we decided to tweak their reproductive cycle a bit. Or rather, a lot! ‘Fully grown’ brindle grubs spawn out of nowhere and crawl to the nearest corpse, instead of eggs being inserted in a corpse already half-eaten by the vespa to brood for a week. Those eggs would hatch into maggots that eat for two weeks while hoping that nothing bigger comes along to eat it first! Then the dungeon pupa hatches in 60 hours instead of their usual three weeks, spawning infertile vespas!

These potent vespa are a bit different, but not because they’re going to lay eggs or anything. Instead, they got one particular feature that we decided was too deadly if all the vespa got it. Yes, even for this lovely death-trap of a dungeon. I’ll keep the specifics a neat little surprise for you to find out. Here’s a little hint, don’t let them come too close…

But how do they appear? We thought maybe to upgrade vespas that killed crawlers, or make these vespa spawn from crawler corpses? And in Borant’s great wisdom, we went with both! The first vespa to spawn from a crawler corpse as well as crawler-killers are upgraded to these bad boys.

Six pebbles flew and one struck true, causing the potent vespa to crash with the same ease as normal vespas. The regular vespa spat against Darryl’s shield and dashed for the nearest lamb. This time it managed to bypass Darryl’s shield, though the edge of it clipped its wing and it spiralled out of control.

Three times the giant hornet spiralled in the air before it righted itself, managing to stay in the air and turn to the lambs with eyes filled with… the unemotional bleakness one would expect of insect eyes without eyelids.

It turned out that the lambs were a lot less confident when the enemy wasn’t prone on the ground and disoriented. Two of the axemen came running, only for one to jump back when he saw that the vespa was still up while the other swung his axe wildly in the way one would expect a girlish woman to swipe at a small insect getting a bit too close to her face.

The next moment one of the slingshots managed to score a direct hit, the pebble digging itself into the vespa’s right eye. One of the people with an axe who hadn't yet used it at all jumped forwards, delivering the finishing blow while the sharpshooter loudly protested the kill-steal.

Darryl ignored them as he returned his attention to the potent vespa, which was currently being trashed by the last of the three axemen and one person that hadn’t gotten a kill of his own yet.

“Is it dead?” Darryl shouted.

“Yeah!” Alexa shouted back. “Just jumped to level 4 and got an achievement, sweet!”

She was the female of the three axemen, and Darryl guessed her to be about 13 and from Italy or Greece somewhere. She hadn’t been allowed to fight by her parents before rather than her lacking the motivation, but this changed because of… something. Darryl double-checked with Dave and the camp before allowing her to join, but she was apparently not lying.

Unlike her, the middle-aged man who also ran ahead to kill the ‘special’ vespa didn’t seem happy. Berner in fact seemed in a shocked, dazed state and just stared at Darryl as if he needed saving.

“What’s the matter?” Darryl said, ignoring the pleas behind him to render judgement for the kill-steal incident.

Berner didn’t say a word, instead he just sent a message to Darryl.

Feisty Pheromones, 59min 53sec.

Many animals use pheromones for all kinds of kinky stuff, your species included. As interesting as that is in certain situations, in the dungeon it’s mostly just noice. A few species, such as your Earthling wasps, also use pheromones for something much more interesting though. Ever wonder why another wasp seems to show up a few hours after you splattered one over your previously pristine white walls? Why those stupid bugs all seem intent on coming through your window despite there being nothing in your room for them to eat?

Balls to the wall and screw evolution, when some species die they excrete a pheromone that turns their fellow kin aggressive and attract them to the scene of the murder! All for one, all or nothing, either we all die or only a few of us do! Whether it’s a vicious means to defeat their competition, or (much more likely) a stupid way to die by newspaper, some species will come to avenge their brethren and feast on the entrails of their enemies!

When you’re seeing this status effect, you got gooped by the guts or blood of a species with this ?defensive? mechanism. Every creature of the same species in a radius depending on the species and the quantity of the gore will be attracted to your general location until the effect runs out. The effect disappears when you take a long shower, I’ll let you know once you’re done.

Oh, and these pheromones have a tendency to drip down into your shoes and get all over your feet. They’re heavier than water, so there’s a chemical reason for it that I won’t bother explaining because you’re too dumb to understand it. Just be sure to scrub between your toes real careful, ‘kay?

“Alright, that’s not good, but also not that bad.” Darryl said, looking at the map. He saw that all the other red dots were now beelining towards them, but there were only about four or five vespa about and they wouldn’t arrive at the same moment. Very manageable. “Let’s go back to the Safe Zone so you two can wash yourselves, and we’ll see what we’ll do after that.”

Thomas: Heads up, I think these vespas have some kind of large group migration instinct. 26 of the pupae at the last corpse farm already hatched, and they suddenly all started moving in your direction. Be safe!

“Change of plans.” Darryl said. “We’re running. Right. Now.”