Gerald quickly found that it was easier to say something then actually get it done. By all means he had the lodestones to go out and fight some random weak mobs, heck he wouldn’t even truly die if something actually killed him if you took into consideration the number of bushes he had littered about on Delmathar if he did die. Plus there was still his bush nearby that was just conveniently behind him.

But there was just something about standing on the lip of a small brightly lit alcove that seemingly safe and then proceeding to look down into a dimly lit cavern full of dangerous plants, beasts and monsters.

He tried to assess the rank of the cave with a cursory glance and quickly assumed it was steel or higher. This was quickly after he spotted the tell-tale and slightly mesmerizing green glow dotting about in the scenery that very likely belong to a very certain plant. One that he was certain to have originated from the unmistakable and easily recognisable Glitterworts, with the small carnivorous monster-plant that preyed on Voidflys to only be present in areas of concentrated mana that were considered to be at least steel ranked categorically.

Such dangerous areas of concentrated mana that was normally beyond non-combative classed individuals such as within an established dungeon, geographical anomalies, deep in the underworld that was native to the subterrain races or the abodes of extremely high level beings that have been saturated by their owner’s residual mana.

Knowing my luck, it could be all of it except for being a proper dungeon considering mine’s just ta twerp.

Gerald then rolled his shoulders whilst fluttering his wings for a few cursory pre-flight tests.

Guessing that this cave was more likely to be silver or else not much higher ranked considering that the dungeon was escorted here by a swallow, left him feeling confident that it was still well within his abilities even as limited as they were considering his class wasn’t really made for fighting.

For Gerald hadn’t live a long and pseudo-immortal life without picking up a few levels and getting a few stats along the way. Heck he’d even done some exercise back in the day.

So without further ado, the small green fairy activated his own little green glow of his few combat buffs before putting his hands together. With his preparations over, Gerald then bent his legs like some old-timey swimmer about to take the plunge, which unfortunately left his unmentionables dangling precariously. Then he jumped off the lip of the precipice of Silky’s little dungeon-owned alcove and into gloom.

Ah man, the feelin O flying! He thought with a smile that was easily evident upon his air-blown beard as he dived headlong into main cavern proper.

But he was immediately whacked in the face by a small free-floating frond of a weak-ass little Flenemon -one of the weakest plant-beasts known to all humanoids- before becoming stuck.

Unfortunately for Gerald, was how his initial inertia and the slight instinctual habit of the Flenemon to pull in its tendril when prey was caught resulted in him barrelling into the cave wall at metaphorical break-neck speeds which immediately cracked his skull and literally broke his neck.

….

Another half an hour went by before Gerald was able to refruit himself and finally free himself of the gunk that came with it whilst standing beside Silky.

Shit’s always up all over the place, he angrily thought whilst blowing his nose.

What happened mister Gerald? Silky asked innocently.

“None of yer business kid,” the irate fairy quickly shot back before buzzing his wings and floating off to find the Flenemon.

Did something kill you mister- Silky asked him telepathically.

“Yeah yeah whatever ta fuck kid,” he grumbled in reply with a hand dismissively waving away at the fledgeling dungeon back over his shoulder before scooting off.

Flying for no more than a few moments and he was back at the scene of his death. Where now the Flenemon’s main body is bulging after having consumed his own. Its singular long frilly arm now curling inwards but now alongside the new addition of a few tiny arms budding from around it’s closed mouth like tiny little black pea-shoots.

“Well would yer look at dat, you’ve gotta few new tuckers about ta place. No doubt yer got’em after you’ve just had a wee snack eh?” said Gerald sarcastically at the creature as he clenched his fingers angrily.

He knew it wouldn’t understand a word he was saying. But it was just so humiliating how he, who was a being that was nearly a hundred levels higher, was killed by a critter he could’ve killed with a stray fart.

Gerald then decided it would be a great idea to destroy the annoying little shit before being stopped by another annoying thought that came to him due to his unfortunate sobriety.

It’s pretty close to Silky’s turf. This shite’s a wee bit solid now and probably nearly bronze with a few levels and is going to be useful soon once the kid takes it over.

He wasn’t about to unroot and possibly kill the thing and bring it back considering he wasn’t so sure if the Silky could replicate dead monsters and beasts as she was right now. Better to leave the Flenemon be, it was close enough to be annexed soon enough anyways.

With an annoyed grunt, Gerald decided to leave the little overhanging Flenemon alone to digest peacefully.

But not before trying to drop a turd on top of the unaware beast before leaving. But thankfully for the Flenemon was how Gerald’s tank was empty having just been refruited, so he fluttered down with a few parting curse-words before going off to look for other fauna to kidnap.

Flittering down past some eerily whitish luminescent weeds of which dwarfed the tiny fairy, Gerald then alighted upon the slightly damp cave floor.

A wee bit shittier than before, he thought to himself as a shiver ran up from his foot at the slightly damp and cold duff along with a forlorn thought for his previously warm abode within Isaldra’s dungeon.

Feeling the unpleasant sensation of pulsating tremors below his gnarly feet prompted him to absently dig up some of the soil with his big toe. With his cursory inspection he found the usual suspects; a few wriggling pale Rottwood worms, other random pathetic bugs and squirming grubs that lived of the leafy detritus.

Something to bring back if I cannae find something better, he thought absentminded with shrug of his shoulders before shuffling back the moist soil to cover what he had undelmared.

Putting his thoughts aside he scratched a rough itch upon his left jewel before setting off into the undergrowth.

Around him was the slightly subdued sounds of the cut-throat ecology of an average underground mana-intensive environment.

No matter where it was only the beasts and monsters that were able to defend themselves, be it with poison or through brawn dared to call out to claim territory or seeking for mates. Here it was a lot less rambunctious than the artificial jungle biome of the deeper levels within Isaldra that he was used to, but there were still random chirps and tweets here and there along with the occasional roar. There was no room here for any tin-ranked defenceless beings to eck out a living, with the exception for the Rottwood worms and its colleagues eating dirt of course. There always had to be a bottom to the food chain below the usual actors.

From his own prior experience, it was more likely for the fauna to still be reliant on mana-sense and eco-location rather than sight or the normal hearing ranges when living underground.

He surmised a long time ago during his “young roaming days” that it was from the fact that the creatures were more used to living in the dark before the Gloomshrooms can establish themselves and gain a foothold. Also in his experience the dark also did tend to naturally produce monsters and beasts come out all pasty, red or else orange. The creatures evolving upwards yet still being blind most of the time was a given, even if it never stopped being any less creepy.

Something ta do with’a not having any good ol’Twinshine and too much‘oh that blue light from the shrooms affecting the divergent evolutions other than in the case of elites which is just the scarlet effect taking place, he recalled some druid telling him. He was still confused about it all even if it did kind of make a bit of sense.

Well hopefully he’d have something to wrangle up for Silky other some little grubs. Something preferably along the lines of steel ranked, easy to beat up with his fists and not too big so as to haul back up.

“Oh and lets hope it’s nae too slimy,” he grumbled to himself with annoyance at certain viscous fluids he was constantly having to clean off of himself. More frequently than he would like lately too.

He trudge through the underbrush that was full of wicked looking thorns and itching weeds that was comparatively a looming forest to his diminutive size. But Gerald knew better than to assume anything, from his recent residence in a real jungle -a friggin Mithril ranked environ- that around him here was nothing more than just some overgrown weeds. One with some critters messing about in weak pissing contests in comparison to the tyrants duking it out in colossal fights he was used to spectating.

Even the Tanglewrath he normally got into a tussle with over scraps, the one that had recently murdered him was but nothing but a low tier mob back at home.

And that shitter was friggin gold.

It alone could probably decimate nearly everything here on its own.

Wait a sec, isn’t ta Tangleshite half a dozen ranks up o‘the same evolutions of the fucking Flenemon? It occurred to him.

Huh, maybe the kid can eventually juice me up my own wriggle-shite and I can bring it home to kill the other one, wouldn’t that be a kicker? He amused himself before his mood was quickly soured at the prospect of being stuck here for the foreseeable future.

He was scraping the barrel recently whilst living inside Isaldra. It was where he did nothing other than being nought but a grubby drunk who was scavenging loot of dead adventurers.

But it was a life that he had gotten used to and when you get to his age, getting used to new things is just a hassle.

Like cloths, cloths are a hassle when your main gimmic is good old dyin and getting shat out by a fruit.

Plus now it was going to be a realm of a pain to figure out what fruits and local things he could distil to make something palatable and more importantly; strong enough to get him a effectively drunk as he could, brewed in the minimum time and without killing him.

Whilst lost in his own alcoholic future or the lack thereof, Gerald accidentally stumbled upon his new home’s very own version of a life and death battle.

For after pushing aside a particularly prickly and malicious thistle, he came upon a tiny brown bipedal owl-like creature twitching on the floor with a foaming beak. Littered around the little creature that was still slightly bigger than himself; were the broken remains of pale white, four-legged bugs with small noodly forelimbs that were even smaller than he was. Of the whole debacle only one of the bugs seemed to have survived whatever unepic battle had partaken in this tiny clearing in the underbrush as it struggled to limp away with a broken leg on each side. The small creature feebly struggled to steer clear of the scene by heading towards him with the aid of it’s weird wobbly arms.

Then upon seeing him with its bulbous and multi-facetted eyes, the creature hissed in distress before changing course and heading away from him. All the whilst still heading away from the convulsing owl-like beast that was akin to a bear in size to a normal person in comparison to either it or Gerald.

What ta fucking shite happened here? Gerald wondered. The owl-like thing was clearly a scrawny wee Owlmite to him but he had never seen any of these bugs in his long and very illustrious life.

He then considered how Owlmites were nearly the lowest of the low within the category of tin ranked monsters and how this particular one was just a baby if he was any judge. Yet it somehow was able to massacre this whole lot before getting wrecked itself left him with the conclusion that whatever these bugs were, they were weaker than a puddle of piss on a rainy day.

“Wel’la guess you’re a better start as any than any Rottwood worm,” he grumbled to himself before lightly fluttering towards the fleeing creature. “At least yer looking light as a feather and yer not too slimy I guess.”

He had only now also noted that the thing was leaking a trail that was the colour of some off-white version of whatever it considered blood in the thing’s physiological makeup.

“Better getcha back sooner rather than later I guess,” he seemingly spoke towards the bug but more too himself as he neared it.

But before he was able to grab a hold of critter, Gerald was sent rocking of to the left by the impact of some unknown projectile.

The attack turned out to be some hardened dirt that was half his own size which was slowly crumbling back down as the magic that held it together dispersed into the air in green delmarthy hues even as he quickly righted himself.

It did no real damage to him, but it did smart pretty badly to get hit on the side of his bare gut.

“What ta fuck is up with everybod-” he started to complain whilst scrunching up his eyes in pain as clutched the side of his belly that was starting the flush red even through his brown skin.

But before he was able to complete his sentence another dirt missile hurtled through the air before whacking into him.

Unfortunately this one came along and rocked him right in his genitals.

Higher endurance points, hitpoints, durability or the general attitude of a flaming wrecking ball that came from being semi-unkillable being were all unfortunately unable to help to negate the pain that resulted from being pelted by a clump of dirt at considerable speed in the nads.

So then Gerald was left doing the only thing that he could, whereupon he immediately plummeted to the ground whilst clutching onto his jewels.

He did so whilst groaning with animalistic grunts that were interspersed by some hideous wails that were akin to the noise that some dying sea-borne mammal stranded on some beach would make. It was the universal reaction of any male creature with outside sexual reproductive organs, one that has had the aforementioned organs come into contact with considerable -or minor- physical trauma that many could easily relate to. A certain pain that the brain learned the ability to forget just to enable the mind to have some semblance of peace after having the unfortunate opportunity of experiencing it once.

Gerald then curled his toes before getting into the foetal position and painfully pissing himself. All the whilst his paper-like wings fluttered spasmodically outside of his control as his nerves were overloaded.

Even his attacker winched at the sight and it turned out that he was ambushed by a trio of Owlmites. Owlmites that had waited patiently before proceeding to interview upon the scene of the perceived crime. The three had arrived just after he had previously, then quickly assumed that Gerald had attacked their prone kin and wiped out the other bugs alone so they kept hidden.

Then when the chance presented itself, they attempted a rescue with a dirty pot-shot whilst he was distracted.

With their gleeful result of being able to take him out of the fight even if just superficially wounded prompted the trio into action. They then proceeded to quickly scamper forwards, with one even tripping over its own paws, towards the prone Owlmite.

The rescue operation was carried out with a unholy amount of demented hooting and crazy gesticulations of their tiny upper paws all over the place.

Then upon reaching their falling comrade who was slightly larger than they were, they lifted it of the floor before legging it away with more hollering and hooting.

As he was still wracked by his all-consuming pain and with his eyes still tightly crunched up, Gerald was unable to even see who had assailed him before the trio shat it and bailed.

There was even a pellet left behind by one of the smallest ambushers.

…

A long while later and only after his horrific pain had abated, Gerald was then able to get up again whereupon he quickly made some serious inspection to his own jewels for any signs of long-lasting damage.

Then finding that his tucker and meatballs combo seem to be in fine working order, even if they were still tender, he quickly got angry at having been blind-sided in such a dirty manner.

Who ta fuck does that?! He complained to nobody but himself whilst grumbling incoherently before kicking the corpse of one of the bugs left behind like some discarded leaf litter.

Somehow the poor corpse splattered from the force of the kick from his scraggly twig-like leg with giblets hurtling into the underbrush.

And now I don’t even have anything to take back! He thought angrily before shaking off some milky gore from his foot.

But Gerald then just as quickly changed his mind as he spied a trail of creepy milky white blood that headed off into the brush.

He followed it for a brief few moments and sure enough, he found the injured bug just a pebble’s throw away from the previous clearing.

“Oh yer coming with me mate,” he grunted down at the feebly struggling thing before he easily hoisted it up by a broken leg with one hand.