“Creeper rot?” Andarit turned to Serenity, confused. “That doesn’t sound that bad. What is it?”

“A magical fungus, I think. The important thing is that it eats organics and spreads really easily. When it dies, it quickly turns into rich soil without any outside help. The problem is that it doesn’t die on its own until there’s nothing left to eat and it grows quickly. The one good part is that it doesn’t spore the way fungus normally does, but even without that it grows insanely rapidly. I suspect it’s a created species, but I don’t think that whoever made it originally thought too far ahead.”

Serenity glanced at the other two, who were staring at him blankly. He needed to simplify things. “It eats anything living and a bunch of things that aren’t. The dungeon is probably using it as an environmental hazard, and it’s likely the only threat we’ll see on this level since it would eat anything else.”

Arrin frowned at Serenity, clearly still lost. “Isn’t it too easy with no monsters? I’ve never been through a dungeon that’s just walking.”

Andarit laughed, then reddened slightly as if she were embarrassed about it. “Then you’ve never been to the Lowpeak dungeon. He means the land is going to try to kill us, and you can’t exactly kill the land to get it to stop. You just have to deal with it.” Andarit paused and frowned. “I know how we handle the Drowning Swamp, be careful where you walk and test the ground before you step anywhere, but how do you handle creeper rot?”

“I think that’s the intended way for this dungeon, actually. That blast seared it and created a black cap; as long as the cap isn’t distrubed and the fungus hasn’t grown through it yet, it’s safe to walk on. That’s tricky, since putting weight on it can break the cap if it’s not thick enough, so extreme care is required. Doing it without additional protection is a fool’s decision. Or one for the desperate; that’s happened too.” Serenity glanced at the other two, paying the most attention to Andarit. If Arrin got himself killed by not paying attention, that was his own lookout, but Serenity wanted to keep Andarit safe. He was the reason she was here, after all.

Once he was certain she was following by the way she paled, he continued. “Any nonorganic material can be used. Metal is the easiest, generally, but glass and ceramics can also work well, as long as there isn’t an organic coating. Which means be careful of paint; unpainted is best. Be careful of fastenings; gaps are dangerous and having organic material like rope or leather connect the outside to the inside can be deadly.”

Serenity had some rather gruesome memories of people who’d made those mistakes and gotten unlucky.

“That’s probably what the royal family uses; if you know to expect it, preparation isn’t hard. You have to be careful and keep moving, plus it’s heavy and hot, but it’s not hard. An endurance test as much as anything.” Serenity frowned and looked at the orange still trying to poke its way through the blackness. It was having more luck at the edges than the middle, but it would eventually get there. That was the problem with creeper rot; killing it left organics behind that it could reclaim. You had to get it all or it would just come back. “We should get moving; I can keep explaining while we walk. No point in letting the creeper rot destroy the good surface before we get across it.”

Serenity suited his actions to his words and headed back into the building whose balcony they were on. “At higher Tiers, you’ll see monsters living on or near the creeper rot, especially in dungeons. They’re problems because you can’t be as careful in combat. At higher Tiers, though, you should have a shield Skill of some sort, and that can protect you from the creeper rot. We won’t see that here, but we also don’t have a Skill that will protect us.”

“We don’t have protective gear either. Why are you talking about things we can’t do?” Andarit objected. There was an edge to her voice; Serenity couldn’t tell if it was irritation or worry.

Perhaps he should have picked a different way of getting the information across, but he thought she would remember it better if she didn’t already know the answer. “In case you ever run into creeper rot in the future. The fact that it’s in a historical dungeon means it’s been on your planet’s surface at some point in the past. With everything else we’re seeing, and the amount of historical loss you have, it’s entirely likely that containment failed and it spread in Zon’s past. This is probably long enough ago that it’s not still out there, but it could be - and it could definitely be in another dungeon.”

Andarit groaned. “You’re as bad as Father! Everything is a chance for a lesson. Fine. Are you done with the lesson and ready to tell us how we’re getting out of here? I’m betting you don’t want us to do the dangerous method without gear.”

Serenity grinned. He had the perfect method, and he had absolutely no issues with killing creeper rot. There were reasons he’d once designed rituals to not only contain but eradicate it, and he still remembered them. They weren’t useful here, but that didn’t make the experience useless. “We have a choice. The option the dungeon probably expects is scavenging the city for materials to protect ourselves. That would work, but I’m no crafter to make something good, and it would take time we don’t really have. The other option is to use a protective spell. I don’t have a Skill that would create a proper shield yet and I doubt you do either, but I can build a spell to do something similar. With three of us, I’d limit it to covering the feet, so we’d have to be careful as we move. It won’t be as good as proper gear but it’ll be much faster and far better than nothing.”

Serenity paused for a moment before giving the option he thought they’d actually use. “Alternatively, I know a spell that will kill creeper rot in a limited area. It’s probably the safest option, if I have enough mana to get us across the entire patch safely. I’m not sure if I do or not, because I’m not sure how much mana it will take or how wide the patch is. I still think it’s the best option, since it’ll make the land safe as we travel across it; even if I run out of mana, we may be able to make it the rest of the way without it. It also plays to my strong Affinity and uses a spell I’ve used before instead of making a new one.”

Serenity didn’t mention the backup plan of creating protective gear from his Rift; while he could usually manage single Affinities, his Solid Affinity was terrible and he wasn’t entirely confident he’d be able to manage good glass or metal. He probably could, the same way he’d managed a lumpy coffee mug, but it wasn’t a great plan.

It would, however, be something he could do to create a protected area if he ran out of mana. He’d have to save some mana for it and make sure they started in a safe area, but it wouldn’t be that hard to create an impermeable shell they could sit on. Hopefully. It wasn’t something he wanted to try, but it would be far easier than trying to shape something that the three of them could wear as they made their way across the blackened surface.

Serenity started shaping the spellform for the creeper rot-killing spell. It all depended on how much mana it cost, and while he knew the consumption would be relatively low due to his extremely high Affinity, Concept, and Incarnate, he didn’t know what it would actually be.

It was a good thing that creeper rot had effectively no resistance to spells; far less than any creature or even most plants or fungi. It was yet another thing that made Serenity think it had been engineered at some time in the far past.

The other odd thing about it was how stable it seemed to be. Creeper rot was the same wherever you ran into it. Serenity attributed that to the fact that it ate everything; there wasn’t anything around for it to take information from. There was probably also something magical about it, but he wasn’t a Life mage to know how that would work biologically.

It was only fifteen minutes later when Serenity saw the first bright orange. He’d expected it to be longer and he stopped on the spot to take a good look. It was a line running up the side of a tree. They were a long way from the blackened area.

Containment had already failed, and failed badly. He’d guessed that, but it didn’t make it any more palatable. It was probably the first time the locals had encountered creeper rot, and they simply didn’t know how to deal with it at all. Vengeance had learned from an expert, but if you didn’t know you were looking at something that needed an expert, why would you look for one?

It wasn’t the only magical disaster Serenity had ever seen, and he was fairly confident that lack of knowledge was common for them.

“Why did we stop?” Andarit glared at Serenity. “We need to get out of here quickly, why do we keep taking breaks?”

Serenity shook his head. She must still be mad about being made to wait for Arrin. He pointed at the bright orange line. “Do you see that orange there, on the tree? It’s creeper rot. Probably, at least; there aren’t many things in the wild that are that particular shade.” It was bright orange, almost the same color as traffic cones and safety vests.

The color was yet another point in favor of the magical fungus being manufactured. It was obviously intended to stand out.

Andarit looked where he was pointing, then took a step back, away from the wandering line of creeper rot.

Serenity could almost understand why the other nobles she’d gone into a dungeon with had been annoyed with her; he was already looking forward to when he’d be able to return her to her father. Andarit wasn’t reckless, but she didn’t have any patience for people who were slower than she was, even if there was a good reason.

“Give me a few minutes to finish the spellform and we can head out. I don’t want to get any closer than this until I have the spell up.” Serenity was probably being overcautious; even if one of them did get hit with the fungus, the spell he was putting together would handle it. That wasn’t technically necessary, but it was a good safety feature.

“Are spellforms what you call your silent motionless casting?” Andarit hopped topics.

Serenity hadn’t realized she was interested. “Yeah. We can talk about it later; it’s an application of mana control.”

Once Serenity had the spell together, he tugged on his Incarnate of Death and cast the spell. As the spell unfolded through his aura, both Andarit and Arrin jumped and stared at him.

“What the blazes are you doing? That’s terrifying!” Andarit didn’t sound terrified. She sounded angry.

Serenity shook his head. “You’re probably sensing the spell. Don’t worry about it; it’s not aimed at you. Here, watch.”

Serenity walked closer to the orange line they’d seen and made certain it was within his aura’s range. It died slowly but surely, then began to decompose. Serenity knew it was happening far faster than it would for something mundane, but the creeper rot’s decomposition was somehow tied into the magic that made it live. After only a few minutes, bits of the orange line started to turn into dark, rich soil. Serenity turned back to the other two. “You see? It only affects the creeper rot. The tree is fine.”

A tree might or might not survive after that much of an infestation even after the fungus was cleared out, but that was both irrelevant and unimportant; the tree was a dungeon tree. The dungeon would handle it the same way it handled the creeper rot, keeping it spread to match some historical event.