Duelling Dungeons

“Ahhhh… smells like home,” Rogu bellowed as he paced around the clearing, waiting for the rest of his team. Although the forest was a more natural setting than his own floor, the cultist laboratory, the two had a lot in common. Mainly, they were both overflowing with poison and disease.

“Do you always have to be so noisy?” Kitra, the herald of pestilence, and his subboss hissed as she stepped through the portal behind him. The Murid woman’s tail flicked back and forth in agitation. Although her armor hid her rat-like features, he could just imagine that her whiskers were twitching behind the exaggerated plague doctor mask.

“I’m not one to skulk, I’ll take any threats we encounter head-on,” the massive abomination replied, with a jagged smile. His patchwork hands twitched in anticipation of the action to come. “Where are your friends?”

“They’re wrangling the mutants. You know how easy it is for those big blokes to get distracted,” his partner replied.

“Stopping to check every strange-looking rock and shiny object, I know,” Rogu sighed. “I’m glad you were thinking ahead. I’d hate it if we had to delay our assault because the boys wandered off and went to the wrong floor.”

The portal flared again, and this time a shambling mound of flesh wandered through. It was a hulking beast that stumbled around on two elephantine feet, had a dozen fleshy tentacles, and more gaping maws than he cared to count.

“Arrive!” the mutant declared in triumph, waving its tentacles in the air.

“Good job, Phil. Where are your brothers?” Kitra asked.

The mutant bounced up and down in excitement. “Coming!”

The portal flared again, and four more misshapen hulks stumbled through, followed by a squad of tired-looking rat men in rusty platemail. “We’re here… finally. The manor’s break room is far nicer than ours, and it took us a minute to get the big guys moving.”

“Shiny!” one of the mutants declared.

“It’s fine. You managed to get them here in the end,” Rogu declared. He patted the nearest twisting mass of flesh, which purred like a kitten. “Alright, you lot, we need to push through this floor as quickly as possible. Rip, tear, and consume your way to the end!”

“Consume!” the mutants cheered simultaneously, before rushing forward.

“Do you honestly think that’s a smart idea? You remember what Nor’goth said, don’t you? Talia will expect our assault, and have prepared some surprises for us,” Kitra chittered. “That almost certainly means preparing for the boys.”

“Oh, I’m sure she prepared something, but there are limits to what they can do. All the rot, disease, and poison around here would be just as detrimental to most of the Manor’s forces as they would be to most invaders. There’s not much they can throw against the boys at this point to slow them down,” Rogu declared. “Still, we should get moving and keep an eye on the boys to make sure they don’t get distracted and pulled off the path.”

“Good plan,” the rat woman replied, before pulling her ratty cloak closed and sprinting after the mutants. A second later, the guards gripped their halberds and ran to catch up.

Roku chuckled, emitting a low rumbling noise that rattled the battered, mismatched armor he was wearing, before marching after them.

The mutants were doing what they did best, throwing themselves at whatever stood in their way, like living battering rams.

A group of oozes had flooded across the path, trying their best to swarm the mutants, only to be smashed, thrown, and eaten by the big boys. The oozes were probably a decent choice against most opponents; they could inflict all sorts of debilitating diseases with a single touch, or poison their targets if they managed to find an open wound.

The mutants, however, were used to wallow in pools of offal. They were practically immune to the poison and disease.

“What are they thinking, throwing oozes against the mutants? They’re barely going to slow us down,” Kitra muttered.

“Perhaps they thought we’d overthink things and send someone else. They might have stood a chance against Veran’s minions,” Rugu grumbled. “Perhaps they expected the Plague Lord.”

“I doubt it. They know we need him on defense,” Kitra replied.

“Well, whatever the reason, we should help the boys so we can push through this speed bump as soon as possible,” Rugu declared. He strode forward, raised one of his bulging arms, and brought his metal-clad fist down on one of the gelatinous blobs. It exploded, splattering all over his scarred body. The acid ate through some of the stitching on his legs, causing the wound to pop open and spraying a combination of embalming and animating liquids across the nearest blobs. These little slimes writhed in apparent pain before withdrawing into themselves and popping like balloons, spraying him back.

“Aww… the little guys can’t stand being exposed to real poisons,” he laughed, before continuing to smash the remaining oozes.

Even though they had a double-sized squad, the oozes didn’t ultimately manage to cause any damage. The acid sizzled harmlessly against everyone’s armor as they quickly made their way past.

“Shouldn’t we have encountered someone else by now?” Nogu asked after a minute. “How many squads did they have in the forest?”

“One horde, the oozes, the Dryads, and two squads of Mycellium Marauders,” Kitra replied. “They could try and mob us when we get to Voss, but that hasn’t been The Manor’s style.”

“They’re up to something,” Rogu muttered.

“Weren’t you confident the mutants could push through anything the Manor could throw against us?” Kitra chuckled.

“That would have required them actually to throw something against us,” Rogu growled.

The two of them looked up, just in time to see the mutants sprint off the path, waving their tentacles around in excitement.

“Phil, stop! Get your boys back here!” Rogu yelled.

A single mutant turned around and plodded back towards the path dejectedly. “But… shiny.”

“There shouldn’t be anything shiny here,” Kitra growled. “It’s a trap!”

“How a trap? Is shiny,” the mutant replied, confused.

Rogu ran to the edge of the path to see the remaining mutants rubbing their tentacles against a mysterious purple crystal obelisk sitting in the middle of a fetid pool of water, a few feet off the path.

“Oh look, now sparkly,” one of the mutants cooed as the crystal slowly began to glow with some sort of internal power.

“Get back! Dangerous!” Rogu shouted, finally drawing the attention of the mutants/

“Danger…” was all one managed to get out before the crystal exploded into a storm of shards, shredding the entire group.

As the mutants screamed and thrashed in pain, the obelisk reformed. It slowly rose out of the water, followed by a second equally massive crystal which seemed to be connected by arcing magic. More and more Crystals emerged from the water, until Rogu could finally realize what they were looking at. A massive storm of crystals and magic in the roughly humanoid shape.

“They moved the Crystalline horrors?!?! How did they get them to cooperate?”

Once the monstrous magical construct had raised itself to its full height, it proceeded to pound the injured mutants around it mercilessly.

“Kitra, bring it down quick! Snipe the core,” Rogu shouted.

“I know!” the murid hissed, as she yanked the crossbow off her back. At this point, there was little chance they could save the mutants; all they could do was save themselves.

Kitra tensed up, taking her time before finally losing the bolt. It slipped through the rapidly spinning shards protecting the construct's middle and slammed into the glowing orb at its core. The horror came to a jittering halt as the orb cracked. Light poured out of the rifts, slowly growing brighter and brighter until the thing violently exploded.

Without the magic orb to sustain it, the horror collapsed, inert crystals rained down upon the battlefield.

“So I guess they did see us coming,” Rogu grumbled. “At least you took care of the thing.”

“This is no time to relax!” Kitra hissed. “They have a pair of horrors! We need to watch for the other one.”

“Lady! Here!” one of the other Murid yelled, pointing at something stirring in the mud on the other side of the path.

“Good thing they’re mindless constructs, otherwise they might have coordinated better,” Kitra muttered, stalking across the path and preparing her crossbow. This one wouldn’t get a chance to cause any damage.

The mud bubbled and roiled, as if it were boiling. The disturbance kept growing larger and larger, but for some reason, the horror didn’t emerge. Instead, dozens of tangling roots erupted out of the mud, reaching for their group.

Kitra jumped back, just barely avoiding the coiling wood tendril as it tightened upon her weapon. Most of the other Murid managed to scamper back, but unfortunately, Malcolm wasn’t fast enough. One tendril hooked his leg and pulled him into the woods.

A series of tremors shook the ground as a booming laugh echoed down the path. They turned to find a massive, gnarled tree with a cracked, black bark leaking sickly sap slowly strode down the path towards them.

“The constructs may be mindless, but they’re not the only ones here,” Voss declared. “Let me give you a proper welcome.”