Duelling Dungeons

“Hold on, little ones, this trip is about to get rocky,” Voss called as he strode through the fetid water.

The closest lizard had a massive boil covering the left side of its head, so it twisted its neck around until its right faced the advancing treent. It stared for several seconds before pulling its head back and letting out a chittering hyena-like laugh.

When Voss got within a few paces, the creature leaned back, distended its jaw, and unleashed a torrent of bile in his direction. Although the bile didn’t quite reach, the vile liquid quickly spread across the surface of the pond, bubbling, roiling, and emitting a noxious cloud as it went.

“That doesn’t look good,” Alia muttered.

“A caustic stew filled with fetid filth,” Voss replied. “I’m afraid that it might even be too concentrated for my old bark to withstand fully.”

“We could go around,” Alia suggested.

As if in response, the rest of the lizard creatures began to retch, filling the far side of the pool with their sick. The more they vomited, the further the sickly yellow-green spread, slowly pushing closer and closer to Voss’ legs.

“How can they still be vomiting after all this time?” Alia hissed, throwing one hand around Voss’s branches, while clamping the other over her nose. “It stinks! How are we supposed to cross?”

“I suspect we’re not,” Voss grumbled. “This may be how they prevent people from attempting to cross the pond without using the path.”

“But you can’t follow the path; it’s too narrow for you,” Alia exclaimed.

“I’m not the only one here.” Voss chuckled. “Mor’rel, would you do the honours?”

The mushroom nodded, waddled over to the nearest island, and hauled itself onto the shore. They took a moment to shake themselves off before letting out a huff of spores and charging the nearest toppled tree bridge.

The Mycellum person shot forward, hopped up on a piece of rubble at the edge of the island, and launched themselves halfway across the makeshift bridge before putting a single foot down and jumping the rest of the way.

Alia gasped. “What’s going on? Mor’rel is normally so slow and methodical in their movements.”

“They’re normally not juiced up on plagues,” Voss replied. “The Mycellium people feed upon decay, disease, and dark magic. It empowers them.”

“Then, why are they so slow while in the forest? It’s full of disease, too,” Miya, one of Alia’s sisters, asked.

“Because their colony has grown up in the grove, they have developed tolerance for the various pestilences inside the manor. They sustain them, but little else,” Voss explained.

“We should ask Lanivia to import some new ones if they make the Mycellium move like that,” Alia muttered.

“If they moved that quickly all the time, they’d be too much of a challenge for the adventurers,” Voss chuckled.

Once Mor’rel arrived at the central island, the nearest lizard creature finally stopped vomiting. The lizard thing jerked its head to the side, stared at the mushroom for several seconds, then slowly opened its mouth and immediately started bathing the small island in caustic vomit.

Mor’rel darted to the side, just barely avoiding the stream of liquid by dodging behind a crumbling crypt, but even after it disappeared, the creature did not stop spraying the island.

“Annoying thing,” Voss grumbled. “Girls, do you think you could…”

“Sorry, Voss, that vile concoction they’re spewing is killing off everything living in the area. We can’t reach any of the plants in the area, not even the plagued ones,” Miya muttered.

“Concerning…” The treent huffed. “Well, we need to do something; otherwise Mor’rel won’t be able to move.”

One of the other Mycellum people came up and tugged on Voss’s foot until he finally looked down. “Hmmm?”

The mushroom darted away, only to stop a couple of feet away and jump up and down, pointing at something under the water.

“What do you have there?” Voss murmured. When he wandered over and stuck his hand into the fetid water, only for it to close on something hard hidden just below the murky surface, whatever it was, the object appeared to be stuck in the mud, so Voss leaned down and locked both of his massive hands onto the side of the object and pulled.

The mud resisted as much as it could, but after a couple of seconds, the object started to come loose. There was a massive sucking sound, and then the discoloured water poured into the small pit left by the piece of masonry.

“A gargoyle, probably fallen from one of the larger tombs,” Voss mumbled. “I don’t know how this will help, though.”

The mushroom rushed towards the edge of the ooze, which was slowly retreating now that one of the creatures was focused on Mor’rel, and mimicked throwing.

“Ahhh, very well,” the Treent muttered, “Hold on, girls, this might get rough.”

Stepping up behind the mycelium person, Voss wound up and launched the eight-hundred-pound, human-sized chunk of stone across the ooze at the lizard creature, focusing on Mor’rel.

The creature only seemed to realize it was in trouble at the very last second. It stopped vomiting and turned towards the oncoming projectile just in time to receive the full brunt of the blow directly to its face. It was only after it disappeared under the muck that the water lit up, indicating that it had dematerialized.

As it died, the other creatures finally stopped spewing, turning simultaneously to stare at the treent before squawking at him like a flock of upset birds.

“Strange creatures,” Voss muttered.

While the lizards were distracted, Mor’rel snuck out of his hiding spot behind the crypt and stealthily made his way to the last jumping puzzle. This section looked like a bunch of old, crumbling marble pillars that had either fallen over or sunk into the mud. The mushroom managed to hop halfway across the puzzle before the lizards finally noticed and turned on them as one.

As the closest lizard opened its mouth to begin spewing again, Mor’rel leapt off the pillar where they’d been standing and launched themselves across the lake of caustic at the creature.

Mor’rel plummeted towards the lizard spear first, skewering the creature and pinning it to the bottom of the shallow bog with their weapon.

As they hung from the end of their spear, toes barely suspended over the caustic ooze, the remaining three lizards turned on them. The mushroom just barely managed to pull itself up level with the end of the spear and throw a salute towards Voss before being bathed in the toxic goo.

“Foolhardy fungus,” Voss sighed. “That was unnecessary.”

“Unnecessary but effective,” Alia said, pointing at the far side of the pond. “Look, with only three members, the lizards can’t create enough vomit to maintain their barrier. The liquid is decaying faster than they can replace it.”

It was true, even though the Lizards had returned to spewing into the water, the caustic coating that had been crawling across the top of the pond had retreated.

Voss cracked his knuckles. “Alright, little ones, Mor’rel has done their job and given us an opening,” he grumbled. “Find me something else to throw. We’ve been delayed here long enough.”