Chapter 83: The Fortress of Silence
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Chapter 83: The Fortress of Silence
They gathered around her core.
“Ain’t this a sweet little get together. We have goblins, frogs, and oh my, a Kobold! Do wonders never cease Delta, you foxy Mama? You find the most interesting of fans,” Maestro breathed through several of the mushrooms scattered around the core. Jack bent down to sniff at one.
“What’s with the peanut gallery?” he asked and the mushroom trembled.
“Why? I am the star, Maestro! Oh put away the pen, darling, I already know I’m fabulous!” Maestro chortled and he sounded pleased as Jack looked puzzled.
“Maestro, he’s a giant demonic mushroom about the size of a tree, who sings,” Cois said bored.
“Oh please, I am so much more than a hot bod! I am the voice of a generation!” Maestro sniffed and suddenly all the mushrooms began to softly vibrate as they broke into an angelic chorus.
Maestro’s voice rose above them.
“I can outsing any angel choir with my heavenly chorus...” he promised before the mushrooms’ tones dived deep into the demonic chanting of a latin cult that ended with a riff of a guitar.
“And my licks are hotter than any devil,” he laughed once more. Jack didn’t seem so bothered now that Delta eyed him.
“Can you do requests?!” he asked with a grin. Maestro thought about it.
“How about you make it back alive and impress my Momma enough to make me want to. I don’t work for chumps,” Maestro said haughtily and the mushrooms went quiet.
“Master Maestro once sang ‘row row down the stream’ for me,” Rale beamed, evidently pleased he was no chump.
“Let us focus, we have a goal to aim for,” Devina’s cool voice interrupted before Jack could respond. On her shoulder, the orange Delbird, Inchy, tilted his head.
“Goals are good! Means Dev wants to score! Make Rale a goa-” the bird was silenced as Devina snapped its beak shut without looking, her eyes staring hard at anyone who commented.
“I shall help you lift! If I am to be your goal then I shall devise your exercise routine!” Rale laughed with his usual boisterous self. Numb joined him and the two muscle-heads were thunked by Devina as she frostily stalked past.
Billy merely shook his head as he leaned against the wall near the stairs, watching for oncoming threats. His hooded face and red eyes truly made him the loner of the group but Delta could feel his ears twitch, showing he was listening with great interest.
“Listen up. You’re all going to go down and clear the first room. Long enough for me to move my core down and claim the space!” Delta began.
She gestured to Jack who had carefully put his mouth around one of Maestro’s speakers and was buzzing as Maestro’s music calmly floated out. He looked like a nutcase but Delta had little choice but to keep sounding confident as she spoke.
“He’s the expert of what to expect. Skeletons mostly but the space downstairs can change if foes inside feel threatened so approach with caution,” Delta added. Jack spat out the mushroom and wiped at his face.
“Skellys, Ghosties, and other dark spooky crap. Not gonna be easy. Their motto is numbers in strength and they can risk fighting to the death because it doesn’t stop them,” Jack agreed.
“Don’t you mean ‘Strength in numbers’?” Devina asked politely. Jack stared at her.
“Hot stuff, it’s all about using one stone to kill two bridges and burning them when we get to their corpses,” he explained carefully. Devina’s smile became fixed.
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” she muttered.
“I prefer in for a fight, in for a war,” Jack said darkly as he adjusted some of his new bottles.
“Is it a war down there?” Numb the fighter asked, his taped hands and muscular body looking more toned than ever.
“Was. Then everyone died and it just became routine,” Jack shrugged. Cois twirled his staff with eagerness.
“Remember, the goodies go to me! I need shinies! I have a brat that will cry if I don’t find some death wand or cursed golden pantaloons!” he hissed.
“Child payments are so costly... but fatherhood brings out the best in you, your spark lover,,” Billy mused, speaking for the first time. Cois glowered at him but said nothing.
“I’ll try to watch from here. Giant, Luna, and Gramps with Renny will guard the stairs while you’re down there,” Delta said quickly.
“Go down, beat things up, and look cool while doing it,” Rale summed up as he pointed his trident toward the stairs.
“To hell and worse, none shall escape Mother’s Mushrooms!” he cried and charged.
Delta felt her jaw drop.
“Did you just Leeroy J- No never mind! DON’T SAY THAT! THEY MIGHT THINK IT’S TRUE!” she cried as the group trooped after Rale’s jubilant war cries.
She never did see Jack plucking a few of the black fungi and hiding them in his cloak.
---
Ruli stared at the sign in front of Delta’ place.
It was a simple thing but the meaning confused the hell out of her.
“Gone Adventuring... be back soon,” she read and even after a fourth time it still didn't make sense. How did a Dungeon go on holiday? She shrugged and walked down, opening the door with the usual password. The stone doors ground to a halt and the air that rushed past Ruli made her toes curl with pleasure and her heart beat just a little bit faster.
Mana from a Third Floor Dungeon had no right to be this... intense. It filled Ruli’s body and its power was at her grasp if she chose to use it.
The entrance room was the same as Ruli remembered it besides the odd door to the right. Ruli stuck her head in and whistled.
“Delta, girl... you go two notches above impressive,” she smiled at the artwork and memorial space. Delta’s sad expression on the statue made Ruli want to bail, and she never was one for mopy scenes of feeling anything besides drunk or happy.
There was a lack of awareness in the Dungeon that told Ruli Delta had her focus elsewhere but she strolled forward with interest.
It felt like she hadn’t been here in so long, she was eager to see how it had changed.
And this... mystical bar.
That was something Ruli just had to see. She paused at the Spider room where the webs were pulled back for her by the rather plump and tipsy spiders.
“Are you guys drunk?” Ruli grinned as one of the spiders literally fell off its web with a hiccup. Ruli felt the spiders were just great little guys and gals but she smelled something... something that was often here but gone for now.
It smelled of mist and freshly spun string.
--
Muffet twirled three times and waved her middle legs. Quee followed suit and the boy’s attempt at saying ‘I am a child of Delta’ turned into ‘I give this offering of a child to Delta Supreme’. Not quite the right message. She clicked her fangs and Quee looked abashed as he tried to correct his stance.
Seriously, those extra humanly parts was throwing the poor Quee off. Why did Mother have to go do that? Give a perfectly good spider human bits? Ruined a perfectly good spider.
But that was just Muffet’s opinion so she kept it to herself.
---The roots of this story extend from novell bìn origin.
“They’re on the ceiling!” he growled, and Cois wasted no time firing a flare like streak of flame that illuminated the grand domed ceilings, four elegant domes that held dusty chandeliers of crystal and brass.
In each of these rounded holes was a mess of bones and metal. Like a spider’s nest of a dozen young, the skeletons had meshed together before they suddenly dropped, balls of bone and metal aiming for their heads.
“No horsing around where people can get hurt!” Rale ordered. He stabbed his trident into one of the balls and heaved. Cois merely pointed his staff as a torrent of blistering heat and flame knocked a second aside. Numb was punching the third one so fast that chips of bone and metal were flying off as it slowly collapsed.
The last one bounced towards Devina but a red orb was slipped into it and Jack cackled as he yelled for everyone to take cover.
The rolling ball of bone promptly exploded outwards. Ribs acted like shrapnel and skulls as cannon balls as they smashed into the stone pillars. The cover most of Delta’s monsters could reach was other skeletons, the floor or in Rale’s case, crouch low and grunt.
The damn frog was too hardy for his own good!
A few of the skeletons looked to have survived their initial ambush attempt. The clattering and magically held together bones walked forward at a slow, purposeful pace. They wore no clothes and had nothing on them besides short, bladed weapons. Delta wished their eyes glowed, but instead the empty skulls looked like the night.
Blacker than shadows; that made it worse, somehow, than the lights or souls she expected to find shining there.
The skeletons all seemed to have the unending urge to rattle their jaws like a rattlesnake shook its tail.
“Spooky shites like ta freak you out but there’s real thinkers in there, don’t let the dead tropes fool ya. I’ve seen these arses play cards when I learned to sneak better,” Jack growled, both his hands holding on to red orbs.
Devina flexed her fingers. Standing here was not doing her any favours. That was what Delta could feel coming off the Witch Doctor.
“Foul beings spurned by nature, the grave calls!” she howled and from her hand, furious spirits of green nature rushed at the skeletons. They tried slashing at them, but Devina’s spirits did not fear iron like ghosts and demons did.
They were of nature and they would bend to no one.
The orbs invaded the bones and an empty pressing silence fought back. The power keeping these souls here easily fended off the spirits of Devina but the point was that she had caused them to come to a complete stop in the fight.
Rale grabbed one skull and crushed it with his raw strength as Billy lodged a black arrow into the eye socket of another, the gutrot mushroom promptly exploded with violent pressure.
Numb rushed forward. Delta covered her eyes as he began to snap limbs like twigs.
The first wave had been pushed back and the skeletons faded to a murky black mist that was sucked back through the huge double doors as if being summoned.
“Shut the door! More will be on their way and Hero up there better do her thing or we’ll be facing a two headed snake skeleton... or the horse with spider legs...or, or... you get the idea, they get creative!” Jack yelled. Rale’s shoulder bashed one side and the goblins threw themselves at the other side. The huge monstrous doors protested at being moved after so many years.
From the dark corridor beyond, that smelled of pain and death, there came a rumbling of bone, something that squished and the wailing of the damned.
Devina focused and more orbs of nature fired into the darkness, her aim wild.
“Are you casting magical missiles at the darkness?!” Cois yelled. Delta wanted to chuckle at the absurdity of the fight while Devina felt like she was about to shoot the goblin next when the Screeching doors had finally shut and Rale slid his trident through the two large handles as a way to bar the door.
Something extremely heavy smashed against the doors after a moment. The roar shook the room.
“That doesn’t sound like a horse!” Billy screamed. Delta was going to guess elephant or some kind of dinosaur at the sound.
She was distracted as a box appeared.
First room has been conquered! Moving Core to complete Mana infusion!
“So I don’t get a choice or can we vote on this-” Delta said then blinked as she now stood in the room her monsters had just cleared out. The door shook harder and harder as something tried to bash its way in.
“-for a fair democracy,” Delta finished lamely.
Her core pulsed bright orange and the room around began to shake as her Mana soaked into the stone.
The door cracked as something that was really pissed off tried to claw its way in. A lion? A mutant bear skeleton?
Delta had no idea but she narrowed her eyes as it nearly took Rale’s head off.
“Don’t touch my family,” she growled.
She pulled open the menu... and understood why the system had given her the monster choice it had.
She smashed her fist on the purchase button.
---
Garvan was a simple cult man. He desired the end of all people, the resurrection of the Silent, and an end to all that was light and free.
Really, he was quite simple in his wants as a skeleton that stabbed intruders. Still, this was the most fun he’s had in years! Besides, chasing the Kobold for the same outcome, day after day, it could get quite dull!
So as the Four-Armed-Near skeleton attacked the entrance hall door, he rocked on the heels of his... well heels. He was just a skeleton, after all.
The bear was his best attempt yet at a minion! They only had the same creature bones to fight over, he had won the extra arms in last weeks skull rolling game.
His beast pounded and pounded the wood as it shattered faster than a skeleton’s happiness when they remembered they didn’t celebrate birthdays anymore... or even remember their birthdays.
A hole finally formed and he looked to one of the dumber boneheads. He nodded for it to check. While they didn’t speak per se, they had learned to communicate with subtle pulses of the Silence’s power in them.
“Well?” he demanded. Bonehead looked in and froze.
“What... what is it?” he said slowly. Bonehead turned.
“They have a cave troll,” came the shocking response. That was...
What?
A giant grey hand smashed through the fresh hole, a large thing that could easily match the armed bear, and dragged Bonehead inside, bones screeching in protest, the sound of crunching bone soon following.
A face pushed itself to the hole.
“Wotz dat? More crunchies? Ma? MA! CAN I EAT THEM?” the thing yelled.
Garvan felt a chill in his bones as he swore he almost heard... a woman ordering him to not play with them too long.
He turned and if he still had his favourite dress, he would have hiked it in panic as the door was swung forward and the beast stormed out after him.
He had to warn the rest!
He burst through the hallways, jaw chattering wildly.
“TROLL! TROLL IN THE CASTLE!”
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Chapter 83: The Fortress of Silence
They gathered around her core.
“Ain’t this a sweet little get together. We have goblins, frogs, and oh my, a Kobold! Do wonders never cease Delta, you foxy Mama? You find the most interesting of fans,” Maestro breathed through several of the mushrooms scattered around the core. Jack bent down to sniff at one.
“What’s with the peanut gallery?” he asked and the mushroom trembled.
“Why? I am the star, Maestro! Oh put away the pen, darling, I already know I’m fabulous!” Maestro chortled and he sounded pleased as Jack looked puzzled.
“Maestro, he’s a giant demonic mushroom about the size of a tree, who sings,” Cois said bored.
“Oh please, I am so much more than a hot bod! I am the voice of a generation!” Maestro sniffed and suddenly all the mushrooms began to softly vibrate as they broke into an angelic chorus.
Maestro’s voice rose above them.
“I can outsing any angel choir with my heavenly chorus...” he promised before the mushrooms’ tones dived deep into the demonic chanting of a latin cult that ended with a riff of a guitar.
“And my licks are hotter than any devil,” he laughed once more. Jack didn’t seem so bothered now that Delta eyed him.
“Can you do requests?!” he asked with a grin. Maestro thought about it.
“How about you make it back alive and impress my Momma enough to make me want to. I don’t work for chumps,” Maestro said haughtily and the mushrooms went quiet.
“Master Maestro once sang ‘row row down the stream’ for me,” Rale beamed, evidently pleased he was no chump.
“Let us focus, we have a goal to aim for,” Devina’s cool voice interrupted before Jack could respond. On her shoulder, the orange Delbird, Inchy, tilted his head.
“Goals are good! Means Dev wants to score! Make Rale a goa-” the bird was silenced as Devina snapped its beak shut without looking, her eyes staring hard at anyone who commented.
“I shall help you lift! If I am to be your goal then I shall devise your exercise routine!” Rale laughed with his usual boisterous self. Numb joined him and the two muscle-heads were thunked by Devina as she frostily stalked past.
Billy merely shook his head as he leaned against the wall near the stairs, watching for oncoming threats. His hooded face and red eyes truly made him the loner of the group but Delta could feel his ears twitch, showing he was listening with great interest.
“Listen up. You’re all going to go down and clear the first room. Long enough for me to move my core down and claim the space!” Delta began.
She gestured to Jack who had carefully put his mouth around one of Maestro’s speakers and was buzzing as Maestro’s music calmly floated out. He looked like a nutcase but Delta had little choice but to keep sounding confident as she spoke.
“He’s the expert of what to expect. Skeletons mostly but the space downstairs can change if foes inside feel threatened so approach with caution,” Delta added. Jack spat out the mushroom and wiped at his face.
“Skellys, Ghosties, and other dark spooky crap. Not gonna be easy. Their motto is numbers in strength and they can risk fighting to the death because it doesn’t stop them,” Jack agreed.
“Don’t you mean ‘Strength in numbers’?” Devina asked politely. Jack stared at her.
“Hot stuff, it’s all about using one stone to kill two bridges and burning them when we get to their corpses,” he explained carefully. Devina’s smile became fixed.
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” she muttered.
“I prefer in for a fight, in for a war,” Jack said darkly as he adjusted some of his new bottles.
“Is it a war down there?” Numb the fighter asked, his taped hands and muscular body looking more toned than ever.
“Was. Then everyone died and it just became routine,” Jack shrugged. Cois twirled his staff with eagerness.
“Remember, the goodies go to me! I need shinies! I have a brat that will cry if I don’t find some death wand or cursed golden pantaloons!” he hissed.
“Child payments are so costly... but fatherhood brings out the best in you, your spark lover,,” Billy mused, speaking for the first time. Cois glowered at him but said nothing.
“I’ll try to watch from here. Giant, Luna, and Gramps with Renny will guard the stairs while you’re down there,” Delta said quickly.
“Go down, beat things up, and look cool while doing it,” Rale summed up as he pointed his trident toward the stairs.
“To hell and worse, none shall escape Mother’s Mushrooms!” he cried and charged.
Delta felt her jaw drop.
“Did you just Leeroy J- No never mind! DON’T SAY THAT! THEY MIGHT THINK IT’S TRUE!” she cried as the group trooped after Rale’s jubilant war cries.
She never did see Jack plucking a few of the black fungi and hiding them in his cloak.
---
Ruli stared at the sign in front of Delta’ place.
It was a simple thing but the meaning confused the hell out of her.
“Gone Adventuring... be back soon,” she read and even after a fourth time it still didn't make sense. How did a Dungeon go on holiday? She shrugged and walked down, opening the door with the usual password. The stone doors ground to a halt and the air that rushed past Ruli made her toes curl with pleasure and her heart beat just a little bit faster.
Mana from a Third Floor Dungeon had no right to be this... intense. It filled Ruli’s body and its power was at her grasp if she chose to use it.
The entrance room was the same as Ruli remembered it besides the odd door to the right. Ruli stuck her head in and whistled.
“Delta, girl... you go two notches above impressive,” she smiled at the artwork and memorial space. Delta’s sad expression on the statue made Ruli want to bail, and she never was one for mopy scenes of feeling anything besides drunk or happy.
There was a lack of awareness in the Dungeon that told Ruli Delta had her focus elsewhere but she strolled forward with interest.
It felt like she hadn’t been here in so long, she was eager to see how it had changed.
And this... mystical bar.
That was something Ruli just had to see. She paused at the Spider room where the webs were pulled back for her by the rather plump and tipsy spiders.
“Are you guys drunk?” Ruli grinned as one of the spiders literally fell off its web with a hiccup. Ruli felt the spiders were just great little guys and gals but she smelled something... something that was often here but gone for now.
It smelled of mist and freshly spun string.
--
Muffet twirled three times and waved her middle legs. Quee followed suit and the boy’s attempt at saying ‘I am a child of Delta’ turned into ‘I give this offering of a child to Delta Supreme’. Not quite the right message. She clicked her fangs and Quee looked abashed as he tried to correct his stance.
Seriously, those extra humanly parts was throwing the poor Quee off. Why did Mother have to go do that? Give a perfectly good spider human bits? Ruined a perfectly good spider.
But that was just Muffet’s opinion so she kept it to herself.
---The roots of this story extend from novell bìn origin.
“They’re on the ceiling!” he growled, and Cois wasted no time firing a flare like streak of flame that illuminated the grand domed ceilings, four elegant domes that held dusty chandeliers of crystal and brass.
In each of these rounded holes was a mess of bones and metal. Like a spider’s nest of a dozen young, the skeletons had meshed together before they suddenly dropped, balls of bone and metal aiming for their heads.
“No horsing around where people can get hurt!” Rale ordered. He stabbed his trident into one of the balls and heaved. Cois merely pointed his staff as a torrent of blistering heat and flame knocked a second aside. Numb was punching the third one so fast that chips of bone and metal were flying off as it slowly collapsed.
The last one bounced towards Devina but a red orb was slipped into it and Jack cackled as he yelled for everyone to take cover.
The rolling ball of bone promptly exploded outwards. Ribs acted like shrapnel and skulls as cannon balls as they smashed into the stone pillars. The cover most of Delta’s monsters could reach was other skeletons, the floor or in Rale’s case, crouch low and grunt.
The damn frog was too hardy for his own good!
A few of the skeletons looked to have survived their initial ambush attempt. The clattering and magically held together bones walked forward at a slow, purposeful pace. They wore no clothes and had nothing on them besides short, bladed weapons. Delta wished their eyes glowed, but instead the empty skulls looked like the night.
Blacker than shadows; that made it worse, somehow, than the lights or souls she expected to find shining there.
The skeletons all seemed to have the unending urge to rattle their jaws like a rattlesnake shook its tail.
“Spooky shites like ta freak you out but there’s real thinkers in there, don’t let the dead tropes fool ya. I’ve seen these arses play cards when I learned to sneak better,” Jack growled, both his hands holding on to red orbs.
Devina flexed her fingers. Standing here was not doing her any favours. That was what Delta could feel coming off the Witch Doctor.
“Foul beings spurned by nature, the grave calls!” she howled and from her hand, furious spirits of green nature rushed at the skeletons. They tried slashing at them, but Devina’s spirits did not fear iron like ghosts and demons did.
They were of nature and they would bend to no one.
The orbs invaded the bones and an empty pressing silence fought back. The power keeping these souls here easily fended off the spirits of Devina but the point was that she had caused them to come to a complete stop in the fight.
Rale grabbed one skull and crushed it with his raw strength as Billy lodged a black arrow into the eye socket of another, the gutrot mushroom promptly exploded with violent pressure.
Numb rushed forward. Delta covered her eyes as he began to snap limbs like twigs.
The first wave had been pushed back and the skeletons faded to a murky black mist that was sucked back through the huge double doors as if being summoned.
“Shut the door! More will be on their way and Hero up there better do her thing or we’ll be facing a two headed snake skeleton... or the horse with spider legs...or, or... you get the idea, they get creative!” Jack yelled. Rale’s shoulder bashed one side and the goblins threw themselves at the other side. The huge monstrous doors protested at being moved after so many years.
From the dark corridor beyond, that smelled of pain and death, there came a rumbling of bone, something that squished and the wailing of the damned.
Devina focused and more orbs of nature fired into the darkness, her aim wild.
“Are you casting magical missiles at the darkness?!” Cois yelled. Delta wanted to chuckle at the absurdity of the fight while Devina felt like she was about to shoot the goblin next when the Screeching doors had finally shut and Rale slid his trident through the two large handles as a way to bar the door.
Something extremely heavy smashed against the doors after a moment. The roar shook the room.
“That doesn’t sound like a horse!” Billy screamed. Delta was going to guess elephant or some kind of dinosaur at the sound.
She was distracted as a box appeared.
First room has been conquered! Moving Core to complete Mana infusion!
“So I don’t get a choice or can we vote on this-” Delta said then blinked as she now stood in the room her monsters had just cleared out. The door shook harder and harder as something tried to bash its way in.
“-for a fair democracy,” Delta finished lamely.
Her core pulsed bright orange and the room around began to shake as her Mana soaked into the stone.
The door cracked as something that was really pissed off tried to claw its way in. A lion? A mutant bear skeleton?
Delta had no idea but she narrowed her eyes as it nearly took Rale’s head off.
“Don’t touch my family,” she growled.
She pulled open the menu... and understood why the system had given her the monster choice it had.
She smashed her fist on the purchase button.
---
Garvan was a simple cult man. He desired the end of all people, the resurrection of the Silent, and an end to all that was light and free.
Really, he was quite simple in his wants as a skeleton that stabbed intruders. Still, this was the most fun he’s had in years! Besides, chasing the Kobold for the same outcome, day after day, it could get quite dull!
So as the Four-Armed-Near skeleton attacked the entrance hall door, he rocked on the heels of his... well heels. He was just a skeleton, after all.
The bear was his best attempt yet at a minion! They only had the same creature bones to fight over, he had won the extra arms in last weeks skull rolling game.
His beast pounded and pounded the wood as it shattered faster than a skeleton’s happiness when they remembered they didn’t celebrate birthdays anymore... or even remember their birthdays.
A hole finally formed and he looked to one of the dumber boneheads. He nodded for it to check. While they didn’t speak per se, they had learned to communicate with subtle pulses of the Silence’s power in them.
“Well?” he demanded. Bonehead looked in and froze.
“What... what is it?” he said slowly. Bonehead turned.
“They have a cave troll,” came the shocking response. That was...
What?
A giant grey hand smashed through the fresh hole, a large thing that could easily match the armed bear, and dragged Bonehead inside, bones screeching in protest, the sound of crunching bone soon following.
A face pushed itself to the hole.
“Wotz dat? More crunchies? Ma? MA! CAN I EAT THEM?” the thing yelled.
Garvan felt a chill in his bones as he swore he almost heard... a woman ordering him to not play with them too long.
He turned and if he still had his favourite dress, he would have hiked it in panic as the door was swung forward and the beast stormed out after him.
He had to warn the rest!
He burst through the hallways, jaw chattering wildly.
“TROLL! TROLL IN THE CASTLE!”
Chapter 83: The Fortress of SilenceThey gathered around her core.Ain't this a sweet little get together. We have goblins, frogs, and oh my, a Kobold! Do wonders never cease Delta, you foxy Mama? You find the most interesting of fans, Maestro breathed through several of the mushrooms scattered around the core. Jack bent down to sniff at one.What's with the peanut gallery? he asked and the mushroom trembled.Why? I am the star, Maestro! Oh put away the pen, darling, I already know I'm fabulous! Maestro chortled and he sounded pleased as Jack looked puzzled.Maestro, he's a giant demonic mushroom about the size of a tree, who sings, Cois said bored.Oh please, I am so much more than a hot bod! I am the voice of a generation! Maestro sniffed and suddenly all the mushrooms began to softly vibrate as they broke into an angelic chorus.Maestro's voice rose above them.I can outsing any angel choir with my heavenly chorus... he promised before the mushrooms' tones dived deep into the demonic chanting of a latin cult that ended with a riff of a guitar.And my licks are hotter than any devil, he laughed once more. Jack didn't seem so bothered now that Delta eyed him.Can you do requests?! he asked with a grin. Maestro thought about it.How about you make it back alive and impress my Momma enough to make me want to. I don't work for chumps, Maestro said haughtily and the mushrooms went quiet.Master Maestro once sang row row down the stream' for me, Rale beamed, evidently pleased he was no chump.Let us focus, we have a goal to aim for, Devina's cool voice interrupted before Jack could respond. On her shoulder, the orange Delbird, Inchy, tilted his head.Goals are good! Means Dev wants to score! Make Rale a goa- the bird was silenced as Devina snapped its beak shut without looking, her eyes staring hard at anyone who commented.I shall help you lift! If I am to be your goal then I shall devise your exercise routine! Rale laughed with his usual boisterous self. Numb joined him and the two muscle-heads were thunked by Devina as she frostily stalked past.Billy merely shook his head as he leaned against the wall near the stairs, watching for oncoming threats. His hooded face and red eyes truly made him the loner of the group but Delta could feel his ears twitch, showing he was listening with great interest.Listen up. You're all going to go down and clear the first room. Long enough for me to move my core down and claim the space! Delta began.She gestured to Jack who had carefully put his mouth around one of Maestro's speakers and was buzzing as Maestro's music calmly floated out. He looked like a nutcase but Delta had little choice but to keep sounding confident as she spoke.He's the expert of what to expect. Skeletons mostly but the space downstairs can change if foes inside feel threatened so approach with caution, Delta added. Jack spat out the mushroom and wiped at his face.Skellys, Ghosties, and other dark spooky crap. Not gonna be easy. Their motto is numbers in strength and they can risk fighting to the death because it doesn't stop them, Jack agreed.Don't you mean Strength in numbers'? Devina asked politely. Jack stared at her.Hot stuff, it's all about using one stone to kill two bridges and burning them when we get to their corpses, he explained carefully. Devina's smile became fixed.In for a penny, in for a pound, she muttered.I prefer in for a fight, in for a war, Jack said darkly as he adjusted some of his new bottles.Is it a war down there? Numb the fighter asked, his taped hands and muscular body looking more toned than ever.Was. Then everyone died and it just became routine, Jack shrugged. Cois twirled his staff with eagerness.Remember, the goodies go to me! I need shinies! I have a brat that will cry if I don't find some death wand or cursed golden pantaloons! he hissed.Child payments are so costly... but fatherhood brings out the best in you, your spark lover,, Billy mused, speaking for the first time. Cois glowered at him but said nothing.I'll try to watch from here. Giant, Luna, and Gramps with Renny will guard the stairs while you're down there, Delta said quickly.Go down, beat things up, and look cool while doing it, Rale summed up as he pointed his trident toward the stairs.To hell and worse, none shall escape Mother's Mushrooms! he cried and charged.Delta felt her jaw drop.Did you just Leeroy J- No never mind! DON'T SAY THAT! THEY MIGHT THINK IT'S TRUE! she cried as the group trooped after Rale's jubilant war cries.She never did see Jack plucking a few of the black fungi and hiding them in his cloak.---Ruli stared at the sign in front of Delta' place.It was a simple thing but the meaning confused the hell out of her.Gone Adventuring... be back soon, she read and even after a fourth time it still didn't make sense. How did a Dungeon go on holiday? She shrugged and walked down, opening the door with the usual password. The stone doors ground to a halt and the air that rushed past Ruli made her toes curl with pleasure and her heart beat just a little bit faster.Mana from a Third Floor Dungeon had no right to be this... intense. It filled Ruli's body and its power was at her grasp if she chose to use it.The entrance room was the same as Ruli remembered it besides the odd door to the right. Ruli stuck her head in and whistled.Delta, girl... you go two notches above impressive, she smiled at the artwork and memorial space. Delta's sad expression on the statue made Ruli want to bail, and she never was one for mopy scenes of feeling anything besides drunk or happy.There was a lack of awareness in the Dungeon that told Ruli Delta had her focus elsewhere but she strolled forward with interest.It felt like she hadn't been here in so long, she was eager to see how it had changed.And this... mystical bar.That was something Ruli just had to see. She paused at the Spider room where the webs were pulled back for her by the rather plump and tipsy spiders.Are you guys drunk? Ruli grinned as one of the spiders literally fell off its web with a hiccup. Ruli felt the spiders were just great little guys and gals but she smelled something... something that was often here but gone for now.It smelled of mist and freshly spun string.--Muffet twirled three times and waved her middle legs. Quee followed suit and the boy's attempt at saying I am a child of Delta' turned into I give this offering of a child to Delta Supreme'. Not quite the right message. She clicked her fangs and Quee looked abashed as he tried to correct his stance.Seriously, those extra humanly parts was throwing the poor Quee off. Why did Mother have to go do that? Give a perfectly good spider human bits? Ruined a perfectly good spider.But that was just Muffet's opinion so she kept it to herself.---The roots of this story extend from novell bin origin.They're on the ceiling! he growled, and Cois wasted no time firing a flare like streak of flame that illuminated the grand domed ceilings, four elegant domes that held dusty chandeliers of crystal and brass.In each of these rounded holes was a mess of bones and metal. Like a spider's nest of a dozen young, the skeletons had meshed together before they suddenly dropped, balls of bone and metal aiming for their heads.No horsing around where people can get hurt! Rale ordered. He stabbed his trident into one of the balls and heaved. Cois merely pointed his staff as a torrent of blistering heat and flame knocked a second aside. Numb was punching the third one so fast that chips of bone and metal were flying off as it slowly collapsed.The last one bounced towards Devina but a red orb was slipped into it and Jack cackled as he yelled for everyone to take cover.The rolling ball of bone promptly exploded outwards. Ribs acted like shrapnel and skulls as cannon balls as they smashed into the stone pillars. The cover most of Delta's monsters could reach was other skeletons, the floor or in Rale's case, crouch low and grunt.The damn frog was too hardy for his own good!A few of the skeletons looked to have survived their initial ambush attempt. The clattering and magically held together bones walked forward at a slow, purposeful pace. They wore no clothes and had nothing on them besides short, bladed weapons. Delta wished their eyes glowed, but instead the empty skulls looked like the night.Blacker than shadows; that made it worse, somehow, than the lights or souls she expected to find shining there.The skeletons all seemed to have the unending urge to rattle their jaws like a rattlesnake shook its tail.Spooky shites like ta freak you out but there's real thinkers in there, don't let the dead tropes fool ya. I've seen these arses play cards when I learned to sneak better, Jack growled, both his hands holding on to red orbs.Devina flexed her fingers. Standing here was not doing her any favours. That was what Delta could feel coming off the Witch Doctor.Foul beings spurned by nature, the grave calls! she howled and from her hand, furious spirits of green nature rushed at the skeletons. They tried slashing at them, but Devina's spirits did not fear iron like ghosts and demons did.They were of nature and they would bend to no one.The orbs invaded the bones and an empty pressing silence fought back. The power keeping these souls here easily fended off the spirits of Devina but the point was that she had caused them to come to a complete stop in the fight.Rale grabbed one skull and crushed it with his raw strength as Billy lodged a black arrow into the eye socket of another, the gutrot mushroom promptly exploded with violent pressure.Numb rushed forward. Delta covered her eyes as he began to snap limbs like twigs.The first wave had been pushed back and the skeletons faded to a murky black mist that was sucked back through the huge double doors as if being summoned.Shut the door! More will be on their way and Hero up there better do her thing or we'll be facing a two headed snake skeleton... or the horse with spider legs...or, or... you get the idea, they get creative! Jack yelled. Rale's shoulder bashed one side and the goblins threw themselves at the other side. The huge monstrous doors protested at being moved after so many years.From the dark corridor beyond, that smelled of pain and death, there came a rumbling of bone, something that squished and the wailing of the damned.Devina focused and more orbs of nature fired into the darkness, her aim wild.Are you casting magical missiles at the darkness?! Cois yelled. Delta wanted to chuckle at the absurdity of the fight while Devina felt like she was about to shoot the goblin next when the Screeching doors had finally shut and Rale slid his trident through the two large handles as a way to bar the door.Something extremely heavy smashed against the doors after a moment. The roar shook the room.That doesn't sound like a horse! Billy screamed. Delta was going to guess elephant or some kind of dinosaur at the sound.She was distracted as a box appeared.First room has been conquered! Moving Core to complete Mana infusion! So I don't get a choice or can we vote on this- Delta said then blinked as she now stood in the room her monsters had just cleared out. The door shook harder and harder as something tried to bash its way in.-for a fair democracy, Delta finished lamely.Her core pulsed bright orange and the room around began to shake as her Mana soaked into the stone.The door cracked as something that was really pissed off tried to claw its way in. A lion? A mutant bear skeleton?Delta had no idea but she narrowed her eyes as it nearly took Rale's head off.Don't touch my family, she growled.She pulled open the menu... and understood why the system had given her the monster choice it had.She smashed her fist on the purchase button.---Garvan was a simple cult man. He desired the end of all people, the resurrection of the Silent, and an end to all that was light and free.Really, he was quite simple in his wants as a skeleton that stabbed intruders. Still, this was the most fun he's had in years! Besides, chasing the Kobold for the same outcome, day after day, it could get quite dull!So as the Four-Armed-Near skeleton attacked the entrance hall door, he rocked on the heels of his... well heels. He was just a skeleton, after all.The bear was his best attempt yet at a minion! They only had the same creature bones to fight over, he had won the extra arms in last weeks skull rolling game.His beast pounded and pounded the wood as it shattered faster than a skeleton's happiness when they remembered they didn't celebrate birthdays anymore... or even remember their birthdays.A hole finally formed and he looked to one of the dumber boneheads. He nodded for it to check. While they didn't speak per se, they had learned to communicate with subtle pulses of the Silence's power in them.Well? he demanded. Bonehead looked in and froze.What... what is it? he said slowly. Bonehead turned.They have a cave troll, came the shocking response. That was...What?A giant grey hand smashed through the fresh hole, a large thing that could easily match the armed bear, and dragged Bonehead inside, bones screeching in protest, the sound of crunching bone soon following.A face pushed itself to the hole.Wotz dat? More crunchies? Ma? MA! CAN I EAT THEM? the thing yelled.Garvan felt a chill in his bones as he swore he almost heard... a woman ordering him to not play with them too long.He turned and if he still had his favourite dress, he would have hiked it in panic as the door was swung forward and the beast stormed out after him.He had to warn the rest!He burst through the hallways, jaw chattering wildly.TROLL! TROLL IN THE CASTLE!
