There is No Epic Loot Here, Only Puns

118: Hero

The door to the surface.

The barred path to the interloper.

It should have bent and buckled under their continuous assault. It should have cracked and splintered under their unyielding barrage. It should have crumbled under their hate. Yet the door remained strong, blazing with that accursed symbol, pulsing orange light that seared their sight. The forward vanguard captain eyed the door with uncertainty.

"I expect you have a good reason for this hold up?" came the voice of the Princess. Her voice like fingers running through the inside of his skull like a bored spider.

"Enchanted door. Brute force is having little effect," he reported. The sigh of the Princess of Bone was loud enough that all the marching dead around them rattled with uncertainty.

"Then use magic or perhaps try one of the various alchemy solutions that our researchers spent many, many years making?" the voice pointed out with a sweetness that barely hid her annoyance. There was a strange noise like a creaking hatch and the top of the door opened like a flap.

"Well... I suppose if nothing else, big sister will cull the idiots," the Princess of Bone said with interest as five strange things were thrown by a winged creature before the door was rapidly closed up.

They hit the walls in various places, sticking instead of bouncing. They unfurled into a strange hexagon-pattern with a sponge cap underneath.

"It's a mushroom," rattled one skeleton. The forward Captain would frown if he had any skin left.

"Are we being insulted?" he clacked back.

Then the mushrooms began to explode with screaming stingers like that of a wasp. They rocketed about the room and impaled many skeletons, carrying them around as horrible, burning, bright, holy fire leaked out the ends to make it fly!

More than a few stingers came to a stop in the Flesh Wall.

"To cover!" the captain roared as his men took a protective stance with their shields, walking back behind the Flesh Wall.

A ten foot walking nightmare of congealed skin and muscle that soaked up any attack with ease. The captain felt confident that they would be safe behind it for now. The sound of the hatch opening again on the door made the captain pause.

He peered around to see a ball of squishy texture rolling to a stop before the door.

It didn't seem to be doing anything for a moment, but the Flesh Wall moved forward, slowly on its countless toes and fingers. The thing quivered as if in anticipation. A few archers smacked dark arrows into it, but it didn't have any reaction to being attacked until the Flesh Wall moved ever so slightly closer.

Then it unfurled into a nightmare with a petit little mushroom child in the middle. It cackled as countless barbed thorny vines rose up from its petal base.

"Hello boys... This is Wyin coming live from the second floor," the evil child spoke with a voice far too old for its appearance.

The form shifted slightly, leaning forward with a smirk.

"And you can't forget the unforgettable Maestro!" the voice turned masculine and booming.

The vines dived into the soil and the tunnel began to shake as the creature's left eye became a black void with a deep orange light as the right became deep amber.

"And this is the beta-version of the Mic-room," they said in sync.

"Charge!" the captain roared as the creature threw out strange mushrooms that looked like coiled rope as spears of thorny vines tore the Flesh Wall apart like it was made of pillow stuffing.

"Sorry boys, you made Delta mad and she's got her favourite kids playing Dungeoneers... you aren't allowed to mess that up. You aren't allowed to make our mother upset!" the hybrid roared as the vines began to shear the marrow off the bone warriors. One of the rogue bone warriors threw a flask of bubbling acid that smashed across the torso. T he creature looked down at the mess.

"You know... Delta worked hard on this," the female voice said without any emotion. The orange left eye blazed.

"First, you come in rudely knocking... then you come near her with your freaky flesh thing... and now you melt her work?" the male voice added.

The eyes blended together into a burning orange amber. The captain felt his spine tremble, despite having no nerves to transmit fear through for some time.

The being looked up as the thorns that grew out the walls began to vibrate with a low song, of all things. A choir of people singing in some sort of deep, ancient language. It pulsed and the captain shook harder.

"Tell your brat of a princess that we are coming. Your walls, your doors, your dead, your god... they cannot protect you," the mushroom creature warned as it rose up into a throne of thorns.

"Even a god will become food for the worms and mushrooms," the female voice rasped as the tunnel came alive with thousands of vines, entangling the soldiers and beginning to rip them apart.

The last thought the captain had was that perhaps... they were not the scariest thing under this earth.

---

"Maestro will sing a song and Wyin will grump. It'll be fine," Delta promised Nu. The box was silent as they stared around at the creations Delta had invented.

Spidershrooms latched on to faces and injected spores into the lung. That was being shelved because Delta felt like she wasn't quite ready to unleash that on people and her true foes were undead with no lungs.

Goblinshrooms were just statue-like mushrooms that occasionally farted. They had a strange thing where they occasionally changed facial expressions, but Delta didn't think they were dangerous.

Delta did hit upon something strange when she merged her fire and water crystals with the mushrooms. The fire crystal she had so long ago gotten from that farmer and the water one more recently.

Delta peered down at the mushroom that seemed to be burning and called up its screen.