There is No Epic Loot Here, Only Puns

73: Lord of Mushrooms

Fire.

It was a force that promised the end of Mr Mushy, but also gifted him the potential of his art. Fire was a creature he didn't understand that well but was all too eager to give it a chance. Cois had always made it seem so tame, so... innocent.

The fire he saw now was not the friend he had sought. This fire cruelly danced before Mr Mushy as his home burned. Flames that formed his pots now devoured mushrooms, heat that had been merry now blackened the green and orange of the grove.

The beauty of the flame had been taken over by the ugly scene before him. Mr Mushy had no mouth but he screamed inside as a form raged not far away.

Boary!

He moved forward as the creature tried to trample a fallen form of a small human. The boar's lazy demeanour had been replaced by some endless madness tinged with rage. The gentle eyes of Mr's friend was gone and the beast in his place saw nothing but targets.

Mr walked forward, feeling his cap singe from the heat as the beast stomped down hard, but the fallen human was surrounded by white domes of magic. Boary bounced off it without scratching the shield.

"Kemy! Run!" a high pitched human yelled. The small one rose and when Boary rammed the shield again, the white dome flashed, making Mr's friend fly back and crash through several burning mushroom stalks.

Mr noticed how scared the human looked now that the dome had faded. He thought of Deo, he had never looked scared.

The other boy... Grim, he had merely looked annoyed.

But this girl looked scared.

Mr stumbled as fire raged around him. Tiny mushrooms, the quiet ones, the ones that did not walk or move... exploded or crumbled into black soot and ash. Mr was confused...

Why... why had everything become so horrible?

He burst through another wave of heat as Boary stood and in his rush tackled Mr to the ground, his mad eyes no longer seeing Mr. Mr's friend wasn't acting like a friend...

Why?

The word repeated over and over. Had Mr done something wrong? Had the humans caused this?

Had Boary lied about being his friend?

WHY?

Fire... it had taken the first of his kind. The first Mushroom Spitter. They who was not named. The sibling that never was... Now fire had come for more of Mr's important people.

The flickering white dome began to crack as Boary rammed it over and over. The girl inside screamed as her friends tried to wade past the exploding mushrooms and dancing flames. Boary screamed in rage. The girl screamed in fear. The grove screamed in pain.

Everything was screaming.

Mother... was screaming.

It needed to stop!

He could hear Mother commanding someone else which would be a good thing but Mr had to do something now! The girl's white sphere was beginning to gather power again and if Boary was struck by the magic again... he might be hurt beyond healing. If he broke the shield... the girl would die and Mother would...

Mr would not accept this.

The heat burned at him. His squishy skin and rounding limbs were in pain but he pushed on into the eye of the firestorm.

He narrowed his eyes. If his pots... could take this heat to be themselves... then MR MUSHY WOULD STRIVE TO DO THE SAME!

He charged.

---

Kemy prayed that the shield would hold and if that failed, would buy them enough time as it ruptured to escape. The fire demon before her was frothing at the mouth as mini-bombs went off around it. The mushrooms, the air... the very room itself was not designed to cope or even work with the monster before her.

Kemy had the oddest feeling that this was a bad outcome for the adventurers as well as the Dungeon. Still, she'd ponder that more as Aneya peppered the Boar harder with arrows, the wooden things barely lasting more than a few seconds in the heat.

The wards Kemy employed were based on her faith and Kemy had faith in spades but... she herself had used up a lot of power so far...

The boar rammed into her dome again and the unstable substance of her faith raged back.

Without control and restraint, the faith would explode into howling fanaticism. Explode in both the literal and symbolic sense. Holy magics worked best from the back rows, where the caster wasn't under... duress, for that very reason.

Not that Kemy liked one choice over the other.

It was explode or be smashed! Gonga was too busy doing his best to filter smoke and toxins away from the group to do anything about the raging fire. Aneya lacked the expensive magical arrows to douse or freeze the fire... and well... her leader's sword skills started this mess.

Kemy gripped her symbol of faith and watched as the coming attack of the fire demon build up momentum. This was it.

The boar would break or Kemy would.

It was the moment of truth.

Kemy closed her eyes as her escape was cut off by another falling flaming mushroom tree. The crashing noise only outdone by the explosions of the black mushrooms it crushed.

Oddly, her last thought was not of her Goddess' prayer or Death but concern for her friends.

Aneya would never open her heart again... Gonga would have another dark memory related to his magic... her leader would take her falling as his own failure. How sad... that her death would cause so much trouble.

Kemy's thoughts were halted as the expected sound of roaring magic did not come but instead the noise of the pig impacting something oddly moist.

Kemy snapped her eyes open and blinked.

A mushroom man...

The Grove must have become so angry with the fire it grew legs! The creature was between her and the fire boar. One hand pushed with strain against the snout of the boar and the other pushed against her shield where holy magic crackled and flared around the creature's fingers.

The mushroom man pushed the demonic pig back and restrained her holy fury.

Kemy looked up at the pained eyes.

The look... Kemy stumbled back, gasping as the creature's eyes showed confused agony. Kemy had the illogical urge to apologise, but a glint of a deeper emotion shined through the pain. As the creatu-

No... as the being before Kemy pushed back his fellow monster and her empowered ward, she saw sheer will and determination. It, of all things, made Kemy feel safe. The mushroom man had small round eyes and somewhat stubby fingers, but Kemy watched as it pushed the boar back with careful force and her shield crackled harder in response.

Kemy bit her lip.

Delta's Dungeon. The Dungeon of Durence... everything... Kemy thought about everything she had seen since she had set foot into the place. Until the boar and it being set on fire...

Kemy had this sense that things weren't as they seemed.

That something, the oddity and the weirdness of it all... was before her in physical shape.

A monster protecting her from another monster and protecting its friend from her shield.

It wasn't normal.

But it felt right.

Kemy ignored the yelling of her friends and dropped her shield, letting the energy that was about to erupt just... fade.

Kemy took a leap of faith as she watched the monster before her eye her. His fingers now able to reach over and... well... Kemy watched as it slowly nodded at her.

Then it used both hands to push the boar back as the fire on the back of the boar began to splutter. Kemy felt heat rush in as magic faded, her team still struggling to push past the environmental danger to reach her.

She flinched as a another large mushroom fell near her and sparks splashed across her robe, but the sparks hovered for a moment before they slowly floated backwards.

"What...?" Kemy whispered. It wasn't just those sparks but soon whole spheres of flame were peeling themselves off from branches and the ground. Smoke and heat were lured away from Kemy and in a surprisingly short span of time... the inferno of the Grove had been reduced to a black fireball hovering over a clawed hand of a goblin.

The steaming grove made the smaller form look dangerous as his mask and staff marked this goblin as different. Goblins came as warriors, scouts, shamans... and other. If it wasn't a chief, then any goblin that looked different was dangerous. Kemy gulped as the goblin neared, holding more fire than Gonga could handle on his best day.

The mask was of some horrid child's idea of a dragon, the dark straw skirt and dark red pelt was close to a shaman but the staff was charred black with the tip glowing like a tree struck by lightning.

Kemy felt safe with the mushroom man, but with this creature?

She wanted to run.

"This fire... stinks of human arrogance. Done? Done destroying everything?!" the goblin shrieked. Her team surrounded her. Aneya and her leader readied their weapons but Gonga hissed harshly at them.

"It's holding enough fire to crisp us... we're.. outclassed. I've never seen a goblin Pyromancer. This one..." he trailed off as the goblin shifted his mask to reveal a very pissed expression.

"This one doesn't like you. Get out. Get out! Before you hurt someone else!" the goblin howled. The black staff spluttered with dark fire. The mushroom man slowly lowered the boar to the ash covered ground. It petted the creature's burned skin as the boar struggled to breathe.

"Is it-" Kemy spoke up and the goblin turned to her with his red eyes quickly hiding pain with fury.

"None of your concern. Well done, you used one of ours to harm another. Mr Mushy's hands are burned black... Boary is dying and I... I want you OUT!" the goblin ordered, voice so guttural and fireball so black that Kemy felt herself being pulled back by Gonga.

"Time to regroup," her lead-... Delem insisted. The mushroom... Mr Mushy... it had a name and that made everything so much worse.

Mr Mushy cradled the boar gently and rocked back and forth. The body expression... the movements... the image.

Kemy felt ill.

She... felt like the monster right now.

Aneya tugged at her hand and Kemy could see the confusion cover her best friend's face. Delem was blank and Gonga...

Kemy had never seen him cry before.

---

Delta felt Deja Vu as she watched Boary slowly fade from existence. Instead of feeling better or numb at seeing the creature die a second time, the scene only made Delta go over everything again. Where had she gone wrong?

Too many explosive mushrooms. Not enough signs. Boary's hidden form was a clue, she should have examined him closer... so many things. But it was also a lesson in itself.

There wasn't going to be simple instances of good guys and bad guys.

Delta liked the group that came in. Kemy was sweet. Aneya acted tough but Delta smiled when she saw the affection the woman had for her team. Gonga was an idiot but he made Delta laugh... Delem was polite.

Everything had just gone wrong... then something else went wrong.

It was all because of some innocent mushroom picking.

More signs... more ideas.

"Shhh, it's going to be okay." she said calmly... quietly as Mr Mushy shook violently next to her. Cois eyed the dark fire before he squeezed his hand and smothered the flame, his palm burning badly but the goblin walked onwards before Delta could chide him for acting so macho.

Boary wheezed weakly. That fire form had utterly exhausted the poor pig. Delta wanted to use mana or something to help, but the group had only made it to the spider room. It seemed like they intended to leave for now.

That was fine...

On the bright side, she didn't have to add any names to her new memorial room...

"He's going to be okay, Boary will be back before you know it," Delta promised her Mushroom. Mr shook his head, sinking his fist into the ground in frustration. His beady eyes met hers.

Delta had to look away.

"You can't blame yourself," she insisted, but Mr Mushy stood as Boary's body broke apart into orange sparkles of Mana. The item - a cloak made from Firemane's fur - stood out clearly. Mr Mushy picked it up and held it aloft with anger.

Shaking fists and hardened eyes seemed to settle on something.

"Mr Mushy?" she nudged with her voice.

I cannot... be gentleman.

The regretful tone hit Delta hard as her Dungeon Core powers focused entirely on Mr Mushy, allowing her to hear... feel his existence.

"Mr Mushy, one bad experience shouldn't make you want to quit," Delta replied quickly. To be honest, this was something Delta would have to come to grips on her own as more people set foot in her Dungeon but she hadn't expected her monsters to overcome it first.

Cannot be gentleman... selfish. Boary will not be forced to be not-Boary.

Delta was confused, but the sudden lack of people in her Dungeon allowed her powers to be fully restored. Nu and Sys as well.

A menu immediately popped up.