There is No Epic Loot Here, Only Puns

119: The Royal Wee

The squad of ancient guards wielding torn armour and rusty swords stood perfectly still in the dark hallway leading to the inner part of their master's domain. Their weapons had been carefully rusted with artful smithing to inflict +3 tetanus damage to invaders of the fortress.

The sounds of shuffling feet were approaching and the commander of this squad raised his dragon-slaying lance. It was famous for the time a dragon swallowed his ancestor and choked on the lance without chewing. The whispers of the Princess of Marrow filled their heads.

She wasn't speaking to them, to be fair, but as the Necromantic lord of this undead army, her thoughts were hard to ignore. Non-verbal mastery of commanding the undead came with some unfortunate side-effects such as broadcasting.

The days she had a song stuck in her head were enough to drive them to crack their skulls against stone for five minutes of peace.

"I have this handled. For a core, she is dangerous, but as a commander, she is greener than the slime that develops on my bone knights. I can take her." The Princess' voice came across as petulant and furious.

Whom she was speaking to was unknown to her undead minions. They would have to simply accept it could be another Priest of Silence or perhaps the Nephew himself.

"...I don't know, Cernick. What does a skeleton tile his roof with?" the princess asked with annoyance.

"Shingl...?" there was a pause and the whole network tensed.

"I don't like you," she hissed and the army shivered at her displeasure. The little Princess of Death did not enjoy undead puns. They irked her something fierce. Something they had learned quickly when a few skeletons resorted to comedy to handle their new existence.

The undercurrent of report came through, an attachment of a Zombie Priest in the throne room. They had functional eyes and could send funny jokes they read in books or snapshots of what they saw along the network.

Every one of the dead saw the Princess surrounded by two mirrors. A few of them silently groaned. It was the monthly tea time with the Princess and her siblings. The Princess' face was half-rotten and half beautiful. The prim posture shifted and she lounged with a smirk. Only via the Zombies sending their senses could the voice be heard since it had no control over the Princess' network of Death.

"Can't Take a joke. I was working on that one for like 2 minutes," the princess complained as she picked her remaining nostril. It shifted and her bony hand smacked her fleshy one.

"Don't be disgusting," The Princess said with distaste. Her expression dropped to a blank stare at the mirrors.

"...I found it funny," the voice came out quiet and the Princess scoffed at the left mirror.

"Tirse, you find Cernick funny if he burps or snores," she chastised.

"Well, Marrow, we gotta find our kicks somewhere since you murdered us to use my soul and Tirse's body to become an immortal monster," Cernick said calmly and the boney fist smashed the right mirror.

"I warned you... not to call me that," the Princess said with a deadly tone.

"We'll never call you by your name. You will never get that honor again," Tirse said and the second mirror just collapsed from the floating spell on its own. There was silence in the throne room. The Princess stared ahead as if taking a moment to collect herself.

"The death of two siblings will give rise to the third. Can no one here appreciate poetic symbolism?" she demanded of no one that could be seen.

She turned to the staring Zombie.

"Well? Are the invaders dead and becoming food for my grave worms?" she asked the priest. The Zombie checked quickly.

"Not... quite," he admitted through a missing lower jaw. A talent that took years to master.

"Define 'not quite' in a more useful piece of information," the Princess waved her hand as if wanting graphs and diagrams. The Zombie smoothed down his moth-bitten robe and tried to think about how to put what he was going to say in a more digestible manner.

"We are slightly boned," he said and the Princess' lips thinned before a massive scream filled the network.

--

The Dog skeletons shuddered as Hero released them from his grasp. Their necromantic energies were replaced with a network of golden mushrooms. He flexed his hands and felt their fresh bonds to himself. Unlike Delta, unlike her power, he could not make this last. The mushrooms were in the end... neutralizers. Energy feeders that would render all they infected back to inert stillness.

This was his purpose. He was not something to make or give life. He was here to restore order. His own body was a thin suit hiding a complex system of mushroom threads surrounding a human heart.

It beat with soothing rhythm.

That beating noise echoed out all the infected undead he had converted. Every golden mushroom including his own mane beat and echoed in time with another. A song of life... a proclamation of war.

The Drums of Delta.

He stared at the large hallway with torn paintings and ruined smashed treasures in display cases. He closed his eyes and offered a prayer to the god he had... that Farmer Dil had worshipped when he was alive.

"Two-Left eyed one. Guide me to the goodness in this chaotic world," he mumbled and then opened his left eye.

"May Delta's kindness save them where I can," he finished. He marched and his squad of 30 strong skeletons stepped in time. They drew their aesthetically fitting rusty weapons and clattered as the mushrooms filled the hall with a hot yellowish colour. He held the Mic-Shroom close and felt no need to infect it. It was kin that held two stronger beings than he.

"I appreciate the march theme. Though, it's perhaps a bit dramatic," Hero said and Maestro stopped the song for a moment.

"We're marching towards a princess. Imperial March is perfect, darling," one of the voices promised. The other more feminine voice scoffed.

"Why not 'High-ho we're off to cut a wench'?" she asked sarcastically.

"Delta would never approve of those lyrics!" Maestro responded aghast. Hero had a feeling he had been 'ignored' for the moment.

"And some boot 'n' capes walking theme for some manchild that wears a bucket on his head is appropriate?!" Wyin demanded.

"It's a 'helmet' to cover his burned and betrayed head, his human self hidden-" Maestro began with a huff but was cut off.

"He has a cape! Who wears capes besides smug pricks?" Wyin fired back. Hero watched as his army began to break down the door that had been barred with iron.

"Capes can be nice," he tried to offer, but Wyin was on a rant.

"NO CAPES! They tangle, flap in your face, catch fire, get stuck in a trap," she began to list.

"Oh, here we go..." Maestro sighed almost to himself.

"-Can spread stone curses, can be telekinetically used to choke you, can be animated to betray you, can be out of season, and worn by murdering usurping pricks that take your power and kingdom!" Wyin concluded, sounding like she was this close to frothing at the mouth.

"What if they have little detachable bits," Hero mimicked touching his shoulders.

"...Acceptable, but it doesn't reduce the asshole levels they produce because people will assume you have a collection of them to replace the ones you lose. Capes only work in fairytales or with serious Cape Magic involved," Wyin admitted.

The door broke down and something wielding a staff pointed and let loose a stream of fire into the tunnel. Many skeletons simply collapsed, but Hero walked forward. His skin began to peel and crack, but from those holes, his true form was revealed as his human body turned to ash.

A heart protected and connected to a living mane of mushroom hair. He slithered into the crack and latched on to a skeleton, depositing his heart into the mage's ribcage and reforming the human appearance almost instantly.

"Holy frick on a record," Maestro's voice came from the crack where Hero had left the Mic-Shroom behind.

"I mean I could do that... but... he did make it look effortless," Wyin agreed. Hero flexed his new body and saw the barricades and war formations the skeletons had formed to hold them back. He stared as one pointed a staff and a sickly green energy smashed into him.

Half of his mushrooms withered and rotted, only for the rest to devour and grow over them in a nuisance of life without end. What was dead would be consumed for the next cycle. What was living would feed the way to the next generation.

He frowned at the number of enemies and how his army was picked off easily from ranged fire. The amount of space to cover was immense and Hero had a feeling numbers weren't the key here. Hero flexed his hands once and then simply collapsed into a pile of mushrooms and mycelium.

Then he consumed the room. His mushrooms exploded into endless splits of lines and creeping life. Whatever they touched was covered in a coat of mushroom heads. His human heart was dragged into a shadowy alcove and out of sight as the Skeletons were hoisted into the air and broken; looking like grim bird cages protecting the fungi inside. Magic was fired and curses were launched, but whatever was infected was surgically removed and left to perish.

Hero was a monster. An existence that could become a plague. A beast that would use all life as a breeding ground. This tenuous cycle given a soul and yet... he refused. He was no beast, mindlessly feasting and piecing innocent existence together like a fleshy tapestry.

He was a hero. He was Hero. He focused and the room was just a room once more.

He pulled every spore, inch of flesh, cap, thread... every atom of himself back together with a single thought.

Delta expected better.

Besides, he was scary if he wished to be, sure. But Delta could make hundreds of Heros if she wanted to in the years to come. If Hero was scary?

Delta was nightmarish.

---

"Rise! My army of Piggles!" Delta announced as five little Piggles casually sniffed the second floor. One was immediately jumped on by a Pygmy and rode into the underbrush. Delta pursed her lips and silently made a spare to bring her Piggles back to 5. It was made in the secret garden then ported to the second floor.

A neat workaround for the whole 'no making things when people were on the floor rule'. The downside was that it worked on cheap items and critters. Trying to teleport a monster over had it...

Smear... to put it lightly. Poor Goblin that she hadn't had a chance to name, but she did purposely make it braindead to avoid harming something alive. It wasn't splattered like it had hit the ground hard, it was like the coding of the Dungeon had bugged out its 3D spacing and caused it to splice with a tree, rock and some of the ground. It was... like Jeff Goldblum and that darn fly.

Nasty stuff that Delta had repressed with expertise.

"Alright, so... your purpose is to..." Delta trailed off as all the Piggles little buttons eyes focused on her intently.

"Distract people by being too adorable for words," Delta put her hands together as if in a business meeting which led her to think about the Pigglecaps in little suits and she nearly made an inhuman noise.

The critters shared a look then one simply rolled over in the dirt.

Okay, maybe Delta should have invested a litttttle more in the brain department, but this was fine. Nothing about these pigs could go wrong!

Another one was snatched by a passing Pygmy. Delta just silently made another and moved it over. One nibbled on a flower that might have been a magical flower and Delta beamed.

There, this was more how she liked it!

"I better check on the kids," she mused and then had to decide if she meant the kids doing their quest or the kids down below waging biological warfare on the undead.

She took off, leaving her adorable Piggles to have fun. They'd be fine on their own for sometime.

---

The Pigglecaps sniffed the greenery and began to lightly eat as they went. One found a large fruit and swallowed it whole, ballooning for a moment before it burped. It was still for a moment before it passed gas with a relaxed oink and a pink spore landed in the soil behind it.

After a moment, the spore sank into the soil. The Piggles watched it.

"Oink..."

"Oink."

"Oi...nk."

A tiny little snout pushed itself out of the soil a minute later.

The watching cabal of Pygmy Shrooms all watched with utter delight.

---

Deo was so close. He watched as Kemy's floating head passed in the pulsing air, singing a song he couldn't hear. It looked like goat opera by her lip movement. He licked his lips, the tangy taste of the weird honey still strong. He used his astral tree stumps to move deep into the twisting tower he knew he was supposed to climb. All around him, flying syringes hovered nearby to catch him if he fell. Deo had never minded syringes, but now he definitely liked them.

They were so nice. But he had to focus on getting the key! It was right there like... a cookie!

He was so... close!

---

Grim pursed his lips as Deo clung to a small boulder near the pool, upside down and reaching for his shoe that he had lost. He turned to the confused bees.

"No, I don't think it's a rogue sample. Deo is just super affected by drugs, it turns out," he said with a pinch of his nose. His own vision was slightly blue and his toes felt ticklish. That was the extent of the honey's effect on him and the rest of the group but Deo?

Grim watched as Vas finished returning from the climb, soaked in various honey, but holding the key.

"I'm falling up!" Deo said in the most mellowest voice Grim had ever heard from the boy. He simply flopped to the ground and hugged himself.

"I am the bee now," he said with profound wisdom before he began to just...vibrate on the ground.

"We could leave him like this for a while," Grim suggested as Kemy moved around with wide-eyes.

"That's rude! Can't be rude! Gotta be honest, gotta go fast!" she zoomed by as her robes were cleaning themselves of the last of the yellow honey. Poppy and Amenstar were watching this all with mellow amusement as they watched their hands move in the air.

Only Vas seemed unaffected.

"I am lubricated beyond measure," he reported as he handed Grim the key.

"Give it a minute and you'll be gunked up," Grim said distractedly. There was a rustling of the bushes and everyone stared at the tiny little creature. It walked over, simply enjoying itself, before it walked and fell into a yellow pool that had caused Kemy to become hyper.

"What was that?" Amenster asked lazily.

"A pig with a hat," Grim said, confused.

The pool exploded and something yellow zoomed past with a loud noise, knocking Grim's feet from out under him and Deo reached out with awe and the damn blur dragged Deo into the underbrush.

"The pig with the hat just kidnapped our extremely high DPS!" Grim yelled in fury as he took off after them. He was quickly outpaced by another blur. He stared as Kemy leapt over a fallen log and was easily pushing through the thick forest.

"It was so cute!" her warcry sounded before he lost sight of her and the pig.

---

Delta made a note.

Put fences around the pools to prevent Piggle exposure... also, that she could be concerned the Bee population were basically becoming a drug cartel with all natural ingredients.

She watched where Deo was being dragged, the honey glueing him to the Piggle who was now gas propelling itself into almost flying. If she was guessing right, he should end up...

She winced as the pig and Deo went into the Pygmy entrance tunnel hole to land in the squishy soil at the bottom.

This would end well... right?

A NOTE FROM STEWART92

I hope this helps someone in these hard times.