[D'sP] All The Pits - Chapter 289 (Patreon)

Of course the prepared mycelium pseudo-wood was a wonderful thing as well. Though that kind of stuff would be left to others to care about. Jeremy didn’t really have a hand in building the actual town so ready made building supplies aren’t exactly in his remit.

Still, whether it was the food or the building supplies, the group only took a small sample of them. After all, they still have to finish the floor. So after doing one final look around the small bit of cave that extended out to the left of the main tunnel, the group continues onward.

Through a section that ballooned out both to the right and upward then through another tight section until they arrived at another pit. Jeremy looked down and sighed, “Well, we must have used up our luck. Seems the pit is currently inhabited.”

Bill laughs, “I could tell.”

Tess raises an eyebrow, “How in the world did you manage that?”

Bill points across the pit, “Well, you can see that they have an actual set of stairs leading out of the pit over there. It seems that they use those mushroom trees on the wall to create it.”

Kelly nods, “That does seem to be the case. I hope that sticks around after we defeat them. Would be annoying to have to climb a rope when we shouldn’t have to.”

Kellinger laughs, “A little exercise never hurt anyone.”

Kelly frowned, “Just because it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t mean I enjoy it. Now how are we going to handle the monsters at the bottom of the pit?”

Jim scratches the back of his head, “Well, I would like to say I could just snipe them from up here. However, the caps of those giant mushrooms do a much better job of screening them away than a tree’s branches does. It certainly doesn’t hurt that there is a ton of overlap in the areas where they aren’t farming them. Too bad they seem to have been alerted already to our presence or I could have gotten a few in the area where they're farming the food mushrooms.”

Jeremy nods, “I think we either need to figure out a way to stealthily get down there or we need to basically do a combat drop. Good thing we’re dealing with the mushrooms and not the lizards. Those myconids don’t seem to have too many truly ranged attacks. That and it looks like the population of this village matches the last one.”

Jim, “Okay, with that in mind I think that Jeremy, you get to free climb down while being stealthy. The rest of us will stay up here on overwatch. Kelly should be able to use her match to intercept any thrown rocks, while Kellinger can work on preventing them from attacking in the first place. I in turn can reach out and touch any that decide standing around in the open is a good idea. After that the rest of us rappel down while you guard the bottom of the rope.”

Everyone agrees with the plan and Jeremy walks over to the side of the tunnel. The others expected this as trying to climb down the center would just be asking to be seen. Though he doesn’t quite do the expected either. Instead, he first climbs out a distance on the side wall of the tunnel, over the pit.

It is only then that he begins his descent. This is not only a good plan, but it saved him from alerting the myconids below as once he got down a bit, he could see that there were shriekers hidden underneath the giant mushrooms sticking out. It took a little work, but he was able to pass this message along without shouting. From there it was just a relatively easy climb to the bottom.

Of course, the others wouldn’t be able to avoid the fungus based alarm systems unless they decided to free climb down as well. A thing that they were capable of, but not in a manner as stealthily as Jeremy managed. So instead the original plan of repelling down took on a bit more urgency.

The only good thing was that the rope didn’t set off the shriekers. Well, the first rope. From one of their packs, they took out their back up rope and set it up as well. Then as fast as they could, they used their makeshift equipment to do a controlled slide down the wall as a couple mushrooms started to scream.

This brought them to the attention of the monsters below. Though the myconid who was leading them had a different battle plan from the first group. Instead of heading out to meet them head on, the myconid led the two lesser and the three swarms into the denser wild fungus. Once they felt secure, all of them began to pump out paralysis and sleep spores.

While the cloud of spores was annoying, you better believe that everyone was packing the medicine for it. If anything, the party was more than happy that the myconids didn’t try to bum rush them as they came down. Though once they had to try and dislodge them from their secure location, they started to have second thoughts on that.

In theory it shouldn’t be all that hard to get to them. While there were some giant mushrooms with a toughness of wood, most of the fungus was of the soft and spongy type. Except this very sponginess proved quite the impediment.

With magic involved, normal mushrooms became more than tough enough to survive at least a couple swipes. And so the party had to wade through ankle-high water and mud, while swiping at waist high mushrooms that just don’t want to break. Jim wasn’t even able to snipe more than a few of the sprouts as the ground cover did a more than good enough job to keep them hidden.

This left most of the fighting to Kelly and Tess. Not even Bill was capable of doing more than killing them one at a time as they came at him. Only Kelly’s magic and Tess’ spear managed to pierce through the fungal mess they found themselves in.

So despite having the same number of enemies, this fight in the pit turned out a ton harder than expected. The only saving grace as far as they were concerned is that the mushroom staircase did stick around so they could walk out of the pit. In fact, four sections later when they faced the next village, it was easier than even the first group.

Though it certainly helped that Jeremy was able to spot the shriekers ahead of time and took all nine of them out with thrown daggers. Well, saying that he took them out makes it sound like he killed them. That isn’t quite correct, though a few did die. Rather, he used the daggers to silence them by taking out their mouths.

After that things go downhill again. Quite literally as after another squeeze through a tight section, they find themselves in front of another pit. A pit in which they for the first time are able to observe the myconids going about their usual lives.

Oh, and this pit also had a ton more monsters in it. From on top they can see an extra lesser and a couple hundred more sprouts. Though it is relatively relaxing to watch them go about farming. Kind of like watching an ant farm except many times more deadly.

Kellinger sighs, “Would it be wrong of us to cheese things and skip the pit?”

Jim sighs as well, “We certainly could. All it would take is for us to climb across and leave them none the wiser. However, I doubt they would stay none the wiser. Then it would just be a matter of them walking up some stairs to show up behind us. And if we tried to destroy the stairs? Well, they got there somehow in the first place and for some reason I doubt they would miss the fact that we had done so.”

Jeremy nods, “Down into the pit again. Same plan as last time?”

Everyone nods and so Jeremy begins his descent. This is thankfully unseen as the myconids are only watching the one wall, not expecting someone like Jeremy to come around. Of course on the way down Jeremy spots more hidden shriekers, just like last time. Worse, the mouths were facing away from him so unless he managed to kill them instantly, the alarm would go out.

So without any choice, everyone else uses their two ropes to rappel down once again. This time they are much better at the task, having ironed out most of the kinks on the previous pit. However, the myconid in charge down below had a different playbook from the last.

Instead of hiding off somewhere, they had actually used some of the pseudo-lumber to set up simple barricades. All to force the party to come at them from a single direction. Sure, not quite as useful as full enclosed space, but they don’t exactly have ranged attacks to take advantage of such a situation.

Still, the party is making decent headway in the fight. That is until the myconids trump card shows itself. As the group fights their way into the entrance, the wall of a hut that was right there bursts outwards. From within the group's lesser troup guard emerges to attack the group.

Tess is on that side and grabs her spear with both hands to block the blow. This works to a degree, but she is thrown onto her back from the force. It doesn’t quite knock the wind out of her and the others are easily able to step in to defend her. Though this does open them up for the sprouts to swarm in.

From there it is Jeremy who saves the day. He had been off doing his sneaky stuff, not even having met up with the group once they landed. Instead he snuck around the back of the build and in the commotion that just happened, took out the myconid in charge.

Without the myconid putting out spores to command the others, the sprouts and guard show their weakness. It takes them way too long to switch back to working on their own volition. This left the guard in particular wide open for a counter attack.

A thing that Tess was more than willing to do, with her spear sinking deep into the center of the guard. It doesn’t quite get pushed back, but just as equally, it stops advancing. Then Bill comes in to finish it off with a series of lightning fast slaps from his clubs.

After that it devolves into a matter of cleaning up the sprouts as Jim and Jeremy finish off the three lesser myconids. Though suffice it to say, this was the most danger any of them had experienced in the dungeon in a while. In fact, Tess decided to take one of their lower quality healing potions.

Sure, it only felt like bruising, but better safe than sorry. Though seeing this, Kellinger did sigh. He had been considering whether to learn some healing magic and had been putting it off. Not that he was going to be able to do more than cure small cuts and bruises, but sometimes that's what you need. Better to have a spell for it than use a limited consumable on it.

From there the group continued on only to be faced with yet another pit a tight pass and two caves later. A pit that yet again held more myconids in it. Suffice it to say, the party was not happy with how things were panning out.

Though in the core room Doyle and Ally were having a fun time of it. The fact that so many of the pits were inhabited was honestly astounding. Sure, Doyle had put in a good few pits, but just as equally he had put in other areas. It was just random chance that the myconid villages had happened to mostly decide that now was time to live in a pit.

Jeremy Likes The Unplanned Supplies - Chapter 288

Intense Mushroom Fighting - Chapter 290