[D'sP] Intense Mushroom Fighting - Chapter 290 (Patreon)

This time, the group wasn’t as lucky while descending. The myconids in the pit managed to spot Jeremy as he climbed down. It wasn’t on purpose or anything, just dumb luck that one of them looked over at the right time to notice.

So as Jim and the rest of the team are making their way down, Jeremy is doing what he can to keep the area below clear. He is not as successful as would be desired. While he was able to sneak around and assassinate most of the monsters, that isn’t an option.

Instead, Jeremy is stuck fighting off the troop guard, which one on one is holding its own against him. The other myconids are keeping clear of the fight, which does mean the area right around where the ropes are is clear. However, when a large part of their danger comes from the spores, they don’t need to crowd around to be a danger.

Up on the rope, Jim is the last to start climbing down and so is a good distance from the ground. He can tell that the time it would take to finish his descent would put Jeremy in danger and so stops. While not the most stable of positions, he is able to use his feet to keep himself from swinging around.

The good news for Jim is that having the high ground is quite the benefit for an archer. So while he might not be the most accurate at the moment, he doesn’t need to be to start thinning out the sprouts. Though it certainly helps that his arrows are more than capable of piercing through multiple sprouts.

On the ground, Bill and Tess are the first to touch down and they throw themselves right into combat. With that, Jeremy is able to finally turn the tides with the guard. However, things don’t go completely their way.

Behind them, they hear a loud thud. It was inevitable, but despite the precautions, Kelly fell victim to sleep spores. The only good news about this is that she didn’t land on her head and was already close to the floor when it happened so would only end up with some nasty bruises.

Kellinger is soon on the ground and checking up on her. This allows the three in melee to keep fighting, but the worry about their wounded friend isn’t doing them any favor. In the end, it is Jim’s constant rain or arrows that marks the inevitable end of the fight.

It takes a couple of shots, but Jim manages to nail the myconid leader, taking them out. Now, the fact that the sprouts rushed into the fight might seem bad. However, it restricted what the guard could do while allowing Tess the chance to help thin them out.

Her spear sweeps through sprout after sprout while forcing the guard to dodge her blows. Bill uses this to really pound on the leg closest to him. Then, as Tess is about to hack at another leg, the mud below the guard’s leg surges up and grabs on.

Behind the melee fight, Kellinger had confirmed that Kelly was fine and got to join in the fight. Tess’ spear cuts a deep gash into the leg. This is enough to disable the limb and reduce the guard down to only four legs.

Though it doesn’t matter as with a mage in the fight and the leader dead, the myconids are unable to stop them. So while the guard is a tough opponent, the rest of the fight is just cleanup.

And with the fight over, Jeremy is able to go and take care of Kelly. They didn’t expect the poison spores to last so long, but it seemed that once they got through her defenses, further doses had it easy. Not quite a free pass, but it does mean that being in the middle of a spore cloud is a lot more dangerous than previously thought.

When he heard about this, Jim was quite put out. He should have heard about this information. The guild should have been informed. That means either people are keeping secrets or this discovery is soon followed by a party wipe.

Then the group all sits down to make a decision. Do they turn back? Though honestly, at this point, it felt like they asked that question every other time they stopped and, like the previous times, they decided to keep going.

So, with nothing else to do and Kelly having woken up, they continued onward through another tight spot and then a few empty spaces. The monster drought, however, ends after another tight squeeze. A squeeze that ends in a bit of a problem.

See, while it wasn’t too close to the next cave section, the myconids in the upcoming area had placed all their shriekers at the tight space. Not that Jeremy didn’t notice that there was something there. However, while the group managed to pop three of them, the remaining six let out quite the racket, alerting the next group of enemies.

Oh, and as the team left the tunnel, the violet fungus that was there tried to bash them. It didn’t manage to hurt them, but every second of delay allowed the myconids to prepare. Time that they used to great effect, as once the team got to the cave, there was a defensive line waiting for them.

The only problem is that it also allowed the team to prepare and Kelly was feeling a little feisty after the last fight. So while she didn’t clear them all in one move, she had been charging up a nasty spell on the way over. Between her hands is a flare of plasma fire barely kept in containment.

Then she let it go. The cloud of fiery death expanded outward and rolled over the sprouts, their spores only providing fuel. Even the magic was being consumed to further Kelly’s destruction as it ate through all the sprouts and scorched the guard.

So while the myconids had been ready for them, after losing five hundred some sprouts, there was no suspense to the fight. Sure, the actual myconids were far enough back to not be touched by the spell and the guard survived. However, without any chaff to keep melee fighters pinned, the rest of the monsters died.

Now, what would be more exciting than one unavoidable choke point? Of course, a second! Two more cave areas later, and they reach a tight section that once again ends in shriekers. The team is more than happy with this because boring means safe.

Except things don’t play out quite the same. They reached the cave area that expanded out to the right, expecting to see another array of monsters. However, the leader in this area decided that it was better to hide inside their mushroom forest.

This annoyed Kelly as it made her charged up spell a waste. So much power being kept barely contained isn’t exactly the most stable of spells and before it blew up in her face, she was forced to fire it off. Without an enemy in sight, she decided to just toss it at the mushroom forest and see if it took.

It is unfortunate for her that even a powerful fire spell like that tends not to stick around long enough to actually catch things on fire. You need to specifically aim for keeping the heat around long enough, something Kelly hadn’t bothered with as she expected to be throwing it at a bunch of chaff.

Without any better options and not wanting enemies at their rear, the party enters the thick growth of mushrooms. Some of the mushrooms even reached the height of a two story building. An oddity since previously they were at most about the height of a single story building. Then another shrieker started screaming.

It was off to the side and Jeremy had missed it because they felt like they had got them all at the tight section. Then, as that shrieker went off, more and more started to go off further into the mushroom forest. It was hard to tell, but the party could tell that the sound was coming from more than ten locations.

At this point, they couldn’t back out so the group advanced further into the mushrooms. Then a couple violet funguses pop out and begin to try and slam down on them. Easy enough to handle until a stream of sprouts pour out from five different directions to attack them. They had been hiding within the trunks of the mushroom trees inside of hastily excavated hollows.

This was followed by a large group of myconids. Not only was there a guard and three lessers, the group had six regular myconids! Five more than any previous group. The party had accidentally stumbled upon this town while the construction crew was fixing things up. It was the construction crew that had allowed the sprouts to hide.

The only problem that the monsters ran into with this situation was that Jim’s party wasn’t like a normal party. Those in the back weren’t any weaker in direct combat than those in the front. So while Jim, Kelly, and Kellinger weren’t exactly the types to prefer melee, they weren’t going to just roll over.

In fact, Kellinger was more ready for it than the others. As the sprouts swarmed in on him, he took a trick from Ace’s book. In a spell that was partly summoning, a bit of conjuring, and a ton of plant manipulation he turned two tiny pinches of seeds into thorny vine gauntlets and boots.

Though he added his own twist to the formula. Whereas Ace tended towards manipulating trees for their much stronger wood, Kellinger had figured out a few tricks with vines. With each stomp and punch, some of the vines would break off, stuck in the myconid sprouts.

Those broken off pieces of thorns and vines then proceeded to grow, over taking not only the myconid sprout it had been stuck in, but those nearby as well. All around him, vines began to spread out. Not quite able to hold the monsters in place, but every move drags the thorns through their fungal flesh.

Jim and Kelly aren’t too far behind, just less infectious. Still, five hundred shin height monsters isn’t the easiest to handle. Plus, it isn’t like the bigger myconids are going to let the party handle the sprouts before moving in.

With the guard in the lead, flanked by the lessers, the myconids charged in. Though you could tell things weren’t quite going to plan. They had been set up to attack the rear and had clearly changed their minds.

After all, while the three in front were absolutely tearing through the sprouts, the three in back were causing a lot more pain. At least if they got killed by the primary melee fighters, it would be over quickly. Not that it was going to be easy for Jim’s party to handle them.

The guard burst onto the scene with a double stomp, trying to crush Jeremy and Tess in one shot. They dodged back, but the lesser myconids charged in to chase them. Bill, in turn was being attacked by five of the myconids. This more than stressed him as multiple blows rained down on him.

It was at this point that Kellinger fell over. Not dead or even all that injured, he had just succumbed to the paralysis spores. The five that remained standing pulled back, taking some blows as they surrounded their fallen friend.

This actually ended up helping Bill as it allowed him to share the burden of the five myconids with the others. Though the guard took advantage of this to rear up on three of its legs to try and slam back down with the front two. The party couldn’t let this happen as there was no retreating or else Kellinger would be smashed into paste.

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