LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 96: Forest of the Rabbit Cult
After taking the trek through the tunnel connecting Floor Three and Floor Four, the party finally emerged to find a view that was still rarely seen by mortal eyes. While underground dungeons did occasionally carve out large swaths of space for certain floors, the local Challengers seemed to be fairly agreed on the fact that an underground forest was an entirely new development in dungeon environments. Even the few descriptions the party had been able to gather on the floor failed to do it justice, and the group needed a moment to take in the sight before they could continue.
Lilly Fullblossom seemed particularly taken by the sight of the trees surrounding them, many of their trunks wrapped with bioluminescent moss which gave the forest a ghostly appearance. "This is...it's the most beautiful forest I think I've ever seen! The Challengers think the dungeon was granted the forest by Kahlia, you know, but I have to wonder...do you think Palain may have had a hand in this as well?"
Renter shrugs, tilting his hat back to take in more of the view. "Not like Kahlia don't do plants too, though either way someone up there must really like the place, if they gave them a forest on top of that reincarnation blessing of hers. I've seen a mushroom 'forest' or two in my time, but I kinda gotta wonder how these trees and shrubs and that even survive. I mean, that moss shit ain't a substitute for the sun, right?"
Podge chuckles alongside him. "That's cause for all of how pretty it is, it's nothin' more than props!" Clenching a fist, he overturns enough nearby stone to topple a small tree. Lilly gasps in outrage, but before she can turn on him he raises a hand. "Don't get on my case for killin' trees now, lass - it ain't a real tree to begin with. We leave and come back here later? That tree will be right back where it was a moment ago, like nothin' ever happened to it. Hells, you try to chop the thing up for lumber and it'll just turn to so much smoke when you take it outside."
Elance purses her lips. "True as it may be, it seems a shame to ruin the beauty of the place. Leave the destructive demonstrations for the wildlife, would you?"
Sable steps forward, perhaps encouraged by the suggestion of monster fights. "Alright, so apparently two parties have made it this far before, and they say that through these trees there's a cliff up ahead. Seems plain that we're supposed to climb up it, but they both ran into traps that kept them from going forward. Supposed to be nuisance monsters along the way, too. Renter, you're up front with me, time to put those forest tracker skills to use."
The man grins as he moves up. "You know, I've used those skills a fair few times to hunt monsters out in real forests, but they were never the greatest fit for a dungeon intrusion. This could actually be a little fun." Readying his crossbow, the man takes the lead, cautiously checking every tree and bush the party approaches as they begin to head into the treeline. Things remain quiet for a short while, but after about twenty feet into the woods the man's crossbow jolts upwards, moments before the leaves begin to rustle. "Above!"
A bolt shoots out, snagging a flying red-skinned reptile, but three more become apparent soon after. Podge flings a pair of small rocks at the creatures but it only serves to disrupt their formation, and the monsters return fire by spitting down at the party before darting away. Renter ducks under one glob of spit while Sable saves Podge from another with her shield, but in the confusion Lilly manages to dodge her way directly into the path of the third, and it lands on her left arm. The acidic chemicals eat through her priestess robes fairly quickly, and as they start to work on her skin the elf cries out.
"Easy lass, easy!" Casting a healing spell with her right hand even as she pulls at her waterskin with her left, Elance quickly works to wash away the foul-smelling gunk and to repair the damage. By time she's done the only remaining mark on the woman's arm is a spot of red, raw-looking skin, although there's little the dwarf can do about the hole in Lilly's sleeve. "Now, I'm an amateur at these things, but I believe you're supposed to duck away from the incoming fire, aye?"
"Sorry! I thought for sure I was jumping the other way, I...I guess I panicked?"
Renter chuckles as he flings a poisonous thorn bringing a second creature down. "And that's with a luck charm on, haha! Maybe we oughtta give her a second just to be safe?" With the monsters down to two it becomes far easier for Sable to block their attacks with her shield, and it doesn't take long for Renter and Podge to slay those as well. After taking a moment to scrape the acids off of her shield, Sable shakes her head.
"Wouldn't do that, actually. Heard one of the reasons there's so many luck charms hanging up at the Lucky Bastard is because the dungeon actually seems to punish folks who wear a bunch of them. Some sort of anti-greed thing, people say, though it all sounds a little odd to me."
Podge leans over to pick up one of the slain monsters, dangling it by the tail as he peers at it. "Huh. Thought for a minute these were some sort of tiny dragonkin or somesuch, but looks like they got bat ears on em. Bat crossbreed, maybe?"
"Did hear tale of spitting fliers, though the one folks talked about the most was - whup, there we go!" Reloading his crossbow just in time to fire it off again, this time the Tracker shoots at a target much closer to ground level, causing an albino rabbit to skid to a stop as it exits a bush with the bolt through its neck. This time it's seven monsters that follow the first, and the battle becomes far more chaotic - not so much because of how dangerous the rabbits are, but because of their sheer speed, and the difficulty in hitting them as they bolt around trees and under shrubs. Lilly fights far more effectively against the ground-bound monsters, her vines entangling and then crushing a pair of them, while Renter swaps to a knife and begins slashing at any that leap in his direction.
Podge meanwhile, perhaps as the front-liner closest to the ground, fares the worst. Three of the rabbits leap for him at once, and while one only sinks its fangs into his thick leather bracer the other two both manage to latch on to the dwarf's neck - although they do have to paw their way through a bit of his beard to reach it. Fortunately the man's fighting style leaves his hands free and he's able to grab on to them both, yanking them away before tossing them at nearby trees. He doesn't do so without injury though, the act of tearing them away itself worsening the damage the monsters had done to his neck, and blood begins to rather dramatically spray out as he smashes his arm against a rock to dislodge the third beast. "Gah! Fuckin' little furry shits! Got a fuckin' bite, do they!? I'll show you a bite!" The dwarf actually begins to move to bite at the wounded creature still clinging to him, but wavers on his feet before he can do so.
As Renter and Sable clean up the other monsters, Elance again steps forward. "Stand still, ya stonehead! Keep movin' like that and you'll be watering the grass with your life!" Wrapping her hands around his neck, Elance is able to close the relatively small wounds without too much trouble, although Podge's face still seems rather pale even afterwards. "Alright, you won't die now, but I can't do much to heal yer blood back into ya. Down yourself a health potion or two, we'll give you a minute to get steady on your feet, aye?"
"Aye, thanks much, Bountiful Mother."
"And this is why it's crazy that none of you lot are wearing helmets." Sable taps her own before moving forward, scouting out ahead while the others watch over the Geomancer. It's hard to argue with her, given that it seems unlikely even an entire swarm of rabbits would be able to injure the heavy fighter, and sure enough when they catch up a few minutes later they find a trail of severed bunny parts along the way. The woman herself is standing near the aforementioned cliff, glancing left and right.
"I think I see two good climbing spots from here, but I'm pretty sure the closest is the one at least one of the parties tried and found trapped. We could keep looking for another, or..." She looks meaningfully at Podge, and the dwarf nods back.
"Or, we make our own!" Downing a mana potion, the dwarf begins to make hand motions at the cliff as if he were pulling at the air, and one by one stone rungs begin to appear halfway between the two climbing locations. It's a bit rough, but the magical ladder is located far away from any potential traps at either of those placements, and looks far easier to climb than both as well. "Haha! Shortcutting dungeon traps was always one of my favorite parts of the gig, you know?"
"Let's just hope the dungeon spirit's not the type to take it personally." As usual Sable is the first up the cliff, and keeps a careful watch out for threats as the others follow after her. "Huh, looks a little different up here. Not as much light, and the some of the trees actually look half-dead. If they're all props like you said, that's gotta be intentional, right?"
The party makes their way up without incident and begins to search through the upper level of the forest floor, but it doesn't take long before they find a new form of nuisance monster: a swarm of giant wasps that dives towards the group from a nearby tree. Fortunately they're only 'giant' in the sense of over-sized mundane wasps, and not on the 'eat a dwarf in one bite' scale of things, but they still prove surprisingly difficult for the party to deal with. Sable's shield does little to protect the party from the insects, and the party has few weapons useful for doing more than attempting to smash the bugs with one by one. While the damage they do is light, several members of the party do find themselves collecting stings, their skin swelling every time a bug finds its mark.
It's finally Renter who comes to the rescue, shouting as he manages to find something in his side pouch. "Yes! Knew I still had at least one of these!" After pulling a potion bottle from the bag the man shatters it on the ground, triggering a cloud of green smoke to quickly surround the party. The entire group finds themselves coughing as they begin to breathe it in, but the insects handle it even worse, several of them dropping dead immediately while the others retreat into the trees.
Elance does her best to choke out a question while healing the party's stings. "Gah, did you just poison us all, you crazy human?"
"No! Well, maybe a little! It's bug repellent though, mostly harmless to people. It's a lifesaver out in some wilds, never thought I'd need it in here, but I packed some for the trip just in case! Should keep minor irritants like that away for at least an hour or so, though don't expect much of it if anything dog-sized comes wandering around."
"Thanks, I guess." Sable quickly moves out of the cloud with the others following closely behind, gaining some distance from the noxious fumes they leave behind. "Those bugs could get nasty, eventually. Imagine that shit with deadlier venom in their stings? Probably gonna need to warn people to start collecting anti-poison potions."
Lilly nods. "I can craft some of those myself, perhaps I should make a batch before our next trip, assuming we come back. Still, I would imagine for a fourth floor there ought to be something, you know...bigger? Oh! Like - ah!" The elf points at a shadowy figure some distance away through the woods, but screams as it suddenly turns and heads towards them at great speed. It's clearly not running, the movement isn't quite right, but more as if it were simply willing itself to come closer. Even as it does the form doesn't become any more distinct, remaining cloaked by shadows, though the elf would swear she sees signs of a skeleton occasionally visible within the dark smoke.
Sable identifies them first. "Shades! They're undead, prepare your holy spells! Smite!" The Paladin aims her sword at the charging creature but is taken by surprise when the monster suddenly leaps into the air at the last second, causing her spell to fizzle uselessly against a dead tree. As it arcs through the air it fires a cloud of dark smoke in her direction, but the magic washes over her shield equally uselessly. "...Okay, not just shades! Mixed up with something agile!"
Sounds of stone moving behind her gives her a warning before Podge can utter it himself. "More on the other side! Think we're surrounded! Giving us some defense!" The dwarf works quickly at building walls out of the stone around them, but it proves ineffective, the undead easily leaping over the improvised barriers. More blasts of dark magic shoot towards the group, one of which manages to impact Renter on his right side, causing the man to shiver and retch.
"Egggh! Feels like...like I just got a stomach full of rotten meat, or something! Gods, the taste..."
Sable swings her blade at a shade that leaps too close, and this time is rewarded by the sight of the monster fading into nothingness with a shriek. "That's what their magic does, it literally rots you from the inside out! It can be healed, but try not to get hit!" The Paladin does her best to protect the rest of the party, soaking the hits on her holy-enchanted armor as she slays two more of the beasts, but she can't prevent more blasts from hitting both Podge and Lilly over the next few minutes. Faced with trying to heal three of her party members at once, Elance decides instead to shift her tactics.
"Oh, Blessed Mothers Above and Kahlia, Light of the Divine, please protect your children!" Focusing her energy, the dwarven woman manages to call on the blessing of her goddess just in time to block several more blasts of darkness heading her way, as a shield of light encases the entire party within a golden bubble. With the defense taken care of Sable is able to refocus her efforts on offense, and her sword and holy spells slowly whittle away the undead as they dodge through the trees around them. Eventually the assault is over, and the shield collapses along with the Paladin.
"Fuck, that took a lot out of me. You lot still alive?"
Renter nearly chokes as he swallows another healing potion. "Yeah, and nearly wishing I weren't. Thank the gods, literally, that we had you and the Mother on this delve. A solitary Cleric would probably have trouble handling all that."
Lilly recovers first, her own holy garments having provided at least some light protection against the undead magics. "Indeed. The blessings of Palain I usually call on are for good crop yields, not for fighting...leaping shadows, or whatever those were. ...Wait, look where the first one was standing, over there. Doesn't that look something like an altar?"
After another round of healing the Mother moves to take a look herself, and soon confirms Lilly's suspicions. In a small clearing in the dead woods sits a round stone pedestal, a good four feet wide but empty save for one item sitting in the center: a pink crystal, carved into the shape of a rabbit's head as seen in a side profile. "...Okay, could one of you dungeon experts tell me what in the hells this is supposed to be? Is it loot?"
Sable shakes her head. "Looks more like a dungeon token, or a key. So now all we need to do is find out what it unlocks..."
