The Magnificent Mimsy cast a spell to divide himself into three different casters, all doughy and nonthreatening. All three of the pudgy wizards raised their hands and flung javelins made of light into the centipedes clambering out of the pits. All three of the bugs met their end with the perfectly aimed flashes of deadly magic.
“Me wanted to kill giant bugs!” Arfgar thundered, staring daggers at the sorcerer.
Mimsy shrugged, the two copies of himself merging seamlessly back into the chubby mage. “Give it time. I’m sure you’ll have your chance yet, friend.” He eyed the alcoves where Logan’s and Inga’s guardian forms stood motionless in the tangle of fungal growths. The wizard raised his torch higher, squinting to get a better look. “Well, there are only three of us left, but the inner sanctum looks like it’s on the other side of those alcoves. Just through the mushroom forest, there. Though I’d bet every copper to my name that there are more creatures waiting for us in there. If I had to guess, I’d even wager that’s probably where the dungeon guardian is hiding.”
Arfgar sneered at the spell-caster and stomped forward without a care in the world. “Me no afraid.” He strutted along the right side of the pit. Logan’s side.
Logan made sure his fungaloid form didn’t move a muscle. Not a twitch. Mimsy was mostly right, but there was one crucial detail he’d missed. He thought there was only a single dungeon guardian. That was a mistake.
Logan was going to make sure those three raiders stayed mistaken. <Inga, change of plans. Stay hidden. You’ll know when to attack.> Logan leapt out with a mighty cry. He brandished his rusty dagger and waved the ruby buckler, which glowed with a dark scarlet light.
“Arfgar of the Hill People!” Logan roared. “You will not plunder this dungeon. I am the Shroomian Acolyte of this realm, and I will smite you!” Sounded a little stilted, but he wanted the stupid barbarian oaf focused on him, and a little monologuing seemed like the best way.
The Magnificent Mimsy struck Logan with a dispel magic spell. The ruby shield’s light winked off like a flashlight with a dead battery. Huh. Hadn’t seen that one coming.
Arfgar grinned. He dashed forward like a whirlwind and brought his battle-axe careening down. Logan tried to backpedal, but he was far too slow compared to the C-Class brawler. The axe landed, slicing and dicing Logan as efficiently as one of those hibachi chefs. In seconds, Logan was little more than a pile of limbs and rubbery flesh. Admittedly, not his best moment.
Logan’s guardian form lay completely useless on the ground. However, it was all part of the plan to make the raiders overconfident.
“Easy dungeon boss.” Arfgar stepped over the ruins of Logan’s form.
Mimsy and Feathers followed the barbarian right past where Inga waited in her alcove. The minute they walked past, she shot out behind the caster. She raised her hands while her entire body radiated a blinding light that stunned the raiders for one key second. Inga drove her sword arm directly into Mimsy’s chest. The sorcerer let out a surprised cry and fumbled his torch, which immediately was snuffed out in the dank fungal growth covering the floor of the short hallway.
Feathers turned, ready to engage, but Inga was already on the move, darting inside Feathers’ guard using her Lepidopteral Reflex ability. The astral moth batted the eagle cudgel out of the cleric’s hand. In seconds, the place was plunged into darkness.
Logan let his gem core gleam on the pedestal, casting just enough glimmer to offer some hope to the barbarian tank. Oblivious to the trap, Arfgar rushed toward the gleam since he had the brain of a gnat.
The barbarian had breached their sanctum, but he was only able to take a single step before he was stopped. The black-and-purple Ghoul’s Snare coating the floor activated, tendrils of fungal growth shooting out, wrapping like pythons around Arfgar’s legs. At the same moment, Booker and Noodle Doodle came hurtling out from beneath a pair of swaying toadstools. Both jumped and latched onto the barbarian’s arms. Arfgar’s woes were just beginning. The Spike Flies descended, striking the blinded Arfgar from the left and the right.
He never had a chance.
Once he was dead, the bulldog-shaped Spore Wargs bounded over to the badly wounded Mimsy. The wizard was frantically trying to cast a spell when the Wargs bowled him over. Not only was his magic disrupted, he was sent face-first into the Blister Wart covering the walls. Since Logan wasn’t doing much good lying in literal pieces all over the floor, he forced his mind into Noodle Doodle’s body, co-opting the doggo’s senses. The world blurred on the edges as his point of view radically shifted. Suddenly he stood on four sturdy paws, only three feet tall. His canine mouth was open and salivating.
“Illumina Pate!” Feathers cried out. “Heal the Magnificent Morty Mercutio Mimsy with your balding love!”
Her armor glowed golden, and that gold light filled Mimsy’s chest. He might not be bleeding to death, but from this close up, Logan could tell the guy didn’t look good.
The harbinger wasn’t done casting spells. “Now, my loveable phoenix of the pure skies, thin my despair and give me a weapon of light!”
Logan canted his doggy head and watched as a new cudgel appeared in her hand, this one gleaming gold and spitting sparks like a Fourth of July sparkler.
Inga stepped back and wrapped her wings around herself. From out of thin air, silken thread swept around her, encasing her in a six-foot cocoon of gossamer thread that covered her completely. Inside, dull moonlight pulsed, growing brighter and brighter.
There was plenty of light to see the Magnificent Mimsy’s ruined face, swollen so that once again his eyes were closed. Even more gross, the blisters were starting to fill with pus. His hands were equally useless, huge balloons of red, angry skin. He tried to talk, but he couldn’t form words. Was it just the Blister Wart? Or did he get unlucky with the bite from the Spore Wargs?
“I will heal you again, Wizard!” Feathers called out. “But first I will slay these vile mushroom dogs!”
She turned her back on Inga’s cocoon. The cleric swung her cudgel and bashed away Booker, quickly turning him into a quivering pile of meat, but Logan was quicker. He dodged left, avoiding the attack, and took cover behind a towering Opal Truffle. His heart was racing, and his tongue lolled out as he panted. After a beat, he turkey peeked around the corner and saw that Feathers was once more focusing on Inga. Her shimmering cocoon had doubled in size, but she was still defenseless. Logan needed to buy her time.
With a howl, he broke cover, lupine legs eating up the ground as he hurled himself like a missile at the armor-clad harbinger. Feathers turned on a heel and thrust one hand out, letting loose a bolt of golden glory. Logan feinted and juked, narrowly avoiding the blast. He leapt, his powerful legs carrying him high into the air as his jaws opened wide—
Feathers’ enchanted cudgel whipped through the air, smashing into Logan’s skull with a sickening crunch that killed Noodle Doodle in the air. The Spore Warg body flopped to the ground, and Logan’s consciousness returned to his gemstone, giving him access to the dungeon as a whole. Although he hadn’t even laid a single claw on Feathers, Logan had done his job.
The cocoon split, and twelve feet of angry heavy metal caterpillar came spilling out. This was Inga’s Metamorphosis ability at its best.
She was an armored worm, clothed in the same silver metal that she used for her Chrysalis Swords. Both her back spikes and her mandibles looked like chrome sharpened into razor-sharp points.