Merrick was still internally lamenting the lack of a third everdew bell to attempt a Merge when he was abruptly grabbed and kissed. Several thoughts attempted to shoot through his mind, only to fizzle out before they could properly spark. Even his internal mantras fell silent for the first time since entering the dungeon.
Before he could properly process the loss of his first kiss, Mary released the shellshocked man and spun on her feet to start walking away. She internally knew that the dungeon was not the place to play at romance but wasn’t sure she’d be able to work up the nerve without the burst of dopamine she was experiencing from the gift.
Rod silently nodded his head and shot Merrick a thumbs up before turning and jogging to catch up with his sisterly friend. James, however, was absolutely fuming. Not only had, in his mind, he been cheated out of his fair share of loot but his woman had also been stolen directly from in front of him with said loot. He glowered for a few moments before firming his resolve and settling his facial expression into something that could almost be considered neutral. He too walked away, ignoring Merrick as he stood there with a red face staring out into the void.
‘I’m still leaving tomorrow, it doesn’t mean anything.’ With a deep breath, Merrick managed to soothe his emotions. ‘Mary must have assumed that the flower was a gift of affection, rather than an emotional investment to secure more loot.’ He’d even had an immediate payout of a nurturing jade case, which should keep the plant safe until it was ready to pot, and a few drops of powerful fertilizer from Mary. A simple exchange of benefits, Merrick told himself as he squinted at Mary’s back, sauntering away deeper into the dungeon.
He swiftly finished packing away the tools he’d pulled out of his pack and jogged to catch up before he lost sight of the group completely. Considering the only lighting they had were the dimly glowing mulberries that grew from the roots that pierced the ceilings of the dungeon, it was easy to lose visibility if one wasn’t careful.
Merrick caught up quicker than he expected, since the group was at a full stop again at the end of the tunnel. The passageway opened into a much larger room than their landing zone, populated by mulberry trees, blackberry brambles, vines of many varieties, and much more flora. Insects buzzed through the trees and fireflies beaconed them from the darkness, twinkling in and out amongst the backdrop of distantly glowing lights on the ceiling.
“Bramblekin, at least 6 of them in a group, maybe more.” Mary whispered to Merrick as he caught up. Her warm breath sent a shiver down his spine and he unconsciously leaned away. Luckily, she either didn’t notice or wasn’t offended as she continued to speak, “This biome is much more populated than expected for being this shallow. There might be something valuable nearby.”
“If you’re asking my opinion, I say we should scout it out and clear the room if we can. I can already tell there are a bunch of decent alchemical reagents in here.” Although he would collect the herbs and reagents in order to not arouse suspicion, he had a feeling most if not all of them would not survive the Nexus Portaling in the coming morning. He might be able to sell a few off and buy non-perishables, but he mostly wanted to try and find dungeon spawned duplicates and merge them.
“Of course the unclassed says we should fight. As the only effective fighter here, I say we avoid a conflict unless we’re absolutely sure that the loot is worth it. I’d rather not dull my blade on some bramblekin for a pittance of copper. Their corpses are too bendy to make a good arrow shaft and they have no good harvests.” James rolled his eyes. From his perspective, a bow and arrow wouldn’t do much to the writhing plant bodies of the bramblekin which rendered Rod next to useless.
Since they didn’t have sword related classes, he had mentally written off the matching swords strapped to the waists of Merrick and Rod. Mary had also outright said she had no effective tools for floranids as well, of which bramblekin were one of.
In most situations, Merrick would actually agree with James. Every previous delve to the dungeon Merrick had managed to avoid combat as well. Since he wasn’t classed, he didn’t even get any progress toward his next level from killing other creatures. It was why he was still only level 2 after so many years of unlocking his Status. His only level had been gained through rigorous training of his Magicka pool and his minimal body training that raised his base Stamina pool as well.
Honestly though, most people didn’t pay levels any mind without a class anyways. The largest reason they were considered important was as a road marker for one’s class path milestones. Scholars had even said a level was nothing more than an internal measurement of the power of one’s class, with a higher level lumberjack being able to bring out more efficacy for his skills than a lower leveled one. This obviously wasn’t a complete answer for what a level was, considering one could level up without having a class, but nobody really had a complete answer for anything to do with the Status page.
Unfortunately for James, even with no real discernible reason to kill bramblekin, Merrick needed to make sure at least one of them was felled by his hand. He had to fake a ‘Bronze Coin’ drop from one of their corpses and then, ideally, have enough time to get back to the scholars who logged drops and submit it for review. He had a couple reasons for this, of course.
Delvers who turned in a reward that had never been seen before from a dungeon would usually receive a reward, usually monetary but occasionally the delver would receive a minor magical item from the Stronghold’s treasury. They were also entitled to a review of the item’s identification page, generated by an extremely rare and highly customizable skill that Merrick had no access to. The Stronghold Lord kept several scholars on staff for exactly that purpose. Depending on the use of the drop, the value of one’s reward would go up.
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In an ideal world, they’d clear the room, loot what they could, and leave with enough time for Merrick to get his errands done. He’d have to meet up with Rod and the others at the Inn for dinner, since he’d have to turn in his bronze coin upon exit from the dungeon.
“Let’s get scouting then, follow after me.” Rod led the way, carefully stepping through the growth and careful to prevent alerting any hostile life of their presence. Luckily for the group, they were able to carefully replicate his steps and mute a large portion of the noise that would otherwise be made by their party.
They managed to avoid several stationary floranids that would be difficult to kill and were able to identify a few exits. They found two different paths that appeared to descend and another path that seemed to ascend back towards the exit from the dungeon. Although it was a little odd to find an additional ascending tunnel branching off their location so early, it also wasn’t surprising.
The entirety of the dungeon was nearly impossible to map, with several chambers and tunnels that seemed to interconnect and even change at times. More than once, Merrick had heard stories of delvers getting their retreat cut off by an overly powerful foe and having to delve deeper to find an alternate exit. Those stories usually had them going several floors deeper than they were supposed to find salvation. They also usually and finding wonderful treasures that led to them becoming heroes and assembling a harem of beauties, so the facts of the situation were obviously best located by squinting really hard at the narrator.
They’d also managed to get a rough size of the room. It was once again roughly oval shaped, around 800 feet long and 600 feet wide if Merrick’s internal calculations were correct. It was difficult to tell how tall the ceiling was since his perspective was messed up by the lighting and curvature of the walls, but it was at least 50 feet high.
They’d found two different bramblekin wandering by them selves and had managed to dispatch them. Neither of the two were part of the group Mary had sensed but part of the reason to scout around the perimeter of the room first was to eliminate any potential reinforcements the dungeon spawned creatures could call in the first place.
The bramblekin themselves were very odd looking. Almost like a wooden snake that had twisted in on itself several times and then grown thorns from its body. They stood about three feet tall and were bipedal, with two arms that ended in a facsimile of a hand with curved thorns for fingers. Their heads looked like an expertly carved totem and tended to differ from creature to creature.
After the first encounter, Merrick carefully inspected the wooden creature and agreed that James had a point about their corpses not being worth much. The wood it was made of was far too gnarled and twisted to be crafted into anything and its blood, or sap, didn’t seem to have any exceptional properties. Merrick supposed there might be a market for collecting the different heads as decoration, but that was far too macabre for his tastes. That one had looked like a majestic eagle with a backwards curving horn protruding from above its eyes.
After it was made clear that nobody had any intention of dissecting the creature, it slowly melted way into the ground as if sensing their intent. After the goop drained away, there were two shiny copper coins resting where its body had been, perfectly identical copies to the ones he’d merged only hours before.
It wasn’t until he encountered the second bramblekin, whose head was shaped like a horned cobra, which was swiftly dispatched by Rod’s blade, that he noticed a similarity. He quickly posed a question to Rod and received the answer he was looking for.
“Yeah, they all have the same horns. Damn near identical, which really threw the scholars for a loop. They don’t have any uses as far as anyone has figured out and you can pick ‘em up for a few copper a piece. It’s a bit of a right of passage to try and figure out a use for them, every kid’s get rich quick scheme. All I can tell you about that is that they are too curvy for an arrowhead and not big enough to hollow into a cup.” Rod answered his query about the curved horn present on the head of the cobra totem.
“The dungeon scholars theorize that the horns are what the dungeon actually spawns, like a tree spreading seeds. Then the bramblekin grow out of them. At least, that’s what the scholars who subscribe to Scholar Joule’s energy conservation theory think. It would theoretically save the dungeon a massive amount of Magicka, or whatever resource it utilizes, over spawning them fully grown and combat ready. Most non-bestial dungeon creatures in the dungeons humanity explored have a body part like that.” Mary weighed in as Merrick stepped forward and carefully pried the horn out of the creature.
Surprisingly. It popped right out as if the bramblekin’s death had released its hold on the horn. The body slowly disappeared afterwards, leaving only a single copper behind. This was apparently the normal loot if the horn was looted, which just reinforced the common folk’s thoughts about the horn definitely being worth something. Why else would the dungeon reward leaving it behind?
The group carefully cleared out the rest of the surroundings as they made their way toward the center of the room, where Mary had sensed a gathering of the bramblekin, in a loose spiral fashion. They managed to identify and dispatch three more bramblekin, whose thorn horns Merrick collected causing a loss of a single copper each encounter, and a patch of pewlips, tulip shaped flowers that spat parasitic seeds faster than arrows could fly, before getting to the clearing. Thankfully each encounter was painless, between Mary’s ability to sense the abnormal plants and Rod’s ability to dispatch the pewlips from a distance.
Unfortunately, a tulip being assaulted by a barrage of javelin sized arrows tended not to leave much behind in the form of harvests. They did manage to get a few more coppers from the patch of flowers though, which was nice considering Merrick costing them copper by collecting experimental materials.
When they finally approached the center of the cavern, they found that their prey were located in a clearing of sorts. A glade spread out in front of the group, with the mulberry grove seeming to avoid trespassing into the area. Seven bramblekin stood surrounding a ordinary looking squat bush. After getting a good look at the area, the group backed up to develop a plan of attack. Or, if James got his way, a hasty retreat.
