The Mage was a bit exhausted after using so much of her Mana throughout the maze, not to mention all of the previous rooms of the dungeon. The way they had eventually discovered worked for them to survive the dangerous maze was for Annabella to cast her small fireballs at the walls every few feet, in order to identify where those emotion-inducing rose thorns were located. When the emotion-inducing rose thorns were found, the Adventurers discovered that if they were able to squeeze themselves against the opposite bush as they passed, getting cut up in the process, they would be able to avoid being struck by the dangerous trap.

  If the maze had been exactly the same every time, this would’ve made it much easier; unfortunately, every time they entered, the way through it was just different enough that they couldn’t easily identify where they had encountered the emotional roses before. When she accidentally missed finding them – which happened more often than not – it was difficult to go on after suffering from the intense feelings from which they would suffer. Adding in the stuffed animals that attacked them, including a large ape holding a stuffed red heart that was strong enough to knock even Garth down when blocking, that all meant that it took longer to clear this particular room than any of the rooms they had encountered before.

  But now it was time to leave. They wanted to see the Boss before they left, because they had been told it was impressive; walking into the room after the maze, which was reported to be empty of anything but a dense fog, they were in high spirits. However, it soon became obvious that they weren’t alone, as Garth tensed up ahead of Annabella and Charvene.

  “‘Ware! There’s something in here,” he said quietly, his shield at the ready in front of him.

  Annabella couldn’t see anything but the thick fog permeating the room, but she tensed up as well, as she saw a vague shape off to her right, leaving a disturbance in its wake as it disappeared. Listening intently, she thought she heard what sounded like muffled wing flaps, but she couldn’t be sure; nor was she able to pinpoint their location, as everything was difficult to determine in the dense haze that was everywhere.

  The Mage thought she heard something behind her, sounding like some sort of *twang*, and she started to turn, a spell already forming in her right hand. It fizzled out a second later as she felt something hit her right shoulder. She was worried she had been hit by something that might kill her, but the impact was more like a weak punch than anything else.

  “I’m hit! Watch out—” Charvene called out, beating Annabella in her own warning, and she heard Garth also grunt as he was impacted, as well. Thankfully, nothing seemed to happen—

  Tears of happiness suddenly spilled out of Annabella’s eyes involuntarily as she turned to look at Charvene and Garth, who were looking at each other with intense gazes. Their eyes locked onto each other’s, they stepped forward as if they were suddenly taken over by something intangible. Garth took the Healer in his arms delicately and bent down to kiss her passionately, though without any sort of urgency. Rather, it was as if they had all of the time in the world and didn’t want to rush the experience.

  For Annabella, she felt an overwhelming surge of love for the both of them, though it was more of a brotherly or sisterly love than anything else. While she had to admit to herself that she was attracted in different ways to both of her group mates, she wasn’t into having a romantic relationship with either of them. Even though she didn’t feel that toward either of them, the bond she shared with them in the shared danger of delving through dungeons was only strengthened by her sudden upwelling of love, and her tears of joy marked her confidence that she wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world.

  Garth and Charvene obviously had feelings for each other, however, and Annabella was extremely happy for them. She had seen signs of it before this, of course, but seeing it on display made her love them even more. It was beautiful; it was right; and it was probably the greatest expression of deep feelings she had ever seen.

  Unfortunately, the entire experience wasn’t one that lasted forever.

  From one moment to the next, Annabella went from surging with love to going back to normal, with trace amounts of the feelings lingering over the next few seconds. Garth and Charvene had a bit more of a significant change, as they opened up their eyes with their lips still locked together, before both of them pulled their heads away with a jerk, blushes obvious on their cheeks even in the dense fog.

  “What—? Why—? Do you—?”

  Both of them seemed to be confused at what had happened. Funnily enough, neither of them stopped holding each other, even as they stared at each other in shock.

  As things were wont to do inside of a dangerous dungeon, though, the mood was broken as an arrow came out of nowhere and embedded itself in Garth’s upper arm, punching through the leather armor like it was paper. Annabella looked toward where the projectile had come from and saw the vague outline of a winged figure holding a bow, but that was all she was able to see before it flew away and disappeared. Whatever it was, it wasn’t alone, as the next moment showed it appearing again – along with an additional two outlines of the same monster.

  “Protection’s going up!” Charvene shouted even as she broke away from Garth, healing him at the same time. Magical shields popped up around the Mage and the others, which was just in time; arrows were shot in their direction and slammed into the shield, which broke them in a single shot. Fortunately, it was enough to prevent them from getting hurt, but Annabella knew they were outmatched there.

  “We need to run; I’m almost out of Mana still, and I can’t even see these things!” she shouted, already running for the entrance tunnel. Thankfully, they had only been about a dozen steps into the room, so it was easy enough to find it, and she heard the others behind her. Once Annabella got to the tunnel, she waited for the others to arrive; Charvene immediately pulled out the arrow and healed Garth even further, until he was clearly out of pain.

  Both of them were breathing a bit harder than the short run should’ve produced in them, and Annabella realized it was because of their proximity to each other. She smiled as she turned away, encouraging the others to follow her as she walked back into the maze on the way out.

  Well, our travel back to the city is going to be a lot more interesting now….

  Chapter 11

  As soon as that first group discovered there was finally something in his fourth Valentine’s Day room, there was a sudden influx of Adventurers wanting to explore it. However, either those 3 who had experienced it first didn’t tell anyone exactly what went on, or they did but no one believed them; regardless, none of the dozen or so groups that made it to his Cupid’s Love room seemed to be aware of the potential for the lovely feelings they would be experiencing.

  To Elmer, it was both amusing and a sometimes a bit shocking to see how they reacted. None of them had been able to prevent the effects of Cupid’s special arrows, even if they blocked them with a shield; it seemed that simple contact with the Adventurers’ skin or a part of their armor was all it needed to activate. Just like the first group, there were many couples who immediately lip-locked to express their love, and even a trio that awkwardly tried to do the same thing (leading to some amusement for the Dungeon Core), but there were also some outliers.

  Quite a few didn’t seem to hold more than a love for their group mates on a platonic level, which was still activated by the effects of the special arrows that hit them. Unfortunately, there were two that, for one reason or another, seemed to hold absolutely no affection for their group mates at all, one being a female archer-type and the other being a male Mage.

  As their group mates were caught up in the feelings of love because of the Warrior Cupids’ arrows, and were immune to damage as a result, these unfortunate Adventurers had no such protection – and his Minions seemed to sense that. Attacked from multiple directions, neither of them survived more than a few seconds before they looked like pincushions, all while the other group members were lost in their love-filled experience.

  Elmer felt genuinely bad about that, because it felt like he was punishing them for not holding at least a little care and affection toward their group mates. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything he could do about that other than completely revamping his newest room and his flying Minions. He would’ve felt even worse if they were permanently dead, but he knew they would be reborn in about a month.

  As for the Adventurers’ progress in actually clearing the room, it turned out that his Warrior Cupids were strong. Being able to fly, coupled with an environment in which they couldn’t be spotted easily, led to very few of the groups being able to even hit them with projectiles. There was one point when one of the Adventurer archer-types was able to hit one of the Cupid’s wings and forced it to the ground, but it was immediately backed up by the other 2 Minions, who wouldn’t allow anyone close to their injured brethren.

  A few deaths resulted throughout all of the different groups attempting to clear the room, but for the most part they were sent packing without success. Elmer was sure they would eventually figure out a way to defeat his Minions, especially when they learned to avoid his clouds of perfume around the room; those in particular had added to his amusement as the Adventurers stumbled around, appearing intoxicated and flirting with their group mates regardless of gender.

  But they ran out of time to figure it all out, because the time limit of that powerful group that had visited a month ago was up. Almost 30 days to the same hour they had left, he recognized the unique armor and battleaxe of the Adventurer named Maron entering the cave where his dungeon resided, quickly followed by the rest of his group mates. They were all there, including the red-haired Mage, the fancy-robed Healer, the archer, and the ninja – and they looked determined. Determined to do what, he wasn’t exactly sure, but Elmer wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

  * Well, hopefully I’ve done enough to entertain them. Do you think I have a chance to survive this? *

  Keebles shrugged. “You’ve made some unique dungeon rooms, I’ll give you that; but I’d say that entertainment is subjective. There’s no way to know until they actually go through it.”

  As much as the Dungeon Core wanted to do something else to improve his chances, he was out of time and resources. He was close to increasing his Core Level again, but until that happened, he was pretty much stuck with what he’d already created. Elmer was as ready as he was going to be, without more time to obtain more resources.

  “Well, it looks like there have been at least a few changes,” Maron exclaimed happily when he saw that the position of the first room had changed. The anxious Dungeon Core took that as a good sign.

  “We’ll just have to see, Maron. You better not have dragged us back here for an extra room or two, because we could’ve been investigating those rumors about a potential Crab dungeon along the coast.”

  The Berserker chuckled. “Oh, I guarantee this will be better, one way or another. Besides, you hate those water dungeons because your spells tend to suck—”

  “Oh, I’ll show you how much they suck—”

  The Healer, whose name was Charley if Elmer remembered correctly, interrupted the exchange. “Ladies, that’s enough. We’re heading in, so be prepared.”

  As much as it appeared the two were going to continue arguing, they quickly shut up and put their game faces on. Even entering the first room, which they had already fought through before, a month ago, they seemed prepared for anything.

  It took them only as long, if not faster, than the last time to defeat the Inflatable Polar Bear, North Pole Elf Defenders, and the Toy Soldier Troop inside of the room. The Gingerbread House and the Ice Castle rooms were equally as simple for them to defeat, as they already knew the dangers and dealt with them with competency and ease. In fact, it almost appeared that they were bored, which he could well understand; nothing they faced was challenging in the least bit.

  Mall Santa also gave them no problem, considering that they had deftly defeated the “Boss” version before. They did seem surprised, though, at the smaller Minion.

  “The dungeon’s Boss has changed, obviously, and this is certainly not the last room. See?” The armored Berserker pointed toward the exit leading to Elmer’s new Valentine section. “I bet there’s a whole new section down there.”

  “You’d better be right,” the red-haired spellcaster responded irritably. The Dungeon Core began to suspect that, as scary as the man with the battleaxe was, the main Adventurer he was going to have to convince he had done well was the powerful Mage.

  * Let’s just see if they like it. I’ve got my figurative fingers crossed. *

  The moment they stood at the threshold of the Valentine’s Day section, the first room of which was his School Room, he could tell that they were at least nominally pleased.

  “Ooh, look at the colors!” the black-garbed ninja woman gushed as she took it all in. The others weren’t quite as excited, but Elmer saw a smile tugging at the red-haired spellcaster’s lips. There was a lot of red present in the room, so the Dungeon Core thought that might be something she’d like.

  “There’s also a very large, very complicated trap in here,” the smaller woman continued, looking over everything. Elmer wasn’t sure what she was looking at, but Keebles had mentioned at one point that some Classes could detect his Defensive Obstacles, which Adventurers called “traps”, and thereby avoid them entirely. “I’m not entirely sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this is a puzzle-based trap. If I had my guess, it has to do with those boxes and the paper scraps on the floor.”

  The Dungeon Core thought it was very astute of the ninja to deduce that so quickly, because it was obvious that none of them had acquired information about his dungeon from the Guild outside of his cave. That could lead to some interesting developments later.

  Maron went first into the room, and when nothing happened, the rest of them entered cautiously afterward. When Elmer’s Dangerous Crush Defensive Obstacle activated, they took the collapsing ceiling and the pit by the exit in stride, ignoring the death from above as everyone but the Berserker quickly got to work looking at what they needed to do with the Valentine exchange cards in the central pile. The battleaxe-wielding man, as a reaction to the movement of the Heartbreakers, closed with them immediately.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of these,” the Berserker said as he stepped forward, swinging his battleaxe in a powerful downward strike. Despite striking the thick steel of the metal Minion, his weapon went straight through the Minion with just the barest of resistance, splitting it in half. As the battleaxe hit the floor, knocking a chip out of the stone (which was impressive by itself), the Heartbreaker stopped waddling forward and froze as its two sides started to separate. Before they got more than an inch away from each other, however, his Minion exploded.

  “Aaargh! That hurt!” the Berserker shouted in anger, picking out shards of metal that had embedded themselves in his exposed skin a short way, including one that penetrated his eye an inch or so.

  Elmer was shocked. The man, whom he had already seen was quite powerful, had basically taken a blast that would’ve entirely shredded any of the other Adventurers that normally delved through his dungeon – and he was just barely hurt! Since he had come to this world, the Dungeon Core had learned what constituted serious damage to an Adventurer, and what he saw definitely didn’t qualify. Even his armor was only a little scratched, though it was certainly chalky, with the obliterated candy hearts that had hit him.

  “Casting Greater Heal on you, Maron – and try not to do that again,” the Healer, Charley, said quickly before a white light fell over the Berserker. The shards that the armored man hadn’t pulled out yet popped out with the healing spell, falling to the floor with a barrage of *tinks*.

  In his opinion, Elmer thought that the Berserker had done a great job, especially since his bulk had essentially blocked any product of the explosion from reaching the others. But their ears probably hurt, as well as being startled by the sudden explosion, so the Dungeon Core thought that was probably behind the admonishment.

  The battleaxe-wielding man, despite being fully healed, hadn’t taken the attack with aplomb. Instead, Elmer got to see why his Class was called a Berserker.

  A visible red aura surrounded Maron, and with a yell, he charged the other Heartbreaker and swung his weapon like a baseball bat, though he turned it sideways so that the flat of the blade was facing the Minion. With a tremendous impact which caved in the front of the metal heart, a feat that Elmer thought would take a hydraulic press to achieve back on Earth, the Heartbreaker went flying backwards through the air, landing about 15 feet away on its legs with enough force to bend them into uselessness, before rolling with its momentum right into the exit pit.

  Out of sight, damaged into immobility, Elmer’s minion sat at the bottom of the pit and started to tick. The Berserker, still quite angry and lacking another target, took to the chalkboard and started destroying it with furious strikes of his weapon, before the Healer cast another spell on him.

  “Calm down, it’s alright, everything will be fine,” the Healer said soothingly, as another white light seemed to suffuse the Berserker. In a few seconds, the red aura faded, and the armored man seemed to deflate a little.

  “Thanks. Have you got it yet?” he finally said, regaining his composure and easy smile. It was a little disturbing for Elmer to see how fast the man had changed. He had known some people back on Earth like that, who could resort to violence at the drop of a hat; but then again, they didn’t have anywhere near the strength of this individual.

  Just then, the Heartbreaker finally exploded after its ticking stopped, but any damage it would normally do was kept inside of the pit.

  “Uh, yeah. Last of them are going in now.” As the group finished up the sorting, shoving the last of the cards in the boxes’ slots, the ceiling stopped coming down and shot back up to its original spot. The pit also filled in, bringing the metal scraps and candy hearts with it, neatly contained in that particular spot.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12