Chest discovered x3!

  Rolling for contents…

  Congratulations Dungeoneer!

  Item: Jeremiah’s Hirsute Solution x1

  Item: Scroll of Parental Disapproval x1

  Item: Blade of Hitting The High Notes x1

  Item: Mirror Of Endless Insight x1

  Item: Base Tier Body Fortification Pill x1

  Item: Diamond Of Confustication x1

  Item: Ingot of Orichaldene x1

  Item: Killjoy Gargant’s Ring Of Virile Enhancement x1

  Item: Potion Of Uninteruptability x1

  Currency gained: 684 gold

  I looked down at the loot from the last chest. I was perched at the top of the final treasure room, my claws firmly dug into the stone. A half-dozen arachnoshrooms bumbled slowly about below me.

  “More shit!” I complained quietly.

  “That ring will be awesome once we're free to get out of these tunnels! You’ll end up huge once you put it on. Well, relatively huge. The rest is good shit, not shit-shit. Mostly. The hair removal tonic is bugger all use to your scaly arse. Most of it is valuable to traders, though. Well, some of it, anyway. You’ll get a nice pile of gold for it!” Kat snapped, finally tiring of my treasure-angst.

  My tail speared downwards and impaled one of the monsters in the dark, curling a little so the victim didn’t slip off as it thrashed while I pulled it up to my jaws. A single bite to the crown of the mushroom part stilled the thing, and I ate my fill, the eight legs dropping off in sequence as I stripped the bacon-flavoured marshmallow away from the crunchy spider parts. By taste and sound, I’d refined locating my prey to an art form.

  Biomass stored:

  43.5 KG

  Biomass required for evolution: 30 KG.

  Evolve: Y/N?

  I clicked no once again. Kat had warned me some evolutions might incapacitate me for a while, and now wasn’t a good time for a snooze. It was good to be full again, though.

  After repeating the process five more times, I had accumulated sixty-five kilograms of stored biomass, and the corridor outside was refreshingly quiet. I belched happily.

  “So that's all the ‘treasure’. What’s the boss going to be like?” I asked Kat. I felt her shrug behind the frill of spikes that framed the back of my head.

  “Usually just a bigger and meaner version of the basic mobs at this level. They can be trickier later on, but for the first floor, they’re straightforward. Should be easy now you aren’t completely blind,” she replied.

  “Still pretty bloody blind here, Kat. Gaze isn’t working; none of the little bastards freeze up. How come?” I asked as I picked my teeth with a spider leg.

  “They can’t see you either,” Kat snapped. “You won’t need it against the boss anyway, you can kick a first level boss's ass. You’re a bloody dragon. How often do I have to say this? You’re a peak-tier monster, dude. Quit being such a baby.”

  I dropped the spider leg down into the pile below me and slithered across the roof, my claws digging divots into the stone. Kat guided me through the tunnels towards my final foe. Spider-legged mushrooms scurried about below me, twitching and trailing me every time my claws cut into the stone to secure my footing on the roof of the cave.

  I extended my head and curled the eye wearing the monocle past the lip of the boss’s door. Kat had guided me to it with subtle and surprisingly gentle sword-slaps to my head. In the centre of the room lay a mushroom larger than I was. It was probably five feet tall, and the cap covered an area of six square feet or more. It was rooted. All the threads, the hair-like filaments that covered the floor of the rest of this dungeon level, came together and joined with its body. It was fixed in place, which should make this a lot easier.

  The cap of the creature was lined with compound eyes that glowed faintly in the gloom, the first enemy I could easily see. A single blood-red ruby sat on the edge of the thing's broad head, facing the door. It didn’t react as my head snaked down so I could take a peek—stoic little bastard.

  I felt Kat tense, her lithe legs gripping my neck tightly, but she didn’t say a word as I slid over the threshold of the door and began moving across the ceiling towards my prey. As soon as I was entirely past the door, the thing leaned back and the ruby started to glow.

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  I don’t know what it was, some draconic instinct maybe, or something left over from my time playing videogames on Earth, but I released my grip on the ceiling. I spun like a cat to land on all fours just as the largest ruby gem on its cap released a beam of energy that cut an inch-deep line into the stone, three feet long, where I’d been a moment before. The filaments on the floor here were thicker and stickier. They caught at my feet and slowed me down as I moved forward, then I turned sideways so my tail could flick out to stab at the ruby.

  Clicking sounds came from the corridor outside the boss's room. Quietly at first, but before I could stab my armoured tail into the ruby, the noise of more mobs coming closer rose to a crescendo as hundreds of spiky feet hurried towards us.

  “Formal complaint, Kat!” I snapped as I yanked at the threads binding my feet. My tail sank into the mushroom parts; the monster had twisted its stalk slightly to preserve the focal point of its ranged weapon. “No mention of mushroom-spiders with fricking laser beams on their heads was made during the planning stage, your highness! And I’m sure you said there weren’t that many of the little ones left!”

  “It’s just a bad roll! You’ve got this!” Kat squeaked as she wrapped herself around my neck, her tiny sword falling forgotten to the side to land in the mycelial web.

  I took a bad roll myself. The ruby had flashed again, and I’d needed not to be where I was in a hurry. As I regained my feet, I found the fungal web I’d rolled across had tied my wings down against my body. I flexed, trying to snap them free so I could fly, but it was to no avail.

  I hopped like a frog to dodge the next blast, moving myself closer, and my tail flicked out to attack. The bastard wiggled his stalk again! A sedentary being was outmanoeuvring me! I left a line across the stalk part, but the laser-throwing ruby remained intact.

  I stumbled forward, the threads from the floor gradually tightening as I gathered more and more of them on each foot, pulling my legs together slowly. Soon, I wouldn’t be able to move at all.

  I lurched closer to the monster as the ruby began to glow once more, and the clicking noises from the corridor had grown closer. In my imagination, hundreds of the little nightmare-fuel bastards were gathering, preparing to swarm in and slaughter me in a tide of bacon-flavoured mushroom-flesh. Tiny, chitinous legs, stabbing down on my face forever.

  Orwell was a pussy, replace that boot stamping a human face into spiky spiderlegs and then you’ve got a really nightmarish future.

  Something small, feminine, and wearing an armoured swimsuit that I hadn’t realised was quite as not-safe-for-work as it appeared when seen from behind shot from behind my ears and slammed into the ruby. As the tiny fist hit, the pair froze in an awkward still-life.

  I mentally applauded my hopeless assistant. Well played, lady, nice knowing you. It was a pointless gesture, but one I could respect. Then… the ruby fractured. Beams of light sprayed out like a murderous disco ball, scoring smoking lines across the stone and the horde of arachnoshrooms rushing to join the fight.

  I flinched as my scales heated when I caught a few stray beams. The damage was minimal, and I hopped in closer once again. Kat fell to one side, her right hand smoking. My tail flashed out at the same time as my jaws struck. Fangs sank through fluffy flesh and pulled back, tearing out a chunk of the creature. At the same time, my tail flicked back and forth, slicing pieces from the cap before stabbing through to burrow into the heart of the thing, piercing the point where the cap joined the stalk.

  I flicked my fifth appendage sideways, like an alien queen splitting an annoying android in half. I also received the same spray of suspicious, milky fluids as the Bitch Xenomorph. In the melee, my monocle was knocked aside, and it fell to the floor.

  I am dragon enough to admit, at least privately, that I damn near shat myself. My tongue flickered frantically as I tried to track the melee. I spun back to where I thought the door would be and threw my highest power glare at the swarm of arachnoshrooms, hoping it might at least slow them, while at the same time, my tail patted the ground looking for my heroine. Throwing herself at that boss, taking out its primary attack… the wee empress had earned my affection.

  My tail landed on something small and lumpy that sported metallic boobs. I curled it around my guides’ unconscious form and backed slowly towards the wall, preparing to go down fighting. But there was a sudden silence. The click-clacking of the nightmare-fuel bastards stopped, and the sound of lightweight bodies falling to the side on the ground thudded out.

  Faint light spread out from the ceiling, not enough to see properly, but enough to alleviate the near-total darkness.

  The arachnoshrooms had all keeled over. I looked down at my claws and watched as the mycelium melted away like candyfloss in a blowtorch. My tail swung forward, and I examined the tiny woman. Her right hand looked bad, blistered and charred. But there was nothing I could do to help her at the moment. I stretched out and bumped my nose against the boss.

  Floor Boss slain!

  Congratulations dungeoneer!

  Rolling for loot…

  Item: Jankilpt’s Emerald Of Oversight x1

  Currency gained: 421 gold

  I laid Kat down carefully on a spot of ground that I hadn’t covered in weird fluids or gore. As my tail uncurled from her tiny form, my eyes flared, the purple glow lighting up the room for a second. I slithered forward and began to feed.

  Biomass stored:

  94.5 KG

  Biomass required for evolution: 30 KG.

  I belched, long and loud. I was rolled over on my back, a few feet from where I’d laid Kat down. My wings flapped lazily every few seconds against the ground behind me, and my tail wagged back and forth like a dog whose master had just gotten home.

  “That was amazing. Kat, you were right. This was worth the cost of buying the floor. I’ve made six times more than I spent, got a load of shitty loot you reckon might sell if I can find a merchant who doesn’t shit his pants–” I released another bacon-flavoured burp, “–when a dragon rocks up. And a couple of cool items. I’m kind of tired now, girl. Think I’ll snooze for a bit till you wake up.”

  My breathing slowed, scaly lids fell across my eyes, and I began to drift gently off to sleep. With a full stomach and an absence of threats…

  “OW!” I bellowed as something slammed into my ear. In an instant, I was back on my feet, a little unsteady due to my distended stomach, snarling back and forth, and looking for the threat.

  “Sleeping on the job will get you killed, kiddo.” Kat was shaking her left fist out to relieve the pain of punching my scales. She had her charred right hand clutched against her metallic bosom.

  “So it’s not just your sword you can smack me with,” I growled, but I couldn’t keep a broad, toothy smile from my face. “So what now, Princess?”