The Primal Hunter

It didn’t get better. Jake had hoped that the second floor would be less mushroomy, but it wasn’t to be. In fact, there were even more mushrooms, and some of them were even aggressive and attacked them. Mushroom Man Mages had also been added to the list of enemies, usually wandering with their warrior kin.

The second floor ended up proceeding much like the first. Jake hadn’t even needed any materials gathered by others from the first floor, and he and Draskil had ended up just having a mushroom feast prepared by Irin, who shared that she had a skill related to cooking. Why would a succubus have a skill related to cooking, one might ask? Jake didn’t truly know, but he did know that he and Draskil both liked her better after she began making their mushroom meals far tastier. Perhaps she had only become a cook to integrate herself with others not only through social interactions but through their stomachs. A truly insidious strategy that Jake was totally fine with.

Anyway, the second floor was also rather dull. All it required was for the party to kill at least two hundred mushroom men and craft at least three different resource-restoring potions using the materials found in the dungeon. Jake once more did all the crafting while Reika got some combat done with an already tired-looking Bastilla joining in.

Draskil was just wandering about eating stuff, and Jake did see him at one point juggle three Mushroom Man Warriors in boredom. No, not juggle in the figurative sense but the literal one as he tossed them up in the air before catching them again.

On a side note, then Jake and the others also finally found the exit to the dungeon. Inside every passageway leading to the next floor was an exit that could be used, but it was only available in the passageway. If anyone entered the next floor, the exit would cease to function, and one couldn’t go back to earlier floors once one had been successfully passed.

The third floor was once again more of the same, but at least there was something more than mushrooms present. Several flowers and plants had begun to grow together with the mushrooms, and one part even had a small lake with water plants inside. The challenge on the third floor was to craft a poison using the lake water. The poison itself had to retain all the toxic effects of the lake water but without any of the restorative properties. In essence, it was a test of purification rather than true crafting. There was one small snag, though – the water had to also increase in potency enough to be recognized as a common rarity poison.

By default, the water was of inferior rarity, and if the restorative effects were removed, it was questionable if it would even qualify as an item. This floor was the first time Reika proved her skills as she quickly figured out a way to distill the water, and Jake quickly realized that if he then just added some mushrooms also present on the floor, he would be able to make it.

On this floor, Bastilla also had to stop joining in on the combat or at least only fight with Reika. Reika herself was also struggling as the mushroom men got stronger, and the mages and warriors now also had something called defenders, which carried two mushroom shields.

Ah, not that there was any cause for concern if they could pass the floor or even subsequent ones. Draskil still ripped every single opponent apart with ease, and Jake had only killed a few himself who got in his way, all of them with only a few moves with his two katars.

From the fourth floor, the dynamic became more how they initially planned to do the dungeon. Draskil was in charge of the killing, with Bastilla primarily dismantling the corpses using skills Jake had never seen before. Usually, any creature killed only dropped its core or one other item, but Bastilla could dismantle a corpse and gain far more. Using her skills, most parts of the creature would turn into items of some variety, but her greatest ability was how she could redirect the Records of a slain creature. She could change it so that rather than the orb storing all the energy, it would instead enter another or several other parts of the body. Sure, crafters could already infuse cores into materials from a monster, but Bastilla didn’t just infuse the core into something – she infused the whole damn corpse. It was a bit weird seeing an entire mushroom man be reduced to a small piece of white mushroom flesh teeming with energy, but who was Jake to argue with system rules?

Reika and Jake also began to team up from the fourth floor and did all the alchemy. The challenges got quite a bit more complicated, and it was clear that the fourth one had a spike, likely due to being the last required floor one had to pass to complete the dungeon.

Oh yeah! The fourth floor also had a boss. Mushroom Man Commander. It was a bigger than usual mushroom man surrounded by many other mushroom men. Jake needed a piece from the boss to pass the floor, so he had Draskil be nice and not destroy the mushroom too much so Bastilla could still use her skills properly on it.

Needless to say, nothing seen so far could even touch Jake or Draskil. The Mushroom Man Commander had only been level 185 and wasn’t even that strong of a D-grade. Jake could likely have killed it with one well-placed Arcane Powershot and one hundred percent killed it with an Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter. Draskil also only needed a few moments to kill it with his claws.

Jake had yet to really see how Draskil fought even after going through the floors with him. Seeing the dragonkin kill mushroom men by swiping his claws casually didn’t give much insight, but at least did let Jake know Draskil was a melee fighter. Granted, Draskil didn’t know Jake’s fighting style either, as he had yet to pull out his bow.

Even if the fourth floor was a bit more difficult alchemy-wise than those prior, it still only took Jake and Reika a few hours to find out how to properly combine the Lifecore from the boss monster with the other ingredients. This floor was primarily made hard by only having one real shot at succeeding with the Lifecore, but at least they could practice the craft with lesser Lifecores from the other mushrooms before the real attempt. On the note of crafting, then Jake was the one doing all of the actual alchemy, with Reika taking more of an advisory role. She did still do some crafts, but it was only exploratory ones to figure out stuff for Jake to reference.

Only a bit over twenty-four hours after entering the dungeon, they stepped foot in the passageway to the fifth floor, having officially “completed” the place. They all stopped as a system message appeared before all of them.

You have successfully passed four floors and have officially completed the dungeon.

However, if the quest ends here or not is up to you. Five more floors await you as you delve deeper into the Indigo Caverns, with challenge and opportunity growing hand in hand. Perhaps you may even see what dwells at the bottom of the caverns and obtain the true reward…

Do you wish to continue delving into the Indigo Caverns?

“I must admit… we got here faster than expected,” Irin said, shaking her head in slight disbelief. “I had estimated it would take us around two days, maybe closer to three.”

Jake had to agree with her assessment… shit had been easier than expected. Granted, it would have taken him a bit longer if he was alone, but Jake could have definitely passed the place solo in between two and three days easily.

“Well, we do have two absolute monsters here,” Bastilla muttered.

“Yeah, Reika and Irin are damn beasts at what they do!” Jake agreed, failing to hold himself back from making a joke. The two of them had been incredibly helpful, but it was obvious that the two main contributors had been Jake and Draskil. However, one should not discount the absolutely essential job Irin had.

She made mushrooms actually edible. The succubus did complain at one point about being reduced to a cook but still kept making mushroom feasts nonetheless. Okay, calling it cooking was maybe a bit much as all she did was season the mushrooms. Ah, but it was special seasoning. Not only did it make the mushrooms taste better – it had synergy with Palate of the Malefic Viper.

It made the knowledge obtained more… digestible and allowed Jake and Draskil to absorb it faster. It was a small and near-negligible effect, and the true worth was in making the mushrooms edible, but it was something. Not that the two of them would have cared if all her seasoning did was make mushrooms somewhat taste good as that was sure as hell a requirement because the god damn mushroom nightmare continued floor after floor, only getting worse.

On the note of eating copious amounts of mushrooms, Jake learned that while Draskil was not an alchemist, he still kind of was? He didn’t concoct poisons the usual way but instead told Jake how he made it inside his body. He had what could almost be called an organ where he cultivated poisons using Palate and pretty much crafted toxins for him to use on his claws, fangs, and even to refine his blood.

Draskil thus needed to also eat a lot of poisons to both expand the scope and depth of his poison. Jake could only imagine the nightmare if he was the only one eating all that Irin prepared, so he was glad to have someone to share the pain with.

“Are we going to keep up the pace?” Reika asked, ignoring Jake’s “praise.”

“Yes,” Draskil just stated.

Jake shrugged. “The big bad dragonkin has spoken. I want to reach this final C-grade boss too.”

“Will we actually fight it?” Bastilla asked with a bit of worry.

Draskil and Jake both looked at her and answered in concert. “Yes.” “Yeah.”

They had both killed C-grades before – well, Jake had killed one – so not trying to at least fight it would be silly. Irin had even mentioned how it was weak, so it would be a shame not to.

Having decided to continue, they entered the fifth floor after all agreeing to continue. The system prompt was not really a vote but more just an opportunity to leave, and Irin explained that if anyone did choose to exit, they could get their rewards then and there and be out. The rest of the party could still continue.

This floor was more of the same, even if the difficulty had spiked. Jake decided to finally join in on the action and helped kill some foes as they now had to slay five hundred mushroom men to proceed and craft a weird type of poison Jake had never come across before. A poison that seemed to erode water somehow. Not absorb it, but just make it disappear. It was weird, but Reika came in clutch again and helped find a solution, making the fifth floor take only around ten hours total.

Sixth floor? Same shit, more mushrooms. Took them twenty-two hours as the alchemy challenge was actually quite hard.

The seventh floor was next, but this one was at least different… in a bad way. It was a fucking water level with mer-mushroom men, which looked exactly as abominable as one can imagine. This floor was by far the hardest, and everyone hated it, even those who didn’t carry the justified hatred of mushrooms Draskil and Jake did.

Irin complained about her magic feeling weaker and her wings getting soggy, Reika hated how her ice magic sucked in water, Bastilla how she had fur and how she wasn’t made for swimming, and Jake because he was a sane human being who knew water levels sucked.

Draskil though… Draskil didn’t really hate the water. No, he was more just uncomfortable. Jake wondered why but it got worse as time passed, and Jake finally realized after about half an hour. He was terrified. Jake felt legitimate fear from the mighty dragonkin as he swam in the underground cavern full of water. There had to be a story there, but Jake didn’t want to pry. There was a time and a place for everything, and an underground cavern where the likely stronger than him dragonkin was already on edge was definitely not that time and place.

They still passed the dungeon, but it took a grueling two days and three hours. The poison they had to craft was also just a god damn nightmare to make. They had to make a bloody fire affinity poison using only water and earth affinity mushrooms found in the water. This was all while getting chased by horrifying mushroom men with squiggle tails and octopus-like tentacle arms trying to kill them.

Passing the gate to the eighth floor, they all took a small breather in the passageway. They dried off and decided to make camp for the first time there and then to all recover. They had just been running on potions and not really expending any resources due to how easy it was on all the prior floors, but the seventh water level had been hell.

Irin took out a massive party tent of sorts that barely fit in the rather large passageway and pulled out furniture to allow them to sit down and relax.

“I fucking hate water levels,” Jake muttered as he sat on a couch in the large tent. He got a few approving nods as Irin asked inquisitively.

“Oh, you got a term for these kinds of challenges?”

“Yeah, that term is called shitty design. At least I tend to view them as proof the creator of the game ran out of good ideas and just decided to make something shitty to pad the time. I guess the creator of this dungeon wanted to spice things up and added a water level but ended up just making this dungeon go from a mushroom-filled hellhole to a soggy and wet mushroom-filled hellhole,” Jake said only half-jokingly. Not even half-jokingly… maybe quarter-jokingly.

Irin stared for a moment before regaining her composure and smiling. “I am sure the previous floor was well-thought-out. Knowing how to adapt to a new environment is an important trait that the dungeon creator wanted to teach us.”

“Sure. Doesn’t mean it didn’t suck,” Jake countered, getting a reluctant nod in return.

“I will need to go meditate for a while,” Reika added in with a sigh after their useless quipping about water levels. “Just wake me up once everyone is ready. I should be able to manage either way.”

“Same… for the meditation part, not the manage either way part,” Bastilla also said, a bit downtrodden.

Irin nodded. “I shall rest too. Please do not hesitate to wake me.”

Jake nodded at them before finally turning his attention to Draskil, who had taken a seat on the ground, just staring out into space. He had been very mute for a long while. In fact, he had barely spoken during the floor at all and only now seemed to relax, making Jake decide this was the time and place.

Putting up a quick barrier so only the two of them could hear, he asked the dragonkin:

“You okay, mate?”

The dragonkin looked at him instantly, his eyes filled with bloodlust. “What?”

Jake didn’t feel intimidated but just shook his head. “If you want to talk, just talk. If you don’t… then don’t. Just wanted to let you know that if you want to, we are both here, and I am at least decent at listening.”

Draskil didn’t say anything but just turned his gaze away and stared into the wall of the tent. About a minute passed before he spoke.

“Water brings death,” he began as Jake soon learned an excellent reason for aquaphobia.