Chapter 41: All The Small Things

The dungeon was indeed weird. According to the guide, its theme was “Small things large, large things small,” which invited so many “that’s what she said” jokes.

Anyway, Thomas wasn’t going to call the dungeon “All The Small Things,” because then the song would be stuck in his head all day. So he focused on the second theme, which was “swamp.”

They arrived at the shores of a vast bayou. The air was dank with the smell of stagnant water, and there was what looked like a carpet of dark green grass underfoot. Though on second glance, the grass was ankle-high trees with moss hanging off the branches. Each footfall had a distinctive crunch.

In the place of actual trees were giant ferns, cattails the size of skyscrapers that bobbed overhead in a light breeze, and spiky tufts of grass that seemed to loom over them and block out the sunlight.

Something about the tiny trees and the massive stalks of grass that should not be made Thomas feel unmoored, like he was going to be carsick.

This, too, was a low-level effect of the dungeon and one that he had been expecting to battle against. On the guide’s advice, he just didn’t look very hard at the landscape.

Then, of course, there were the monsters. The first wave they expected to run into arrived right on time: They were giant, cow-sized mosquitoes.

The mosquitoes buzzed in a flock straight towards them from the direction of the swamp. Their wings made a high, piercing whine that set Thomas’s teeth on edge. There had to be over thirty of them in this flock alone.

Thomas waited for a moment, expecting to see blades flying from Jo at the leading edge. They had a few seconds, and this was the perfect opportunity to take them out at range.

Jo only stood there with sword in hand, her expression grim.

“Uh,” he said, “you did absorb that shard, right? The one that fires blades?”

The muscles in her jaw flexed as a little of her own frustration broke through the Still Waters. “I told you I have to kill something first. The skill’s powered off the power of blood and pain.”

Both men turned to stare at her for a shocked second.

Zach was the first to recover. “Well, we got plenty of incoming targets to choose from.” He had his quarterstaff in one hand and an orange flame in the other. “Guess the first shot goes to me.” With that, he threw his ball of flame in the air and swung at it like it was a baseball.

It connected, and the flame arced out to hit one of the oncoming mosquitoes. Fire traveled up the wings like they were made of paper, and a bug fell from the sky to land with a splat on the tiny-treed shoreline.

Zach smacked more fireballs in rapid succession and managed the same trick two more times. Then the flock was on them.

The noise of high-pitched wings was so intense that Thomas could barely think. All he could do was step back so they didn’t get in one another’s way and swing his poisoned mace.

The mosquitoes swept down low, presumably to stab them and drink their blood using their sharp proboscis. That put them right in range. Thomas struck the first one on the side and felt a crunch like dried leaves.

These monsters might be large, but they were built light and delicate, and by God were they ugly. Thomas never wanted to see the moving parts of a bug, large and up close, again.

Combat Foresight warned him as one skeeter thrust down with a needle mouth. Thomas stepped out of the way and smacked it in one of the oily-looking compound eyes. It fell, twitching.

Then thin yet strong legs fell on him from above to cage him. Because it wasn’t technically an attack, he’d had no warning. Thomas tried to move out from under it, but he wasn’t fast enough. These were level three bugs and that much quicker than him. He was entangled.

A ghostly image of a proboscis stabbed down. He managed to get his mace in the way to stop it, but that was more luck than anything.

Thomas shouted for help, but he could barely hear himself over the high-pitched whine. It was like dozens of different noise machines were blasting all around him.

But Jo had been watching out. Suddenly, a blade came flying from her direction and slammed into the body of the mosquito. It fell, and Thomas finished it off with a smack from his mace.

He looked around and saw they might be in trouble. More mosquitoes had come to join the fray, and the air seemed to shake from the sounds of high-pitched wings. They would have descended on them all at once if not for the fact they’d get in each others way. Also, even giant mosquitos weren’t exactly pack animals that hunted in a group.

The author’s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Still, they were on the verge of being overwhelmed. They might have to retreat back to the safe room and regroup.

Then Thomas heard something. It might have been a shout of warning, muffled by the high-pitched wings. He turned to see a flash of fire. Zach was standing over a downed mosquito and had fully set it ablaze in a demented pyre. Then, with an effort like he was heaving a great weight, the fire blazed upward high into the sky, then out into a ring that caught mosquitoes in the air.

Their wings burned, and they dropped, most dying from the impact.

Jo quickly ran after the ones still twitching to finish them off. They still had needle mouths, after all, and could be dangerous if they got their freaky long legs under them.

Thomas joined her, knowing that every one he killed increased the chance at a loot drop.

Looking winded, Zach stayed back, though he kept lobbing fire baseballs at the few mosquitoes left in the sky.

Finally, the last mosquito dropped, and the rest were dead on the ground in a combination of smashed, skewered, or burned. The terrible high-pitched drone had stopped.

“Jo,” Thomas called, and when she looked, he gestured her over. She was halfway across the field of miniature trees, but even from that distance, he saw blood running down her sword arm.

While she jogged over, Thomas turned and quickly dug in his backpack. He tossed a level two white mana crystal at Zach. “Here. Don’t want you going volcano demon on us.”