Health 59/110Stamina 115/115Mana 37/105

  I was worried. For a few long minutes my health had slowly but surely ticked down every few seds, going from a not very healthy seventy something to the low sixties. Now it had stopped and held at fifty-nine for a few minutes, or as close as I could re.

  “Okay, okay,” I said as I shifted to the side and opened my backpack. I found the b I had nabbed from the first floor a down before using it as a spot to sit on. “I’m ready, Mister Menu.”

  Bing Bong! gratutions, your amon Bun css has reached level 4!Health + 5Resilience +5You have gained: One Css PointYou have unlocked: One Css Skill Slot

  That was nice. I g my status as soon as the giddiness washing through me passed.

  Health 64/115Stamina 115/115Mana 38/105

  That was really nice, even if I didn’t feel all that much better. Still, I would take it. Another level, another skill point and another css skill. That st could be very useful if I got something that wasn’t ing or Jumping.

  “ one, mister Menu,” I said.

  gratutions! Through repeated as your Makeshift on Proficy skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!Rank E is a free rank!

  Makeshift on Profik E - 00%The ability to use non-ons as ons. Your ability to find and use makeshift ons has improved.

  “That’ll be handy,” I said as I patted my spade. It hadn’t served all that well i fight, but I was sure that would ge eventually. Plus a spade just seemed useful to have. “What’s after that, mister Menu?”

  I found a jar of honey and a spoon while I waited for the pop up.

  Dungeon Cleared!All adversaries with The Wondernd Dungeoed.All Bosses DefeatedBroccoli Bunch, amon bun, level 4 is awarded the Wondernder css.All css slots filled.Repce current css with Wondernder?Repg your current css will reset your level 0.

  “Heo!” I said as fast as I could. No way was I going to get reset to level zero just like that.

  Css: Wondernder set in abeyail Css Slot bees avaible.

  I hummed as I sidered that. It seemed as if my earlier hunch about multiple csses was right. That begged the question though, how did you get a sed css? Maybe it would happen when I hit level one huhat seemed almost reaso my current rate I would be... long dead because I ran into something scary that gobbled me up.

  Oh well, I thought, maybe I’d figure it out ter.

  Health 65/115Stamina 115/115Mana 39/105

  My health was rising, that was excellent news. I wasn’t going to die!

  My mood somewhat improved, I got to my feet, wing at the pull of mending flesh over my thigh. Pag everything back up into my backpack, and crossing half the room to retrieve my magid was a huge pain it. Literally. But I got everything sorted and took another look at the room.

  There were now two glowing portals between two sets of the stone monoliths. I should probably have noticed those earlier.

  One had a blurry image or what I reized as Threewells, just outside of the dungeon. The other was a hazy image of a small room with a stone pilr at its middle. Atop the pilr, and covered in glowing roots, was an egg of sorts.

  Quest Update!You have found the Evil Root. Destroy it to se the Land!

  “Oh,” I said as I took in the pulsing form. My hand reached out and brushed against the portal, slipping through it without so much as a whisper, though I felt something tingling under my skin, as if I was using my ing spell without actually using it. Funky.

  I closed my eyes and stepped through, then opehem again.

  I was now in a much smaller room, tight, even, with dirt walls and rge, cruel-looking roots crawling across the ground and up the plinth.

  “Whoa,” I said as I moved closer to the egg-thing in the middle. It was too round to be an actual egg, and too glowy ahrough as well. I felt... funny, just standio it.

  Health 97/115Stamina 135/115Mana 275/105

  “Oh, yikes,” I said as I took in my stats. That robably not supposed to happen. No pining about the faster healing though, and I did feel oodles better. I fired an ‘insight’ at the orb, then the freaky roots.

  The Dungeon Core for the Wondernd Dungeon

  An Evil Root.

  “Well, that’s simple enough, isn’t it,” I said.

  I poked the evil root and fired a bst of ing magito it, then, when that did nothing, a stronger bst that lowered my mana down to the low two-hundreds.

  When that didn’t work I gave it a smack with the edge of my spade.

  It didn’t even leave a mark.

  Quest Update!You have found the Evil Root. You are too weak to Destroy the Evil Root. Break the Core ahe Root Starve.

  “That sounds wildly dangerous,” I said to the quest menu.

  The menu merely shifted to the side as if to say ‘there’s the cet smag.’

  Something about the smooth motions of the quest menu, the way it seemed to be more reactive, told me that it wasn’t mister Menu. I was going to call it miss Menu not to fuse the two.

  “Well, here goes,” I said as I poked the core and fired a ing spell into it. If that didn’t work, then it was back to using the spade.

  The magic washed across the core, starting from where my fiouched it, then rag all the way to the other side as a glowing ring before returning. Then, with a gss-like ch, the core cracked. At first just a small little hairlihen it expanded and raced across the surface, like the videos I’d seen of antarctic ice breaking apart.

  Dungeon WarningDungeon Stability Failing.Evacuate.

  “Oh, shoot,” I said as I turail and ran. I dove through the first portal, then almost tripped when the ground of the boss room heaved underfoot. The sharp rocks above, stactites? Mites? Loosened and began to crash to the ground around me like thrown spears and the monoliths trembled.

  I hung onto the straps of my backpad jumped through the portal to the exit.

  It snapped away just as I was about to pass through.

  “Ohhh, shoot, that’s very not good,” I said as I spun around and started running for the tunnel.

  Part of the floor jutted up and I jumped over it, clearing a good te before nding in a sprint. If jumping was faster than running, then that’s what I would do. My sack bouop my back with every hop but I didn’t have time to ditch it.

  I exploded out into the main dungeon shaft to find that the sky above was hazy and ed, like a television with a bunags stuck to it. The walls were tremblioo, loose stotering to the ground with ches that would have been loud if they weren’t peting with the entire woing full apocalypse..

  I bounced from mushroom to mushroom, moving as fast as I could with no for safety because safety was for when the world wasn’t literally falling apart. The tunnel into the time bunny room was broken, part of the floor and ceiling cracked so bad I had to take off my backpad fling in through before I leaped down the remaining hole feet-first.

  Something caught at my ned my hat fell off just as the ceiling rumbled and the opening started to close.

  I reached in and yanked my hat back a moment before the whole thing shuddered to a close.

  “Close,” I gasped before jumping to my feet, grabbing my backpack, and running.

  I took the dder tws at a time a foot in Threewells once more just as the shaft behind me colpsed, the world shifted sideways and a wave of what I could only assume ure magic burst through the air like a bomb going off.

  My knees gave out and I colpsed in a heap, gasping for air like a fish out of water.

  “Hah,” I said. Then anh escaped. “Haha... hahaha!” Soon I was rolling on the ground, not because I was tired, but because the adrenaline c through me made me feel lightheaded and funny and everything was hirious.

  Quest plete!The world thanks you for your sacrifice!

  That only made me ugh harder, even if it wasn’t funny.

  Wondernd Dungeon Core Destroyed!You have gaiwo General Points

  I was ughing so hard by then that I was seriously worried, at the very bay mind, that I might pee myself. My legs were kig the ground and I was clutg at my sides and rolling.

  gratutions! Through repeated as your Jumping skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!Rank C costs one (1) Css Point

  But like all good things the fit of maniacal ughter came to an end.

  I sat up, then dusted my skirt before cheg it for damage. There were a few holes punched into the leather of my armoured skirt, and the cotton of my normal skirt fared little better. My stogs were... pretty much ruined. Fortunately it wasn’t cold out wherever I was. Not pared to bae.

  Stretg as I stood up, I took iown. There were more pnts and such than I remembered, and the air felt vibrant somehow, thick with magic. It was he sky was a burnt e above, fading slowly into darkness.

  I looked down and took in the rge crater where the dungeon had been. There wasn’t much left there. Then my eyes picked up something ying at my feet. “Insight?”

  An ented Cheshire Cat’s Colr, new

  Loot from the final boss, perhaps. I picked it up and exami. The colr was offensively e, with thin bck lines across it and a little pendant at the front that looked like a smiling kitty mouth.

  “Okay then,” I said as I shoved it in my backpack. A thing for ter. Right now I had to... do...

  I looked around, then down to my hands.

  “Now what?”

  A New Quest!Pruning the EvilEvil Roots Remain! Dungeons across Dirt are Ied! Destroy them!

  “Okay, so that’s a ‘what,’” I said. I took a few steps, then paused. I wasn’t sure where to go, what to do. The st hour had been... a lot. Too much even. All I wanted now was my bed, and, and maybe my mom and my dad. We could have a family hug and mom would burn the supper and dad would pin about the enviro and then the price of gas and--

  “Focus Broccoli,” I said. “Focus. You did it. You took out a whole dungeon. You’re awesome. Now you just o... to make friends.”

  Right. That was a goal, one eveer than some silly no-reward quest. I would find some really cool people and we’d form an awesome party and have the greatest adveogether!

  In the meantime, I could check out a few st things iown. Check up on that nice ghost in the inn, look into that one building with the big locked door, then, then maybe I’d spend the night in Threewells o time before hitting the road.

  Resolve all firmed up, I allowed a smile to y fad strolled across the town, cheg in at all the houses I had missed along the way.

  Not much remained of them, the houses he side I had decided to call the North were all in much worse repair, with caved in roofs and walls with holes torn into them. There wasn’t even a ghost snooping around to scare poor level one adventurers.

  The Inn was as I remembered it. I stepped in and looked around, then made my way all the to the top floor. “Mister Ghost?” I called out.

  But there was nothing. My wispy friend was gone.

  On the bed where a corpse had in was now a small ring that looked to be made of bronze.

  Bronze ring of cleared soul.

  I picked it up with a cloth and stuffed it away. I kind of wao try it out, it was certainly id out the way someone would leave a gift, but I didn’t dare put on any sort of soul-reted rings. I had read Lord of the Rings, I knew better. Broccoli would not be a pretty Gollum.

  The sun was nearly pletely down. Rather thaure out to my tiny hidey hole I found one of the less disgusting beds, fired off a few dozen mana’s worth of ing magito it, then flopped down.

  I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the mattress.