Morningwood: Everybody Loves Large Chests (Vol.1)

by Neven Iliev

  “To the left!”

  “Ooorr-”

  “No, MY left!”

  “Wha-? We have the same left, you stupid cunt! DOORYA!”

  At first it thought the seemingly endless onslaught of monsters was a good thing - like pigs walking into the slaughterhouse all on their own. But it underestimated just how many monsters were in this dungeon. Regardless of how strong they were, the Warlock and its two familiars still needed time to rest and replenish their HP and MP. Kora had already succumbed to the multiple injuries and died once, dropping the core she was still hanging onto in the process. It rolled around on the ground near the Mimic. That’s when the chest noticed that its prize had gotten significantly bigger than it had been before.

  “Didn’t we miss our turn-off just now?”

  “No, that was only the second junction, we want the third one! Are your eyes just for decoration?”

  “I can’t see over this fucking ball you know!”

  That’s when it decided to retreat immediately. Dragging the core along was really slowing them down, though. It had to create an opening using the remainder of Xera’s MP in order to resummon Kora. With the demonic forklift back online, they were able to move at a much faster pace.

  “Left on the crossroads up ahead! It’s a hard turn so watch it!”

  “Alright!”

  Kora once again adjusted the course of the ball with a paired punch. It bounced off the cave wall and into the right tunnel, but it lost more momentum than expected. Something that was easily rectified by the fiend’s multiple arms pushing it along. Rolling it like this was a pretty fast way of moving it along, though it was hard to control. She could technically deadlift and carry this thing, but didn’t have the headroom to do that once it got to about one hundred and sixty centimeters in diameter.

  “Master, we’re in the Green Zone now!” reported Xera over the thought link while struggling to read the map in front of her face. “We should be out of the dungeon shortly!”

  “Good,” came the response from the box in front.

  “Are you sure we can’t just leave this thing behind and run?” she asked for the umpteenth time.

  “I told you, we’re bringing the shiny with us! Now shut up and steer!”

  That’s right, it still wanted the shiny thing. There was more to it than that, though.

  [Give it up and become a corpse already, loser!]

  [Do you wish to become the master of this dungeon?]

  [Yes]

  [No]

  The entity on the other side of those messages kept taunting and insulting the Mimic ever since the core had started flashing. Whoever or whatever that thing was, it was obviously connected to this dungeon in some form. Was it the dungeon itself? Or an overseer of sorts? Could it be some malignant being with a secret agenda?

  “Did you just wet yourself up there?!”

  “Just your imagination, dearie!”

  Details like its real identity didn’t matter, though. The important thing was that the malicious box had already shifted the feelings of resentment it had towards its birthplace onto this mysterious presence and was looking forward to getting some ‘payback.’ And since the core was apparently nigh-indestructible, taking it out of its dungeon seemed like the best way of doing just that. This whole expedition had boiled down to it trying to piss off someone it didn’t even know for no good reason.

  Mimics, as it turned out, could really hold a grudge. Even if it was woefully misguided.

  “Turn right here! After that it’s a straight shot until we’re out of this place!”

  “Okay! Orrrrraaa!”

  “I’ll go further ahead. Keep going until you’re out of this cave!”

  “Yes, Master!” replied the two demonesses in unison. One might actually get the wrong idea they were getting along if they saw them like this.

  The speedy arachno-chest picked up the pace even more and, after several seconds of dashing, burst out from the cave and into the wide cavern that served as the entrance to the Litigar Dungeon Complex. It immediately noticed a group of five or six adventurers, huddled around the alabaster-like pillar that served as this dungeon’s Waystone. They all seemed to be staring wordlessly at the bloodied dwarven waist and legs that had arrived without a torso attached to them.

  Well, let’s just say that this particular adventurer’s Portal Key did not quite save them from a mysterious Power Overwhelming-enhanced Shadowbolt. The teleportation effect triggered at the same time as the Spell found its mark, leaving the upper half of the poor bastard splattered on the walls of the dungeon. Meanwhile, his lower body had been transported away to ‘safety,’ resulting in this small huddle of stupefied onlookers staring at it with a mix of disgust and curiosity. And since they were all conveniently bunched up and not facing towards where the Mimic was, it took the opportunity to get the drop on them. It shifted back into its Xera-assisted casting stance and started chanting Dark Explosion.

  “Master! The exit-”

  “Quiet! Busy!”

  It cut off whatever Xera was trying to say and re-focused its attention on the Spell.

  Just as it was about to finish, the flashing boulder-sized crystal crashed into the slightly-too-narrow cave exit. Its momentum carried it through the mouth of the cave, breaking off the rocks and stones in its way and making one hell of a racket in the process. The gathered adventurers all turned to face the origin of the noise. That extremely bizarre sight of a giant red ball rolling behind a naked, well-endowed albino beauty made their brains momentarily skip a beat.

  “Dark Explosion ~♪!”

  Much like the goblins before, all the people gathered there either became red mist or were flung through the air, dying on impact with the walls and ceiling. The dungeon core smashed into the cavern wall hard, finally coming to a stop. The Mimic quickly retracted its Spell-slinging side and went to check on its prize. The extremely hard crystal was partway embedded in the wall, but completely flawless otherwise. Its familiars were a bit further back, having suffered some damage when they burst through that tight opening along with the core.

  “Stop wasting time and get my shiny out of there,” it demanded.

  “Yes, Master!” responded Kora. She seemed to be quite fired up for some reason, which was the polar opposite of the succubus who had fallen off the other demon’s shoulders during the impact. She looked like she had run a forty kilometer marathon despite doing none of the physical work.

  With the immediate area secured and its minions busy dislodging its prize from the wall, the Mimic finally had a few moments to verify the new Spell it had learned earlier.

  [Dark Infusion]

  Requirements: Level 17 Warlock, INT 60, MNT 80

  School: Domination

  Type: Targeted

  Cost: 75 MP

  Range: 10 Meters

  [Effects]

  Temporarily increases your target’s STR, AGI, DEX and INT Attributes by 20% for 30 seconds.

  Your target will be stunned for 5 seconds once the effect expires or is dispelled.

  The stun component of this Spell has no effect on Undead, Demons and Golems.

  A significant boost in combat potential followed by an extremely dangerous downside. The Mimic would hesitate to use this on itself, but it was possible to empower its familiars ‘for free’ as it were. It was eager to try it out, but needed to raise its MNT Attribute to 80 before it did that. Otherwise the Spell would backfire and the resulting magical feedback would injure the Caster. It already suffered that pain breaking through the steel grating weeks ago and had no intention of reliving that experience.

  There was a loud cracking and rumbling noise as the Mimic finished recalling that painful memory. It seemed that Kora had managed to get the ball out of the wall by punching it real hard. If someone were to ask, ‘Did she punch the wall or the core?’ the answer would be ‘Yes.’ Smashing things seemed to be her go-to solution for pretty much every problem. Such an approach would normally be questionable a
t best, but it was hard to argue with results.

  “Good,” said the monstrous chest. “We’re almost out, so let’s go!”

  “Yes, Master!” they replied in unison once more, although Xera had significantly less pep in her voice. She was currently lamenting over her immediate future where she would most likely be ordered to babysit a gigantic fucking ball for no good reason. Just the thought of a boring assignment like that seemed to be enough to make her depressed.

  This was in stark contrast to the Mimic, which was very much looking forward to worshipping the gigantic ball of shiny. And then it walked over the border of the dungeon with its prize in tow. With the link severed, the dungeon no longer flashed with that obnoxious red. The annoying pop-ups had stopped too.

  [You have left the Litigar Dungeon Complex.]

  [Feat of strength performed! You have unlocked a new Perk: Grand Theft Arcana.]

  [All Attributes +10.]

  Oh right, Perks were a thing.

  The box had completely forgotten about them, what with all the running around it had been doing ever since breaking free of this place’s control.

  [Grand Theft Arcana]

  It takes a special kind of person to steal a dungeon from a dungeon.

  Requirements: Remove a dungeon core from its dungeon’s sphere of influence.

  [Effects]

  Provides a permanent boost of +10 to all Attributes every time you accomplish this feat.

  Number of pilfered dungeons: 1

  It would appear that its selfishness and stubbornness had yielded an unexpected boon. The +10 to all Attributes was tasty without a doubt, but finding out this new way of growing stronger was perhaps even tastier than that. Granted, it had no plans of entering another dungeon, but it might end up doing so anyway in order to take advantage of this Perk. Gaining 5 Levels worth of Attributes was nothing to sneeze at, especially considering how slow Leveling Up had become of late.

  Although it seemed that the concentrated mass of mana had two more things left to say.

  [You are now the owner of dungeon core AD-0429-PR.]

  [All functions of dungeon core AD-0429-PR are currently unavailable.]

  [Please establish a dungeon to unlock them.]

  [WARNING!]

  [Dungeon core AD-0429-PR is over maximum MP capacity by 953%!]

  [Catastrophic meltdown will occur in 8 minutes and 19 seconds!]

  The Mimic stared intently at those two notifications. The first one seemed to imply that it was now the rightful owner of a dungeon core. It really didn’t need some notification window’s permission for that, but at least it made things official, in a way. Now all that was left was to deal with that second one. There was just one problem.

  “Snack,” it called out, much to Kora’s amusement, “is a ‘catastrophic meltdown’ a tasty thing?”

  Just knowing what something was called didn’t mean it could understand what it actually was.

  “Huh? What?” replied the succubus. She was aware of the meaning behind those words, but what worried her was the reason her master suddenly inquired after them. Then realization hit her like a cannonball to the face.

  “Wait… don’t tell me the core is going to-”

  *CRACK*

  A tiny fracture appeared on the crystal ball. Rays of white light seemed to pour out of that tiny gap.

  “Not tasty!” she yelled out immediately. “Master, that core is very much not tasty! We should get rid of it! No, we have to run away from it at full speed!”

  “Don’t wanna. It’s my shiny!” came the selfish reply one would expect out of a toddler.

  “Look, Master, that core is going to explode. It’s going to blow up and none of us will survive! Being alive is much tastier than having a big shiny thing, right?!”

  It didn’t deny her outright this time and pondered her words. A certain invisible presence that was the cause of this situation would do well to take notes here. This was the proper way to negotiate with a Mimic. Except that it was taking its sweet time deciding, which made Xera a bit nervous. No matter how much it wanted to keep the shiny, surely it didn’t want to be killed for it, right?

  “Hey bubble-boobs,” whispered Kora. “Why are you so insistent with this? If the Master bites it we get to run off and do what we want, right?”

  “You know that box has a lot more HP than either of us, right?” she whispered back. “Do you honestly think our bodies would survive a blast that it could not?”

  “How strong a boom are we talking about here?”

  “Only dust will be left behind. And that’s if we’re lucky.”

  Kora crossed her arms in front of her chest and closed her eyes. One could practically hear the rusty gears springing to life inside her head.

  No master means no contract. No contract means I get to play around all I want. That’s good. But dying sends me back to the Beyond. I can’t be summoned back unless I have a contract. Which means that if both of us die at the same time…

  “Master!” she blurted out after reaching the painfully obvious conclusion. “We should get rid of that glowy thing right now!”

  “Okay,” it responded.

  It wasn’t actually torn between life and shiny, despite appearances to the contrary. It was just lamenting having to let go of this thing after going through so much trouble to secure it, but there was no way around it. At first it wasn’t sure if Snack was telling the truth, but that whispered conversation with Arms showed she was acting out of self-preservation. It was an instinct the Mimic was very supportive of. Therefore, it would listen to its familiars this time and do as they suggested.

  It just had one major problem.

  What do I do with it?

  [WARNING!]

  [Dungeon core AD-0429-PR is over maximum MP capacity by 953%!]

  [Catastrophic meltdown will occur in 7 minutes!]

  Whatever it was going to do, it needed to do it fast. It could always roll it back into the dungeon, but that idea didn’t sit right with it. Sure it might be able to blow this place up and destroy it, but that annoying pop-up might be able to reclaim the core somehow. Perhaps that’s what it was expecting? But if not the dungeon, then was there any other place nearby where it could-

  “Ah!” it exclaimed. “Arms, get the shiny outside! Fast!”

  The three of them went out of the cavern and into the open air. It was already past noon, as evidenced by the sun’s position in the sky. It seemed its little dungeon crawl had taken quite a bit of time.

  The Mimic looked along the dirt road that led towards the nearby city of Monotal. There were a few figures moving along it in the distance, obviously traveling between that place and the dungeon.

  But that’s not what was important. The road itself was flat, mostly straight and on a downhill slope that went pretty much all the way to the city.

  “Arms, push the shiny down that road! Give it to that big place with the walls!”

  “Huh?” replied Kora, dumbfounded. She had no idea what her master was going on about.

  Xera, however, immediately caught on. Her face adopted an expression that seemed to say ‘Oh, I see!’ louder than any words could. Dumping the dangerous thing on the humans was a perfect way of getting rid of it. How come she didn’t think of that? It was honestly a little annoying to be outsmarted by that blasted box. Still, this was an idea she liked a lot.

  “Allow me to guide her to the city, Master,” she offered.

  “Okay. Arms, follow Snack’s lead!”

  “Pfft! Ahem Yes, Master!”

  The red-skinned fiend pushed the core down the road while the succubus took to the skies to keep from falling behind. Using her wings at high speed inside that narrow dungeon was tantamount to suicide, but out here she could soar as high as she wanted.

  Their master watched them depart on their assignment for a few seconds before it started running in the opposite direction. There was no telling how big that explosion was going to be, but judging from how much mana it soak
ed up it was easy to tell it wasn’t going to be a small one. Therefore, putting as much distance between itself and that orb was the obvious thing to do. Just like Xera had pointed out, nothing is tastier than being able to stay alive!

  It ran through the forest. It went up some hills and down others, around rocks and trees. A river was forded at some point. A few wild animals and monsters were gobbled up along the way.

  [Proficiency level increased. Biomass is now Level 3. All Attributes +1.]

  Okay, it was more like a few dozen wild animals and monsters, but right now wasn’t the time to argue semantics.

  [WARNING!]

  [Dungeon core AD-0429-PR is over maximum MP capacity by 953%!]

  [Catastrophic meltdown will occur in 2 minutes!]

  “Snack, what’s going on over there?” it inquired through the thought link.

  “We’re coming up on the gates now, Master. We’re going to try to force our way through.”

  “Huh? Inside the walls?”

  “Yes, it’ll do more damage if we bring it closer to the middle of the city.”

  That was true. Dark Explosion was a Spell that had to be aimed in such a way so that it hit as many things as possible. The scale of this core meltdown was likely to be much larger, but the same logic applied.

  [WARNING!]

  [Dungeon core AD-0429-PR is over maximum MP capacity by 953%!]

  [Catastrophic meltdown will occur in 60 seconds!]

  It contemplated such things while it made its way through the wilderness. After a short while, it got a rather sudden update.

  [Your familiar has been banished.]

  Xera had been done in, likely by the city’s defenders.

  “Arms, what’s going on?”

  “ORRA! Oh, Master! DORRYA! We got past the wooden gate with brute force but-ORA ORA ORA ORA! - there are too many humans!”

  “Keep them busy for a while longer.”

  “Hahaha! Gladly!”

  The Mimic ended up bursting through the treeline and onto a small clearing. There was a lone road along a small cliff that gave it a clear, unobstructed view towards the walled-off city in the distance. Several streaks of black smoke were visible, probably a result of that pyromaniac Pyromancer’s magic.