Healing Dungeon

The goblin slid to the ground and a long trail of blood stretched across the floor, which soon formed a small pool of blood. Others in the same tent didn't even notice and continued to snore, oblivious to the danger just a few meters away. A shadow continued to scurry on silent soles and a hand jerked forward, holding the mouth of the next sleeping creature, and before it could wake up a golden shining dagger slid down through the jaw from the bottom deep into the brain and immediately and silently blew out the next life.

A short sigh of relief might have caught the attention of someone alert, but all the other goblins continued to sleep while the creeping shadow picked off one by one.

So it went on, and the first hour after midnight in the goblin camp, over eighty of the worker goblins died silently and without the waking other goblins noticing.

In the second hour after that, the shadow crept further, and it went to the barracks and the soldiers sleeping in it. In the front room of the wooden hut, two guards sat at a table and played some sort of game with an odd nine-sided and deformed dice, while an annoyed grunt or a delighted giggle sounded from one of them every time the dice fell.

The shadow crept on, and after waiting and watching for a few minutes, a shiny piece of metal flew across the room and landed with a soft clang on the wall to the right. Both goblin guards jerked awake for a moment and you could see their ears perk up. "You heard?" One asked the other and received a nod. Both turned around and looked at the silver coin on the floor near the wall. The goblin on the right stood up first and walked over with careful steps, but with visible greed for the shiny silver metal, and picked up the silver coin, beaming with joy. "Hah! Mine treasure! Only my, you nothing get." And spun around to spitefully show the coin to his colleague. Just as he turned around, however, he gasped abruptly as his colleague stared up at the ceiling with a blank stare and open eyes as he hung limply in the wooden chair. Forgetting the coin in his left hand, the goblin was about to open his mouth and sound the alarm when a cold piece of metal touched his throat, eliciting no more than a bubbling sound. He looked around to his right in panic and with his last ounce of strength and saw his killer standing in the doorway to the sleeping quarters of the other goblin guards, grinning contentedly, a gleaming golden dagger in his right hand from which the goblin's own blood was dripping onto the wooden floor.

The last thing the gurgling goblin saw was the human turn and slink off toward the sleeping goblins, while the dying goblin's silver coin slipped from his hand, hit the floor with a soft bling, and rolled away.

The shadow did the same here, and twenty minutes and twenty dead goblins later, it climbed out of the left window through which it had entered the barracks.

In these two hours, the goblin camp had lost over a hundred goblins, and almost the only ones alive among them were those on patrol and on guard at the palisade, where the great green hobgoblin was also located, watching with expectation everything outside the camp.

"Good, this should also help all the other slaves who are still alive and need to get through the portal... Maybe we need more people on the higher levels. So let's go, the air is in, let's go!" Avan spoke to Lea and Nick, while the first of them looked at him in surprise, as he stepped back into the camp tent with a bleeding iron dagger in his hand and waved at them.

The trio swam the few meters over to the stone pedestal and pulled themselves up out of the water, holding hands to quickly step through the portal before someone noticed all the dead goblins and the remaining goblin guards sounded the alarm to hunt them down.

All three blinked as they stepped out the other side, and each of them couldn't help but stand open-mouthed at the sight, their jaws suddenly loose, gawking at the new plane before them.

The sky had a purple glowing star-shaped sun on the horizon, bathing the entire plane in unnatural purple light. In contrast to the previous plane, the sight here in front of the group was alien and unnatural, but at the same time somehow ethereal. As far as one could see, a mushroom forest stretched out in front of and around them, with mushrooms the size of their hips and other mushrooms reaching more than ten meters into the sky. On the mushroom stalks, in turn, were various other types of mushrooms. Each of the mushrooms had different colors, shapes and everything that Avan knew of mushrooms on earth was present here in the craziest colors and shapes. A real mushroom forest surrounded the group of three, while everything was bathed in an unnatural purple light.

"Holy shit. What the abyss is that?" First came a whisper from Lea, who had been the first to step through the portal and had been the quickest to process the impression. "A crazy mushroom forest. I don't believe it."

Avan and Nick also nodded silently, and after a few seconds there was an audible click as Avan suddenly closed his open mouth again. "That's definitely what I call a surprise."

Before it went on, and also what had been discussed before, the three of them had another short talk, and they went forward, in which direction, according to Avan's theory, the center had to be again.

None of them had any further information from now on and everything was new. The location of the portal was unknown, and the best clue was again to find the center of the level, even if no one knew how big this level was.

But what Lea, Nick and Avan had agreed on beforehand in the tent was clear and all three agreed. If they found the traitor with his last paint, they would kill him without hesitation.

A few minutes after the group entered the mushroom forest, an eye as large as Avan's body opened on another part of the plane and stared sleepily in the direction of the three newcomers. After a few seconds of observation, the creature puffed once and steam came out of its mouth in small waves that wafted across the ground, and it rested its head and closed its eyes again.

Avan, who along with his companions was oblivious, had meanwhile had a flash of inspiration when he saw all the smaller and medium-sized mushrooms around him, among which his group was meandering.

After a brief explanation and two nods, he climbed onto the first of the smallest mushrooms and used it as a stepping stone to climb onto the larger ones, and on and on until, after hopping back and forth, he landed on the largest of the mushrooms with his feet and was able to view the entire plane spread out in front of him. Avan was now on top of the forest, and thus on top of the ten meter tall mushrooms at his feet, jumping and running while his friends continued at the bottom of the mushroom forest, and he always kept an eye on them as he looked around more closely.

"If I'm reading the distortion behind us accurately and correctly, then maybe the level is twice as big as the previous one, huh?" He speculated aloud to himself, while he jumped with careful steps over the mushrooms to not lose his grip on the slightly slippery mushroom heads.

So far, no other creature, whether monster, animal or other slaves, had crossed their path, and with a quick glance at his two friends on the ground below, Avan continued to look around attentively. Suddenly he squinted both eyes and shielded them against the odd light from the sky, and stared further to the right into the plain, where there was a small misshapen hill, which was only a few hundred meters away from the possible center.

He wanted to share the new discovery with his comrades, but knew how stupid it would be to shout down now, and pondered silently what it could be, while he caught up again and a short time later found himself again above the heads of his team.

"Cesta, I swear I saw something flash back there for a second! Something reflected that damn purple light over us!" Tried the slave to make clear to his leader, while he looked at him skeptically and let his gaze wander in the direction the man was pointing.

"I don't see anything, man. Did you have any hallucinations or eat any plants here? Or did you have a taste of any of these mushrooms?" Came the gruff reply, as Cesta could see nothing of the sort, except that odd hill in the distance, which gave him strange and dangerous vibes.

He had moved together with his last follower towards the center and they were now lying in wait together on one of the higher mushrooms eight meters away from the bode. On Cesta's belt were two daggers and two swords, while he held another dagger in his right hand and waited patiently for the next unwary slaves who would hopefully cross his path sooner or later. He had already killed several on the previous level and also here in the vicinity and appropriated their things, in order to have better and better chances of survival and to be the best equipped of all. Meanwhile, his follower had only his own sword in his hand and various bags of dry food hung from his hip, while a homemade linen bag on his back contained the water hoses that they had taken from the other dead slaves.

"I think you are dreaming. Now hush, I hear some again!" He hissed to the man at his side and squinted his eyes to look intently in the direction of the sound.

In front of him was a small clearing with slightly purple grass swaying back and forth in a light breeze, which was about the middle of the plain if he had correctly calculated the distance they had covered so far.

On the other side of the clearing, two familiar figures emerged, looking around cautiously, and just as they looked up, Cesta hastily scurried back to avoid being seen, while he also jerked his companion back by the shoulder. "Damn it! I hope they didn't see us..." He hissed sourly and waited a few seconds before he dared to look over the edge of the mushroom again.

He had chosen one of the larger mushrooms, but not the largest in the area, so as not to be seen by others who might also have had the idea of walking across the forest instead of staying on the ground.

An older man and a well-built and muscular woman, swords drawn, stepped into the small five meter clearing and looked around tensely and cautiously.

"Hmm... I know those two, don't I? But where did the bastard by their side go?" he whispered more to himself, earning a questioning sideways glance from his follower next to him, which he ignored as usual, not feeling like justifying himself.

Cesta turned his head to the right and stared urgently at his companion. "You wait here and keep a lookout! I'll climb up and surprise them from behind. Watch out, since that one guy is missing and could be anywhere else if he's not already dead."

Without waiting for any objections, he slid back a bit and crouched down, then climbed up onto the higher mushrooms and pulled himself up. His follower looked at him in confusion, but then eagerly started to keep his eyes open and took a quick glance at the two people whispering to each other, who now seemed to be discussing with each other in the clearing.

Cesta, meanwhile, scurried up the mushroom trees around the clearing and approached the direction from which the two had come, nervously looking around for the silver-haired guy he had on his mental death list. The guy who had dared to make a mockery of him.

"Maybe he is dead and my little plan of minimal sacrifice worked? Can I believe that? Was he really that easy to eliminate?" He muttered to himself as he made his way down the clearing out of sight of the two.

With a thud, he landed on the earthy ground among the mushrooms and crept forward to scout out the best possible angle from which he could surprise them.

Just as he was about to look around the last mushroom tree and keep an eye out for the two, he saw them disappear into the forest directly on the other side, right under the mushroom where his team mate was hidden.

"Damn it! What are they up to? Has he been seen?" With silent curses about the incompetence of his people on his lips, he ran without wasting time around to the left the same way he had taken before, but this time on the ground.

He crept around the last mushroom and breathed an audible sigh of relief when he saw his comrade's toes peeking out from the mushroom eight meters above him, and gingerly climbed up over several mushrooms while keeping an eye out for the two missing slaves so as not to be seen.

He hoisted himself up the last mushroom and crept forward, crouching, directly toward his associate. "Did you see where they went?" He whispered in a commanding tone to his comrade, then suddenly faltered as several alarm bells seemed to ring shrilly in his subconscious. He tapped the slave on the floor in front of him and rolled him around with a brief effort. "Phew... I was beginning to think you were the other guy! Why don't you answer..." And Cesta faltered when he saw the blank look of his follower, who seemed to stare at him as the man came to rest on his back. A red trickle ran down his throat and onto the front of his linen shirt, causing Cesta to gasp as he saw the dead man in front of him.

"Oh damn!" Cesta hissed as he took a stumbling step back, suddenly bumping into something behind him. Before he could turn around in panic, he felt something warm on his forehead and noticed the hand holding his forehead from behind him on the left, abruptly jerking his head back, and a sharp cold pain on his throat, followed by a rattle from his throat and a thick liquid running down his chest.

A cold and grim voice, which reminded him of the rattling death itself, whispered in his right ear as he bled out in a steely grip, slowly drowning in agony on his own blood in his lungs. "In your next life, you'd better watch who you make your enemy..."

And with these words, his body fell forward powerlessly and several jerks went through his body while his lungs tried to breathe with blood in them, and he drowned in the thick liquid and only heard an annoyed snort from the man whom Cesta himself had actually been hunting.

"The would-be hunter became the hunted..." Came the last whisper he should ever hear in his life, and it went black around him.