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    Chaney had to wade through the crowd of dungeon creatures to open the hidden tunnel door. He felt a high level of anxiety, especially because the dungeon creatures were agitated and looking for a fight. The raven circled overhead, broadcasting commands at the tide of creatures. Chaney found that opening the tunnel door was similar to breaking a dam and watching a stream drain away.


    Chaney and the raven went to the fields and the oasis next, repeating the commands and opening the tunnels. Chaney had to carry the raven on his shoulder through the acid rain worldlet, due to the extremely bright light. The bandits had left behind most of their tents when they rushed to conquer the underworld tunnels, and Chaney nearly tripped on a few of them.


    In the dark worldlet, the raven declined to fly about in the dark. Chaney didn''t press the issue, since he could tell that many of the vine fruits and the quickly spawning creatures were failing to land on any of the clumps of pebbles. It made Chaney feel sick, but he couldn''t do anything to save those creatures.


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    The boss bat peeked out from behind a thick clump of roots. The bandits were running away, and taking their "crossbows". The bandits had shot and killed the large blue bat multiple times with the odd mechanisms. The bat would have continued the fight to protect the chest of gold, but the bandits had started to hang huge rope nets underneath the vine branches. The boss bat had decided hiding was a better choice than risking a spawn in one of the nets and being captured.


    At the moment, those huge nets were overflowing with newly spawned creatures. There were enough creatures that many were able to climb out of the nets and attack the bandit guards. The boss bat shot from its hiding place to join the attack. It dove from the top of the air bubble straight into neck of a bandit with a crossbow. The bandit died quickly after the bat''s bladed wings nearly decapitated them. The bat didn''t have enough momentum to arc past the net, however, and had to resort to crawling under the press of bodies to saw at the ropes.


    The remaining bandits escaped into the sauna worldlet before the bat could get free, so it squeaked out commands to the other creatures. The swimming creatures worked to ferry the non-swimmers to a safe spot to enter the air bubbles before drowning, then the non-swimmers were ordered to cross into the other worldlets in pursuit of bandits. When the process was established to its satisfaction, the boss bat took a group of swimmers into the underwater tunnels to see if any bandits were close enough to the underworld river for the creatures to attack.


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    Violet crouched on top of the wooden lattice that prevented the giant snake from entering the main worldlet. The vine root tubers rained from the ceiling and the above-world creatures streamed down into the wooden prison. Violet had hoped that the smaller creatures with acid alignment would focus on the barricades, but the prison was just churning as the giant snake''s thrashing crushed the smaller creatures. The butterflies didn''t have much offensive drive in the first place, and the underground environment seemed to confuse them to the point of uselessness.


    Violet frowned as he watched spears stab in through all the barricades to slay the creatures and continue to torment the snake. He took a deep breath as he firmed his resolve to ignore a few important dungeon fairy rules. The fairy pointed at one of the barricades and cast a small acid spray. He continued to cast the spray until the wood was soaked with acid and smoking heavily.


    The wood began to creak and splinter under the weight of dungeon creatures. The spears stopped stabbing into the mob, so Violet figured the bandits had abandoned that barricade. With a blast of wind, Violet smashed the rest of the wooden barrier open. The surviving dungeon creatures surged down the tunnel to escape the crushing snake coils.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    The tubers continued to rain down on the cavern, and the snake continued to thrash in pain, crushing newly spawned creatures who couldn''t get out of the way. Violet crawled across the wooded beams to perch directly above the snake. With a different spell, Violet blocked sound from leaving the cavern--this would be suspicious to any watching bandits, but Violet wasn''t willing to reveal his existence yet.


    "Snake!" Violet called down. "Snake! Hold still!" Violet paused, but the snake didn''t react to his voice. "Snake!" Violet called again.


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    Yrryth could hear the bandits on the other side of the wall. She stood in a closet sized void she had shaped in the side of a tunnel. The bandits had searched up and down this tunnel for days, trying to locate the gargoyle. Yrryth had thought that the bandits would move on, allowing her to sneak out and escape, but they had set up part of their camp in the tunnel right outside her hiding spot. Yrryth rubbed her cracked left arm and once more thought through all the ways this was her fault.


    Yrryth had been harvesting some crops in the fields worldlet. She could usually gather a good amount while she stayed out of sight of the pair of bandit treasure harvesters. Yrryth didn''t know why one of the bandits decided to alter their routine, but she became aware of the change right as a club broke across her back. Yrryth wasn''t a born fighter, not like the boss bot, so she had panicked and fled back to the underworld entrance in that worldlet. She had buried the entrance in stone, but the bandits had found another entrance in less than an hour.


    The bandits left the acid rain worldlet and moved entirely into the tunnels. For a month or so, they were a nuisance that was easily avoided. The giant snake attacked regularly, forcing the bandits to block off the tunnels they camped in. Chaney and the moon cat sabotaged the bandits often, and killed any that wandered into the pitch black tunnels alone.


    The bandits stayed in their corner of the tunnels for months. They had found and maintained access to the cavern under the entrance to the other world, so they ambushed a few trade caravans to exact a "toll" for safe passage. After taking a portion of the trade goods or being driven off by guards, the bandits retreated into the disguised underworld tunnel entrance. After a few months, more bandits arrived--a small army of them.


    Yrryth shook her head as she remembered the constant advance of the bandits. They had systematically pushed their defenses outward to claim more tunnels and caverns. The giant snake killed multiple bandits during that time, but the bandits had built sturdy mobile walls with spear holes to block off tunnels and push back the snake. To make it easier to move their defenses, the bandits began to break down many of the stone walls that slowed and modified the flow of mana through the underworld. When Yrryth''s measurements had shown a dangerous increase in the possibility of vortex formation, she had tried to sneak into the bandit tunnels to fix some of the walls.


    Yrryth had thought that the bandits would ascribe the repaired walls to the dungeon itself, but the bandits had reacted like a kicked anthill. The bandits quickly learned that spears couldn''t do more than scratch the gargoyle so they switched to using rope nets to try and catch her. Yrryth hid in dark tunnels, trying to figure out a way past the bandit defenses. She thought she had found a gap in the defenses, but it had been an ambush instead.


    The troll had suddenly lunged out of the dark and hit Yrryth on the side. Her arm had cracked and one of her wings felt twisted after she crashed into the tunnel wall. Neither Yrryth or the troll were agile, but she had proved faster as she ran away into the darkness. The bandits had swarmed through the tunnels, tightening the noose around her and preventing her escape. When she saw dim light at both ends of her current tunnel, she had chosen to hide inside the stone wall instead of fight and die.


    Anger flashed in Yrryth''s mind and she nearly punched the wall to break out. Fear drowned the anger as she remembered the incredible strength that had cracked her arm and thrown her down the tunnel. Yrryth felt misery follow the fear. She was probably the most durable dungeon creature, so she was the best choice to risk being attacked by the troll, but she had never been in much danger before and no longer had the same instincts as other dungeon creatures. She couldn''t bring herself to face that troll again.