Chapter 365: Floral Dungeon Part 1

It was already getting late in the day when they had finished taking down the guardian to the dungeon opening the pathway forward. The rain that Brook had helped create continued to pour down as the humid rain forest seemed to take over the spell the moment that Brook had stopped powering it, keeping the rain around for what could go on throughout the night. It had been an exhausting journey forcing their way all the way to the entrance of the dungeon and Joshua knew that they should get some rest before heading into the place unprepared. The fact that it had such a powerful guardian at the entrance was enough to tell him that the dungeon would be challenging and shouldn't be taken lightly.

They decided to camp at the dungeon entrance for the night since the area was rather large and spacious for everyone to stay in. The only issue was the rain that would be an annoyance to try to set up camp in. The tents they had were water proof, but if the rain continued throughout the entire night then the ground would become muddy and difficult to set camp on.

Titus quickly came up with a way to fix the issue as he placed both of his massive hands on the ground manipulating plant seeds that he spread throughout the area. They sprouted within seconds and grew into massive vines that started to intertwine and form a large dome like structure that blocked out all of the rain. The plants also spread along the ground forming a floor for them to set things on top of. In the center of the room there was a space that the vines left open so that they could make a fire to cook without any risk of causing the entire thing to go up in flames.

"Well I think this will do nicely as a spot for us to get some rest." Joshua said with a smile before giving a thumbs up to Titus who made his best attempt to grin back before walking off to the side as he shrunk in size so that they'd have more space inside of the structure. "Let's set up for the night in prepare for the tough days ahead. Once we go into the dungeon we won't be coming out until we either finish it or the territory war is about to start. Hopefully the first situation happens if we're lucky."

"We're lucky, but it usually also means that we get thrown in to tough situations at the same time. Though I guess that's what we want in this situation." Adrian said with a grin before he started looking around the make shift house. Everyone looked at the place with interest having not realized it was possible to make a place stay overnight in such a way. Joshua had heard of Amber trying to make something similar in the past, but getting the foundation just right to the point where it wouldn't crumble do to the environment around it was a hard task to accomplish for a basic mage that was still on their first tier of job.

After inspecting the place a bit more and finding out how tough the vines were that composed the house Joshua moved on to setting up for the night so that he and the rest of the group could get an early start on the dungeon in the morning. They decided to still keep a pair of guards out at all times through the night since they hadn't cleared out every single spawn flower in the forest even if they had destroyed the main source. Until they cleared out the dungeon Joshua was certain that it was easily possible for the corruption to grow back and become an issue again.

Throughout the night the group was glad that they decided to keep a pair of guards at the ready at all times. Since the main source of the corruption had been taken out all of the spawn flowers that were still spread out around the forest started sending their spores back towards the center of the forest. This meant that the spores were constantly in the area and the guards throughout the night had to keep clearing them out so that they wouldn't corrupt the plants in the surroundings. Joshua didn't know if the pores could somehow revive the dungeon guardian if they came in a large amount, but based off of the way that all of the spores were headed in this direction instead of all over the forest it was a likely scenario.

By the time morning came and all of the spores had ceased being deployed into the area, everyone in the group had taken a shift at helping keeping the spores away from the campsite and the dungeon entrance. Once they went into the dungeon Joshua had no idea how the spores would affect the area over night. He wasn't even sure if they would be able to come out of the dungeon without a fight if the dungeon guardian grew back during the time they were exploring the inside of the dungeon. He would just have to be prepared to deal with such a situation if it happened, but for now he was more focused on what they might come across while making their way down into the dungeon.

After a quick breakfast and a fast check of all of their equipment the entire group was prepared to dive into the dungeon. Joshua had brought along a trump card that he bought from the system this time around. It was a key that would open a portal out of a dungeon and to the nearest safe area. He wasn't allowed to buy such an item until after they had cleared the canyon dungeon. Apparently the system believed such items weren't necessary until they reached dungeons stronger than the canyon dungeon.

Although this dungeon wasn't at a higher level Joshua planned to use the key if they started to run out of time before the territory war. The key cost a decent amount of money, but wasn't so expensive that he couldn't buy multiple backups. The only issue was the fact that there were different tiers to the key and the more expensive the key the higher level dungeon it would be able to work in. For now Joshua had just paid enough for a key that could work in a dungeon of up to level ninety which was as high a level dungeon as he or anyone in his group would be going to anytime soon. He left some keys back with the rest of the guild members that were training in the dungeon in James Town. They could use it just in case things went to hell during a dungeon run which wasn't likely to happen after they had all been through it so many times.

With everything prepared Joshua took the lead as he walked over to the stairs that were the entry way into the dungeon. There wasn't really anything interesting set up around the dungeon to make it stand out like some of the other dungeons he had been to, but there were several vines that seemed to crawl out of the stairs and wrap around the large hole in the ground that was the entrance that they would have to walk down. The vines weren't moving around or spreading out so Joshua doubted that they would go on the attack in any sort of fashion, but Joshua kept up his guard as he took the first step down the stairs with the rest of the group following closely behind.

The stairs were so long and spread out that Titus was easily able to walk down them when he shrunk down to his two stories tall height. Lilly had put Cinder away, but kept out Titus since he would be able to feel out the plants and sense if there was any danger approaching the group. As Joshua made his way down the stairs he took in the surroundings and noticed that the walls that surrounded the stairs were covered in hardened vines that were hard to see in the darker environment. After a few minutes of walking the only source of light was the slight amount of light that filtered through the trees in the forest and somehow made it into the entrance of the dungeon, along with the small glow that Joshua could see off in the distance.

The dark environment would have been perfect for any sneak attacks, but the further along they went the more time they had to realize that nothing out of the ordinary was going to happen. It took over twenty minutes of climbing down the stairs to finally reach the glow that had started to become blindingly bright. At the bottom of the stairs there was a large entry way where all of the light seemed to be coming from. Joshua held his hand up to shade his eyes a bit so he'd have a better time seeing what was going on in front of him as he made his way into the room.

After a moment of letting his eyes adjust to the bright surroundings Joshua was finally able to take it all in. The room they had entered wasn't made out of stone or dirt, but instead seemed to be completely constructed from all different types of plants. There were sturdy vines and trees that seemed to form the walls and floor of the massive structure that looked to be the entrance of the dungeon. Along the vines were all sorts of flowers and beautiful leaves of different colors that glowed brightly lighting up the entire room.

When Joshua looked up at the ceiling he could see that it was made out of similar things as everything else in the room except for the fact that there was a large beautiful multi-colored flower in the center of the ceiling that stood out like a beautiful ceiling light. The glow from that flower was more vibrant than any other in the room and seemed to be the main cause for the brightness of the space.

Joshua didn't allow the beauty of the room to distract him from any dangers that could possibly be hidden. Plants had been their main adversary since they came to the forest and being surrounded by them didn't exactly sit well with him. He sent out and aura pulse throughout the room to see if he could feel any sense of danger from any of the plants, but that didn't seem to be the case. Even though the plants were filled with aura and vibrant with life they weren't aggressive in any sense of the word. Joshua turned to look towards Titus to see if he was getting the same feeling and when the giant gorilla nodded back confirming his thoughts Joshua new that the area was safe.

"Well this place is quite beautiful for a dungeon. It's going to be annoying figuring out what's out to kill us and what's just a harmless flower." Henry said while grumbling in displeasure as he observed the entire room. "This seems to be just the entrance way to the dungeon. If I had to guess there's probably a trigger to open our way forward."

While Henry was saying that Amy followed a trail of flowers to the center of the room slightly ahead of the rest of the group. She wasn't too worried about danger since Titus and Joshua had given the group the go ahead that the area was safe. The moment she stepped into the center of the room underneath the massive flower on top of the ceiling a loud thrumming sound filled everyone's ears letting them no something was about to happen. They all gathered together prepared to defend each other as they waited to find out what changed.