Chapter 1356 1356 Tough Environments, Angry Peoples

Chapter 1356 Chapter 1356 Tough Environments, Angry Peoples

?--- Marigold --- (Around the same time as Lily is negotiating with the crab)

Marigold was furious, "Why can't I get out of these stupid fucking tunnels! It's a god damned maze down here and I'm sick and tired of it. Sure I can see now that I've got a handy light source and I'm doing alright when it comes to treasures but seriously WHY CAN'T I LEAVE!"

What Marigold didn't know, and Thyme was ashamed to admit, was that the underground section hadn't been set up properly with the teleportation enchantments. A number of entrances to the underground tunnels had been designed to open just as the net started contracting to add in an extra layer to things, allowing for far more sneaky around if that's what you wanted to do.

The problem was, the randomised teleportation setup Thyme had developed looked for a certain amount of connected space. This was to prevent accidentally trapping someone in a small space, or an unopened cave on a timer. The issue was, the underground tunnel system was large enough to not count as 'enclosed' according to the enchantments detection abilities.

This meant that Marigold was stuck down there with no way out until the entrances opened up and could be used as exits. Currently, Marigold was wondering what she was missing. She was under the impression that either there was some hidden switch to let her out, or only a few entrances that she hadn't run into just yet. She was wrong on both accounts and Thyme had been debating if interfering and opening one would be against the rules.

In the end, the deciding factor was that Marigold was doing well treasure wise, technically in second place. She had ten total treasures, though most were useless. On top of what she'd found earlier on, the spear and the miners hat, she had also managed to find a spatial ring to carry it all. A new set of boots, two useless vases, three bracelets and a cloak. It was a good hall numbers wise, even if she hadn't found all of the best items.

So that coral forest? Yeah, it turns out it was a trap. Romilda was now hiding out in the shadow of a rock. She'd stretched her metal of the entrance and was panting slightly. Dealing with that weird stingray thing under the sand had made her complacent. She'd thought that they were the only danger to watch out for.

She'd taken to walking along the ground with tiny metal rakes shifting the sand up ahead of her as she moved. She'd been gathering a good amount of treasure, and killing those ambush predators when she'd come across them. Amongst all of this, she hadn't noticed the real trap lying in wait.

The coral had all been putting off this light dust. It wasn't exactly easy to see, but it was EVERYWHERE and quite noticeable once you'd stopped filtering it out. When it landed on you, it latched onto the skin and then started to slowly inject hallucinogenic. Luckily, for a dwarf like Romilda they were too weak to deal serious damage or cause anything more than blurry vision and nausea...

But that alone was enough that her control over her metal had slipped up. Just a tad. Instead of raking through the sand she'd been 'raking' over the top of it and stepped on one of the damned things. It had speared straight through her arm and while she'd killed it now, only her long trained reflexes had stopped it being a more serious issue.

So now she was holed up, hidden behind a metal wall and picking a bunch of spores off her exposed skin after doing her best to treat the wound she'd gotten. Luckily one of the treasures she'd found was a bag that seemed to contain infinite bandages. It didn't let you put anything else in, but the bandages seemed to have some healing enchantment on them, or perhaps it was an alchemical compound. Romilda didn't know, and she didn't care.

She could feel the wound healing already. In fact, it was starting to itch a bit, but she knew her body well enough to know that it was just at that stage of repair. Give it another few minutes and she might even be good to move around. The nausea also seemed to be retreating. Romilda wasn't sure if that was due to the bandage as well, or if the fact she was no longer constantly exposing herself to the substance was giving her body time to deal with it all.

*Dammit, so much for showing everyone I'm not useless. I really hope I'm not the first person to get hurt. Still... five treasures. I'm not sure if that's going to be enough to win it. Heck I don't even know if that's good progress or not because I've got nothing to compare it to. I should've just been swimming further away from the ground. I was too obsessed with killing those damned things and checking for treasure around them. Sure I found two of my five treasures that way, but I think it might still have been the wrong call.

Gah, I hate this fucking biome. What I really need to do is get out of it as fast as possible but I can't be certain I know where the exit is! I'm probably going to have to just pick a direction and head that way as quickly as possible but I HATE that idea. Still, even if I did know which way I'd come, I'd be treading old ground and not finding any chests. Which has it's own problems. This round fucking sucks! Who's idea was this?*