An aroma of ginger and sugar wafted throughout [Floor] 43. Everything looked like it was made of candy and sweets.

  “This is definitely new,” Thesa said, poking at a gumdrop embedded in the corridor wall. “Most of the time I'm not certain if I've been to a [Floor] before and forgot or if the Imitative Cavern changed things around. But this is pretty distinct.” She pulled a piece of the gumdrop free and held it to her nose

  “Don’t put that in your mouth,” Merijest said.

  Deflated, Thesa tried (and failed) to put the piece back.

  Further into the [Floor] was a chamber with what looked almost like a dog house made of gingerbread and decked out in icing.

  “Wait, do you think there are like Gingerbread Constructs shaped like dogs?” Thesa asked excitedly as a dog-sized Gingerbread Tarantula descended from the ceiling on buttercream webbing above her.

  ***

  ***

  The creature pounded on Thesa’s head, knocking her over and producing a shriek (from Thesa) as it began to cover her in buttercream silk.

  As Merijest began to cast an offensive spell, she looked up to see a whole colony of Gingerbread Tarantulas in a complex net. Most were skittering toward Thesa while another was poised about Merijest, Yabba, and the Foxtapus. The chamber ceiling went a lot higher than the demoness had expected. She hesitated momentarily but The Foxtapus’s tentacle tails glowed as it summoned four spinning disks of magic energy which severed the connecting web between Thesa’s attacker and the rest of the colony.

  While Thesa continued to struggle against the arachnoid, Yabba decided it was time to demonstrate a new ability. With a creaking noise drowned out by buzzing, a seemingly endless cloud of ethereal flies buzzed out of its…eye? pupil? face hole? and swarmed toward Thesa’s attacker. They weren’t much help, being tiny flies against a large spider-adjacent creature, but the thought was nice.

  Merijest finally acted, spearing the Gingerbread Tarantula that had almost finished encasing Thesa and firing a flurry of icicles into the mess of webbing above. This brought a couple dozen arachnoids falling to the ground, and unfortunately, none seemed perturbed by the drop distance.

  “We need to get out of this room,” Merijest shouted.

  Thesa nodded from her prone position before using [Dive] to appear in the corridor just outside. She was still covered in a lot of buttercream silk, but it was something. The Foxtapus used the spinning whorls of energy to cut a path to Thesa. Yabba charged toward Thesa as well but stepped one of its little chicken legs into sticky webbing and tripped.

  “Fuck,” Merijest shouted as she ran (flying around arachnoids is a bad idea) past pouncing attackers, scooped up Yabba, and made it to the doorway where Thesa had just finished freeing herself enough to stand and run. They retreated just to the stairs.

  “If we can funnel them,” Thesa said, “we can probably take them.”

  Merijest agreed and with the help of Yabba’s weird fly-summoning ability, they lured Gingerbread Tarantulas a couple at a time to destroy.

  “Who would even make constructs like that?” Thesa wondered. “Are they just a product of the [Dungeon]?”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Merijest said, though she wasn’t sure what more there was. “Too bad they’re empty constructs. A colony of arachnoids could be a pretty useful ally against more adventurers.”

  “Yeah…too bad,” Thesa said, thankful that they wouldn’t be bringing any of the Gingerbread Tarantulas with them.

  ***

  The next chamber was decorated with pillars of peppermint. The spirals of red and white were almost disorienting. At the center of the room, a similarly swirled pedestal displayed an axe with a candy-cane handle and a polished iron blade.

  Having learned nothing from the previous room, Thesa ran up and lifted the axe with her non-dominant hand. “Cool! A magic item,” she said. Luckily, nothing happened.

  “Probably not a great idea to grab stuff without thinking,” Merijest said, still standing by the entrance.

  “Oh…you might be right…” Thesa said. She was holding out the axe for Yabba and the Foxtapus to investigate. “But what if this is like one of those themed [Dungeon Floors] where you need a special item to get through?”

  “There are safer ways to investigate a strange item,” Merijest said. “Didn’t the Convent teach you this kind of caution before sending you into a [Dungeon]?”

  “Yeah, they did. I just got excited…”

  Merijest shook her head and laughed. “You really are just too cute sometimes, kitten.”

  In that moment, the color in Thesa’s face came to rival the red stripes of her new ax.

  “Any idea what it does?” Merijest continued.

  “I don’t have any identification spells,” Thesa shrugged.

  She handed the axe to Merijest who spoke a brief incantation. After a few minutes, she said, “it's called the Menthic Ax. It deals cold damage and returns when thrown. Although…” Merijest hesitated.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Merijest decided (correctly) that Thesa would probably dislike drawing out the reveal, so she tried to get to the point as fast as possible. “There’s a Peppermint Wyrm attached to the axe and when you picked it up, the creature was most likely…implanted…under your skin.”

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  Thesa’s whole body shuddered and kept shuddering. “Ew ew ew ew no no ew no ew ew…” she muttered.

  “The good news is that it's just an egg right now,” Merijest said, this time misjudging what constituted ‘good news.’

  “How do we get rid of it,” Thesa said, shaking her arm like that would help (it would not).

  “If you really need it gone this instant, we could amputate your arm,” Merijest shrugged. “But I don't have the kind of healing magic that can grow a new one. Without some pretty advanced medical spells, you will have to wait for it to grow large enough for removal.”

  Thesa weighed the pros and cons of amputation. This took several minutes.

  “Ok, ok, I'm ok,” Thesa lied. “Let's keep moving.”

  “You sure you don't want to take a break?” Merijest asked. “You seem…on edge.”

  “I'm fine,” Thesa said. She worried that if they sat still too long she would do the amputation herself. A distraction was needed.

  Near the exit to the peppermint chamber, Yabba scouted a small treasure chest behind a pillar. Thesa's testing revealed no Mimic, so she popped it open to find a map of the [Floor].

  “Well this is great,” Thesa said, reading the now-useless warnings about the past two rooms. “At least it will get us out of here faster.”

  “Any interest in checking out the ‘WoggleWumpy Weapon-Storage’ for gear?” Merijest asked.

  “What the hell is a WoggleWumpy? Also, no. No more equipment from this [Floor],” Thesa replied. “Let's just cut right through to the stairs as fast as possible.”

  ***

  The chamber marked ‘Gumdrop Slime!!!’ had been labeled accurately. The walls and ceiling were embedded with dozens of large gummy candy pieces coated in granules of sugar. As the party entered, several of these gumdrops dislodged from the wall and began oozing toward one another.

  Thesa watched in horrified remembrance of almost eating part of a gumdrop earlier on the [Floor]. As individual globs made contact, they began to seep together into larger blobs.

  Merijest watched curiously. Slimes were generally pretty slow.

  Thesa noticed her [Stake]’s nonchalance. “Aren't Slimes usually immune to cold damage?” she asked.

  “Yes, but I can cast some spells with damage types like fire or electricity. Even though my strongest spells are cold based, I have some back ups for cases like this,” Merijest said. “Although, considering the Menthic Axe, it's possible that it is only vulnerable to cold damage.”

  Thesa considered this, unhappy to think about the Menthic Axe clipped to her belt. On the other hand, maybe if she threw it into the Gumdrop Slime, it would get stuck and that would somehow kill the Peppermint Wyrm? It wasn't logic as much as wishful thinking but Thesa took hold of the axe and her unfounded hope, hurling them both at the now singular Gumdrop Slime.

  On contact, a huge portion of the creature's gelatinous body solidified, lodging the axe within, only for it to launch itself out, breaking the frozen portion of the creature's body and returning to Thesa's hand. To Thesa's dismay, it was actually pretty cool.

  “Wait, did you want to befriend this thing?” Thesa asked.

  “Slimes don't neatly fit into the concepts of sapience and non-sapience. I mean, they are not sapient, but they're very different from other non-sapient creatures,” Merijest explained. “I have always wanted to understand the experience of a giant slime mold, but have never found a way to communicate with them. Let's not kill the whole thing, but we do need to get past it without being consumed.” The demoness put her arms around Thesa's waist and lifted into the air, gliding around the disoriented(?) Gumdrop Slime. At the same time, the Foxtapus surrounded itself and Yabba in magic energy, causing each to float across the room as well.

  ***

  ***

  The Maple Sugar Pit in the next room was gross in its own way. At first, it looked like the room was empty with only a large, dusty pit that spread to the walls with small footholds at each doorway. At the first echo of footsteps, however, the head of an enormous creature burrowed out from beneath the floor of maple sugar, its maw was a gaping circle from wall-to-wall with syrupy saliva strung throughout. It wasn't aggressive. It sat waiting.

  Merijest made a ‘hmm’ noise and tapped her chin. “Better make sure of something,” she said before producing a floating ball of ice and sending it gliding across the gap.

  As the ice moved, the creature's maw inhaled forcefully, sucking in the ice and almost knocking everyone in the party off balance.

  ***

  ***

  “Well that's distressing,” Thesa pouted.

  “We may need to investigate the rest of the [Floor] for anything that might help us across,” Merijest said. “I thought maybe I could get it to clamp down on a decoy long enough for us to cross, but…” she trailed off.

  “Maybe I could throw the ax? or my halberd?” Thesa wondered. She really wanted off this floor as quickly as possible.

  “Sure, that could–” Merijest paused at the sound of something across the way. She grabbed Thesa’s hand and pulled her back into the corridor. “Cast your [Darkness] spell on this hallway,” she [Messaged].

  Thesa did what was asked of her.

  Entering at the other side of the chamber, a tuxedo-clad mantis-kin led a seemingly-confused party and spoke, “don't fear the Mawlasses, ladies and germs. A hungry fella for sure, but all he needs is a good feeding from his good friend the Candy Mantis and that good friend just so happens to be me.” The Candy Mantis bowed before flicking his wrist to summon a rain of sugar and lozenges. The Mawlasses quickly inhaled the lot of it and burrowed back beneath the ground.

  Did this guy rule or suck? Thesa couldn't decide, but Merijest was a confident hater. “I've seen this guy before I took up residence in this [Dungeon],” she said. “I should have put it together before. He takes up residence in Imitative Caverns and takes over the whole [Floors].”

  The Candy Mantis conjured a lemon-candy bridge and led the adventurer's to his right where they exited toward the WoggleWumpy Weapon-Storage.

  “Didn't you take over the whole [Dungeon]?” Thesa mused.

  “That's different,” Merijest scoffed. “I integrated with the wildlife that was already here. This guy wants to clear out one whole [Floor] at a time, replacing the natural creatures with his weird Candy Constructs until he has control of the whole [Dungeon].”

  “Well, should we do something about it?”

  “He's a powerful magician,” Merijest sighed. “We probably don't have the time or energy to fight him right now.”

  “I guess the adventurers are probably here for us too so we can't let them see us,” Thesa agreed. “Maybe we can come back later?”

  Merijest was doubtful, but rather than argue, she said “Let's go back.”

  As they turned to retreat down the passageway, a thick peanut-brittle door sprang up in the doorway.

  “Tsk tsk, Merijest. Is that anyway to treat an old friend?”

  What candy would you least want to be eaten by?

  ***

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