Their exits cut off, Thesa and Merijest spun around, now face-to-face with the Candy Mantis, who was floating near the center of the room.

  “Barmoletz,” Merijest scoffed. “So you got run out of another [Dungeon] and you think this ecosystem is up for grabs?”

  “Backwards, you’ve got it, dear,” the tuxedo-clad mantis-kin said with a sweeping gesture. “Take your eyes away from the looking glass and see that I am thriving. My previous [Dungeon] was a smashing success. Still is, by the way. You’ve caught me in the middle of a brand new venture. I’m expanding into a second property.” He twiddled his raptorial fingers, tapping them together.

  This guy talks more than me, Thesa thought.

  Merijest rolled her eyes. “Congratulations,” she said sardonically. “We’ll just be on our way.”

  “Tsk tsk tsk,” the Candy Mantis clicked. “I simply must give you a tour. My renovations have only just begun but I have a vision, you see.”

  From off in the WoggleWumpy Weapon-Storage, the sound of shouting adventurers echoed.

  Barmoletz continued, “You’ve hardly seen half of the [Floor], my dear friend.” He gestured to the axe on Thesa’s belt. Then he broke into a mid-air cartwheel and said in a sing-song voice, “Here at the Sweet Sector, surprises simultaneously silly and scrumdiddly surround the smart sellsword so start seeing the stupendous and simply savor the sights!”

  The shouting in the next room stopped.

  Thesa [Messaged] Merijest, “What do we do? Is he just going to drop us in the Mawlasses?”

  “That would be too simple. The melodrama is more than an act. He’s actually just like that. This is definitely a trap, but it will be more dramatic.”

  “But why have a giant gaping maw if you’re not going to throw people in it?”

  “Because he thinks it makes him unpredictable. Just follow along and wait for my signal.”

  “Very well,” Merijest sighed. “Show us the rest of the [Floor].”

  “Delightful!” The Candy Mantis said, landing on the ground beside the party as he conjured another bridge toward the WoggleWumpy Weapon-Storage. Yabba and the Foxtapus followed with wariness written all over their cautious steps.

  “What exactly is a WoggleWumpy?” Thesa asked. She wasn’t super excited about going through more rooms considering everything that had happened on this [Floor] already, but she trusted Merijest’s judgment and did her best to swallow the mix of fear and disgust that gurgled up at the mere possibilities.

  Merijest’s eyes tightened in anticipation of whatever nonsense reply Barmoletz would come up with.

  “You’ve never heard of WoggleWumpies??!” The Candy Mantis put hands to cheeks in exaggerated shock. “Why, they’re only the scrummiest yumbos you’ve never tried!”

  The large chamber was stocked with rows of strange equipment on racks. Each item was brightly colored and shiny. “Is it like a fruity candy?” Thesa asked.

  “Are WoggleWumpies not a thing in ItherBeau?! That shocks my knocks out! No wonder your country has all those problems.” The Candy Mantis rose into the air again and without warning, burst into song. As he did, dozens of little goblin-sized candy creatures crawled out from various nooks and crannies throughout the room to provide harmony.

  “Noooooo,” Merijest cried to no avail.

  The song was clearly about WoggleWumpies, but offered little in the way of clarification about what exactly constituted one. For a moment, Thesa wondered if the dancing constructs were, in fact, WoggleWumpies, but in the course of the song she did learn they were called ‘Clumgums.’ The Candy Mantis and his Clumgums would appear beside Thesa or Merijest before quickly showing up across the room or vice-versa.

  ***

  ***

  One Clumgum lifted Yabba and spun with the Nest Walker.

  A pair of Clumgums took Thesa by either arm and led her on a walk through the aisles of candy weaponry.

  “Scrummy a-and yummy! It’s truuuuuuue!” Barmoletz belted. Merijest hoped it might be the end of the song, but after a grand pause, the song continued at full blast, vamping on the same chorus again and again and again.

  As Thesa was led around another aisle of weaponry, she caught sight of a crawlspace in the back wall of the room where she could see someone struggling.

  “I think they got one of the adventurers in here,” she [Messaged] the demoness. “And I think I’m being led there right now!”

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  “Hang on. I’ll try to get you out of here. We’re in an unfavorable position with all these things around. If this fails, we start swinging,” Merijest replied.

  Before Thesa could ask what ‘this’ referred to, Merijest started dancing? Thesa could only see if she craned her neck, but the grace the demoness usually showed in combat was completely absent. The woman had basically no rhythm. She was moving her arms in an incomprehensible pattern and kicking as she flapped her wings into the air and hovered toward Thesa.

  The Candy Mantis appeared delighted at the [High Devil]’s sudden…kinesthetic outburst. He didn’t even seem to mind when Merijest plucked Thesa out from the grip of his creatures, pulling her in for a clumsy, midair waltz to a song in 4/4 time.

  Confetti burst from the ceiling as the song came to an explosive finale with Barmoletz doing several somersaults and flips through the air and a kickline with his Clumgums.

  Merijest, relieved, brought Thesa back to the area near the entrance.

  “Wait, where is Yabba?” Thesa asked in a panic before seeing her [Minor Familiar] surrounded by a swarm of flies, chasing a horrified Clumgum. This too, did not seem to bother The Candy Mantis.

  ***

  In the chamber labeled ‘HazelKnut Hovel’ on the map, the Candy Mantis showed off a row of three mounted armor sets on a raised platform. Every piece, from the helmets and pauldrons to the greaves and gauntlets, appeared to be carved from the shells of giant hazelnuts. Each set was completely still, but Thesa and Merijest both prepared for them to spring to life and reveal hidden blades of hard candy or some other ridiculous implement.

  “We arrive now at the humble home of the HazelKnuts,” Barmoletz announced, stepping onto the platform.

  Through gaps in the armor of the closest HazelKnut, Thesa could see a sort of scaffolding. She hoped this was a sign that the HazelKnuts would not spring to life and start swinging swords around. Although, they didn’t seem to be armed.

  After a beat, the Candy Mantis continued, “I take it from your lack of questions that everyone in the audience is already familiar with the HazelKnut Hovel’s very own Nutty Number Jam Band?”

  Merijest’s eyes were becoming exhausted from all the rolling, but she managed all the same.

  The Foxtapus seemed particularly off-put by something in this room, teeth bared and unwilling to step past the threshold without prodding.

  “Not to worry, dears,” Barmoletz explained. “The less enlightened among us might fear the candy-matronics, but rest assured, they’re completely safe.

  “What’s a–” Thesa began, but was cut off by whirring noises as the trio on stage took to stilted movement. A grainy song began playing from…somewhere? Then from under the stage, a set of instruments rose up in front of each of the ‘candy-matronics’ and they began to ‘sing’ via the obviously pre-recorded musical number.

  Thesa felt strangely charmed by the Nutty Number Jam Band. One HazelKnut (named ‘Pistachio’ according to the song) slowly mimed hitting a drum set. To its right, another HazelKnut (‘Almond’) ‘strummed’ a guitar, and the one at the front (‘Pecan’) ‘held’ a saxophone. Thesa wasn’t sure how Pecan could be playing saxophone and singing at certain points, but that didn’t detract from the fact she found the kitschy performance entrancing. She wanted to know how they worked and she wanted to know if they had, like, a backstory or something.

  Unfortunately, the charm was short-lived. Looking from one HazelKnut to the other, Thesa noticed the same scaffolding beneath Almond’s armor as she had seen in Pecan’s. However, something obscured her view of the drummer Pistachio’s inner workings. Something about it gave her a bad feeling.

  Without considering the consequences, Thesa cast [Blindfold]. The room went dark and for some reason the music stopped. To Thesa’s luck, the Candy Mantis said, “deepest apologies, my audacious audience, it appears we are having a technical error.”

  With her infravision active, Thesa could see that beneath the drumming armor, Pistachio was being controlled by a pair of rabbits in little outfits?

  She made eye contact with Merijest then motioned toward the rabbits. Merijest nodded.

  Still under darkness, Barometz said, “Thank you for your indelible patience, my friends,” he said with a slight bow. “It appears everything is under control, but unfortunately I’m being told that there is a saboteur in our midst.” He gasped dramatically, then conjured a spotlight on Thesa. “My dear, Thesa, if you did not like the show, you need only have made your distaste known. I live to serve.”

  “I just…wanted to know how the candy-matronics worked,” she said, only half lying. With the spotlight on her, infravision became unavailable. She couldn’t see Merijest or the [Familiars] either.

  The spotlight narrowed and Thesa felt in her guts that she shouldn’t let the darkness touch her. Somehow she knew it wasn’t the same darkness she had summoned.

  “That’s quite the query, my dear girl,” the Candy Mantis’s voice continued. “One I would be happy to answer, however, your little disruption caused Almond to malfunction and we have a strict ‘You break it, you be it’ rule here.”

  Shadows flicked at the edges of the spotlight. Thesa spun in circles looking for something, anything around her. She stopped spinning and tried to focus. She tried to summon her halberd, but something was stopping her from accessing her [Bound Weapon]. In fact, she was starting to feel magic draining from her, similar to when she’d lost all her [Paladin] levels. Had Barmoletz somehow cut her off from Merijest? Obstructing the ethereal bond between [Witch] and [Stake] was intensely powerful magic. Merijest had been right about this guy being a powerful magician.

  A low, grainy melody rose out of the darkness as the spotlight narrowed again. Thesa stood in a strained position trying to take up as little space as possible. Glancing down at her belt, she noticed the Menthic Ax. Its magic wasn’t tied to Merijest so maybe…

  She took the axe in her hand and, lacking the room for a proper wind up, flicked it into the darkness. She heard it clunk into something metallic.

  “Oooh, that hurt, Thesa,” the Candy Mantis said in a chipper voice. “Unfortunately for you, you missed your shot. Even the extra cold damage isn’t enough to–wait what’s it doing?”

  The axe flew back into Thesa’s hand.

  “How did you do that?” the Candy Mantis complained. His voice became whiny and confused. “I scanned your abilities when you stepped onto this [Floor] and there was nothing about recalling items. I should have been alerted if you gained a level and anyways that shouldn’t matter… One moment, please.”

  The spotlight relaxed a few inches, and from the darkness Thesa heard the Candy Mantis scrambling around for something. This time she aimed the Menthic Axe toward the sound and used the extra space for a little more wind up.

  “Ow! Shit!” the Candy Mantis cried and in an instant the room was lit. Where was she now? Looking around, the unfamiliar chamber was empty but for several wooden beams stretched from dirt floor to low, wooden ceiling. Thesa felt her [Witch] features return and could now hear Merijest shouting above her in the midst of combat with what she assumed must have been the animated HazelKnuts. A ladder on the wall led up to a trap door which Thesa guessed would lead onto the stage where the Nutty Number Jam Band had been playing.

  The Candy Mantis was writhing on the ground with the Menthic Axe embedded in his prothorax. “Oh come on,” he pleaded. “Don’t you want to hear all the lore I cooked up for the HazelKnuts?”

  Thesa couldn’t deny she wanted the lore, but she decided sometimes there might be more important things than lore. She summoned her halberd and impaled Barmoletz’s head with a chitinous crunch.

  ***

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