Below the hatch, an iron staircase spiralled down into darkness. I moved down it slowly, my shadow occluding the path forward as the only light source was coming from the open portal to my lair above us. The stairway was ornate, tiny filigree dragons worked into the metal, and it had a baroque, medieval aesthetic that I found strangely pleasing. The little dragons were images of my glorious new form.

  “Stay frosty, Toothless. It’s rolling for enemy type at the moment. I’ve got four treasure rooms on my map, and the boss room is a good hour away from here, all of which is great news! We’ve got a decent-sized first floor with loads of potential. Get a few windows in to enjoy the fantastic view and south-facing aspect, redo it in a modern art-deco style, and this place will be worth a pretty penny!” Kat whispered into my ear from where she sat astride my neck.

  “I can sell this space?” I whispered, wondering if the miniature barbarian woman had gone insane.

  “No, but you can rent some of it out if we can find a tenant!” she hissed back.

  “Who the hell would want a dragon as a landlord?” I muttered. We’d reached the bottom of the stairs. The last section was encased in fluted bars, and it ended in a door like a portcullis from a ye olde worlde castle. I reached out and bumped my snout against the cold metal, but nothing happened. “Uh, princess? Any clues on how to get this thing open?”

  “Just wait a minute! It’s still rolling for enemy type! Loads of people would be fine with you as a landlord, as long as you promised not to eat them. Mad mages and scientists. Some dwarven tinkerers like to dabble outside of the acceptable boundaries of Squat Crafting laws, Orlic warbosses looking for a vacation home. There are tons of potential tenants in the world,” Kat said quietly.

  The light from above cut off as a faint thud echoed down, and I found myself plunged into darkness. I blinked rapidly, attempting by force of will to make my eyes adapt.

  “Ah, that’s not so bad. How do you feel about mushrooms, scaly?” Kat whispered.

  “Fry them up and throw in some bacon and eggs, a slice of black pudding, and some beans; they’re lovely. Why do you ask?” I craned my head around to glare at my tiny rider, and the purple glow from my eyes lit up her worried face.

  “And what are your thoughts on spiders?” she asked.

  “Rolled up newspaper, thwack, no spider problem. Why?” I growled the final word. The portcullis clanked upwards, and I spun back to my front, trying to stay on guard for whatever was lurking on this floor.

  “Positive attitude towards handling spiders, I like it! You’re up against Arachnoshrooms, I’m afraid. Did you ever play Floor is Lava as a kid?” she asked. “Don’t answer, I know you did. The dossier they gave me on you was very, very thorough.” My mind swam back to all the stupid, embarrassing, mean things I’d done in my life, and I winced internally.

  I stepped out cautiously into the space beyond the stairway. As soon as I was clear, I spun back around, expecting the portcullis to fall and trap me in with the as-yet-unknown monsters. In the dim light, most of which seemed to come from my own glowing eyes, I saw that my escape route remained open and accessible. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  Scurrying, clattering sounds, soft and quiet but noticeable in the almost perfect silence of the dungeon. It was like soft clicking sounds approached me from all directions. The noise echoing toward me from the pitch-black made my tail go rigid, and the scales along my spine tried to stand on edge.

  “Get off the floor,” Kat said very softly. “You’re on the web!” I glanced down and moved my snout closer to my front paws. Tiny fibrous strands had been laced across the ground by the denizens of this place, and my paws had distorted them. I stayed very, very still, and the clicking sounds slowed. My wings spread out gently, and once I had them fully extended, I slowly lowered my body; even that gentle movement made the invisible things in the dark click towards me faster.

  With a powerful flap and a strong jump, I shot towards the ceiling. A series of long, black, chitinous-looking limbs flashed through the air where I had been. Then the clicking went silent. I circled in the air of the cave, doing my best to stay within the area I was confident that I’d seen was clear when the hatch had opened.

  “Keep turning left for a second. I’m trying to figure out the best route to the first treasure chamber. Hopefully, you’ll get something there that will help with the whole being blind as a bat issue,” Kat said. As she spoke, I heard the clicking noises below move to line up beneath us.

  “How many are there? What the fuck are they?” I whispered.

  “Arachnoshrooms. What do you think they are?” Kat laughed, uncaring of the noise she made.

  “Spiders with mushrooms growing out of their backs?” I muttered.

  “Kind of. OK, can you hover for a second?” she asked.

  “No. I’m not a fucking hummingbird, Kat!” I hissed.

  “Then circle more slowly for a minute, and when I say go, fly straight ahead. Do you understand?” she said as though speaking to a particularly slow child.

  “Yes, Kat. I understand. It’s great how the incorporeal one is so gung-ho about flying down tunnels while nearly completely blind!”

  “You die, I die, kiddo. Well, I don’t die, die. I'll just fail this exam, and Heavens know when I’ll be selected again! Your survival means just as much to me as it does to you!”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “I very much doubt that!” I ground out through locked jaws.

  “Go!” she snapped, smacking my shoulder with her sword. I straightened my course and flapped for altitude. “No! Stay low!”

  I growled, a low rumbling noise reverberating from my chest, but did as she said. I dropped lower until the clicking noises were only a couple of metres beneath us, and maintained a steady course.

  I was tense, braced to smash my face into a wall, but the little Empress had timed it right. I felt a cave wall brush against my right wingtip and veered slightly to the left. Then, I recorrected as my left tip also came into contact with the stone. She’d threaded me down this corridor like a professional seamstress, and I felt a swell of respect for the lunatic pixie.

  “When I say the word, drop to the ground and run ninety degrees to your right. Keep going till you hit the chest, then get that bastard open as quickly as you can. You’ll have maybe a minute before the little shits get here,” she yelled in my ear. I received a thwack on the top of my skull from the flat of her sword to hammer the point home.

  “We need to work on our communication! What fucking word are you going to–”

  “WORD!” she screamed in my ear, and I snapped my wings closed. I dropped like a rock and skidded along the granite floor of the dungeon. I felt my claws ripping through the tiny threads of mycelia that the arachnoshrooms had spun all across this level.

  I spun to my right, hoping it was at least approximately ninety degrees, and rushed forward. My face smashed into a stone wall.

  “Three feet to your left!” she snapped from my neck. I spat blood, and my tongue flicked out. I could taste whatever the monsters were in the air. They tasted like… bacon? I moved left as instructed and slipped through a narrow doorway. My tail flicked out behind me, hoping to find some kind of actual bloody door to buy me a little time for when the monsters arrived—no such luck. My tongue flicked out again, and the taste of bacon had become stronger. The stone taste was the same. I could taste them coming!

  I stumbled forward in the dark, my tongue guiding me toward an anomaly, something that tasted of wood and metal. When my bruised snout bumped into yet another solid object, it sent a spike of pain through my brain. Despite the bolt of agony, I remembered what Kat had told me and used the remains of the nub of bone on my snout, the one intended to help me break out of my shell, to lever up the lid.

  Chest discovered.

  Rolling for contents…

  Congratulations Dungeoneer!

  Item: Philpott's Miraculous Oracular Monocular Wonder x1

  Item: Base Tier Pill of Intellectual Improvement x1

  Item: Luxurious Litter Tray x1

  Currency gained: 225 gold

  “Well that's a bucket full of bullshit! What am I going to do with a litter tray?” I snapped.

  All three items had appeared before me, the pill and the monocle lay in the litter tray like the most painful cat turds imaginable. In the lambent glow from my eyes, I could just make them out.

  “Use the monocle. It won’t let you see, but you’ll get flashes of flavour text when you look at the shrooms. It might help?” Kat suggested. I reached out with a claw and snatched up the monocle, bringing it up to my right eye.

  As I held it against my cheek, it shifted, shrinking down to match the size of my eye. It clicked into place like a magnet, and I put my paw down. Suddenly, from a single eye, objects were outlined, and lines of information scrolled past when I looked at the other loot. The rough-hewn walls of the cave were as shadowy as ever.

  Finally, the arachnoshrooms caught up to us. Bacon scent filled the air as my tongue flicked in and out rapidly, tracking their approach.

  Information flickered by in the monocle as I scanned it towards the slight breeze that denoted the location of the door. An image of one of the beasts and a brief description popped up when it lined up just right. Long legs sprouted from the base of the mushroom body to propel it along.

  The clinking and clattering that had pursued me in the darkness had been the sound of their limbs scurrying along in my wake. Sharp and pointy, the legs looked dangerous. The rest of it looked like something a garden gnome might sit on while fishing, except for the ring of glittering compound eyes that reflected the glow of my left eye, creating bands of menacing, fractured mirrors around the tops of the toadstools.

  “You can see them now?” Kat whispered.

  “No, but I know what they look like!” I growled.

  The scent grew overwhelming, and the sound of the things bouncing into each other in the narrow confines of the door prompted me to strike. I lunged, jaws snapping at the points where the armoured limbs met the fungal bodies. As my head shot forward, the purple light from my eyes gave me my first real glimpse of my foes, and let me coordinate my attacks. I tore a chunk off the first one, removing three of its legs. My right claw flashed out to swat the next one into the ground, pancaking it and forcing its arachnid limbs out into a starfish pattern.

  The other reared back, and a pair of legs stabbed forward, skittering down the scales on my left side. I dashed backwards, swallowing the lump I’d pulled from the first. It had the consistency of a marshmallow.

  “And it does taste like bacon!” I snarled as I dove forward again. The first three were quickly dealt with now that I had a reliable way to track the damn things. The taste-scent seemed to linger, and now that I’d eaten one, I could easily detect the clouds hanging in the air. Once they were dead, I clawed my way up the wall to escape the threads the monsters had strung across the floor, and the clicking noises in the corridor outside stopped drawing closer.

  I clung to the arch at the top of the doorway, and my tail snaked down to spear the first body and draw it up to my jaws.

  Biomass stored:

  11.5 KG

  Biomass required for evolution: 30 KG.

  The three of them hadn’t been worth much in terms of biomass, but I was now a third of my way to my next evolution.

  “How many of them are there on the floor?” I asked as I licked my lips. A pile of twenty-four spider legs, each nearly two feet long, lay on the floor below me.

  “A couple of dozen. We should head to the next treasure chest. Might find something even better!” Kat offered, although she sounded slightly disgusted. “You really like the taste of these things?”

  “Bacon, your majesty. They tasted like bacon. Now, if only we had some fried eggs. How come they aren’t crawling up the walls?”

  “They haven’t spread the mycelial mat up the walls yet. We can pick them as a minion species after you kill the boss. Maybe we should crack on?” she said acerbically. She was somehow defying gravity, clinging to the back of my neck while we hung upside down from the ceiling. She had strong thighs.

  “What about the treasure?” Loot was not to be abandoned.

  “It will still be there after we kill the boss. Let's go open the rest of the boxes and then do unto others before they can do unto us! The map shows that we go left outside the door. I’ll guide you along and let you know when the mobs are coming.” The sword slapped the scales on my neck again.

  “I can taste them in the air. They won’t surprise me again. What’s this ‘us’ thing, anyway? I’m not seeing you doing much fighting.” I rumbled as I began climbing across the ceiling and heading back into the corridor.