It took an hour before Will could even think about climbing the stairs and getting out of the cellar, which gave him more than enough time to read the flood of achievements and notifications that bombarded him as soon as the garlich was dead.

  The first notification was nothing more than Will had expected, though the XP for the garlich was the highest he’d seen from a single enemy.

  The second notification was also not very surprising. Will had gotten achievements for far less impressive feats, after all. He just hoped the reward would be something he could actually use.

  The same reward as the easier quests I’ve seen. Doesn’t seem fair, considering how much harder it was than those rats.

  OK, that was just bad. I hope the reward will be better than those butchered lyrics.

  Nope. Gonna ignore that text, and just be glad I got some healing potions.

  And speaking of getting stuff, the messages seemed to have petered out, which let Will check out his new loot. He checked out the healing potions first, knowing he’d probably have to use them if he got attacked again.

  Despite the description, Will was tempted to drink one of the potions, seeing as he was about as wounded as he could possibly be and still be alive. But he had no idea how hard that kind of potions was to find, and with the dungeon cleared, he was as probably as safe as he could be.

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  I just hope the stairs lead me somewhere safe. Hopefully to Fili and Kili’s, so I can rest. But I can always use the potion later if it looks like I need it.

  Taking less damage will be very welcome, and the extra health is very nice, but the stamina and mana cost will be a pain. That’s going to be forty mana for my healing skill!

  The reward for clearing the dungeon turned out to be another Gatherer skill shard. Which Will agreed was thematically fitting, but still felt disappointed by.

  Last, but hopefully not least, Will checked out the shard he got from the Dungeoneer achievement.

  Huh. If it doesn’t even take a skill slot, that’s a real no brainer. Will used the skill shard as soon as he’d read the description, and immediately felt better, each of his various pains lessening by just a tiny bit. Nice. I might have to find some more dungeons.

  By that point, Will had regained enough stamina to activate Hunter-Gatherer. The bodies of the animated unpreserved had decayed to mulch, and the skill refused to activate on them. The garlich, however, yielded some loot.

  Wand of Vinegar Stream? Do I even want to know?

  Nasty. But at least it gives me a ranged attack.

  With everything related to the boss fight and the end of the dungeon taken care of, Will rested some more, until he felt up to tackling the stairs.

  It turned out that for a wombat, getting up the stairs was a whole lot easier than getting down the stairs. All Will had to do was reach up to the top of a step, pull himself up until his chest was lying on the step and his rear legs were hanging in the air, stretch said rear legs until they found purchase on the step, and scrabble up the rest of the way. Sixteen times.

  Well, it would have been easier if I didn’t hurt all over, Will complained after reaching the landing on top of the staircase.

  It took Will a lot more tries than he was willing to admit to before he managed to open the door and come face to face with a very determined looking Kili.

  Holding a very large axe.

  Whoa, man! It’s just me, Will!

  “Will?” The startled dwarf stopped mid-swing. “What are you doing here? How’d you get into my cellar?”

  I got in from the other entrance?

  “What are you talking about? This is the only entrance!”

  No it isn’t? There’s another staircase six rooms over.

  “Six rooms over? Will, I only have two rooms in my root cellar.”

  No, there were definitely seven rooms. The first one had the staircase leading down from the dungeon entrance thingy…

  “Dungeon entrance? I think you’d better start from the beginning, Will.”

  Sure. But can I get something to eat while I’m talking? It’s been one hell of a day…”

  ***

  One large salad and one long story later, Kili was nodding in understanding. “Well. That certainly explains why my vegetables were rotting faster than usual. I can’t believe I’ve had a greater unpreserved in my cellar. And it was even making pickles! Thank you for taking care of that garlich, Will.”

  OK, you’re going to have to explain that one, Kili. What the hell are unpreserved? And what’s the problem with pickles? Where I come from, people eat them with just about everything.

  “You eat pickles? On purpose? What kind of horrifying netherworld did you come from?”

  I don’t know? They were just pickles, man. They didn’t go around attacking people! They were just food!

  “Well, in this world, and in any other world I’ve ever heard of, pickles are the work of evil. You see, when a vegetable or fruit starts to rot, there’s a chance that it will animate as unpreserved. The chance is a lot bigger if it was a plant monster when it was alive, but even regular garden variety vegetable can rise up after it rots. The unpreserved are mindless. They usually don’t attack animals or people. They have no interest in anything but other plants. But those other plants? Whether they are regular plants or monster plants, the unpreserved can turn them into more unpreserved.

  “A single unpreserved in something like my root cellar can result in an entire army of the things! Food storages for entire towns have been annihilated by unpreserved in the past, leading to famine. It’s a terrible thing to behold.”

  OK, but those things did attack me.

  “Sometimes, when the conditions are right for it, a dead vegetable will age without rotting. It depends on the heat and the humidity of the surroundings, and it’s very rare. But when it happens, you get a preserved. The preserved are much stronger and smarter than the unpreserved. They know that anything alive would try to destroy them to prevent an outbreak, so they attack on sight. And some of them can even pickle.”

  So pickles are different from the unpreserved?

  “Yeah. Pickles are preserved, which makes them stronger and smarter. But they don’t just happen naturally. Pickles can only be created by the vilest of magics, typically that of other, more natural, preserved.”

  Well made a mental note to never ever tell Kili about his new wand of vinegar. So how did these pickles appear in your cellar? And how did the cellar just grow bigger and turn into a dungeon?

  “I don’t really know. I guess I must have missed a head of garlic when I cleaned the cellar, and it was a very hot and humid summer this year. But my basement should have been far too cool for a black garlich to appear! I’ll have to be more careful in the future. And once it was there, the cellar fit the criteria for spontaneous dungeon formation.”

  This place is just so insanely weird. I think that’s about all the strangeness I can handle today. How much do I owe you for the meal and a nice burrow for the night?

  “I won’t take a single copper bit from you! Consider it payment for taking care of my root cellar.”

  Will had neither the energy nor the desire to argue with the resolute dwarf, so he just accepted the free boarding and staggered tiredly into his burrow. He was asleep before he’d even reached the end of the tunnel.