There is no Epic Loot here, Only Puns.

"I'm telling you, this statue is hiding something," the Archer said as they stood in a massive circular garden area blooming with flowers and emanating a soothing aura. The single statue of a rectangular, some sort of box, was the stand out feature.

The Mage ran his hand over it and shivered.

"I agree but this feels closer to the 'inhaling a power bigger than your own head' than a 'sweet, treasure' sort of secret," the Mage replied and the Archer tried not to chew his lip.

Both sounded great to him.

"Should we bust the statue open then? Even if we don't use it, the knowledge could be valuable to others," the Gunsmith said slowly.

The Warrior went to speak when there came a tutting noise.

They turned to see a strange doctor figure made of stone with his head buried in his hands, long nose sliding between them as if to show him weeping.

They waited but when the statue didn't do anything, they shared a look and in the few seconds they looked away, the statue was behind the Archer, a syringe drawn, still frozen in stone.

The Archer spun and stumbled for a moment before the statue cracked and the sound of a low chuckle emerged.

"Apologies, I've been wanting to do that for a while," the mad looking Gargoyle said, his wings blending into his strange smock perfectly.

"Is this a Gargoyle and Overpowered Golem floor?" the Alchemist asked sarcastically, readying a bottle.

"It's what happens when one gets too carried away with the mods," the scientist monster said with a delighted noise as he eyed the bottle.

"Sernate Salt and something like Mossdeep Tear?" he asked the Alchemist who blinked then blanched as his bottle was read like an open book.

"Good for melting stone," the gargoyle told the others as if educating.

"I find gargoyles unnerving," the Necromancer said, almost apologetically to the mad doctor.

"Mineral based lifeforms would be rather distracting to one who sees the world through life and death. I contain no living products or byproducts. I am as cold as I am logical," the gargoyle hummed.

"It's all Dungeon Mana, so it shouldn't matter," the Archer interjected, readying an explosive arrow. Stone could be melted... or it could be blown to chunks.

"Ah but Dungeon Mana is the ultimate form of flattery. Its very nature relishes on being as close as it can be to the outside world, which is why all it takes is a talented user to supplant their mana into a 'loot item' for it to exist outside. The form is there in all the ways that matter. Otherwise," the doctor moved and appeared before the Archer, holding one of his arrows.

"Poison wouldn't work. Acid wouldn't work. Explosions wouldn't work. Energy beings as you think Dungeon Monsters are would be a lot harder to kill," he said before throwing the arrow back.

"Still, it's six versus you. Energy being or no, we might win," the Warrior said surely, but not cockily.

"Accurate if you were factually correct," the gargoyle admitted.

The Archer didn't like the sound of that.

"It's technically six versus two," he amended and a large shadow loomed over them, coming from a hunched figure on the statue behind them.

"We're going to need a bigger arrow," the Archer mumbled as the muscular giant stood up slowly with a furious expression on his dark gothic face.

"He won't fight you," the doctor gargoyle said with an eerily calm tone. The group was sandwiched between the two and it wasn't making anyone feel great.

"His sole responsibility is guarding this room from wanton destruction. Pass through and he won't even budge. He's the most loyal and loving of us goyles to Delta so he takes his job the most seriously," it went on.

"Can monsters even feel love? I thought all Dungeons just made their monsters feel loyal and didn't really care-" the Mage said and there was movement as the goliath behind them stood over the Mage, nostrils flared and wings stretched out.

The doctor was behind him, his hands no longer gently held in front of him.

"I don't feel much. Curiosity, amusement, dark pleasure, but to Delta, I feel light. I feel the purity of a much simpler emotion. Is it love? Maybe not, but it is the closest I can feel and I wasn't directly made by her. I have no need to feel any sense of loyalty to her, but I do," the doctor said coolly as he leaned in and the Archer was seconds away from firing at wild and random.

"Her love is the reason you didn't lose your heads the moment you walked in on this floor. Many times you could have faced death but it was not allowed. You bask in her love and benefit from it, but you mock her all the same. Once, I shall endure the insult. There will not be a second," the massive one said and his voice was like stone over silk.

Rough with an alluring edge.

"So, if we challenge you and win, do we get to see the inside of the statue?" the Warrior asked and the massive one smiled darkly.

"You won't," he said simply.

"We won't what? Win or see inside?" the Warrior asked slowly.

The gargoyle simply kept smiling that dark, humorless smile.

The Archer was breathing heavily and it took him a few seconds to finally catch on to something that had been trying to get his attention.

His mana was churning like it was getting an upset stomach. The tinges of his normal brown and iron mana was hued orange now.

In the feast hall, he had been sure he wasn't even half-way to his limit yet being in this room had nearly pushed him over the edge in a short time? What?

Concerned, he turned to the Mage and the pale man's pimples were bright orange and he looked a little red.

Mana poison was mostly a bad thing but there were one or two benefits for some people.

Wizards got stronger. Pain was easy to ignore. Sometimes, Dungeons became a little more instinctual.

But was it worth mutating or dying over?

It was hard to judge sometimes.

"You won't last long, please. Let us escort you to the boss. You have the Dungeon's word and all that she reflected so far that you will not die in this fight unless you perform some truly horrendous acts," the Doctor said as if that would be interesting to see.

The Warrior looked over the group and grimly hefted his axe.

"How close were we? To doing this floor on our own?" the Alchemist asked sourly and the gargoyles shared a look.

"On one hand, you could have gotten very far, on the other, you showed you would have never gotten that far," the smaller one said simply

"You just had to be good people," the tall one said and snorted as if he believed humans were incapable of such lofty virtues.

"We'll accept the escort. Even information about the boss will set us up for a while," the Warrior said finally and lowered his axe to his side.

"This could be a really bad trap," the Archer said with a wince.

"We don't need traps," the doctor proclaimed cheerfully.

"You lot sabotage yourselves easily enough."

"You can lead a horse to water but you cannot force it to stop trying to drown itself," the muscular one said and crossed his arms.

"Witty," the Archer intoned, trying to think of a good comeback.

"Unless it's the ocean then it's fine since it's a hor-sea," the Necromancer said blankly.

"Are you serious?" the Gunsmith asked with scorn.

"Deadly. All my humors have turned to word play," he explained as his own deathly aura now had the orange tint of a dying campfire.

"That's horrible," the Archer said as they walked.

"Bone chilling," came the agreement.

"Stop that."

"Can't. It's in my soul."

"Is he going to be okay?" the Warrior asked the gargoyles who shrugged as if it was a minor thing.

"Maybe you should try not to use puns?" the Gunsmith suggested.

"But they help me raise people's spirits," the Necromancer intoned.

"Try reciting magical spells to calm yourself," the Mage said helpfully.

"Abra-cadaver."

The Archer was going to cry.

---

The Warrior felt the large doors close behind his group.

"You're going to have a royal time," the mad doctor promised before they were closed out on the other side.

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The Boss door was very close to the actual entrance with no seeming locks or puzzles which made this entire floor even more mysterious and interesting.

The Warrior would like to come back sometime.

Ahead was a truly massive room that had dark ghostly torches burning in a mockery of light. The light barely illuminated the shape of the room but did little to cast any detail on the figure on the far end, looking rumpled and collapsed on a throne.

As they began to walk closer, the Warrior noticed the figure wasn't old or even worn down, but simply limp in a way that suggested form was more a suggestion than a fact. It moved upright with a shine of a crown upon its boney skull.

"Halt," the voice said and it came in a distracting array of soft, rough, loud, quiet, and unbalanced mixes of different kinds of voices. There were men, women, animals, machines, and more all rolled into a single unified voice.

At the creature's voice, the room blazed with sudden blue light that bathed everything in a strange dreamlike quality.

"It's a slime," the Alchemist said slowly.

"It's a slime with a shoe," the Gunsmith corrected.

"Sins of the ones before me I now list," the royal thing stood up on two short legs that let a small cape roll down its sleek body.

"Theft," it began and there was a chime around the room that set the Warrior's teeth on edge.

"Assault." The chime came back worse and they all shivered.

"Destruction of property. Murder of Worker Bees. Smashing of pots. Eating at the feast hall without even a thank you. Causing a flood in the library," it listed and each crime made the chime grow heavier and more painful until they had to back away.

At the same time, the chime made the slime stronger, more muscular with powerful steps and a more regal posture.

"Objection! The golem did the flooding," the Archer called out and everything went quiet.

"You destroyed his home. Appropriate force in response. Overruled," the slime king said briskly and then the thunderous chime came back.

"Can we get a lawyer?" the Gunsmith asked, feeling alarmed.

"Lawyagon, attorney at Delta," came a smooth voice and they spun to see a tiny slime dragging a case behind him and looking busy as he handled a schedule. He seemed to have emerged from nowhere.

They looked back to the king and stared at his missing hand which seemed to have left a trail around them.

"Isn't this just you?" the Warrior pointed to the small slime.

"No, we have different names. Clearly, that means we are different people," Lawyagon insisted.

"Can you help us?" the Alchemist asked, trying not to look confused.

"Your charges are not debatable. Evidence is a mile high and you lot left fingerprints, bootprints, buttprints, and soul prints. If you wanted to be more incriminated, you should just sign your names everywhere," Lawyagon said with a growl as if facing a tough case.

"I didn't consent to butt prints," the Archer said, looking startled.

"The bench didn't consent to your butt, should I call it up as a witness?" Lawyagon asked with a raised slime fold.

"What I can do is argue for leniency using sob stories and first time offenses," the lawyer said and winced as he eyed the king.

"Gonna be tough, this judge is begging to cut his teeth on some upstarts," he whispered. He sludged forward and suddenly the room became filled with a tense harsh piano tune that sounded close to an alarm but remained, somehow, a tune.

"Your royal king and honor, may I say you are looking handsome today. Your crown is very shiny," the lawyer said to butter the king up.

"And your case is more elegant and sophisticated," the king said back demurely.

"In my case, I will argue for leniency for my clients by informing you that the Archer was unloved as a child and girls teased him about his middle name, which is 'Bettymoo'," Lawyagon began and the Archer's mouth opened, spluttering.

"Is your client disagreeing?" the king said and they both looked at the Archer whose lips thinned.

"The Mage practiced kissing with his hand and woke up to find a letter saying it was off and had to find a replacement hand. It's never as good as the first one," the lawyer went on, making the mage look horrified but managed to not call out the lies.

"The Alchemist and the Gunsmith had unfortunate romances behind the waterfall, only for the Pygmies to give the Alchemist a 2 out of 10 for his technique as they saw it all," the slime continued.

The Warrior winced, looking to give the two some sympathy for the lie.

"It was a four," the Alchemist growled.

"Eh," the Gunsmith said with a wave of her hand.

"I'll knock off the theft charge for the remark alone," the king muttered.

"The Necromancer has done nothing wrong," the Lawyer slime continued.

"I just want to raise a family," the dark wizard agreed.

"The Gunsmith has been seen moaning and vibrating in public indicating she has needs not being met and is acting out," Lawyagon declared triumphantly.

"I'll remove four counts of assault to match her low expectations," the king boomed.

"This is going to be harrowing," the Warrior muttered as he knew he was up next.

"He just seems really buried in his work, so don't worry about it," the Necromancer said kindly.

"So, just grin and bear it?" the Warrior asked as they turned to him.

"Grow a spine, find your guts, ask for a raise, and these are just coming faster and faster, a lot like dying really," The Necromancer said with a morbid curiosity in his own words.

"The Warrior is simply boring in comparison. His favorite drink is water. He enjoys less salt than a toddler, he goes to bed by ten every night, and he reads books that put scholars to sleep," the Lawyer slime said simply.

"Tragic, another reduced sentence."

...What?

"If the Necromancer and Mage are complex characters, the Warrior is 'basic', your honor," Lawyagon concluded.

"Understandable, very well. This does tilt things in a more favorable direction."

He was... basic?

But, his passion for clean bed sheets or his enjoyment of a good piece of toast with no butter!

In fact, the Warrior was so radical, he recently once wore the same pair of socks two days in a row. The memory of it gave him strength.

The Warrior could remember the socks were woolen, not cotton, as they had been traveling through a light marsh near the south. It was a marsh and not a swamp because marshes arise near shallow rivers or streams while swamps are from flooded forests.

The rain was light that day, but not heavy. A downcast one might say.

The splash of a puddle had soaked through his burlap bag of spare clothes, shoes, and bedroll, forcing him to set a small campfire, not a bonfire as the difference would be quite something, to dry his clothes. This is why he had to wear the same socks twice in a row.

Technically he took them off when he slept to air them out so there was a chance the fresh air and humidity helped clean them a little.

His spare clothes had mostly dried but they had not fully done so at the edges, meaning it was still best to keep drying them that day but they had to continue to march on-

---

"Is he okay?" The Mage asked as the Warrior's eyes glazed over as he mumbled to himself.

All he could make out was 'not... basic... socks...marshes are not... and humid' in the noise.

"I proclaim you all still in guilt, but reduced. Choose a challenger and I shall face them in single combat," the king bellowed, jumping the Warrior out of his stupor with a mild "my bedrolls" on his lips.

The party looked themselves over, muttering to each other before they looked forward as one.

"We have chosen," the Warrior shouted.

"You have chosen... strangely," the king said as the room became brighter as a circle of orange energy appeared as a pseudo dueling ring.

The Gunsmith stepped forward.

"I just need one shot," she promised, one hand holding a shrieking vibrating pistol and the other a small curved knife.

"That gun is powerful, but I know its limits," the king rumbled as he moved into the ring.

The Gunsmith merely tightened her grip on the knife.

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