Phillipe showed us how to cross the room, and it involved a lot more careful footwork than I was ready for. Each trench was about fifty centimetres wide, a little more than a foot and a half or so. Not so wide that I couldn't just walk across them, and the tops of the floor parts were all flat. Honestly, if it wasn't for the trenches filled with glowing slimes, walking across the room would have been child's play. I walked with my arms outstretched to either side for balance and my eyes peeled on the ground. The slimes got excited whenever I crossed above them. Well, as excited as a slime could be. They wobbled a little more and some of them reached upwards with globulous tendrils. Fortunately, for all that I disliked the challenge of the room, the space itself wasn't all that big. "Next room has goblins," Phillipe said. "And since we do not want to fight while in here, that means we'll have to press into the next room hard." "Got it," Tyro said as he casually caught up with his dad. He was making it look easy, which to be fair, it was. The problems were all psychological. Follow current novᴇls on 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵※𝖿𝗂𝗋𝖾※𝙣𝙚𝙩 Phillipe waved me forwards. "Can you open the door for us? Quick and hard." "Alright then," I said. I moved over next to the door, then grabbed onto the handle, which was a surprisingly nice wrought-iron handle with a leaf-shaped thumb-latch. I bet there were a few crews that ripped these off and sold them. Not that something this nice would end up in the slums I lived in, it was too pretty for that. "On three?" I asked. Phillipe nodded as he unlimbered his warhammer. Tyro checked his own weapons next to him and then gave me a thumb's up. I pulled the door open and the two boys rushed in. I followed after a moment when I heard a heavy grunt and the squeal of a goblin being caught off-guard. Phillipe was to one side, dislodging his hammer from the head of one goblin while Tyro swung his hammer around and slapped a crude mace out of the hands of a goblin who was doing a lot of squealing. The screams stopped as Tyro's backswing dislocated the goblin's jaw. I stayed by the entrance, where I could dart back into the slime-trench room if things got too dangerous, but for the moment the fighting seemed well in hand. The room was long and narrow, which meant that the goblins living in their little goblin huts had to come at us from a single direction. That made it easy for Phillipe and Tyro to stand side-by-side and clobber them down as they ran over. I stood back, but soon found myself feeling useless, so I did what I could to help. Mostly, that meant firing off my aura around the boys to bathe the goblins in [Blight]. The skill's effect was still slow to hurt, but whenever it found open lesions or exposed flesh the skin would turn pale and would rot. Enough to kill, certainly, though not in a helpful timeframe. Still, I kept it up. It was not only good practice at changing targets and using my skill in an environment where I didn't need to worry too much about the mana cost, I was also helping a little. Hitting the goblins across the face seemed to have a decent effect. They'd flinch back and cover their eyes while squealing. I figured it was a helpful enough distraction to keep some of them off of Phillipe and Tyro. The fight didn't last all that long though. Phillipe stomped on the last goblin brave (or stupid) enough to charge us, and the remaining few held way back. Some had tossed slimes our way but... well, that didn't work out so well. Phillipe was gifted at batting them out of the air and Tyro was always quick to dart down between the short bursts of close-range combat to pick up a loose stone and fling it back with a lot more force than a little goblin could manage. I think he outright killed one with one of his throws. "Room's not clear," Phillipe said. "But we need to keep moving. I don't like staying in this one." "Which is the next safest one?" I asked. "The next one we clear entirely," he replied easily. I supposed that was fair. The door into the next space was just ahead and to the left. Phillipe pointed to it after tapping Tyro on the shoulder, and we moved closer. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. "We'll cover you," Phillipe said. "Smoke out the next room." "Got it," I said. "Masks on. In fact, you probably shouldn't have removed them at all. Tell me if you develop a cough." Tyro shot me a complicated look at that, but it was his own fault if he breathed something vile in after taking off his mask so early. If either of them did inhale a [Dead Man's Cough] spore or two... well, I didn't know what we'd do then. Load them up on healing mushrooms and hope for the best? A small number of spores wouldn't be immediately lethal, and they were both in what passed for peak physical states. Just having Tyro and Phillipe standing near was enough to cow the rest of the goblins in the room, most of whom ran to the far end and hid behind a row of hedges. This space was keeping up with the indoor garden theme, at least a little. The floor was made of flat paving stones with a few knee-high planters around, and the stonework making up the walls was quite nice, I supposed. "Okay," I said. "Should I toss these in in any particular way?" "Just fill the room up," Phillipe said. I checked my satchel, recalled that we would have one more room after this one, then set six [Magical Dead Man's Cough] mushrooms aside. Those I'd keep for later. The rest were going in. It was a little like fumigation, only instead of guilt-free insects I was getting rid of potentially sapient dungeon-born beings. Opening the door, I flung the first mushroom underhanded, tossing it as far as I could. Then the next, then the next until I tossed the last one near my feet. From what I could tell, this next space was something like a storage shed, with shelves against the walls filled with rusting tools and large unused flowerpots. There were also, of course, more goblins. From the look of things they'd started using the flowerpots as small incubators of sorts for their slimes, and the shelves served as handy rooftops for their makeshift homes. That didn't protect them from the growing cloud of spores filling the room. I closed the door with a whump and noticed a faint dusting of them slipping into the room we were in. "That'll take a few minutes," I said. "Let it all settle." "How long are your spores lethal for?" Phillipe asked. I was glad for the question! I'd actually tested that, albeit only with normal [Dead Man's Cough] spores. The question had occurred to me a few months ago while cleaning out a section of my farm where I found some spore dust. If I was going to handle it often, then it was only reasonable that I discover how long it was potent for. After all, spores were biological, they'd rot eventually. My test was simple. I contained some spores in a few vials without anything to germinate on, then observed them daily to see any changes. Mostly I was using my poison-based skills for the observation. Now, a few concessions had to be made. The vial wasn't entirely air-tight, but it was somewhat sealed by a plug made of some cotton. I didn't want to contaminate the sample, and my test was hardly longitudinal. From personal experience in the before, I knew that spore samples that were kept refrigerated could last a decade or more. From my local non-refrigerated tests, I knew that my samples were as viable six months after the initial spread as they were the moment they were extracted. "For our purposes? Forever," I said. He winced. "Are you certain?" "They'll linger on the ground, mostly. But if you kick up enough it'll get back into the air and back in your lungs." "Then aren't we all in danger all the time?" Tyro asked. "We walked through rooms filled with that stuff." "You're in a dungeon," I said. "You're in danger all the time regardless of whether or not the air's filled with near-invisible silent killers." He didn't seem to appreciate my sense of humour. "Anyway. I think it should have fallen by now. So... masks on, try not to get any in your eyes or they'll sneak through your tear ducts, and walk so that you don't kick up dust." "We're going to have to have a talk before we settle down," Phillipe said. I had to work hard to prevent a wince. It had been some time since anyone vaguely father-figure-like had talked to me like that.