Chapter 6- 98th Floor:The Bulbous Swamp

'Well, at least I'm only twenty-one, I'll still be young when I get out. If this even counts as aging that is.' The thought came from an optimistic part of myself that I knew was bullshit, but I readily accepted the reasoning and began walking down the staircase.

It wasn't a long walk, only about ten stairs later and I was faced with an odd occurrence. On the last step, I was surprised to hear a splash of water, in the next moment something around me changed. It was like a gust of wind or a small bang, almost mystical.

I turned around quickly with a start to notice that the stairwell disappeared, replaced by a knee-deep lake which I found myself in the middle of. A rather murky swap covered in a decently thick layer of mist. "Well that was trippy"

It was then I heard a croak from behind me, I turned slightly spooked with my crossbow drawn. It seemed I was developing a decent case of reflexes as my sight was trained perfectly on a rather large toad… no a frog that was floating on the water. It was rather weird to realize it was just it's head.

I should've shot at the first sign of the large amphibian but I was rather shocked when it rose to stand on two legs. A rather stocky build outfitted with bits and pieces of armor and wielded a small dagger and wooden shield. I recognized the type of enemy it was a second later, Bullywug. A bipedal frog with a powerful psychic-assisted croak and decent melee combat ability.

I shot it at the same moment its neck sack began bulging. The bolt landed perfectly in one of its eyes just moments before the monstrous frog let out an ear-shattering croak, or in my case, a mind-shattering one.

My offhand sat squarely on my forehead as a massive migraine assaulted me, it was as if somebody was squeezing my brain or playing hot potato with it.

With righteous anger, I holstered my crossbow and pointed my palm at the evil frog that was trying to pull the bolt out of its eye. It gave a confused croak when a three-foot-wide fireball was inches away from its face.

It fell back with half of its skull missing while wisps of essence entered my chest. I would've celebrated if it weren't for the fact that four figures emerged out of the lake. I was surrounded from all four directions. It seemed the loud croak had more of a purpose than giving me a headache. "I miss my giant rat friends….."

Three of them were exact copies of the Bullywug I just killed, equipped with the same weapons but varying in armor. The other was the more dangerous as it wielded a hunter's bow and had a large quiver of arrows over its shoulder.

All four of them let out a menacing croak in greeting. I would've responded with something witty if I wasn't already charging toward the archer frog with my blooded spear at the ready, intent on skewering it before it could even knock a single arrow.

It began panicking slightly as the amphibian tried its best to knock an arrow before I arrived. It was unlucky for the frog that as soon as I saw the arrow touch the string I let the spear fly. 

Landing square in the Bullywug's chest a second before I caught up to it, I grabbed the handle without mercy and used my momentum to push it the rest of the way through. 

The essence entered my chest a moment after I ripped the rest of my weapon through the frog's corpse. Thinking quickly I fastened the bow and quiver over my right shoulder in just a few moments and turned to look at the other fishy demons. Sure I probably couldn't shoot straight but it was better to have something a little longer range just in case.

The remaining frogs looked at me in bewilderment, probably surprised by the savagery. I took advantage of that and ran the fuck away.

One thing I knew for certain about the frog-like warriors was that they are without a doubt amphibian creatures, they couldn't keep up with me on land just like I'd be screwed if this lake was a few more feet deep. 

I could barely stand after one of them used their psychic croak. I'd be on the ground seizing if there were three of them doing it, I had to get out there until I figured out a way to counter it.

I turned over my shoulder to get a look and they were definitely giving chase but for every step, they took I took two, and in a few minutes I was back on land with no frogs in sight. 

The mist thinned greatly once I was a few feet away from the knee-deep lake and I got a good look at what this floor looked like. 

It was beautiful in a mythical sort of way, giant mushrooms replaced trees in varying colors that glowed over the dark setting. Green glowing water walls fell in the distance with varying amounts of Bullywug's swimming under them. There were hundreds….. Whether this room had an artificial night and day system was unknown but I doubted this floor would look this good in the daytime. 

I was on a rather large hill that overlooked a good portion of the area and it was sizeable, the two weeks it took me to complete the maze seemed minuscule when compared to this. I doubted I was even looking at the whole picture due to the varying walls of mist that hid parts of the swamp. A few miles in front of me and a few miles wide eventually my sight failed me and I could barely distinguish the glow of even more giant mushrooms.

Beautiful scenery aside I had to start moving. I needed to find some type of base to brainstorm ideas in relative safety. If I had to fight more than two Bullywugs at once I'd probably die or run out of mana from using my gauntlet, so stealth is my only option for now.