Scuttling in front of me, she led the way, surefooted in her stride. I, on the other hand, was a textbook example of clumsiness, almost tripping over every rock that I came across. This drew a worried look from my long-suffering guide, so I decided to be a little more careful in my step. Soon enough, the path, or tunnel, opened up into a cavernous area. Here, the purple glow of the ceiling was perhaps fifty meters high. After the custrophobic space of the tunnels, coming here was almost a welcome relief.
After an indeterminate amount of time, she gestured for quiet and pointed. Creeping as best as I could, I squinted in that direction, straining my eyes. My ears informed me before my eyes did. What I heard was a roiling crush of heavy bodies colliding, followed by the crash of dispced water. Finally, my eyes beheld a rge pond, or small ke, of liquid twilight, filled with creatures, dozens strong, that looked like they had come from the darkest part of the ocean.
In the center of the ke was a pilr formed from centuries of redeposited minerals. Alien chittering and clicking noises accompanied the sight, the sound akin to that of a deranged maracas. I had found new prey.
They, as far as my eyes could tell, fit their name of Ghostwalker Crab almost perfectly. In the half-light, their carapaces were a ghastly pale gray and their many-limbed shadows stretched across the cold stone. They had no eyes, but were instead crowned with four long antennae. The bony sensory organs flicked and waved aggressively, as if tasting the air itself.
The giant crustaceans fought against each other in a grotesque dispy of dominance and desire, an erratic dance as they circled one another, grasping for purchase or already locked in a deadly embrace. They danced upon the ancient weathered rock of the shore, and in the dark water of the ke. Where a chitinous carapace was pierced, sludge and viscera oozed from the wounds. Would the water be potable after such a violent competition?
The monsters' attention focused solely on their duels. We were able to get a little closer and, hiding behind an outcropping of rocks, we continued to observe them. Holding my breath, I tried to judge the distance between us and the battling Ghostwalkers. My earlier bravado had disappeared like smoke before a stiff breeze, and I scrambled to think of some sort of pn to deal with these monsters.
Going over my options, I remembered the Karil, that fearsome beast of the Sainba forest. If I could stay hidden, at this range, I could begin to pick them off slowly. I would just have to pray that they did not have a means of detecting the magic I cast on them.
“We remain here, I will deal with them,” I whispered to my local guide.
Za looked at me, perplexed, as I started to prepare a spell. Identify came first, and I cast it like a net over one of the rgest males, giving me a rough overview of their retive power.
Ghostwalker Crab - [Crustacean lvl.16]
Health: 276/332
Stamina: 23/51
Mana: 1/1
Seeing a specimen broken down into numbers was a relief, for, in terms of raw statistics, it was a far cry from the Zlesh, though, still worryingly, a little above my level. More importantly, they had extremely low Mana, which was a sign of low intellect, making them like normal crustaceans. Essentially, they were stupid. Relieved, I prepared to cast my only real direct damage spell. It had been a while, or at least I believed it to be quite a while, for time here under the earth was most fluid, since I had st cast Drain.
Here in the shadowed cavern beneath the earth, a darker shadow formed within and was let loose. Like eager hounds, the lines of power sought their prey, attaching themselves to the nearest source of life energy. I prepared to run, only to put aside such thoughts, as the vibrant song of life filled me with its energy. The voices, my true friends, rejoiced for me. Running was for cowards and weak men.
I could see that the spell had substantially improved. The rate at which the creature sped towards its untimely death hastened, as I was empowered. With this magic, I had become invincible. I wanted to fight, to glory in the thrill of the melee.
At times like this, I was gd to have heavy steel about my head. Its solid weight settled me in some sort of strange way. It also covered what I assumed to be a face consumed by my baser pleasures.
I knew that I was not, in fact, as invulnerable as my feelings sometimes led me to believe. These emotions I recognized now to be the influence of my magic, a subtle thing that could deceive by degrees.
And this was no time for a bze of savage passion along the knife-edge of combat, to indulge my base desires, no matter how satisfying that would be. It was a time to deal cold calcuted death, slow as that might be.
Perhaps if they were human… their screams would be more satisfying to my ears. No, no, these thoughts too were not my own. I would stay here where it was safe, and kill all of them. One by bloody one.
