Duskbound

Velik paused in front of the corpse of the scorpling brood mother. There was less of it there, somehow, like the dungeon itself was slowly reclaiming it. He didn't have time to stand and watch, but he imagined an invisible mouth taking tiny little bites out of the monster, just nibbling away until it reached the inevitable conclusion.

He wondered if the dungeon was feeding the seed mana directly from the monster in front of him, and more importantly, how long it would take for a new one to grow. Will it be this big from the beginning, or will it need months and months to grow after it comes back?

Either way, it was widely known that the smaller, normal enemies would return in a matter of days at most, maybe less. If he wanted to finish up here and get out without having to fight his way clear, he needed to hurry. With that thought in mind, he strode past the champion's corpse and deeper into the darkness.

One thing he hadn't anticipated was that without [Phalanx] to provide the faintest amount of light, he was now wholly reliant on his hood's [Night Vision] to see again. That made it harder to track the scorplings, but he was confident he was done with that part of the dungeon anyway. It was obvious the brood mother was the source of those, and barring any strays still wandering around, he'd slaughtered the whole population.

The tunnels on the other side of the brood mother's cave looked almost exactly like the ones he'd explored near the surface, except the skin layer was thicker and had a pattern of thick black veins running through it. Or maybe they're pink, for all I know. Not like I can see colors down here.
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The tunnels got smaller the deeper he went until he came to a point where there was only a foot wide opening. Unwilling to leave himself so vulnerable to monster attack, Velik backtracked and started hunting for a different way forward. Inevitably, he found nothing but dead ends. Impossible. There has to be something bigger than that. Else how would the monsters get through?

But as he thought that, he found himself remembering the centipedes. It was easy enough to picture them slipping through the crevice without incident. The scorplings came from the brood mother, which explained how they'd filled the caves, but didn't help him delve deeper into the dungeon. The more he looked, the more certain he became that his only way forward was to squeeze his way through.

After a few hours, with no other options, he returned to the crevice and paused outside of it. The fleshy walls had give, so if necessary, he could cut his way free. The real threat was a monster coming up on him while he was squirming through.

All was silent, though. If there was a monster nearby, it was out of silent and completely, utterly still. Velik waited for a minute, not even breathing while he waited. Finally, he hefted his spear, shortening the shaft down to two feet in length, and slipped into the crevice.

Ugh, why is it so warm?

It was bad enough that it was squishy, but the strange heat was disturbing on a whole different level. He hadn't noticed it so much when the tunnels were wide enough that he couldn't touch both walls, but as they narrowed and the fleshy membrane covering cold stone squeezed around him, the warmth became inescapable.

Velik turned sideways to fit his shoulders deeper in, his spear in his leading hand. If anything did come at him from the other side, he'd be able to shove a piece of sharpened metal at it, at least. Ten feet in, the gap stopped getting narrower, but now he was pressed so tight that only his high physical stat let him force a breath into his lungs. Any thoughts that the pliable nature of the walls would let him squeeze through vanished.

A hot, moist breeze misted his exposed skin, then vanished. Velik froze, then started to shuffle back a step. At the same time, a thick, ropey black vein in front of him shifted, splitting open and blasting him with a cloud of fetid stink. Is that a—?

There were no teeth, but the tongue was unmistakable as it pierced through the darkness and slammed into his chest. It was easily a foot wide, long and flexible. Without hesitation, Velik drove his spear into the meat of it, causing the tongue to recoil, but pulling him with it. It wasn't yet wrapped around him, but it already had enough of a grip to take him off his feet.

Blood flowed smoothly from several stab wounds in the next half a second as both Velik's hands went to work. His right hand held his spear, shortened to stab in tight confines, and his left snaked around to pull the hunting knife from his belt so that he could start hacking through the meat of the massive tongue.

He was pulled six feet into the wall, or rather into the gaping mouth that had opened there, and now the teeth were visible. Rather than being large, knife-like protrusions, they were instead hundreds and hundreds of little things, no more than an inch or two long. He could easily picture the mouth constricting around him like some sort of torture device, grinding up and down as it flensed his flesh down to the bone.

He had the perfect response to that. [Savage Rhythm] was already working to speed up each and every blow he struck, so much so that he was actually starting to think he might need to invest points into mental once the skill ramped up to full. Blood splattered everything, including Velik, but in a matter of moments, he'd put so many holes in the tongue that he was able to tear himself free.

Backpedaling, he leveled his spear into the black hole with teeth trying to drag him into it. Despite the flailing tongue splashing blood everywhere, the monster was still very much alive. I'll fix that.

[Dread Lance] flared down the length of the spear and roared into the monster. The mouth flexed, attempting to pull away from the energy, but Velik hurled the spear forward. It grew twice its length in time it took to travel from his fingers past the teeth.

Maybe this was a bad idea, he thought the instant before the skill detonated. He'd never tried it in such a tight space before.

The skill exploded outward, disintegrating the monster right in front of his eyes, but also ripping apart the flesh coating the walls and rebounding backward to him. [Dread Lance] slammed into him, throwing him off his feet, and Velik hit the far wall hard. With a groan, he slid back to the ground at the same time the kill notification popped up.

[You've slain a flesh mouth lurker (level 31).]

Okay, what did we learn? Maybe that just because you have a new toy doesn't mean you need to play with it at every possible opportunity.

He climbed back to his feet and reclaimed his spear from the alcove the mouth had been occupying. All of the fleshy covering had been scoured away by [Dread Lance], giving him his first look at bare stone since he'd walked into the dungeon. Even as he stepped over the edge, he could see it squirming about as it started to regrow. Whatever blood had seeped out was gone, scoured away by the energy of his skill, and the flesh had sealed itself closed before it could lose more.

Velik hesitated to waste a healing potion, but he didn't have time to recover on his own and having been caught in his own attack, he was hurting. Getting slammed into a wall hadn't been so bad, but his whole face felt like it was cooked and pieces of his shirt had dissolved to reveal bare, bright red skin beneath. He was lucky Torwin had emphasized [Mending] as the enchantment all his clothes needed.

After he drank the potion and took a few minutes to recover, he slipped out of the alcove and forced himself the rest of the way through the crevice. The whole way, he eyed every thick vein with suspicion, but none of them opened up and tried to eat him like the first one. Whether that was because there weren't more wall mouths or because they were smart enough not to try what the first one had failed to do, Velik couldn't be sure. [Apex Hunter] hadn't so much as twinged until the tongue hit him, but either way, he eventually pulled himself free and was able to walk normally.

At least there were no centipedes.

It was hardly a comforting thought. He doubted the monsters were gone for good, and there was no reason to believe that he'd conquered the whole dungeon's only inconvenient terrain. Slowly, his spear gripped in his hands and its tip pointed forward, he started walking again.

The walls were different, now. Strange pustules hung open from them, somewhat similar to the burst scorpling sacs on the brood mother's back, but all different sizes. They hung in clusters, limp and deflated, with some sort of dried fluid staining the ground beneath them. The walls themselves were darker, or at least some other color. It was hard to tell without his full range of vision, but the veins became more indistinct as everything faded to black.

The slithering rasp of a centipede skittering across the walls came to his ears, and Velik spun to face the sound. Ah, there they are. I knew those were going to make another appearance.