Chapter 9 – Belly of the Beast

It was with a rough shake that Glen was brought back to consciousness. Briefly he had hoped it was all a dream. The city had in a way been attacked, and now his father was missing. What new hell would today bring?

Wait, it was still pitch black out. He was not being woken up just before the sun rose. Apart from the lack of light he could feel the cold night air all around him. Glen sprung to life jerking up at once to look around him. He could see his sleeping teammates being woke up as fast as possible while still keeping the noise down. He looked to where Liz had been stationed and saw her waving them over in a hurried manner.

Moving in to a crouched position Glen made his way over to join his sister and the other team members that had already risen. He made it just in time to see the end of a brutal display. The rampant had successfully forced a creature through an opening it had no business fitting through, it was a display of sheer force of will on their part.

“What did I miss?” Glen whispered to the group.

“A large number of rampant seemingly working together under the leadership of an aberrant. It was unsettling. It was as if he understood his surroundings completely. He must have survived for a long time to develop this level of intelligence.” Liz gave her assessment out loud as the rest of the group arrived.

“We have to go after them. If nothing else, we need to smoke them out of that tunnel. If they do have an intelligent host leading them, they can't be allowed to develop further.”

Nods could be seen all around. This wasn't an execution mission though, they were here to discover and assess. They would need to infiltrate the tunnel system and get a better understanding of the situation before they could act with all the information. Liz, being the captain of their group, decided they didn't have time to deliberate if they wanted to effectively track this group.

“So, it isn't good. They already have a couple hundred feet lead on us. The fact they're dragging that body is a point in our favor. It might just slow then down enough for us to catch up, but we need to move now.” She said while looking between each team member. They understood this is where the true danger began.

As one they moved out of the building, cloaks pulled tight with their hoods up to provide maximum coverage. It would all fall apart if they were detected before they caught up. Even with they're training They couldn't hope to take on nine of those monsters in a head on fight. That wasn't even considering what the aberrant might be capable of.

Moving from building to building they hugged the shadows and closed the distance in less than three minutes. They were walking the knives edge between the necessity of both speed and stealth. As they came to the entrance, they saw the next challenge they would have to overcome.

They had assumed that there would be some light source for the rampant to so willing walk in to the tunnel. That was a big assumption, and one they found to be entirely incorrect. In the face of true cave darkness Team Artemis didn't know what to do. In their short time in the field, this wasn't something they've had to deal with before.

This is when Specter stepped up to show their worth. Each of them opened a small unassuming pouch that they had attached to their belt. Reaching in to the pouch, they pulled out… light?

Glen wasn't sure what he was seeing, and it was written across his face plain for everyone to see. It was as if their hands were glowing, and a faint green light illuminated enough area around itself for him to see the grim smiles of each member of Specter.

“Glow moss. We crushed it in to a powder and mixed it with a bit of water, it retains the ability to glow for over a month if stored properly. We believe it reacts to the open air. Notoriously difficult to find, I’m not surprised you haven't seen it.” Liz informed not just Glen, but Douglas and Pirah at the same time.

She continued on to say, “We harvest it ourselves any time we come across it and try to be mindful where groves can be found. It isn't plentiful enough for every scout to be equipped with the stuff. Take some of ours and rub it along the inside of your cloak like this.”

Having said that she went ahead to demonstrate that by layering a couple patches on the inside of her own cloak she had created a tiny personal light source. It didn't give much visibility individually, but with everyone using the moss they could see enough to move forward. The best part in Glen’s mind was that the cloak was so thick that with it pulled tightly around their body no light could escape without them intending it.

“Thank you, Liz, I’m beginning to truly see the wisdom of Maxwell for our teams to be paired in the field. We're learning a lot from your team.” Glen did his best to show appreciation not just because it was his sister, but genuinely he was learning from people he respected.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Pirah interjected to ask a question, “While I'm thankful of course. I do have to ask. What's with the smell? It's faint, but it seems like it might have already started to get a bit stronger.”

“Yes, that is the one downside to our moss.” Jordan answered, then continued to tell the group, “As Liz mentioned, the moss reacts to the air. The same process that allows it to shine causes it to burn away. In a very literal sense, you're smelling the moss rapidly combusting. You'll notice it produces a small amount of heat and gas. In less than an hour we’ll have to reapply it if we still need to see in the dark.”

This revelation further explained why it was not common in a scouts kit. Glen knew from his training many of the creatures that they hunted had heightened senses. At least that wouldn't be a concern in the tunnels with no draft to carry their scent.

“Ok teams let's get in there. Our first priority is safety. Move quick, move quiet. We avoid fighting if we don't have to. Once we know what we're up against we can decide how we want to overcome it.” With his short speech done Glen gestured with a single finger over his lips and pointed towards the opening.

They moved in formation with Bryan and Miles taking the lead. Though Douglas was the largest person here, his expertise lent him more towards a medic role, so he hung back towards the rear with Pirah and Jordan. Glen and Liz found themselves towards the center. They were both commendable fighters, but it also allowed them to coordinate their teams.

The great thing about tracking a prey as mindless as most rampant tend to be, is they don't know to cover their tracks. It was trivial for the group even in these poor conditions to follow along behind the monsters leading them through the tunnels. They navigated through several twist and turns, some passages they only were able to spot through the tracks. Both teams got the impression that if either team had explored this deep on their own, they would have missed multiple important turns.

After a short period of time, they managed to close the gap such that they could hear the shuffling of feet and dragging of a body ahead of them. Abruptly the group heard silence followed a couple seconds later by an incredible thumping sound. It was as if something large had dropped from a considerable height and hit the ground with a tremendous amount of force. Whatever they heard, fall was followed by several more lighter impacts.

The two lead scouts put their hands up behind themselves signaling with their residual glow for the rest of the party to stop. From where Glen stood, he could see what appeared to be a drop off ahead of them. Making sense of the situation he realized what they heard was the creature being thrown over the edge, and the rampant simply jumping after it. Oddly though even from this distance Glen was fairly certain he could make out another light source inside the room connected by the drop off.

With everyone else in the party stopped, Bryan and Miles pressed their bodies towards the floor and crept forward to peer over the edge in to the room. Glen wasn't sure what they saw, but it must have been bad because he could visibly see them begin to shake. These senior scouts that he respected, were terrified.

It took all of his training and discipline not to move forward to see for himself. Right as his will began to break, they received the signal from Bryan to approach. Liz gestured to the three in the back to remain as a rear guard, while she and Glen moved forward slowly crawling in a prone position. The closer he got to the edge, the more well-lit the area became. It would take a moment for his eyes to adjust.

He was having trouble understanding what he was seeing. Glen did not understand. Nothing in his training prepared him for what was before him.

The drop off connected to a very spacious chamber. It was perhaps forty foot by forty foot, mostly a plain square box with several tunnels connecting at different points along each wall. As his eyes began to focus, he could see the slime and vines clinging to the crumbling walls. The chamber was also partially covered in a layer of water that slowly emptied through a run off grate against the far wall. None of that mattered. What mattered was the gigantic blob of flesh sitting in the center of the water emitting light.

The monster was something he could never have dreamed of in his most vivid nightmares. The blob had countless faces all over its body stuck in a rictus of a silent scream. At odd angles there were arms and legs protruding constantly grasping as well as kicking at empty air. It's veins were visible through it's transparent paper thin skin.

As Glen looked on in horror the sight just kept getting worse as each second passed. The group of rampant that had been carrying the forward left it sprawled out directly in front of the abomination. There was a visible tremor that ran through the water across the entire room in response. Thick tendrils that had been laying just below the water shot up and wrapped around the body. With strength that was incongruent with the tendrils he could see the entire mass of the creature wretched forward and dragged in to the blob.

“Holy shit…”

“What the fuuu”

“We need to go.”

“I don’t…”

The group of four wasn't sure who said what. They were shocked in to a numbness so profound they didn't even realize they were speaking. To their credit all of them had been quiet and held their ground without flinching.

They watched as the abomination consumed the biomass in front of it without using any of it's many snapping mouths. The creature was simply absorbed in to it. It was as if the beast had never existed at all, but the abomination has grown in size. Glen was at a total loss of understanding. Thinking it was over he began to untense his body, when a single much larger tendril came up from the water. Slowly at first but then quicker over time, mass seemed to move from the main creature and in to the tendril.

When the tendril had grown so large that the original abomination was now smaller than before it ate, it seemed to simply snap off and disconnect. The appendage lay perfectly still for a long moment. When they were sure nothing more was going to happen, it began to convulse and shake like a self-contained earthquake.

Ripples spread across it's putty like body, and it began to take shape. Now that the process started it was all happening in quick succession. A torso formed in the center mass. Then came the arms and legs. Lastly a head like appendage rose atop the Chest. Before the party, in less than five minutes, a new rampant had been born