It was giant rats. Its always giant rats. “Told you Bargus said from the back of the group. The room was filled with flammable items so he had been relegated to rear guard. The inns cellar was quite extensive and they spent over an hour clearing out nests of the dog sized rodents. They used the easy monsters to work on their formations. Val held the front line with Krim disabling and obstructing the enemies movement while Fredd lashed with vines. Saul stood ready to heal or suck the life out of something. Krim enjoyed fighting the easy to predict rats and began experimenting with thinner tendrils that would latch on to the face of the monster and quickly seek out its brain through the nose or ears. A few pokes at their squishy brains was enough to knock them out and he imagined it would be the same for larger creatures. 'Even people.'

“Fredds rubbing off on me” he muttered drawing a confused glance from Val.

Once the rats were cleared up and thrown into a pile in the middle of the cellar they took a break. While easy prey the rats had kept coming, uncaring about the amount of their dead that piled up around them and Val could barely hold her spear after an hour of constant thrusting. Just as they were wrapping up Krim heard a feint tapping. “That almost sounds like back in the cave.” he said standing and listening at the walls.

'RUMBLE'

“What the hell was that!” Val shouted as the room shook

'RUMBLE'

“An earthquake?” Fredd suggested.

'RUMBLE, RUMBLE. CRASH!'

The ground beneath their feet crumbled and Krim felt his shins snap from getting caught between two slabs of rock. Thinking quickly he wrapped his body in a cocoon of tentacles as thick as he could. He bounced hard and felt a tentacle beneath him burst open from the impact. Rock piled on top entombing him before he could move. Krim waited for the debris to settle before probing his tentacles in what he hoped was an upward direction. The rocks above him barely shifted and it felt like the entire inn had collapsed on them. Thoughts of his friends trapped or crushed spurred him on and her pushed with all his Tentacles strength. Slowly the rocks covering him shifted and slid away, only then did he realize he might be hurting people by moving the rocks.

'I need to get free.' Collateral damage or not he continued to blindly force his way out. There was a sudden feeling of free fall and he bounced again but this time he rolled down a hill instead of being crushed. The jarring bumps from the rubble jiggled his shattered legs making him scream involuntarily. He finally came to rest and unfurled his protective cocoon to review the damage. His lower legs were a pulped mess that was barely connected to him and flopped uselessly when he touched them. The pain from them hanging and grating against his still attached shin bone was unspeakable. In a blind painful fury he grabbed the small knife at his side and slashed through the torn skin, cutting the legs free. It made him sick to see his own legs roll away from him but the pain had lessened immediately. The only problem now was the blood pouring out of him. He tried the first thing that felt right and grew a large thick tentacle from the messed up ends of each leg. The bleeding dribbled out at the seems but he grew smaller tentacles to plug up the holes. “Now I look like a flesh cultist.”

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He shook his head as he stared at his wriggling legs. To the strange part of himself that came from Selaphos this felt right. Why wouldn't he replace his old barely functioning, easily damaged limbs with elegant, writhing, crushing... “What the fuck!” Krim slapped his legs and the jolt of fresh pain snapped him out of the disturbing thoughts. “That wasn't me, those weren't mine!” he shouted. The more connected he became to his boon the more disturbed he was becoming. He'd never heard of someone being corrupted by their god. 'It would explain the flesh cults, though.'

Krim shook himself out of his own head again in case it prompted any more mental invasions and took stock where he was. The pit was massive, easily over a few hundred meters wide and looking up he could just make out a small circle of light through the falling dust. 'Even if I could climb out I can't just leave everyone down here.' Which prompted his next problem. He had no way of knowing where to dig for his friends. Moving the rubble could collapse it further on them and there was still too much noise to hear someone shouting.

While Krim stood paralysed by indecision Fredd was getting to work. He had wrapped the rest of the party in vines and pulled them to him during the fall but to a man they were all unconscious. His vines didn't absorb as much of the impact as he'd hoped but they were all in one piece. He couldn't tell which way was up so forced the seeds in his pockets to grow roots in all directions. As they grew he had them wrap around the loosed rubble fixing it in place and slowly formed a small cave around all of them. It didn't take long to feel the joyful hunger of the plants as they felt the sun shining on them and he tunnelled his way out, dragging the others behind him. He felt like a plant himself as he burst out of the ground into the light. Krim wobbled on his new legs but he half ran half stumbled to Fredd and wrapped him in an exhausted hug. “Thank the gods you made it.” he whispered as relief and building panic left him. Fredd pulled the rest of the team behind him and Krim looked on ashamed. He'd only thought of himself as the floor collapsed while Fredd had saved them all. “I'm sorry, I should of done something.” he stammered out as Fredd unwrapped the three of them.

“You've done plenty of saving us, its not always on you.” Fredd put a calming hand on his friends shoulders and nodded to the others. “You can help me move these three though. Its hard to grow vines without soil.”

They flattened the top of the pile somewhat and lay the three down while searching for a way out. Once most of the dust in the air had settled Krim was able to make out a half filled tunnel in the wall in front of him. Now that he knew what he was looking for he spotted others. There was roughly eight tunnels around the cavern and he knew exactly what had made them. “This was the damned Gnomes. Gods know how long they've been digging this out.”

Fredd had already assumed it was gnomes but it wasn't until Krim pointed them out did he see the tunnels. “They look large enough to walk through. Why would the gnomes make such tall tunnels?” he wondered.

“Why don't we go ask them?” Krim said raising onto his tentacles. A small grey gnome was staring down at them from the nearest tunnel.