“What in Palea is a dune worm?!” Aeronik screamed just as we hit the high point of the intestinal tube, rocking for a second just before we tilted for the descent.
“That! That! That is a fucking Dune worm!” I screamed, pointing my sword out at the trauma-fuel that was rapidly gaining on us. “It isn’t actually called a Dune worm but we’re not getting into that right now!”
“What is it called?” Ak’s rubble voice groaned as he released an imbued frost fire arrow directly into the center of the thing’s mouth.
Circling blue and red energy cast a spiraling glow inside of the worm’s mouth as the arrow descended deep. We heard the wet thump of the arrow hitting flesh, then the wild shriek of pain from the worm. The shot only served to piss the thing off as it writhed even harder, shaking the tube and rattling our shit cart.
“Go! Go!” I screamed as the cart tilted further forward and began to drop.
“Do not waste arrows, Ak-Lok,” Fogdahn said. “You must save them for the-“
“OH DEEEEEAAAAAAAAAARRRR!” Fogwarth screamed as the cart went into drop mode, plummeting around the speed of a bullet down the winding, bending intestinal corridor.
I also screamed, feeling my juicy berry inside shift and flop around from the sudden drop. However, my screams were working double time as I got a glimpse of the worm in the distance way up on the hill we just dropped from.
And it was beginning to fall down after us.
“It’s coming along for the ride!” I shouted, summoning my new [Boom Boom Bananarang] into my free hand.
Just as I had thought, it was a huge, bicycle tire-sized banana bent into the shape of a boomerang. It was surprisingly heavy for a banana, but I gripped it firmly and prepared to launch it at the plummeting, pale worm of death the moment it got into throwing range. From over my shoulder came a sickly green spear of energy, crackling and sizzling with putrid power. Fogdahn launched it at the distant worm, the spear smashing into it with a burst of Eldritch energy and dissolving a small part of the worm’s flesh on impact; the bubbling and hissing of melting skin and teeth was loud enough to hear from our distance.
The worm roared, not halting its drop for even a moment despite the damage. Fogdahn launched another move, this time a beach ball sized sphere of Eldritch power that he flung up in the things path, exploding into a toxic gas that even dissolved parts of the wall that it touched. The worm barreled through it, the gas clearing corroding bits of it on contact, but still didn’t slow its charge.
My turn then.
I held off on tossing the banana, still worried I was a little out of range. Instead I used my rose-hips, building a big old bush of them right behind us. The barricade of my thorns and flowering fruits was the largest I had made yet, making me wonder if my increased rank had something to do with it or if it was compensating for the lack of an actual target. Regardless, moments later the worm charged right through it and I was met with a fireworks display of -2s, -3s, and even a few critical hits that were as high as -7. The amount might have been minuscule, but that shit adds up, and the worm actually was slowed by a fraction, buying us a second or two to regain our distance on it.
“There, Ak-Lok!” I heard Foggy shout from the driver seat. “That glowing, throbbing pustule! That must be it!”
The snap of a fired arrow sounded next, followed by a pop and then a spray of green slime that splattered us in the warm goo.
“Oh, yuck,” I said, looking at the stuff around me.
I turned back to see a wall of a stringy web substance begin to dissolve a moment before we moved through it, only barely making it through in time. I had no doubt that if we didn’t get the wall down we would have been stuck to it, making us easy food for the colossal worm.
“Disgusting! Putrid!” Aeronik cried out, flinging the smelly pus all around like a wet dog. “Mind your aim, moronic golem!”
“Oh shut up,” I said, returning my attention to the worm that was no longer being slowed. “Easy for someone with nothing to do to complain. Sit back and enjoy the ride, dumbass.”
Another Eldritch spear crackled right by me, colliding with the worm and taking out another bit from it with its corrosive power. I focused, bringing out a sunflower cannon right from the back ledge of the cart. The flower burst with light, the energy beam bursting against the worm and inflicting the stun effect. Unfortunately, just as the rose-hips did, it only worked to slow the creature instead of actually ending its momentum.
“There!” Foggy shouted, and this time we all braced ourselves for the pus splatter that followed the pop of the arrow.
The worm regained speed again, clearly only mildly affected by the various stuns I used. It figured. It was moving far too fast to be stopped by normal abilities, and something that big had to have resistances up the wazoo.
Up the wazoo?
I contemplated using my pyracantha pillar but decided to hold off until the situation was a bit more dire. Instead I opted to finally try out my bananarang just as the worm looked to be getting too close for comfort.
The boomerang left my hand with ease as if begging to churn some air. It flipped end over end in a wide horizontal arc, nearly splattering against the side of the cavern in the process. The banana curved back and I was momentarily nervous that it was turn too soon and come right back at me; I wasn’t sure if I could catch it or if it would explode on contact with anything. Luckily it curved right before the charging work, getting lost within its gargantuan mouth and exploding within the darkness of its throat.
The creatures hacked and coughed, not slowing but definitely not comfortable. It’s momentum only briefly slipped while it tried to hack up the banana goo, but it was instantly back on track. Still, the -52 was a welcomed amount of damage.
“Gah! Back! Back from my dear golem!”
I turned to see Foggy desperately fighting away a fleet of some kind of flying creatures that began to pummel and circle Ak-Lok. The things were dark, nearly black, and dripping with a hot booze that sizzled when it hit the intestinal walls. Foggy was quick, one hand on the mechanism that stirred this literal pile of shit while his other hand flung his sword out in wild swings. He managed to cleave one of them, prompting a notification.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
[Your party has slain a Bile Bat - Level 13. You are awards 122 experience points]
“Aeronik! Get the bats! Spear the Goddamn bats!” I shouted as we cut around a tight bend and nearly all spilled out.
None of my shit was off cooldown yet and the worm slammed around the bend with the full force of a subway train, cracking and wrecking parts of the walls with its body and hissing as it regained its pace on us. I spared another glance back to Ak not to see the same exact situation playing out, with Foggy desperately trying to get the bats while simultaneously controlling the car, meanwhile Ak was lining up glowing pustules in his sight to fire at for the obstacle portion of the trial.
“Aero-“ I began to shout, until I turned and saw him in a battle against a whole new swarm of the [Bile Bats].
The bats seemed to do very little damage individually, but their main purpose wasn’t to kill or maim us; they were solely there for distraction. I heard the whip of another arrow fly out followed by the crack of it impacting against the stone wall, missing the glowing pustule by a hair. Ak quickly fired off a second and hit his target, collapsing the sticky barrier only a second before we passed through. Fogdahn swept out his scythe, reaping a handful of the ones around Ak in a single stroke right as we smashed around another bend. Fogwarth was too distracted by the bats to effectively get us around the bend, and our cart scraped along the outer wall, nearly toppling us out while drastically slowing our progress.
“It is upon us!” Fogdahn shouted, firing off another Eldritch spear and immediately beginning to cast his exploding sphere move.
I snapped out of it and found that the worm was only about a car’s length behind us and gaining fast. Nothing was off of cooldown yet, but the rose-hips were close. We needed to hold off for just a few more seconds then I could slow the bastard down. The pale green orb flew by me, exploding and damaging the worm with toxic gas but not slowing it down. We had to do something to slow it down.
How about a solid spinning pillar of fireberry fury?
I turned and cast the ability out a little before the cart, much to the shock and confusion of Fogdahn. The top of the pillar broke through just as the cart began to pass over it, lifting the cart into the air as if we just hit a big ass jump in the X-games. We landed hard, our shit cart buckling and grinding against the hard floor of the tunnel before regaining its traction with Foggy fighting with the control stick.
The pillar nearly reached the ceiling, spinning with exploding berry flames bursting around it like exploding fireflies. The worm barreled into the pillar hard enough to shake the entire tunnel, momentarily halting its progress as their collision let out a thunderous, deafening crack. Our little cart pushed forward, regaining space as the pillar began to crack and groan at the base. It held out for only a single breath longer before it toppled over, exploding berries bursting with small spurts of flame as the worm began to move over it.
“Gah!” Aeronik exclaimed, swatting away more bats. “Can you do anything right, blueberry?! If the carnivorous worm chasing us wasn’t bad enough-gah!” He interrupted himself, batting away another bat. “You’ve now set it on fire!”
I looked back at the worm, and… huh, yeah. It was now on fire.
The worm was a mangled mess. Our steady barrage of attacks had done a number on the disgusting Titan, who now had marred and melted flesh both in and out of its mouth. Many of its teeth were cracked or broken, leaving shards that rattled round in its mouth as it moved after us. Even its shrieks and grunts were dying down as if the massive creature was losing the fervor it had in the beginning of the chase. Flames rippled and licked off of its body as an after effect of the pillar I cast, filling the tunnel with smoke trailing behind it.
Well, at least we knew we were hurting the thing.
That was good and all, but now the real threat was quickly becoming the absolute gangbang of bats that had overtaken the front of the cart. My glance showed that it was nothing my a black swarm of the things overwhelming us like a wave of pure shadow. My party screamed and fought but, just as the spiders in the prior trial, the bats seemed to be endless in number. I swatted at them with my sword, but I was too short to reach the majority and only barely managed to clip one that had been attacking Aeronik.
Bellbane had turned and was strategically letting loose funnels of his steam ability, which cleared visible holes in their ranks. It just wasn’t enough, and every gap he made was quickly filled in.
“To our upper left, Ak-Lok!” Foggy shouted, briefly clearing a swath of them to reveal an upcoming pustule for the golem.
Ak-Lok had fired rapidly, releasing three arrows one after another and imbuing the second for more area of effect damage. The golem was firing blind, only basing shots off of the vague whereabouts Foggy had called out. He finally hit it on the fourth shot, once again saving our asses.
Not knowing what else I could do, I quickly summoned my healing spore ability over our group to restore the slowly building damage my team was taking. The glowing orbs of light and nature descended just over our area and seemed to follow us even at our speed, which I was grateful for.
But, in an unexpected turn of events, I may have actually discovered something useful.
“Light! It’s light magic or whatever!” I screamed and cheered.
The orbs of falling light spores rested on us for some healing effects, however the bats immediately shot away to avoid the orbs. A few orbs touched down on the bats, burning their dark, bile bodies and even killing a couple outright. That was it… That had to be it! Light!
“Lanterns! Give me the spare lanterns!” I yelled, grabbing at the pouch on Aeronik’s waist.
He swatted me away, then avoided a swooping bat. “No! You will not sacrifice what little of my lanterns I still have for some parlor trick! You have wasted one enough!”
“Oh, shut the Hell up and give them to me!” I snapped.
Bellbane shot another gust of steam toward the bats swarming Aeronik, then lunged for the wasp, grabbing him by the chest armor and shaking him while gesturing towards me.
Aeronik rocked back and forth in the cart, disoriented by the shaking, and quickly reached into his pouch and handed me the lanterns. I snatched the remaining three up and looked deeply into the glass cases. Sure enough it wasn’t fire, but a glowing orb of light just as I had thought.
“And Bingo was his name-o!” I triumphantly shouted as I tossed two lanterns to Foggy and his brother, each snatching them out of the air and swinging them at the bats.
Suddenly the bats scattered, fearing the glowing lanterns and the radius of light around them. With the bats backing off, Ak-Lok was able to nail two pustules ahead of us with little issue, clearing up two back-to-back obstacles and revealing the distant clearing up ahead. We were flying high now, clearing the bats and obstacles with only seconds until we reached the end of this intestinal nightmare.
But the fucking worm was still right on our asses. There was no way around it, this beast was following us into the next part of this trial.
“Do hold on, friends! It appears we are in for quite the leap of faith!” Foggy called out as the bats cleared completely; they either were avoiding the stomach or they were avoiding the worm, but either way it wasn’t a great sign for us.
The exit was on us. A large opening into a vast space met us like a sketchy, welcoming neighbor, inviting us in only for us to meet more danger. The worm was close enough for me to feel its breath on our cart, smell it’s rotting and burned flesh all around us and taste it’s blood in the air.
To be fair, that last one might have just been the splattered pus.
I heard the buzz of wings followed by the whipping of air as Fogdahn propelled himself up and out of the exit just as we broke through. I was suddenly hit with massive déjù vu as our cart plummeted to the ground below with me staring up at Fogdahn hovering high above, along with the mouth of the pale gargantuan worm that had just started clearing the tunnel’s opening.
Ah. That’s right. Guess the brothers aren’t so different after all.
I looked up at him as we fell toward the stomach’s floor, shaking my sword like an elderly man swatting a cane at the annoying neighborhood kids.
“You bastaaaaaaaaaaard!”