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Wriggling Mass

Species: Wriggling Mass

Family: Parasite

Risk level: Low

Weaknesses: Fire

Description: A simple group of tapeworms crawling throught the sewers. Somehow, if enough of them manage to gather in one place they can develop limited psychic abilities when near each other, using the already existing corruption emmited by lesser monsters, which manifests itself by forming hivemind enveloping every single one of them. They still parasite on other creatures, but developed rather unique way of doing that. They usually try to overwhelm with their numbers any creature small enough for them to successfully subdue.

Depending on the size of the colony it can be anything from rats to even few humans that regulary patrol their habitats. But those instances are very rare, due to their inability to form groups with more than coming from their limited intelligence, limiting the size of the hivemind. If they get a hold of some creature they then infect it with their eggs and stick their weakened bodies to the walls using the slime they produce.

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When the eggs inside hatch they are forcefully extracted by members of the hivemind, resulting in death of the victim. Its remnants are then consumed by the Wriggling Mass to sustain itself. It still isn't very dangerous and only needs rare, but regular hunts to keep its numbers in bay. If some of them are neglected and one of them manages to sneak outside, the best way to deal with it is to simply throw at it a single torch. They burn like dry sticks on hot summer days, so this is the easiest method to get rid of this beast.

Personal notes: "Thankfully, they are quite easy to hunt. They burn like twigs, so we don't require anything expensive or hard to preserve just to eliminate some vermins. But they could stop reproducing in current numbers. We definitely should ramp up hygienic standards un the notch, or otherwise more people will die, not even from monsters but just regular parasites." Cern Bladearm, member of Blood Hunt