We decided that we would call the creatures worm-drakes - which was a bit of a compromise on all sides, as you might imagine. We had no idea what they were actually called - but maybe they didn’t even have a name. Perhaps we were the first to find them. That was unlikely, as every other adventuring group had entered the dungeon before us, and at least one person must have been here already - the woman with the staff, if no one else. But maybe none of them had bothered to name the monster. Either way, it’s what we would call it.

After the worm-drake had passed, we pressed on, out of the little pass we’d been in and out to the basin - is that the right word? I never paid much attention to geography - where the monster had been. The cavern opened up here into a wide bowl, with that strange fauna growing sporadically here and there, and there wasn’t just the one worm-drake there, but many. It felt like we were descending into a pit of vipers, except that these “vipers” were nearly as tall as we were and as long as a football field - though the length and height varied, a few looking quite short and stubby. Younger ones, perhaps.

They didn’t just crawl along the ground, but were actually able to use their claws to climb up the stone walls, and we saw that they were, in fact, carnivores. We sat and watched, in a mix of fear and awe, as a worm-drake climbed a distant cave-wall, made its way up to one of those massive limpets, snatched it with its hands, and slunk back down with it, leaving a trail of slime on the wall as the crustacean was dragged behind. Then, coiling its monstrous tail around itself all the while, it wedged both hands into a gap in the limpet’s shell and wrenched it open, splitting it like a pistachio. The sound of tearing flesh and cracking carapace joined the constant white noise of shifting and wriggling from further on, and filled the chamber with the sounds of violence. Then the worm-drake lunged, its mouth wide, teeth bared, at the soft wet interior, and the limpet had no time to react, nowhere to hide. Holding it in place with its claws, the worm-drake devoured it - it tried to swallow it whole, but, finding it too large, ripped chunks free from the shell with its teeth until it was done.

“You want to fight one of those?” I asked Cadoc.

Cadoc smiled. “At this moment, truly, I desire nothing more.”

I shook my head. I couldn’t say I didn’t understand, just a little bit. The longer I stayed in that world, the more I got the taste for violence. It was a powerful tool - one I had never really appreciated on Earth. Violence on Earth had felt criminal, lowly - here, this was a world of violence, where violence could be brave, could be noble, could be effective. My current hypothesis, at that time, was that it was the key to my future success - that the instilled knowledge I had snatched from observing Tom, as incomplete as it was, could be temporarily supplemented with hardheadedness, ruthlessness, and violence. I’d never seen Tom be violent, but maybe he didn’t have to. The best athletes don’t need to take performance-enhancing drugs. The rest of us have no choice.

Still, Cadoc didn’t seem to appreciate violence as a powerful tool, but rather enjoyed violence for violence’s sake. That was the difference. I was practical. He was a crazy person.

It was much harder, now, to catch the woman’s trail. There was no longer a series of open doors to follow, and even if I had been a great tracker, able to follow her footprints in the dirt - which I certainly wasn’t - the worm-drakes and their constant slithering would have quickly smoothed out and erased any evidence of someone’s passing.

We searched anyway. We stayed close to the walls. The clearing seemed to dip slightly towards the center like a drain, and the worm-drakes were less common along the edges. Not completely absent, however, as our first encounter attested.

Our view of the center was obscured by the subterranean plant life, but what views we managed revealed an undecipherable cluster of tails, arms, and jaws. It was either a vicious mosh pit, or a massive orgy, or both.

There were signs that, at least on occasion, the worms pulled themselves out of it. Holes had been dug into the rock walls at regular intervals, circular except for flat bottoms, all of them roughly the size of the worm-drakes. I was scared to go inside them, at first, but most didn’t go very far, and we could see to the end of them simply by peeking a torch inside. We also hadn’t yet seen any worm enter or emerge from one of these holes, though that didn’t prove much.

We smelled the danger before we heard it. That same stale, fetid stench.

Then we heard the scream. It wasn’t a word - not “help!” or anything like that. Just a wordless cry of distress.

It was coming from a tunnel not far ahead. We ran without a word, all of us perhaps for our own reasons, perhaps even with our own differing expectations.

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Inside the tunnel - barely tall enough to stand inside, hunched over - was a light. A lantern, it looked like, burning at the far end, maybe 40 feet away. There were supplies splayed out among the rocks.

And two scraggly Kalamuzi, swords hanging at their sides, carrying a flailing woman. Her face was already bloodied from scraping across the roof of the tunnel. She was tied, but not gagged, and she screamed when she saw us, and her flailing gained new vigor. “Help! Please, you’ve gotta help me!”

My first thought was that she was lucky to be alive. The Kalamuzi had eaten most everyone we had seen, other than a few they took captive from Graja. My second thought was that “lucky” wasn’t quite the right word.

It was the woman with the staff, and said staff laid on the floor behind her, next to a bedroll. The Kalamuzi must have caught her sleeping.

The Kalamuzi froze, staring at us. One of them had brighter eyes than usual, and I saw a cold intelligence behind them. Its fur was patchier, more bald skin showing through, and it was slightly taller than the other one as well.

Cadoc started to approach immediately, but Amaia caught his shoulder. “They aren’t going anywhere,” she said. “Let them come.”

I understood what she was getting at, and she was right. If we approached, we would have to fight hunched over, while the Kalamuzi, short as they were, would have no such problem. The taller one was hunched over slightly, but I’d seen them run on all fours before. Even outnumbering them, as we did, it would be a deadly fight.

I took my slingshot off of my belt. There were other ways to kill a rat, and I had a new-found confidence in my shooting.

The one in front, with the bright eyes, who held the woman above its head near her shoulders, chittered something. Then, to my shock, it spoke.

“Leave, or kill girl,” it said, its voice alternating between high-pitched squeaks and low gutturals.

“Kill the girl,” I said, sweating, “And we’ll kill you.”

The ratman laughed a snickering, unnerving laugh. “You try.”

“You’re outnumbered,” I said, trying to sound confident. “You can’t be that dumb.”

“Then she die, then we fight. Or…”

“Or?”

“Or we fight. One one. You and Risthindicthi.”

I assumed that was his name. Or his partner’s name. It was interesting that they even had names, but it didn’t matter.

“And what happens if we win?” I asked.

“We die.”

I scrunched up my face. “You’ll leave her behind, in the tunnel?”

“If deal. First, you move from hole. So not attack first. Fair. Deal.”

I thought that the rats might just run at that point, but if they left the woman behind, that was still a pretty good deal. As long as they didn’t slit her throat first, just to spite us.

I considered our options. My slingshot was our only weapon with real range, other than Amaia’s leftover spears we had made earlier. The slingshot was already in my hands, my fist wrapped tightly around its handle. I could probably get a shot off before they could react, I thought, but two? Accurately? Maybe. Maybe. But maybe not. And maybe it wouldn’t even kill them, just take out an eye or something.

I looked to Cadoc and Amaia, nodding my head once, trying to communicate that I thought we should take the deal. They nodded back.

“Alright,” I yelled back into the tunnel, “It’s a deal. Throw the woman down first, and we’ll back away.”

“Deal,” the Kalamuzi hissed. “Deal.” Then he squeaked something to his partner - who seemed absolutely oblivious to the conversation, eyes dull - before they both threw the woman down, back where she had likely been resting just before. She landed with a thud, and a yelp of pain.

I was tempted again to try my shot, now that they’d be taken by surprise, but I still wasn’t confident in the power of my slingshot. I motioned to Cadoc and Amaia, and we slowly backed away.

Cadoc backed along the cavern wall to one side, Amaia to the other, and I withdrew straight back, towards the worm-drake mass. We were luckily still far off, though I stole glances behind me anyway. A large white bush with pulsating red veins blocked my view.

The rats scurried out of the hole on all fours. They emerged, and while I was prepared for them to make a run for it, they didn’t. The intelligent one eyed me.

“You. Me. Him,” he pointed to his partner. Then he looked back and forth, from Cadoc to Amaia and back again, deciding. “Him.”

Amaia looked offended. I just barely caught what she said. “Am I that scary looking?”

Cadoc, on the other hand, couldn’t have looked happier. Both of the rats started to walk towards their respective opponents, but Cadoc didn’t wait for long.

“Let us begin!” Cadoc yelled, and he drew his sword en route, charging the dull-eyed rat. Those dull eyes went wide, but it drew its own sword and stood its ground.

My rat, unphased, continued towards me. I loaded a nail-covered ball into my slingshot, aimed it, and drew back the bands.

Now it was this rat’s turn to go wide-eyed, though I couldn’t imagine why. I’d agreed to a duel, not a sword fight. Did the stupid fucker not think I was going to use my slingshot?

In that case, he was in for another surprise.

I let the ball fly. It soared wide of the ratman, and there was a look of relief on his face for a moment, before the ball struck its true mark.

Well, struck close, anyway. I had been aiming for the head, but I watched as the ball embedded itself into the thin flesh of the other ratman’s arm.

It clearly hadn’t had the explosive power that the previous owner had managed to get out of it, but it had still had enough force to break the skin. I immediately ignited the nail that encased it, and saw as a little flame shot out from the hole in the rat’s arm.

It screeched, grabbing at the wound with its other hand and turning towards the source of the shot.

It hadn’t broken a bone or anything, and, ironically, the fire would probably cauterize the wound, so there wasn’t even a chance of making the thing bleed out. But it had to hurt like a son of a bitch, having your arm burn from the inside out, and that was all I needed.

Cadoc, though he looked confused - maybe even upset - didn’t stop. The Kalamuzi, turned momentarily from his duel, didn’t stand a chance. Cadoc’s blade descended, and the rat was struck down.

The intelligent-looking one was now alone. He had turned to see his compatriot die, and now looked back at me, his bright eyes two burning marbles, black pupils surrounded by white shell - just like the steel ball that had just sealed his friend’s fate.

He screeched. “Cheat,” he hissed, pointing at me. “You! Cheat!”

I shrugged. “It’s been known to happen.”

The Kalamuzi screeched again, foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog, literally seething with anger. He quickened his pace slightly, drawing his own blade from his side. He was still a few yards off, so I readied myself for another shot.

“Cheating is a small price to pay,” I muttered to myself. “I would pay so, so much more.”

Then, in a surprising burst of speed, the Kalamuzi charged me.