Frantically looking around, Alice spotted not fifteen feet away a kind of rock shore illuminated by the bioluminescent vines that hung from the ceiling providing dim blueish light, the maw of a tunnel just ahead of firm ground.

As the splashing got louder and the currents beneath Alice more violent, she started to swim towards the shore as fast as she could. At the same time, Alice could feel something rising from the depths of the underground lake, pushing water outwards and creating waves that aided Alice in reaching the shore.

As she came closer and closer, the first tentacle that had emerged whipped itself towards her, and Alice activated [Torment] by pure instinct, assured of her own death.

But the appendage twitched, and that deviation caused the attack to whiff by a few inches to her side, carving a deep gouge in the churning surface of the water that made Alice pale, her face white as a ghost’s.

As she scrambled onto firm ground and started crawling away from the underground body of water, Alice was sure that had that attack hit her she’d be nothing but chunks of meat splattered across the water, ripe for the picking.

Looking back to assure herself that the monster was not following, Alice caught a glimpse of a bulbous body from which grew a multitude of appendages and heads, all of different make. Some appeared human, some looked utterly alien, reptilian, and some even looked cat-like; all of them rotting and with chunks of meat missing or hanging by a thread. Her eyes itched and burned as she stared at the monstrosity as it sunk deep below the water once again, its appendages tranquil once more.

Blinking, she noticed how the faces it now had were different, as well as the appendages. Some were made of different interconnected arms, all of them with the anterior part of the forearm slit wide open and spewing blackened blood, others looked like a mishmash of reptilian and mammalian tails, and others simply hurt too much to look at.

Before it submerged itself completely, she managed to focus on it long enough to form a prompt.

Name

Anoroth, Corrupted Kraken

Tier

[?]

Level

[??]

Affinity: ???

Alice shivered as she crawled further backwards and away from the water. She wanted nothing to do with anything she couldn’t identify, no matter how much it’d help in her path to power if she managed to kill it.

Not keen on staying near the water, she got back up and started moving along the natural tunnel and away from the underground lake, nerves on a hair-trigger and head on a swivel for hidden hidey-holes. The bioluminescent vines appeared to cover the entirety of the ceiling of the cave system, for which she was grateful. She had no idea what she’d do if she had to actually crawl along the floor, palming everything to ensure she didn’t fling herself into oblivion and off some hidden cliff. Or worse yet, eaten alive by something she couldn’t see.

Alice walked, and walked, and walked. Quickly, she found herself in this dangerous state between utter boredom and nail-biting anxiety, not knowing where the threats would come from or how she’d deal with them, if they even happened to be something she could face.

Any lurking horror well beyond her league could sneak up behind her and snap her neck with just a bite and a twist.

The thought made Alice repeatedly rub the nape of her neck and keep a constant eye behind her, her steps as light as she could make them in fear of whatever lurked just beyond a corner or some hole she’d missed.

Eventually, and just as her anxiety reached a point where she had started to seriously consider quickly turning on and off [Torment] to ward off any possibly invisible assailants that were just bidding their time, she came to an intersection.

To the left, there was a path that quickly did a hard turn left, leaving her with a mere ten feet of corridor as opposed to the right, which went on and on in a straight line, until it met a brighter light than the vines provided. Other than the light at the literal end of the tunnel, she couldn’t make much else.

Choosing to take a peek on the left side and around the corner to make a more informed decision, she noticed bits of moss along the walls and floor, bioluminescent moss.

The same kind of moss that had cushioned her fall from the surface and prevented Alice from splattering against cold, hard rocks like an overripe tomato. That made her decision, and slowly but surely, she advanced, quickly finding another intersection. Alice noted down the location and followed the path that had more moss.

After ten more minutes of walking, Alice’s heart full of hope and dread both, she found the small moss clearing and she couldn’t stop a sigh of relief from fleeing her throat.

Her backpack was there, miraculously untouched, as well as the apparent dent in the moss she had made when falling. She’d laugh at it, if flashes of memory about broken limbs and barely working lungs didn’t assault her every time she looked at it.

Quickly looking away, she swiftly gathered her backpack and spotted a half-buried glint within the moss. Quickly kneeling and plunging and pulling her hand from the moss, she was rewarded with the sore sight of her broken sword, nothing but some inches of edge and the handle left. It’d do as a dagger in a pinch, but she already had an actual dagger stored in her backpack.

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She didn’t know when it could be useful, but it didn’t hurt to keep it.

Standing up, she groggily did a step backwards, trying to maintain balance. She could swear that there was something off in the corner, something that if she looked at it just so, she’d be able to see.

She just, had, to see…

Alice snapped out of it, noticing how her own nails had carved out three bright carmine lines of pain along her upper forearm, and she hastily stepped outside the cave, not wanting a repeat experience with whatever that had been.

As she did so, Alice longingly stared at the blood dripping from her forearm and into the floor, where the moss appeared to slowly absorb it.

“And these were new…”

Alice stifled a laugh when she took notice that she was complaining about ruining her forearms when she was inside some kind of cavernous system she had no idea to navigate or escape.

Shrugging, she followed her footsteps, and considered taking the other path near the small moss grove, but decided against it, instead keeping on forwards and getting to the other intersection, the one with the light at the end of the tunnel.

For all she knew, it may be some kind of landbound anglerfish that just bit in half whatever came near, but some information was better than nothing, as the other tunnel was rocks and vines and little else. She’d investigate it further. If she survived, that is.

Alice drew her dagger with her right hand, leaving her left free for creating and manipulating her chains, her mental finger already on top of [Torment], ready to activate it at a moment’s notice.

Ever-so-slowly, the light grew bigger and brighter, the tunnel becoming wider and wider with each step. A spark of hope soared within Alice’s chest, and she quickened her gait, intent on reaching the exit as fast as possible.

And then, there was light.

Before her widened eyes a cavernous expanse opened up in all directions, a forest of strange purple-blue trees with leaves ranging from yellow to almost black welcomed her. Looking upwards, she spotted dozens of small alien creatures flying near the edge of the top of the cavern, as she couldn’t see the ceiling at all, just more empty space that devolved into a darkness so profound she feared it would fall over her like a waterfall and swallow her whole.

To the right and to the left she could even spot more ecosystems apart from the forest. One seemed to be compounded of what appeared to be blackened vines with blood-red pods growing on it, and the other almost looked like a forest of brightly vibrant, giant mushrooms of all colours imaginable, and some that hurt to look at too.

The cave had everything. Deep ravines, small rivers in the distance and an unfathomable amount of space and animals. She neither could see the walls of the cavern, nor stop listening to the myriad mating calls, roars, screeches and chirps that populated the whole expanse of the thriving ecosystems.

It almost felt… artificial.

Her wonder was quickly shattered when she noticed something horribly wrong. It felt like a thread of slimy, squirming cotton that was trying to slither inside her brain and from within her ears. Like someone slipping their wet finger within your ear, but instead burrowing deeper and deeper, their finger elongating and thinning.

In a yell that was part horror part fury [Torment] activated almost by itself, and the tentacle twitched, but kept going.

Alice slapped her hands over her ears, panic quickly overcoming reason. When that did nothing, she fell to her knees, scratching and tearing at her own ears to no avail. It kept progressing and crawling and slithering within her ear canal, and then, it reached something within her head, grazed against it and—

And Alice found herself within her own soulspace.

Too stunned by the sudden change, she was caught completely unprepared for the sudden charge of the viscous horror that shouldn’t be there. It had the head of a nightmarish squid, filled with bloodshot eyes full of putrid blood that fell down in small streams that splat-splat-splattered against the floor. its mouth nothing but a mass of tentacles of differing form and length. The most unsettling part was how the squid's head was nestled within what appeared to be a humanoid body, even if said body was slightly translucent and possessed sharpened claws.

Screaming in fright, she tried to hold it off, its tentacles trying to crawl within the confines of her eye sockets, lacrimals and ears, trying once again to reach her brain, to crack open her skull and drink her self and soul like a cheap beverage.

A sudden, uncontrollable sense of searing hatred overcame Alice’s fear, and she plunged her arm into the mouth of the abomination, ignoring the serrated teeth she could feel were trying and succeeding to dig into her arm. Her arm was quickly covered in a curtain of her own blood, but Alice’s searing loathing won over the agony, and just when she was feeling the tendrils start to worm their way inside her lacrimals and ears, she grabbed ahold of something squishy but hard to the touch.

She made a fist around it as violently as she could, and the thing atop her screeched in agony, its tendrils freezing and retreating slightly. Smiling, Alice pulled as hard as she could, and something stopped her, before giving way with a sudden snap that turned her smile into a grin.

Howling in a shrill manner that put her teeth on edge, the thing tried to retreat from on top of her, and she wrapped her legs around it, plunging her arm deeper and then pulling back out, a cascade of brackish blood now covering Alice. She pulled and pulled, and with each movement, the tentacled horror screamed louder and louder, its struggle becoming weaker by the second.

With a last pull, she ripped some kind of elongated purple organ, still attached from one end to the insides of the monster, and its tentacles retreated from her entirely.

Taking the opportunity, she tackled it to the floor, wrapped its own organ around what appeared to be its throat a couple of times over, and started pulling backwards, the panicked gurgles and struggles it made giving her a sense of immense satisfaction.

As she felt its tugs and shoves growing to near-nothingness in strength, she looked at it, and pulled harder, until a loud, clear snap resounded along the chamber of her soulspace.

This was her soul. Here, of all places, was the sanctity of her self, of her ego and who she was.

And this thing had tried to violate that sanctity of both her mind and soul.

With a sideways step, she turned around and found herself in front of a writhing monster on the floor, the same one that had presented itself within her soulspace.

Kneeling, she brought her dagger to bear, slashing against the skin of its talons, severing the tendons there and eliciting a higher-pitched screech.

“I’m going to pull you apart, and I’m going to enjoy it.”