Tim wasn’t having any fun. He could barely recall how he even ended up in these tunnels, but he knew one thing for sure, the tunnels weren’t so friendly towards spiders. He either had to keep fighting, or keep getting attacked by random creatures, which was a real hassle to work around. This was especially bothersome, once he considered that he barely won any rewards in return for all of the fights he put up! He was just running around, and surviving, which was less than ideal.
“Magical tunnels should’ve been more fun,” He pouted, “Well, this place isn’t fucking magical, I guess, but it does have magical creatures, and ghosts. Too bad that they’re all attacking me, I’d much rather use them. They could help me find my way out of here, at least, if not show me the way to a soul cave or whatever that thing is called. Oh well, I'll have to shoot at shit for as long as I can.”
These tunnels were chaotic, but he had to keep moving. Tim was getting hungry, and the fear of starvation that he felt, encouraged him to be on the move. It was tough enough to be anorexic, so he didn’t want to risk anything, he didn't want to test what would happen if his hunger bar went low again. It was simply too dangerous, so he kept moving, and tried to be as attentive as possible!
Tim’s senses were heightened, and they remained heightened, for five minutes straight now. At that very attentive state, he heard something that he would've rather ignored, and yet he couldn't. He heard a goat's call!
“Behehehe,” It echoed.
It was difficult to pinpoint where this sound came from, but he didn’t care to seek it out either. He was terrified.
In any earthly setting, he wouldn't be scared of a goat, it wouldn't make sense to be scared of one. But he wasn't on earth here, and goats weren't supposed to be underground either, so he was fairly petrified.
In disrespect of his fear, be it intentional or not, the assumed goat, continued to sing its song of lust. One would think that it was taunting whoever crawled in its vicinity.
“Bahahahehehehe,” It vocalized.
This was Tim's breaking point. He stopped caring about food all of a sudden, and then he buried himself on the right side of the tunnel's wall. He was really good at camouflaging himself, due to his upgraded ability of camouflage, so he used that to his advantage.
Such measures may have not been necessary, but he didn’t want to take any chances. He then waited for this creature to approach him, whatever this creature may be.
“Goats aren’t supposed to be underground, for fuck’s sake!” He thought.
Then, under that state of panic, he remembered something very specific. He recalled seeing a goat, carved in one of the tunnel walls, and couldn’t help wondering if it and the goat sounds he was hearing now, correlated. It didn’t sound insane, but yet, this puzzle he tried to piece together, didn’t really help make sense of things.
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The goat continued to call, but Tim didn’t plan on answering it. He remained in the tunnel walls, and just listened. He did so for nearly twenty minutes, but no one approached, he didn’t sense any living being in his close vicinity! Five whole meters of territory had to be clear of danger, he was sure of it. Once he made that observation, he relaxed a little bit.
He popped out of the walls, and felt ready to explore again. The goat kept calling out, even now after twenty minutes, which was pretty concerning. However, as terrifying as that was, he chose to ignore it, and hoped that he wouldn’t meet whatever was hollering.
Tim followed the maze-like tunnels, and every bundle of steps he took was paired with caution. His senses remained heightened, because he wanted to predict if some creature chose to attack him. In any plausible sour situation, he wanted to have the upper advantage!
Try as he might, some things were just unpredictable. After about five minutes passed, he ran into something that seemingly popped up out of nowhere! He saw a bunch of goats, tiny goats, and they were all bolting towards him. They were far more agile than spiders could be, because they could run up and down on walls, in a spiral manner. As they approached, he saw them bolting across the ceiling, very effortlessly.
Tim turned around and hoped to outrun them, but that wasn’t much of an option, apparently. He was surrounded by these goats, from the front and the back. One would think that these goats were infinite in number, especially since they were charging at him all at the same time, but that wasn’t the case. He got surrounded by twenty of them, and so far, their intentions were unclear.
After he noticed that the goats weren’t attacking him, he couldn’t help yelling. “What do you want from me, you hairy fuckers?!”
The goats didn’t answer, and it was perhaps best that they didn’t. He wouldn’t be able to stay calm in the sight of a bunch of talking goats, as that would simply be too much to handle right now. He contemplated attacking them, which was something very natural to think about, however, he chose to act idle.
Tim was outnumbered, so even if he had enough mana to put up a fight, it did not matter. He had long lost his opportunity to attack, and could get killed in seconds if he tried anything stupid.
He ended up muttering, “So, no one wants to speak to me, huh? Things could get worse than this, I suppose? They’re a bunch of tiny goats, I wouldn’t be surprised if they ate me alive or some shit. They tricked me, somehow…”
Tim took his time when he made such conclusions, he even stopped looking at the goats for a few seconds. When he did the latter, things got even weirder. The twenty or so goats were dead all of a sudden, every single one of them! Their skulls were littered all across the tunnel, and had gathered enough dirt to make one think that they were here for thousands of years! Similarly, Tim started debating with himself about how long he stood here; Time seemed very difficult to grasp, all of a sudden, he felt stumped.
Then, he heard a voice which couldn’t belong to a goat, not nearly. This voice was very articulate, and directed a couple of questions towards Timothy.
“You’re quite the tough guy, aren’t you, mister spider?” It asked, “My goats didn’t scare you, well, you haven’t shat yourself, at least! Such courage is foreign to these tunnels, you are a foreigner for sure. This begs the question then, I urge to know… where are you from, dear spider?”