On a marginally brighter note, the terrain was starting to change, letting Nick know that he was drawing near the spot he had chosen for the climax of his showdown with the lurk. A grim little slice of the island that he normally wanted to stay as far away from as possible.
Knowing that if he made the slightest miscalculation from this point on, it would cost him his life, Nick reached down to his belt while sprinting at full speed. His fingers felt their way past his canteen and his wand, closing around the object that he had slipped into a loop on his belt only moments before enacting his rash plan.
He had been afraid that the glass vial had shattered when he tumbled into the mud, fallen free from the loop during the mad dash for his life. But on this occasion, fortune smiled upon him because the antidote he had received for completing the dungeon was still intact.
Bursting out of the tree line and into the sunlight, Nick ran toward the spot he had chosen, skidded to a stop, and then pulled the cork free from the vial. He downed the potion in a single motion without spilling a drop, absently noting that the mossy concoction tasted a bit like lavender and peppermint. Seven adrenaline-fortified seconds later, the lurk stormed out of the overgrowth and onto open ground. Bone shards went flying into the air as the enraged beast shattered skeletons beneath its talons with every step.
The lurk’s gaze locked onto Nick’s form with lethal intent, eyes burning with an incandescent rage that the beast intended to quench in a geyser of his blood. But then the lurk turned its shaggy head to examine its surroundings.
It belatedly realized where he had led it, having missed the warning signs due to the myopia born of its fury and flashbang-dulled senses. For the first time since their game of cat and mouse began, the massive predator looked away from him, staring up at the colossal growth towering behind him. Nick grinned as he took in the beast’s trepidation. The lurk looked alarmed by what it saw, perhaps even afraid.
This was because, although the lurk was still half-blind, there was no way that it could fail to notice the sequoia-sized mushroom that made even the apex predator seem small by comparison. Without hesitation, the lurk abandoned its quest for vengeance. It turned on a dime and started running in the opposite direction, away from Nick and the killer mushroom looming beside him. The beast would have been quick enough to make good on its escape, if its presence had been what had unleashed the cascade of yellow-green spores descending from the shroom’s gills in a glimmering curtain.
However, it was not the lurk’s intrusion that had triggered the mushroom’s torpor-inducing trap, but his own arrival ten seconds prior. Thus, before the lurk had taken three steps, a blizzard of drug-laden spores engulfed it. When Nick breathed them in, he was overwhelmed with lethargy—a need to sleep so intense that he nearly passed out while standing on his feet.
The antidote isn’t working, shrieked the last speck of his consciousness that was still aware enough to think. You really fucked up this time. Just when he was certain that his scheming had cost him his life, a wave of warmth spread out from his stomach, absorbing the need to sleep like water soaking into a sponge.
Nick’s eyelids snapped open. He hastily reoriented on the lurk, terrified that the beast had closed the distance while he was out of it. To his immense relief, the big bastard was still standing in the same place, staggering from side to side to keep itself from falling and struggling to keep its eyes open.
The last time he had stood within this bone-studded glade, he had fled too quickly to witness the full power of the sleepshroom-ravenous-creeper symbiote combo. But now Nick had front-row seats to watch the show. The vines had no need to release their pollen with their prey already sedated. Instead, a writhing sea of creepers emerged from atop the great shroom and started slithering down its girth, with countless more streaming into the clearing from all sides.
The first wave of serpentine vines was already climbing the lurk’s limbs, twisting tight around its legs while reaching up to grasp its throat. Another group was closing in on Nick’s position, and he knew that despite beating the odds to survive to this point, he was still in terrible danger. If the creepers caught him, their coils would end his life as surely as the lurk’s jaws. He had no idea how long the antidote would protect him from the spores’ sedation, not to mention the clouds of hunger-inducing pollen the vines would pump into the clearing when they realized that Nick was still awake.
Although his coordination was impaired by the spores’ toxin, he forced his body into motion, turning around and running away from both behemoth lifeforms as quickly as he could. Four steps later, he stopped dead in his tracks, fighting against survival instincts ingrained on a cellular level to remain within the clearing.
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His plans were not yet complete. If he ran now, he would abandon his prize. The reason that he had been willing to risk his life to begin with. And there was no way that Nick was going to let that happen.
Although he was so scared that his arms shook like the limbs of a storm-wracked willow, he forced himself to turn around and start walking back the other way, away from the tantalizing promise of safety and toward the vine-coated lurk and the giant mushroom directing the creeper host. He wove a treacherous path between the surging tide of ravenous creepers, lurching and leaping around their probing tendrils, like a snake charmer wading through a den of vipers.
Inching his way forward while dodging like a madman, Nick forced himself to approach the beast that he had been desperately avoiding. Overriding every reflex he had through sheer effort of will, with no time to hesitate, he found himself stepping in front of the lurk. Standing within easy reach of its jutting jaws. The beast appeared to have been rendered unconscious by the great shroom’s soporific. The horde of ravenous creepers had risen past the lurk’s legs and were scaling its muscular torso, weaving through its shaggy gray fur to wrap around its throat.
Nick knew that the beast was asleep, or at least sedated enough that it couldn’t hurt him. Otherwise, there was no way that it would stop fighting for its life. But his instincts were dead certain that willingly entering the two-ton predator’s kill zone was tantamount to suicide.
He would not have been able to resist the impulse to run for his life if not for the training he had undergone. The brutal battles for survival in the dungeon and facing down the bonecruncher pack. Thanks to the hardships he had overcome since arriving on the isle, Nick was able to press on. Not stopping to think about what he was doing, which would inevitably cause him to hesitate, he grabbed the lurk by one stubby arm and began climbing alongside the creeper horde, performing the most dangerous pull-up in human history.
Within reach of his prize at last, he let go with one hand and started grasping for the chain looped around the lurk’s neck, his nostrils flaring at the beast’s stench. His fingers missed the chain the first time and the second time as well, pulling out a handful of gray fur instead. The motion caused his grip to slip, and Nick nearly fell back down to the ground.
Just as his strength faltered and failed him, his fingers closed around the golden box at last, and he let go of the lurk’s arm, pulling down on the chain with the weight of his body behind it. For a heart-wrenching moment, the links held firm, and he was desperately afraid that this had all been in vain. But then he twisted his body around in a single motion, snapping the thin chain with the musical ping of overstressed metal.
The instant his feet hit the ground, fortunately coming down on a narrow patch of clear earth instead of a lashing creeper, Nick gave into the urge to run for his life. He leapt and ducked and dodged like mad as more creepers flooded into the clearing in a verdant tide. Some of them were releasing their pollen now that it looked like he might escape, but most of the carnivorous plants were focused on bringing down the lurk, a hearty entrée compared to the bite-sized appetizer he represented.
Just before he darted into the woods, he heard a strange groan that made him stop long enough to look over his shoulder. An immense growl that sounded like an avalanche of falling timber. He was certain that the scene playing out in front of his eyes would fuel his nightmares for quite some time to come.
Because that was when, to Nick’s utter astonishment, the great mushroom began to move. A dark line formed along one side of its stalk, growing deeper and more distinct as layers of creamy tissue parted, revealing a yawning cavern of a mouth. He had thought that the lurk’s breath was bad, but the stench emanating from the great shroom’s maw made him want to curl up into a ball and retch until his stomach was empty. He could see hundreds of corpses rotting within the hollow stalk, comprising the mixed remains of every creature on the island that he had seen so far, along with several he had not yet encountered.
But none of this was what made him stop for a solitary heartbeat longer, watching the gruesome spectacle taking place within the bone-studded clearing. Lashing out from the charnel house behind the great shroom’s jaws came a writhing mass of mycelium, which looked like nothing so much as a gigantic tongue. Although Nick was enthralled by his horror and would have stopped to watch this clash between titans under safer circumstances, a fresh cascade of adrenaline broke his trance, and he sprinted out of the clearing, shaking off a creeper that had wrapped itself around his boots.
The antidote was wearing off, and Nick needed to get away before he was dosed again. He had to put some miles between himself and the clearing, no matter which apex predator came out on top. Either would destroy him as an afterthought the instant they were no longer preoccupied. The last thing he saw was the great white tongue lashing tight around the lurk’s furry waist and the beast’s eyes darting open in response.
Both creatures roared, their combined fury sending leaves sheeting down from the canopy, and their battle began in earnest. Somehow, despite the shroom’s legion of vines and slumber-inducing spores, Nick was certain that the lurk would survive the melee. Hopefully, it would be injured and unable to hunt for at least a few days, but that was something for him to consider once he was safely behind his shelter.
Accompanied by shrieks of fury and collisions that shook the treetops, Nick fled the clearing as fast as he could, savoring the cold, crisp edges of the golden box he held in a white-knuckled death grip. Part of him wanted to burn this entire side of the forest to the ground, taking out both behemoths in a wave of searing flame. But as he had no way to control its spread and ensure that the blaze would not consume him as well, he contented himself with the fact that he had succeeded; claimed his prize with most of his blood still inside his body.
Nick let loose a wild cackle as he sprinted across the woodlands, eager to find out what he had won in exchange for gambling with his life.