They gathered together the next morning and prepared to set out into the desert again, on another monster-hunting, maginite-gathering expedition. It was only the four of them this time; Lady Melei apparently had some other business to attend to.

Arai wanted to explain to Lillandra what had happened the previous night, but he wasn't quite sure how to bring it up. Lillandra, for her part, acted as though nothing was amiss, as though she hadn't seen what she had seen, which only made Arai more confused.

Shell picked up on the tension between them: "I think Lillandra's mad at you," she told Arai, as he was saddling his horse.

"What makes you say that?"

"She was grouchy last night," she said, "and she's been quiet all morning. Did you two have a fight or something?"

"No. Not exactly."

"What's going on, then?"

But he wasn't about to tell Shell that he had kissed Lady Melei, and that Lillandra had witnessed it; he didn't want the elf girl's imagination running away with her. He tousled her blonde hair. "It's nothing. Are you ready to go? We've got another long day ahead of us."

She looked up at him, frowning. "I hate it when you treat me like a kid."

"You are a kid."

"I'm a sorceress," she said petulantly. And she walked off in a huff.

They didn't encounter very many monsters that morning -- Sir Estil managed to destroy a couple of small snakeheads, and Arai killed a rock-man, but that was about it. They did, however, experience several more tremors, and these were even more intense than the last few had been. But he was too preoccupied with hunting monsters and fretting about the situation with Lillandra and Lady Melei to give them much thought.

They made it back to camp a little later that evening. Sir Estil led the horses to their makeshift stable, and Shell ran off to find something to eat, leaving Arai alone with Lillandra for the first time that day. He approached her, rather awkwardly. "Lillandra..."

"Yes?"

"I wanted to talk to you about...about what you saw last night, or thought you saw."

"It's none of my business," she said curtly.

"It's not what you think. I didn't--"

"You didn't what? You didn't kiss her?"

"Well, I did, but it wasn't..." He had been rehearsing this all day, but now he was struggling to find the words.

"It was bound to happen sooner or later," she said, refusing to look him in the eye. "Lady Melei is a lovely woman, after all, and she's had her eye on you from the beginning."

"It's not like that."

She snorted. "I'm sure."

"She kissed me," he said, "and I was so surprised that I...I didn't know how to react. I should have pushed her away, but--"

"You don't need to explain yourself to me. I have no claim on you. If you want to carry on with Lady Melei, or anyone else for that matter, that's your business. It has nothing to do with me." She started to walk off, but Arai caught her by the wrist.

"That's not true," he said.

"Let go of me."

"There's nothing going on between me and Lady Melei," he said firmly. "I'm not interested in her."

"I don't care."

He released her. "Look at me," he said. "Look me in the eye, and tell me you don't care."

She reluctantly turned to look at him. "I don't..." But she couldn't finish the sentence, because their eyes had now locked, and she had seen something in his expression that, evidently, she hadn't expected. "Why are you doing this to me?" she muttered.

"What am I doing to you?" he asked quietly.

But before she could answer, the camp was struck by another tremor -- and this one was more powerful than any of the tremors they had experienced thus far; the entire earth was trembling. The wagons in Lady Melei's camp were shaking, and people were actually having trouble finding their footing.

Arai expected the tremor to stop after a few seconds, as all the previous ones had, but this one just kept going, the vibration becoming stronger and stronger...and then, suddenly, a colossal sound ripped through the air, something like thunder, and a gigantic beast, bigger than a house, exploded out of the earth, just west of the camp. The monster -- and it was almost certainly a monster -- emerged from a titanic cloud of dust and sand and belly-flopped down to the ground, which caused another tremor.

Someone shouted: "The Engulfer! It's here!"

And chaos ensued. Lady Melei's knights, who had just been sitting down to their evening meal, jumped to their feet and ran for their horses; servants screamed; others scurried about in a panic. The sorcerer Damon began casting a spell, although Arai couldn't tell what kind of spell it was or what exactly he was trying to accomplish.

The dust soon cleared, and the monster became visible. Arai was stunned. He had never seen a monster of this size; it was bigger than Catalyus, bigger than the salamander they had fought in the caverns beneath Kingsaile, even. It was a mountain of wrinkled blubber and yellow fat, and it did indeed look something like a giant grub, with hundreds of little legs supporting its massive bulk. Its head was a dark blob, without any face at all, but it did have a huge mouth, and all around the mouth were dozens of thick tentacles, writhing about, searching. Monsters were magical creatures and did not eat after the fashion of ordinary animals, but they did use their mouths as weapons, and Arai suspected that anyone who got close to those tentacles would quickly find themselves dragged into the monster's maw and crushed to death.

"The tremors," Arai growled. "The damn thing's been burrowing under the earth."

He drew Silus and started forward, but Lillandra stopped him. "What do you think you're doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? We have to kill it before it destroys the camp -- before it destroys the radiator. And what if it finds its way into town? It could kill everyone in Bloodlorn."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"It could kill you."

He ignored that, shook her off, and headed for the monster. He really had no idea how he was going to kill it, though -- Silus could cut through that bulk like a knife through butter, but he wasn't sure how much damage he would need to inflict before the monster began to disintegrate, and if he tried to attack it from the front, those fast-moving tentacles would snatch him up in an instant.

A few knights -- but only a few -- were already attacking the thing, striking it with their swords and spears, but though the creature's flesh looked lumpy and soft, it was actually quite resilient. One of the knights was able to inflict an effective blow by setting himself and jamming his spear into the monster's side, as hard as he could, but the sword-blows of the other knights practically bounced off the monster's rubbery flesh. And all of these knights were forced to flee, in any case, because the Engulfer was constantly rearing up, throwing its huge body around like a breaching whale, preventing them from getting close.

Arai encountered Damon as he was making his way towards the monster. The sorcerer was still trying to cast a spell.

"What are you trying to do?" Arai asked him, in the midst of the furor.

"I'm trying to immobilize it," he said, "with the Perfect Stillness. It's a difficult spell, though, and I've never used it against a monster this large. Damn! And now I have to start over."

"Keep it up," Arai told him. If Damon really could immobilize the monster, Arai himself could almost certainly kill it with Silus.

But the Engulfer showed no signs of slowing down, as yet, and it was getting nearer to the camp -- and to the wagons -- all the time. The horses were in a panic, and apart from the knights, who had tried to attack the beast, no one really seemed to know what to do.

That changed when Lady Melei suddenly appeared, leaping atop one of the wagons and shouting orders at everyone: "Start moving the wagons! Sir Farrow! Sir Brack! Try to harry the thing, to lead it away from the camp! Hiero! Start taking the combustion unit out of the radiator! It's the only thing we can't replace!" She spotted Arai, and asked him the same question Lillandra had just a moment ago: "And where do you think you're going? We can't fight this thing! It's too big! It's three times the size it was a month ago! We need to regroup--"

But Arai didn't pay her any heed -- he continued racing forward. He was joined a moment later by Sir Estil, who had seemingly come out of nowhere. "She's right," he muttered grimly. "It's big. But can you kill it, with that magic sword?"

"I think so."

He nodded. "I'll distract it, then, with Sir Farrow and Sir Brack. Stay away from its mouth."

"You don't have to tell me," he muttered. In fact the tentacles were already close enough to reach them; they were slithering all over, feeling their way forward. Arai avoided them and moved to his right, flanking the monster, but it was throwing its heavy bulk around so much that he couldn't get close to it, let alone find a good angle of attack. It was like trying to fight a hillside.

"Hiero!" Lady Melei was shouting. "What are you doing?"

Apparently Arai wasn't the only one disregarding Lady Melei's orders: Hiero, the alchemist, had just emerged from the wagon carrying a big, heavy-looking contraption made of iron and wood. He set it down on the ground, then ran back into the wagon and retrieved a bag of powdered maginite, which he began pouring into a funnel on the top of the device.

It didn't take long for Arai to figure out what he was trying to do -- he was trying to activate the radiator, to create the chemical mist that would drive the monster off. It wasn't a bad idea -- assuming the device actually worked -- but the Engulfer was very close, and Arai wasn't sure whether the alchemist could get the machine going before the monster crushed it.

But this was another complication -- if the monster destroyed the radiator, all of this would be for naught.

And then, suddenly, the Engulfer managed to catch one of the knights -- either Sir Farrow or Sir Brack -- with its grasping tentacles. They wrapped around his body, dragged him into its mouth, and began chewing him up, armor and all, mashing his body between its great jaws. Arai was horrified, but there was nothing he could do but keep fighting -- while the monster was preoccupied with the knight, he stabbed it with Silus, shoving the sword into its side. When he pulled the blade out, visible magia particles burst out of the wound.

The creature roared and tried to maneuver its head around, to get at Arai. Arai didn't think the monster was flexible enough to reach him from this position, but he had underestimated the length of its tentacles, which came whipping around, dangerously close. He ducked one, dodged another, and retreated just a bit; the monster was flailing too wildly for him to get close anyway.

He was joined by Lady Melei, now equipped with her bow and arrows. She launched three missiles at the monster, in rapid succession, which stuck in its hide. "You're going to get yourself killed."

Lillandra appeared at his side as well. "That's what I keep telling him."

Meanwhile Hiero was still fiddling with the radiator. Finally, he managed to crank it to life, and it began pumping a thick purple smoke out of one of the tubes attached to the chassis. Shell, Phile, and some of the other servants, who had by now realized what Hiero was up to, began fanning the smoke in the direction of the Engulfer, which reacted to it almost immediately; its tentacles shriveled and retreated from the smoke, and it let loose with another enormous bellow. It started turning around, trying to reenter the huge cavernous tunnel out of which it had exploded only a few moments ago.

"It's working," Lady Melei said breathlessly. "It's working!"

Sir Estil and the other knights continued hacking at the monster, however, and Damon was still working on his spell. This was their chance, Arai realized; they had to kill this thing before it could burrow back into the earth.

He raised his sword and joined Sir Estil and the others in attacking the monster, stabbing it again and again, and then slashing at it, running along the whole length of the creature and leaving a long, magia-spewing cut in its grub-like flesh. But it wasn't enough to cause the monster to decohere.

He needed to do more damage; he needed to strike at the monster's vitals. Gritting his teeth, and tightening his grip on his sword, he ran around to the front of the Engulfer and started hacking at its tentacles, trying to get to its head. If he could sever the monster's bulbous, insectoid head from its bloated body...

But there were too many tentacles, and he was having trouble handling them all; as soon as he sliced one off, another seemed to wriggle in to take its place. Lillandra and Lady Melei were shouting at him to get away from its mouth, but he ignored them both. If the Engulfer managed to escape, it would undoubtedly return to threaten them again, and they needed its maginite anyway.

He swung his sword again and again, cutting at more and more tentacles...but then he missed one, and another, and suddenly he was swept off his feet and lifted into the air. He managed to keep his grip on Silus, but now he was hanging above the monster's mouth; all it had to do was drop him, and would fall into that huge maw. He grimaced, and prepared for the worst.

But then, to his amazement, the monster simply stopped moving, its tentacles freezing in place. It was no longer thrashing about, or making noise; it had gone totally still.

It took him several seconds to realize what had happened: Damon had finished casting his immobilization spell. And not a moment too soon, for Arai was still dangling above the monster's mouth.

"Now!" Lady Melei shouted. "Everyone!"

Sir Estil and the knights renewed their attack on the now-helpless monster, striking it over and over, while Shell threw her Witch's Dagger and Lady Melei launched more arrows. Arai cut himself free of the creature's tentacles, landed on its head (narrowly avoiding its mouth) and climbed up on its neck. Then he set to work, hacking at the thing, until at last the head began to part from the body and the entire monster began to evaporate, finally exploding in an absolutely titanic eruption of magia-light and leaving behind massive chunks of black maginite, marbled through with streaks of yellow and red. The explosion lit up the twilight like a fireworks display, and everyone in the camp cheered.

Arai, exhausted, fell to his knees in the midst of the maginite. Sir Estil was the first to reach him. "Are you all right?" the knight asked. "Are you hurt?"

"F-fine," he said. "Just a little...out of breath."

"I think you've earned your two percent," Lady Melei added, jogging up to him.

Lillandra found her way to him as well. She wasn't happy. "Why do you always have to be so reckless? Do you know how close you came to dying this time?"

He grinned foolishly, and was just about to answer with some jibe, but he stopped when he saw the expression she was wearing. She was close to tears.

This wasn't the time to joke around. He slowly rose to his feet, sheathed his sword, and gave her a reassuring hug. She spoke softly into his shoulder: "Why are you doing this to me?" she whispered.

"Doing what?"

But she didn't answer. She merely sighed, and hugged him back.