Another swooping bastard, another barrage of little mouths ripping gobbets of leather from my demon-hunters coat and several lines of blood drawn on the flesh beneath. I used my sword as best I could but I needed two hands to really use the long blade effectively and the other was busy focusing on maintaining a physical connection to my shaped darkness spell. Another Cave-Hawk swept low and this time my imperfect technique skewered it good. The thing thrashed on the blade, oily little tentacles trying to snap my fingers off and almost forcing me to drop the weapon as they came closer and closer. I flicked the sword down and shook the creature off onto the cave dirt, It looked so pitiful right then, its improbable little tentacle wings couldn't seem to lift off from the ground, it tried to crawl away, tentacle mouths still snapping at me in an attempt to keep me at bay but its main body was so horribly injured that it just couldn't get far. I looked left an right, saw nothing currently swooping for me and brought down the blade like a cleaver. The little Cave Hawk squeaked once and then the two halves were still while the many tentacles slowly curled up and died.

Then another hawk swept in and instead of a flyby it made full contact with my chest, the candle flickered, almost went out as the central beak went for my chest and half a dozen tentacles bit their way through my coat, I dropped the sword and started to knife the monster as my HP dropped in very small but very painful increments. The whole time still holding the mental image of the umbral dome I needed to maintain while trying not to shank myself in the throat even as the Cave Hawk's oily body coated my hand in slick blood and those tendrils nipped pieces of flesh from my hands. "Cave over here, get inside and go on the defensive!" Luna tore the thing off me with one gloved hand while the other severed the still attached tendrils with her knife. I glanced at the candle in my other hand. Still intact, so was the dome. We kept moving, following Merri, thankfully we wernt close enough to the settlement to require silence so Victoria was free to focus on the best defence. Cave hawks cooked and split as they passed through her microwave blasts, she alone killed twice as many as the rest of us put together, thinning them out to a manageable level and splitting the flock so that it couldn't attack one person at a time and overwhelm them.

I had 5 bleeding statuses that combined to a total loss of 0.2 hitpoints per second, that would have been nothing in a game but knowing you have 5 minutes till you die or fall unconscious in real life isn't great. I figured the blood pulsing out of the side of my neck was the worst and fortunately there was still something I could do about that, I activated one of the earliest techniques I'd learned here and magically stuffed molten wax from the umbral spell-candle into my neck wound. It felt cold and oddly comforting, immediately the damage dropped to 0.07 per second, about ten minutes, I had a little bit more molten wax, not enough for the wrist wound but I sealed a long, narrow gash in my thigh as we moved inside of the cave and deep enough that our light would be obscured from the local city. The Hawks should have relented at that point, should have fucked off and cannibalised their dead. Instead they split up, half of them barrelled through the same entrance we'd used while the rest flew off in two other directions. "Jokes on them, light this side tunnel up Jack!" I snuffed my candle so the darkness wouldn't regain its original shape and leave us all covered in impenetrable magical gloom and switched to old faithful. Dragonwick would have been overkill for these horrible little swarm attackers, Merri pointed to a shaft that ran diagonally up from our current chamber, my light showed the little monsters swooping silently down without touching the sides, they screeched and died in droves as I unleashed gout after gout of flame on them.

Merri took control of another of these shafts and turned it into a meat grinder while the main host of creatures continue being slaughtered by a rapidly tiring Victoria, an increasingly joyous Farrah and Luna, who dutifully skewered every last hawk that slipped past her sister.

Now that we had such a tight battle plan down It was a good time honestly, I probably wouldn't have minded stirring up a few more nests and farming them for experience points if we hadn't been on a time crunch to rescue our friend and the terrifying giant who had saved our lives. The dust settled without a giant cave hawk or a bizarre subterranean predator sneaking up on the back lines and completely fucking me up. The floor didn't collapse and the ceiling was just as dependable. The swarm had simply tried to flank us but Merri had been a step ahead with her uncanny mapping skills. We won the day and everyone got ten experience points and as much chicken of the cave as they could eat. I was already at 55/89 experience and both Victoria and Farrrah had levelled bringing them to levels 6 and 10 respectively. Luna apparently wasn't far off of a level herself and Merri just grinned when I asked. Later Victoria explained that the demon didn't really level the way we did, her power level increased by a small and linear amount with each kill she achieved, we would likely overtake her power level soon but she could continue slowly accruing power over centuries while our own gains would slow to a glacial pace around the level 15 mark unless we began pursuing ever more dangerous threats.

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happy start to an adventure. I jammed more molten wax into my remaining bleeding wounds and then realised I was being selfish. "Anyone need their wounds patched up?" Everyone looked at the discoloured patches of wax that had not yet taken on any shade of human skin colour or consistency beyond the uncanny valley and shook their heads, preferring instead to bandage their wounds or wait for natural regeneration like Merri could. "Alright then, everyone clear to leave?"

Before leaving we had of course checked out the cave used for our last stand and found a few Derro knives that Luna had immediately taken as throwing weapons, a jerkin of strange almost translucent leather that was too small for any of us to wear and a matching leather circlet. I took that headband and examined it alongside Victoria, she used her abilities both intellectual and magical to identify it as a Worm Priest's Band. "Will it fry my mind if I try to wear it." Victoria hesitated before answering. "Maybe, Derro are usually far too deep down for anyone to bother with, some scholars theorise that weaker cults push towards the surface for us to slay while the truly powerful Derro burrow deeper and deeper, hunting for stronger, more ancient foes and the terrible wisdom they keep. With that in mind, it's probably safe, we've seen poison, unnaturally large worms and some impressive construction but the geometry all seems standard and nothing is warping reality yet so they can't be that close to their Pactmaker."

I picked up the headband and slipped it on. Instantly I was assailed by visions where I was in the role of someone else.

I was on the gondola and the chasm below me was teeming with Cave Hawks as they swarmed the vessel. I raised my staff and rapped the gnarled and bone capped end on the spongy floor of the gondola. Jarlo and Thibbiks were trying to hold one of the Worm-Fodder inside the vessel but at least half of him had already been picked off the bone and the creatures trying to pull him out would just move on to someone still living if they were denied their prize. Finally realising this the two Warriors let him go and turned back to me for orders. I saw their eyes widen in fearful anticipation as I rapped the staff again and continued my chant to the Worm. Blades scythed through creature after creature but they were clearly winning the day against us and now the matron had joined the fight, which was all that really needed to be said, the beasts were confident enough in their victory that the heart of their colony had come to join in the fun. The matron was a massive ball of tentacles that could each snap off entire arms in one bite and it had come to feast.

I raised my hand and the grey worms shifted within my skin, gathering energy before launching like bolts from a crossbow. I took satisfaction in the 5 little shots of venom embedding themselves in the Matron's breast, it looked like my clever little venin-worms had avoided the tentacles and landed amongst flesh, the matron slowed, its improbable nature seeming to catch up to it as its little wings no longer served to keep the thing aloft. It sank towards the ground inexorably and only then did it become aware of the rumbling in the dirt.

My worm rose and took its offering, eyeless head splitting wide to engulf the creature in a single gulp. The grey strain of my prized venom gushed, flowing from the pores of this beautiful creature as it obliterated the bereaved flock. I watched its splendour, knowing the glory of the Worm right up until a purple-tipped blade slipped past my spine, through my ribs, cleaved my heart in twain and offered it to me at the end of that cruel dagger's point. I looked at the purple strain infecting my lifeblood, I saw my own heart held up to my face and knew I had been betrayed. I couldn't see the face beneath the helmet but I did not need to, the colour of my death was plain to see.

Kazlo, a priest of the purple strain must have ordered my death. The high priests of the Worm had to know of this insolence, this betrayal of our duties to the Worm, 3 strains, 3 specialties, none higher or lower in scope or in value. I was to lead the assault on the humans true, but Purple was to secure our newest settlement against the creatures of the deep. There were no greater honours than defending the flock, had Kazlo felt slighted somehow? No matter, there was naught I could do but rage as the Purple dogs showed their hand in full. It seemed that there was not just one assassin on board the gondola, down below teams of Derro moved in the dark, occasionally illuminated by the bolts of magic and cobalt they fired into my Worm. He was a child of the great one and Kazlo dared to act against it.

I sank to my knees, unable to call to the Worm to flee, I could not dismiss it and without any orders it did what its kind is wont to do when free. The Worm killed and the Worm destroyed.

Contorting its massive body and breathing a cone of grey death the kill squads screamed as they dissolved into piles of melted flesh that had the same colour and consistency of Oatmeal.

I felt myself recording all of that knowledge within my worm-leather circlet, after the Worm itself the circlet was the next strongest symbol of my office, my body would be found and my successor would know what had happened here. The worm had killed its attackers and now it looked up eyeless but all-seeing, it looked upon the last carrion hawks descending to pick at the dead who now littered the Gondola. I would soon join them, it was only by the grace of our sightless lord that I remained conscious long enough to see my Worm leap from the soil and slam his massive body into the gondola, cables snapped and we fell together as all the darkness turned to void.