Halfway down, Lao stumbled on a boulder, and knocked a few rocks off the edge. The ground started to rumble far below them, and something emerged from the bottom of the valley between the mountains. It looked like some sort of titanic worm, and its mouth was filled with rotating rings of serrated teeth. It rose up to its full height, which was hundreds of feet, even without the majority of its body being above ground, and looked at the party. Then it coiled in on itself, and punched its way down into the earth with its mandibles.It had only been in sight for a few seconds, but its aura had been undeniably powerful. If they had fought that thing, then they probably would not have won.
Sam shivered slightly at the thought of those rows of teeth, and then banished the thought from his mind. At least the appearance of the monster seemed to have frightened all of the thunderbirds, and they were flapping away desperately. For those mighty beasts to feel fear, that worm must have been quite powerful indeed.
They quickly reached the bottom, not wanting to be caught out by any monster attacks while they were on the slope, and then surveyed the lay of the land below. The valley was completely empty of monsters, but it was cracked and pitted from where the worm had moved, and the entire place was a minefield of shattered rocks and deep pits. Even worse was the threat of the creature lying in wait, ready to devour them all with one bite of its serrated jaws. However, there was no other way across, and their only hope was to stay away from the weakened areas of the ground, in hope that it would be harder for the monster to make its way through the rock that had previously been untouched.
“How are we going to approach this?” Jeffrey asked. “I don't especially like the idea of being worm food. Not this close to the hammer at least.”
“Well, I noticed that the worm lacked any eyes. It seemed to have been looking at us, but what I think it was really tracking was our movements. After we froze upon seeing it, it quickly vanished, as if it could not see us anymore. I don’t know how sensitive its senses are, but we must assume that they are extremely powerful, seeing as it detected us up on that mountain,” Eduardo said.
“There’s a very easy way to test this,” Sam said, before picking up a rock. Before anyone could stop him, he lobbed it into the distance. It traveled hundreds of feet before starting to descend, and it plinked to the ground a fair distance away. There was a rumbling roar, and the worm surfaced, before slamming its jaws shut around the piece of rock. The rock, along with a twenty foot area of the ground, was gone. The good news was that the worm had completely ignored them, as they were standing still.
"There's our answer, I guess,” Lao said, frowning at Sam. “Did you really need to be so abrupt with it though?”
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“I wanted to make sure that we were still before we did this. You were all too distracted from your conversation to be moving, but if you had been waiting for the monster to surface, some of your anticipation might have gotten through to you, and you would have moved involuntarily.”
The others snorted, and Sam looked at them in question.
"You just don’t seem the type to plan things ahead that meticulously,” Pyotr explained. “Since when were you some sort of strategic mastermind?”
“I would hardly call what I just did that. You have to remember, my stats are not really in line with a typical fighter., My mental stats are just as high as my physical ones, and in some cases higher. I’ve been getting flashes of insight every time that I am in a situation like this. I ignored them before, but I decided to heed this one, seeing as it was in line with what I would expect to be right anyway.”
“Fine,” Jeffrey said, sighing. “Let’s go with your hunches in future then. You are living a very strange life, Sam. I’ve never heard of someone doing what you have done with their stat allocation before.”
“Very well then. Now, I have an idea on how to cross the gap.”
They started picking up small rocks and chunks of stone over the next few minutes, careful not to disturb the ground overly. By the time that each of them had a good sized stash, Sam nodded. He picked out one of his rocks, and threw it into the valley. The rumbling sound began, and they all ran down the side and into the valley.
As the worm surfaced, they were already dashing across the ground. It rose up beneath the rock, and grabbed it in its jaws like before. Upon seeing this, everyone paused, and waited for it to go under. As soon as it was out of sight. Sam threw another rock, and as the worm rose, they ran again. It was only able to focus on one thing at once, and without its head below the surface, it was unable to detect any vibrations.
Sam’s stash of rocks ran out about a third of the way across, and Pyotr took over. The man accelerated the stones with his control over Earth, and they soared off into the distance. He was not as efficient as Sam however, and he ran out of rocks soon after. This entire thing was starting to become incredibly nerve wracking, and Sam’s heart was beating loudly in his chest. Still, he was keeping it together.
Ten minutes, and the majority of the rocks later, they were almost at the other side. The worm had started to realize something was up, and it paused every time that it grabbed a rock, trying to find out what was happening. Lao passed Sam a rock, and he threw it as the worm receded below the ground. This time however, it did something different. Pausing halfway down, the worm was struck by the stone. It turned it head towards them, and then rose quickly out of the earth, before slithering towards them. With only a few dozen feet to go, the party ran as fast as they could, and climbed up the side of the ravine like the devil was on their tail. The worm impacted the side of the canyon with its face, and then withdrew, puzzled.
Sam and the others remained as still as the dead as they waited for the worm to leave. It took five minutes for it to withdraw fully, the longest five minutes of their lives. After they were sure that the creature had left, they finally started up the mountain. It was time to see Mjolnir for themselves.