Strange creatures with a trifecta of limbs on their front and rear sprang out of the stone tunnels, swimming through the stone as if it were water. The earth gliders only had a front and rear because of their other main feature, a large circular mouth at one end of their squat torsos. It was this that the flailing limbs tried to pull people towards, though if they simply clawed someone to injure them that made them that much easier to grab subsequently.
A wide sweep from Ursel’s club forced the creature away from its attempts to devour Melanthina, who found it difficult to dodge three limbs at once. At least three, as the creature sometimes used the ones it was standing on. While that led to strange balance, it was also difficult to judge the creature’s movements as it easily slipped through the floor. Even as Ursel batted it away, it turned that into a dive into the nearby wall instead of simply crashing into it.
“Mmmmnnnggg,” Ursel grumbled, “It’s not hard enough!”
“Weren’t you just complaining about everything being made of rock?” Tirto asked.
“Yeah but I can’t break this with a club and I don’t have anything sharp to chop through it. Normally that’s fine because I can just squish things against the ground but…” she gestured to the wall that barely had any visible traces of a larger than human sized bundle of claws and teething having gone through it.
“If you can keep its movements controlled, Melanthina and I can attack its torso,” Tirto said. “It must have some kind of internal organs.”
“Mmmn, alright,” Ursel nodded. “Careful! It’s coming back!”
Its maw appeared right below Tirto, but being the target for the first attack had let him recognize the movement slightly sooner. Instead of simply leaping to the side he jumped up, causing the earth glider to strain to reach him towards the top of the tunnel. That occupied its lower and upper limbs, letting Melanthina take a stab at its side. A quick stab of her dagger drove deep, then she kicked off to push herself away. Ursel took the opportunity to aim for a joint on one of the lower limbs. Her heavy stone club met with resistance, which was exactly what she wanted- as the creature was currently pushing off of the ground, it wouldn’t sink through it. There was a snap as the creature’s leg gave out, making it lopsided.
Tirto pushed off of the ceiling to land off to the side further instead of coming straight down. Instead of reaching towards him, the earth glider changed its target to Ursel. She dodged one of the two claws on her side of the creature as she swung her club up from beneath. The remaining claw that struck her tore through her defensive energy and gouged three bloody trails along her left arm- a wound that would have been much worse on either of her siblings. That weakened her own attack, but she still managed to strike the creature from below, briefly raising it into the air.
Tirto stabbed out with his spear, piercing deep into the creature’s leathery hide. Dark blood sprayed from the wound as his weapon drew back. On the other side, Melanthina threw a dagger near the same place she had previously stabbed. The intention had been for her attack to enter the open wound, but it was simply not big enough to hit on a moving target with earth energy deflecting her attack slightly.
When the earth glider hit the ground, it continued falling, its movements clearly indicating its intention to retreat. However, it stopped with just its upper limbs out of the tunnel floor. Ursel’s arms were locked around one of its arms, her wide stance locking her solidly in place. There was no movement at all as the creature strained against her, she was like a stone statue.
The positioning of the creature’s limbs allowed it the flexibility to try to attack her with the other two, but she was also half covered by her position behind one of them. As it clawed at her arms, where most of her energy was focused, her siblings moved to cause more grievous wounds to the creature.
It happened to have eyes just barely above the surface, and that was where Melanthina’s first dagger landed- then she stepped forward to kick the throw dagger deeper. Tirto thrust his spear down at an angle, stabbing from just to the side of the maw of teeth deep into the creature’s midsection. By the time the creature pulled back its claws from Ursel, it was on its last desperate movements to try to survive.
With a yank, Ursel pulled it up further, revealing more of its midsection, the dark blood now flowing slowly as it ran through the last of its life. The bottom third of the creature was still in the stone when it perished, leaving it as a strange growth from the stone itself.
Just about the time the triplets were prepared to congratulate themselves, the ground trembled violently. The three exchanged glances, and feeling the direction the new earth glider was coming from they broke off and ran down the tunnel together- away from the rest of their group.
As the closest of the guardians, Aydan had already spotted the danger- but as up until that point the triplets were the least threatened by a single creature, he was still some distance from them. He broke into a run about the time a creature twice as large in every dimension poked its tree like limbs out of the ground.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
Clawed limbs tore into the surrounding tunnel, building up speed as it moved after the triplets, its body leaving a trail of smooth stone behind it. It was not terribly fast- it was an ambush predator after all- but it was a close match for the triplets.
It caught up to them at a the three branching paths, two of its front limbs continuing to pull it along as it half skittered half swam through the tunnel behind them. The third swung down from above, towards the clustered group.
In a split second, everyone made their own decisions on how to dodge. Ursel and Tirto went one way, and though Melanthina was half confident in her ability to follow them, she went to the other side as it was safer in that instant. The giant arm crashed down, nearly collapsing the central tunnel and staggering the triplets.
Aydan was only a short distance behind, but they couldn’t stop running yet. One hit from the creature would break bones at the very least- perhaps worse.
Either because she was alone or because of factors Melanthina didn’t know, the creature chased down her tunnel. She felt her siblings spin about a dozen meters down their own branch, but doubling back simply made them reach the split at the same time as Aydan.
Melanthina was around two bends by that point- the overlarge creature didn’t care if the tunnel narrowed at any point, seamlessly slipping through where it should have crashed into the walls. She only had to maintain her lead for a few moments more.
She surrounded herself with a cloak of darkness, throwing off the creature enough for her to duck under its sweeping attack and continue striding forward. And that might have been good enough if she hadn’t been focused so much on the tunnel behind her.
As she stepped forward the ground crumbled away beneath her, sending her tumbling down, and down… and down. It was all she could do to keep herself in a protective cocoon of spiritual energy while doing her best to prevent herself from striking at a bad angle. If she slammed into something at the wrong angle she could get a concussion or snap her neck.
If she hadn’t been so surprised at her sudden descent she could have easily caught herself, but now she was falling down a series of mostly vertical tunnels. She couldn’t tell exactly how many times she split off as she fell, nor how long the ordeal lasted for. She wasn’t even certain she stayed conscious the whole way down, only that when she reached the bottom her spiritual energy was nearly exhausted and everything ached.
She thought to call out to Aydan up above, but she could no longer sense him or hear the battle she knew must have been happening. Shouting might draw his attention… or it might draw other creatures.
So there she was, sitting alone in the dark. Half of that was not an issue for her. In fact, she felt that the main component of the spiritual energy had shifted from earth to darkness, though it was still on the edge.
“What should I do?” she whispered to no one. If someone had been around, she wouldn’t have asked.
She reached into her bag and pulled out a small pellet of medicine. While she was mostly covered in aches and pains, there was enough damage that leaving it would make her less effective in battle. She swallowed that and followed up by closing her eyes in meditation, drawing in spiritual energy as she could. The medicine flowed through her body, eating away at the pain little by little, while her fatigue was slowly pushed back by her meditation.
But she could not simply wait around meditating forever. She had to get back to her family. But how?
Now that she was slightly rested, she walked over to the tunnel she thought she probably rolled out of. It was the only somewhat vertically oriented one around, at least. Now that she was not quite as beat up, she was confident enough to project her voice upward, focusing it with her spiritual energy. “Hello? Anyone there? Tirto? Aydan? Ursel?”
She listened, but got no response. At least nothing was rushing towards her trying to eat her. She began to climb cautiously. It was not terribly difficult with rough stone walls and a bit of spiritual energy to assist her. She was quite used to climbing as it allowed her to get to places she wanted in a way that most people wouldn’t expect.
She soon came to her first dilemma- there were two equally viable routes she could have come from, both sloping together to meet up at the same tunnel. She hesitated to call out again, but tried once for each. No response came. She still felt no spiritual energy but her own and the natural surroundings.
She grit her teeth and picked a direction. Waiting for someone to come to get her would have been the best option if there was any certainty they could. But while they had been in one of the ‘safer’ zones in the Prismatic Caverns, none of it was actually safe. Waiting around was just as likely to get her in trouble as moving, if not more so.
This was fine. She’d been in danger before. Sure, not… alone. But she could handle herself. She just had to keep climbing.
An itching sensation like she was being watched was particularly annoying because she could usually pick out what it was. Even the burrowing earth gliders had revealed some signs of themselves. She couldn’t even tell which direction this thing might be in… if it wasn’t just paranoia. She’d like to hope that all of her training had made it so she wouldn’t falsely identify an enemy, but she might have just hit her head.
She climbed through the darkness, wishing there were something comforting like Ciaritzal hiding in it. Maybe they should have brought him along. Sure, taking the clan’s guardian beast everywhere might be a bit risky but… at least she wouldn’t be alone.
But Ciaritzal wasn’t here. Just some sort of spooky thing she couldn’t quite pick out. Her fingers found purchase on rough stone and she hoped she was going the right way. She had to be.