The mountain gave a quiet tremor as the gate emerged from the plain stone façade, the hallway itself sinking into the darkness.
“Buy a girl flowers first,” Jeb muttered as the mountain’s glacially slow thoughts echoed through his own voice.
Jeb picked himself up and flew through the hall, moving far too fast for any of the lurking lava squid to even react as he passed over them.
He had one thing he wanted to do before he woke up the mountain a second time.
*** Ch’goth, Master of the Hunt, level 32***
“After him!” Ch’goth bellowed, pointing his spear as they charged through the main hunting ground, the entire tribe chasing the strange fleshy creature that had kidnapped all of their grubs.
Why did this happen? HOW did this happen? Never in living memory had a creature from beyond entered their little world, and then one day one shows up and picks up all their children with it’s wicked magic, flying away with them dangling below it, waving the tasty grubs in the faces of the ‘Nugoth, practically inviting it to eat them.
What really worried Ch’goth was the nagging sensation that they were being played. The creature was just barely fast enough to outrun them, but never quite seemed to escape their sight.
They were being led somewhere.
It didn’t matter that Ch’goth understood that. His warriors were in a blood frenzy, and telling them this was a trap would be like spitting on the wall. All he could do was keep them as angry as possible so when the trap was inevitably sprung, they tore it to shreds.
“It’s taunting you!” Ch’goth shouted, stoking the rage. “N’geth, it’s got your grubs! KILL!”
“RAAA!”
They found themselves charging down a hall they had never seen before, and a moment later, charging out into the searing light of day.
“Gah,” Ch’goth grunted, mandibles clicking in pain as the light in the ceiling of this cave burned into his eyes.
Here’s the trap, He thought, hunkering down and holding his spear in front of himself defensively.
Unlike what he was thinking, nothing happened. Ch’goth’s eyes gradually adjusted, and he let out an involuntary click of surprise. The cave they were in was bigger and wider than anything he had ever seen. The entire range they had lived in all of their lives would only fill a tiny corner of it.
The concept of outside, while not fully formed, was beginning to manifest in their minds.
“There it is!” one of the warriors shouted, and they sprinted after the creature, still taunting them with its antics.
Half an hour later, when they finally caught up, they found their grubs wiggling in a shallow depression in the ground, their kidnapper nowhere to be seen.
“Ch’goth, look at this,” N’geth said, showing him a ruby Z’nei…a very familiar one.
“Is that my…” Ch’goth patted his belt and pulled out an identical Z’nei, perfectly the same, right down to the wear and tear on the handle.
“What’s going on?”
A moment later, they heard the cries of females being attacked, shocking them to their core. they raised their spears reflexively ready to kill whatever threatened their mates.
Out here though? but…
Before Ch’goth could finish the thought, the creature appeared out of the sky, dropping an invisible bowl full of the village’s women into the clearing.
The fleshy creature waggled its forearm at them, said some strange, guttural words, then flew away at a speed that defied belief.
“Let’s go after it!” one of the warriors shouted, to the enthusiastic agreement of the others, the beginnings of another blood rage.
“Shut up!” Ch’goth shouted, quelling the mounting enthusiasm. Now was the time for deliberation, not running madly through dangerous terrain.
“You couldn’t catch it then, you’re not going to catch it now. It just moved the entire village out of our home in a quarter-sleep. With ease. If it wanted to kill the grubs, it would’ve killed them. If it wanted to kill the women, it would have. What it wanted was for us to be…here.”
Ch’goth glanced around the strange area, with disgustingly soft ground. It felt like walking on dead flesh, and the things that grew out of the ground…couldn’t be natural.
“We need to do a head count and make a safe place before the warriors run off again,” Ch’goth said, eyeing the spot the creature had disappeared into, pondering its intentions.
***Jeb***
“Was that really necessary?” Smartass asked, kicking her toes against Jeb’s scalp.
“It was necessary for my self-worth. I’m not a big fan of genocide.” Jeb said. “I can’t imagine they would survive all the tunnels being filled with lava.”
“How do you know they’ll survive the outside, then?” She asked.
“I don’t,” Jeb said, flying down the halls. “But they’re an intelligent, tool-using species. They’ll figure something out.”
“I think I detect a little racial arrogance there.” Smartass said tugging lightly on his hair.
The next stop was curing Felicia’s case of heartworm, which was as simple as waiting for enough void butterflies to manifest out of Jeb’s lantern, then siccing them on the creature’s face.
About an hour of waiting, and five seconds of combat.
Once the crystal heart started beating again, Jeb packed up his shit and flew. Without having to match pace with, or carry any of his teammates, Jeb was able to get out of the titan before the passageway even began swelling shut.
“You’re welcome,” Jeb muttered, feeling the malicious anticipation radiating off the stone as he flew into the sky, looking down at the trembling mountain.
He gained a few hundred feet of height, orienting on the World Tortoise before locating Freeman’s group cutting a path through the woods to the creature’s tail.
That’s not necessary.
