Chapter 135: Chapter 135

See? This is why I wanted to get off of this floor before the sub-boss fight got triggered. Because it’s gross. Sometimes, between all of the rainbow-glitter spouting unicorns and the happy-go-lucky pink and green slimes I forget what being down in a dungeon can really mean. There are things here, twisted, warped, disgusting things. I don’t even know sometimes if the dungeon-master made them or if they are simply things that just ‘are’. I suppose it’ll be the former, but I am having a hard time picturing our dungeon-master making something like this abomination. Then again, do I really know them that well?

 

  All the while our boat circles the whirlpool further and further, coming just a little bit closer to the edge with every rotation. That is the timer for this fight, kill the corpse-golem before the boat gets sucked down into the vortex, because after that happens, well, it’s lights out. You’d think it’d be a one sided fight really, if you look at the sub-boss here. The horrible monstrosity easily towers over us in height. You’d think all it would have to do is to just slam itself down once on the boat and it’d shatter the whole thing. It probably could too, but it doesn’t. There are rules.

 

  Instead the fight begins and it makes the first move, opting to lunge for one of the adventurers. It has no teeth to bite down with, those have been eaten, but there is still a substantial force behind the lashing of its body. Apart from that, it can still knock them off the boat and into the water. Or, if one would be particularly unlucky, it would lash you back towards the still outstretched and reaching arms of the bad things standing near the mouth of the river. Both are undesirable fates honestly.

 

  Why am I still on this boat? Something touches my shoulder, the thief. I look at her and she points to her face, down her open mouth. You want my food? No! No! My food! Ooh! I already gave away plenty, but enough is enough.

 

  The colossus lunges and is met with a blast of fire straight to its face. The furious stream of flame bursts out of the wizard’s hands, a large blast of fire enveloping the creature as it lunges through the burn, the flames char and scorch its skin and I hear it scream behind the wall of red heat. I hear them scream. The bodies. The faces. But she keeps the fire going, her eyes narrowing in disgust. The writhing, lashing serpent flails and dives beneath the black-water to extinguish the flames. Everything is quiet for a moment but then the worm-like silhouette lashes out from below again, before anyone has a chance to react and smashes the brunt of its soft head against the monk, sending her flying as its boneless skull collides with her.

 

  Like a rock being skipped across the water, she is sent flying over the surface of the black ooze, shouting and tumbling as she glides across the goo. The thief grabs hold of the creature's neck and stabs her dagger around the hollow eye socket of the thing. Black, oozing goo seeps out like so much fungal rot and the creature pulls back in pain, as the silver blade slices through several bodies that make up the left side of its head. I only see a flash of color on my right as the priestess blasts a wave of white-magic behind us to the monk. The white-rainbow colored aura creating a tuft of vapor beneath the monk like a cushion, stopping her from sinking into the bad water, as she floats on it, as if suspended by a cloud. Retching, she coughs out a lungful of the black goo and holds her chest tightly. I watch as in an instant she jumps up and lands a solid punch on something just behind herself, something I can’t see. Something that reached for her.

 

  Even after a hit like that, she’s still up for the fight. That’s the hero-party for you I suppose. Saying the word, I look to him, the hero. He can’t do much here, but I see his eyes burning with rage. I see his fingers clenched deathly tight around the blade of his sword he is dying to swing. But he can’t. The force of the hero’s strike would knock the whole boat over, if not just tear it apart to begin with. He has to rely on them this time, unless it gets close to him. I wonder. Can a hero do that? Rely on the strength of others instead of just his own? It must be painful. What must it feel like to be the world’s strongest person, but to be useless at the same time?

 

It’ll do him some good, I suppose. To know what the rest of us feel.

 

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  The boat is still spinning and I watch as the monk runs over the surface of the water, the white-magic cloud just beneath her feet growing fainter and fainter as she approaches us, just as we make our next pass. With a jump she flies through the air, just as the white-magic vanishes. The priestess does her best to catch her, but she isn’t very strong. I see as the monk’s hands reach hers, but she isn’t strong enough. The monk slips and her hands catch the side of the boat, the priestess holding on to her arms to keep her here against the current. I know that if she doesn’t get out of the water soon, it will take her bones. It’s already coming.

 

Ooh.

 

  Grabbing down, I take hold of her right arm and the priestess takes the left and together we pull her in against the tug of the current, that was trying to keep her as its own. To keep her down together with all the rest of them. Ooh. Wheezing, she falls down into the boat and spits out more black-water. You shouldn’t drink the black-water, guy. I like to think I’ve made that clear at this point. It does things to you. It makes you into things. Things like that.

 

  The serpent lunges again, this time towards the priestess who has her back turned to it. But the hero catches it with his blade. Slicing his sword inside of its mouth and down its right cheek, cutting several of the faces in half. But they still scream, even through their ripped mouths and toothless, severed jaws they scream and the serpent writhes in pain. I look in its hollow right eye that seems to be staring at me somehow. The faces that make up its skin all look to me with somber, hollow expressions. They’re all watching me and then they all stop their screaming for a moment, to open their mouths in unison. Oh. I understand.

 

  I reach out and grab hold of the gigantic serpent’s head and it pulls back, with me hanging on and with a lash, opens its mouth to fling me into the air and to swallow me whole. As I fly up just before, my eyes catch the monk in the boat, for some reason or another. Maybe it’s the vivid color of her black-water stained yellow top. Maybe it's her ratty, swamp-water soaked short hair. Or maybe it's that expression that my lizard-brain notices because it stands out among the rest save for one other. I see her look at me in worry, I see her reaching. Reaching for me as I fly. Why?

 

  I am swallowed. Everything turns dark and I fly through the tube of the serpent. My body collides against the inside of its esophagus as I hear screams all around me. As I fall down the body of the snake, I feel boneless fingers on the inside of its neck touch me. I feel jointless hands graze me in passing, I feel a thousand dessicated bodies give me their blessing through a laying of hands as I spiral down into the darkness below. As I have become food.

 

Oo-

 

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