Chapter 2: The Serpent’s Burrow [2]

The scent of blood is wafting through the air in a cramped dirt chamber. The space is crowded by three large dog sized snakes. Their colors vary slightly while maintaining a similar hue of dark green. Fangs cut and pierced into the corpse of a wild dog the serpents had managed to catch.

"Hsss." One of the snakes is slightly bigger than the rest. The larger serpent warns them to back off before taking several large bites of the meat. The others feel irritated as their serpentine eyes narrow at their more arrogant kin.

The two smaller ones give each other a look that communicates their intentions to one another before slithering silently up to the sides of the larger snake.

"Hsss?" The big snake glances at them for a moment while not considering them a threat. The snake was mistaken.

Slightly yellowed lengthy white fangs flash as both snakes bite a separate length of the larger serpent's body. The green scales give way to soft snake flesh as the arrogant creature lets out a silent cry of shock. The sounds of a scuffle are quiet, and after a few moments the two smaller snakes divide up the corpse of the big snake and the dog.

The peaceful feast is interrupted when the dirt between the two of them seems to swallow up the large snake's body by its head. They both pause and stare at the hole in the dirt where their former kin had been pulled into.

Tendrils of red meaty flesh slither out of the opening at an alarming speed while the sounds of bones being crunched are audible. The red mass is almost the size of a young teen human, and it slams into the roof of the quite cramped dirt hole. The snakes try to slither away from the dangerous beast, but they are far too late.

The fleshy appendages wrap around the bodies of the serpents with an unnatural grip strength before strangling them into a meaty pulp. The creature finally rests and absorbs the corpses of both the wild dog and snakes.

'I think I'm finally a good distance from that scary human nest.' The fleshy monster felt relaxed to have gotten away from the majority of those awful metal swinging fiends.

The creature ate all of the remaining organic material before climbing its way around the dirt tunnels with those large fleshy appendages. Eventually it found the lowest dirt chamber in the network of snake burrows, and settled down to spread it's fleshy roots.

The space isn't very large, and the surface area to cover is actually comparable to the cellar the beast had been staying within before. The only difference is this area is much more linear and lengthy.

'At least no humans will come in here. The tunnels are way too small.' The creature eventually finishes filling the tunnels with those rather disgusting protrusions of red meat. This essentially made the entire burrow into an extension of its body.

It could feel every step each animal took on the small hill, and heard every sound that echoed into the cramped burrow.

The aberration was safe and comfortable, however the lack of space gave it this indescribable feeling of irritation. The creature had an instinctual need for more room to spread than this tiny snake hole. This irritation grew to the point where the monster decided to spread tendrils through the soil and rock to seek out a larger cavern or space to live within.

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'Wait... What is that?' The creature had been digging its tendrils through the dirt for nearly an hour. Vibrations larger than even the humans or their horses were felt deep within a cavern just outside its tendrils' range.

Its excitement mounted as the sensations of other slightly less massive vibrations drew its attention. This cavern is massive and full of things to eat!

Meaty limbs burst through the tiny crack in the wall of a large dirt corridor deep beneath the earth. The creature retracted its previously planted root system to move base to this much more spacious cavern.

'There's a lot more dirt than I expected. This is quite deep underground, after all.' The flesh ball makes its way up the corridor to see if there are any exits it needs to worry about.

The winding tunnel is quite large, big enough to fit a few horses side by side. It takes a good two minutes for the abomination to arrive at a large dirt chamber occupied by tall green grass. The grass is lush and vibrant, contrasting with the dirt walls of the cave system.

Light is shining in from a seemingly jagged hole leading way up above the cave. The hole is apparently enough to feed and water the plants, which in turn feed several fat rats that are similar to the ones the flesh beast ate in that cramped basement.

These rats eat seeds and other bits of the luscious grasses. They grow and get somewhat lazy over their lifespan, and that leads to the snakes in this area eating them up. There are at least five of those familiar dog sized green serpents in this rooms, and three or so large rats wandering amongst the predators. The beast feels its body tremble with hunger at the feast before it.

Several thick red vines of flesh coat the edges of the room's floor before making a small wall of meat to prevent the prey from an easy escape. The creatures don't realize what's happening until the flesh ball is already upon them.

The touch of the strange goopy blob is lethal. Each time it makes contact it consumes and digests whatever organics it can touch. The rats let out pained squeaks while the snakes can only hiss or breath out silently as they perish.

Their suffering doesn't damped the meat orb's mood at all, and instead it is quite pleased with this haul.  The snakes scaley lean bodies go into the monster's gullet, the rat's smaller bodies being used to add some extra flavor.

The creature is relishing the sensation of a full tummy when it feels a new sensation deep within its core. The muscles and organs of its body feel as if they are tingling. The beast tries to figure out what's going on and tenses something in that area by chance. Then a tendril connected to the main body begins to grow as though something is being shoved through it. 

The large round shape in the tentacle is squirming slightly, and before the core can begin to try and figure out what's going on the tentacle suddenly expunges a piece of itself along with whatever was inside of it.

The thing looks very familiar. Loose flesh forms around a narrow skeleton which then hardens itself into a set of green scales. Eventually the twitching mess of meat becomes a fully fledged snake monster. The same snake monster the beast just consumed.

'Wait... Did I just birth a monster?' The abomination is alarmed as well as intrigued by this development. The monster recalls that it used a certain part of its core to initiate the process.

Without much forethought the monster tenses the area once again to feel a shock of pain sprout from that area. The monster spawning process still happens, however several outer tendrils wilt into black shriveled messes. The fleshy bulb realizes there must be a required amount of nutrients to create more of these monsters.

"Hsss." The snake monster simply stares at its abomination of a creator. The flesh monster has no eyes to stare back with, yet it knows exactly where it is looking.

The flesh monster is alarmed when it realizes it doesn't just know that the serpent is looking at it. The aberration can literally see what the snake monster is seeing. The serpent is somewhat similar to a flesh tendril in the sense that it can be controlled like a part of its body.

'This changes things.' The meat ball is excited by this discovery and quickly climbs its way past its new subordinate to check if there's an entrance to the surface.

Sunlight eventually shines brightly down on the meaty monster. It feels displeased that humans can enter its new home, however with the discovery of this new monster creating ability the flesh monster feels capable of defending its home.

'I should go eat up the rest of the things in the caves before I get started on safety measures.' The creature slides itself back down the compacted dirt tunnel with a plan in mind.

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The freshly born snake monster is blankly looking around the room when its creator returns. Without stopping the flesh ball passes by the green snake while ordering it to go watch the entrance using instinctual telepathy. The communication is unfortunately limited to the beast's own minions. The scaled beast complies and slithers its way up to the entrance obediently.

The spacious snake burrow contains several rooms and tunnels. The flesh orb maps out the layout in its head while gobbling up every dog sized snake and normal sized rat it finds.

First is the entry tunnel. This tunnel slopes down dramatically into the first chamber. The first chamber is small compared to the others, however it has sunlight along with some grass that provides a base for the microbiome contained there. The grass also has the added benefit of synergizing with the snakes for camouflaging purposes.

Beyond the first chamber a winding tunnel stretches like a serpents body further into the compact soil. There is a distinct lack of any notable features in this tunnel.

The tunnel connects to a chamber twice the size of the first with more grass and sunlight. This one is large enough that several wide ferns have taken root among the shoots of overgrown grass. The sunlight is quite lacking, however it is enough to support the flora within. This room is populated with a tangle of serpents that use a large boulder in the center of the room as their home. There are many rats in this chamber, however they are stretched thin by the large number of predators living in the room.

Finally a small dirt tunnel leads down to the last chamber of the burrow. This one is huge compared to the others, and is filled by a massive serpent that sleeps silently coiled in the center of the room. Some sunlight shines on the creature, warming it.

'I don't think I can eat that thing. It's big enough to swallow a horse!' The flesh bulb is perturbed by the size of the creature. Ideally the flesh monster would take root in the deepest room of the burrow, however this huge snake is preventing it from doing so.

The meat monster decided numbers wouldn't work against such a tough looking foe. Instead of quantity, it would use the quality of its muscled appendages.

'I should be able to strangle it if I'm quick.' The red blob moves into the adjacent room and slips its body into the emptied snake den within the boulder. The space is a bit tight, however after settling and spreading its roots the abomination can comfortably relax.

'First I need to get strong tendrils up close to it.' The creature stretches what energy it gained from its earlier massacre up toward the huge snake. The meaty vines silently creep along the floor until they form a thick red circle around the snake.

The flesh beast stills its slight pulsing as it raises the two sturdy meat vines up out of their ring shape. The snake is caught by complete surprise as two huge fleshy vines grab it by the neck and begin to thrash and twist it around like a ragdoll.

'Just die! Hurry up and die!' The tentacles are incredibly strong, however they lack defense. The fangs of the huge snake flash as it tries to worm its head around to bite the flesh tentacles.

The fangs hit home, and the flesh beast lets out an alarmed screech from within its rocky hideout. The pain is unbearable, however there is thankfully no venom.

Crack!

The neck of the huge serpent is finally broken. The whiplash from being tossed around so aggressively finally the does the large serpent in.

'I hate snakes! I hate humans!' The somewhat immature monster climbs its way out of the rock den it took refuge within. The sensations of pain still enraged it greatly.

The large strong tendrils used for the combat are slowly reclaimed into the flesh beast's body as it enter the final chamber of the burrow. The dead snake is huge, however now that it cannot resist there isn't any reason not to eat it piece by piece.

The noisy crunching and squishing sounds fill the chamber with an unpleasant ambiance. The abomination naturally doesn't mind such sounds. The taste of the snake is a bit better than that of the small snakes, however it is largely uninteresting to the flesh ball.

'Wow that was a lot...' The ball of meat is now about the height of an adult human, however it has the width to make it a nearly perfectly rounded ball. The thing has to get used to lugging itself around as it finds an appropriate spot to set itself for planting its flesh roots.

The center of the room is too obvious, so it settles for a spot in the shadows of the back wall of the chamber. The huge roots of meat that wind their way into the soil from the beast are much stronger than the previous iterations.

'It's time I get my minions made.' The beast tenses that muscle, and is surprised when it feels another similar sensation next to the first. Curiosity gets the better of the flesh ball, and it uses the new node rather than the old one.

Flesh and blood drains as the meat monster is shrunk down by about a third of its total size. It kind of expected such a result, and watches with interest as a new monster is coming from its larger tendrils.

"Hssss." The shape of a massive snake head pushes out of the bloody root, and within seconds a slightly smaller version of the huge snake monster appears. The length is very small compared to its predecessor, however it still has the massive imposing presence.

'Wow! I'm guessing the length will improve the longer you live.' The blob makes a guess as to why its size is so small. The monster orders the new serpent to guard this room with its life, and more specifically to guard the flesh beast itself.

The huge serpent suns itself in the same spot as the previous tenant, however it is much more awake and only gets a little drowsy before making sure it stays alert enough so as to react in case of an intruder.

'Now for some additional troops.' The flesh bulb sets about sprouting more small snakes, and within a few minutes a little army of dog sized serpents are all watching their creator with interest.

'You six, go stay in the room right outside this room. You three can go stay in the room at the front of the burrow.' The flesh monster watches the little snakes slither away to go to their positions with satisfaction.

'Oh shoot. The snake at the entrance can hang out outside the burrow, just watch the entrance and make sure nothing finds you.' The meat monster is satisfied as it sees the snake on lookout duty move into the tall grass outside the burrow's entrance.

The burrow settles nicely under the new management, and the flesh beast is quite pleased with its organizational skills. This satisfaction is short lived, as it immediately feels that itchy feeling reminiscent of boredom. It wants to do something.

'Hey little snake, I'm going to take control of your body for a bit. Just relax and enjoy the ride!' The flesh beast immerses itself into the senses of that particular snake while finding the new abilities these minions bring quite enjoyable.

"Hsss!" The green snake that was previously slithering around idly is now sitting up with a strange smirk on its snake snout.

'How fun! Time to see what our neighbors are like.' The flesh beast's snake vessel slithers up the tunnel and out into the grassland above the burrow. The joy is visible on the serpents face as it looks around.

There's a small village not too far away in one direction, while in another direction a wagon sits beside a makeshift camp. Both locations are a bit too far away to make out the details of. 

The snake contemplates which direction to explore first...

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