The harrowing roar that from the cave's darkness was a physical force. There was a blast of wind and malice that sent the vines at the entrance whipping.
Two shapes emerged from the blackness.
The first creature was lean, fast, and horrifying.
It stood just over three meters tall, a nightmarish fusion of black, glistening chitin and pale, pulsating fungal flesh. Its body was skeletal, like a starved greyhound, but its head was a horror. It was a split-open mandible with no eyes with just a deep, dark pit lined with rows of needle-like teeth.
It walked on four, insectoid legs, its movements sharp and intelligent.
'A Grave-Maw Mauler,' Kaitri's mind supplied, his blood running cold. 'Warden-Rank. Abyssal type that hunts by sound.'
The second creature that was lumbering behind it, was its species' Fragment.
It was a lopsided, shambling mountain of the same fungal flesh which stood five meters tall. It was bloated, grey-white, and covered in weeping sores that pulsed with a faint, sickly light. It dragged a massive arm while the other was a withered, useless limb.
Paul had his hand on his dagger and was the first to speak. "Look at that… Why are they even called fragments," he muttered, his voice flat, "when they are bigger than the freaking Wardens?"
"The little one is the threat," Kaitri said, his voice low, his Tantos already in a reverse grip. "It's the brain. The big one is just... the muscle."
The Warden-Queen hissed, its split-jaw clicking. It spat. A glob of black, tar-like slime shot out and hit the stone floor between Kaitri and Hunter. The stone sizzled, melting like hot wax, a plume of acrid smoke rising from the new hole.
"Frack!" Varik yelped, jumping back. "The brain, my snow behind. Is that the brain it's spitting out?"
"Hunter, Sibil, with me!" Kaitri ordered, his mind racing. "We take the fast one! Varik, Kanut, Paul… You handle the big one! Don't let it box us in! We take them both, or we're dead!"
Varik was about to oppose when Kanut dragged him away.
The teams split. Kaitri, Hunter, and Sibil veered left, drawing the agile Queen away.
Varik, Kanut, and Paul were left facing the Brute. It groaned, a sound like a collapsing building, and took a heavy step toward them, its club-arm dragging a trench in the cave floor.
Kanut had his shield up. Jabber's cage was already tucked away. "This is bad. This is very bad."
The Brute inhaled, its whole bloated body seeming to swell. Then it exhaled. A thick, choking cloud of yellow-grey spores shot from the sores on its body, filling the tunnel.
"Don't breathe it!" Paul yelled, covering his face with his feathered arm.
Varik was already coughing, his eyes watering. "What... what is this stuff?"
"It's a disorienting agent!" Kanut yelled, his voice strained. He was like Kaitri, who had studied the bestiaries extensively. He slammed his shield into the ground, bracing. "It's not a poison, it's... frack... it's a paralytic! We breathe too much, and we stop moving!"
He was stepping up. His usual nervous energy was gone, replaced by the grim focus of a survivor. "We can't breathe! Paul! Get above it! Find a weak point! Varik, stay with me, we need to draw its attention!"
"Draw its... what?" Varik stammered, but Paul was already in motion.
Paul used the cave wall, kicking off it and launching himself into the spore-filled air, his dark form a blur. He landed high on a ledge, well above the cloud, coughing and gagging.
"I can't see its weak point!" Paul yelled down, his voice echoing. "It's just... a blob! A giant, ugly, smelly blob!"
"Well, hit it anyway!" Varik shrieked, as the Brute took another thundering step.
Varik, seeing the monster's attention was on Kanut, did the only thing he could. He ran to its side. "Hey, ugly! Your mother was a mushroom, and your father was a pile of..."
The Brute swung.
Its massive, club-like arm moved with a deceptive speed. It wasn't aiming for Varik. It was just swinging in his general direction.
"Frack! That was close!" Varik dived, rolling, the wind of the blow buffeting him. He came up to his feet, his Tachi held in a shaky two-handed grip.
"It's too slow!" Kanut yelled, his voice a tactical command. "It's all reaction! Paul! Varik! Get behind me!"
The Brute, annoyed by the small, fast-moving things, turned its full attention to Kanut. It saw the shield. It saw a stationary target. It roared, its fleshy pit of a mouth opening wide, and charged.
"Paul, now!" Kanut screamed. "Hit its back! Aim for the big, pulsating... boils!"
"Ugh, gross!" Paul yelled. "I can't see its back!"
"Just hit the biggest, grossest part!"
The Brute slammed into Kanut's shield.
The sound was a wet, concussive THUD that shook the tunnel. Kanut's knees buckled. His arms screamed. The force of the impact drove him back a full meter, his boots skidding on the stone. But the shield held.
"Now, Paul!" Kanut roared, his voice strained.
From above, Paul dive-bombed. He fell, his curved daggers leading, and sank both blades deep into the largest, most vibrant, pulsating boil on the creature's back.
The boil exploded.
It wasn't blood. It was a pressurized spray of thick, foul-smelling, yellow pus.
"AHHHH!" Paul shrieked, as he was showered in the filth. "I'M BLIND! IT'S IN MY MOUTH! IT'S IN MY..."
The force of the pop, combined with the recoil, sent him tumbling from the monster's back. He was falling, blind and flailing.
The Brute, enraged by the new pain, roared, and swung its massive club-arm, not at Kanut, but at the falling Corvian.
"Oh, hell no!" Varik yelled.
He was too far to intercept. He was disarmed of any ranged weapon. He was a swordsman. But he saw Paul, his rival, his... whatever-he-was, about to be turned into paste.
Varik roared and threw his Tachi.
It wasn't a good throw. It wasn't a strong throw. It was a desperate, wobbly end-over-end hurl. But it was true. The blade spun and embedded itself, hilt-deep, in the monster's swinging wrist.
The Brute paused. It stopped its attack, its arm frozen mid-swing. It looked with its one-star intelligence, at the new shiny, and confusing object now stuck in its arm.
Varik who was now disarmed, gulped. He turned to Paul who had hit the ground hard.
"Get up, you emo-pigeon! You owe me!"
Paul, wiping the viscous goo from his eyes, saw Varik. He saw the disarmed blond, standing ten feet from the monster, his fists raised in a pathetic, trembling boxer's stance.
"You... you idiot!" Paul shouted, scrambling for his daggers.
The Brute who was currently deciding if the sword in its arm was less annoying than the man behind the shield, roared and charged Kanut again.
"It's hollow!" Kanut yelled, his eyes wide as he braced for impact. "I can hear it! Its core is loose! It's... it's just a bag!"
"What does that even mean?!" Varik screamed.
"It means I have a plan!" Kanut yelled back. "It's roaring! The mouth! Get its attention!"
Varik, his mind a blank, just did it. "HEY! OVER HERE, YOU PILE OF... OF... FUNGAL JELLY!"
"Is that the only way you know how to distract something?" Paul asked, his eyebrows twitching.
"No… I used to make mini fart bombs when I was little to distract my parents."
Paul reacted with a look of disgust on his face.
The Brute, charging, turned its head and opened its fleshy pit of a mouth to roar at Varik.
Kanut braced. He took a deep, shuddering breath, his chest swelling to an impossible size. He lowered his shield just enough to aim his face.
He didn't scream. He unleashed.
"GET... OUT!"
It wasn't a word. It was a focused, sonic lance of sound, a physical wave of force that shot from Kanut's lungs, amplified by the Crier's unique biology.
But its effect was so loud, the warden far away turned around distracted which caused it to get hit with an arrow.
Sibil laughed and shouted, "Yeah, thanks Kanut!"
Apparently, Kaitri and Kanut had a link and they had decided to try out a plan with their most valuable asset. Kanut's voice blasting and distracting at the right time.
Kaitri didn't think it will work but it did which he took to mean, luck was on their side even if he didn't really count on luck much.
The blast hit the Brute's open, roaring mouth. It didn't do any external damage.
It echoed.
The sound was trapped inside the Brute's bloated, mostly hollow body.
The Brute stopped. It froze mid-charge. It shivered. Its whole body, all five meters of it, began to vibrate, like a tuning fork. The pulsating boils all over its skin jiggled, faster and faster.
Paul, watching from the ledge he'd scrambled back to, his eyes wide, just said, "Oh... frack."
The Grave-Maw Brute exploded.
A massive, disgusting wet detonation of pus, fungal matter, and spores filled the entire tunnel.
Varik, Paul, and Kanut were showered. They were covered from head to toe in a warm, stinking, liquid-grey rain of monster guts.
For a full ten seconds, there was silence. The only sound was the drip... drip... drip... of goo falling from the ceiling.
Varik was the first to move. He spat a chunk of... something... from his mouth. He looked at Kanut, who was just standing there, shield still up, completely drenched.
"Nice save there, bud," Varik said, his voice shaky. He clapped Kanut on the shoulder, leaving a gooey handprint. "You're alright."
Paul landed next to them, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated disgust. He looked at Varik, who had saved him.
"Yeah," Paul muttered, wiping his face. "You t– I mean... thanks."
"Yeah," Varik said, wiping his own face and trying to retrieve his Tachi from a pile of entrails. "I shouldn't have called you a cannibal."
Paul, who had been mid-wipe, froze. "What?"
"Nothing," Varik said quickly. "Let's go help the others."
They turned and ran toward the sound of the other fight, a symphony of hissing acid and shattering runes.
They rounded the corner into the main cave chamber just as a violent wind, thick with the smell of ozone and acid, blasted them back. They slid on the slimy floor, shielding their faces.
They looked up. And their blood ran cold.
Kaitri and the others were really doing bad.
Kaitri was on one knee, his dual Tantos held up in a desperate block. The blades themselves were smoking, the corrosive spit of the Queen eating away at the steel.
Sibil was behind a stalagmite at the extension of the cave with her waterskins empty and her face was pale.
Hunter was on the ground with his last runic shield shattering as the Warden-Queen stalked toward him, its split-jaw clicking, and she was ready for the kill.