LSRO: Chapter 10 - Worm Food (Patreon)

If I could absorb knowledge straight into my brain, it's all I'd do all day long. Except for writing that it. That and writing. Anyhu! Hope you enjoy the next chapter. Let me know what you think!

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Chapter 10

Worm Food

The rumbling turned into shaking and was so intense that she almost lost her footing and had to adjust in order to keep her balance.

"What was that?" she asked, hoping Lynx knew.

His eyes flickered again like he wasn't entirely there. This time, however, he multitasked better. Even though his voice was distant, he answered her question. "That's coming from where the worms are. Their energy is fluctuating. They seem to be absorbing more mana than they were earlier. It's like..."

She gulped, instinctually knowing why, "They’re absorbing the magic from the one we killed, aren’t they? That seems so clever. I didn't think the bookworms would be sentient."

Lynx shrugged, his focus still not entirely on her... "I can't be sure. They shouldn't be sentient, but they have been running rampant for a few hundred years. Anything's possible. But this is not good."

The room shuddered once more. This time, some dirt fell from the ceiling, along with fragments of wood that had splintered off from overhead and from the bookcases. Even the training dummy started to shake.

"We need to move now," Quinn said, feeling a sudden impetus to act, despite practically quaking where she stood. That was complete and utter nerves. She was scared. She prided herself on rarely being scared of things. She'd been through a lot in her young life, losing her parents, and being thrown into the foster care system.

But she'd always looked out for herself. This wasn't just about herself anymore. This was about the survival of a universe’s magic. For some obscure reason, she even thought about Dottie the little bench with an attitude.

Not to mention the fact that, if Lynx was to be believed, Quinn was the only one capable of doing anything. “Come on, then. Let's get there. Let's go. I need you to guide me there, this place is still a labyrinth to me."

In response to her comment, the Library popped a map up in front of her eyes, as if it was trying to be helpful. She waved it away.

Lynx flashed her a quick grin, even though she could tell he was worried, and they took off.

Quinn pushed herself past her fear and into movement. They headed out down the same dark and dingy hallway. The sense of foreboding followed them like a bad smell, like rotting vegetation.  The earthy undertones had strange vibrations to them. It was like this lingering, overpowering need for control.

It stunk like regret.

She paused, getting her bearings. Lynx pulled farther ahead of her and led them off to the left, to where she’d killed the first worm. In hindsight, it probably hadn't been a good idea to leave the corpse of the creature lying around. But you live and you learn.

Quinn steeled herself, trying to ignore the shaking that continued underneath her feet, trying to ignore her own quivering nerves. They sped toward the source of the disturbance as fast as her legs could carry her and stopped right in front of the section they'd been in scant hours before.

Just beyond the corpse were at least half a dozen of those damned bookworms. She'd always thought bookworms were a good thing until she came to this world, where of course, something that used to be an awesome nickname for herself and her friends was now something evil.

Fan-freaking-tastic.

She took a deep breath, centered herself, and let the images from the book flood her mind. Quinn gripped the sword in her left hand, trying to figure out which hand would be best to use. She was technically ambidextrous, even if she sometimes favored her left. She could use both, right? Maybe that was something she could use to her advantage. Either way, those bookworms weren't just sitting there devouring dust anymore. They were focused on her.

Three of them sprang for her at once.

The first worm lunged at her, much like the original one had, only this one lacked the same power. It flopped over and rolled, a blessing in disguise as it allowed Quinn to evade the other worms launching themselves in a similar fashion. She ducked and rolled, bringing her wooden sword down in the very center of the first bookworm. It squelched and then burst audibly as the sword ripped through the flesh. It splashed over everything in a five-yard radius.

Especially her hair, and her hands. Oddly enough, it didn't slick down her grip, which was a blessing in disguise as the other two worms dove for her as well.

She managed to somersault rather clumsily over the one she'd just split in two, narrowly avoiding a hit from what she thought was a green-ringed bookworm. A part of her mind stashed away the color of the rings for later reference, but she couldn’t afford to let her attention wane.

The overabundance of magic the worms had consumed rendered their coloring suspect at best. So the information was likely tainted anyway.

Unfortunately, while trying to figure it out, she rolled right into a pile of goop, which was slippery and offered no traction for her feet. In desperation, she flailed her sword in the air and accidentally managed to impale the worm currently lunging at her. She sliced it along the underside before extricating herself barely in time. Worm guts slushed down next to her, coating her right leg.

Leveraging herself up, she leaned against one of the bookshelves, panting and trying to regain her equilibrium. This whole fighting thing was not as easy as reading about it in a book.

And the smell of rotting corpses and vegetation made her gag reflexes work overtime.

"A little help here," she said, sounding angrier than she wanted. Not to mention, opening her mouth to speak let some goop fall into it. It clung to the roof of her mouth making her stomach churn in response.  She literally had to turn her head and throw up.

"Watch out!" Lynx yelled, his voice booming through the space. He threw out a cascade of salt, doing what he could to help without draining too much energy from the already emergency-powered Library.

Quinn barely twisted away in time. Some of the weird gelatinous substance that expelled from the worm attacking her hit the bookshelves and slid down. It was black, sludge-like, and quite simply gross. But it appeared to be even stickier than the initial stuff she'd been hit with. Avoiding it moved even higher up on her list.

She took another breath and lashed out with the sword again, but this time she only nipped the head. She knew that she'd have to the creature in two if she was going to prevent it from splitting into multiple worms.

Diving forward once more, she wielded the blade and finally brought it down on the center of the worm's body, eliciting an airy gasp from the creature. The sound made her hesitate before she could get the sword all the way through, and the two pieces writhed beneath her hands.

The very movement caused Quinn to panic, and she hacked away at the worm with something close to a frenzy until it was indeed in two pieces again. Sadly, there was no reprieve because she could see more worms inching their way toward them, and this time there were more than just three.

"How am I supposed to deal with all of these? All of them at once?" She gasped out, her chest heaving with the exertion.

Lynx looked around, glancing at more boxes of salt to the right. “All I know is we have to kill these. I’m sorry, this has gotten way out of hand."

"You don't say," Quinn muttered, trying to scoop some of the worm guts off her body that had accumulated during the fight. It made moving more difficult because it clogged her ability to maneuver even though it left her some measure of flexibility. She decided not to bring up him saying we have to kill them. He was helping with the salt after all.

And all she could do was knuckle down and flail about with her little wooden sword desperately wishing the edges were sharper. Luckily, worms were very soft even in their engorged state, perhaps even more so considering they were pretty much just a sack of food.

But those were the last inquisitive thoughts she managed to have before the onslaught.

Worm after worm came, leaping at her, jumping higher than anything without legs had a right to do, screaming at her. And when she cleaved them in two, they quite literally poured their guts absolutely everywhere.

All over the floor in a sea of sludge, caking her clothes in the pungent mucus-like membrane. She had to move further into the corridor to face all of the worms head-on and to avoid the massive pile-up of worm parts that was starting to accumulate at the front of the corridor.

If she wasn't careful, she was going to trap herself back there with all of the worms which, in her very humble opinion, was not a good thing. All she could hope was that the Library had some way of taking care of all the carcasses when she was done.

Her arms ached, her shoulders burned, and she swapped arms whenever the one she was currently using felt like it was about to fall off. Her thighs felt like the muscles she knew and the ones she’d never realized she possessed were all about to explode with overexertion. Not to mention her back was aching in ways it shouldn’t at 19 years of age.

The book might have taught her the technicalities of sword fighting, but it had done nothing to prepare her body. Understanding the drawbacks of the Library system was not the epiphany she wanted while battling Engorged Bookworms.

"You've got this," Lynx said from his place of observation in the bookcases. He’d changed back into a lynx once he threw out a scattering of salt. Since his claws were much more effective weapons, he occasionally dove into fights as well.

After solidifying his form so that his claws would make contact with the worm bodies, even for just a few seconds, he would flicker so much that Quinn had to tell him off.

"You need to stop doing that. If you flicker out of existence, who am I supposed to talk to, and who is supposed to help me?" She panted out the words, not used to this much physical exertion. At least there was a brief lull in attackers.

But that's as far as she got because a worm larger than any of the tens of others that she'd seen so far came into view, slithering through the remnants of its brethren. The master worm was probably four times as large as the others, and there was no way her tiny sword was going to cut through any part of it.

Wormzilla
Status: Maximum Engorgement
Danger Level: High
Maximum Mana Density: Leaking

Great. Now the Library chose to be helpful and only succeeded in making her more nervous.

"Get out of the way!" she called out to Lynx, belatedly remembering that it wouldn't matter because he could probably just blink out of existence. She, on the other hand, could not.

Thankfully, she slipped on some of the worm guts underneath her foot and managed to completely avoid a strange whirlwind attack from the bossworm. It’s body cycloned. It was the only way she could describe the movement of it twisting in rapid circles standing on one end.

Something flickered in the corner of her vision, but she was too busy concentrating on the sight in front of er. She didn't have to see any more information to understand it was hellbent on killing her. Every portion of her body ached, but there was no choice other than to push through the pain and the knowledge that this wasn't going to be easy.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a stick flying at her.

No, it wasn't a stick, it was a broom. Catching it deftly with her left arm she was now dual-wielding a broom and a sword, which seemed comical until the worm suddenly appeared in front of her with some sort of short-range teleportation move that none of the others had possessed. She instinctually crossed the sword and broom, barely holding the creature at bay.

She didn't even think she'd be able to fit her arms around this thing's neck. It was massive. And her left shoulder groaned under the pressure.

Quinn managed to cut a large slice off it as she darted out of the way after pushing back, but it wasn't nearly enough to decapitate it or even render it slightly immobile so that she could hack away at the middle of its body. She didn't know what to do.

Her weapons were subpar and her energy levels were flagging dangerously.

"Lynx, there has to be some other weapon, something sharper, something bigger, something...stabbier?" She rolled out of the way yet again and came up panting. She was not a super fit person. Hell, this was not what she had been aiming to do after learning to fight.

This wasn't a set of mathematical equations that she could easily calculate her way through. Right in front of her was a literal monster trying to kill her, and it was doing a bang-up job so far.

Her left arm throbbed so much that there was little feeling left in it. That was going to take some work if this ever got done. The rancid smell all around her made her sick to her stomach, and she wished she'd have got this done before she ate food. Before this, she'd never regretted eating in her life.

The creature reared back and screamed out a guttural noise that sounded like chains grating against each other. Its head flailed around with such speed she realized it must have been similar to that whirlwind attack from earlier.

But she didn't move in time, and the massive head impacted her chest so hard it knocked the wind out of her and sent her flying all the way into one of the bookcases across the room. Books rained down on the ground around her, and she couldn't breathe. She gasped in air, guts, and muck. Her body ached. It felt like she'd been crumpled against a concrete wall.

And then the worm was back, there, looming over her like a death knoll.

~~

Yeah, this was a mean ending. Sorry, not sorry.

Much love

KT