Chapter 216 - Worms, Wurms, and Wyrms (Patreon)

“It’s always got to be underground. Why does it always have to be tunnels and caves?” Zeke muttered, staring at the smoking hole in the ground. His initial assessment that they’d reach the wyrm caves within a day had been woefully inaccurate, and it had taken them an extra three days before they finally found their destination. In that time, the forests gave way to a veritable maze of ravines, at the bottoms of which flowed steaming streams of sulfuric liquid. The smell alone was enough to make Zeke rethink his plans. Still, after a further week of traversing, backtracking, and trudging through the hellish landscape, they finally found the entrance.

That’s when he and the others got to work. Zeke had spent the past week-and-a-half building, tearing down, and then re-building a series of runic traps. None were overly powerful or complex, but he hoped that they would give him the edge he needed to defeat a monarch-tier monster without using his cheat-like resistance to fire. Certainly, it would help, but the wyrm was no fireback turtle. It had plenty of other weapons at its disposal.

“I wish we could go with you,” said Carlos. Zeke’s ring, which he’d gotten for his quest to avenge Jacie and kill the hag, gave his finger a slight shock. It didn’t take Zeke more than a second to realize the meaning – Carlos had just lied to him.

“No you don’t,” Zeke said, glancing at the man. In the time since they’d had their heart-to-heart, Carlos had adopted a new attitude. He certainly hadn’t changed his self-serious personality, but he’d stopped moping around and complaining about leaving Jariq to its own devices. As far as Zeke was concerned, that was an improvement.

Carlos shot him a small smile. “You’re right,” he said. “I definitely don’t. Honestly, I don’t even want you to go.”

Zeke shrugged, feeling the band around his wrist. It was the key to the runic traps; so long as that was on his wrist, he wouldn’t have to worry about the effects. With it, he could trample all over them and not find himself under their influence.

After a second, he said, “It’s just another cave. And caves are kind of my thing.”

“I thought your thing was jumping at monsters and screaming like a barbarian,” was Carlos’s retort.

“I have a lot of things.”

Without waiting for a response, Zeke donned his helmet and strode forward into the cave. With every step, the heat grew more oppressive. It didn’t hurt, and it wouldn’t burn him, but that didn’t make it comfortable. By the time he was teen feet into the yawning cave, sweat was pouring off of him. Already, he’d begun to regret the necessity of going into the cave at all. But there was nothing else for it. He’d already gathered all of the other quest items, and he would never forgive himself if he didn’t at least try to finish it out.

So, pushing his discomfort to the back of his mind, he continued deeper into the cave. Soon, the floor angled itself into a descent. As it did, he took in his surroundings. The walls themselves were pockmarked and porous, looking more like rigid and blackened sponges than rock. Every now and then, Zeke would see the glint of crystal or something metallic, but it was a rare enough occurrence that he paid it no mind.

After a few dozen feet, the light from the tunnel’s entrance dissipated, leaving him mired in darkness. Fortunately, due to his racial evolution, his night vision was excellent, and after spending the first two years after his rebirth fighting trolls underground, Zeke didn’t even feel the least bit claustrophobic. Such fears, natural to surface-dwelling creatures the world over, had long since been discarded. If they hadn’t, he would have gone crazy during those first few weeks. As it was, it almost felt like he’d come home.

Of course, the sulfurous stink, porous rocks, and heat put the lie to that impression, but he clung to it nonetheless. It was better than thinking about how uncomfortable it all was.

Zeke walked along for a few more minutes before he caught sight of movement up ahead. Even with his night vision, the downward sloping ground was covered in undulating shadow. It practically writhed, sending a shiver up Zeke’s spine. After a few seconds’ hesitation, he gathered himself and pushed toward the shadow.

Later, he would sorely regret that decision.

The writhing shadow glistened wetly. Then, when Zeke drew closer, it surged. At first, it was only a slight bulge in the middle of the mass, but after a few seconds, it resolved into a vaguely man-shaped figure. Featureless, it had two arms, a torso, and two legs, but it was missing a head.

Only when Zeke used [Inspect] did he realize what he was dealing with:

Worm Collective – Level 22

He read and re-read the description. Then, when he’d wrapped his mind around the fact that he was looking at a collection of actual worms, he just said, “Gross.”

The monster surged forward in a writhing, man-shaped wave, and, with a thought, Zeke summoned his mace. He activated [Life Scythe], but he held off on [Heart of the Berserker]; he had no idea how long he’d have to search for his target, and he didn’t want to lower his endurance prematurely. The fight against Rumas had highlighted a huge issue with combining the skill with his armor. Certainly, it was an effective workaround to the falling endurance that came with [Heart of the Berserker], but blunt force of sufficient power had proven to be its bane. The fallen paladin had hit like a sledgehammer, and with each thunderous attack, some of that energy had transferred right through his armor to wreak havoc on Zeke’s weakened flesh. It had progressively gotten worse, too, as Zeke’s skill wore on, and his endurance continued to drop.

So, he held off on activating the skill for now, lamenting that he was almost back where he’d started, when he could only use the skill in an emergency. Soon, he’d have to implement some of his plans to change the structure of the skill’s underlying runes. But that was a problem for another day; for now, he had a man-shaped blob of worms bearing down on him.

Zeke swung, and the worm collective didn’t even bother trying to dodge. It simply kept coming, even as Zeke’s horizontal attack tore through its mass, completely destroying its malformed torso. To Zeke’s surprise, the worms writhed and reached up, and in only an instant, the wound was healed.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Zeke mumbled, thinking back to the fecal fiend he’d fought in the sewers beneath Beacon. It, too, had taken his best shot without skipping a beat. This time, though, Zeke felt certain that there wouldn’t be a convenient core to grab. He swung again, and this time, he noticed that his mace did, indeed, destroy some of the individual worms. However, they were so densely packed together that it made almost no difference.

Then, the mass reached him, and the nightmare truly began.

The mass broke apart with a hideous squelching sound, and before Zeke knew what was happening, the collective had begun to envelope him. Fortunately, his armor was sealed by the magic of the runes; otherwise, they’d have gotten to his actual body. And judging by the rings of tiny teeth he saw when one of the worms slithered along his visor, that wouldn’t be a pleasant experience. Imagining a mass of worms burrowing beneath his skin was enough to send him into a mild panic.

Zeke’s heart beat out of his chest as he grabbed handfuls of the little monsters and tossed them with every ounce of his strength. As he did so, he scrambled back, trying to put some distance between himself and the writhing mass of the collective. It took almost twenty minutes – and fifty yards of distance – to get them all, but eventually, he managed it. His efforts throwing the worms had been almost completely ineffective, though. Some had died, but the reconstituted mass seemed just as densely packed as ever.

Clearly, Zeke needed to change his tactics.

Briefly, he considered leading the monster outside and utilizing the traps he’d laid. Based on their purpose, he suspected that they would be effective against the collective. However, Zeke chose not to do that because, if he set them off, they would need to be redrawn. That would take at least another few days. On top of that, if it didn’t work, his friends would be exposed. They didn’t have any armor to protect them from the burrowing creatures.

No - Zeke needed to figure out another way. And, after only a few seconds, he found it. Making sure that [Life Scythe] was in its more powerful mode, he swept his mace in a wide, horizontal arc. Instead of letting it result in a single, thin blade, though, he forced the skill into a diffuse blob of red energy that was half the size of the worm collective. The blob of red energy lumbered forward, losing much of its momentum, but that was okay. The worm collective couldn’t move very quickly. A second later, the skill hit the worms.

A thousand tiny screeches filled the cave, echoing off the porous rocks. More importantly, Zeke saw a fair few of the little monsters wither and die. Grinning, Zeke harnessed his mana and sent another blob of red energy their way. Seven attacks later, and the last worm curled in on itself, dead.

But Zeke’s efforts hadn’t come without a price. Where he could throw scythes of life-stealing energy for days, due to his giant pool of mana and his regeneration capabilities, forcing the skill to manifest outside of its described parameters left him with a massive headache that was unaffected by his pain tolerance. But he’d managed to end the threat, which was all that was important right now.

After taking a moment to gather himself – and loot the collective, which was thankfully only considered one creature – Zeke set off down the tunnel. Fortunately, thought it wandered this way and that, there were no branching paths. Unfortunately, he had to deal with seven more worm collectives on his way. Most of the fights went fairly well, but one of the writhing masses of little monsters managed to throw him off by splitting into two. That battle took twice as long, and Zeke was forced to backtrack a few hundred yards before he killed both halves.

Finally, after spending hours in a steady descent, Zeke found something new. Something disturbing. And, if he was honest, incredibly frightening. Standing at the end of the tunnel and looking out at a massive cavern, Zeke stared at the cavern’s lone denizen.

It was shaped like any of the small worms he’d been fighting all day, but instead of being only a few inches long, this monster was at least forty-five feet from its gaping, toothy mouth to its tapered tail. He used [Inspect]:

Wurm – Level 25 (E)

“Well, that’s just great,” Zeke muttered, wishing he could wipe the sweat from his brow. It was so hot in the caverns that he would have been worried about dehydration if he didn’t have gallons of water sequestered away in his spatial storage. Even so, he was loathe to remove his helmet for long. Under his breath, he added, “At least it’s not a bunch of tiny worms in the shape of a giant wurm. That would just suck.”

After a few seconds spent working up to the attack, Zeke sprinted toward the giant wurm. His armored boots thudded against the ground, and he hefted his mace. By force of habit, when he drew close enough, he leapt, raising his weapon above his head. When he descended, he brought the full force of his might to bear.

Huh. Maybe it is kind of my thing, he thought as his mace made contact.

Then, it rebounded off of the monster’s rubbery skin, the weapon coming back and smacking his helmeted head. His momentum ruined, Zeke crashed into the wurm, tumbled past it, and ended up on the other side. Before he could recover, the monster’s tail whipped around and sent him flying into the wall a hundred feet distant. The force left a roughly man-shaped crater, and a moment later, Zeke fell to the ground with an audible groan.

That definitely didn’t work out like Zeke had planned, but getting batted around by incredibly huge monsters wasn’t exactly a new experience. What was new was how little his attack, which had every point of his considerable strength behind it, had affected the creature. Not for the first time, Zeke found himself wondering if it might’ve been better to have chosen a bladed weapon. He suspected that, if he’d used an axe or a greatsword, it would have cut right through that tough, rubbery skin.

No - he wouldn’t abandon his mace just because one monster was resistant to blunt trauma. Nor did he have the time to learn how to use a different kind of weapon. Instead, he bent his mind toward solving the problem before him. Unfortunately, he could only think of one solution – and it wasn’t something he really wanted to do.

Eyeing the monster, which had turned to face him but chosen to stand its ground, Zeke sighed. He knew just how unpleasant his chosen path was going to be. But from what he could tell, there really wasn’t much of a choice. He couldn’t just use [Unleash Momentum]; he didn’t have enough force built up to make much of a difference. Sure, it would probably sting, but it wouldn’t kill the monster. Not with that seemingly impenetrable skin.

So, if he couldn’t get through it, he needed to go around. And as far as Zeke could tell, there wasn’t a better entrance than the wurm’s mouth.

With a shake of his head, he acknowledged how stupid the idea was, but he felt sure he could survive it. It was just that diving down the gullet of a forty-five foot wurm wasn’t really on his list of most anticipated situations. Still, after he’d made his choice, he didn’t hesitate.

Sprinting forward, Zeke dismissed his mace, and when he drew closer, the wurm reared its head. That didn’t matter to Zeke because he felt certain that they wanted the same thing. So, he once again leapt, this time aiming for its toothy maw. It snapped out like a striking snake, then swallowed him whole, its teeth impotently scraping against his armor on his way down. Moist and stinking flesh surrounded Zeke as the creature’s contracting muscles forced him further down its digestive track. Acid sizzled on his armor, but it held firm. Finally, once Zeke considered himself about halfway, he grabbed a handful of slimy flesh and enacted his plan.

Well, plan might’ve been a bit too grandiose a term for what he did. Ripping and tearing your way through the delicate innards of a giant wurm doesn’t really qualify for that label, after all. But what it lacked in complexity, it made up for in effectiveness.

The wurm bucked and writhed, much like its smaller cousins had, but nestled firmly within its gut, Zeke was cushioned from the worst of it. With a grimace, he continued his unconventional attack, shredding the surprisingly vulnerable flesh with ease. After only a minute, Zeke was swimming in the thing’s blood, but he didn’t stop. Eventually, despite his enhanced endurance and vitality, he would run out of oxygen. So, with the time limit hovering over him, Zeke continued to dismantle the wurm from the inside out.

It took half an hour, during which Zeke grabbed a lungful of air whenever he could, but eventually, he found the wurm’s tiny, grapefruit-sized brain. He destroyed the mass of pulsating flesh, smashing it between his gauntleted hands. That was the last straw, and the moment Zeke felt what was left of it oozing between his fingers, the wurm ceased its thrashing. A few moments later, he burst forth from its mouth, flopping to the ground as he breathed a sigh of relief.

As effective as his method of assault had been, it was a decidedly unpleasant way to spend half an hour. But still, he’d accomplished his goal. That was something, at least.

He took a few minutes to catch his breath and collect his thoughts before investigating the cavern. There were a few more worm collectives scattered throughout the cave, but Zeke made relatively quick work of them before he found another tunnel on the other side of the giant cavern.

Heat poured out of that tunnel, distorting the air and telling Zeke he was on the right track. So, rolling his shoulders, then cracking his neck, he continued along. Luckily, he didn’t run into any more worms or wurms, but a half-mile later, Zeke did find a wyrm. And the mere sight of it was enough to send a shiver of fear up his spine. Even so, he remembered to use [Inspect]:

Wyrm Queen – Level 25 (M)