B2 - Chapter 7: Crunchy Crunchy (Patreon)

What the hell was this?!

At first, Logan didn’t know what he was looking at. In fact, the sight was so absurd that he thought he must be hallucinating.

Out of the cavern, something crawled forward, inching up the incline.

Something immense.

Something impossible.

It looked like the remains of an upside-down antiquated steamer ship. Black iron, covered in brown rust like the sunken Titanic. It was only part of the hull. The rest was cleaved clean off, the top missing.

An old steamer ship crawling out of a chasm would be one thing, but that wasn’t all.

The steamer ship was on top of a monster. Like a folded deck of cards that balanced over an immense worm.

A monstrous snail.

It was the size of an elephant, something like the worms in the film Dune. Immense, weighing three tons at least. It was smooth, wet, brown, and it smelled like…

Logan wrinkled his nose.

It smelled like sewage.

The ship’s hull covered half of the snail’s long body; the other half exposed to the elements. It was using the ship as a shell. Two long antennas bobbed on front of its head; the ends rounded like pins.

Its mouth was seven feet at least—with barbed teeth that glistened with brown fluid.

Logan scanned it with [Idiot’s Inspect].

[Invasive Garden Snail. Level 140. An invasive snail that burrowed underground when the temperature cooled. Leaching human waste and sewage warped it, inflating it, shaping it, merging it with its host shell.]

[Highest stat: Constitution. Characteristics: An overreaching need to feed. Hidden name: Foul Pestilence.]

What. The. Hell.

Meanwhile, the snake swarm had restarted their dive-bombs, a hundred of them swarming him at once. Logan withstood the onset, his armour shuddering with each hit like splattering paintballs. Holding firm, he swiped the swarm with his talons, slicing off the head of a snake with a distracted flick of his wrist, carving a long line down the body of another and cleaving it in half, blood spraying in a torrent.

Ding!

[You have defeated a Level 60 Flying Hunting Snake!]

[You have defeated a Level 58 Flying Hunting Snake!]

But his entire attention was on what was in front of him.

The snail continued inching up the incline, turning at an angle which allowed Logan to glimpse the side of the ship. The words were upside down, but if he craned his neck, he could clearly see MV Trepanier etched in faded letters on the side of the hull.

Holy shit! He knew that name.

Logan’s eyes widened as he connected the dots. His grandfather had loved to share tales about the lake, from the Ogopogo monster that lured in horses and snatched them out of the water like crocodiles, to stone arrowheads found on the beach from a long-ago war. But just like the milk truck at the bottom of the lake, other things had sunk throughout the centuries.

Things that had never been found.

Back in the 1900s, the MV Trepanier had collided with the SS Castlegar while ferrying passengers to Hope’s End. The SS had survived, but the MV Trepanier had sank to the bottom. The Okanagan Lake was a fjord lake, with steep drops. Throughout the years, people had searched for the wreckage, even doing scuba diving expeditions, but the depths had swallowed it. A hundred years was a lot of time for sediment and seaweed to cover the remains of a ship.  

But what the hell was it doing underneath an island? And how?

Just like the tunnel that the System had carved that led to the dungeon portal, this had to be its work. Wasn’t eliminating the glitchy AI minion supposed to stop it from trying to kill him?

“…What is that, Logan?” Ernie breathed in awe. He’d climbed out of the pouch and was peering over Logan’s shoulder. “Oh! It took a ship for its home! It—”

Ernie gagged, his skin turning puce green. Scooting back into his pouch like a rocket, he said in a muffled voice, “Ugh! It’s stinky!”

It smelled like death. Logan was lucky that his facemask blunted the smell, or he’d be wanting to retreat like Ernie. “It looks impressive, but it’s not practical. Look how long it’s taking to escape that hole.”

“So says the human meat,” crooned a feminine voice.

Despite himself, Logan took a startled step back.

“Oooh, it’s sentient!” Ernie raised his voice. “Greetings, massive snail! How goes the ship? Apologies if we invaded your homeland. We didn’t know you lived underneath an island!”

The snail paused, its massive ship creaking to a stop. And by creaking, he meant a nails on a chalkboard sound. “Greetings,” it said in consideration, its two flexible antennas vibrating as if in curiosity.

Ernie scooted out of his pouch and peered over Logan’s shoulder. A snake flew past like a darting arrow, going for his face, and Logan had just enough time to feel a surge of alarm before Ernie snatched it, curling a tentacle around its body while he injected his minion filaments.

The snake froze in mid-air, its mouth opening in a gasp and its eyes turning from rage-filled to milky white.

Ernie released it with a grin and a cackle. “Go forth, minion! Kill your brethren!”

In the meantime, the Cursed Rope and the other minion were still paying dividends.

Ding!

[You have defeated a Level 60 Flying Hunting Snake!]

[You have defeated a Level 58 Flying Hunting Snake!]

[…]

[You have defeated a Level 58 Flying Hunting Snake!]

[Your bonded companion’s minion has defeated a Level 58 Flying Hunting Snake!]

[You have leveled up!]

The snail continued inching up the chasm, its long, bobbing antennas twitching back and forth as if it were scenting the air. “An octopus,” it said after a pause. “Why have you disturbed my nest?”

Huh. It hadn’t attacked. Logan still wanted to kill the hell out of the snakes, but the snail hadn’t done anything to them—so far.

“We didn’t mean to disturb you,” said Logan. “There was a cave-in. The ground must have been unstable.”

“You had nothing to do with it?” purred the snail. “Hmm, human meat? Nothing at all?”

“Logan fell!” said Ernie. “But he didn’t mean to do it!”

Logan held back a sigh. Thanks a lot, Ernie.

The swarm had reformed for another pass. Logan kept one eye on the snail and one eye on the snakes, then flicked his wrist and slashed with his talons as they dive bombed on top of him with eyes that were rabid with hate. His [Eager Beaver] title was doing a number on these buggers.

“What is that noise?” said the snail, inching further up the chasm, the top of its ship shell rising above ground. “These pests. So much noise, so much noise.”

“We don’t like them either! Do you want to help us slaughter them? We’re killing them all!”

The snail’s eyes glinted. Inching forward and with a lurching screech from the ship hull, it clambered out of the chasm and onto flat ground, trampling over the rattlesnake grass and causing the ground to shudder like an earthquake.

It was a snail which meant that it oozed slime, puddling underneath its body and spreading to Logan’s feet. At first glance, he’d assumed it was the size of an elephant, but he’d been wrong. It was the size of two elephants. And somehow the snail had managed to merge into the ship so that it was a living thing. The metal was rustling, plates shifting, there and then gone. It was like a trick of the eye. It was as if it were breathing. Each rustle caused the noxious odour to worsen, wafting over to his nose like the worse pile of garbage in the world.   

Logan peered into the chasm. Down below, amongst the wet dirt and mud, there was a broken clay pipe that spewed brown sludge.

Holy shit, had this thing been eating sewage?

“I’m not much for slaughter, little octopus. I would rather discourse with you and have intelligent talk, sentient being to sentient being. I suppose the human meat could come along?”

Ernie seemed excited, but his mouth puckered in distaste at the smell. As the snail moved closer, that sewage reek became overwhelming.

Using his mental voice, Ernie sent, “Can we give it a bath first?”

“You really want to talk to this thing?” Logan was on a tight timeline. To leave before the sun dipped, they needed to resume cutting down the snakes.

“Just for a bit,” Ernie wheedled. “What if I made it into a minion? What a mighty soldier that would make!”

If Logan weren’t wearing his facemask, he’d be pinching his nose. Ernie would never turn this thing into a minion. Not a being that was over level 100. Not to mention that its highest attribute was constitution. “Fine. I’ll give you ten minutes.”

“We like discourse!” Ernie said to the snail, beaming. “We like talk!”

“Then come, little octopus, I will shift my shell and shelter you from the pests up above.”

“…come?” Ernie’s face twisted. “Are you sure we can’t give it a bath?”

The snail flexed its ship hull like flattening a deck of cards and making more space on either side. It fashioned a ridge, the edge of an overhanging roof. But to shelter underneath it, they would have to get close to the snail.

And close to the stench.

“Come, come,” the snail crooned.

Gradually, Logan started to feel a prickling sensation, a hair on the back of your neck trepidation. His muscles tightened; his nerves raw. The snail seemed nice enough, and he’d hate to ruin Ernie’s excitement, but something was… off.

“You want us to come over there?” Logan asked. “Underneath the ship?”

The snail’s mouth parted, mucous covered brown teeth glistening. “Yes, come. I will shelter you from the pests and the little octopus and I will have discourse.”

“Yes!” beamed Ernie, his tentacles twitching. “Come on, Logan!”

When Logan wasn’t fast enough, Ernie jumped off his shoulder, scrambled onto the ground, and raced over to the monster.

“Ernie!” Alarmed, he sped after him. Passing underneath the overhanging hull, Ernie squawked as he touched the slime. As soon as Logan reached him, he jumped back onto Logan’s shoulder, shaking his tentacles like a cat who had stepped in water.

Over here, the smell was even worse. Underneath Logan’s feet, he was stepping on brown slime. At least he had his armour boots to cushion the effect—imagine stepping onto this sludge while he was barefoot and still missing a toe!

“Be careful,” said Logan. “There’s something off about this snail.” Keeping a wary eye on it, Logan scooted around so Ernie was on his shoulder farthest from the snail’s head.

“Tell me, little octopus,” it said, flexing its bobbing antenna as if trying to sense Ernie. “How aged are you?”

“…Aged? Do you mean how old am I, mighty ship snail? By human years, I’m a year and a half!”

“Mmm,” said the snail, licking its lips with a slobbering tongue like a dog’s.

Logan didn’t like this.

He didn’t like this at all.

“Why do you want to know that?” he asked, his voice hard.

“Tsk tsk,” said Ernie. “Don’t be grumpy!” Then looking at the monster, “How old are you, mighty ship snail?”

“Mm,” said the snail. “And are you currently pregnant? With unhatched eggs?”

Ernie paused. His tentacles twitched in affront. “I’m—”

“Why is that relevant?” Logan interjected. He had a bad feeling about this line of questioning. So far, Logan’s experience with talking animals who didn’t want to kill him had been Ernie and Ernie only, but just because he had one good experience, it didn’t mean that every evolved being would be the same. Ernie was a unique little bugger, after all. With a murderous desire for blood, yes, but he also had a degree of caring that you normally only found in another human. A consideration for his brethren, a care for Logan, a desire for him to advance and survive.

On the other hand, the queen serpent had wanted to kill them even before his [Eager Beaver] title had kicked in. That gave him a 50/50 chance of coming across a nice monster. Not good odds.

This thing… well. Logan hated to judge a book by its cover, but a monster that ate sewage for a meal didn’t inspire confidence. It was as if the thing were pretending to be more intelligent than it was. But why?

The snail gave him a steady look. “Why is it relevant? Human meat, it’s relevant for one important reason. Taste. An octopus’ environment flavors its texture. Chowing down on an octopus who lives in the Pacific Ocean is different than one that lives in the Australian Barrier Reef. You’d have a blander, more natural tasting texture versus a tropical, spicy meal. I only want to prepare my palate.”

Stunned silence.                       

Ernie quivered. “Did it just say it wanted to eat me?” he whispered.

“I will eat you,” it said in satisfaction. “Crunchy crunchy.” Then with a grinding noise, the hull on top of the snail shifted, the overhanging ledge dropping down to the ground, cocooning them in darkness. Logan had just enough time for alarm to surge before the hull started to tighten like a garbage compacter, the sides around them pushing them closer to the long body of the snail.

“Ernie, go in the pouch!” Logan mentally shouted. It was so loud, metal against metal, clanging pipes, ruptured iron, that he could hardly hear himself think.

And it was moving fast. Unlike the snail, it had built the ship shell to move.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to a little human meat as an appetizer,” crooned the snail.

Logan gnashed his teeth. “And I’ll serve a dish of escargot!”  

He used his talons to slash at the metal, but it was like scraping iron with a knife. Even though he’d fashioned his talons to be diamond sharp, they made no dent at all. Worse of all, the shell continued tightening, crushing them against the sides and pressing against his armour.

One after another, hairline cracks started to appear in his exoskeleton. Logan repaired the cracks as quickly as he could with [Mimicry Armour], hauling out a bucket full of sand from his spatial storage, making sure to pay more attention to Ernie’s pouch on his back more than anything, but if it continued at this rate, eventually, his whole armour would collapse into sand.

Fucking hell, he knew this day had been too good to be true. He’d thought he’d coast to an easy victory, slaughter the snakes, and unlock [Liche Devourer] and [Life Fabricator] in time to meet Lara and the kids.

Now he had to deal with a level 140 monster who wanted to eat them.