Chapter 51: First Contact

The Coreless erupted into quiet conversation around me, jabbering on with their intelligible noises. Still, I waited, allowing them time to prepare for the challenge ahead. I was well aware of how dangerous flame-gaze bad-things were. And two of them? If I had been forced to choose the most likely outcome, I would have to admit that we were all going to die.

And probably more than once.

Finally, the Coreless finished making noises at one another, reaching into the larger of the skin-mouths at their sides and removing objects from their stomachs. I immediately recognized them - the organs that the Coreless had removed from the previous bad-things. As I watched, they each cut into the organs' skin-flesh, causing the same pink-red fluid that the bad-things had released to drip through the wound. They spread that same fluid over themselves, slathering it against both their skin of ore-flesh and their natural flesh.

"Hopefully, the Flame Salamander fluid will keep the flames at bay somewhat, but make sure that you are still careful. It's not nearly as potent used like this, not like a proper fireproof solution. Make sure to stay behind my shield if the Cyclopses' beams come out," Will babbled, ignoring the way that drops of the pink-red fluid had begun to make a puddle at his feet. I slithered towards it, pressing against it carefully. I wasn't sure that I wanted it to touch my scale-flesh, being taken from the insides of a bad-thing as it was, but the way that the heat around me immediately lost some of its potency quickly disabused me of my hesitation.

I plunged in, rolling around in the pink-red puddle and coating my scale-flesh with the disgusting fluid.

It was bliss.

Soon enough, I had finished covering my scale-flesh, and the Coreless had done the same. They looked to me as they had before, as if waiting patiently for my instructions. I gave them a commanding hiss, whipping my head back around and continuing down the tunnel. Similarly to last time, I was beginning to catch the scent-taste of the lesser Core more and more as we traveled. Yet, this time I resisted its call. The compulsion to race ahead and find the lesser Core, to consume it without regard for the dangers that lay in wait, was still there. And yet, without severe blood loss and pain addling my mind, it was easy enough to resist. The protection from the heat that the pink-red fluid provided only made things easier.

Still, I let it tug me forward slightly, following the beckoning scent-taste to our destination.

We passed the first of the strange melted pits in the floor, which I now knew were caused by the flames of the flame-gaze bad-things. There were more of them than I remembered; I had slithered right past them in my haste during my last life.

The Coreless noticed them too, shifting their grips on their respective weapons of ore-flesh.

Good. They were ready.

Ahead of us, I could see the light grow again as the tunnel began to reach its end. I slowed, turning towards my Coreless followers and providing them a warning hiss. Just as I was about to slither forward again, I decided against it. Instead, I pulled myself up the female-who-was-not-Needle's limbs, finding a place upon her shoulder. Though I would have preferred either Will or Needle, truer disciples that they were, neither of them were good options for the coming fight.

From the times that I had seen them fight, I realized that Will tried to take the brunt of the attacks that bad-things provided, standing there and allowing their blows to land. While that was a good and admirable sacrifice for the Great Core, I preferred for that to happen as far away from me as possible - resting upon his shoulder while a flame-gaze bad-thing swiped its claws at the Coreless was not something I wanted to experience.

Needle had the opposite problem. As the most intelligent of my Coreless followers, she tended to stay away from the danger of a fight unless a bad-thing specifically chose to target her. Her needle-spitter allowed her to attack from a distance, to wage battle in a far safer manner than Will did. And while that was the smart thing to do, and staying by her side would keep me further away from the dangerous attacks of the flame-gaze bad-things, I needed to be closer.

If I wanted to be rewarded in the event of the bad-things' defeat, I needed to sink my fangs into their flesh.

The-female-who-was-not-Needle was the best choice for that. Despite her many flaws - lack of intelligence, inability to communicate despite repeated lessons on my part, blaspheming against the Great Core, providing terrible offerings...I had to stop myself before I kept going. She did have one strength that was useful to me, though.

She was fast.

I had noticed it before, the way that she seemed to glide across the ground with an ease that could leave the other Coreless choking on the dust that swept in her wake. Her fangs reflected that speed, two matching pieces of ore-flesh that could cut through a bad-thing's flesh more quickly than they could react.

If I wanted to get close to the flame-gaze bad-things with the least danger possible, she was my best choice. I didn't even give a thought towards the-male-who-was-not-Will. He was a brute, slow, and - most importantly - didn't even attempt to provide offerings for the Great Core.

I wasn't even sure why I kept him around.

I pushed aside the thought as my Coreless began to step forward. Will had taken the lead, holding the wall of ore-flesh that he carried in front of him protectively. The others came behind; the-female-who-was-not-Needle and I first, followed by the Unrepentant One, with Needle in the back. The tunnel opened up into the next cavern, and I remembered to hiss in the direction of the flame-gaze bad-thing to the left of the entrance.

"Left!" Needle made a noise in response to warning, and Will turned towards the flame-gaze bad-thing as he entered the cavern, holding his wall of ore-flesh at the ready. Immediately, he blocked the swing of a giant claw, forcing it to skitter off of the ore-flesh at an angle and returning the blow with a vicious swipe of his weapon. It landed with a heavy crack, sending many of the stone-shards that covered the bad-thing's flesh flying through the air.

A moment later, he pulled back, retreating into the tunnel again.

The other Coreless dashed backwards to leave him room, and I quickly saw the reason for his return. A giant leg flashed through the area that he had vacated, shattering against the curve of the tunnel where it met the cavern outside. The stone fractured slightly under the force of the blow, cracking with an audible sound that made me resolve to not get hit.

My scale-flesh wouldn’t hold up nearly as well.

A needle sliced through the air, burying itself in the joint of the bad-thing’s leg. It responded with a rage-filled roar, and a second one answered its call.

The Coreless pressed into the cavern, moving away from the potential death-trap of the tunnel and trying to push past the bad-thing while it recovered from the wound. Though the width of the tunnel made it more difficult for the bad-things to overwhelm us with numbers, we were the ones who needed to find strength in numbers - not the bad-things.

They already had all the strength that they needed alone.

With a speed born of practice and familiarity, the Coreless moved as one. No sound was needed, and there was no signal that I could see. The unrepentant male roared and sliced his giant ore-flesh fang across the bad-thing’s side as we passed, forcing it to raise an arm in defense and allow the others safe passage.

The mana-lit ore-flesh cut through the bad-thing’s defenses with surprising ease, leaving a furrow of crimson to run from the wound.

Still, against the enemy that we faced, that meant very little.

The-female-who-was-not-Needle darted in as Will intercepted another brutal swipe of the bad-thing’s claws as it aimed for the Unrepentant One, grunting as it bounced from his ore-flesh at an angle. The wind brushed past my scale-flesh as we moved, faster than I had ever moved before.

She slid underneath the swing of its other arm, knees pressed against the floor and contorted backwards to avoid it. Again, the wind brushed by me - this time from the near-death of the bad-thing’s enormous hand. I clung on tightly, too focused on not being thrown from my perch to attack as we stopped at its feet.

Before I could react, the-female-who-was-not-Needle had already sliced into the flesh at the back of the bad-thing’s leg and retreated again, her shining ore-flesh dripping with blood.

Just as I began to feel confident in our chances, the glow began. The Coreless, so silent just a moment before, made noises of fear and darted behind the protective wall that Will provided.

A blast of flame smashed into it as they huddled inwards, an inferno that reached its way around the obstacle and tried to lick at our sides. And yet, with the pink-red fluid that covered my scale-flesh, [Illusion Spark] was more than enough to keep me protected entirely.

A second glow lit the cavern, almost hidden by the flames of the first as the other bad-thing made its presence known.

Yet, instead of attacking us directly, it focused somewhere else - the ceiling overhead.

Stone melted under its touch, and the first of the great stone-spikes above us began to make its descent.

I closed my eyes and let out a mournful hiss.

A moment later, I pulled free from my scale-flesh again.