Chapter 54: Chase me!

Chapter 54: Chase me!

Sprinting down the dark tunnels, Milo followed the map in his head. He couldn’t make even one mistake. A right, a left, leap the small crevice, and straight on until he ran into the big drop.

Milo had gone over the route several times. Early plans to stay in the small tunnels where Salasha would have a hard time moving were discarded. He could only rely upon speed. He'd originally planned to just play hide and seek in the smaller tunnels for hours, but every time he ran through the plan, he could see Salasha coming out as the winner. There was just too much of her. it would be too easy for her to block multiple tunnels. And the snake wasn’t stupid.

He hit the big drop and didn't hesitate, immediately dropping into the long shaft. His claws slowed him enough, tearing through the rock like a thousand fingernails on a thousand blackboards. He landed on his feet and tail in a three-point landing, and sprinted off for the larger caverns.

Behind him the gigantic snake came to the vertical shaft and started downward, far slower that the scurrying rat that was her prey. It worked in his favor that snakes, especially ones her size, weren’t built for descending straight down.

Her front end might want to hurry, but she couldn’t fall down a shaft when her tail end was still dragging along through the corridors. Eventually Salasha had more of herself hanging in the shaft that she had in the tunnels, and she went faster. Much faster, as gravity took over. Her head smacked into the bottom, and her coils slammed into her head before she could move out of the way.

It was good that Milo had only imagined this outcome. If he'd have stayed to watch, he might have given in to laughter and lost precious time. Slowly, very slowly, a gigantic head emerged from the pile, she heaved and freed ten feet of her length, turned and hissed at the bulk of her still stuck in the shaft. Heave, slither. Heave, slither. She became more and more furious as the egg moved further away from her. When half of her was free she was able to move forward and untangle herself, and then begin to move at greater speed. The way was still narrow, but she saw it opened into a much larger cavern just ahead. The egg had stopped moving, but distressingly, was now above her.

Salasha eyed the cavern. She hated the mushroom creatures, and this place stank of them. They were immune to her venom and gave her no nourishment. A vast carpet of fungus was dominated by a sleeping myconid much larger even than her. The egg was above the sleeping giant. The rat thought to hide in a little lair near the ceiling.

No matter, if the thief could climb the mushroom creature, so could she. She slithered across the carpet of mushrooms, crushing the lesser myconids and setting off the alarming cries of others. Dozens of creatures rose from the soft soil of the mushroom field and advanced on her. Focused on Milo only, she paid no heed to the shambling creatures.

Roobazahl The Ancient

(Massive, thick skinned, collective, ENSLAVED, burning, enraged)

Health: ???? Level:???

As Roobazahl staggered from his pit, Salasha struck its cap again, breaking off a huge chunk and slithering on top of Roobazahl’s cap. The reaction of the dying flowers was immediate, as they put forth a huge load of pollen into the air. Even for an elemental this was too much as the spores entered the small wounds on her body and into her mouth, trying to take root inside of her. Salasha hissed and sprayed venom at the flowers, knocking her head back and forth and tearing them by the roots from Roobazahl’s cap.

The Ancient Myconid knew only that it was attacked. When the panicked creepers had loosened their grasp on its mind, it had awoken to Salasha's constricting embrace and its head on fire. Its reaction was instinctive as massive hands grabbed the snake and slammed it into the ground like a furious child. Again, and again the snake was slammed into the ground or the rocky walls as Roobazahl vented its fury.

Milo had no idea who would win the fight, but the Yellow Trumpet Creeper colony were the losers, for sure. It had been uprooted, torn, set on fire, and its minions smashed by the battle between the two giants. A bad day for a bad flower. Roobazahl had the upper hand right now, (the only hands, actually), but Salasha was wrapped around and around her foe, and constricting and massive mushroom man.

Milo hadn't brought the Snake here thinking he could kill it, although that would certainly be appreciated. He'd just needed to buy time. With that accomplished it was time to leave. Taking a last look at the snake being slammed into a wall, he turned and grabbed on to one of the ropes stretched across the ceiling. This one was long and the other end was hooked to the ceiling at the edge of the mushroom field. Milo leaped into the air and fell. The rope went taunt and he became the lower part of a pendulum that swung him across the cavern. At the far end of the arc he let go, traveled another 30 feet, and slammed into the wall.

He'd envisioned his landing as a more graceful one. Luckily, the mushrooms weren't giving his landing a score. He slid down the wall and sprinted through the tunnels, finding his way to another vertical shaft. A rope was there, tied to a support. It went up into the darkness where it wrapped over a pulley and was attached to a large rock that was twice Milo’s mass. Grabbing the rope, he slashed where it was tied. The large rock tied to the other end fell. Milo rocketed up, nearly colliding with the rock and gaining the top in only seconds. He sprinted down the dark corridor, hoping the dwarves had the next part of the operation ready.

Time for phase two of the Snake Trap.