Tunnel Rat

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 as they dug into the rock wall and wooden supports. 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 than 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 than 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 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, 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 causing many to call out in alarm. 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.

Milo watched from above. The egg was safe inside a backpack behind him. An occasional hiss made it through to his ears. He had not, as Salasha thought, climbed the sleeping Myconid. That would have put him at the mercy of the colony of Yellow Trumpet Creepers and their zombie slaves. He had prepared his route to his little perch the day before. It had been fairly easy for him to climb up the side of the cavern, attaching supports for cables as he went. His claws bit into the ceiling just as easily as they did the walls. His earth sense telling him where to avoid areas that might not hold his weight. High above the Yellow Trumpet Creeper festooned cap of the huge myconid, he attached a dozen hooks to the ceiling from which he wove a rope platform. Then he summoned his storage chest. The materials for a much sturdier and larger platform were inside. When this was assembled, he moved the rest of the equipment he needed for his plan out of the chest and then dismissed it. Set-up done, he swung back across the ceiling and ran back to the dwarven engineer's battered complex.

Now, he’d had plenty of time to race ahead of the Snake and climb to his platform, where he quickly put on his TES-3 Suit. Toxic Environment type 3 suits were constructed to resist heat and filter out gas and fumes. It was a bit on the bulky side but was essential to his survival, especially as the yellow blooms below began to emit a toxic haze of pollen when the Snake surged into their domain.

Milo picked up a hose and began pumping with the other hand to build pressure. The flower collective was confused and angry as it was sprayed with a layer of flammable waste fluid. Being flowers and not too bright, they blamed the Snake and redoubled their efforts to force their slaves to attack.

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The zombies had almost no chance actually to hurt the elemental. Only a couple had the muscle power and a weapon large enough to chop through her thick hide, and the small wounds they made were annoying scratches. Instead, they tried to restrain the huge creature, wrapping vines over it and struggling to hold it as it moved. This also worked poorly and only served to drag every zombie and their attached vines along with the snake as it began to wrap itself around the tall stem of the sleeping mushroom giant and climb to the top.

Now, the vines had a better chance, wrapping themselves around and around the snake as it wrapped around the huge myconid, like ribbons on some bizarre maypole. Milo was hoping the vines could win, but the snake was too powerful. Salasha got to the top of the stem and began battering her way through the cap at the top. This must have caused the sleeper quite a bit of pain as it rocked back and forth, and an eerie moaning began echoing through the cavern.

This felt like a good time for Milo to add his own special touch to the fight. Pulling a 'boomfire!boom' device from his belt, a gift from his assistant, he tossed it down onto the waving flowers. It exploded, scattering sticky flaming tar all over the top of the cap. The waste fluid soaking the flowers caught fire, and soon the entire cap was burning. The flowers opened up and began an eerie screaming as they burned, putting out a thick yellow fog of pollen that was consumed by the fire. Milo was very thankful for his protective gear.

The vines went insane, flailing at the snake and gripping it tighter. The snake continued to slam its head at the cap, breaking off chunks of grey flesh. The flowers screamed as they died. With an explosion of dirt, the huge myconid awoke and stepped from the hole he had been buried in, tearing loose vines from the ground, zombies dangling from his arms and trunk. Two glowing green eyes opened high up on the trunk, and arms separated from its sides. As the huge creature woke up, Milo could identify it. Like the snake, it was far above his level.

Roobazahl, The Ancient, Rogue Myconid Elder

(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 was the loser, 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, constricting the 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 onto one of the ropes stretched across the ceiling. This one was very 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 taut, 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.

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