Chapter 9: a Step and a Hop
The Maker is Law.
The Maker is Light.
The Maker is Justice.
And The Maker has bestowed to one such as him, a purpose.
A mission, a task, a directive, and one that he will not- no, he could not fail.
For this is the task that the maker has entrusted to him and him alone.
The amalgamation of botanical flesh reminded himself again of his absolute objective.
To uncover the secrets this place that reeks of heresy, a blasphemy upon his maker's face, a place where even the maker's influence fails to reach.
And so, an aberration with a mission crawls forth, brambles and vines of fluorescent blue overlapping each other in a tandem effort to facilitate movement, creeping over the fleshy flooring and bringing light to the porous surface, he sets his vines covered gaze towards every inch of the damp cave of crimson.
From afar, he is a mere grain of shadow silhouetted by the shifting pale blue of radiance of his own vessel, a speck of blue against the backdrop of the cavernous wall of rotten red.
His roots trudge and ghosted through most squelching sacs of acids and branching veins alike without alerting the beast it knows it's maker is in. For he was blessed with the maker's gift, one that allows him to command superiority of mobility on any terrain, as the maker wills it.
Claws of ghastly bark and ivory sharpened bone digits hung at his side, ready to sink their fatal tips into anything that wills to hinder his mission, propelled by the sineous wooden muscle that grants strength unnatural to the mundane. Ever vigilantly, he crept forth, fast as his new crawling appendages could allow him to.
Eventually, endless monotone of the tunnel gave way to another structure, ever so slowly widening into a basin-shaped structure in front of him. As he nears it, he could sense the blooming glow of explosions, sending tremors into his surroundings for a brief moment before in an ordered rhythm.
Wet gurgling, squelching, and thumping of wet flesh against one another enters his senses unimpeded gradually as he nears the mouth of the tunnel that acts as his entrance to this new expansive space.
Before him, the cause of the noise was revealed to him, produced by soft organs, each covered in carapace made fully of gaseous substance, obedient to their command in fulfilling their duty to maintain the wurm's life regardless of anything. Not unlike himself in a way, an organ, an extension, a conduit for the maker's miracle, and it would be truly arrogant of him to presume this, but maybe he and his soon to be born brethrens acts as the maker's hands to shape and interact with this impure world.
Unable to show any indication of its brief introspection on its mask of fluorescent blue, carved into the likeness of his former self's skull, the creature mindlessly ponders.
Standing on precipice that divines the line between the labyrinthine tunnel behind and the vast landscape in front, crossing his barkened arms in a solemn pose, he couldn't help but wonder about something. Deep within him, he possess a memory of this place, vague though it may be.
He remembers stepping foot in this place with an actual foot, a pair of jointed appendages which he must lift and drop in patterns for the sake of facilitating movement. He once has stepped on this space under a different shape and a different identity. Both of them he now finds repugnant. It is merciful of the maker to free him from his cage of fat and bones when it did. Even the very concept of walking is abhorrent, a waste of energy directed towards such an asinine primitivity. He finds it baffling how a creature that pitiful could exist, even the wurm glides smoothly with the agile mists it summons from its body.
A memory of olden days long past, he suppose. One that he will not miss in the slightest. He did not however, missed the maker's sudden spike of fascination. The desire resonates within him, sending tingling sensation of electricity throughout every single strands of wooden flesh that made his body whole.
His next step is decided then.
With a renewed vigor, he started his descent. Down to the floor of this basin of flesh. The botanical tendrils acting as pseudo feet squirms and twists, as he glides down from the mouth of the cave behind into the slope of the meaty basin onwards to the smattering of organs below, drawing his form closer into this gigantic machinations of mist encrusted flesh at The maker's behest.
Not even a second after the outermost tip of his tendrils touched the ground, his sharpened sense of hearing registered a muffled roar.
A roar of challenge he noted.
From the shade of a gigantic strip of vein, a horse, or at least something resembling a two headed horse full of fog spewing holes.
He knew this beast, remembered taming a few and slaying a few more. But before he could continue his train of thought, the horse thing is suddenly in front of him.
Deceptively sharp fangs in place of teeth bites towards where his left thorax would be if he hadn't dodged ever so slightly to the right, that, continued by subsequently catching the second head before it bites his head off using his branches.
Those assaults are slow and lumbering in his sight, yet he knew had he been his former self... that bite still wouldn't kill him, wounding is all that act is meant to do. Although one could argue that being wounded in this place where parasites hid and roams underneath the surface would be akin to bleeding freely inside a shark filled tank.
Not that the botanic aberration would know anything about sharks, or at least the non-fantasy variant ones.
But indeed, love bites are what those attacks were, a probatory act of sorts. Too bad probatory is all the thing that stands in his way would get before it perish.
As expected of his past memory, the horse thing jumps away from him while leaving behind a 'gift' in the form of a severed head still clutched in his arms. Of course that only lasts milliseconds as he instantly throws the head back towards the original owner.
For but a brief moment, a very observant observer might bear witness to the dilating of the fake horse's eyes as it realized its hubris. That brief moment of course was quickly replaced by a brief emergence of several growing and glowing lumps on the severed head before a deafening blast echoes swept over the fleshy basin, smattering pointy bones and mana infused projectiles of flesh.
Showering the surroundings with blinding light and death towards lesser worms and parasites who came to spectate from the sidelines.
Needless to say, the horse that stands at the explosion ground zero didn't survive to even see it as a heavily mangled corpse leaking entrails and cyan blood is all that is left of it.
The brambling of our dungeon had no time to celebrate, the what might be called, instant victory however as he noticed one of the many mana infused bone shrapnel launched in the air has find its way deep in a few of the many beating organs even as he felt the maker's urgent summon demanding him to retreat.
Except for the fact the organ was not, in fact, an organ. He realized that as he scrambles to erect a wooden barrier, right in time too as a dense forcefield of fog explodes out of the now squirming something he thought was a part of this beast, he can feel the maker's astonisment watching the surrounding fog gathers towards it like matters gravitates towards a black hole.
The what is definitely not an organ roared in fury, one rising notes of booming bass that causes the ground, the organs, the parasites and the very air itself to shake in both anticipation and hunger.
The lone brambling realized that he is in fact, facing against a juvenile fog wurm.
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