<~> Chapter 122

"Helena! What have you got there?" Piper asked as I lugged the crab's hard-shelled body over to the center of camp.

I rested the bottom of the crab in the sand. ("It's a giant crab,") I said through the rings.

"I don't know what that is," Piper replied.

Huh. Interesting. ("A crab is an animal I recognize from my old world. It's a shelled animal that lives in the ocean and sometimes on land. Some varieties taste good boiled and served with butter.")

Piper looked down at the monster in surprise. "You can eat those?" she asked curiously. Her outburst got a few interested looks from some of the other nearby delvers.

I nodded. "The meat inside of the similar animals I recognize tastes good. I'm not sure if these are safe to eat, though. It depends on whether there's anything harmful in them. There are both safe and poisonous kinds."

Piper smiled down at it. "You could eat some and I could heal you if there's a problem."

I shook my head. "No way I would trust that. These can sometimes have little... bugs inside of them that can harm a person. I don't know if your magic can handle that, and I wouldn't want to test it."

Piper scratched her chin and turned to face me. ("Parasites?") she asked through the bond.

I nodded. ("Parasites and Toxins. Not all crabs, especially ones that come on land, are edible. My instincts also didn't push me to eat it. That might not mean anything, but it is different from what I'm used to.")

"My healing should be able to clean out parasites, but I know one of the people they sent with us specializes in appraising monsters to see if they're safe to eat. You really think these are edible? They look kinda... hard to deal with," Piper said while examining the crab monster more closely.

I nodded. "If they're not one of the toxic varieties, they're edible. They were very popular where I came from. Their bodies have a lot of tender meat inside, mainly around their legs. They were never my favorite thing to eat since I was kind of too lazy to crack open the shells for the meat inside, but crab meat does taste good."

"You call these things crabs?" she asked.

I nodded. "That's what the word for them is in my language. Unless someone else wants to name them, that name is as good as any."

"Sure," she said with a laugh.

"Crab doesn't already mean anything here, does it?" I asked.

Piper shook her head. "No, crab sounds fine. I'm not sure who's in charge of naming our exotic discoveries though. Was this the only one you found?" she asked.

"Yeah."

As if in response to her question, I heard a small explosion off in the distance where I last saw Luna.

"I might not be the only one to find one of them though," I added.

"Luna will be fine, don't worry about her. I'll take this up to the soldiers so they can appraise this monster for us. What's the mana concentration like?" Piper asked while lifting the dead crab.

I took another look at the crab and compared it to when I saw it live. "Not more than usual for early dungeon monsters."

She nodded. "That's good. Hopefully the mana concentration doesn't cause a problem either. After our conversation about eating them, I'm interested in getting a taste now."

I smiled. "Let's hope they're actually edible. Crab legs were popular enough where I come from that these might be enough to make the dungeon valuable on their own."

"Helena, please. Don't sing their praises anymore. I'm going to be devastated if these turn out to be poisonous," Piper said with a laugh.

I walked back over to the area where I had found the crab and saw Rell'kor staring up at the sky. I came over to the drakken curiously. "Is something wrong?" I asked.

His nostrils flared a little, and he nodded. "I think it's going to rain soon. It'll make our work more troublesome."

I looked over at the moon. "I think this area might flood when the tide comes in. The rain won't make that any easier."

"The tide? What is that?" he asked.

I spent a bit of time explaining that the ocean's level will rise a bit through the night as the moon comes over. The drakken man frowned. "That is bad news. If we have to fight monsters ankle-deep in water, we might get overwhelmed. We'll need to return to the camp as the water level rises and perhaps leave before things get too bad."

"Are you sure things are that serious? I told Maxwell, and he said he would talk to the others about it, but it doesn't look like anyone is that concerned," I said.

He scowled a bit and looked back up at the sky. "If it were just the water level increasing over time, that might not be so bad. The rain tells of a more serious issue though. There are monsters that hunt better in the rain or group up more when it's coming down. Rain in a dungeon is dangerous. I need to go talk with Jol'ket."

Rell'kor started walking back to the camp, and I was about to follow him, but I heard another explosion caused by Luna's magic, followed by a high-pitched scream from Iris. Before I even realized I was moving, I had bolted in their direction. Luna was strong, but I wouldn't be lax when my pack were in trouble.

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When I got there, Luna was patting Iris on the shoulder, and I saw a few of the giant crabs nearby. Three this time... Iris didn't look hurt, but I came over and asked anyway. "Did something happen? Is Iris okay?"

Iris blushed and wouldn't meet my gaze. "I just got startled by one of them. They ran through the trees really fast."

"You're not hurt though?" I pressed.

Iris shook her head. "No, I'm okay. I just wasn't expecting them to run at me like that. They were fast."

I turned to look at the dead crabs. Luna had broiled them in their shells, and they were still partially on fire, looking melted. The smell of it was rather awful. Since I had become an umber hound creature, most scents weren't as off-putting to me as they used to be, but this one was especially gross. Luna summoned a ball of water in her palm and splashed it over the burning shell, and I caught her own nose wrinkling from the scent.

"Can you avoid fire magic?" I asked Luna.

She frowned. ("I can try ice magic, but the monsters might be able to shrug it off since they are likely water-aligned.")

I shook my head. "I wouldn't be so sure about ice magic. I don't think crabs like cold much."

("Crabs?") Luna asked before turning to me.

I pointed at the monster and switched to talking through the rings. ("Those things. Crabs are animals from my old world. The edible varieties taste pretty good. Piper said she didn't know what these are called in draconic, so I've been calling them crabs, my word for them, for now.")

("Right... Well, I'll give ice magic a try. Milana should have already tested it by now. She might have a better idea. What about electricity?") Luna asked.

("Should be fine if you're just trying to kill them, but I don't know how it will affect the meat if it's edible. You might need to be careful with it though. Rell'kor told me it might rain soon,") I replied.

("Flooding and rain?") Luna asked me seriously.

I nodded. ("Rell'kor was worried about it too.")

"Luna, Helena? I don't know how to carve these monsters," Iris said.

"Don't worry about it for now, Iris. I'll drag them back to camp first. They need to be appraised by someone before we can try butchering them ourselves anyway. There might be things to worry about in the corpse," I told her.

Iris nodded and stood up. "I haven't been able to do much with my wind magic yet."

("Don't worry about it, Iris. I'm sure your time to shine and prove yourself is yet to come,") Luna said.

I picked up the three partially burnt crab bodies and carried them over to the stairs. It seems others had been busy too. There was now a growing pile of dead crabs near the stairs.

"There's so many of them," Iris said.

"Yes... the number we're dealing with is increasing as time goes on..." I replied.

I felt a drop of water hit my cheek, and I instinctively looked up, not that I could see anything with my blindfold on. The rain had started. All of this stuff coming together at once was making me nervous. The rain, the increasing number of crabs, the tide. Things were building up to something.

"Monster! It's a big one!" Norrik called out from a good distance away.

Suddenly, there was a rumble of thunder, and the intensity of the rain increased dramatically. The entire camp by the stairs was thrown in a bit of a panic. The only reason there wasn't complete chaos was because everyone here were professionals. Groups of soldiers were already running the dead crabs and samples of the plants and water down the stairs. The nearby delvers fanned out around the stairs to protect the soldiers.

Valkin and Norrik were running toward camp with something hot on their tails, but it was a bit hard to see what it was with all of the rain. Whatever was chasing them was indeed big, just as they had yelled. The thing that was following them was moving like a force of nature and catching up with them fast. Right before it connected with Valkin's back, a bolt of lightning hit the monster square in the chest. For a brief moment, I had thought it was Luna who had attacked it, but I quickly realized that it was actually Talia who had shot a lightning arrow at it. Lightning probably wasn't safe to use in the rain, though.

The monster roared, and Valkin and Norrik were able to spin on their heels and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the other nearby delvers. I ran toward them to try and help, but the monster turned and circled the group instead. Rather than try to flank the larger group, it set its sights on me. Now that it was barreling right at me, I was able to get a better look at it.

It had the head of a giant snake with a large cobra hood fanning out to the sides of its face. Below that, it had the muscular torso of a humanoid but with four arms, each tipped with long claws. Its waist pinched in and flowed into a long serpentine tail. The monster wasn't wearing any clothes or carrying any tools, but it had a glint of intelligence in its eyes.

I shouldered my shield in front of me and braced for its tackling charge, but at the last moment, it darted around me and toward the stairs. It lifted two of its four hands into the air, and a whirl of sand began to swirl around it. The skin of the snake monster began to become crusted in white, and with a gesture of its lower arms, large spiky protrusions formed around the stairs like a cage of bone. The monster hissed at the people it trapped with malevolent glee and struck like lightning at the nearest soldier, killing the man instantly.

The snake monster tried to drag the soldier's body off, but spikes of ice began to spear up at it from the ground, stopping it from dragging the body away. The monster turned and hissed at Milana before moving to dash toward her. It weaved around the shards of ice the mage sent its way, but it was getting closer by the moment.

All of this time, I had been trying to chase the monster down, but I knew I would need all of my speed if I wanted to catch up with it. This thing was fucking fast, and I couldn't let it continue to run wild and threaten my friends and my pack. I poured mana into my armor and continued to run as fast as I was able as my transformation expanded my body. The moment my legs felt right again, I bounded forward even more urgently and caught the snake before it could strike at Milana.

The two of us tumbled to the side. My tackle hadn't been the most elegant of maneuvers, but I got there in time. Unfortunately, my shield and axe were ripped from my hands in the tumble and mess of coils. I had been disarmed. I tried to dig my claws into the side of the snake monster, but the sand that covered it had formed rigid plates that resisted my dagger-like nails.

My umber hound instincts were roiling with both danger and exhilaration as I fought something that I knew would be a challenge. I saw the glow of the snake's eyes for a split second before its huge maw opened wide, and it dug its long fangs over the lip of my armor and into my neck. I screamed out a bellowing howl under the full moon that was approaching the center of the sky.

I could feel something coursing through my veins. I would not take this insult lying down.

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