Chapter 43

Snake Report: Day Whatever/Watching Humans Report: Official Day 4

A group of Giant Crabs tried to eat me today. It was absolutely terrifying.

I'll start with that, and the obvious: I messed up.

As a result, I will not be pursuing the Earth-Molding short-cut tactic along the ceiling chasm.

Why?

Three words: Gargantuan-Hungry-Crustaceans.

That's why.

Today I made it another forty slithers up , grooving out a pathway along the side of the cliffs. I'd just started for the final strech of another couple slithers, before a claw shot out of the cliff-face and tried to pincer me in half. I didn't avoid this at all, it just happened hit the rock groove instead of me.

This is undeniably proof that the Tiny-Snake-God rewards and protects his followers. Praise unto him.

Hisssss...

But, after that I had about half a second warning before ten more of the scuttling bastards made an appearance. Scaling down out of all sorts of divots and breaks along the chasm walls.

They blend in really well: Completely ambush predators. Their shells look like rocks, down to the nitty-gritty details.

I think they've been surviving eating the fly-through traffic, and thought maybe I might be worth a taste.

I got lucky.

More magic was burned in the following seconds of that encounter than I'd ever recommend. I'm also comfortable admitting here, that my first instinct is not to fight- but to drill a hole into the wall while hissing in terror.

The crabs couldn't follow that. At best they clawed at the rocks for a bit, with surprising efficiency considering the hardness of the stone- enough to chip away at it, but thankfully nothing more.

I had to burrow a straight line down, rest, then burrow another line back out to the lower groove. I used that to get back down to the spiralling peak of camp Big-foot.

Honestly, after the crabs did their thing up there, I've started to think using magic is a rare trait for monsters. If they had Earth Molding, I would have absolutely been snake-chowder for their creepy crab-mandibles. They didn't seem to have it though.

At best, maybe they have some sort of magical stickiness that lets them scale up walls- but they have a bunch of legs and ridiculous strength, so that might be normal physics.

Or whatever passes for normally around here.

But I could understand Magic being rare in a Dungeon.

Considering how useless it was at first, and how many times I could have easily been eaten if not for the tiny-snake-god doomsday pyre, I think it makes sense.

Using it can knock you out quickly, leaving you easy prey. It starts out pitifully weak, and you can't use much of it.

It sometimes takes a second or two to work...

All-in-all: Magic isn't very useful to creatures that have nothing more than a "Eat them before they eat you" outlook on life. Abstract-thought really isn't a naturally-selected trait. By the time you've thought of something useful, it's a pretty good chance something else has murdered you.

So... Yeah. I'm probably a rare-breed. Most snake-monsters probably rock and roll with the [Venom] or the [Massive perk] although I really haven't seen any other snakes.

Mama-snake was huge though. I'd bet money that she took [Massive]

No way to know for sure now though. If I have brothers and sisters slithering their ways about the Dungeon, I doubt they would hesitate to try and eat me anyways. So, there's no point in thinking too hard about them.

The Humans though... those guys I am giving some thought. They're still down here.

Doing human things.

Like: Eating the Giant-bats I shot down. Coming back from the Ancient open-doors visibly smoking. Arguing loudly in a Language I really do not understand one tiny bit.

They explored the Western passage again too. I saw them go towards it, disappear around the bend, and then I saw them come back running like all-hell had broken loose.

It had. I don't know what, but the Wizard shot a bunch of stuff in that general direct before all the commotion settled.

That night, when they set up camp beside the weird magic-campfire spell, I think they looked pretty depressed.

I get that.

Stuck in a Dungeon. Everything is dangerous, and most of it is actively trying to eat you. There's no sunlight, only glowing mushrooms and weird moss.

This is a depressing sort of place.

Before I went to sleep on my stone molded sofa, beside the camp Big-Foot snake shrine, I shot down another bat for them. Maybe I should let up on that.

It's hard though. I'm still a human on the inside, even if I'm a some sort of magic-dungeon creature now.

Guilt's no fun.