Floor 14

They Who Chew

Whenever anyone arrived on a new floor the labyrinth would supply them with information. It was always the number of the floor, the title of the floor, and if it was a checkpoint or not. The labyrinth was what decided on the title, and quite often it leaned toward the mysterious.

I always believed it was due to Lute that the labyrinth liked to choose something obscure, though she never admitted to it whenever I brought it up. Instead she’d smile innocently and divert the conversation to something else.

So the first time I arrived on the fourteenth floor I was left very confused as to what the title meant. The only thing I could theorize was that it dealt with the orcs, since at that time I was still fresh and innocent and hadn’t learned the horrors of the labyrinth yet.

It wasn’t orcs.

When we appeared on the fourteenth floor I already had my sword and gun out and at the ready. With the sunglasses on my face I scanned what was nearby, looking for any signs that the ground had recently been burrowed.

Next to me Kuzu remained quiet, the large two-handed sword drawn. The tip of that sword sagged down, as she still lacked the muscle strength to easily hold it up for extended times, but I knew from the previous floor that she could at least use it if required.

We had been deposited onto a prairie that stretched out, a flat area with high grass and no sign of civilization. Off in the distance that the compass pointed I could make out the fringe of a forest, while behind us was a mountain range. Above us the sun shone brightly, but I knew that on this floor that wouldn’t matter in the slightest.

I motioned in the direction of the forest with the gun, and did it again and again until Kuzu finally gave a nod of her head. Her one ear had tilted to the side, while she looked at me with a curious look, but she thankfully remembered her promise to remain quiet.

As I walked my footsteps were light and slow, as I tried my absolute best to remain as quiet as possible. Behind me Kuzu must have imitated my actions as I couldn’t even hear her, a vast improvement over how clumsy she had been on the seventh floor.

From behind the sound of grunts and metal rang out loudly across the silent prairie. I turned around, and so did Kuzu, to stare at the new arrivals on the floor. A small group of orcs had arrived where Kuzu and I had, and they had immediately started to shout and stomp their feet.

"What's goi-" Kuzu started to say before I reached up and placed my hand over her mouth. With a shake of my head I nodded toward the orcs, and then forcefully pulled her down into a crouch amongst the high grass.

Thankfully even though the orcs had seen us they didn’t care. They had come to this floor for a different kind of prey, and it was one I’d rather not have to deal with. If I was to hazard a guess I’d assume they were part of the Maw Hunters, the orcs who thrived on coming to this floor and throwing their lives away.

The orcs, unlike the ones we’d seen before, wore a mixture of leather and metal armor on every part of their bodies. They even had helmets on, a thick and crude style that was reminiscent of a bucket. Each of the orcs held a long blade that made a mockery of Kuzu’s two-hander.

A slight shake of the ground happened nearby, centered in the direction of the orcs. They paid it no heed, and instead started to shout and bash their swords against the ground. Kuzu’s ears pressed against her head at the cacophony that the orcs had created.

Tentacles covered in clods of dirt burst out of the ground nearby the orcs, the long tendrils whipping about randomly. Kuzu struggled a little beneath my hand, but I held firm so she couldn’t scream at the arrival of the Maw.

The orcs had no such fear, instead they gave out cries of joy at the sight of the tentacles. As the tendrils swung in closer to them the closest orcs swung their weapons. The blades cut easily through their intended targets, blood spurting uncontrollably from the severed limbs.

It was time to move on while the Maw was distracted, so I removed my hand from Kuzu’s mouth and instead grabbed ahold of her hand. I pulled her along as I turned and began to run, as I didn’t want to get caught up in the fight between the two forces.

Kuzu tried her best to follow me but she couldn’t manage it, and as I pulled her along she stumbled and fell down. I turned to try and help her back up and saw that she’d been too busy staring at the Maw behind us.

The fight had evolved, as the creatures had finally emerged from the ground. They looked somewhat similar to the goblin hounds, except that from their spine numerous tentacles spread outward. Each tentacle was long enough to reach ten feet, and as Kuzu and I watched the amount of tentacles on each of the Maw seemed to almost double.

The orcs didn’t even flinch back from that, instead they let out cries of joy. Their large weapons were swung constantly into the mass of writhing tentacles, yet it seemed two more appeared to replace the severed one. It was only a matter of time before the tentacles overwhelmed the small group of orcs and the Maw started to move in for the kill.

“Go!” I whispered into Kuzu’s ear, even as I tried to almost pick her up and push her toward the forest.

Behind us we could hear the Maw as they started their feast. The sounds should’ve been unsettling, but I’d heard them so often in the past that it was akin to background noise. Kuzu whimpered in fear ahead of me, a noise that I hoped she would stop making very soon.

When we reached the edge of the forest Kuzu curled up behind the nearest tree while she covered her ears with her hands. She had tears in her eyes, and adamantly refused to look back at the prairie that we’d just crossed.

Unlike her I had no such issues, and when I glanced behind us I could see that more of the Maw had arrived on the surface. Any sign of the orcs had long since been torn to shreds, and even the armor that they wore would’ve become food for the monsters.

I put one hand on Kuzu’s shoulder and leaned in close to her. “Kuzu?” I whispered as quietly as I could. “We need to keep moving.”

Kuzu took a couple of death breaths, but even as she stood up there was a shake to her hands. Her ears had only slightly lifted off from her head, while her tail had been tucked in around her waist.

“What about those things?” Kuzu asked in a quiet voice.

“We’re past the burrowers, now we need to watch above. Use your claws.”

“A-alright,” Kuzu stuttered a little as she put the large sword back into the holder on her back.

"The Maw have two breeds,” I told her as I studied the canopy above us, “the first live underground and control the prairie and rely on sound. The other are above us, if you see a tentacle don’t hit it unless it actually grabs you.”

Our walk forward into the forest was a slow one, as I kept my eyes out for the signs of any Maw overhead. The forest was similar to any other you might run into, regular trees with heavy foliage overhead and a mixture of shrubbery on the ground. The only difference was that these trees had vines that hung from them, and those vines weren’t always what they seemed.

Every time a leaf fell from above I snapped my gun toward it, and every time a branch swayed I went rigid. The Maw were my least favorite creatures made by Lute before the twentieth floor, and it was because they were absurdly dangerous for where she placed them.

When what looked like a vine swung down toward us, as though moved by a breeze, I stepped to the side. Kuzu watched what I did and caught on quickly enough, making certain to keep a distance from any and all vines even if they didn’t move. She smiled at me, but all I did was motion in the direction of where the compass had pointed me.

The leaves above rustled as more and more of the Maw began to move in, the vines that draped throughout the forest starting to all collect near us. I knew from personal experience that they would only emerge if we provoked them, as the forest breed weren’t as aggressive as the prairie.

We managed to weave our way through the vines and eventually find our way to where the portal was. Amongst the trees and vines it sat there, untouched by the Maw.

It was when it came into view that everything became worse, as the canopy nearly exploded apart with an excessive amount of tentacles. As though the Maw knew that we were nearly out of their reach their hunger for food pushed them to attack.

Kuzu was the one they ended up grabbing as their tentacles wrapped around her arms. They began to pull her up into the air like a puppet and she reacted as anyone would’ve, laying into the tentacles around her with the diamond claws. Though it was a good move on her part it was the signal for the Maw to attack en masse.

The Maw which emerged from the canopy were small, far smaller than the prairie breed, but their tentacles were more muscular and dangerous. Each of them was a shade of green that blended well with the foliage above, and striations of darker colors helped them to hide amongst the greenery.

My own reaction was simple enough, I started to fire my Flagra at all of the Maw in between me and the portal. “Kuzu!” I shouted out to her, “get to the portal! They won’t go near it!”

With my sword I sliced a Maw who got too close to me in half, and then fired a bullet into the head of a Maw that had slinked up behind Kuzu. She let out a small scream of surprise, but started to run for the portal. Her claws snapped out and cleaved through the tentacles that tried to grab hold of her, though none of the Maw ever once cried out in pain.

It was an odd scenario as fresh blood and chunks of tentacles flew everywhere. Behind us I could hear the noise of more Maw falling to the ground, and I turned halfway to fire more rounds into the new entrants to our scuffle.

With a flick of my wrist I ejected the magazine and I put the Flagra back into the holster. I had no time to reload it and so I’d instead put my focus into the sword. Even though it had little impact I even relied on my feet and free hand to stave off the swarm of tentacles.

Ahead of me Kuzu let out a cry of frustration at the wall of tentacles that had formed. Her claws tore easily through them, but as with the orcs it seemed like there were always more to replace the fallen.

“This is insane!” she finally yelled out, coated in blood and chunks of tentacles.

I tightened my grip on the sword and focused on the gem built into it. The electricity that would normally run across my skin instead sparked out from the gem, and then the blade itself let out a small cluster of electrical bursts. With a quick swing of the blade I sent out a surge of electricity at the Maw nearest us, scattering them away.

When the tentacles naturally were pulled back by the retreating Maw Kuzu and I surged through the opening. We ran up to the portal while behind us the Maw gathered once more, though their tentacles never once got within five feet of the portal itself.

I leaned against the portal, slightly dizzy from the use of what I liked to call the lightning blade. Though I had moderated the power toward the lower end it had still been more of a draw than I’d expected, and once again highlighted how flawed my current reserves were. I would need to practice magic consistently over the next four years if I wanted to get anywhere close to my past capacity.

“Why don’t they come closer?” Kuzu asked from next to me.

“The Goddess,” I replied, “she hard coded it into their genes. They literally can’t come near the portal, it hurts them. A lot.”

“Good,” Kuzu said, before she looked down at herself and sighed. “What now?”

“We move on, of course.”

Kuzu had nothing to say to that idea, and instead she put her hand on the portal. A few seconds later she vanished. I continued to lean against the portal, staring into the white nothing of it, and thought for a moment about what had happened.

Then we were both gone and the Maw could only wait for the next fool to enter their domain.