Fight

The last thing she was going to do was flee. Fighting and slaying monsters such as these was her life, and she wasn't about to back down, even if it was something she had never encountered before.

Her blade flashed again, catching the flickering torchlight as it sliced through the tendrils holding her ankle. Bringing her blade back up, she began to weave a defensive pattern in front of her, slashing tendrils as they approached. The creature seemed to quake in pain, retreating just a hair, and Venus pressed her advantage, carving through several more tendrils as she approached the quivering mass.

Grinning fiercely, she slashed downwards at the mass, her blade carving deep into its' mass. The creature's response was not what she expected. There was no howl of pain, no abrupt retreat in pain. Instead, more tendrils lashed out, these ones larger than the original ones, reaching for her sword arm.

Surprised, Venus tried to wrench her sword free, but it seemed reluctant to pull free of the mass, and she was forced to abandon it as more tendrils reached towards her. She danced backwards, evading tendrils that reached for her, the mass following her. As she did so, something akin to an "opening" appeared in the side of the mass, and a glob of something was expelled from it at her. She shut her eyes as she tried to twist away from it, fearing it was some kind of poison.

The glob hit the front of her left shoulder, splashing all over her front. Where the substance hit her skin, it burned slightly. She could also hear a faint hissing coming off of her, but as she opened her eyes, she had far more substantial problems than that sound. Her back hit the wall as several more tendrils wrapped around her legs, pulling them into the slimy mass. They, too, stung as she felt what she realized was acid begin to attack her flesh. The blob began to crawl up her body, rapidly enveloping her to her waist. Her sword hilt appeared in front of her, still sticking out of the mass, and she desperately grabbed it, trying once more to wrench it free, but it was clear the suction of the mass was stronger than she was, especially pinned like this.

She cast about, looking for any last hopes, and spotted the spear, miraculously still standing next to the doorway. Leaning as far as she could, she stretched her arm out, reaching for it, and then thanked the gods as her hand wrapped firmly around its' shaft. Raising it above her head, she inverted it, and, on a whim, aimed its' point at the nucleus of the blob. As the slime passed her breasts, she howled with both pain and fury, and stabbed downwards for all she was worth.

The head of the spear flashed with a blue light as it plunged into the slimy, gelatinous blob in front of her. Unlike her sword, its' movement seemed unimpeded by the mass, and it dove, straight and true, at the nucleus, striking it cleanly through its' center. The mass quivered, then shook violently before popping with tremendous force, launching Venus clean through the side of the hovel. Training took over, and she instinctively twisted in mid-air, the spear tucking across her body as she hit the ground in a roll. While painful, it was much less so than simply slamming into the ground.

She rolled back to her feet facing the hovel, spear held ready in front of her, before realizing there was no way there would be any more threat from that thing, and relaxing, she walked back towards the hovel. As she did so, she looked down, assessing the extent of her injuries. Wherever the slime had touched her, her skin was an angry, irritated red. Some of it still ran down across her, dripping off the tops of her breasts and falling from her legs as she walked. She shook herself, much like a dog, flinging the worst of it off. Her robe was a loss, nearly completely dissolved from the acids that had engulfed her.

She paused at her pack, grabbing one of her waterskins and emptying it over herself, washing the slime from her body, then stepped back into the hovel. If the inside had been a mess before, now it was a half-dissolved mess. She realized being blown free had actually prevented her from ending up coated in even more acidic slime. Her search was brief, as almost everything inside of the hovel had been coated liberally in acid, rendering it useless. To her luck, though, she found several waterskins worth of water covered by what was left of the table, and a tattered, but still usable, map of the swamps. Its' prior owner had painstakingly drawn it by hand, and Venus could see where he'd faintly scrawled a shape roughly like the hovel on it, telling her where she was. An equally faint arrow pointed north at the top of the map. There were several "X" marks on the map, too, with vague symbols next to them. One faintly resembled a sword, another a shield, and a third mark was too worn to read.

Unlucky for her, no clothing had survived the acid explosion, and the hovel itself had been just as badly mauled by the acids, leaving scraps of hide fluttering from the battered framework of the hovel. Her sword was missing as well, presumably launched into the swamp somewhere. Grabbing a three-foot length of rope she had found during her search and two of the largest scraps of hide she could scavenge from the hovel, she fashioned herself a loincloth to cover her nether regions, before she settled in next to the fire to eat and rest.

As she ate, she studied the map again. While she now had a good idea as to where to head south, she was intrigued by the marks on the map, and what they might point to. Perhaps whoever had made this map had located some of the relics she had heard were in these swamps, lost to time, just waiting for her to recover them. Her mind churning, she dozed off next to the warmth of the fire, figuring she would decide where to go in the morning.

The next morning, she rose, stretching her sore, slightly burnt body, before choosing a destination...