Pursue the dark elf

Hina catches up to you as the smoke clears. She seems winded, but otherwise alright.

“You should go, Lucas,” she says, worry furrowing her brow. “I will stop her and recover the wheel. You and the others must leave the Crystal Sanctum.”

“I am not leaving you,” you say, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Can you communicate with your sisters? Tell them to warn Theora?”

“Just a moment,” says Hina. Her eyes close and her body trembles. Her lips move slightly as if she is talking in her sleep. She opens her eyes again and says, “It is done.”

“Good, maybe Theora will think of something,” you say. “Now let’s get that wheel back.”

You set off after the dark elf down the tunnel. Hina keeps up with you, but you can tell she is working hard to keep pace.

“She must have entered while we were in the Nightlands,” says Hina. “I felt something there, but as I said before, I thought it was the enervating darkness of the curse.”

“How could she sneak into the crystal on the sword I was carrying?”

“The crystal is an anchor to the physical world,” says Hina. “I exist elsewhere, Lucas. Beyond the physical world. A powerful mage could create a pathway to me if she knows where to find me. There are certain devices that might be able to access my realm as well.”

“Great. So this elf might be a mage?”

“It is possible,” says Hina, her lips pinching with worry.

The tunnel intersects with another and you make your best guess about direction. Another branch and you find another broken Hina, this one completely decapitated. Your Hina makes a sad sound and leans down to caress her sister’s face.

Something clangs in the chamber just ahead. You hasten to the doorway and see a shadowy figure moving along iron catwalks. She leaps nimbly to a lowered ladder and begins climbing it into the darkness far above.

“Hey!” You shout, your voice echoing in the chamber.

She stops climbing and looks down at you over her back.

“You again,” she shouts with annoyance. “You are persistent, human. Perhaps you need something to entertain you!”

She reaches into a pouch at her hip and tosses a small gray object that tinkles upon the floor. You brace, expecting an explosion of smoke. Instead, there is a small pop and a flash of light and something begins to grow and expand out of the figure. The small object seems to give birth to a towering fleshy creature in the span of a few seconds.

The creature is shaped like an unfinished pillar of purple and yellow flesh, a pale human woman’s voluptuous upper body and head emerging from the pillar, her shapely hips curving beyond the pillar’s edges and suggesting an ample backside behind it, and upper thighs disappearing into the pillar and seeming almost to straddle a single, huge red eye that slowly focuses on you. Beneath this eye, a slit-like vertical mouth opens wetly and looks large enough to swallow you whole. More than a dozen tentacles, as thick as your wrist and glistening, begin to slither in the air like a collection of agitated snakes.

The dark-haired female head lifts and opens her eyes. A smile spreads across her face.

“Come closer, boy,” she says with a mocking sweetness. “Come closer and I’ll give you a kiss.”

The huge vertical mouth twitches grotesquely and sags open to reveal the pink inner passage of her gullet. You tense as a pink tongue as big as a shovel rolls slowly over the lipless edges of the mouth.

“A roper girl,” says Hina, clutching at your arms. “Do not go near her. They are very cruel and will eat humans, but she cannot move.”

“She is blocking the only way up onto the catwalks,” you say, motioning to the iron staircase mostly obscured by the roper’s body and waving tentacles. You step forward, brandishing the cleaver, and say with grim determination, “We have to get past her.”

“Good luck,” laughs the elf from high above. She resumes scrambling up the ladder and disappears into the darkness overhead. You are so distracted by her that you almost miss the lash of one of the roper’s tentacles at your ankle.

“Ah!” You cry, stepping back just in time to avoid being grabbed by the roper’s tentacles.

“Awwww,” the roper teases. “My belly is so empty. Come on, little boy. Warm it up. I promise it will feel good.”

You face the grotesque monster girl, knowing that the only way to save Hina is through the roper.