~~ READ AUTHORS NOTE ~~
The descent was careful.
Every step was placed with intention. His body low, his movements controlled, Juno advanced carefully. The massive spine curved downward, its surface marked by uneven ridges. Its surface was worn smooth in some places, fractured in others. Gaps between vertebrae opened into darkness—deep, silent. Juno did not rush. A fall from such a height meant instant death.
The last stretch of the descent brought him to the base of the Ridge, where the skeleton's massive ribcage met the dark mud in a tangle of collapsed bone and old coral. Juno moved through it quickly, ducking under arching ribs and stepping over collapsed sections, his senses tracking the sound and vibration of the creature above him the entire time.
The smell was stronger down here. Rot and salt and blood, layered over something deeper and animal, the specific scent of a large creature in pain. His nose catalogued it automatically, building a picture his eyes hadn't confirmed yet.
He found the entrance to the spine without difficulty — the lower jaw was missing, leaving the skull open at the base like a vast cave mouth, its remaining teeth forming a ragged palisade above his head. Juno ducked beneath them and entered.
Inside, the bone surface underfoot was wide and smooth, worn flat by whatever had used this place before. The spine stretched upward in a long inclined tunnel, vertebrae arching overhead with gaps between them that let in thin blades of grey light. It was quieter in here. Enclosed. His hearing adjusted automatically, the echoes giving him the space's dimensions without him having to look.
He started climbing.
Slow. Deliberate. Each footfall placed with care, testing the surface before committing weight, the mask settled across his upper face, and King's Execution held low and close to his body. His senses were fully extended — he could feel the creature's vibrations through the bone under his feet, getting stronger with each step upward. Heavy and irregular. The scraping was clearer now, too, accompanied by the wet sound of something moving against its own wounds.
Closer.
He slowed further, each step taking twice as long as the last.
The light shifted ahead of him. A bend in the spine's tunnel, the corridor curving slightly to the right before opening into a wider section between two massive vertebrae. The vibrations were coming from just beyond that bend. The smell had become immediate and specific — the fresh blood underneath everything else, closer than it had any right to be.
Juno stopped.
He pressed himself against the inner wall of the spine and craned forward just far enough to peer past the curve.
The Carapace Scavenger was enormous. Truly, the descriptions never did it justice.
Even injured, even hunched against the far wall of the widened section with three of its eight legs clearly broken and one pincer arm hanging at a wrong angle, it filled the space in a way that made the corridor feel suddenly much smaller. Its carapace was a mottled dark blue, cracked in several places with azure blood seeping through the fractures in slow, steady trails. Its remaining good pincer rested on the bone floor, occasionally flexing with the involuntary movement of something in pain. The tiny eyes were half-lidded, unfocused, the creature's attention somewhere inward. Maybe it was unconscious, or maybe it was almost dead.
'What luck. Oh, what luck.'
Juno continued to stand there for a moment longer. The creature was large, dangerous, and even whilst injured, it would put up a serious fight. He had no armor, a weapon he had never used in real combat, and exactly one significant advantage.
The creature didn't know he was here.
He needed to make that count.
His free hand moved to the canteen at his side — Away from Home, which he had summoned before entering the spine, to drink from it. Before entering the Dream Realm, he made sure to fill it to the brim, which had taken an incredibly long time. By his calculations, the pouch stored about 250 gallons of water, an incredible sum. Doubly so when it gave him a small stat boost.
He unstoppered it and drank.
The effect was immediate.
Not dramatic. Not a surge of power or a sudden transformation. Just a quiet intensification of everything already present — his muscles felt more certain, his grip on King's Execution steadier.
'Well, uhh, damn it. What is my Aspect for if I have no one-liners? Damn fool of a writer, that's for sure.'
Breathing out slowly one last time through his ugly face, his ugly frame moved. He knew where he was going to strike and how he was going to proceed afterwards.
He came around the curve fast and low, covering the distance between the bend and the creature's flank in the time it took the Scavenger to register a change in the air. Its head began to turn — the small eyes starting to focus — and Juno was already there, already driving King's Execution into the largest crack in the carapace above its hindquarters with both hands and everything he had.
The blade went in.
It wasn't easy, even with an Ascended rank memory. The flesh of the monster was tough; Juno was inexperienced in stabbing things, and he was at an awkward angle, stabbing up. It also didn't help that the Scavenger resisted, so Juno felt the impact travel up his arms — but it went in, the Ascended Memory finding purchase where a lesser blade would have skated across the surface, pushing through until he felt the resistance change from armor to flesh.
The Scavenger screamed.
It was a jarring, pained sound, filling the entire enclosed tunnel with echoes that struck Juno's ears like a physical blow. He had his senses extended to their limit, and for a moment, the sound was overwhelming. Luckily, he was already planning on retracting his senses, so they were not up for long.
He let go of the sword and ran.
The Scavenger, injured and nearly dead, spun with speed that was completely absurd, its good pincer sweeping around in a wide arc to try and decapitate Juno. The blow missed and hit the bone wall, sending small pieces of bone scattering across the floor. The creature turned its tiny eyes on Juno, the pain-induced inwardness gone entirely, and found him already on the other side of the tunnel watching it with his hands empty and his expression calm.
It took a lurching step toward him.
Juno took a step back and tilted his head slightly.
The King's Execution was still deep in the Scavengers' flank.
The azure blood running from the wound wasn't pooling. At the place where the sword was embedded, the blood was pulling inward, slow and continuous, drawn back toward the steel with the quiet persistence of something that had already decided how this ended.
Blood Fang.
"Hehe. You look quite bad, dear Scavenger," said Juno, mockingly.
The next minute was a game of cat-and-mouse. Truly, the epitome of geometry. The Nightmare Creature charged and swung, and Juno wasn't there anymore. The pincer swept, and Juno was in another place. Whether it was from the Scavengers' mental delusions or the enchantments from his mask, the beast just seemed to easily miss Juno. He didn't need to touch the blade. Every lunge drove it deeper. Every turn worked against the wound. Blood Fang did the rest, patient and constant, pulling the azure liquid back through the flesh toward the steel without pause or mercy.
The creature slowed.
Then slowed further.
The carapace lost its gloss. The cracks stopped weeping. The surface pulled tight and dry around the wound, as if something were being emptied from the inside. When the legs finally gave out, the Scavenger went down heavily and didn't move again, its bulk settling onto the bone floor with a finality that wasn't going to be followed by anything.
Juno strode over and wrenched the blade free.
It came out clean.
The creature looked shriveled. Hollow. Like something that had been left out too long in a sun that didn't exist here.
[You have slain an Awakened beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[...Your desire sharpens.]
"Boom, chakalaka… Damn, I can't think of anything else."