The snail is much easier to make out as it comes into the light. Its thick gray slug body glistens with slime, and the four tentacles on its head wiggle menacingly in my direction. Alright, I’m probably imagining the menace, but it’s already tried to attack me once so I have no doubt about its intentions.


    I start to back off. It’s faster than I expected from a snail, but not exactly fast for its size. If not for my leg, I could just briskly walk away, but I don’t want it following me back to the lit areas and it’s already demonstrated that it can attack from a distance. Its aim is atrocious, but after seeing how much force it put into that stone spear, there’s no way I’m gambling on that again.


    Speaking of which, I can hear a distinct stone-on-stone rasping noise, and since I’m staring right at the snail’s head, I don’t think it’s from chewing on rocks. Unfortunately, in the dim light of the candle, I can barely make out the shape of its rocky shell, so finding out where the stone spears are coming from is impossible.


    Well, maybe that’s one problem I can actually solve. I throw my candle at the snail and quickly duck around the corner of the Crossroad, peeking out to avoid giving the snail anything to target.


    The snail flinches back from the light, halting its advance for a moment as it retracts its tentacles and ducks its head partially back into its shell.


    Of course, the candle bounces off harmlessly, but I get a much better view of the thing in the process. Its shell really is made of stone, and I can only guess that the gray color of its body is meant to blend in with the rocky tunnels. The main point of interest is the crude spike jutting out from just underneath the shell.


    Fitted into a little groove in the shell is the stone spear I’m looking for. I can see it moving independently of the shell, so it must come out of the snail’s body, but that groove would give it some limited control over where the spike shoots.


    That gives me two pieces of valuable information—first is that it can only fire one at a time before it has to “reload,” and second is that it always fires from its left side. Which happens to also be the side I’m on.


    So my options are to either put myself between the snail and the tunnel wall, or put myself in the line of fire. Not ideal.


    Eventually, the snail figures out that it’s not in any danger and investigates the offending light source with its feeler tentacles. After a bit of probing, it opens its mouth and eats the candle.


    I only see the inside of its mouth for a moment, but I wish I hadn’t. The roof of its mouth is like a huge rocky cheese grater, but its tongue...it looks like a chainsaw made of particularly jagged stone spikes.


    “I can’t believe it just ate one of those indestructible candles,” I whisper, pulling a replacement out of my cloak. “And did you see those teeth?”


    Allison doesn’t respond, and her silence is disquieting. I was starting to get worried that I hadn’t heard anything from her since we switched, but now I’m upgrading that to proper concern. I can’t address it right now, though—the snail is back on the move.


    I really don’t want to try to fight that thing. Between the stone spears, those chainsaw-cheese-grater teeth, and the fact that its entire body is just one giant slimy muscle that could probably crush me to death if it got me in its grip...


    Maybe I can chase it off.


    I try throwing another candle, this time lobbing it underhand in an attempt to lure the snail back the way it came.


    Two things happen. First, there’s a dull shunk sound and a woosh of air very uncomfortably close to my face before the stone spear shatters against the tunnel wall several feet behind me, then the candle bounces off the back of the snail’s shell and clatters to the ground, completely ignored.


    The snail doesn’t take the bait. It resumes its chase towards me, barely reacting to the candle at all, not counting the attempt to brutally murder me with a spear. Just my luck—the thing is learning.


    This is an advantage, though—it just fired one spear, and it will have to take time to reload another. I don’t know how many it can fire before running out—or if it will run out—but it shouldn’t be able to fire another one for a few seconds.


    I don’t have time to hem and haw over it. If I’m going to strike, I need to strike now. It’s not necessary to kill it—just driving it off will be enough.


    Adjusting the grip of my knife, I produce another candle from my cloak and dart out from behind the safety of my hiding spot. My leg flares up with pain, but I have no choice but to ignore it. I wish I had Allison’s Resilience.


    The eyestalks focus on me as soon as I make my appearance, and I can already see a new spear slowly starting to emerge from under the shell—I need to move fast. Ignoring the screaming protests of my injured leg, I lunge forward and thrust the candle towards the snail as a distraction.


    As I’d hoped, it retracts its eyestalks away from the light, leaving it hopefully blind to my follow up attack—I reverse the grip on my knife and drive it down into the snail’s head, between its eye tentacles where I hope the brain—or whatever equivalent snails have—is located.


    The knife drives into its soft body with a sickening squelch, and I almost lose my grip as the snail’s head immediately retracts back into its shell. It might have been better if I had. Instead, the knife slices a few inches before catching on something and yanking me off my feet.


    I stubbornly maintain my grip on the knife as I’m dragged along the ground until I find myself right up against the shell, my head only a few inches away from the now fully-armed spike. I try to keep that thing pointed away from me as I finally pull the knife free of the snail’s deceptively sticky body.


    The snail completely retreats into its shell, leaving me alone and covered in foul-smelling sticky goop and some kind of blue stuff covering my knife arm. I really hope that none of this stuff is toxic.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Motion in the corner of my eye alerts me just in time to notice the spike wiggling its way in my direction. I flinch to the side and drop the candle as I reflexively grab the implement of death and try to push it away from me.


    That turns out to be a mistake as it fires off the moment I touch it. The rough stone surface tears bloody friction burns across my hand, and while I manage to get out of the way of the spear itself, it practically explodes on the wall right behind me, spraying me with rocky bits of shrapnel and leaving several cuts and abrasions along my cheek.


    I stab desperately at the strange fleshly gland that the spear came out of—the only exposed portion of the snail I can reach. The knife finds purchase in the snail’s flesh and I grab it with both hands, ignoring the flaring pain in the injured one to force the knife as deep as I can and pull hard.


    My efforts pay off—I cut a deep furrow in the snail’s flesh and destroy the gland that produces those spears. I don’t have much time to celebrate—the snail quickly retracts the rest of its body inside its shell and slams the aperture down against the ground just inches away from me.


    Only the spiral pattern and the slowly growing pool of blue liquid betray it as anything other than a perfectly normal boulder. Blood, I realize—the blue stuff is blood. Now I’m not sure what to do. Did I win? I’m pretty sure it’s still alive, but it’s decided to hide rather than fight me.


    The adrenaline starts to fade, and all the little bits of pain I’ve been ignoring start to fight over my attention. My leg is the worst—the growing red stain around my bandage is as clear a sign as any that it’s reopened. On top of that, my focus is sapped away by countless scrapes and bruises from being yanked around on the rough stone surface of the tunnel, and my left hand is dripping with blood.


    I don’t want to leave this stupid thing alive. I tell myself it’s too much of a threat—that we might lead it back to our safe area, or get ambushed by it later—but that’s not it. I’m just angry. I want it dead. It threatened me—threatened us—and I can’t abide that.


    I shove weakly at the shell, but it’s too heavy to budge even if I were in top condition. A few experimental knocks with my knife handle yield similarly fruitless results. The shell isn’t just for show, it’s a practically impenetrable defense.


    Can I even kill this thing? Without any way to get through the shell, it could just wait me out. Which of us would expire first? Do I really want to lay siege to a random snail creature?


    I stare down at the growing pool of blue blood. Do I even have to?


    “Is—” Allison’s voice startles me so badly I actually jump. “Is it dead?”


    “I don’t think so, no,” I answer, wincing as I try to take the weight off my bad leg. “Just hiding. We injured it enough to consider us a predator, and now it’s just waiting for us to go away.”


    “Oh. Uh, why are we still here then?”


    “Because,” I grumble, “everything hurts too badly to move. And besides, I don’t want to give this thing a chance to come back for a rematch.”


    “Do you think it would?” she asks. “I didn’t think snails were known for taking revenge.”


    “They’re not known for being five feet tall or shooting deadly stone projectiles like bullets, either,” I retort. “We have no idea how smart it is, and underestimating it could get us killed.”


    “Good point,” she says. “How do we get through the shell, then?”


    I sigh. “We don’t. It’s hard as a rock, weighs a ton, and is probably glued to the floor by the snail’s slime.”


    “So...then what?”


    “We wait,” I say. “It’s bleeding heavily from the wounds we gave it—not that we’re faring a whole lot better—and it’s going to have to do something eventually, or just bleed out right here. When it does, it’ll be weak enough for me to finish it off.”


    “That seems kind of cruel.”


    “It tried to kill us,” I remind Allison. “It would almost certainly do so again given the chance. We don’t have the luxury of being conscientious.”


    “Fine,” she relents. “There’s got to be something else we can do, though. Does it really have no weaknesses?”


    “Not that I can tell, and I’d rather not waste my strength trying to find one. I need to be ready for the ambush.”


    “Hmm...how does it breathe?”


    That is an excellent question. I have no idea how snails breathe, but I can only assume it has to have some sort of ventilation in that shell, or it would just suffocate.


    “Let’s find out...”


    I slowly limp my way around the spiral, poking and prodding for any openings or signs of a draft. I might not have noticed it if not for all the candles in my cloak lighting up everything beneath me, but I do spot something. One spot along the edge of the shell where the pool of bloody slime ripples and bubbles ever so slightly.


    “I think this is it,” I say, pointing the spot out.


    “Just that?” Allison asks. “I was expecting something...bigger.”


    “It wouldn’t be a very good defense mechanism if its breathing tube was at the top of the shell, would it?”


    “It’s not breathing very hard,” Allison observes.


    “We don’t know how it breathes at all, so we probably shouldn’t make any assumptions, but given how much it was bleeding before, it might be losing strength.”


    I try to crouch down to get a better look, but my injured leg has other ideas.


    “Ow!” I cry as it twinges painfully. “Okay, this might not be a great idea. If I go down there, I’m not getting back up again for a while.”


    “Frick!” Allison swears. “I thought it was a good idea, too.”


    “It was,” I console her. “We’re just not in great shape right now.”


    I move back around to the front of the shell, readying myself to make a move as soon as the snail does. After about a minute of absolutely nothing happening, Allison’s boredom gets the better of her.


    “Are you sure it’s not dead?” she asks in a whiny tone. “It hasn’t even twitched!”


    “We saw it breathing,” I remind her. “But if you’re that bored, I actually had something I wanted to ask you.”


    “Oh?” I can practically feel her perking up at the idea of conversation.


    “What happened to you when we switched earlier?” I ask. “While I was fighting the snail it felt like you weren’t even there.”


    There’s a long pause before Allison answers. “I don’t know. That whole thing is kind of a blur to me. It was the same when you dealt with the skeleton, actually. I can vaguely remember it, but it’s like I was just spaced out the entire time.”


    I think about that for a moment, frowning.


    “I think it’s the same for me, actually,” I admit. “Everything that happened to us before the skeleton is muddy except the [Angel]. I remember that vividly.”


    “What do you think that means?” Allison asks.


    I shrug. “No idea. Maybe nothing. There’s a lot about our situation that we don’t understand.”


    “I guess...” she agrees.


    [Level Up!]


    Unified Collective is now level 4.


    Survivalist is now level 2.


    +1 Ego.


    +2 Awareness.


    The sudden notification catches me off guard. Three levels at once?


    The difference in awareness is immediately noticeable—I can see a little further down the tunnels in the dim candlelight, and I can make out details on the snail’s shell that I had previously missed. Most importantly, I can clearly see the spot where we’d identified the breathing hole before.


    No more ripples. No more bubbles. The snail isn’t breathing anymore—it’s dead.