The living passage buckles beneath Dante and Powderpuff. Its frantic heartbeat accelerates into a pounding drum, each convulsion pitching them across the slick tissue.
Ahead, a vertical tear burns with corpse-white light. Contracting flesh creeps over it from both sides, knitting the escape shut strand by pulsing strand.
Powderpuff
There! Something dark is lodged beside the opening. It may be holding the passage apart!
Powderpuff lowers her head and braces her small hooves as the tunnel folds again. Beyond the tear, the white glow flickers like a doorway seen underwater.
Powderpuff
If that object blocks the way, removing it could free us. If it is part of the worm, it may seal everything at once.
Powderpuff
Dante, we have only moments. The opening is closing, and I cannot tell what that thing is.
✓ Quest Accepted
Escape the worm
“Bow to Powderpuff and say " Ladies first" as I wait for her to escape.”
Dante the Demon Hunter
Ladies first.
Dante bows amid the bucking passage, long sword angled safely aside as the corpse-white tear contracts around its dark obstruction. Powderpuff stares, then plants her hooves.
Powderpuff
You are very brave, Dante. Or very strange. Perhaps both.
Powderpuff charges toward the opening. Her slim blue body slips through the narrowing tear just before the living edges meet, and white light swallows her.
Powderpuff
I am through! Come quickly!
The dark object remains lodged beside the passage, holding the tear open by a finger's breadth. Beyond it, Powderpuff's silhouette waits in the stark glow.
“I squeeze through the tear after Powderpuff”
FAILURE (Fair Agility, rolled +0)
“I slash around the obstruction without grabbing it”
SUCCESS (Legendary Melee Weapons, rolled +0)
Dante pivots in the bucking passage and sweeps his long sword around the lodged darkness, cutting the pulsing tissue that grips it without touching the obstruction itself.
The blade flashes through each supporting strand. The dark object drops free into the living folds, and the corpse-white tear springs wide with a sound like a distant funeral bell.
Powderpuff
You did it! The way is open!
The tunnel convulses violently as the severed edges recoil. Beyond the opening, Powderpuff turns and braces herself in a pale, wet chamber veined with black roots.
Powderpuff
Come on, Dante! I will keep the passage clear as long as I can!
White light spills across Dante's boots. Behind him, the worm's heartbeat falters, while the freed obstruction sinks soundlessly into the contracting tissue.
The escape remains open, and Powderpuff reaches one foreleg through the tear, holding herself ready to help pull him into the stark chamber.
“I leap through the tear to Powderpuff”
SUCCESS (Fair Agility, rolled +1)
Dante launches through the corpse-white tear as the living edges shudder behind him. The opening folds around his boots, then releases him into the pale chamber.
Powderpuff
You made it! I knew you would!
Powderpuff catches Dante's arm and steadies him on the slick floor. Black roots vein the chamber walls, twitching whenever the worm's distant heartbeat stumbles.
Powderpuff
We are together again. Whatever this place is, we can face it side by side.
Behind them, the tear contracts to a narrow white scar. The freed passage seals with a deep, muffled groan, leaving the chamber unnaturally quiet.
Powderpuff
The way back is gone, but we are safe for this moment. Look at those roots. They are moving.
Escape the Pale Root-Veined Chamber
Quest Complete
Escape the worm
Skill Upgrade: Athletics Great→Superb