Monster den clearing

The giant centipede drops without a sound. Samantha just barely dodges a sharp leg while I tuck and roll to get some distance. A few of the legs flick out sending Samantha flying across the room. She lets out a gasp when she hits the wall.

"Ice." Loosing an arrow into its side slowing the centipede by a lot. "You alright?" I shout. This also makes it's attention solely on me.

"Yea." She says a bit raspy but standing on her feet gripping her spear tightly with a glare. I haven't seen her angry but she seems mad.

"Good, we either need to do enough damage to its sides, legs or go for a single shot between the eyes." I point towards it's head equipped with massive pitchers. 

"Sounds easy enough." She states charging the over grown centipede.

"Wait! Ice!" I holler releasing another ice charged arrow.

But I wasn't fast enough, the mana from the last arrow wore off and my next arrow misses. The monster charges for Samantha who is closer. She swears the moment she realizes it's quickly coming for her.

I shoot a third arrow at the bug striking it in it's midsection. It's legs slow down making it collapse from the momentum. It skids on its belly coming to a stop then lets out a slow low bellow. Samantha side steps quickly running up a rock then she slips on a mushroom falling and tumbling down to the cave floor. I loose an arrow with a critical hit in the centipedes head. The grub twitches a few times before it stops moving entirely.

Slowly the mana in the centipede dissipates into the surrounding area. Leaving only the items that were inside the monster's stomach behind. 

Samantha limps over to stand beside me.

"How bad you injured?" I ask looking at the leg she is holding up.

"Just scrapped it so it stings." She replies. "Oh. This gold isn't covered in...." Samantha gags. Most likely from a memory of zombies.

"Haha. You're right. Bugs and other creatures overtaken by mana disperse back into mana leaving nothing much behind unlike a mana plague that takes over a living thing or item. If you look close." I point to a tiny centipede laying at the tip of my arrow. "My mentor showed this to me when I started out."

"It's so little." She says looking at the bug.

I pretend to cough. "That's what she said." I pretend to cough again.

"Ha! That was a good one." Samantha says pointing at me and snickering with me.

We grab the few pieces of gold and armor someone before us lost fighting the centipede. I like to believe they made it out. 

We make our way through the tunnels picking off over grown beetles, ants and the occasional monster plant. The ground eating monsters like the worms drop gold, silver and/or other metal nuggets. Very rarely they will drop a gem. Things Chelsea can trade to jewelers after smelting or cleaning. Matilda uses some of the plants and bug parts for potions so I grabbed what I could for her. Til we came to a sub-level of the tunnels.

"Do these tunnels go on forever?" Asks Samantha staring down into the dark hole.

"It seems like that doesn't it?" I giggle. "I should teach you how to conjure up a map after you learn poison mana. Map." I wave my hand in front of me.

The large maze of tunnels we went down are displayed on an holographic map in the color of an old yellowed paper. Here and there you can tell the tunnel continues but being I did not traverse it the map will not show it.

"You can see how the map shows only what we have explored. We can either fill the whole map for this layer or go lower for bigger grubs and possibly more loot." I explain.

"Hmmmmm. We can always come back right or will the job be done if we kill so many bugs?" Samantha asks.

"We can come back later. My counter said there were hundreds of monsters. Since this is for training experience, I'm not in a complete rush to get this done. So it's up to you if you want to face some stronger grubs."

"I think I'm ready for stronger bugs."

"Alright. Down we go." I say leading the way down to the next sub-level.

The area is similar to the last tunnels, only a little darker in spots. Along with the more aggressive ants, beetles and worms. Samantha continues to fight along side me with very little hiccups in the fights. We stop outside a chamber filled with a queen ant and her loyal subjects.

She had a purple hue to her while two males in the room had a green hue. While those three had fun, the few other ants caring for the eggs, that she was rapidly popping out, where black. Then a few more black ones were carrying food to the room.

We picked off the food supply and egg carrying ants first. Then we drew out a plan of attack for the last three and the egg pile. I will attack and kill the queen while Samantha takes care of the males. Then we help who ever isn't done with their ants. And then we deal with the grossest part of squishing eggs. I think we will go the fire route but we will need to book it out of here due to lack of oxygen from the fire.

After a nod, Samantha and I enter the queen ant's chamber. I begin releasing arrows freezing the queen ant's legs and torso. Samantha is running and circling the chamber to keep only one ant near her at a time. The queen starts shooting poison spit at me. She is definitely stronger than I thought she would be. Samantha throws a spear taking out one of the males. Grabbing a new spear she runs up a rock jumping through the air before coming down on the green ant's head, driving her spear through it. Both of the green ants go back to normal size.

The queen ant is weakened but her scretching has to be alerting others. Not to mention I think these things release scents we can't smell.

Samantha runs up the frozen queen ant's leg then it's torso. She begins slipping on the queen's smooth skin as the queen tries to rear up. I continue to shoot arrows at the under belly of the monster while Samantha shimmies her way up the ant. I can tell the queen is going to spit poison again. To get clear of the spit I start running to the side. Samantha brings her spear down to kill the queen but also it changes the directory of the spit. 

The poison sprays to the sides of its mouth and my face and torso get covered in it. I can't see so I wipe my eyes and I begin to loose feeling in my left hand and face.

I need an antidote fast.

I reach for my belt fumbling since I can barely see or feel. I rarely need antidotes anymore so I hope I'm grabbing the right one. Matilda puts antidotes in a skull shaped vial as a joke because the broad spectrum antidote is black.

I don't feel so good.

I hear a thud and.... screaming? The lights that I can see start to move.

Did I just fall? I think I hear Samantha screaming. I can't be down. Not now. Reinforcements have to be coming. Antidote. I need it. 

{Hazel blacks out. Next chapter will be from Samantha's point of view while Hazel naps.}