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Royal Honey Night
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After checking one last time that the creature was out of earshot, Eev made her way down out of the tree and towards the thing’s cave as fast as she could. The entrance was large and looming, and the river flowed evenly to the left side, making a convenient path for her to enter on the right. The smell inside the cave was so powerful that it actually made her stop for a moment and catch her breath before entering again. The whole cave was oddly well lit, though she couldn’t see where the light was coming from. Not long after entering there were some oddly smooth steps that led down into a large open area, and all about Eev was horrified to see gore caking the walls. Pieces of bone and flesh were scattered with wild abandon, as if the monster had mostly torn its prey apart rather than eat it.
Managing to keep her food down with great difficulty, Eev was finally able to take her eyes away from the carnage. As she covered her mouth with a cloth and began breathing deeply, Eev saw something else that managed to drive even the thought of her surroundings out of her mind. Against the back of the cave was a dull metallic wall that gleamed in the low cavelight. Metal was something rare and precious in her village, and it never looked anything like this. There was clearly a door set into the left side of the wall, and metal tracks leading to another much larger door on the right.
After a full minute of wonderment, Eev straightened up and told herself that this was not why she had come. The death of the monster was all that mattered, and she would deal with all this afterwards. A search of the cave revealed nothing useful apart from one broken spear haft, so Eev quickly left the cave and gathered up a couple sturdy pieces of wood, dragging them back inside after listening intently for the creature. The next half hour was taken up with the laborious task of making points out of her three sticks, poisoning the tips, and setting them up at the bottom of the ramp angled up and towards the entrance before covering them with some leaves. Once she finished, Eev found a clean patch of ground near the strange metal wall and waited.
It was hours before anything happened. While she paced anxiously, Eev was aware of the light slowly dimming outside the cave, though that strange light persisted all around her. She was sure that the creature would make noise again as it had earlier, and was therefore shocked when the thing suddenly seemed to appear noiselessly in the mouth of the cave. In its’ mouth it held an enormous crocodile, over eight feet in length, though it was quite dead by now. There was an almost comical moment as the two stared at each other, both not knowing exactly what to do. The monster acted first, dropping the corpse and surging down the hill. It began to roar, white foam starting to form at the corners of its’ mouth, until it hit the spike trap. The broken spear haft, which was over four feet long and quite sturdy, was wedged solidly between two rocks. Buried at least a foot into the thing’s guts, it had stopped the forward momentum entirely.
Eev allowed herself a confident smirk. Now, when the creature backed off to rethink the situation, it would give the poison time to work. The smile died from her face however, when the monster merely snarled, and pulled itself forward anyhow. The spear haft remained stubbornly in place, and Eev could see the thing ripping through the creature’s insides, spilling guts and entrails everywhere. The horror had only a moment to sit in her mind, because while the thing was dying it was not dead yet. It snapped at her with long teeth, and she had to backpedal to not have her head taken off.
Bracing herself, Eev readied her spear as the monster prepared to snap at her again. When its’ head shot forward, Eev thrust at the same time, catching it in the eye. Pulling the spear out with a savage twist, Eev was able to get out of the way as the creature began thrashing around on the floor, leaking blood everywhere. It did not die slowly, but she watched every moment of it from a safe distance. Though she did feel some pity for the creature, especially because it seemed so pitifully weak and skinny, there was a grim satisfaction that completely smothered that feeling.
Finally, after the thing had stopped moving for nearly an hour, Eev noticed something among the scattered entrails that made her approach cautiously. There was a small glass-looking sphere, which was blinking slowly but steadily with a red light. With some hesitation, Eev reached down and picked up up gently, wiping the blood off with a scrap of cloth. It continued to pulse gently with that red light. Weighing it in her hand, Eev stared at the body of the dead creature. It began to dawn on her that she’d have to do something eventually. She couldn’t stay in this cave all night.
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