Matthew crept through the lair of the Pale maw carefully. The cold bit through his coat, shadows trembling around him as he went closer to death.
The smell of rot hit him first. It wasn't so much putrid, but old and heavy like meat left beneath the sun. It filled his nose in a moment and threatened to suffocate him.
He sank against the wall, placing his hand over his face.
After many long, painful seconds he continued moving. Old cat was strangely debilitating in these kinds of situations.
He watched each step, carefully treading over bones and uneven stones. It was like delving into the underworld, each element of the cave felt desolate and eerie.
Jagged black stones, lonely pools of water scattered about, and the skeletal remains of all of the creature's prey. Matthew studied the unfortunate beings, no signs of struggle.
They had all fallen over and just died. Their bones were clean and well arranged, a death so strangely peaceful.
He shivered, then quickly stamped the fear out. He had to remain calm no matter what, if not his death wouldn't be different.
He crawled over a slick ledge, stone damp like cold skin beneath his hands, and felt the darkness crawling over his skin.
The Pale maw was a truly unique creature as far as he knew. Matthew had studied all the inhabitants of the dark forest, they all had supernatural enhanced lethality.
The Light Lurker had its ultimate camouflage.
The hounds had their expansive senses and their unstoppable jaws.
The Seeker could control the winds.
At least that's what Matthew thought.
And the system gave him the biggest incentive the day he walked into the Pale maw's cavernous lair.
As he crept closer to the hidden layer, his status screen popped up with the same prompt it showed him that fateful day.
You have entered the trial of a Legacy creature—The Pale maw.
Defeat it and claim the special rewards it brings
He needed to kill it and gained its rewards, before someone else.
He paused at a bend in the path, remembering what was ahead. It was where the creature slept.
A chill draft escaped the room in a rush, Matthew let out a tense breath.
There was a fork in the tunnel, there were two paths forwards. He had never gone down the sloping path of the second one, the first was the den of the grim beast.
It was three days ago that he first enter the Maw's lair
In a desperate escape from a group of monsters that could mimic people from his memories. They were a terrifying lot that and he dislike remebering them. Yet the Pale maw was worse.
He had run into this lair unknowingly and hid. The Pale maw sensed the ravenous souls of the mimic monsters and came out to greet the prey.
It was a strange sort of fight, the mimic were savage, bloodthirsty beasts.
The pale maw however was agonizingly slow, but completely unstoppable. Each bite, each clawed strike, simply vanished into the Maw's melting, unfeeling flesh.
The mimics however weren't as lucky.
A single touch from one of the Maw's seven tentacles ended the fight.
They would keep fighting, tearing away the tentacle like it was nothing.
However after a few minutes they would start to slow.
Eventually, they even holding down their own comrades to be touched by the Pale maw.
Matthew watched all of this, it was a harrowing sort of torture.
To watch the mimic wearing his sister's face fall to its knees in front of the Pale maw and have its soul ripped from its body.
Matthew silently cursed, wading through knee-deep water, there was a faint sound of water flowing cutting through the silence of the dark cave.
Matthew walked into the resting place of death, water dripping from his jeans and shoes making awkward noises.
The area around the maw was even darker than the rest of its lair, it enveloped him in a cold embrace that made him feel sluggish and weak.
The air was even heavier with the stench of death and decay.
He could barely see a thing, he ran his fingers across the damp, black stone and watched the maw sleeping. If he could see it now, he felt his disgust would reveal him.
A massive pile of rotting white flesh dominated the mid sized cave, holes pitted its body pulsing with a strange breath like a rising yeast. It boiled and popped disgustingly like a strange soup, Matthew stuffed a ball of cotton in his ears scowling.
He found a soft pile of dirt and stuck a wooden torch in it. He held his breath, then pulled out a lighter and brought light to the dead cavern.
A tentacle swam through the air casually, right above his head.
The beast seemed unresponsive, he shrunk from a tentacle that got a bit close.
When he turned back, he jumped back in fright, Stifling a shameful scream.
All around the white monstrosity were creatures of different sizes and shapes.
It looked like a ritual—mindless beings gathered around the demonic creature, waiting for it to wake. Waiting to sacrifice their souls to it.
Matthew knelt and forced himself to calm down quickly.
He could feel the rotten existence of the Pale maw intensifying. The tremors running along it began to subside as he calmed down.
He began to search the forms of the different monsters. Black hounds, mimics and strange centipede like beasts.
He didn't know how much the thing needed to eat to stay moving, but he wagered Mable's life on the possibility it hadn't killed her yet.
And he was right.
Mable's skin, once warm and brown, had taken on a chalky hue under the torch's light, her lips trembling from the cold. Her pupils dilated under the sudden light, lost brown eyes vacantly staring at the roof of the cave
He didn't try to talk to her or even touch her just yet, he moved to the entrance of the lair and shouted, "She is still here!"
Matthew turned back to the sleeping monstrosity, one of its tentacles rose weakly. A tremor rolled under his foot.
A wet, stomach-turning pop.
One of the Maw's many holes exhaled a slow, syrupy breath. More tentacles twitched. Matthew's fingers tightened around his belt knife. Not yet. Not yet.
He wasn't worried however, because the Pale maw couldn't hear or see or even sense living things through traditional methods.
It could only sense souls.
It was how Matthew barely escaped last time. After deep analysis of his escape from the Maw he realised that it had only come after him when he looked back.
When he felt a sharp cut in his heart seeing the mimic wearing his sister's face fall dead on the black stone.
The pain he felt and later the fear of the Pale maw seeing him allowed the creature to sense him.
It was why he had volunteered to enter the lair and save Mable. Of course this would come with a lot of good will, but more importantly he had many stealth enhancements already.
Even with his wet clothes making noise, he found it hard to sense his own breathing. Matthew had inferred that this concealment reached his soul to an extent.
Hard emotional responses, however, would break it.
Matthew held back his breath and avoided looking at the creature. He moved away from the entrance and waited for Gareth and the others to begin the plan.
He didn't hear anything, but the Pale maw sensed them. The monstrosity curled up, the pale mass of flesh began to move to engage the intruders.
Matthew held his breath, eyes narrowing as he focused. If the creature tried to eat any of its waiting snacks he would have to save Mable immediately.
The morbid creature ignored its snacks rolling forward so slowly, crushing one of them. It pressed its bulk forward, and the black hound beneath it popped like fruit under a boot.
Matthew closed his eyes and pushed the wax plugs deeper into his ears as the sounds of bone shattering and pulping of skin filled the desolate cave.
Matthew stayed still and emptied his mind for nearly five minutes before the sounds of wet flesh passed. He realised he had barely been breathing and dropped to his knees slightly lightheaded.
He looked up at Mable who was slowly walking out following the Pale maw. He snarled, "It's now or never."