[Cass]
The night in Rootwater was never silent. Drips echoed, stone shifted, water whispered. But tonight it was different. Tonight it carried a sound Cass had learned to fear — the hiss of boiling breath.
He woke before the others. The shrine's glow pulsed steady, but the cavern walls trembled faintly, like a drumbeat carried through stone.
The eel was moving.
He gathered the elders, Karrek, Eshna, and Rilka. Their faces were pale in the glow.
"It knows," Cass said. "We took too much. It will strike."
"Then we stop fishing," an elder muttered.
Cass shook his head. "If we stop, we starve. If we keep, it hunts us. The choice isn't whether it comes. It's when. We prepare now."
Karrek slammed a fist to stone. "Traps. Spears. We turn the cavern edge into a wall of teeth sharper than its own."
Torv added, "We use fire. It hates the lanterns."
Cass nodded slowly. "Then that's what we'll give it. Fire and stone."
[System Quest]
Settlement Defense Event: Teeth in the Dark
Threat: Rootwater Predator Attack.
Preparation Time: 2 days.
Objectives: Fortify the cavern edge, craft fire traps, defend the settlement.
Failure: Casualties and loss of fishing access.
The hamlet became a forge. Warbles hauled chitin plates, weaving them into barriers at the river's edge. Torv hammered spearheads until his hands bled. Karrek led crews carving fire channels — pits lined with resin-soaked moss, ready to ignite.
Rilka sketched maps of the banks, marking where the current slowed. "Here it will surface," she murmured, eyes distant as if she could already see the beast.
Cass worked alongside them, sweat slicking his back. Every movement burned into him one truth: if the eel wasn't stopped here, Rootwater was finished.
The first ripple came just after the shrine pulsed low. Nets still hung with drying spawn. Children slept near the ward's faint glow.
Then the hiss split the cavern. A sound like boiling stone.
Water surged, black and furious. The eel breached. Its body filled half the cavern mouth, scales slick with fungus slime, mouth a crown of white needles.
Warbles screamed.
"Hold!" Cass roared.
Fire pits flared. Resin torches lit. The cavern shone with orange fury.
The eel shrieked, thrashing against the stone bank.
[System Battle Event]
Enemy: Rootwater Eelbeast (Rare Predator)
HP: ???
Weakness: Fire, Gills
Threat: Swallow / Thrash
The eel lunged. A guard vanished in its jaws before Cass could blink. Blood sprayed across the stone.
Cass hurled a torch straight into its face. Flame splattered, scales smoking. It roared, thrashing.
"Spears!" Karrek shouted.
Dozens of Warble spears struck. Some glanced off. Others bit shallow. The beast writhed, smashing into the chitin wall. Cracks splintered.
"Now!" Cass barked. Torv and two others ignited the resin pits. Fire raced along carved channels, erupting around the eel's flanks.
It screamed, scales blistering, tail smashing stone until stalactites rained down.
Cass charged, spear in hand. He leapt onto the slick body, driving the blade deep into the soft ridge above its gill. Black ichor sprayed hot across his arm.
The beast convulsed, throwing him clear. He slammed against stone, ribs screaming.
The eel thrashed once more, then retreated, body crashing into the river's black depth.
[System Update]
Predator Repelled. Rootwater Access Secured (Temporary)
Casualties: 6 Warbles (fisher, guard, child)
Morale: Wounded
Food Reserves: +8 days
The silence after was worse than the hiss. Smoke hung heavy. Water steamed where fire had touched it.
Eshna knelt over the bodies, her hands shaking as she covered the child with a cloth. No herbs, no roots could mend that.
Cass stood at the river's edge, chest heaving, ribs aching. He stared into the black water. The eel was still alive.
Not victory. Just survival.
Karrek limped to his side. "Next time, it kills more."
Cass's hand tightened on his spear. "Then next time, we kill it first."
[Forum – Global Noise]
[TravelerX]: "New predator event underground. Anyone else?"
[IronFist88]: "Lost half my guild to eelbeasts. RNG is brutal."
[Skeptik]: "Stop pretending underground lords exist. No one survives this long."
[Nocti]: "If they do, they're bleeding for it. You don't fight a beast like that without cost."