A chill, colder than any Cinderland night, seeped into Elias Thorne’s bones. This was the Fracture Depths, a name whispered in fear even by the hardened Cinderlanders. My intellect had guided them here, but now, facing the yawning black maw of this place, my old world knowledge felt flimsy, a thin membrane against a crushing reality. Simulations, ancient texts – they had detailed the labyrinthine tunnels, the warped life, the primal spirits clinging to existence. This body, this vessel of the Howling Maw, was meant to grant me survival. I had believed it, a fragile faith forged in the crucible of my transformation. A scholar’s mind, a monster’s strength – it should have been enough. Stepping across the threshold, my vision collapsed. Not a metaphor. Not a trick of the mind. Literal, crushing darkness. The Cinderlanders, mumbling behind me, stumbled, their crude bone torches failing to pierce the absolute void. This was no game, no map glowing faintly with convenient crystal light. A blindfold wouldn't have made a difference. My breath hitched, a guttural sound that was more growl than gasp. "Damnation." Pure, unadulterated ambush. My old knowledge, my precious expertise, was a lie. The starting points in the ancient texts always depicted bioluminescent fungi, or veins of luminous ore, guiding lost souls through the initial stretches of the Depths. A concession. A developer’s kindness. What if reality was just… crueler? What if the Depths simply swallowed light, spat you out in a pocket of utter void, leaving you to the mercies of whatever thrived in the deepest dark? That had to be it. My mind, ever the analytical engine, seized on the possibility. If the entire Fracture Depths were like this, I wouldn’t last a day. No one would. Still, the raw panic subsided, replaced by a cold, calculating calm. My eyes, honed by the Maw’s influence, began to adjust. Not light, exactly, but an absence of absolute black. Murky, shifting shadows, vague outlines of jagged rock and warped organic matter. It was a sliver of vision, but enough to navigate, just barely. First, I needed to confirm. Status window, equipment log, character sheet, inventory… The litany of commands from my past life spilled from my lips, a whisper into the oppressive quiet. Nothing. Of course. There were no game mechanics here, only the flesh and bone of my new form, the raw, brutal reality of the Cinderlands. "Let's move." A crude, heavy shield, scavenged from a fallen Cinderlander, clutched in one hand. The other, palm flat, traced the cold, slick wall. I moved, a hunter in unfamiliar territory, barely faster than a crawl. Faster wasn't an option. Every instinct screamed caution. Danger hung in the air, a metallic taste on my tongue. "Aaaargh!" Pain. A white-hot spike through my ankle. My nerves ignited, a wildfire of agony. I knew it instantly. A trap. The cold logic of my mind raced to identify the mechanism, even as my body convulsed. No battle log, no text pop-up. Just the brutal fact of a barbed maw closing around my foot. A skitter-fiend trap. My mind supplied the answer, even through the haze of agony. My strategy. It had been flawed from the start. That damned shield. It offered a sense of security, a flimsy comfort against the unknown. But it had also blinded me, obscuring the ground directly in front. If I’d strapped it to my back, if I’d focused solely on the terrain, I might have seen the tripwire, the camouflaged pit. What good was defense if you couldn't see the attack coming? "Hellfire. Hooo…" My hair felt brittle, my teeth ground. I wanted to scream, to roar. The primal urges of the Maw rippled through me, demanding release. But I forced it down, a tight knot in my gut. Screaming wouldn't help. It would only make things worse. Thump. Thump. Thump. My heart hammered against my ribs, a trapped beast. I pressed my lips together, forcing slow, deliberate breaths. My mind raced, pushing past the pain, prioritizing. Only one type of creature in the Depths, according to ancient accounts, used such traps. Skitter-fiends. And where there was a trap, there was a trapper. Somewhere close, one lurked. I raised the shield, instincts taking over, covering my head. Then, absolute stillness. I held my breath, focusing on the echo of my own blood in my ears, straining for any sound in the suffocating darkness. Nothing. A silence so profound it felt like a physical weight. Was it gone? My intellect toyed with the idea. Perhaps it had left its ambush point, searching for food, or simply relieving itself. Even monstrous creatures had their moments of mundane necessity. "No, that's weakness." I crushed the thought. Positive thinking was for fools, for those who didn't understand the Cinderlands’ brutal indifference. What I needed now was a negative mindset, a relentless assumption of the worst-case scenario. If I couldn't be sure, I would assume the worst. The skitter-fiend had heard my grunt of pain. It was hidden, a predator in the dark, patiently waiting for my strength to bleed out, for my will to break. That was why I heard nothing. Because, in the old texts, in the simulations… if there was a trap, there was always a skitter-fiend. "Whew." The breath I'd been holding escaped, a thin plume in the cold air. The silence was a double-edged sword. It meant I could hear it when it came. For now, I had to act. "Huuup!" Crouching low, I gripped the crude trap's jaws with both hands, muscles straining. I pulled. A sickening tear, then my foot was free. My trousers, already torn, were now a tattered mess. I ripped off a strip, exposing my mangled ankle. The crude leather sandal was ruined, twisted beyond recognition. I kicked it away, its uselessness a final insult. Damned Cinderlanders. Even a pair of simple, leather-bound boots might have provided enough protection to withstand such a flimsy trap. "Stop it. This is useless." My mind snapped, the bitter self-pity a fleeting weakness. Lamenting the past was pointless. My own fault, for not checking the ground, for trusting in a fragile, false sense of security. Whining was for the weak. I needed to assess the damage. "This is bad." My right foot. I couldn't feel it. A dull, spreading heat, yes, but even that was fading, swallowed by a growing numbness. Paralytic venom. It had to be. "I know you're there. Show yourself." My voice, a low rumble, seemed swallowed by the thick air. Still, no sign of life from the oppressive gloom. So, I pushed forward, a limping, uneven gait. Step. Step. The leg throbbed with a dull ache, but the pain wasn't as crippling as it should have been. The venom, perhaps, was still doing its work, suppressing the worst of it. Whether that was a blessing or a curse remained to be seen. "Come out, you foul beast." I didn't hesitate to provoke, to challenge the unseen. Time was not my ally. If a fight was coming, better to face it now, while I still had some semblance of movement. Injuries were one thing. Reinforcements were another. "Not coming out, are you? Then I'll come to you." I picked up the pace, a frantic hobble. It felt like a full sprint, every muscle protesting, every breath burning in my chest. One step, then another. My right foot screamed. The numbness shattered, replaced by a searing, relentless agony. "Sssspp, haa, haa…" Two possibilities: the venom's effect had worn off, or the pain had become so immense that even the paralytic properties couldn't suppress it. Neither was a particularly comforting thought. But at least, if I could feel the pain, it meant the nerves were still alive. Why was I thinking so positively? I had no energy to spare for such introspection. "Your mother was a howler-beast's whelp!" Words poured out, unfiltered, a primal torrent. My brain felt scorched, parched. Was it the blood loss? The venom? "Your father, too, a stunted spawn of the Mire!" My feet kept moving, a relentless, driven march into the dark. Each step was a defiance, a challenge. "So you are nothing, a festering blight upon the earth, you skitter-fiend!" Then, a sound. Small, almost imperceptible, yet it resonated in the absolute stillness. A wet, guttural *squelch*. Finally. It showed itself. Or, at least, its presence. "What, offended by the truth of your lineage?" I knew better. It wasn't my taunts. The sound came from behind, a low, chittering growl. I was getting away, and it couldn't allow that. I accelerated, pushing my ravaged body to its limit. Behind me, the squelching footsteps quickened, a macabre echo of my own desperate flight. *Squelch, squelch, squelch, squelch.* The footsteps were unnatural, sticky, as if something wet was peeling from a slick surface. The ancient texts described skitter-fiends as small, barely a meter tall. But the pressure, the terror in the dark, felt like something enormous, something unstoppable, was at my heels. To drown out the fear, I kept talking. Taunting. I was a vessel of the Maw now, a Cinderlander by force. If I could just lure it into close quarters, my primal strength, the brute force of this body, would overwhelm it. "Don't just stalk, beast! Come and face me, if you dare!" It kept its distance, a patient, unseen horror. No longer hiding, but maintaining a strategic gap. "Gruck, gruck!" A guttural chitter, close to a bestial howl. Yet, I felt it. The intelligence behind the sound. It was laughing. Genuinely delighted, watching its prey bleed, stumble, slowly dying. It wanted me to hear that sound, to be terrified, to break. Clever bastard. New plan. I stopped. Stumbled, dramatically. My body hit the cold stone with a sickening *crack!* My forehead connected with a jagged rock, a searing pain, but I forced back any sound. This was a test of patience now. If it believed me fallen, dead, and approached… I would win. If I genuinely collapsed before it did, it would be my loss. "Gruck?" Its footsteps drew closer. Slow, agonizingly so. It was suspicious. My mind, reeling from the pain, cursed its caution. Goblins, in the old stories, were simple-minded. Easy prey. But this skitter-fiend, this creature of the Cinderlands, was different. Smarter than the brute Cinderlanders, certainly. *Squelch.* It stopped. Somewhere between five and ten paces away. A dull thud against my shoulder. Then, *clatter*. A stone. It was pelting me. Testing for a reaction. Was it going to keep throwing them until I was just a bloody mess? "Grurururuck! Gruck!" No. A triumphant chittering. When I didn't react to the stone, it assumed I was dead. Prey confirmed. Its steps quickened now, almost skipping. I could feel its excitement, a palpable wave of anticipation. I calmed my own surging primal thrill, counting its approach through the sounds. And then, when it was close enough, within reach... "To the Maw with you!" I erupted from the ground, lunging forward, hands outstretched. Reaching was faster, I judged, than grabbing the shield, striking with it. But in that instant, a cold dread seized me. My plan had gone awry. First, I was still a step short. And second, its movements were far more agile than I had anticipated. "Gruck!" The skitter-fiend recoiled, a blur of motion, leaning back, stepping out of my grasp. It was unseen, yes, but its presence was suddenly terrifyingly clear. And it was alive, very much alive, and ready to fight.

Abyss and Venom