The scream was close, a sound of absolute terror that made Asari’s gelatinous flesh prickle. It sounded like the Witch, just a few chambers away. Quickly, Asari checked his map. He could see the young woman’s dot moving frantically around the room, chased by something. He couldn’t tell from the amber colored marker what it was, but he had a bad feeling that it wasn’t anything good.

But why did he care? He was a demon. The Witch meant nothing to him. She was just a toy to be used and cast aside when his hunger was sated. Except...she wasn’t. He didn’t understand why, just like he didn’t know why he knew so much about a pub he’d never visited. It was confusing, disconcerting. He tried to shake off the feeling, but when she screamed again, he couldn’t stop himself from charging up the corridor.

This is so stupid. But that didn’t stop him. He bounced into the chamber, exuding multiple tentacles, ready for a fight, but what he found stopped him dead in his slime trail.

The Witch hung from the ceiling, wrapped in a cocoon of shimmering silk, squirming and thrashing as she struggled in vain to get free. Clinging to the rough stones of the ceiling was a fearsome monster Asari had never seen before, yet he somehow knew that it was a Phiddilupus gigantus, commonly called a giant wolf jumper.

The monster had eight powerful spider legs, striped black, white, and gold, and the body of a shaggy black and gold wolf. Its head was covered in shiny eyes, the largest two glowing amber, like twin moons. The jaws were open, saliva dripping from sharp white teeth as shiny black spider fangs emerged from either side of the mouth, oozing thick, oily venom. It looked at Asari and growled.

“Mine,” it rasped, hauling up on the silk and drawing the Witch closer to those deadly jaws.

Asari didn’t think, he just launched himself at the monster, tentacles wrapping around legs, trying to pull it down off the ceiling. It didn’t budge. With a snarl, the jumper snapped its jaws shut on one of Asari’s tendrils, biting clean through the jelly-like substance. The severed tentacle fell to the floor with wet splat where it squirmed and twitched.

Damage: 4 HP
HP Remaining: 11/20

Asari had only …