Chrysalis-Chapter 1450: Deep Tribes

"No lies!" Zluth said, trying to stifle his panic. "I am Zluth, Krath'lath of the Slee, from far above. I delivered the message to the Bulg, then volunteered to come here when Ulliz couldn't find a scout willing to deliver during the wave."

"Volunteered?" the Krath muttered, as if tasting the unfamiliar word in his mouth. "What sort of slug would volunteer to throw their life away in the Dungeon?"

"One who has seen a vision of the Maker," Zluth replied softly.

"Maker of Mucus!" the slug exclaimed, slime and goop flying from his mouth. "That claim could land you in worse mouths than my spider here."

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"I know," Zluth burbled, trying not to move and get himself further tangled. "Theorazzn has given us tasks. Are you going to prevent me from passing them to your Krath'lath?"

The Krath shook his head.

"I won't, but I warn you, even if you tell the truth you likely won't make it out alive. There's a reason the Bulg don't like coming here."

This wasn't something Zluth wanted to hear, especially now that there was nothing he could do about it.

"I have a habit of not dying," he replied.

"I can see that. Let's get you out of there."

Zluth expected the slug to cut him loose of the web, or dissolve the strands somehow, but apparently that wasn't how he operated. Despite protesting, cursing and spitting, Zluth found himself unceremoniously turned end over end, wrapping him in webs until he couldn't move, then picked up in the spider's jaws. Only after the trap had been remade did the Krath take him anywhere.

As it turned out, they were still a fair distance from the Slimeground of the Zissth. He tried to track their route through a series of winding tunnels, shadowed passages and mind-bending loops, but had to give up. Even his experience and Skills as a scout weren't enough to memorise the path. Which was entirely the point, of course. The Zissth didn't want anyone to know their home, even those they had caught in traps.

It was a level of paranoia and caution that Zluth wholeheartedly supported, even if it lowered his chances of survival.

When they finally emerged from the tunnel, Zluth found himself staring out into the largest open space he had ever seen in the fifth stratum. An absurdly large cavern, yawning wide before him, possibly a dozen kilometres across. He stared wildly into open space, unsure how or why such a cavern would exist. A moment later, he realised something else. The sound of the heart, an endlessly deep rhythm that rippled through the air and stone, so ubiquitous that he had started to not notice it, had changed.

The tone, the timbre of it, was different. At first, he couldn't understand what had changed, then he realised that the walls of this vast open space, were moving.

He was inside the heart! Then realisation hit him. The Zissth didn't live near the heart! Their Slimeground was here.

"I'll show you something nice," his Krath captor said, and Zluth felt himself be tilted downward by the spider still holding him in its jaws.

It took him a moment, but he soon realised what he was looking at. Down, at the very bottom reaches of the beating heart, he could see a vile slime pooling that was so lurid, so potent, even looking at it was enough to cause his eyes to sizzle with corruption. With a cry of pain, he retracted them into his body, scarcely believing what he had seen.

"Was… was that?" he started, still reeling from the sting.

"The touch of Theorazzn and source of his blessing," the slug nodded, then grinned a savage grin. "This is why visitors don't get to leave."