The crawlspace opened into a small chamber, maybe ten feet across. The walls were smooth, almost glassy, and they glowed with a soft blue light that had no visible source. The air here was different.

  Clean. Cool. The oppressive weight of the dungeon didn't reach this place.

  In the center, set into the floor, was a pool. Maybe three feet across, filled with water that gleamed silver-blue in the chamber's light. Steam rose from its surface in lazy curls.

  John's heart sank a little. He was hoping for another way out. The game had been full of them. Little pockets of sanctuary tucked into the worst dungeons. Places where you could catch your breath, save your progress. Many opened different paths through the dungeons.

  He approached cautiously, half-expecting some kind of trap. But when he knelt and dipped his fingers in, the water was just warm. Pleasant. It tingled against his skin, and he watched with fascination as the small cuts on his knuckles sealed themselves, pink and new.

  John cupped his hands and drank. The water tasted clean, almost sweet, with a faint mineral tang. Warmth spread through his chest, radiating outward. The ache in his muscles faded. The burning in his lungs eased. Even the exhaustion pressing down on him lifted slightly.

  He sat back on his heels, breathing easier. This was good. Not what he needed, but good.

  A sound reached him. Distant. Rhythmic.

  A heavy impact, then another.

  John turned back toward the crawlspace entrance. Through it, he could hear the faint tremors, dust shaking loose from stone.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  He had time. Not much, but some. The Brood was working on rage and instinct, and she was relentless.

  Eventually she would break through.

  John took one last look at the healing pool, its surface rippling gently. Then he stood, drew Moonfang, and stepped back toward the crawlspace.

  The Brood had been busy. The far wall of the secret entrance ahead bulged outward, stone cracked and broken, shattered rock littering the ground in jagged heaps.

  John stopped, feeling the vibrations travel up through his sneakers. Each impact rattled the floor, sending dust cascading from the ceiling. He could hear her now, the scrape of chitin on stone, the wet rasp of her breathing, the relentless rhythm of her limbs hammering against the barrier.

  He walked closer, breathing shallow so he wouldn't choke on the dust. His fingers tightened around Moonfang's hilt.

  The next heartbeat, a large chunk of wall exploded inward.

  Shards sprayed across his face and arms. Through the breach, a single eye stared at him, unblinking, golden, mad with rage. It found him. It hated him.

  John surged forward. Moonfang came up like a reflex, driving straight into the soft tissue. The blade pierced with a wet crunch, and black fluid geysered across his arms, his chest, his face. The Brood wailed, the sound shaking the stone beneath his feet. Her massive limbs scrabbled at the breach, each movement frantic, rabid, desperate.

  He dropped and dove through the hole, tucking his shoulder, keeping Moonfang close to his ribs.

  The Brood's scream rattled inside his skull, warping the air, but he was through, shoes squelching in the ooze on the other side.

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  Behind him, the Brood raged. The sound was like wet meat hitting pavement, rhythmic and horrifying. Her spawn poured from cracks in the walls, a tide of pulsing sacs and spidery, half-formed limbs. John ran through them without thinking, each step disgusting, the creatures popping wetly beneath his feet, slime spattering his pants.

  He juked left just as the Brood smashed through her own barricade. She was a tidal wave of segmented mass and jagged limbs, the impact booming through the chamber like thunder. John launched himself sideways, scrambling up the wet incline of a collapsed rock shelf. Fragments skittered everywhere. The Brood's claws scythed past, missing by inches, gouging deep rivers in the stone.

  She reared back, head sweeping side to side. The gouged eye bulged, black blood streaking down her mandible, but the other was bright and rabid, fixed on him.

  John spotted a ledge ahead, barely a handhold, a torn lip of stone above a slurry of brood sacs and twitching spawn. He jumped, fingers slipping on the glassy surface. For a heartbeat, he was weightless. Then his hands caught the edge, and he pulled up.

  The Brood was faster.

  Her forelimb smashed the rock just below him. The shelf shattered, and John tumbled backward through dust and slime. He landed shoulder-first, straight onto the slick, chitinous back of the Brood herself. For a microsecond, he was folded against her, the carapace flexing under his ribs, the stench of burning slime and rot flooding his nose.

  Instinct, not thought, guided his hand. He drove Moonfang straight up, point-first, through the socket of her remaining eye.

  It burst like a grape, spraying him with hot, stinging jelly.

  The Brood howled, a sound that warped the air itself. She flailed, but she couldn't reach him. Not yet. He had time. Two, maybe three seconds before she thought to smash herself against the wall and turn him to paste.

  John yanked the sword free and stabbed again, driving it elbow-deep into the ruined socket. The Brood started to twist, and he let go, rolling down her back, off the curve of her abdomen. He landed knees-first in a pile of twitching spawn. The crunch was sickening.

  Pain flashed up his legs, sharp and hot. He gritted his teeth and forced himself upright, sword in hand. The Brood spun, mandibles clacking, her ruined eyes leaking black ichor. Her rage was purely animal now. She was guessing his position by sound, lashing out in wild, seismic sweeps.

  John sprinted past her legs, ducking under one, then the next. The tips grazed his hair, slicing away a tuft. He skidded to a stop at the end of the tunnel and tapped his sword hard against the stone.

  The Brood shuddered. Then she flung her entire weight into a charge.

  That was the tell. The moment he'd been waiting for.

  John sidestepped, just barely. As the Brood slid past, he leaped, planting his feet into the wet socket he'd carved in her skull. The momentum change wrenched his leg as Moonfang's tip found the seam under her brainplate. He stabbed with everything he had left.

  The blade met resistance, then plunged through, deep, slicing straight to the hilt.

  There was a terrible, twisting creak from inside her skull as something essential sheared apart. The Brood shook, spasmed, the whole cavern vibrating with her death rattle. She slammed into the wall, then dropped, dragging John with her.

  He landed sprawled beside her, muscles aching, spine screaming in protest. But he was alive.

  For a moment, neither of them moved.

  Then the Brood shivered, a dying tremor. The bulk of her folded in on itself, sagging. Her limbs splayed. There was a stillness, a faint hiss as the last of her life evaporated into the air. The spawn went quiet for a heartbeat, then swarmed her, cannibalizing the corpse, eating her before she'd even cooled.

  [LEVEL UP] x20

  [Experience Siphoned to Unique Title!]

  John dragged himself upright, knees squelching in the mess. His whole body trembled, chest heaving. The gentle, greedy gnashing of the little monsters devouring the Brood's corpse was the only sound. He wiped his face on his sleeve, only succeeded in smearing the slime deeper.

  He staggered onward, shoulder brushing the wall. Every step crunched with spawn shells and cooling brood jelly. The air was thick with a sickly-sweet miasma. At the end of the chamber, past a half-collapsed wall, a corridor stretched ahead, slicked with the Brood's passage.

  The tunnel opened into a round chamber. The floor was littered with egg sacs, but these didn't move, already drained and desiccated, their contents harvested by the swarm. At the far side, an altar rose from the stone, draped in membranes that shivered with his every step.

  On it, a single chest.

  Finally.

  Loot.