The impatient monster shuffled forward, anxious to get on with the killing. The growl issued again from ahead of the basilisk but had not come any closer. He came impossibly silent, impossibly fast. In his magical cloak, his piwafwi, he was invisible against the stone, and with his agile and practiced movements, he made not a sound. Again came the growl, and the basilisk hunched down, waiting for the challenger, its next victim, to spring out and die.įar behind, the hunter came out of his cubby, running impossibly fast along the tiny cracks and spurs in the corridor walls. The monster peered ahead curiously, though its poor eyes could distinguish little beyond a few feet. The hunter replaced his weapons and waited for the sound that would spur him to motion.Ī throaty growl stopped the basilisk in its tracks. The hunter had owned them since his childhood, and even after nearly three decades of almost constant use, they bore only the slightest hints of wear. He slid his weapons from their sheaths, gaining confidence, as always, as soon as he felt their fine balance. He watched now as the monster trudged down the narrow passageway, just the route the hunter had suspected it would take. He had witnessed the basilisk kill several of his rothé-the small, cattlelike creatures that enhanced his table-with its poison breath, and the rest of the herd had fled blindly down the endless tunnels, perhaps never to return. The eight-legged monster was the intruder here, coming into the hunter’s domain.
The hunter watched the basilisk pass as he had watched it earlier that same day. This creature, huge and terrible, was among the greatest of its kind. But worst of all was the monster’s gaze, the gaze of a basilisk, which could transmutate into solid stone any living thing it fell upon.
Its breath reeked of deadly poison, the hard edges of its claws dug deep gouges into solid stone, and the rows of spearlike teeth that lined its wicked maw could tear through the thickest of hides. For even in the dangers of the Underdark, this creature knew only security, confident of its ability to defeat any foe. Nor did it scurry for cover, expecting the rush of another predator. It did not recoil at its own echoing sounds, fearing the revealing noise. He monster lumbered along the quiet corridors of the Underdark, its eight scaly legs occasionally scuffing the stone.
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