Saltisfied...

Luca had been following the trail for two hours straight now... Of course, this wasn't due to the distance of his target, but instead how difficult it was to follow the trail back to it. The blood trail got less and less prominent the further he tracked it, which was counter-intuitive when you come to think of it.

He wasn't an expert by any means, but Luca suspected that the deer had accidentally made it's wound larger than it originally was. It wouldn't be strange for it to overexert itself in a panic after being attacked, plus, it was possible the poison injected into it worked as an anti-coagulant of some kind.

Regardless, he'd needed to backtrack multiple times after following the wrong trail, making the journey take markedly longer than it probably should have. The blood spatters he found on the floor, tree's and plants were nothing but droplets at this point, so he doubted anyone would blame him for getting slightly lost.

Luca stumbled out from a treeline after being blinded by ray of sunlight, he blinked his eyes for a moment as he stared blankly at what was before him... A good distance away was a tell rocky outcropping that wreathed everything beneath it in darkness.

If Luca didn't know any better he'd say that it was ready to fall over at any moment. Though the thing that caught his eyes was the colour of the rocks in the armpit of the rock... It was white.

He slowly stepped towards it, spear in hand as he approached... He was sure the deer had been injured around this area, though with the lack of a blood spatter on any of the white rock that might not be true.

His eyes were drawn towards a large entrance, strangely light seemed to be emitting from within it. Could the origin be magical? Luca shakes his head, it probably wouldn't be good to get into the mindset of 'If I can't explain it then it must be magical... His modern knowledge separated him from the rest of the people living in this region, allowing him to create and consider things they wouldn't think possible.

Soon enough he steps onto the white rock and finds that it has a tiny amount of give to it, softer than most other rock he knew. He licks his finger and drags it across the stone, coating it in a light layer of sandy white minerals. A taste confirms his suspicions, salt.

Well, that more or less solved the tribes salt issues, the only problem now was securing it. He needed to make sure it was safe to mine and transport materials from this area... Not to mention he still hadn't found whatever had injured that deer.

His attention was once more brought to the illuminated cave entrance. He had a bad feeling about that place, the worst part about it was he couldn't encourage himself with the fact that monsters didn't exist... He'd fought and killed one after all, chances are that the giant frog wasn't the only one that existed...

Luca mustered his courage and approached the cave entrance while gripping his spear tightly, ready to strike at any threat that may appear. He walked further in and had found the source of light, a large crack above him allowed a ray of light to illuminate a good portion of the cave... It wasn't magic after all...

*Crack!*

Luca upon hearing the sound leapt backwards and pointed his spear forwards threateningly... He scanned the area and... Found nothing.

"Hm? Probably just a pebble or something?" he mutters under his breath to try and ease the adrenaline pumping through him.

He starts moving again, passing through a narrowing part of the cave before coming out into a cavern of some sort... Again, cracks above allowed sunlight through, giving him a degree of visibility. However, the hairs on Luca's neck were standing on end... Why? Because this area look suspiciously like a boss-fight room.

He takes a cautious step forward and almost tumbles over himself from the sudden change of the ground's texture. Looking down he sees that his foot is firmly entrenched in salt, it wasn't like outside the cave where it was firm, hard, solid. No, this was like sand instead, finely ground, almost like table salt!

*Ruuuummmbbllleeeeeeee*

The salt beneath him begins vibrating, and Luca has no idea what might be causing it. He steps back, off of the salt bed and the rumbling ceases... Could something be beneath the salt? To test this theory he uses the pommel of his recently acquired stone sword and slams it against the nearby wall, cracking it and extracting a large chunk of salt from it.

Luca picks the salt up and throws it as far as he can into the salt bed, it gives a large *Thump!* while kicking up some salt. And, just as Luca anticipated, the rumbling began again, however it ceased a moment afterwards, probably because the chunk of salt was stationary and not moving.

He hums to himself while a few ideas pop into his mind, the most brute force one would be to walk across the bed and try to kill whatever was hiding beneath it. Obviously, Luca was less than thrilled to attempt that method so he'd try to lure it to the surface by creating constant movement on the top of the bed.

*Crack!

He smacks the wall again and gathers a small pile of salt chunks, once done he begins slowly tossing them a good distance away, making sure to not wait too long before throwing the next chunk.

The rumbling began anew, but this time it didn't simply stop, instead, increasing in intensity the longer it went on. Afton ten seconds of this Luca was beginning to get second thoughts, unfortunately, by this time it was too late.

*CRASH!*

Something explodes from the salt, kicking up a cloud of the valuable white substance. It was long and thin, at first Luca thought it was a snake, but the bulbous spiked tip and exo-skeleton lent it more to some sort of insect. Though Luca had never seen an insect even approaching the size of this one.

The tail shot towards where he'd been throwing the chunks of salt, piercing one of the pieces without mercy. The chunk exploded without having a chance to resist, and Luca could see a small spray of fluid being pushed from the tail. He was slightly angry that it was contaminating the salt, but another thought became prominent in his mind... That's what injured the deer earlier!

The creature upon finding that its target was nought by a chunk of rock-salt pushes a part of its body above the surface of the bed. Salt streams off of it like a fluid as Luca realises its many black eyes were looking directly at him...

Trying not to panic, he slowly stands from his crouched position and tries to back away towards the exit... He was beginning to suspect it was blind, but found that he was under the misapprehension that it was just an unintelligent beast... Something explodes from the bed near the solid rock he was standing on and red hot pain makes itself known across his body.

He isn't even aware of what'd just happened until he looked down at the tail piercing his gut... "A-ah, shit." he mutters as what felt like lava intruded into his veins. He could feel it spreading from the wound, liquifying his organs as he was helpless to do anything.

He backs away, pulling himself from the barb that'd been injected a profuse amount of poison into him goes to escape. His limbs feel numb and unresponsive, but from sheer force of will, he throws his body into the narrowed section of the cave... He was sure the creature wouldn't be able to reach him here... It was simply too large to get through the passage.

Unfortunately, even if it couldn't reach him, the damage had been done. His chest heaved as he hyperventilated, his eyes dilate to an almost scary degree as he losing control over his body. Even if he wanted to move now, he wouldn't be able to...

"F-fffuck," he rasps out, using the last of his strength to utter the curse before his heart finally stops. It'd been a while since he last died...