2

That was just the way the world was for me. I'd never experienced the world any different. The three that were with me squirmed as we waited. That irritated me. It wasn't as if we were planning on fighting. 

All we had to do was wait, and follow the ghouls back. Only one of the ghouls seemed to be fairly observant. That was the quick one. The scout. The others didn't really seem to notice us until we attacked. 

The strong one was a problem, but the others were all slow, and uncoordinated. They didn't put up much of a fight so the only two we really needed to worry about were the scout, and the muscle. Once the scout was taken care of the rest should be fairly easy if everything went according to plan. I observed the corpse for some time. I was the only one that was solely focused on the dead body. 

This was supposed to be the tutorial so there had to be a way we could win, and we were just making it more complicated then it had to be. Just like before the scout dropped on the corpse. Slashing deeply into the dead body without hesitation. Making the crude gutting I'd done before look kind in comparison. I drew my bow as the scout continued ravaging the poor corpse. 

Charging the arrow with my pure unrefined mana, and setting it loose. The whole process took about ten seconds, but to me it felt like barely a breath worth of time. I didn't care. I hit the ghoul in the head this time so it died before the arrow exploded. I ducked back into the brush, and focused on bringing my breath under control after that. 

It would take a few minutes for the other ghouls to get here so all we had to do now was wait. It took me more then a few breaths to calm myself down. I hadn't realized my heart had been pounding so hard. I heard the footsteps of the ghouls before I saw them. The big heavy bruiser with his long bone spiked arms was hard to miss in the quiet of the dead forest. 

The others tensed alongside me. I didn't know it was possible to be more tense, but somehow we managed. The ghouls collected the human corpse, and the corpse of their fellow ghoul. Tearing it apart, and stuffing it into their nasty maws. Then they all moved away from us as a group, and we followed. 

Just barely keeping them within our line of sight. I was out front. Determination to get out of here drove me forward with a quiet tension. We'd all agreed on this plan, and we were determined to see it through. The trees just ended at some point, and the ghouls crossed the short distance of tree free ground before walking down into some sort of crevice, and out of our line of sight. 

Whatever was down there had to be the goal. I moved out into the open. Not throwing caution to the wind, but knowing full well that if I didn't go see what was in there we were probably going to die in this dungeon. The drive to escape pushed me forward. I peered down the sheer walls of the crevasse, and realized that we were in much more trouble then we might have thought.

The bottom of the crevasse was squirming with hundreds of bodies. Hundreds of zombies were trapped on the floor of the crevasse. Unlike the ghouls the zombies couldn't climb up the steep walls. That wasn't even the worst part. There was one creature that was worse then the ghouls. 

At first it just looked like a clump of tightly packed zombies, but once I looked closer I realized in horror that it was so much worse. It was a headless monstrosity that resembled an enormous human torso covered in mouths, and eyes. My breath felt like it caught in my throat as my chest went tight. There were random pairs of arms next to each mouth, and the ghouls were feeding it. Tentacles shot out of some of it's mouth, and went into the ghoul's ear holes. 

When the flesh it gathered from us wasn't enough it's massive arms came up, and grabbed two more zombies to stuff into it's horrible maws. Then it stood. It was nearly as tall as the crevasse itself. Nearly a hundred fucking feet tall. It's legs were also covered in those horrible eyes, and mouths with the little arms attached near the maw to feed it. 

There was one maw that didn't have a pair of eyes or arms to go with it though. The one on the stomach area. Then the massive beast's stomach mouth upchucked a blob of fleshy substance. From that fleshy sack another scout ghoul was produced. This was our true enemy.

It had to die or we would die. It would produce a constant stream of ghouls until we killed it. The decision was made. I drew my bow. I hadn't even realized I'd knocked an arrow until it was already being charged on my bow. 

I wasn't thinking. I didn't need to think. Now was the time to act while that scout was still figuring out how to use it's legs. I released the arrow. It landed near the scout. 

It didn't matter. The creature might be fast, but it had no sense of danger, and right now it was still wobbling a bit. It was the only one of the ghouls that could move with any sort of speed. Even the big thing couldn't move that fast. 

Skill level up.

Archery skill is now level 2.

You're accuracy has improved. 

The arrow exploded. Maiming the scout, and several nearby zombies. Good. I thought to myself. Just what I needed.

I'd had enough time to regenerate a good amount of my mana in this pursuit. I pulled out the dagger next. Then the wail hit me. The massive creature who's wail had travelled across this whole region was wailing again, and all of it's multitude of eyes were on me. I froze.