Ok, oops, I kinda forgot and remembered just now, so apologies

Also

XD, reading through the first part of the chapter when publishing I embarrassingly realized for a fact that it sounded like at any second it would turn into a hentai, but this was already written, I was late, and I didn't feel like rewriting, so plz just bare it.

Chapter 5 - The Omen

As I aimlessly walked through the Dim-litted Maze, with walls covered in half dead moss, I could feel dread in my heart ever growing.

Everywhere I go, no matter what everything seems to look the same, even going back the way I came didn't change the outcome as there were the same forked paths along with its usual twists and turns.

But that wasn't what caused the majority of my dread, that was a severely minor thing, for the past…whatever amount of time has passed, was it hours? Days? Or was that just my mind playing tricks and it has only been minutes.

For the past whatever amount of time, I has been chased by monsters of all sorts, ranging from unholy sized insects, demonic howling in the background that made it seem like it was horrifically close.

Another thing was the fact I Was once again weaponless, armorless, as well as any other equipment, as if he was back in the slave pen.

The worst part was the fact I couldn't remember ever waking up from his sleep. When did I start walking in this Eerie Maze? Why were my companions and fellow slaves not with me? Were we separated? Were they killed?

I didn't have time to muse as my thoughts were broken up when the walls to my right burst open with enormously oily black tentacles that seemed to go straight for me.

Despite my shock and my growing fear, I jumped out of the way, doing a roll in a process, as the appendage hit the wall I've just been standing close to.

Before I could let out a breath of relief, the walls all seemed to simultaneously crumble as more of these enormous tentacles appeared.

Just like the first ones, I tried to dodge and get out of this section of the maze that seemed to spawn these blasted things.

But try as I might, no matter how much I tried to dodge them, more came out, and it wasn't like the ones that he dodged suddenly became unmoving, they too came for me and eventually they managed to reach for me.

I could feel the oily tentacles, as they grabbed me and held me down, my arms spread apart to the floor, I was immobilized, everything seemed to stop, as the tentacles stopped moving entirely, for a solid minute, nothing happened…then something started moving.

My head, as much as I could turn it with my limited movement, I saw the darkest corner of the maze that always seems to be there.

I could see shadows shifting, slowly inch by inch moving from place to place in the same spot,…then it looked at me.

It…looked so WRONG

it's "eyes", no they weren't any sort of eyes, it was more like two blood-colored red orbs floating in the shadow acting like eyes.

It's "body" shifted and twisted in unnatural ways, as it seemed to just take a minute to watch me, then horrifically it maliciously smiled, and smiled, and smiled even wider until it's corners of the "mouth" started ripping, as it looked like it was getting more and more excited based on the fact it's eyes were glowing, and it started vibrating in place.

I started breathing harder, the tentacles held me in place as I could not move,…and for whatever reason,…I could not look away from the razor sharp toothed monst- NO, an Abomination, something beyond a simple monster.

As I kept staring at it, almost a minute has past, it's excitement growing, along with its monstrous "mouth" still having that demented smile.

As it grew larger, and larger than anything I could ever imagine, it's infinite amount of fangs, each different from the rest, with its malicious "eyes", that grew from just two lights to three, then five,…then at last it stopped at eight

Right there and then,…it leaped towards me, , as it rose above me and swallowed me whole,

You wake up breathing hard in cold sweat

I woke up in a cold sweat, as I breathed hard, I quickly patted and looked throughout myself, my sword, my daggers, rope, armor, clothes they were all back on me, and breathed out a breath of relief, then I heard a voice.

"About time you woke up, I betted on the extra portion meal that you would wake up before one of us had to do it," said a very happy voice, looking at them, it was Jimjar, and based on his words, I can say he was happy he won the bet.

I breathed in and out, as I calmed myself then, and wiped the sweat off my head, and looked towards the others, Jimjar leaving to talk with an annoyed Quaggoth.

Who were already mostly set up ready to leave, though to be fair the only ones who were taking time were those who were wearing armor, except those who were wearing leather armor like me.

Sighing, I stood up and made sure my stuff was on me and nothing fell off while I slept, using my mushroom, which I have noticed has already lost a bit of its glow.

Satisfied that nothing was misplaced or stolen, I made my way to the group who had gathered together to discuss our journey.

"…-scaped we are obviously still not safe, the journey despite being the shortest, it is entirely unluckily that she would've just left us alone, she is likely feeling humiliated that every slave up and literally left, the only reason we even got off free was the fact we didn't hopefully leave any hints on what path we took," spoke Shuushar the Awakened, in an accent that sounded like he was talking with water in his mouth.

"Although as most of you are aware most of my people, aren't as…enlightened as me, so they are as likely to help us as they are to imprison us, maybe to the latter seeing as they don't like me too much, but through them we can get boats to go through the Dark Lake," he continued, looking a bit nervous.

To be honest, it came to no surprise that this doesn't sound too appealing, but we chose this destination not because it was safe, which isn't a word that can be placed anywhere on the Underdark, we chose it because it was the closest.

"We will need supplies such as food and water, it is not wise to leave this off til near the next rest cycle, so we should look for food now and come back here in an hour," Sarith added in, Eldeth reluctantly, I can see from here, agrees.

From what I can tell from her killing drows and her attitude towards the other slaves except me, is that she hates and distrusts all things that's Underdark.

"Very well, see you in an hour then," said Buppido, as he already made his way towards a tunnel, in one of the walls of the Terrain.

With us split up to find food in an hour, I took one of the numerous caves, unfortunately this was part of the area where there wasn't any glowing fungi, so I'll have to just use my old mushroom for the moment.

After almost an hour of passing, I almost gave up and just decided to go back, but before I did I noticed groups of Large, Cask-Shaped fungus.

Ok there were two, but they were big enough to at least feed us for today, I myself have no idea where we are going to get water. Before now, my main source of water was from the waterfall back at the Outpost.

At first when I tried to pull the fungi, I accidentally pulled a big chunk off, somewhere around a pound of it, so I depositioned myself better and managed to pull both of them out and started bringing them back.

When I arrived, I saw that Topsy was carrying a bunch of brown mushrooms as big as my fist with Turvy, though considering she was quite small, she was probably carrying around 5 lbs. of food.

Sarith on the other hand had managed to find a Fungi that looked like mine, but was as big as two of mine combined.

Looking at me, he instantly saw my two Fungi that I found, and nodded, "good, you found your own Barrelstalks, this will help us greatly,".

Well at least I now know what these were called now, we waited around ten to fifteen minutes before the rest returned empty handed, except for a stool who waddled back with something like 4 pounds of food, around what Topsy had according to Sarith.

In total, we had around 40 pounds of food, I would like to say that that was very good, as we had enough food for 4 days, though I did see a problem.

"What about water? We have enough food for a few days, but I don't particularly know how we're gonna collect water," and it seemed Eldeth noticed the same thing.

But apparently that wouldn't be an issue, "actually, that won't be a problem, inside the Fungi there are several gallons of water, which is why it is called a Barrelstalk, as it holds water like a barrel" Stool answered the question.

I gave the Fungi a new look, so not only will this be our source of food for the following weeks if not months, but also our water.

Sarith rolled his eyes, "figures that survivors wouldn't know what these can provide them, we have wasted enough time, any more and it's likely they will find us, let's get a move one," as he spoke he gave a cautious look back at the path we have taken.

So for the next few hours, it consisted of mostly walking through the rest of the open space, a cave system.

We at the end of the day came upon another Cave that could act as a shelter like the day before, and set off our stuff.

There wasn't really anything going on, it was just a relatively boring day, but we were surviving so I'm not gonna complain.

Looking around I see Shuushar, meditating near the entrance with my mushroom, which at this point was basically what it looked like at ¼ strength then it originally was at, luckily enough this cave was filled with glowing mushrooms.

With nothing better to do, I went to him, sat down next to him, and asked in Uncommon, "what are your people like, Shuushar," in a somewhat interesting manner.

Literally the only few things I know about him was the fact it was very bizarre for him to be sane, it was apparently treated as an impossible miracle.

That tells me that fish people down here are just naturally born insane or something, and that he is a special…snowflake? The hell is a snowflake?…never mind I will figure it out later.

Shuushar simply sat there for a min, with his eyes closed, I wasn't sure if he even heard me or he was just asleep, which was proven false when he answered me, "hmm, I suppose the easiest way I could explain is that my race, the Kuo-toa, is insane, so insane in fact, that they create their own gods,…I am aware of the fact my people's well deserved reputation, which is why I strived to be different, I am content with my life, and I wish to share that to my fellow Kuo-Toa, I have made a vow that I will not do or uphold violence, be it to protect others or myself, and I have upheld it for years in my meditation,".

…creating gods? Was that possible? My mind was drawing in blanks, I am fully aware of a being that is known, or at the very least has the title of "The God of Gods", but that's from a strange dream on my first day.

Shuushar continued, "the other Kuo-Toa's don't like me, some or even most outright despise me, as they see me as a blastempheus abomination wearing their skin, with my mindset so different from them, I still remember the looks they gave me at the altar of Bilbdoolpoolp,".

My mind blanked

…What the Flying abyss is that NAME, what self respecting god calls itself Dildodoopoop or whatever he just spat out.

"…so that is your deity's name?" Trying to keep my words within, I don't particularly know if he still worships it, so better safe than sorry.

He sat there a second tilting his fish head side to side for a second, "well one of the two, though the other is a lesser worshipped one, though last I have been there only a few worshipped him, with our Archpriest tolerating his worship, the God's name being Leemooggoogoom the Deep Father, their stupid religiousness beliefs, argh why do they insist on practicing worship to such dangerous illusions".

Something about the name seemed to trigger my mind, telling me something is seriously wrong with it, though nothing more seems to come up other than the feeling caused by that name.

"…Shuushar, how did you become sane? Or were born like this?," a genuine question, I couldn't imagine him born like that as his people would've probably murdered him as a kid, I say probably, because I have no clue what the race's behavior is other then "their mad" or "insane god creators".

Shuushar chuckled, "honestly, I do not remember, only that I was like all other Kuo-Toa's I practiced their religion, I believed the same things as them, as well as killed numerous creatures for their gods, it wasn't until one day I saw something horrific that I tried to get away from, which I succeeded, and once I did I realized that killing isn't the answer, that violence should never be the answer, which pushed me to the path of my enlightenment," as he finished his sentence with a smile filled peace contentment to the point I can feel it from here.

After he was done, he finished our conversation, "it is getting late, I am beginning to grow tired, I believe it's also time for you to slumber,".

I sat there for a moment, and noted that I do in fact feel tired and agreed, "thank you for this talk, good night," as I stood up and left to go to my spot to sleep.