>>5279095At the centre of it all is the greatest of great-worms, a disgusting and bloated creature whose size is enough even to rival your elder brother: a truly tremendous creature who fills the rear of the cavern with bloated, pulsating bug-flesh, by rhythmic contortions pumping out clumps and clusters of eggs even now. Where most glow-worms boast a dozen or so spike-legs, this creature must have a hundred of the little thorn-limbs, too small to possibly move it with any speed… But then, you get the sense that this creature has not left this cavern in some time. This dragon-sized brood-mother is likely to big to ever leave.
“We havvvve… Vizzzitorzz?”
You flinch and back up slightly at the voice. You automatically look to your brother, though you know the answer before he shakes his head: yes, he heard that too; no, it was not him.
You both slowly turn back to the bloated queen of this glow-worm ‘hive’, who begins to wriggle and jiggle with renewed purpose. The other glow-worms slowly begin to move in tandem, turning to face you as they do so. Not just the greatworms, but every single little glowworm in the huge chamber, begins to bob and wobble back and forth, to jiggle in some great, choreographed ‘dance’ of… Welcome? It feels more like a warning of their coordinated potential, with how they surround you.
“Welcome, zziblingzz.”
The greatest of these worm-creatures slows its movements and begins to rotate in place, unfurling into a longer and less spherical shape as rows of legs unroll and reveal a head and mouth-parts molded by terrible purpose into something ALMOST of a reptiloid shape, with grasping claws and an elongated head. Its many eyes stare, unblinking, beneath eye-spots that seem designed to mimic your own eyes’ placement.
What do you do?
>Run—flee this place, scramble back to the surface, and save yourselves>Let loose dragonfire, and burn this awful panoply of monsters to cinder>Demand to know what these creatures are, and what their purpose is so close to your people’s forward base>Return the greeting, tentatively, and jiggle in tandem; no sudden moves, not yet>Write-in 