35. Slice and Dice

As soon as the Miner got outside of my space, I felt the worm’s aura attack him. We were inside its body, so its aura was strong.

I’d never felt an attack like this. Actually, I’d never felt my soul creation like this before. It was like he was a tiny piece of me. I could see, hear, smell, taste—almost like I was really there with him.

Despite the severity of the situation, I couldn’t help but give a proud smile. My soul creations had come a long way from having to use Walkie Talkies to communicate.

I focused back on the worm’s aura again. I’d never felt exactly how it affected my soul creations before. I just knew that they didn’t like it, and they took damage when they were around living things.

Now, with my new connection to my Miner, I could feel the worm’s aura chipping away at my construct. It was like my soul creation was a woven knot of magic, and the aura had hundreds of fingers picking at the threads—looking for a way to unravel it.

The Miner, however, had an insane amount of detail, and the fingers weren’t able to find purchase. This was where having one good-quality Miner was much better than several lesser ones. The aura was still doing some damage, but it was a lot less than what it would have been.

The best part was that the damage was repaired almost instantly. The healing rune in the druidium fixed any problems and didn’t allow the aura to sink in and actually take hold.

‘It”s sort of like teeth,’ my Analytical Side spoke up. ‘The worm’s aura is like bacteria, trying to break the tooth down. If it can find a weak spot, it can settle in and cause a cavity. From there, it can reach the core of the tooth and rot it out—destroying it.’

‘Thank you, oh great dental master,’ I said playfully, followed by a deep bow. ‘Thank you for showing me the truth.’ I pronounced it very close to “tooth,” and my Analytical Side gave me the hairy eyeball.

‘I just thought the analogy was apt,’ he said stiffly.

‘You’re right,’ I replied. ‘I always value your input.’

‘Of course,’ my Analytical Side replied grandly. ‘Wisdom is always welcome to the wise.’

‘You’re great at molaring things over and finding the tooth,’ I said as seriously as possible.

That got me another hairy eyeball and a snort.

‘Sometimes, I just can”t work with you,’ he declared and stormed off.

‘You want the tooth? You can’t handle the tooth!’ I yelled the mangled movie quote at his retreating back. Teasing him was one of my great joys in life. Especially since he could give as good as he got.

If I were at home, I’d have loved to have a glass of wine and spend some time thinking of more tooth puns. But I wasn’t at home and the clock was ticking.

I gave a deep mental sigh and focused back on the task at hand.

‘Ready?’ the Miner asked.

I nodded, and we took off.

The Miner was fast! I wasn’t expecting that. I figured he’d be a bit quicker, but not like this. Now he was Ironman fast.

We shot across the first stomach and then resized for our journey down the passage to the second stomach. It was clamped shut at the moment, but the Miner shrunk down smaller than a period, and we easily made it through.

The second stomach was intense. Annabeth had theorized that this was where the acid would be the worst, and she was right. Ropey strings of slimy acid fell from the top of the stomach into a pit of rocks, bones, and chitin. Any flesh that once surrounded them had been melted away. Except for the teeth. I saw the skull of some sort of creature, and the teeth were still attached.

Ugh.

This place was nasty.

Based on all the bones and chitin, this worm had deviated a lot from its normal mineral diet. I was sure it was the influence of the red magic, but this massive creature had turned into a carnivore.

I thought most creatures expelled the bones they ate, as they were too hard to digest. Apparently, this worm didn’t think so. These bones weren’t going anywhere in their current form. And sure enough, it looked like the bones were gradually dissolving.

I didn’t have any idea of how tough chitin was compared to bones, but there were lots of ants and pieces of other creatures here too. I tried not to look too closely, but I was sure I saw a few spiders. I guess the worm wasn’t all bad.

The Miner slowed down and avoided touching anything. That was harder than it sounded as this stomach was constantly shifting and agitating its contents. It was stirring the pot and making sure nothing could hide from the acid breaking it down.

As we zoomed along, I was very glad I wasn’t here in person. I wouldn’t have been able to stay above the worst of it and skim over the remains. Instead, I’d have been wading through rocks and all kinds of dead carcasses. I’d have had to physically push them out of our path, and the way this stomach was moving, I’d probably have fallen more than once. Being submerged in this putrid pit was a horrible thought, and I quickly pushed it away.

Fortunately, we didn’t spend long here, and soon we were at the entrance to the passage leading to the third stomach. This passage was partially open, but not enough to let any solid bits through.

This passage seemed more flesh-like than the other one, and I felt like I was traveling through someone’s large intestines. I guess that in a way, I was.

We flew into the third stomach, and this time, Annabeth’s prediction was off a bit. She’d thought that this would be the place where the worm absorbed all the nutrients. But from what I could sense, there was still a lot of processing going on.

This stomach’s contents were considerably different from the last one. Gone were the solid pieces of partially digested shapes. Instead, I saw a thick slurry of soupy—stuff. I didn’t have a good word for it, and I didn’t want to think about it long enough to come up with one.

It had the consistency of a bowl of runny oatmeal, and it seemed to be undergoing some sort of chemical reaction. Thick bubbles formed on the surface, popped in slow motion, and formed again.

It was like the contents were cooking somehow, getting ready for the next step. Fortunately, we weren’t here for any of that. Instead, we were here to get close to the worm’s heart.

My Miner skimmed over the surface of the slurry, avoiding any splash from popping bubbles, and headed to the far wall. When we arrived, I knew we were close to the heart, as I could hear it.

I thought the worm’s heartbeat would be slow and ponderous, befitting such a massive creature. Instead, it was actually pretty rapid.

‘What do you have for me?’ I messaged Annabeth, and she replied with everything she’d been able to see or sense about the worm. The amount of detail she’d been able to gather was just astonishing. Especially since she was way up at the front of the worm.

‘I’m getting much better with echolocation,’ Annabeth messaged when I sent back feelings of amazement at just how good she was. ‘Or, in this situation, I guess it would be echo-mapping.’

She was keeping it low key and factual, but I could tell she was pleased with how much information she’d been able to gather.

The worm was longer than I’d expected, and I’d already thought it was massive. The fourth stomach took up almost the entire back half of the worm, which meant that the Miner was almost to the halfway point. The heart was between the third and fourth stomach, but now that I had Annabeth’s layout, I could see it was closer to the fourth stomach than the third.

Looks like we needed to go deeper still.

I incorporated what Annabeth had sensed into my map, and then we flew off to get to the fourth stomach. This tunnel was even more flesh-like, and when we flew into the final stomach, it seemed like this was where the worm absorbed most of its nutrients.

This stomach was smaller in diameter, but it continued way into the distance, beyond what I could sense. The slurry no longer bubbled or churned. Instead, it just sat there, with only the faintest of movements.

The stomach walls were the most like flesh too. In the first two stomachs especially, they had been harder than stone.

We flew up to the stomach lining closest to the heart, and again, I could hear the heart beating. It sounded clearer now.

The Miner paused within a weapon’s length of the wall, and I realized something surprising. I couldn’t see inside the body of the worm.

I’d been so focused on the stomach and its contents that I hadn’t tried to see past it yet. Actually, I could see into the worm a little, about a foot or so, but it wasn’t anything like my normal sight.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked ‘Why can’t you see where we’re headed?’

‘It’s the flesh of the worm,’ he replied, like that explained everything. When I still seemed confused, he quickly broke it down for me.

‘Air is easy,’ he said, gesturing at the space above the tranquil mash.

‘Liquid is harder to see through, especially when it is filled with solids.’ He gestured at the stomach contents below us.

‘Aura and magic obscure just about everything. It is especially bad when aura or magic are bonded with flesh.’ He gestured at the stomach wall.

‘In this case, we have the living flesh of a living creature, which anchors its aura. That is why I can’t see very far into this creature.’

‘So magic, aura, and density are the biggest limiting factors for my magic sight?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ the Miner nodded.

‘Why haven’t I noticed that when I’m in my body?’ I mused thoughtfully. I didn’t expect the Miner to answer, but he did.

‘Your body anchors your magic and your aura in this world. It’s where your power is strongest. The same factors of density, aura, and magic affect your ability to see, but your sight is so strong you can usually see through everything.

‘As your soul creation, I have the power of your magic and a temporary aura to work with. But I don’t have a physical vector to anchor my abilities. On one hand, that makes me more versatile, as I can change my size and phase through objects. Both abilities which have come in very useful before. Plus, I’m invisible to most people. But because I’m apart from you and I’m not anchored to you, I just don’t have the same abilities that you do.

‘If you were physically here right now, I bet you could push the red-eye’s aura aside and see whatever you wanted. Since you aren’t, we’ll have to make do with the abilities you’ve given me.’

He fell silent, and I took a moment to take it all in. This was good stuff!

I’d used thousands of soul creations before, and I’d been able to feel how they worked as a group, but I’d never focused this deeply on just one creation before. It was proving to be enlightening.

‘So does having my full attention and focus like this help anchor your powers?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I can see better, and the worm’s aura can’t damage me as much.’

He paused, and I could tell he was trying to work it all out.

‘I don’t know that I’m saying this in the right way, but I’m going to try. Because I’m made up of your magic, I automatically claim the space I’m in for you. Having high-quality, fully saturated magic means I can claim more space—and the space I do claim is claimed more fully. Having your focus on me enhances my claim even more.’

‘That all makes sense,’ I said. ‘Thank you for laying that out so clearly. It’s almost like I’m a country and you’re my army. Wherever my army goes, I control that section of land while they are there.

‘Keeping with the army analogy, a bigger army lets me control more land. Also, the better they are at fighting, the harder they are to push around.’

Wait a minute. If my focus made my Miner better….

‘Quick question. If my attention makes you better, does that mean my body is currently less protected?’

‘I think so,’ the Miner replied. ‘I just know what is happening around me, so I’m not completely sure. Actually, this whole conversation is new to me. But, yes, I think that when you are focused on one of us, then your body is more open to magical attack.

‘Of course, you aren’t being magically attacked at the moment, so I don’t think you need to worry. Your aura is a lot more powerful than the worm’s, so it can’t harm you.’

That was really good stuff to know, and I could see how it would be useful in battle. I could switch my focus to Red and his team if I was getting hit by a massive punch again. Or I could make sure all my focus was on whoever I was healing. When I was working magic, a wandering mind was not my friend.

‘Have you alway known about this?’ I asked. Something he’d said made me think this might be new to him as well.

‘Not like I’m telling you now,’ the Miner said, and he sent an image of how he’d sensed the world before. ‘I think I instinctively knew what was happening, but I couldn’t explain it. With this latest upgrade, I’m seeing and understanding the world so much better. It makes me excited to think about what might be possible from here. Can you imagine what it would be like having a million triangles?’

‘It would be amazing!’ I said. ‘Who knows what you might be able to do then. Someday, hopefully soon, I’ll have enough magic to make it happen. For now, though, are you ready to take out the worm?’

‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘I’m always ready to work.’

And with that, he started phasing through the stomach lining.

The experience was different from anything I’d felt before. I was used to seeing inside things with my magic sight, but this time, we were the ones that were inside. The flesh of the worm was all around us, touching every part of the Miner. It was like I was trying to squeeze through a vat of silly putty.

The weirdest thing, though, was that the flesh was inside the Miner. We weren’t displacing something solid, like I was used to. Instead, my magic and the body of the worm existed in the same space at the same time.

It was freaky as heck.

My mind kept trying to relate the experience to something I’d felt before—to find some way to normalize what I was sensing and deal with it better. But it was coming up empty.

My whole life I automatically displaced the world around me. When I walked, I pushed the air away, and I took up the space. When I swam or took a bath, I displaced the water. When I moved through my living room, I walked around the furniture. I certainly didn’t walk through it. Trying to move through furniture was a recipe for a stubbed toe.

Now, it was like I was a ghost, floating my way through the world.

My soul creations had phased through things before—regular walls, doors, and lots of stone. What made this time so different was that I was only linked with one creation. And that creation was so much more detailed and powerful.

Once I got used to the physicality of it all, I got hit with the next layer of experience—the worm’s aura. Unlike its body, my Miner could not exist in the same space as a hostile aura. My magic, and the tiny bit of aura the Miner had borrowed from me, was displacing the worm’s aura.

And it didn’t like that.

It didn’t like that one bit.

The hostile aura fought tooth and nail to remain attached to the tissue we were moving through. The strain on the Miner to stay together increased drastically. Instead of probing fingers seeking to unravel my work of magic, it felt like a crew of jackhammers were trying to pry the Miner apart.

Fortunately, my lead Miner had armor now. Self-repairing armor. And the druidium was up to the task. As fast as the red aura damaged the Miner’s armor, the healing rune patched it right back up again.

Of course, it used a bit of magic from the Miner to make that happen. So it wasn’t like the Miner could just hang out in the worm’s innards forever. But it wasn’t a huge amount. The Miner still had plenty of magic left to do what it needed to.

I was so busy adjusting to all the new sensations that I missed the moment when we got out of the stomach lining. Attached to the lining was a dense layer of muscles, and beyond that was a layer of fat.

‘Where do you want to start?’ the Miner asked.

I consulted the map and quickly double checked it against the images that Annabeth had sent me. It looked like there were two major vessels entering the heart on one side of the worm and leaving on the other side. One set of vessels serviced the back half of the worm and the other set the front half.

The heart itself was like nothing I’d seen before. It was almost like four long, flat hearts layered next to each other, and they ran the width of the worm.

‘Let’s cut this main vessel,’ I said, indicating the one closest to us.

I was so glad Annabeth had mapped all this out ahead of time. This worm was massive, and with only a foot of sight, I would have spent a long time figuring out what the heart looked like and where it was. Thanks to her magic sight and echo-mapping, I knew exactly where to go to take down the red-eye.

My Bank Crystal was sending Annabeth updates of our journey, so I quickly included a message of appreciation for all her hard work. She already knew that I thought she was a great teammate, but it never hurt to say ‘thank you.’

The Miner took off, and this time it didn’t feel quite so strange phasing through the worm’s body. I was actually starting to appreciate the experience when we arrived.

‘Cut it,’ I instructed the Miner before he could ask.

I held my breath in anticipation. This was the moment of truth—when I found out if all these changes were going to work.

It was great the Miner could fly faster and that he could survive much better in hostile environments. But could he actually cut? Could he deal out damage?

This was a rock worm after all—not the normal squishy kind. Its first stomach had been too hard for Annabeth or I to cut through. Its blood vessels didn’t need that level of protection, so hopefully, they were softer. We were about to find out.

The Miner fired up his new weapon and kicked it out of phase mode. As soon as he did, the circular saw cut through everything around it.

The Miner swiped, and just like that, he cut through part of the blood vessel.

Easy-peasy.

I almost couldn’t believe it.

The circular saw had sliced through the walls of the blood vessel like it was a cooked noodle. And not even the al dente kind.

The Miner moved forward slightly and swiped again. The blood vessel was pretty big, so it took one more cut, and then it was done.

The blood vessel was sliced in two.

We’d won!

Now we wouldn”t have to risk our lives any more than we had already by spelunking through the stomachs. Annabeth and I were going to be fine. We just needed to wait for the worm to die.

The Miner was ready to zip over to the next major blood vessel, but I wanted to stick around. Something wasn’t right.

In horror movies, someone gets cut and blood gushes everywhere. That wasn’t happening here. Instead, blood was flowing through the vein like normal.

I only had a foot of magic sight to work with, but I soon figured out why.

The circular saw had cut through the blood vessel all right, but it was a nanoblade that had been doing the slicing. The vessel was wrapped in a dense layer of fat, and the cut was so fine, it hadn’t moved the vessel at all.

The walls of the vein were still supporting it, and the cut wasn’t letting any blood out. So from a performance perspective, the vessel was doing fine. Its integrity was still intact. If I left this vein alone, it would probably heal up in a day, and the worm wouldn’t have any clue it had even been attacked.

Okay. So we hadn’t won yet. This was going to take a bit more work.

‘Try slicing it lengthwise,’ Annabeth messaged. ‘Like you are trying to split a straw.’

That was an excellent idea.

And it sort of worked.

The vein collapsed a lot more, but the layers of fat kept the blood mostly together and moving in the right direction.

The obvious answer to that was to cut the fat.

Only, there was a lot of fat.

Oh well. The sooner we started, the sooner we’d get done.

The Miner got to work, and I took the opportunity to check him out. He was holding up well, especially since this was such a hostile environment.

He was still taking more damage than I wanted, though, which was slowly eating through the magic I’d given him. At the moment, I didn’t have any way of getting more magic, so I needed what I’d given him to last, especially since I needed him to take on the beetles after he’d taken out the worm.

Then I had an idea. If focus was the key and he was using a version of my magic sight, why couldn’t I actively claim the space around him and push back the aura for him?

I quickly put the thought into action. I anchored myself even more in the Miner and reached out to everything he could see.

‘MINE,’ I commanded, and the red aura fled.

Wow! That had worked out well. It was nice when an idea came together.

There was one small problem—the Miner was moving. Since I couldn’t claim a large space, I needed to push the aura back over and over again as the Miner flew around.

I didn’t need to focus on anything else though, so it worked out. The erosion on the Miner went back to feeling like gentle fingers, and I saved the magic of repairs.

The Miner was fast, and he had no problems cutting through the fat either. It wasn’t long before a two-foot section of the vein was sliced through, and the fat was sliced through as well.

For the first time, I started to see the result I was looking for. The fat slid, and suddenly, the blood was either blocked or shooting off in another direction.

‘Do the same thing on the other vein!’ I commanded the Miner, and he rocketed into action. We’d taken care of the blood coming in from the back half of the worm. Now we needed to cut the flow from the front half.

Once again, we sliced and diced the vein, and we were almost done with the surrounding fat when the red-eye realized something was wrong. The only warning we got was a rumble, and then suddenly, the worm went wild.

It convulsed, slamming Annabeth and I against the ceiling—along with all the contents of the first stomach. Then it contracted, pinning us against its throat, before expanding back out again.

‘Finish up here,’ I commanded my Miner. ‘Then come back to me. I have to go.’

I didn’t wait for a reply as I pulled my focus back to Annabeth and my body. This was going to be a rough ride, so I curled up in a ball, and Annabeth curled up around me.

The worm rolled, rolled back again, and then slammed itself against the tunnel. We were along for the ride, like a pinball in a washing machine. We were spinning and bouncing, just like all the other stomach contents, which made my vertigo kick in.

I quickly locked my jaws and switched off my magic sight. I couldn’t afford to hurl. If I did, I’d be spewing inside my super suit with no way of letting it out. It was holding my breathable air after all.

Of course, that meant I couldn’t see anything, which was terrifying. My world was pitch black, and I had no idea when we were going to crash into the stomach lining, or when something heavy in the stomach was going to hit us.

This was a nightmare. The only thing I could do was just hang on and hope for the best.

‘Red!’ my Analytical Side shouted. ‘Reinforce Red!’

Oh—duh! I’d been so focused on my situation I’d taken Red for granted. The Hex Network was working overtime keeping Annabeth and I safe. Between us, we had a decent amount of body mass, and we were getting slammed hard against the stomach walls. The worm had just eaten some rocks too, so they were ricocheting around as well. Without Red protecting us, we’d have had broken bones for sure.

We were inside an enemy aura, so this was exactly the situation where my focus was helpful. Without further thought, I slammed my focus into all five thousand hexagons and commanded “MINE!”

The red aura fell back, and my brain just about exploded from all the new sensations. Five thousand Hexagons cheered my minor victory, and all five thousand Hexagons proudly streamed everything they were sensing and doing.

It was mind-boggling.

And also super awesome.

I’d given Red multiple ways of sensing what was around him. The first was echolocation, using four ears, so he had that spatial awareness like Annabeth had. Of course, I was getting spatial awareness from five thousand Hexagons. They covered me and Annabeth, so I was getting input from every possible angle, and the whole thing was overwhelming.

It felt like five thousand people were shoving cell phones in my face and expecting me to know what was on each screen. That wasn’t possible. At least not for me right now.

Fortunately, my new level 24 Bank Crystal came to my rescue. It merged all the inputs together and shoved the resulting 3D map at me.

Oh! That wasn’t hard. That was just like my magic sight. I was already used to seeing everything around me in full detail. It was just that now I needed the extra step of getting the input from the Hex Network.

It took a bit to get it right, but when I did, I could ‘see’ again! The best part of working on this was that it took all my concentration. I didn’t have any left over capacity to feel anxious or scared or disoriented. I was in pure problem-solving mode until all the echolocation inputs snapped into place.

Encouraged by that success, I started working on Red’s other way of seeing, his four eyes. There wasn’t any visible light, so in that aspect Red was as blind as I was. However, I’d made his eyes so they could see in a much wider spectrum, including infrared, and there was a lot of heat around us. Surprisingly, there was a lot of ultraviolet light as well. I had no idea where that was coming from, and I didn’t care. I just grabbed all that information and added it to my mental map.

Seeing everything wasn’t necessary for our survival, but it sure made me feel better. It also gave me something to work on while we were being bounced around. The worm seemed to be slowing down, but only slightly. We had a lot of bouncing left to endure.

Red and the Hex Network were doing a fantastic job and having one heck of a time. Red was almost always enthusiastic and excited, and the entire crew was treating this like a roller coaster thrill ride. Of course, it wasn’t so great for us. I was getting pretty bruised up again.

‘Did you find a brain in the worm?’ I messaged Annabeth, just as the Miner showed up and ducked inside me. I checked him over to make sure he was alright and topped up his magic while I was waiting.

‘No,’ she replied shortly. She sounded disoriented and very unhappy. ‘I’m not good with anatomy like you are. I found the heart because it’s pretty big, but I didn’t find anything that looked like a brain.’

‘Okay. Hang in there!’ I messaged encouragingly. ‘This will all be over soon.’ I sent images of kids having fun in one of those blow up bouncy houses. This was soooo not like that, but it was the only positive image I could think of.

The stomach contracted to a major degree, which gave us a break from crashing into things. It contracted so much, though, that I started to worry about getting squished flat.

‘You can see again,’ my Analytical Side noted, ‘but you aren’t getting vertigo.’

Really?

I was so focused on reinforcing Red and his team that I hadn’t noticed.

‘I would conjecture that since you are seeing through something else, it gives you enough mental distance to create a separate reference point. In other words, your senses say it’s not you being tossed through space, it’s someone else, and you”re just watching.’

That was certainly something to think about later. Much later. When we weren’t fighting for our lives.

‘Also, it might be good to Connect with this red-eye,’ my Analytical Side suggested. ‘You can probably sense how it”s doing and how long it has before it expires.’

That was an excellent idea. My Analytical Side was on a roll! Pun intended.

I mentally let go of the five thousand Hexagons, plunging me back into darkness, and reached for the worm.

I was used to fighting red-eyes for a Connection, but we clicked almost instantaneously.

The worm was a simple creature. It wanted to eat rocks, poop rocks, and crawl around through its tunnels. That was it.

The worm’s story was similar to the ant generals. It had been eating and tunneling one day long ago when it had encountered a mage. The mage had injected it with horrible red magic, forced it to grow, and made the worm become one of the mage’s guardians.

From that moment on, the worm had become deeply unhappy. It couldn’t crawl where it wanted, and it was forced to eat non-rock stuff. This non-rock stuff wiggled and tickled inside it and made an awful smell. Many times it got so bad the worm couldn’t taste the rock at all.

Its basic nature was similar to a cow enjoying a field of grass. That was what it wanted to get back to. It hated being an ambush predator.

Unlike the ants, this red-eye wasn’t filled with rage. It was filled with a mixture of frustration and sadness. It was supposed to have done ‘something’ long ago. I got a feeling like splitting? Or reproducing? I wasn’t sure.

It felt like a renewal of some sort, like leaving a shell behind and becoming both smaller and greater. I didn’t have any human experience to compare it to.

The worm was a simple creature. I’d thought of a cow earlier, but this worm was simpler than that. It still had feelings, though, and I couldn’t help but reach out through our Connection and let it know that everything was going to be alright. It was going to be free from the red mage soon enough.

I ran my ‘fingers’ through its feelings like they were fur. I sent soothing thoughts and soft murmurs of comfort. Its time in this world would soon be over.

‘Being of Power?’ the worm queried.

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘But not evil. I don’t want to control you.’

‘Take Power?’ it queried again, and this time it thrust the red magic at me.

Well, this was an interesting development. I didn’t have my Grannies here to clean the magic, but now I could do that on my own.

‘Yes,’ I said and reached for the magic.

The worm threw it all at me, but I forced the red-eye to slow down and hand it over a piece at a time. I treated the red magic just like the strands I’d found in the level four ants. I reached out with my intention, stripped away the red ownership, and claimed it as my own.

For such a huge creature, it didn’t have a lot of red magic controlling it, so the hand off happened pretty quickly.

‘New me. Next me.’ The worm sent an image of a much smaller rock worm, but this time it was dark as midnight and had scales made of some sort of mineral. It gave the impression that it had been lovingly working on this next version for a long, long time. ‘No hurt?’

I felt the desperate plea to leave this little one alone. It assumed I could capture and control it like the red mage had, and it wanted to be free. It was so simple, like the smallest child, but the need it communicated was as big as its enormous body.

‘No hurt,’ I agreed. I sent back images of the little worm wiggling its way down the tunnel. Free as a bird. I also sent a touch of my Mark of the Deep Earth as I wished the little worm well.

‘Earth Child,’ it sent back. ‘Blessings.’

I wasn’t sure if the massive rock worm was blessing me or if it wanted a blessing. But at that moment, it expired. The dragonfly Stamped it, and suddenly, Annabeth and I fell a short distance to the ground.