Ch. 72 - Toad

Toad

Alice could only stare as the huge toad labored to fully emerge from the murky depths of the underground lake and finally clambered on the soft and muddy ground surrounding it; its wide, webbed feet displacing a mudslide of dirt and water every time it moved.

Despite its squat body and somewhat short limbs, the monster was incredibly bulky, standing over three meters in height and more than twice that in length.

It possessed two round, bulging eyes as big as a car’s rims, its purple retinas cut in the middle by thin, horizontal pupils.

Behind the eyes, like overfilled abscesses or tumoral growths, she could see two thick bumps of flesh that protruded from its head, just over the round openings that were its earholes.

Its rough and warty skin hung loosely on its body as if the creature had lost some weight or, worse if it had molted and decided to keep wearing the old dermis over the new one.

The young woman gagged when she saw the numerous, ragged holes in the toad’s outer skin, each one twitching and squirming for the tadpoles they contained, holding them like a decomposing corpse held maggots.

Her vomit streamed down the curved mushroom cap she was hiding upon and pattered on the ground below while she brushed the acidic saliva from the corners of her mouth and raised her eyes towards the creature once again.

She watched in horror as each of the pollywogs started planting their hollow tooth into the many warts on the creature’s skin, causing it to shiver and twitch while remaining otherwise immobile in its spot.

They are sucking it dry. I wonder if it’s their parent and it's dying… or if they are just horrid cannibals.

The longer she waited, however, the more her initial assumption seemed wrong.

Not only was the toad completely unbothered by the numerous syringes that had been stabbed into its body, but the tadpoles themselves had started gradually shrinking in size instead of growing even larger, their bloated bellies turning thinner and thinner as time went on.

Alice thought back of her investigation on the tadpole and of the large sack that occupied a large part of its body; only at that moment, she finally realized what was actually happening, her disgust growing ever greater the longer she contemplated the truth.

Whether its brood or a completely different symbiotic species, the tadpoles were the giant toad’s solution for obtaining enough food without actually moving away from its territory.

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Less than an hour later, Alice was still in the same spot as before, watching the horrid creature as it basked in the few rays of sunlight it had available, sometimes moving just a bit to the right to follow the slowly moving radiance on its regular path.

Still embedded in its gnarly warts like giant, slimy ticks, the numerous tadpoles twitched and pulsated in a horrible rhythm, their legs hanging limply against the creature’s sides while their bellies inflated and deflated as if they were repeatedly getting filled and emptied of some kind of liquid.

In the meanwhile, she was still wracking her mind to find a way to cross the distance that separated her from her goal while avoiding the monstrous guardian of the lake.

The sunlit pile of rubble seemed to be calling to her and she so wanted to answer.

Slowly, she started crawling backward on her belly, using the thin stalk of the mushroom as a way to avoid getting seen by the toad while she moved away from the fungus.

With a final grunt, she pushed herself backward with her arms and dropped on the soft ground with a squelching sound that was far too loud for her liking, immediately stilling and straining her ears for any signs of having been discovered.

A few very tense seconds later, she exhaled the breath she was unconsciously holding in her lungs and started moving towards the denser part of the forest, moving backward to keep an eye on the massive amphibian.

When she finally reached the safety of the stalks, the young woman started moving from one side of the forest to the other, brainstorming possible plans while, at the same time, searching for a spot where the monster wouldn’t notice her as she crossed.

It took her a long time to finally reach the edge of the cavern but when she finally did, Alice took her time to inspect the wall of stone in front of her before placing her hand on its smooth and hard surface with a defeated sigh.

One of her ideas had been to reach the opening from above and she had hoped the wall would have just enough gashes and protrusions to allow her to climb while staying well away from the waters. To her dismay, however, she found the rock to be incredibly smooth, even unnaturally so.

Why is it this way? There is no way this happened on its own. Is there a cousin of the spark blugs that is a fan of smooth finishes?

She had no answers to that particular line of question.

That avenue closed, she wondered whether she would be able to replicate the crazy pigmented cells she had observed on the Rocktopus skin just a few days before, the ability to change color would be an incredibly useful one against the many predators that were sure to roam the outside.

At the same time, however, those changes would surely take a long time and she definitely wanted to get very far away from the toad in the least amount of time possible.

For that reason, Alice focused back on the creature, searching for some kind of opening in its routine.

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Another night came and went and the tired girl had found no obvious way to avoid an encounter with the creature.

During the day, the toad would bask into the sun for as long as possible, barely moving until the rays of sunlight disappeared and darkness came back.

As soon as the creature didn’t feel the warmth on its skin, it would start shivering and contracting its body to release the tadpoles that had been clinging to its skin, dropping them on the ground to hunt for its food while it moved back into the water with loud splashing sounds.

At first, she had been waiting for the night to cross the lake while the creature hopefully slept.

To her dismay, however, some of the hunting packs seemed to be very keen on roaming the territory around the lake, sometimes using their toothless mouths and their taloned feet to clumsily dig into the ground, searching for the creatures that dwelt in it but never straying too far into the forest. These particular tadpoles were a bit smaller than the ones that ventured in the jungle but, even then, they were still far too many for her to fight without some kind of advantage.

Thus, she had remained hidden and had kept watching.

At one point, as the rest of the tadpoles started returning to their ‘leader’, Alice had noticed that one of them seemed to be particularly injured, the hollow tooth of its mouth hanging loosely before its mouth, barely held by a torn layer of bloody tissue while dark blood flowed out of the many wounds that marred its body before seeping into the ground.

At that sight, the toad had suddenly shook itself away from its daze and had clumsily turned its body to face the injured being.

The tadpole, for itself, had held completely still in front of the monster, slightly trembling on the spot until, after a few seconds of silence, the massive amphibian had suddenly opened its mouth and, with lightning speed, had extended a huge and fleshy tongue that had slammed against the tadpole, sticking against it and reeling it straight into the mouth.

The young woman had watched in horror as the unfeeling being munched a couple of times on the gurgling tadpole before swallowing the bloody remains with a loud gulp that resonated horribly in the air.

The toad, however, hadn’t stopped there, moving to the very edge of the lake and starting to brush its hind legs together, repeatedly dipping them in the shallow waters as it worked on the thick coat of clear slime that had started seeping out of the pores of its skin.

Within minutes, the mix of slime and water had turned into a greyish foam where the amphibian had proceeded to depose a bunch of melon-sized eggs before returning back to its usual spot in the sun, laying there as if nothing had happened.

I definitely need to move. If it is able to create more tadpoles, that means that I’ll never have as good of a chance to escape. I’ve killed eighteen and there are probably an equal number alive right now. I’ll act tonight.

It was for that exact reason that, as soon as darkness had returned once again, Alice found herself crawling in the dark mud that surrounded the lake, her entire body and belongings completely coated by a thick layer of the smelly substance that she really hoped would help her remain hidden from the roaming tadpoles.

As she silently crawled in the mud, feeling like the female version of Andy Dufresne, the determined woman kept a firm grasp on her mace, stiffening every time one of the amphibians stopped near her.

Whenever that happened, she would force herself to be as still as possible, not even breathing while her eyes remained glued to the unknowing enemies, waiting for a sign of having been discovered.

She proceeded that way for more than two hours, her heart beating faster and faster in her chest the closer she got to the edge of the gently rippling water.

She had chosen a spot very close to the wall, to avoid as many of the small hunters as possible while also reducing the distance she would have to swim in the lake to reach the first boulders.

Despite all her measures, Alice would still have to cross the lake where the toad slept or, possibly, waited in ambush.

She couldn’t risk trying to travel hidden in the hopes of not getting noticed.

It was time to go all in.

Carefully, she gradually removed the thick layer of mud from her body, trying to reduce her weight as much as possible. She already had a metal mace to carry, any extra baggage would be incredibly detrimental if she wanted to be fast.

In the distance, a tadpole suddenly stopped and started sniffing the air, soon followed by a few others. She forced herself to ignore them as she rose on her feet and tensed her legs, preparing to dive into the water, adrenaline already coursing through her system.

The first warning gurgle echoed behind her back just as she jumped into the lake with a splash, frantically pushing against the water with her hands and legs and letting the surge of adrenaline pumping in her veins counteract the tiring weight of the mace that was constantly pulling her down.

By the time the first of the tadpoles had managed to jump into the water, Alice was already touching the edge of the first of the boulders and hoisting herself on it with a loud grunt.

Her lungs pumped and pumped as she started climbing on the smooth and slimy rocks, moving as fast as she could without breaking an ankle or slipping to her death in the water below, the tadpoles where already trying to follow her up on the pile of rubble.

The panting girl managed to climb three more rocks before she heard the loud and terrifying noise of a large amount of water being displaced just below her, fear gripping her stomach and forcing her to double her climbing efforts as an enraged croak echoed in the silence of the cave.

Two boulders later, Alice finally caught the squelching sound of the large amphibian’s mouth opening wide and, without a moment of hesitation, she threw herself to the side, aiming for the boulder just beside the one she was standing upon.

An instant later, the massive tongue of the toad slammed where her body had been just a few seconds before, clinging to the boulder itself and almost ripping it away from its emplacement, causing a few concerning tremors to shake the entire pile of rubble.

In the meanwhile, Alice had just managed to right herself on the rock beside it, swaying the mace as a counterweight to maintain her equilibrium and already looking for the next step in her climb to get the heck away from the hellish toad frothing at the mouth less than ten meters below.

She was thus taken completely by surprise when the second, smaller tongue of the creature slammed against her chest, sticking to it and reeling her into its expecting mouth with an enormous backlash that caused her limbs to creak dangerously.

Within one of her heartbeats, a very confused Alice found herself getting tossed around in the massive mouth of the frog, rolling around as it squashed her against its palate and tried to rend her body with its sharp teeth.

She, however, had not gone all this way just to get eaten by a damned frog.

With a strained cry, Alice extracted her knife from the sheathe on her chest and repeatedly planted it in the tongues rolling and twitching against her body, moving her arm backwards and forwards to cut into the massive muscles, soon feeling the warm and bitter blood of the creature starting to fill its mouth, its poisonous nature trying to enter her skin and corrupt her organs which, instead, kept it at bay, her skin glowing more and more as her cells consumed the toxins they were coming in contact with.

At the same time, Alice strengthened her grip on the mace and, just as the injured frog opened its mouth to spit her out, swung it with all her might against the lower set of teeth of the creature, soon impacting the surprisingly brittle bone and punching through it with yet another spray of blood that coated her from head to toes.

After that, the frog decided that it had had enough and basically activated both of its tongues at the same time, using them like the ejecting seat on a fighter jet and sending her flying over the lake and face first into the mud surrounding it which, thankfully, managed to soften the impact.

As she hit the ground, the young woman felt a sudden wave of excruciating pain in her left hand as the obsidian knife she was holding slipped from her grasp and basically cut into the flesh of the palm until it touched bone while, at the same time, her mace rolled less than a meter away with a few dull thuds.

Tears filled her caked eyes as she forced herself upright, leaving the dagger on the ground and immediately sending an empowered Hemostasis through her arm while she kept the wound closed.

She screamed, crying out her hatred at the roiling pool of pinkish water and at the giant toad still thrashing in it, at mountain of rubble so close and yet so far away and at the numerous tadpoles swimming towards her, eager to end her life.

She rushed to the mace and grasped it tight with her right hand, the other one already healing the horrible wound thanks to the huge amount of power she was sending there, her cells glowing brightly as her magic coursed through them like a river.

The first of the smaller amphibians emerged from the waters and was immediately squashed on the ground by the human girl that had rushed to meet it head on.

Within seconds, Alice was swinging her mace in a flurry of blows that crushed heads and broke legs until, suddenly, the weapon in her hand became an extension of her body.

She could now feel the wind whistling past the flanges of the mace, the sensation of hermetal against the skin, flesh and bone of her enemies, the vibrations from the impacts as they ran down her shaft and into the hand holding her.

The gently flowing energy contained within her head.

Alice didn’t even need to think to unleash it.

Between one swing and the other, the flanges became sharper once more, the twisted one turning to its original shape just as it met the brittle cranium of another tadpole, pushing through it and pulping the brain hiding beneath.

The mace was her, and she could change herself.

By the time she realized it, the entire pack of tadpole was broken at her feet and the toad was pushing itself out of the water, coming to fight the intruder daring to attack it in its territory.

Alice smiled through the poisonous blood coating her entire body, her teeth shining through all the crimson covering them while the mace started morphing, its head growing sharper while the flanges fused into a single pointed blade that was soon planted into the forehead of the beast, causing it to cry out in pain as the tiny human before it started climbing on its massive head, using the pointed weapon like an icepick until, finally, she was standing on top of its head, somehow balancing herself over its thrashing body.

She slammed the weapon down, breaking through the sagging skin and the flesh beneath, hitting the bone the first time.

She slammed it down again.

And again.

And again.