### 257

Forewarned by your powerful senses, you are able to avoid the wriggling creepers by diving and rolling across the spongy forest floor. As you begin to rise to your feet, you fix your eyes on those vines and suddenly you realize that they are not plants after all—they belong to a creature that is hiding in the canopy above. The creeper-like tendrils are part of its natural camouflage.

Suddenly another mass of the tendrils descend and spread out in an attempt to locate you. One brushes against your foot and immediately the others hone in on your position like a swarm of hungry eels. You raise your weapon and strike a mighty blow which tears away a great swath of the creature’s wriggling limbs. A fountain of ichor erupts from every severed end and, from somewhere above the canopy of branches, you hear an unearthly roar of pain. Once more the remaining tendrils seek you out; this time they are no longer soft and fibrous, but stiff and studded with barbed thorns.

The swirling mass strikes out for your throat. Desperately you hack at them with devastating effect yet more and more emerge from above to replace them.

If you wish to evade this creature, turn to 180.

If you choose to stand and fight it, turn to 202.