### 295

The creature’s sharp proboscis penetrates your Backpack and gouges a furrow of skin from your ribs: lose 3 ENDURANCE points.

Before it can strike again, you prise yourself out of the sticky cluster and retreat back along the stamen until you are out of harm’s way. Excited by the taste of your warm blood, the giant insect stabs and slashes wildly, splintering stamen tips and drenching you with showers of sticky pollen. Fortunately, the span of its gigantic wings and the narrowness of the plant’s corolla conspire to prevent it from reaching deeper into the plant and you are able to escape without sustaining further injuries.

Turn to 305.