### 186

Your killing blow opens a gash across the giant insect’s belly and brings the creature crashing down into the plant’s corolla. Hurriedly you retreat along the stamen and narrowly avoid being crushed to death beneath its huge rainbow-coloured torso. You have triumphed in combat, yet the creature’s death has thwarted your chances of escaping this way. Slippery ichor drips from its fatal wound and runs along the stamen, making it difficult for you to maintain your grip, and the bulk of its lifeless body now blocks any chance of your being able to escape upwards.

Reluctantly you are forced to retreat all the way down to the bowl of the corolla, to where the hollow stem is the only chance you now have of getting out of this sinister plant alive.

Turn to 103.