Bethany's Profile
Bethany
Moderator
Programmer, writer.
Trophy Case
Seeds of Success
Wrote at least 1667 words on November 1st.
Bethany's Novels
No Dogs in the Tower
Blurb:
A fairy tale mashup. Paisley is locked in the tower so the sickly Queen can harvest her organs. She escapes, only to run afoul of monsters: werewolf, deathworm, troll. She makes friends with a few dwarves and a pickpocket.
Excerpt:
She grabbed the nearest body segment and yanked as hard as she could. At first, it didn’t even seem to notice her. Then it flexed, pushing outwards and hitting her in the face. She lost her grip for a moment, but easily grabbed it again. She tried from a different angle, but it paid her even less mind. Maybe it was desperation, maybe it had been the dream she’d just been having about being a predator, but she did something stupid then. She leaned her face forward and bit into the crease of the exoskeleton between two segments. She used hands and teeth to pull at the vulnerability as hard as she could. To her surprise, her jaw felt strong. So strong that the shell gave a little. Then it cracked, revealing sticky insect guts. The devourer flinched away. It released Conrad, and turned its attention to Paisley. Its stubby antenna quivered. Paisley crawled clumsily backward. Then a pickaxe appeared in its face. The devourer shrieked. It shot sticky, foul smelling liquid from its mouth, covering Paisley. It stung in her eyes and burned her skin. She clutched her hands to her face and wiped as much of it of she could. Through the pain, she opened her eyes the tiniest sliver. Her vision was blurred. She saw the outline and heard each impact as Conrad pummelled the devour. Soon its head hung, half detached, and Conrad used his hand to remove it entirely. He tossed the head aside. It rolled towards Paisley. The mouthparts were still flexing, its antenna waving erratically. Paisley shoved it into the wall with the palm of her hand, careful to keep her fingers clear of the chomping. Breathing heavily, Conrad flipped the insect onto its back, making sure not a single leg had contact with the ground. It made no attempt to right itself. “Is it… dead?” Paisley asked. Conrad shrugged. “It’ll keep moving for a while yet. But it shouldn’t do too much damage now.” The pattering of feet — human feet — announced George’s approach. “All done! Doc’s patching Marley up now, but he’s fine. Ready to get back to…” George trailed off as he caught sight of the devourer corpse. “Oh. You found another one then?”