Calina looked directly ahead of her at the massive cave opening boring directly into the side of a mountain that she stood before. It was 70 ft tall and 100 ft wide at least, in the shape of a semi-circle. It was made of strange black rock with a wavy, uneven surface, and was covered in thin layer of some sort of glimmering slime. The cave began slightly level to the ground, but quickly descended deep underground at a 45 degree angle, extending far enough that the sunlight stopped illuminating it after less than 50 yards.
Calina tugged at her belt and adjusted her sword at her waist. Despite how many Insectum drone soldiers she had killed while helping to protect her village after seeing hundreds of them came out of this very opening in many attacks, she was quite reluctant to enter. Fighting them surrounded by trusted comrades in a familiar setting like the village was one thing, but entering their lair alone was another matter entirely. She was the best warrior in the village without a shadow of a doubt, but it would have been a foreboding concept to anyone, particularly after their last attack.
It was unlike any attack the village had ever seen previously; thousands of them poured out and descended upon the village with a drive never seen in them before. The village was clearly overwhelmed and on the brink of defeat, when all the drones abruptly drew back into their cave. There was a bigger distinction between this battle and all the rest however; the Insectum captured villagers.
This was unprecedented for them, the drones had always been focused on murdering the villagers, wiping them out and claiming the territory, but this time, it seemed that abduction was their primary goal, as they had captured a total of 46 people. Stranger still was who they had captured; all women, fully matured, but still rather young, all around Calina's age, the majority of the maidens in the village.
Her mission was simple; find and retrieve the captured daughter of the village's leader, and any other captured villagers. When the mission was proposed, most of the villagers dismissed it as impossible and suicidal, and no warriors were willing to take up arms, except Calina. Everyone else advised her to stand down, as no one had ever been known to enter the lair and come back, but she was confident she could save them.
Now that she was standing at the entrance to the Insectum's admittedly menacing dwelling, that confidence was beginning to wane slightly. She glanced down at herself to examine what she had brought with her, having to look slightly over her relatively large bust, which was a regular nuisance for her. She was suited in light leather armor which was fitted to her athletic body rather tightly, a far cry from her usual steel plates, high black boots that unintentionally accentuated toned light-brown legs, her long silver hair was messily tied back, and was carrying a short sword on her left hip, a knife on the small of her back, and a torch in her left hand. She dressed for high mobility, as she intended to sneak in and out quickly, without being seen, but as she looked down the gigantic, menacing hole before her, she wished she had prepared for heavy combat. However, she wasn't going to back down now. Begrudgingly, she stepped through the entrance into the cave.
As soon as she set foot in the tunnel, Calina realized that the slimy, uneven rock surface made it very difficult to keep her balance. She had to place her steps carefully to keep herself from falling down. This task proved even more difficult once the cave began to slant. Once the sunlight stopped lighting the cave, she lit her torch and proceeded while carefully watching her feet. Despite her caution, she still stumbled and fell a fair bit, cursing every time and wishing more and more that she was wearing plate armor.
After walking for what seemed like hours, she tripped hard on a large bump that she had failed to see. The torch clattered out of her hand and she tumbled down the cave. The decline of the cave made it difficult for her to lose momentum, and the slick nature of the ground made her unable to grab anything to stop her fall. Finally, she managed to grab her knife and stuck it into the floor to slow herself down to a stop. She winced as she sat up; there were bruises on nearly every part of her body, ranging from negligible to severe. Something else concerned her much more though; she had lost her torch and the fall had caused it to go out. She was now in pitch black darkness, finding it again was next to impossible. She looked towards the direction she had come from, seeing not even the faintest trace of sunlight. She then looked downwards in the opposite direction, and she saw something. She squinted her eyes and saw an incredibly faint bit of light. She rose, decide to head towards it and complete her mission.
The trek was much more difficult without light, she fell many more times, though never to the same extent as the one in which she lost the torch, each one weakening her just a bit more. Eventually, the cave started to level out and the light began to grow stronger. Now that the lair when straight again, she could see that the light came from a singular source, but she was still too far to see what it was. When she came to the source of the light, she discovered that it was a wall of solid rock with several large holes, each one filled with luminescent pale green mucus-like substance, the source of the light. The mucus in lowest hole was open, and had the appearance that it was burst through.
She drew her sword, wincing as the ring echoed throughout the cave. Almost immediately, three drone soldiers crawled out from the hole. They looked even more menacing in the lighting of their lair. They were 7 feet tall with a roughly humanoid figure, two large arms with four claws on each, two burly legs that ended in Y-shaped feet, an extra set of deceptively strong, spindly arms below their larger ones, a flattened ovoid head with mandibles, compound eyes, and antennae, and they were covered completely in shiny black segmented chitin carapace armor. They rushed at her and she prepared to lunge before realizing that if she tried, she would slip on the ground's surface, so she took a defensive stance instead.
When the first one reached her, she drove her sword between the large armor plates in its torso and dragged upwards, spilling it's innards onto the cave floor and splashing its dark blue blood all over herself, a familiar sensation for her. She quickly turned a stabbed the second one squarely in its left eye, before drawing her knife and burying it deep into the third one's short neck. She looked and saw dozens more drones coming through the holes and surrounding her. She slashed at them wildly, killing many more of them, no matter how many she slaughtered, they just kept coming in droves. Even worse, the unstable footing of the ground and the dim lighting made it more difficult for her to fight, while the drones, being used to it, had no trouble at all. All of them swarmed her at once, and she was finally overwhelmed by their sheer numbers. They forced her to the ground on her back, sending her sword spinning out of her hand. All of them were grabbing at her, tearing off all of her armor and clothes in a frenzy. She kicked and struggled mightily, until one of the drones struck her hard in the face, sending her into a daze. Two drones grabbed her arms and started dragging her towards the hole they came from.
Calina shook herself lucid and started struggling against their grip, to no avail, as it just grew tighter the more she tried. She felt a cool breeze on her body and looked down, seeing with surprise that she was completely naked. With this, she suddenly realized how strange it was that they were taking her somewhere. Usually the Insectum simply ripped apart any person that they could. Given that they weren't doing that to her at this moment, she assumed the had something worse in mind for her. The two drones moved her through the hole, followed by eight more, while all the other crawled into the various other holes in the wall. It led to a rather small tunnel that the drones were too tall for; they had to duck their heads to pull her through it. The tunnel was winding path into a smaller circular cavern. This "room" of sorts was about thirty feet in diameter and ten feet high. It was covered in a thick layer of the glowing slime, so the ground was much softer, and there was a large pitch black hole in the ceiling that was constantly dripping clear fluid.
They moved her closer to the edge of the hole. Once they did, long, gray tentacles began to emerge from hole. They were about six inches thick and covered in clear slime. Four of them wrapped themselves around Calina's wrists and ankles, prompting the drones to release her arms and step back. She attempted again to struggle free, but their grip was ironclad, suspending her in the air. She looked up and saw that something much larger was descending. It was a large gray spider-like creature; it had eight spindly legs, a small round head with six shiny black eyes, a massive abdomen connected in the back to large tube-like tentacle that extended up into the hole, and nearly innumerable tentacles on the back of it's abdomen, some of which were still in the hole to keep it suspended. The tentacles holding Calina that she continued futilely struggling against were also attached to it.
The creature slowly raised one of its tentacles to her face. She looked directly at it, confused, and saw that there was a small hole at the end of it. Before she could process, it suddenly emitted a light pink gas that she involuntarily inhaled in surprise, detecting a sickly sweet scent. As soon as she did, every muscle in her completely relaxed. She stopped struggling, as she was unable to move at all, though she kept all feeling in her body. She started to panic internally, realizing that they had heavily sedated her in preparation for whatever horrific thing they were planning to do to her. Her mouth opened slightly, and immediately, the creature thrust the tentacle in front of her face directly into it.
Calina's eyes opened wide with shock and disgust upon the sudden invasion of her mouth. The creature started slowly moving its appendage back and forth in her mouth, pushing further into her throat with each thrust. She wanted to bite down on the tentacle as hard as she could, but she still couldn't move her jaw at all. Worse still, as it moved further inside of her, she could feel it beginning to cut off her air supply, but there was nothing she could do to help herself because of the effect of the gas.