Ordinary fantasy adventure in Faerûn

Chapter 432: Swamp Bear Man
The variety of monsters in the Underdark is as numerous and terrifying as its level of danger. In the face of the powerful mental power of the Mastermind, most of the monsters in the Underdark cannot escape its mind control. In addition, Catheric is likely to be next to the Mastermind...

'Stop imagining, while I still have the courage to move forward.'

Noshil shook his head, dispelling the complicated thoughts in his mind. The Underdark was the territory of the underground race. It was indeed dangerous there, but it would not necessarily cost him his life.

Although the unique environment of the Underdark destroyed his means of escape by teleportation, with Noshiel's strength, if he really wanted to run away, there was probably nothing in this world that could stop him head-on, not even Catheric!
"The risk... is bearable, and the benefit... is beyond imagination. If that's the case, then there's nothing more to say."

Noshir first took out the voice stone and reported to Jaheira and the others the information he had previously searched for, including the existence of evil thoughts, the types, numbers and distribution of the undead inside the Moonrise Tower, and the strange area below the Moonrise Tower.

Noshier emphasized that he was exploring here now, but because the environment here was somewhat unexpected, he might not be able to go back in a short time. His plan to divert the enemy's attention and engage in guerrilla warfare with them might have to be left to them temporarily. After all, what Noshier had to do now did not allow him to continue to be indecisive.

……

In order to be able to better observe the surrounding environment and to be able to respond to various emergencies more promptly, Nosher did not choose to continue to transform into mist. He took off the iron boots that he had transformed and were inlaid with nightmare spurs, and replaced them with elf boots that were more suitable for stealth operations.

At the same time, due to the narrow tunnel environment, Nosher did not take out his large and conspicuous legendary giant axe, but instead took out his two hand axes as self-defense weapons after a long absence.

Because of the elf boots, Noshir would not make much noise even when he ran. Coupled with his already high agility, his movement speed did not decrease at all for a moment.

As he went deeper into the Underdark, Noshiel finally discovered some traces of the existence of the Mind Flayer, some glowing mucus, and skulls with all the brain marrow sucked out. These were all evidence of the existence of the Mind Flayer.

Following these evidences, Noshier also discovered that the tunnel, which originally had only one passage, actually had forks. Those forks were the same as this tunnel, and it can be seen that they were made by the same creature. However, perhaps because the end points of those intersections could not reach the location of the main brain, Noshier did not find any traces unique to the Mind Flayer at those forks.

Noshier quickly retreated from those incorrect intersections, and as he continued to move forward, he finally came across some welcome gifts unique to this dark world.

The first danger Noshiel encountered was a dark-curtain monster lurking above his head. This monster belonged to the category of monsters in the secular biological classification.

The Dark Curtain Monster looks like a stalactite-shaped squid, except that it has six large and small yellow eyes that can be closed around the junction of its head and tentacles, as well as a dozen squid tentacles with pointed cones at the ends and half of the inner part covered with leathery membranes. The Dark Curtain Monster's attack method is very insidious. This monster will deliberately hang its body on the top of a rocky cliff, disguising itself as an upside-down stalactite.

The Darkmantle uses the echoes of sound to locate its prey, and when prey passes beneath it, it will instantly swoop down from the sky, wrapping the creature's head with its tentacles and sail-like body to suffocate it, while piercing its tentacles into the victim's body and immediately secreting a potent venom to help bring down the unfortunate creature.

The Darkmantle can be said to be the most common and most easily encountered dangerous creature in the Underdark, especially for humanoid creatures. The Darkmantle is an existence that must be carefully guarded against. Because of its size, as a small monster, the Darkmantle will only target humanoid creatures. Therefore, as long as you walk in terrain like this tunnel, you must be careful of the hanging stones above your head.

Because the monster's camouflage was too realistic, there would not even be any biological reaction when it was stationary, neither movement nor heartbeat. In addition, this was the first time that Noshier had set foot in this dangerous world, so he naturally did not notice the target.

Noshil had not reacted until the Dark Curtain Beast suddenly launched an attack as it passed under it. Before it could hug Noshil's head with its body, Noshil immediately raised the battle axe in his right hand and hit the Dark Curtain Beast's body directly, cutting it in half from bottom to top!
Because the attack was timely, the Dark Curtain Beast did not cause much trouble to Noshir and died under his battle axe. At the same time, perhaps because it had not captured prey for too long, or perhaps because of the unique biological signs of the monster, the Dark Curtain Beast did not have much blood, digestive juices, and leftover prey body tissues in its body.

Of course, even if there were not many, these things still existed. The incident happened suddenly and Noshil didn't have time to completely dodge, which caused some very irritating unknown liquid to get on his body.

Noshir had to spend some time cleaning these things up, but fortunately, because of his time in Eltoril, Noshir had filled his body with all kinds of unique potions and magic scrolls.

All it takes is a simple cleaning spell to completely clean up both the blood and the smell. But maybe it was bad luck, but just when Noshil had cleaned himself with the spell scroll and wanted to leave, a monster that might have been attracted by the blood of the Dark Beast suddenly appeared in front of Noshil.

It was a humanoid monster that was hunched over, thin, but had a broad body and a strong skeleton.

His whole body was covered with gray-white hair, and he had a pair of narrow and cunning eyes on a ferocious bear head. His teeth were very sharp, but his claws seemed very blunt. His lower limbs were anti-jointed, and he was estimated to have good jumping ability. Noshiel, who had knowledge of monsters, quickly recognized what this monster was.

"Swamp bearmen. Generally speaking, only the drow elves will domesticate these creatures in large numbers and train them into combat slaves. However, the mind flayers will also control them and use them as hard labor. In short, they are one of the standard slave races in the underground world. It seems that I am really close to finding that place."

(End of this chapter)