[Solved] [Terrifying Tales LTC] Wrath of the Mucolid

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DURO, somewhere in the outback...

Were the air not so thick with the smell of the caustic mix of blood and acid, Dax Milbi might have resented the sheer humidity of the day. Unfortunately, he had bigger fish to fry — bigger worms. 

His guide had warned him that these parts were home to more terrible monsters than even off-world construction efforts. Monsters so great in fact that even those corporate interests went unfulfilled in the face of the mucolid's wrath. He and Calan Deeg had made camp not far from an abandoned industrial zone that evening, only to come running with an armful of blasters each once they heard the terrible rumblings and screams twice as awful.

Arriving on the scene, bursting through an old shanty shack on the compound's edge, the pair watched out over a broken walkway as an immense scaled worm ruptured through the ground, a sinkhole caving in behind and splashing shards of baked sandy rock into the air. Those screaming, they soon realised, were scavengers: a small crew of four, now rendered three. Down below, their gonk droid hobbled fearfully away from the sands, a lucky lump of junk to not go sliding into the worm's abyss. As it waddled, it passed by a human: bare-chested and donning a rebreather and wrapped cap, clearly putting up a last stand against the beast. Dax and Calan looked at one another, assessed the situation, and readied their blasters. 

Along the way, the other surviving scavenger fled, stumbling onto the platform and scrambling through a pile of discarded mining equipment, valuable salvage, and a dejarik table with a hapless squeal. She hopped along, running along past her dead and melting colleague, seemingly trying to avert her eyes from the blood and mucus as it began to seep through the grille in the floor down to the caverns below. If this had become a nesting ground, then these strangers had just become some of the most unfortunate scavengers in the Galactic Core.

"Hey!!!" Dax hollered, affecting an obnoxiousness that people knew him for as he did so. "Come get us! Leave the scrappers be!" 

A pause and the worm lumbered in another direction, spraying again as Dax and Calan unloaded their blasters into the mucolid. Hot blaster burns scarred the creature's abdominal sprayer, blasting off some of the smaller tendrils and thinner scales, only to leave the beast seemingly unswayed. Dax grimaced, and Calan pulled his cowl – safe durasteel weave – tight around his head. He readied his heavy blaster with a charger pack and took aim, all the while Dax maintained a constant layer of annoyance, only this time in the form of screeching hot tibanna gas. The worm began to turn, its huge body shifting pockets of cracked earth and sloughing them off into the pit. He took his chance and fired, blasting right into the proboscis until his blaster seemed likely to implode. Dax shot at each individual tendril, lowering the chances of spray and splashback, and the pair took no mercy in defending the scavengers. 

Perhaps, Dax thought, my uncle shall appreciate these efforts. He could only hope. But the man was far from this backwater hell, sat practically cosy by comparison in his dank office on Corellia. They would have to catch up some time soon, but he had bigger fish to fry.

Spoiler

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