Don't Touch the Keys

After defending himself for a while, Vain realized he had a single Firesalt crystal in his pocket. It is most definitely worth a try against the plant entity compared to the Blob alternative exit. Unfortunately, he only had one which made Vain hesitate to use it without any other choice.

After half an hour of defending himself, Vain realized he was running out of time for hesitation since the Bleeding Coal and the Tentacle had focused on the Blobs and completely forgotten about their life and death battle they had been going against each other. The Blobs had already killed a Bleeding Coal and it looked like their fight seemed to be wrapping up. The Vine on the other hand wasn't budging in the slightest, Even his sword that stayed strangely sharp throughout it all had signs of breaking.

Realizing he had no more choice, Vain attacked and chopped off another vine before throwing the Firesalt crystal as hard as he could at the Vine in front of him. The Vine on the other hand directly attacked the crystal that had gotten just a meter away from itself.

Hitting the crystal, a loud *BANG* sounded along with a strangely shrill scream sounded from the Vine. It sounded almost like the wind was making a mourning sound for the plant entity along with the sound of sizzling almost like flesh but slightly different.

Vain had covered his eyes for the moment the explosion went off, but before he could remove his eyes from his arms he felt something hitting his chest sending him flying into the Tentacle that was barely alive. Besides being in even more pain than before, Vain tried to get up as fast as he could while taking a good look around to see the damage as well as where he was sent flying.

Behind him was the Tentacle being absorbed by the Blob behind him, with some of the Blobs showing signs of being cut and leaking a black blood ooze, with the cuts quickly closing up. In front of Vain was the burning vine mass that was attacking in all directions. Vain knew he had little time to stay where he was at, especially since the Blob was already moving and was almost reaching him.

Without any choice, Vain picked up his sword in a hurry and ran directly to the burning mass of vines. The vines became unpredictable, but also a lot weaker, with Vain being able to cut a vine and make it into ash after being chopped off.

This time while fighting the Vine, Vain was able to keep moving fairly easily since the vines looked to lose their life force instead of being regrown again like before. After a little longer than he wanted Vain reached the center where a single vine wasn't burning and wasn't attacking, this vine also appeared to glow. Without caring about anything, Vain attacked the one vine, as he had done countless times before. Unlike before, Vain felt his sword stop. It was like he attacked a brick wall instead of a vine.

The vines that weren't caring about anything around him before suddenly stopped moving randomly and started to move to Vain. Unfortunately Vain knew the Blobs were just behind him and he knew no way to beat such a strange creature. After defending himself and cutting off several vines, a few hit him more like whips leaving lacerations all over his body.

Knowing that this Vine in the middle of everything probably was important and that he would probably die if he stayed any longer in the middle of this mess, Vain stopped focusing on the vines attacking and used all his force to attack the center vine with all his might.

With one great slash, Vain cut a centimeter into the Vine before having his sword break into pieces. The attacking Vines made sure to show Vain what a mistake costs him. Several attacks landed on every part of his body breaking a few bones and leaving deep cuts into his flesh. Falling down Vain took out the one weapon he had left on himself, a gun with 5 bullets left inside.

Forgetting about everything, Vain shot the Vine in front of him using all his bullets in hopes of cutting the vine with small bullets instead. The Vine had its' root almost completely disconnected leaving a small part still connected. The vines all around started to squirm and attack more randomly once again giving Vain some time to pick out a small knife he usually used for cooking and try and completely cut off the small section keeping the Vine alive.

Vain was extremely lucky with the vine since although he was greatly weakened, the Vine was also weakened enough for his small knife to cut straight through. After the vine was completely separated, Vain saw all the vines that seemed to make up the hall had finally stopped moving.

Letting out a loud sigh, Vain felt he could just pass out right then and there. Just as he decided that it might be a good idea, a loud gurgle overpowered the sound of burning that was all he could hear. Suddenly the reason why Vain had risked his life so outright popped into his head once again.

Turning over his body onto his back, Vain looked up to see the Blobs less than a meter away from himself. These blobs were no longer cut and bleeding black ooze, instead they seemed fine and were slowly merging all the vines around them into themselves.

Despite the many broken ribs and the arm being broken, Vain gritted his teeth and moved past the painful cuts, and stood up. Slowly Vain started to limp in a direction when he noticed that the vine he had fought so hard to cut off was still faintly glowing. After a quick thought Vain decided to carry the vine just in case he could use it even if it is only to use as a rope to hold his bones in place.

Thinking if the Vine was too heavy he would just abandon it, Vain picked it up to discover it was light even for his arms which felt like if they carried a little more weight they would fall off. So without any more hesitation, Vain started to limp slowly away from the Blobs who were slightly more preoccupied with the vines they felt were great food.

Leaving the place Vain realized the halls that were hit by the blast of the Firesalt crystal had only slightly blackened and hadn't received much actual damage. Although Vain wasn't sure if it was like that since the Vine had taken up most of the damage instead of the walls.

Slowly limping away Vain could almost feel his vision becoming even more blurry. After nearly half an hour did another clicking sound heard. Cursing himself Vain looked ahead only to see a Clicker slowly turn the corner with a normal entity. A hound was moving in his direction and fast.

Even though Vain wasn't in the best of places, he still had way too much experience with hounds and even without being able to totally tell where the hound was at, he still was able to shove the full six inches of the knife into the eyesocket of the hound.

Only another half an hour until something different happened. In front of Vain were two blurry shadows that were moving in his direction. The humanoid shapes kept getting closer and closer, but Vain was far too tired and bloody to even raise his knife. distorted sounds kept moving closer and closer as Vain thought about how he was going to die right there and then.

With a sigh. Vain lost consciousness.