Chapter 15: Camel Abuse
On his first Climb, William Oh singlehandedly engaged in combat with over a thousand carnivorous camels. Corrupted and turned foul by Miasma, each one was big enough to build a city between the humps on their back. He grabbed the Boss by its nose hairs, the only part small enough for him to hold on, and used his prodigious strength to steer the creature into slamming its head into the mountainside.
When that didn’t work, William Oh grabbed the mountainside, and steered it into the monster! The Earth bucked like a fly-bit mule and launched the Monster into the sky, where it resides to this day among the broken mirrors.
-Jason Salazar
As it turned out, Relic Worms were bad business, occupying a special place in local infamy. They were technically floor four monsters, but were notoriously difficult to hunt due to a combination of environment and their penchant for infesting a Climber’s relics, disabling them and making a ‘normal’ fight suddenly life-or-death without warning.
They were a palm’s length, thin as a few hairs, and liked to burrow through flesh and Relics with equal voracity.
They attacked in swarms of tens of thousands, swimming through the murky, concealing swamps of floor four to attack Climber’s legs as they waded through the water.
Low level Climbers died, and high level ones weren’t interested in risking extremely valuable Relics while hunting them, as one could easily lose more than the value of the worms themselves if they ate your boots or weapon.
Not to mention the sudden loss of power might actually pose a risk to the high-level Climber’s life.
The only people who might safely hunt Relic Worms were Climbers who were so high level that they could safely subdue them entirely without Relics.