However, there were three more items which stood out the most.
-Beast Core (x1)
-Experience (5x) - Shareable in a party.
-Party Invite Card (x1)
Kiki went out to look for her spear. "I found it." Her whispered voice informed Terry. "Let's kill the others."
Terry nodded, and they slowly approached the first trap, the one that had triggered first. As both of them peeked inside, a vile smell welcomed them.
Turns out, corrosive bile and corrosive blood were not agreeing with each other, and the poor creature was dying a painful, slow death.
"Aim for his eye," Kiki said.
Terry nodded and sent an arrow straight through the eye. It was a close target and lethal. The scaled lizard inside let out a sigh as he died; it felt like he was thanking them for giving it mercy.
"Lower me down so that I can collect it. EWW... that smell... these Ghoroks are nasty!"
Kiki lowered Terry down by one hand. Terry collected everything, even the spikes. He got somewhat the same loot, except for the Party Invite Card.
"HAAH! Both of them are alive!" Turns out, in the second pit, both of them were still not letting go of that fish, and their tongues were tied.
Corrosive bile kept leaking out from their mouths, and the spikes pierced through their bodies, almost the same scenario as the first pit, but both of them were not dying in any sense.
"SHOOT IT!" Kiki urged.
Terry started shooting rapidly, frantically. One of them, who was less hurt, finally decided to be ruthless and tore off the tongue of the other one and ate everything in two bites. It turned its dark, beady eyes at Terry.
"Here... use these spikes as spears to shoot at him." Terry immediately dumped the spikes on the ground for Kiki to help together.
Shots after shots rained down on the scaled, stone-armor-like upper body as it tried to avoid the corrosive pool forming after killing its own kin.
In a fit of rage, it opened its mouth wide for one last defiance, and a spike went straight through its body.
"HURRAY!" Terry raised his arm up high for a high-five, but Kiki was more weirded out than cheerful.
She lowered him again, and Terry collected everything again.
"Seriously, if I had any pity for these filthy Ghoroks earlier for any reason, I have none now."
Kiki, for some reason, tried to control her reaction and nodded.
They carefully approached the third pit, but their eyes went wide. It was empty.
"Look... a hole... it dug a hole and escaped?"
"This is bad... we need to run... now. He must have gone to gather others."
Both went into high alert. "Which way?" Terry asked.
Suddenly, Terry felt something in a specific direction.
TWNG! SWISH!
He rapidly fired several arrows in that direction.
"GGGGAAAAAH!" That broken-horned one lunged like he was flying.
"WATCH OUT!" Terry pushed Kiki away and got caught in the attack. Both him and Ghorok rolled together and stopped.
Kiki quickly stood up and turned, wielding one of the spikes to attack again.
Terry felt wetness below him as he shook his head.
"Terry... don't move... at all," Kiki whispered.
Terry looked up at Kiki, and her expression was of caution. Then he looked down.
"I am in quicksand?"
"Don't move, and grab my spear; I will pull you out."
"GAHAHAHAHHHHH!" But the Broken Horned one had another plan, a stupid, frantic, instinct-based survival plan.
Although it understood quicksand was dangerous and not to go in it, it did not understand what to do when you are in it.
It started frantically thrashing and clawing at the thick soupy sand, trying to swim, trying to climb, trying to do anything but sink.
"AAHH! NO!" Terry also panicked as he found himself sinking. He flailed wildly until his hand finally caught the spear.
"Yes!" Kiki cheered and pulled. Her strength was shocking as she pulled Terry like a straw puppet.
SNARL! SHOT!
Suddenly the forked tongue of the broken horned one shot out.
"NOO!" Kiki yelled out and tried to push Terry away.
PIERCE!
"AHHHHHH!" Terry cried out in pain as his lower abdomen got pierced by that forked tongue.
Kiki pulled and Terry was out of quicksand.
SNARL!
"AHHHHHHH!"
That tongue still stuck inside Terry as he never felt this kind of pain at all in his life ever.
It brought him back to reality. So far he played along casually because deep down he thought this was some kind of game and dream mixed in, it was fun so he played along, enjoying it.
No fear or terror in him about this being his new reality at all. Maybe he was coping with the shock of suddenly being in a new life by playing it cool and casual.
The pain, the pain has opened his eyes, this is real. Not a joke, not a game where he could troll around. Earlier he felt the same terror but he killed that Ghorok so he didn't learn his lesson but now as he looked down.
That forked tongue was hooked around his stomach, the corrosive slimy nature of that tongue was searing his body from inside.
The pain was tremendous but somehow, he only screamed out at first, not after as if it was not needed or someone forgot to add the continuous scream audio file or code for it.
SNARL!
That Broken horned one was still trying to climb out of the quicksand. His mouth wide open trying to keep his head above from slowly drowning.
Kiki snatched the spear out of Terry's hand immediately.
"HAAAH!" she roared.
SWISH!
GLURCH!
KHHAAA!
The spear rammed straight through the beast's open mouth, blasting through its skull. The thick stone scales exploded from the back of its head.
Its howl stopped halfway. Slowly, it started to sink into the quicksand. Dead. Ugly. And dumb.
Kiki came close to Terry. "We need to remove its vile tongue out of you... don't die on me."
"Is... is it dead?" Terry asked with a great pain as he looked up. She nodded. Terry touched the tongue, and the entire corpse vanished instantly, along with the tongue hooked in his abdomen.