After rushing all the way to the cliff top, Renato dispelled his Spider Climb.
The strange sensation of his feet clinging to the rock face vanished.
Spider Climb had made his heart race even more than combat. Running up a vertical cliff while gravity kept dragging him downward-the thrill of that contradiction far surpassed facing an enemy head-on.
But the sight of the so-called Mind Flayer Room left him no time to savor the experience.
It was a saclike structure made of biological matter, looking for all the world like some giant insect's egg case.
Now the entire sac had swollen as though inflamed, its surface covered in purple-black veins that pulsed to some rhythm. Thick pus occasionally seeped through cracks in the walls and trickled down the exterior.
An enormous tentacle protruded from the top of the sac, thrashing wildly, its tip flickering with chaotic psionic sparks as purple arcs scattered.
The entrance was a round, flesh-colored door resembling a sphincter, its muscle tissue clenched and contracted, sealing it tight.
Renato remembered seeing this door open and close before. The mind flayers had floated out through it.
It was also through this entrance that Balin had seen flashes of differently colored psionic light inside and concluded that Klauthsura was locked in a fierce battle.
The Silent Lady stabbed repeatedly, its edge severing bundles of flesh. Tissue fluid gushed out, splashing Renato's armor.
Renato had assumed a door made of flesh would yield easily to a sharp sword. Instead, the muscle tissue only tightened further. With every thrust, it contracted another fraction inward, instinctively resisting the intrusion.
Faced with such a bizarre door, Renato decided to fall back on his usual method.
Renato clenched his right fist and activated Touch of Dakoul. Shadow energy began gathering around his fist, black