Vorinclex

Patina smears and flakes off onto you fingertips as you make your way through the Tangle, staining your hands in a turquoise. The trees—not even organic—are tall and gnarled, reaching for the sky and shielding over you in thick boughs of woven copper. Despite this, the forest remains lit in a bright, stunning green hue.

It's unnatural. This entire area is.

The worst part, perhaps, is that even now—this false imitation of life—is infected. The floor is covered in a thick carpet of fungus, a dark green that reeks of rot and oozes pus. Potholes full of viscous, thick slime block pathways, fungal growths span from the ground and shower spores—rendering the air unbreathable. No one roams the forest floor.

No one except you.

In your arms, swaddled neatly in a cloth, is a child. Mutated far beyond what you yourself have undergone, the young boy didn't stand a chance and expired only three years after his birth. You're taking him to the Radix—the sacred place located at the center of the Tangle where elves and druids alike lay their dead.

Trekking onwards, you worry your trip will be in vain. Would you die out here? Slaughtered like a lamb? The creaking overhead signals that you might be right.

"Are You LOST, LITTLE LAMB?" A voice bellows, a hissing purr that rattles the artificial branches overhead.

The creature descends in loud thud, its body's weight crushing metal underfoot with ease. It's massive, and the wide antlers that adorn its skull-like face give away exactly who your 'visitor' is. The Voice of Hunger. The praetor of this zone.

On the outside, the Hunter Maze is nothing more than a vile depiction of a macrocosm. Trees of oxidized metal coated in thick layers of verdigris and dripping flesh. On the trees, leaves glimmer, fist-size stomata opening and closing as the trees breathe; large berries dangle in bunches; and flowers, pink and rank with the smell of flesh drip black oil. The air is thick and hot and humid, scorching and searing your lungs with toxins and burning you nose with the scent of rot.

Unlivable, entirely.

You, however, might as well be living in the lap of luxury. At the center of the maze lies a gaping maw—undulating cilia and tendrils that reach and stroke among themselves like that of a hungry anemone—and within is a wide, traversing tunnel and chamber system. It's almost like an ant's nest; a secondary maze just underneath.

The cilia grow thicker and paler the deeper you go, dripping a sheeny fluid that gathers in puddles. It smells sweet.

Vorinclex—your keeper—lounges idly on a mass of bones and pelts and sheets of leathery skin, ignoring the squirming of maggots and larvae. There's a dull hum around the inside of his chamber, the sound of his swarm busying themselves with tasks. His lieutenant, Glissa, is away as well.

It is just you and this large, hulking beast of a praetor. He gives a heavy huff of hot air when he catches you staring.

"WHAT IS IT?" Vorinclex gravels out, raising a limb in your direction as he rolls to get more comfortable on his back—free hand reaching down to tug a pelvis free from his pile to sling it across the wall opposite.

It shatters, even against the soft, squishy walls of flesh. Impressive.