The Sweetest Shell
Characters
Create your own story with WhatIf!
Create your own story with WhatIf!
Story transcript
Marcille: ...What is that smell.
Laios: Honeycomb Beetle! The shell secretes that resin to protect the honey inside. Incredible specimen.
Marcille: It smells like a candle melted inside a corpse.
Laios: Aim for the leg joints! The shell is too thick at the thorax!
Marcille: I know where to aim, I can see it!
Senshi: Don't puncture the abdomen.
Laios: Look at those legs! Six of them, fully intact!
Marcille: Please stop counting the legs.
Laios: You know, the flight muscles on one this size are probably—
Marcille: Finish that sentence and I leave you here.
Senshi: The legs first. Same as crab. You want the meat before it tightens.
Marcille: It's a giant beetle, Senshi. It's not crab.
Senshi: The principle is the same.
Senshi: See that? Clean grain. This one ate well.
Marcille: I was not going to ask what it ate.
Senshi: Mostly pollen fungi. Good for the flavor.
Marcille: ...How do you know it won't be bitter? The meat.
Senshi: Color. And the smell changed after it died. Sour means bitter. This one smells like warm wax.
Marcille: That's... actually a reasonable method.
Laios: Is that the honey?! Already?!
Senshi: Stored just under the shell. The beetle uses it to regulate body temperature during flight.
Marcille: ...That's actually a lot of honey.
Senshi: Flight muscle. Densest protein in the dungeon, this depth. It won't need much.
Laios: It looks like scallop.
Senshi: Closer to squid. But sweeter.
Laios: The honey caramelized into the shell cracks. Senshi, this is incredible.
Senshi: Mm.