CYOA Wednesday 2025 #15 [Beyond the Woods 15]

This fantasy CYOA story continues today. Synopsis below:

When Derek, Jade, and Clara go camping, they stumble upon a portal to another dimension filled with strange creatures and sexy seductresses.

After barely escaping the maddening echoes, the party finally arrives at the place where the mysterious creature lives. Now what? You decide.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/126318177

Read the fifteenth segment below:

15 – The Creature

The ground suddenly sloped upward, and the air grew warmer. The tunnel walls widened, and the darkness receded like a fading nightmare. Aethera’s light regained its brilliance as she led them out of the dank passageway and into a new wide chamber. The echoes faded into silence, leaving only the sound of their own ragged breathing.

Clara collapsed against the cavern wall, her legs trembling with relief and exhaustion. Jade sank to the ground beside her, burying her face in her hands. Derek paced the chamber anxiously, his eyes still haunted by the voices that clung to his thoughts like shadows.

“Are you alright?” Aethera asked softly, hovering near them. Her form was no longer flickering, but there was a weariness in her voice that hinted at her own struggle against the tunnel’s darkness.

“It was…intense,” Clara managed, her throat raw from holding back screams. She looked up at Aethera, her eyes filled with newfound respect. “How do you bear it? The echoes. The madness.”

“It gets easier,” Aethera said with a small smile. “But never simple. The Undercroft is not kind to those who venture within its depths.”

“So what happens now?” Jade asked, wiping tears from her eyes. “We can’t go back through there again.”

“Not if we don’t have to,” Derek added nervously before looking up.

Above them arched a vaulted ceiling, its staggering height lost in a dizzying expanse of shadows. Pillars of an alien material—perhaps crystal, perhaps something more—punctuated the open foyer, their surfaces pulsing with an ethereal light that cast dancing patterns across the polished floors. At the far end of the cavern stood an ornate archway, its edges trimmed in glittering filaments that hummed with latent energy.

Aethera drifted forward. As she passed underneath one of the crystalline pillars, it flared brightly, bathing her in a shower of iridescent sparks. For a moment, she was illuminated as though from within, her translucent skin glowing with an inner fire.

“Come here,” she said.

Through the ornate archway, stretching out before them was a vast field of towering funghi, each one easily as large as a human. The cap of each mushroom was a spectrum of brilliant colors – vibrant purples, fiery oranges, and lush greens that seemed to shift and dance in the light from Aethera’s form.

“This is incredible,” Derek breathed, moving forward with wonder. “What are these?”

“They are called Fungora,” Aethera explained. “They exist only here in the Undercroft, sustained by the unique environment and rich nutrients found in the cavern soils.”

“Are they safe?” Jade asked hesitantly. She eyed a particularly large specimen, its cap spanning nearly ten feet across.

“They pose no danger to you,” Aethera assured her with a small chuckle. “In fact, they are quite docile and benign.”

“But where’s the creature we’re looking for?” Clara inquired. She peered into the swaying sea of fungal stalks but saw no signs of movement.

Aethera hovered higher above the field of Fungora, her eyes scanning the area carefully. “It should be here somewhere…” she murmured thoughtfully.

And then it appeared – a massive shape rising from amidst the towering mushrooms like a grotesque island erupting from an alien sea.

“What is that thing?!” Derek exclaimed in shock and awe.

“My friends,” Aethera said solemnly. “Gaze upon… the Great Wanderbeast.”

Towering nearly thirty feet tall at its shoulders, the Wanderbeast cut an imposing silhouette against the cavern’s vaulted ceiling. Its body was segmented like that of a caterpillar, covered in spiny plates of bony armor that glinted dully in the crystalline light. Each segment undulated independently as the creature moved forward, creating a sinuous, rippling effect that lent an almost hypnotic quality to its lumbering gait.

From the frontal segment sprouted a pair of enormous pincers, each one easily large enough to engulf Derek’s entire body in its grasp. They snapped open and closed with startling speed and force, revealing rows of dagger-like teeth within their gaping maws. Above these fearsome mandibles protruded a trio of eyestalks clustered together atop a vaguely cephalopod-like head. The eyestalks writhed and swiveled, scanning the surrounding area with a palpably predatory intensity.

What truly set this specimen apart from typical invertebrates was the presence of secondary limbs jutting out from various points along its body. Like grotesque insectoid wings or fins, these appendages came in all shapes and sizes—some thin and wiry, others thick and clubbed. Each bore grasping tips or bladelike protrusions well-suited for catching prey or shredding flesh. Collectively, they formed an unsettling array evocative of some nightmarish evolutionary fusion between arthropod and vertebrate.

As the Wanderbeast drew nearer, Clara could see that its dorsal segments were capped with structures resembling baleful flowers—pyriform sacks filled with tendrils that pulsed and undulated sluggishly in time to its movements. The sacks varied in coloration from one to another: hues ranging from sallow yellows to virulent reds to sickly greens that suggested they housed reservoirs of toxic secretions or noxious pressures.

The three friends stared at the monstrous Wanderbeast in stunned silence. Derek’s eyes bulged as he took in the monumental arachnid’s oscillating eyestalks and snapping pincers. Jade whimpered, her face paling to the color of a winter moon. Clara gripped the hilt of her plasma saber so tightly her knuckles cracked.

“Aethera,” Derek croaked, “are you sure this…thing is friendly?”

Jade gulped audibly, side-eyeing the Wanderbeast’s baleful sacks and spiny dorsal plating. “Yeah, it seems anything but.”

“You should know by now that appearances can be deceiving. The Wanderbeast won’t hurt you if you don’t show any signs of aggression towards it. It’s incredibly smart and the only one that can help you find your way back home.”

“How do we communicate with it?” Clara asked.

“I can connect to its mind and serve as translator, but you must speak slowly and keep your voice low. The creature is old like I said before. Loud sounds can be terribly distracting and undermine our purpose here. When you’re ready, I’ll call out to it so we may begin.”

“I say, do it!” Clara declared. “The sooner we get this done the better. I’d rather not spend any more time here than I have to.”

“She’s right,” Derek nodded. “If you say it’s safe, then we’ll trust you again.”

“Very well.” Aethera raised her hands and started projecting a psychic link to get the creature’s attention.

To decide what happens next, head over to my Patreon (you can join for free), and vote on the poll there until next Sunday. 

If you’re new to these CYOA stories, here are the basic rules:

1) You can only choose one option;

2) If there’s a tie at the end of the poll, and the competing options can be combined somehow, I’ll do that. If not, I get the deciding vote to keep the tale going.

3) The process continues every Wednesday until the story runs its natural course.

Have fun.