A faint hiss bubbling up from the mud he just stepped in was all the warning he got as the ground rose up and skeletal hands burst out to greet him. He was well-versed in avoiding this kind of death - the rainy season tended to bring these creatures up more than any flash flood or stagnant pond ever had.
With a quiet sigh he collapsed to one side and rolled into the still-wet undergrowth, settling into the damp shadows mere moments before the skull crowned and a full grown mudlark stood before him, snarling at the loss of its prey. It was times like this, when he was close enough to the damned things that he could see their slit-nostrils quivering as they scented the air, that he was grateful for all the grime covering his clothes and masking his unwashed body.
Now it could be minutes before the mudlark went back under, to wait for fresh prey or his reappearance - whichever was first, which gave him time to think of a way to lure it further afield without accidentally showing it where he was hiding. Now his usual go-to method was hurling firecrackers and running in the opposite direction but with the ground being so wet there was too high a chance they wouldn't go off right.
The only other thing he has stocked at that time was a blowgun with LED darts. It was clunky but within reach and quiet enough that he still stood a chance of luring the mudlark away so he could continue further inland. Anything was better than facing the shoals of leviathans that had discovered they could beach themselves and drag their colossal bodies around the coats to hunt.
Keeping his movements as slow and silent as possible, he raised the blowgun to his lips and prepared to run.
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