The Lorekeeper's Tome

The Piercer is the Roper's simpler cousin and an ambusher of brutal economy: a creature that clings to a cavern ceiling disguised as a stalactite, waiting with endless patience until something passes directly beneath it, and then letting go. It plummets like a dropped spear, its hardened point driving deep into whatever it lands on, and a cluster of them on a high cave roof can turn a single passage into a deadly rain. Cautious delvers in stalactite country have learned the wisdom of glancing up - and of not bunching together beneath an unusually regular row of points.