Progress

In front of the pool, Alice pondered her choices. All of them were absolutely awful.

It had taken her a long time to crawl back to the dead salamander, its body slowly dissolving in the glowing body of water. The head of the creature had already been stripped down to the bone, its body getting progressively less eaten the closer to the tail, which was laying on the ground, outside of the liquid.

She had also retrieved the chelae from the mouth of the creature and was now holding it awkwardly with her left hand.

Alice bit her lip as she tried to decide what to do.

I need to eat. If I don’t, I’ll die. So, I need to decide if I really want to eat raw salamander meat from the thing that ate my damn arm.

I could go and get a screechling, but it feels even more disgusting, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to butcher it with only one arm.

And I definitely don’t have the strength to get another crawfish. Nor to crawl to the main cave actually.

So, there isn’t really a choice uh?

She smiled humorlessly before moving closer to the thick tail of the animal; the only part that hadn’t been reached by the hungry glimmers in the pool.

She extended a hand and placed it on her prospect of a meal, feeling the smooth and moist skin of the large amphibian, taut against the muscles despite many hours having passed since its death.

“Here goes nothing.” She murmured to herself before taking a deep breath, closing her eyes, and stabbing into the skin with the tip of the claw, using the weight of her own body to adjust for the weaker strength and accuracy of her remaining hand.

After a bit of resistance, she managed to pierce the epidermis of the tail, proceeding to drag the sharper side of the claw across its length and ripping the skin as she went.

Already gasping from the exertion, Alice dropped the tool on the floor and carefully stuck her hand inside the opening, using her fingers to pry the skin from the flesh beneath. When she felt that the two layers were detached enough, she proceeded to tightly grip it in her hand and pull hard, soon ripping away the long “sheet” of hide.

Without giving herself time to think, the girl gripped the claw once again and started cutting, soon rewarded with a chunk of lean and white flesh that she quickly stuffed in her mouth.

As she chewed, Alice tried to focus on anything but the cold, chewy texture of the meat, its raw and off-putting flavor, or the general knowledge of the creature it came from. It worked for a bit, until, after a few long minutes, she tried to swallow it.

When she had finished washing her mouth with a small amount of her clean water, swearing in her mind all the while, she sat down to think.

That is not going to work. Most disgusting thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. So fricking chewy.

Also, that much raw meat is gonna take a long time to chew, and I don’t want to suffer for such a long time.

I guess I could make a tartare using the club… but that leaves the taste.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

I wonder if I can use the power to automatically digest it.

As it turned out, she couldn’t. What she could do, however, was slightly numb the entirety of her mouth, thus ignoring most of the revolting flavor of the meat. Sadly, that thought occurred to her after half of the nauseating meal had already disappeared down her throat.

When she finally stopped heaving, Alice’s hazel eyes had a steel glint in them. The young woman swore to herself, before sleeping, that she would understand the limits of her so-called awakening. She would never again be forced to eat that thing without some sort of aid.

When her mind finally cleared of disgust and thoughts of revenge against possible gods of luck and pain, she crawled in her alcove and started concentrating anew.

Alice ignored the pain of her healing body, the soreness of her muscles and throbbing of her arm. This time, finding the source was easier, her core almost eager to be freed of its bindings.

From the pulsating well of power, she moved to her body, once again feeling it both in its entirety and also down to its basic units, all working in unison to keep her alive.

She touched and prodded, pushing slightly in one direction or the other, feeling the few organs and cells she felt confident with.

First, she went into her stomach, feeling it breaking down the meat she had ingested. Telling her body to focus on that, she saw as her white cells eagerly destroyed the bacteria that had come with the meat, still ignoring the many glowing patches in her intestinal lining.

Then, Alice started experimenting a bit more, trying to find the upper ceiling of her new power which, as it turned out, wasn’t a particularly high one.

She couldn’t access it quickly, at least at the moment, needing many long minutes just to access her core, and that was when standing completely still and without disturbances. The fact that she had managed to do it when vomiting blood was nothing short of a miracle.

She could obviously raise the priority of some of her internal processes; increasing the speed of digestion, slowing her heartbeat by a tiny margin, and directing some of the cells she was more familiar with from her life back on Earth, the blood coagulation and general healing belonging to that last category.

Of all the small things she could do, two in particular had her excited the most.

Firstly, Alice could flood her pain receptors with her power, making them far less reactive and thus raising her pain tolerance for a bit. When she first did it, the lack of pain brought tears to her eyes, her sole focus now finding the limits of the ability. And limits there were. With her current strength, the effect only lasted around half an hour, her body slowly fighting off the numbing effect.

The second and most interesting one, was the order she had given to her white cells. The command to ignore the shining organisms was still in effect, despite the long time that had passed and her lack of focus on it.

Investigating the issue, she delved deep into her veins, finding one of the lymphocytes and following it around but after a couple of minutes of watching the large cell pushing its way through the system, she still hadn’t found a reason for it, so, she shelved it for later.

Despite the large setback, Alice was relieved. Incredibly so. She was sure she would improve. She had to if she wanted to escape the caves.

She was preparing to finally sleep when a thought appeared in her brain.

And what about the glowy stuff? They are alive. Can I do something with them?

It was a question too interesting to be put away, so she ignored the protests of her tired mind and moved her focus down her right shoulder, through the arm and finally into the elbow and the flesh around it.

Immediately, Alice felt the difference between the glowing mass of identical organisms and the rest of the stump. Somehow, she knew she wouldn’t be able to control them in her current condition. They weren’t hers to command.

While the little things were not eating her cells, not anymore at least, she still felt a sense of loss coming from the area.

It was after a long time that she came to a realization.

The power! They are taking it! They don’t eat me because they eat a bit of the energy I produce!

She could feel it now, the slow pull on her well of warmth, an extremely tiny amount flowing through her body and entering the flecks of light.

Her eyes shot open in wonderment.

And I bet that’s the same with the white cells! They take a bit of my power to follow the order.

But if they do, why can’t I do the same with the pain receptors? Or the rest?

I must have done something different while panicking… I wonder if I’ll be able to replicate it.

Not now though. I need to sleep.

And so, Alice finally slept, tucked inside of her small safe space, a serene expression on her tired face despite the pain she was constantly in. Hope does wonderful things to the struggling mind.

You have reached Level 2 in the Biomancer Class.

[…]

You have reached Level 5 in the Biomancer Class.

You have developed the Word of Power: Hemostasis. You may draw from your well to activate it.

You became the host of another organism. You have learned the skill Lesser Symbiosis. The organism is considered a part of yourself.

If anyone had been in the alcove with Alice that night, they would have seen a small smile appear on her face as she slept.