Under My Skin

Deciding that I had spent more than long enough surrounded by flames, I quickly fled the area in search of somewhere safe to spend my points and evolve. Considering I fully expected both to leave me writhing in agonizing pleasure for hours on end, I needed somewhere no one was going to stumble upon and that wasn’t at risk of collapsing in flames anytime soon; neither of which could be found close by.

Picking my way carefully through the grimy streets I came to the conclusion that a fiery apocalypse had actually done this shithole a load of good; compared to how the place looked when it wasn’t on fire, a burning ruin was a decided improvement. The streets where rife with trash and filth, the walls of any building you cared to glance at where positively dripping with grime and layer upon layer of illegible graffiti, I couldn’t find a single window that wasn’t heavily cracked or outright shattered and boarded up, and the air positively reeked of despair and drug addiction. The whole damn place was like a city sized crackden as far as I could see, and the smell of stale sex and rotting blood only helped complete the image.

It was also, rather fortunately, currently mostly abandoned. With the exception of a few dregs with track marks so thick I could see necrosis setting in from across the street and delirious expressions that clearly showed they had no connection to reality, the streets were empty; everyone remotely sane had evidently decided that a massive fucking fire was a good enough motivation to be anywhere but here. I couldn't fault them for that logic, if nothing else.

Even so, the reason this place was abandoned also made it unsuitable for hunkering down and whiting out for a few hours; while the human refuse spending their last moments doped out of their minds may not be bothered by the encroaching flames, I’m lucid enough to think putting distance between me and a fiery demise before losing my faculties is a much more solid plan. It would be all too easy to just pick an abandoned building and find a particularly shady corner to lie low and evolve in, but the odds of waking up to find the building collapsing and myself burning to death or the residents coming back and murdering me were far too high.

With this in mind, I carefully made my way further out from the encroaching flames, keeping my eyes and Paranoia peeled for anywhere that seemed like a viable mid-term hiding place. Eventually I found a place that seemed just about perfect, located what I estimated to be about two miles from the edge of the blaze beneath the corpse of a junky rotting away in a dead end alley. Were it not for my Paranoia, even my sharp eyes wouldn’t have been able to tell there was anything worth looking at, but having nearly twenty feet of omniscience proved its worth by revealing a small tunnel concealed by a carcass that looked like it hadn’t been moved in days.

I kept my head on a swivel as I slowly approached the body, Paranoia revealing more and more of the tunnel beneath them as I got closer. The tunnel was thin, barely three feet around, but went straight down for fifteen feet before opening up into what the very edges of my Paranoia suggested was a decent sized room. I was leery about cornering myself like this, but a bunker seemed like a pretty good place to hide all things considered.

I was even more hesitant to actually get close to a corpse leaking black slime and writhing with maggots and buzzing flies, but needs must and all that rot. Swallowing my revulsion, I tried to work out a way to actually enter this hidey hole and came to two nearly equally unpleasant conclusions; I could either try to move the corpse and open the door (suboptimal for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that it would leave rather obvious signs of my passage and the entrance’s existence) or I would have to crawl on top of the rotting carcass, burrow inside its chest cavity, and teleport inside the tunnel once I was less than a foot away from the inside.

The mere idea made me shudder down to my very bones, the sheer revulsion nearly making me physically ill from the thought alone. Even with the looming need to evolve (both for the sheer pleasure of it and for the strength it offered), the idea of digging into that maggot ridden caracas was faintly horrifying.

For a long moment I simply stared at the decaying corpse, noting it had long since gone black and runny. The smell alone was beyond rancid, a choking odor only made worse by my enhanced sense of smell as a rodent. What little flesh I could see beneath the writhing mass of bulbous red-winged flies that hadn’t melted into a greenish black slime was pale in the extreme, likely having been so even before death and rot set it; though, the remains of a puddle of now long since rotten blood likely hadn’t helped their complection. I held back bile as I noticed their thin skin seemed to writhe from the movements of innumerous maggots and worms beneath it.

Normally, such a sight would be only passingly disgusting, but the thought that I would soon be neck deep in that slop of rotting organs and feasting maggots was disquieting to say the least. I could have sought a less… unpleasant place to hide, but the sheer grotesquery would also serve to discourage others from investigating my temporary shelter as much as it did me.

Before I committed to this disgusting course of action, I Observed the corpse just to be sure it was both actually dead (having seen a Withered Wretch, even being literally half rotten and filled with fly larvae wasn’t quite enough proof for my taste) and that there wasn’t anything risky beyond disease and horror.

Rotting Junky: A maggot infested carcass, some remnant of the drugs that flowed through their veins still remain even after decay has set in.

So I probably shouldn’t drink their fetid blood, good to know. Not that I had ever planned to do something so bonefuck stupid in the first place. If I ever found myself in such a dire circumstance that drinking the rotted and insect egg filled blood of a weeks old corpse was starting to look like a reasonable idea, I think I’d welcome some residuals of a drug overdose to wash the insanity and horror down with.

Being the self admittedly paranoid man I am, I took the reasonable precaution of also scanning the flies themselves on the off chance they were something dangerous.

Bloodwing Flies: Carnivorous flying insects with a taste for rotting flesh, their bite contains a numbing agent.

Not pleasant but not overly concerning all told, even if my faith in my Observe was less than solid. At this point I was well aware I was simply delaying, but I really really didn’t want to fucking do this; being submerged in rotting flesh and buzzing flies was a thought straight out of my own personal vision of Hell, and willing subjecting myself to that for any reason really made me question my sanity even if it was the best option available. Which, to be fair, I wasn’t even entirely sure it was, but every second I deliberated was another opportunity for someone to find and kill me while I was out in the relative open. That bunker may not be the best possible choice, but if there was a better one it was likely miles of hostile terrain and dangerous inhabitants away.

Taking yet another deep breath and slapping my muzzle of few times to psych myself up for doing something really fucking unpleasent, I charged forward before my many greivances could cause me to actually change my mind. The moment I got within two feet of the body, the buzzing mass of flies seemed to take notice of me and start swarming over me. I squeezed my eyes shut to try and protect them, pumping fury into my veins to power through my disgust and focusing my thoughts on getting through this as fast as possible.

I could feel the flies biting me, though their numbing venom apparently did its job as it didn’t truly hurt even as they began burrowing into my skin. Fear and horror made my heart beat faster as I felt my skin begin to writhe with insectoid nightmares, blood flowing down my fur to mix with the liquifacted flesh below me as I leapt onto the junky's corpse, landing with a splash of blood both fresh and foul.

Poison Resistance +1

A small part of my mind that I could prevent from wandering as I dug my paws into soft and soupy flesh wondered why the Blight in my blood didn’t seem to be affecting these creatures as more and more of my body went numb, but most of me was focused on frantically shoveling partially liquified meat and spongy bones out of my way as fast as I could. I ignored the notifications of taking singular points of damage at a concerning rate with just as little success as I ignored the feeling of runny black flesh matting my fur and larvae wriggling between my toes and under my skin. The whole experience may have lasted only a few scant seconds, but it felt like an eternity of choking back vomit and throwing cold and gelatinous meat away from myself. The very instant my cracked nails made contact with the cold stone of the tunnel’s entrance, I threw caution to the wind and activated Ninja Vanish regardless of the risk of not all of me making the jump.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I vanished silently, the shadows of the alley enough to prevent the puff of smoke from forming. A span of time so infantesimal my mind could barely register it later, I reappeared in a pitch black tube of sheer stone lined with shallow indents likely ment as a ladder. Of course, said ladder was of no help to me, as I reappeared in mid air falling face first.

Trait Gained: Infested

I was very, very displeased to note that the flies that had burrowed beneath my skin had apparently been brought with me if my newly acquired trait and the wriggling I could still feel was anything to go by. The fact Observe had failed to tell me these flies were apparently parasitic solidified that, presuming these fucking grubs didn’t eat me alive from the inside out and leave me a hollow sack of rotting meat, I would never be betting my life on its word again. Even if I had no way of knowing those flies were parasitic on my own and assuming they were was probably a little too out there even for me, the thought still bounced in my mind that I knew this was fucking dumb and now I was paying for it.

I also decided to never ignore my own instinct to flee from horror again unless certain death was the only other choice. Only a strange sense of dispassionate distance from the feeling of flies and large maggots carving tunnels through my meat kept me from literally flaying myself alive to dig the writhing horrors out of my bleeding carcass; the instinct to destroy myself in soul crushing horror and revulsion was still there from my childhood, but I was apparently dissociating so hard that even the fast approaching concrete floor didn’t really bother me. I was aware that I was being eaten alive from the inside out and that at the angle I was falling I would probably break my neck, but I just couldn't bring myself to really care.

Even from a distant place at the back of my mind, my now muted instinct to live had me reaching out a paw at an unhurried pace, honestly not caring much if I managed to save myself or not as I snagged a shallow indent in the wall. Gravity did its blood work as my full weight suddenly yanked down on my arm, wrenching my shoulder, making me lose my grip, and sending me spinning through the air.

HP -2

The spark of pain sent a jolt through me, waking my mind from the dissociative state I had apparently fallen into to protect me from the mind wrenching horror of my childhood nightmares come to life and burrowing holes in my bones. While this did have the nasty side effect of making me want to kill myself more than I ever had in all of my years, my own overwhelming desire to live no matter the cost prevented me from simply giving in and allowing myself to splatter on the ground.

The thought that the fall likely wouldn’t kill the abominations nibbling on my bone marrow definitely played a part in my decision to save myself, if only out of spite.

I reached out all four of my legs, jamming them into the shallow ladder at full force. My grip failed me several times, resulting in my limbs bouncing off the steps several painful times (though apparently it didn’t actually do any damage) before I managed to actually catch myself and bring my rapid descent to a halt. This did nothing to prevent the insects under my skin from continuing to eat me alive, but it did prevent me from breaking my bones on the hard ground below.

I had no means of digging the parasites out of me at this point given my Blighted nature seemed to be having no effect, so the only idea I had to possibly survive this was to dump my points into Endurance to delay my oncoming death and evolve myself in the hopes something in the process forced them out or otherwise saved me from death by having my organs eaten inside my body. With this slim hope in mind, I climbed down the ladder as quickly as my suboptimal climbing biology would allow.

Giving the room a glance when I reached the ground, I’d wager it was some sort of bunker way back when; years of disuse had apparently lead to it falling into disrepair and eventually into the hands of a junky (likely the one currently leaking fetid fluids atop the entrance) who loaded it up to the gills with drugs and money. I’d have to remember this place for later; you never know when a few hundred pounds of what looked like some sort of orange cocaine and a large sum of cash will come in handy, not to mention the bunker itself.

Not that I was in any state of mind to appreciate my new found wealth at that point, my mind far too occupied with the feeling of holes being burrowed into my bones to really care. With hardly a thought I dumped all but five of my points into Endurance to stave off the blackness spreading at the corners of my vision and the steady downward ticking of my health as the parasites drinking my life blood stole it from me.

The feeling of such an immense change hit me like a freight train of unfathomable pleasure, burning away my mind in a ocean of brilliant white flames that stole all thought. I have no idea how long the white out lasted, only even having a vague idea that I spent the entire time writhing on the ground and moaning as loud as my tiny lungs could manage. That feeling alone wiped all doubt from my mind, purging any hesitance that I may have had about anything that could bring me this feeling.

For attaining one thousand Endurance, you have gained the Perk: Shimmer Skin

When I finally came down from the incredible high of gaining points, I was curled up in a puddle of tears, blood, and semen but felt better than I ever had in either of my lives. Even the insects within me felt like barely an inconvenience, the damage they caused seeming almost irrelevant compared to the large amount of health I suddenly had. They went from killing me within minutes to slowly siphoning off small amounts of health that recovered quicker than they dealt damage. A quick bit of math and watching my health bar dance up and down showed they were doing about ten damage per minute, but I was healing around twenty five(ish) damage in the same time; effectively resulting in a once fatal condition being reduced to lowering my regen by a little less than half. Fortunately, I stopped receiving notifications of my taking damage from their parasitism after a while.

I’m still not sure how the little bastards are managing to actually eat me without being affected by the Blight like that damnable spider, but so long as I wasn’t actively dying I had time to figure that out later.

Had I not fucked myself so hard with my haste to evolve, I’d have put my points into a more balanced and offensively powerful build but once more desperation led to hasty choices and suboptimal builds. I never really wanted to be a tank, but I can’t say being more durable was something I was truly opposed to.

The fact that this desperate situation was definitely my fault rankled somewhat, but I knew that I’d suffer far more to feel that insane pleasure again if I had to. Had I known those fucking flies were parasitic, I'd have fled for the hills and picked literally fucking anywhere else to hunker down in, but I lived and that's all that matters. Was I possibly using an unhealthy coping method to deal with severe issues and trauma? Maybe, but if it works it works.

Knowing I was probably becoming addicted to the rush of evolution and stat improvement but unwilling to actually stop, I simply dismissed the thought and settled down to evolve.

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Zildan sighed heavily, trying to ignore how cold he felt despite the demonic flames raging around him. He had reopened some of his wounds and was losing blood fast, far quicker than what he’d call acceptable under optimal conditions, let alone when he was so far from anything approaching help.

Not that he’d ever consider bleeding at all to be optimal.

Even so, he knew he didn’t have time to rest for the multiple years he would prefer to sleep; not only does he need to mop up any surviving Blighted, he still needed to find the aetherium that allowed the Blight to infect the environment before it consumed the whole city. He’d need to patch up his wounds and head back into that madman’s accursed labyrinth before the corruption spread too far and the whole country needed to be purged.

Not that he was necessarily opposed to purging this shithole, but it was his job to prevent such necessities regardless of his personal feelings.

He sat down on a relatively cooled lump of what may have been a building at some point, pulling out his first aid kit from beneath his ragged cloak of kukora demon feathers. With a groan of annoyance and pain, he stuck his fiery hand into the little box and retrieved a needle and thread, both an oddly shiny black. He hated sewing himself up with infernium thread, but when one needs to fight the Blighted in close quarters it's better not to have anything that could be potentially infected on your person.

He was very glad he had the control to keep his new prosthetic from actually burning his stuff, it would fucking suck to have to do all this with only the burnt fingers on his left hand; he was still missing the top knuckle on every finger save his thumb, and to say that would make sewing rather hard would be an understatement.

He poured a small bottle of antiseptics over every wound he could find, the tingling burn it brought more painful than even the initial cuts had been. Though, in his experience that wasn’t uncommon from battlefield injuries; adrenaline helped quite a bit during a fight, but it didn’t do shit for after action treatments.

His burning arm split into three, allowing him to more easily manipulate the thread and needle as he worked without relying on his trembling organic arm. The thread burned with every stroke of the needle, making his impromptu surgery all more unpleasant even as the familiar sensation brought an odd comfort. Nonetheless, he knew his only other option was to bleed out and that really wasn’t a choice at all.

It took him roughly half an hour before he was satisfied he wasn’t going to bleed to death anytime soon, and three further hours to check himself over and bring himself up to an acceptable standard. He was sure his master would have some rather loud criticisms of his handiwork were he there, but at least he would be able to operate without tearing his stitches and falling apart for a few days. The fires around him had mostly faded to smoldering ash by the time he deemed himself as ready as he could make himself.

With a long suffering sigh he rose to his feet, cracking his neck and adjusting his cloak to hang over the stump of his right arm while he let the fiery prosthetic fade away; as much as he would love to have it all the time, he didn’t quite have the mana or skills to maintain it indefinitely yet. Testing his weight on each leg a few times to be sure his bones weren’t about to give out on him, he began trudging back the way he came.

He still needed to purge those damn tunnels and find the aetherium allowing this infection after all.