Chapter 14: Hunger.

So, good news and bad news.

On the upside, I wasn’t currently dead.

Always a positive.

Furthermore, I hadn’t sustained any physical injuries, which was honestly nothing short of miraculous.

The downside was that I had managed to end up very far away from the spot where I was and even further from the entrance to the maze.

Meaning that I would have to climb all the way back to my starting point if I wanted to have any hope of getting out.

“Heh. Ha. HAHAHAHA!” I laughed, unable to keep myself in check.

“Oh, my goodness. There it is again. The fear, the uncertainty. The lack of control.”

That last point was especially prescient. I was once again in a position where I didn’t have any control over my surroundings. Over my future. I mean, that seahorse-dragon thing had possessed a (Centipede)ing atomic breath! It could have literally vaporized before I had a chance to blink in its general direction! Who thought it was a good idea to leave that thing in the same general location as people?

I laughed harder at my owns stupidity.

“Come on Sully, you know better than to ask that. Psychopaths, that’s who! There’s no other explanation. Me and the others have been trapped here by a very wealthy, superpowered psychopath that’s undoubtedly watching us through hidden cameras on the walls or sensors inside our brains. How else could you explain the screens that show up now and then? Or the censorship? As if this whole thing was a pay-per view show being streamed by the most homicidal freaks on the planet. What, did you think there was an kind old granny installing mother(Centepide)ing anti-gravity fields in volcanic caves? Wake up man. Prepare for the worst. You could have died!”

I take a moment to heave, keeping my hands on my wobbling legs in order to avoid falling on my face.

I’m tired.

I am so tired of it all.

Hungry too.

So hungry.

My stomach growled in confirmation and I grimaced as the aching shook me further.

I clench my fists and take a deep, calming breath. Followed by another and another. Drawing air in, holding it as long as possible and allowing it to escape in slow hiss.

“Its okay. I’m okay. I’m alive. I can still keep going. I can still make it out.”

The words ring hollow amidst the wet floor and the vertical drop I just traversed.

Nevertheless, I take note of my surroundings and see that there are five passages connected to the bottom of the crevice.

Two of them are immediately discarded due to how small they are. I’d have to get on my hands and knees to fit, which meant I’d be trapped in a very narrow space that could be assailed at any time by monsters.

Images of pumas leaping from pitfalls and snails flooding corridors with fire run through my mind again.

“No, definitely not those. Which leaves the two leading down and the one tunnel leading up. The one with the overgrown pink plants all over the place. Great.”

While I wasn’t a biology student myself, I did have friends who were.

Vince, for one. Him and Doris.

I shook my head to dispel the memories before they surged back up.

“Focus man. Focus. What was it that Vince said? Bright colours in nature are signals to predators. Like a big neon sign stating ‘Stay away or I’ll (Centipede) you up!’ Which usually translates either poison or venom.”

Now that I thought about it, some of those fronds resembled the ones that had cut me on my first few hours here. I recalled the side effects again, as well as the speed at which they spread. If it hadn’t been for the bunny man…

“Okay, that’s not going to work. If only I had something to swat them out of my path without touching them.”

Then, like the imbecile that I was, I saw a stick and remembered that I had hands.

I chuckled, deflating somewhat as the tension left me and grabbed my new tool from the pond.

I took another steadying breath as my fingers curled around the shaft, before walking over and starting the climb once more.

At first, everything went according to plan. The stick did its job and pushed the vines and fronds away without issue and no monsters came out of the woodwork to harass me.

I was activating [Precognition] in steady intervals. Trying to determine the location of nearby traps since my fog wasn’t picking anything up.

To my relief, none of the phantom versions of me superimposed on reality ran into any unforeseen troubles.

I mean, yeah, I did see them getting stung and even ripped apart by some of the tentacled plants, but that was a danger I was already aware of. Those mutated flowers wouldn’t be catching me any time soon.

That relief turned to frustration some hours later. I was almost sure I’d walked at least a couple of kilometres, yet I remained surrounded by pink carnivorous petals. It would seem that, out of all the corridors in all the floors I’d gone through, this was the only one that didn’t have a few branching tunnels to chose from.

I was stuck going uphill. Without a source of water or food nearby.

I was also still on edge after noticing that some of the plants were different from the rest. There were certain specimens that looked less like a regular flower or tree and more like a wooden drum with a face carved on one side. Those faces were filled with razor sharp teeth and those eyes were not just there for their artistic value. Luminescent insects crawled in and out of them, buzzing loudly whenever I approached.

The noises made the drum-plants grow limbs on their underside. Short, stubby things that wouldn’t be taking them to any races. Yet they did allow for some motion and the plants followed the insect’s buzzing towards my location until I hit a bunch of them with [Fever].

The bugs scattered in all directions before dying mid-flight, as if they’d been hit with a toxic spray by a fumigator. Seeing their chance, the pink-petaled locals moved their fronds to intercept, wrapping them up before dragging them towards their center.

The drum-plants thereby proved two of my suspicions. They could move, although they were limited in their ability to do so; and they could flush me out, though it would take them some time or luck to stumble into me.

Worse, exhaustion was beginning to take its toll now that the adrenaline from my fall had been flushed out of my system. I felt heavy, as if my legs were made of wood.

My eyes begun to close, even as I forced my feet to stay in motion.

“Come on man. Don’t give up now. I’m sure there’s a safe area around the next corner. I’m sure its nearby. Just keep moving. The plants do move so you have to keep going. There will be a watering hole next time. Next time. I’m sure of it.”

Next time didn’t come for another four hours.

When it did arrive, I was half a corpse. Running on the last vestiges of what others would call fumes. I had left the pseudo-jungle behind and arrived on a large circular chamber with vents littering the ceiling and at least half a dozen other entrances to choose from. Several of which continued upwards.

There were some large boulders in the middle, but I didn’t think too much of them since my fog still wasn’t picking up anything.

Instead, I locked my gaze onto the metal bars separating the watering hole from the rest of the dungeon. I was so relieved that my knees almost gave out and I smiled widely. Grinning like an idiot.

I rushed towards the gate, about to open it, when another feature of the environment took my breath away.

“Is that… is that a (Centipede)ing apple tree?”

I let go of the gate, too stunned to say anything else.

Sure enough. There was a big, freaking apple tree down here. Standing behind the boulders that had blocked my vision earlier. Its leaves were green and the apples hanging from the branches were red.

It looked like any old apple tree you’d find back home in Canada. Down to the smallest details.

My stomach rumbled again and I almost wept.

I ran towards it. Whooping and hollering with newfound vigor.

Then I stopped. As I realized that this was, indeed an apple tree. Down here. In the middle of the murder dungeon. Placed precariously in the open. Right after a section filled to the brim with venomous plants.

'Okay. Calm down. Push down the hunger. This has got to be a trap. Think.'

From the perspective of a video game, which the System resembled, this would be something like a mimic. A creature that looked like a normal tree while being a blood-sucking leech or something. Meaning that getting close would be a really bad idea.

From the perspective of natural biology, plants that relied on photosynthesis could not survive without light and sufficient nutrients. It simply wasn't possible. There was a chance that it had been teleported here alongside the rest of us, but that theory also had its holes. More specifically, the curious absence of buzzing insects. They had been all over the mushrooms and most of the tunnels. The only places where they had been absent had been those that were filled with predators. Like the carnivorous plants. Meaning that getting close might very well end with me being slowly digested inside a pod.

I gulped and looked around for something to throw, finally settling for a hefty stone over to my left. My fingers curled around it and I proceeded to throw it up in the air before catching it again. Familiarizing myself with the balance.

Then I threw it towards the tree. As hard as I possibly could.

The rock's jagged edge hit the trunk with a loud thud.

The tree didn't like that. Not one bloody bit. I could tell as much because it and by extension, all the earth around it shook violently, before thick roots ripped themselves off the ground and branches started swinging wildly in every direction.

I leapt backwards, dodging an errant blow my mere inches.

The rumbling escalated from there. Only ceasing when the thing had fully escaped its stony confines.

The (Centipede)ing tree then took a boxing stance. As in, a stance professional boxers used to beat the stuffing out of each other.

Then it charged at me.

Because of course it would.

I wasted no time in activating [Hide]. Throwing open the watering hole door and flinging myself into the safety of the enclosed room. I scrambled to shut the door behind me, but failed, the tree’s assault ripping the metal bars off their hinges with the casual ease of a child toppling a sandcastle.

I turned the other way, placing myself at the furthest corner of the room in the hope that my new tormentor wasn’t able to reach me.

Miraculously, it worked.

The thing spread its branches through the opening where the door had been but couldn’t reach me no matter how much it strained.

So, I waited. Sitting down and catching my breath. Trying really hard not to crack under the immense pressure and the realization that I’d almost died to a (Centipede)ing tree.

On the upside, it left after only an hour or so and was even kind enough to ignore the apples that had fallen off it during its attempted murder. I picked some up during my escape, fleeing as fast as I could through the narrowest tunnel I could find.

On the downside, that was all the food I’d enjoyed that day.

Or the day after for that matter.

Yeah.

Not the best time to be rummaging through an unknown floor.

Especially since I was climbing up to the point where I’d previously been instead of making progress towards my escape.

At this pace, I might reach my previous spot in a couple more days. So, a little over a week? How long had I been here? Five days? Six? Somehow it all blurred together. One long inescapable nightmare.

To make matters worse, the messages seemed to echo my feelings. Punched or gouged out holes stating things like:

“No escape.”

“Repent your sins.”

“Fight the Andromedin Wasp Empire! Kill the Telepaths!”

Lovely sentiments all around.

‘Don’t think about that Solomon. Positive thoughts now. Positive thoughts. It can get better. It will get better. Keep an eye out for more living trees or mushrooms or whatever.’

So, I kept moving. Practising on anything that came too close.

Regardless, it took most of the day to figure out what I was doing wrong in regards to [Fever]. Ironically enough, the idea came to me whilst setting up another ambush site after gaining a level.

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The sandy layer of floor had given way to polished marble in the new section and floating balls of light served to illuminate the way forward, rather than the usual mushrooms. The walls were also straighter, forming perfect 90-degree angles as they touched the adjacent surfaces.

It made forming trails for prey a little difficult, as I would need to make every layer fit with the others to mimic the perfectly even surfaces nearby. It was like filling out a puzzle in empty air, where a single slip of my hands might give the whole picture away.

My illusions had gotten two of the giant moles into a single room. One where centipedes, eels, beetles, golden snails, shadow-trout, bone flowers, silver pumas and two of those famous robot bulls were slaughtering each other. Most of them had been sent by me, but the bulls had just kind of, shown up some time after the fight started.

The first thing I noticed was that the bulls didn’t register at all in my fog. Which made sense, them being machines and all.

The second thing I noticed was that my illusions didn’t affect the bulls either. Which made no sense at all, given that they were stimuli hanging in space.

Robot or no, they shouldn’t have been able to see through the visual screens I’d put in place to herd the masses.

That’s when I started asking questions.

What were the illusions anyway? If they were light-constructs, that would mean Telepaths could control light to some degree. If that was the case, why had no Telepath used illusions that could be caught on camera?

Then I remembered the villainous Blackjack walking in front of the heroes and slipping right past them.

The public had been outraged as they couldn’t see the falsehoods befuddling the response teams.

All they ever saw was their heroes standing around looking confused. Thunder Fist and Horizon were fine from a physical perspective. Neither had suffered so much as a scratch.

They couldn’t see what they’d been hit by. Because the illusions existed, not in the regular world, but some sort of psychic void. The energy interacted with living beings to reproduce physical stimuli, mimicking sights, sounds and smells. It was the energy that was left behind when I used the ability, not a static amount of still light or chemicals that gave off scents.

As soon as I figured this out, I tried to peer into one of my own works. Rather than being the usual filled air, it now looked as if it were a spark. A candle burning through wick in order to fool the senses.

If that were the case, could the illusions be more, charged up?

Could I empower an illusion?

A quick test showed that I could so by placing more Psy into each forgery, wrapping layers of fuel around the floating tendrils that made up the core. In a way, it was like giving more wick to each candle.

After a successful experiment, I applied the same lessons to [Fever].

This time, it worked like a charm.

System Notice:

Student has made a breakthrough with an ability.

Level Gained: +5 Maximum Psy. +3 Ability Points.

Ability Evolving: [Static Illusion] 3 has grown to [Static Illusion] 4

System Notice:

Student has made a breakthrough with an ability.

Level Gained: +5 Maximum Psy. +3 Ability Points.

Ability Evolving: [Fever] 2 has grown to [Fever] 3

Counting the earlier, legitimate level from killing monsters, this left me with 2 ability points to spend and a much greater understanding of what was going on.

All that slaying served a purpose, but levelling via escalating hunts was impractical.

After all, why risk life and limb when it was much easier and more expedient to train up the individual powers.

It, kind of sucked that the upgrade still ate up free points, but it was still far more efficient than the hiding and sniping routine or even the devious mastermind routine I employed to boost my KD ratio.

With these new lessons in mind, I moved on to another unexplored section of the maze. After taking my prize of course. Bunny man had mentioned that the bovine constructs had nutrient bars inside of them. This notion could very well be a side-effect of his, condition, but it wouldn’t hurt to try.

Stepping into the silent chamber where the melee broken out was easy. Keeping myself from vomiting was considerably harder.

Viscera and offal coated the floor, creating a vile layer of bodily fluids from a menagerie of monsters. Some of these bore the telltale signs of my bolts whilst others appeared as though they’d been crushed or mangled. In particular, both moles were missing their lobster arms and I soon realized the weapons had been torn off in the scuffle.

Contrary to my expectations, the moles were not nearly as dangerous as a well-coordinated swarm of underlings.

Worse yet had been the robot.

Its chassis was bent and shattered where front legs met torso. Through the hole, I could see the barest glint of exposed wires and chrome. I approached slowly, dancing around the wreckage and making sudden motions in one direction after another. When no self-detonation occurred, I figured it was safe enough to inspect.

The design itself was, serviceable. I guess.

All hydraulics and synthetic muscle mounted on a heavy titanium frame.

It was a few years behind what the guys and I had worked on under professor Maze, but that was to be expected. The only real standout was the power source.

The battery itself was, well, impossible.

Compact in the extreme whilst still being able to breathe life into the very hungry locomotion systems. To say it was valuable would be an understatement. A more apt description would be that my own professor and any of his graduate students would gladly murder me for it. It looked like any other battery one might buy in a store, only without a logo. However, it and it alone had given life to the lumbering drone. A drone that was bigger than a rhino and sported several inches of armor.

There had to be a vast array of innovations locked away in this little package, but they would have to wait for later.

For now, I was content to grab a woefully inadequate meal and count myself lucky.

The bars were stiff and hard. All the same, any food would have a heavenly taste at this point.

After all, I was starving.

Those early symptoms had been there since I missed breakfast. Just about everyone gets cranky when they’ve missed a meal, for good reason. From there it had been a slippery slope of fatigue, dizziness and poor concentration.

Usually, this would’ve had a negative impact on my training, given that it required so much focus. Paradoxically, the opposite was true.

The hunger sharpened my willpower, growing my connection to the motes inside of me. It also got me thinking about what I had done thus far and how the lessons could be applied elsewhere.

[Fear] had taken a bit of a backseat recently, mainly because of the close-range required.

What if that wasn’t the case anymore? What if it were possible to entrap the mote next to another mote, say [Mental Bolt]? Would that de-stabilize my attack or would it have an additional effect?

It was this morbid curiosity that saw me clearing a nearby watering hole with my first ever combined blast.

At first, the bolt took in more Psy, as it had done before. I made it spin around my orbit, going round and round, faster and faster. The air began to crackle and I held on to the whizzing orb of death while summoning the lesser strands from within me.

They did not get along. If pushed, I would have to compare then to two magnets pushing against each other, only both were made of liquid and hissed like vipers every time they came close. More than once, I felt the grip I had on [Fear] give way while the bolt attempted to break free.

Aches began to sprout from my stomach, but all of me was next to those two concepts, trying to marry them together.

“Remember your mantra. Happy thoughts. Positive thoughts. You’ll make it through this. You always do.”

I failed.

Then I failed again and again.

Cursing myself, I went to sleep after drinking as much water as I dared and doing my business in a distant dead-end.

I dreamed of the sarcophagus.

Of a blood-soaked needle leaving my body. A whisper grew in volume and intensity just behind me, promising the world, the moon and all the stars in the night sky. Worst of all, I dreamt of the abomination in the vault. Of torrential rains of bright-green acid melting his gaolers.

It spoke to me sweetly and promised me enlightenment. All I had to do was surrender my mercy and my humanity. Embracing the crimson crown in all its majesty.

Morning brought peace and more hunger besides.

My brain cried out as I stood and a spell of dizziness sent me to the floor.

Everything was harder now. More confused. The limb’s I’d been born with had become suspicious strangers, refusing all but the simplest commands.

The smell of my own body, which had been so distracting earlier, was a mere afterthought.

Whatever sad bits of cloth remained of my pajamas were thoroughly soiled, to the point where I genuinely couldn’t imagine them ever being clean again.

“How many are left?”

Survivor Count: 781/1000

‘Yeah. That sounds about right.’

One deep breath later, I was ready to move again.

It took two more tries before I was standing properly.

From there, I wandered off into the unexplored areas of my map.

“Right. First priority. Find and take down as many bulls as I can. Another day of this might kill me if I’m not careful. I need to eat something. I need to keep moving. I need to keep saving people.”

As per my own wish, it didn’t take long to find another person, and I soon settled behind an illusory wall, ready to make contact. Again.

‘This time for sure.’ I thought, jinxing the whole ordeal as I did so.

They were located outside my map, but I could roughly guess they were right around the next corner.

I narrowed my focus and allowed the signals to flow.

The loose strings of energy came back to me, carrying the imprint of a male, thinking quickly and erratically. This new consciousness tasted of adrenaline and exhaustion. Feeling more like a thinking corpse parading itself as a man. Someone who had suffered immensely but refused to stay down due to sheer stubbornness and spite.

I could relate on so many levels.

‘Damn you! How dare a filthy savage like you try to kill me! Damn it! Damn you! Damn this whole place! I’ll come back with the rest of my regiment and smoke the rest of you mud people out!’

Huh.

That was, different.

‘On second thought. Maybe this wasn’t the best time to look for friends. Yeah. I think I’ll just step into this other passage right here and go in the opposite direction.’

The fact that I had to do that sucked. Yet, I couldn’t think of a better way at the moment. That guy sounded violent and more than a little peeved. To the point where going out to meet him could result in my skull being caved in with a sharp rock. Of course, there was always the chance that he was actually an upstanding pillar of the community, but I didn’t feel like gambling with my life after everything I’d been through so far.

So, I sighed and moved away. Going up and around his position so that two different floors separated us.

I climbed and climbed and climbed. Noting the way different patterns appeared on the walls as I went up. It wasn’t like those words carved out by my fellow survivors, but rather, like the etchings of old European proto-societies. Carvings of centipedes and eels and other things besides them.

There was a somber beauty to the way they’d been etched onto the tunnels. Abstract artistry somehow finding a foothold in even this remote location.

I felt a dull, throbbing pain in my stomach and massaged it lightly. Willfully ignoring the protests my own intestines were throwing out.

‘I can’t slow down. Not now. There’s no telling how deep this cave is and there’s no telling what else is waiting up there in the surface.’

I dimly recalled videos of cave diving expeditions again. Specifically, those that had gone horrifically wrong. There was always the danger of a collapsing tunnel in natural cave formations. That and the threat of the whole structure flooding due to a rainstorm outside. More than one adventurer had met their end when their foot got stuck or after they wedged themselves too tightly in some passage or crevice.

‘And of course, there’s always the danger of carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide poisoning. There are monsters in here that can set fires and I’m pretty sure I’ve sensed Projectors using fire as well. All it would take was some sort of accelerant and the whole thing could be filled with smoke faster than I could run.’

I shuddered again, clenched my teeth and kept moving. Cursing everyone else I’d found under my breath.

‘If there were two of us, we could have covered more ground since we wouldn’t need to take breaks to recover Psy as often. If there had been three or four of us, we could have covered twice or thrice as much ground by this point. We could have made it to the surface. If I had somehow managed to form a group of six or ten, why, I might have made it outside by now.’

If there even was a way outside. The deepest cave in the world should have been roughly two kilometres in depth and I was pretty sure I’d climbed at least twice that much distance by now. Closing my eyes and focusing on the sections of [Mental Map] that had formed confirmed those suspicions.

‘Meaning I can more or less rule out the possibility of this being a naturally-formed cave. But that only leads to more questions. Who could have possibly taken the time to dig all this? More importantly, why do this at all? If what the mastermind wanted was super-powered soldiers then it didn’t make sense to have us dying down here like roaches scattering about a kitchen floor. Giving some powers can’t be cheap or easy, so how could they waste such an investment of resources? Why not have us drilling in some gulag out in Siberia or a desert compound somewhere out in the middle of nowhere? What could they possibly hope to gain by bringing people from different dimensions?’

It was no good. The more I thought about the options available to me, the more factors came into play. All serving to bring my hopes down even further.

‘Then there’s the issue of ventilation as well. Let’s say there are a couple of hundred fires burning down here at any one time. A generous understatement, if my memories and observations are any indication. That means we should all be very, very dead. Carbon monoxide is one of those things living creatures don’t take kindly to. Even high-Ranked Shifters and Enhancers need to breathe. Their cells still need oxygen in their blood to keep going. So how?’

I stumbled. Landing on my shoulders before I knew it. Scraping some skin off as my body hit the floor.

I grimaced. Sucking in a breath while also supressing any shouts or curses that might give away my position.

I stood on stumbling legs. My vision turning blurry as I started moving again.

‘Oh shoot. Did I jinx it? Ha. That would almost be funny.’

My stomach growled then. More fiercely than before.

‘Ah, of course. It’s the hunger. Naturally.’

I hadn’t seen another edible mushroom so far and hadn’t found anything else to eat either. It stood to reason that my body would start shutting down right about now.

I clenched my teeth and looked for a nearby safe zone. Deciding to take a break and drink some water until I was well enough to walk again.

Unfortunately, it seemed like there wasn’t anywhere to rest nearby. So, I kept moving upwards. Hoping against hope that the world didn’t drop a massive (Centipede) on me right now.

I went on for another half hour before I fell once more. This time managing to catch myself on a wall before hitting the floor. Then I went on for another fifteen minutes before the same thing happened.

I was no stranger to dizziness, but these sensations were miles away from those brought on by strong drink. I was… I felt, empty. Like there was something missing within me. An ache that now ran down my arms and legs. Turning all my limbs to clumsy sticks of iron.

‘I need to rest.’ A part of me thought.

‘There are still monsters out here.’ Another part of me bit back. Throwing another charged [Mental Bolt] to a passing puma stalking prey one floor above me.

My eyes went to my status then. Confirming that I still had 50 Psy left. It wasn’t great, so I would need to ration them until I found another safe zone.

I tried to get up and found my legs wanting. They wobbled like warm jelly. Refusing to take my weight on.

I managed to catch myself before hitting the floor once more, though one of my legs scraped against a nearby rock.

‘Right. That’s not going to work. Just a little snooze then.’ A sweet, tempting voice whispered within me.

The rest of me jumped up. Sweating bullets as my brain went over all the ways in which doing such a thing would be tantamount to suicide.

“I can’t stay here.” I told myself. Speaking the words out loud in the hope that they’d lend me strength. “There are too many monsters and too many dangerous loons around. This might be some, alternate dimension or something, but that doesn’t mean the regular spelunking rules don’t apply. I need to find an exit. I need to keep moving. I need… I need….”

‘Food.’ My spirit finished, as my muscles sagged with exhaustion.

I recall struggling to rise. To move. To get back to searching. But my eyelids felt as if entire continents were dragging them down. So, very heavy.

“Don’t be stupid.” I murmured. “Get up. You have to live. For Dad and Mom. For Henry and Vince and Luigi. You can’t die here. They deserve to know what happened at least. Get up. Get…”

The world turned black, and I was sucked into a shallow sleep. One that was interrupted when I sensed bloodshed coming from above me. A fight ensuing between some amorphous mass and a lobster-mole.

I tried to move, but my legs would not obey. Instead, sharp, blinding arcs of agony lanced their way up my limbs. The soreness biting at my very bones to keep me in place.

I didn’t relent. Biting my lips and summoning whatever meager scraps of energy I had left so that I could rise and move and run.

I did manage to rise, but moving was more of a chore than I recalled. My eyelids were still falling despite my best efforts. My whole being feeling like a deflated balloon that some else was carrying.

I felt weak. Vulnerable in a whole different manner than before. Chills and goosebumps crawling up my back as I felt the fight atop me getting out of hand.

Then, within the span of a single heartbeat, the mole struck the ground beneath it and collapsed the ceiling above me. Reeling as it made to charge.

I instinctively called on [Hide] and [Precognition]. Finding the one future where I wasn’t crushed beneath the thing’s bulk and erasing all traces from my presence as I moved out of the monster’s way.

My strings showed me the way and I managed to leap sideways into a smooth section of wall. Pressing myself against the stony surface like my life depended on it. Probably because it did.

The charging behemoth did not notice, or if it did, it didn’t care overmuch.

I sighed in relief. Losing the usual focus I had on my surroundings as I slowly collapsed back down unto the floor. Only to find something soft and squishy waiting for me.

I looked down, barely having enough energy left to re-summon my fog.

There, below me, was an amorphous blob of something. Some creature that was very, very happy that I landed atop it. Its feelers started wrapping around me, before I had the chance to flee.

I pulled away from it. Screaming in a panic as I used my arms and legs to crawl away while also loosing a [Mental Bolt] and [Fever] in its direction.

To my growing horror, the amoeba didn't so much as flinch. It started extending tentacles outward, in a manner that reminded me of what I'd learned of single-celled predators. How they would envelop their prey before digesting them alive.

‘Goodness gracious!’ It’s mind squirmed. ‘You’re this strong!? This early!? You’re the best! You and I are going to be best friends forever!’