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Honey, I'm home! [HIATUS]
09 Everything's vine and dandy

09 Everything's vine and dandy

Chimeric? I don't know what that means exactly but it sounds cool. Does that mean I can grow a goat, snake and lion head? Maybe I won't need to have a zombie corpse drag me about. Let's find out.

Announcements

Congratulations, monster!

For grafting more than 5 soul cores and using foreign flesh as if it is your own, you unlock the Chimera subrace.

You are granted access to the resource Lifeforce. To use Lifeforce, think Lifeforce Menu.

To gain Lifeforce, graft more soul cores, or consume living creatures.

Happy Hunting!

Okay, what the heck? What's this now? How Rude!

Calling me a monster right off the bat...

There's a lot of dangerous information in this notice. It wants me to eat creatures alive? That's pretty evil, and I don't really have a mouth. Have I just been given a terrible subclass? How am I supposed to see this?

I've been grafting souls on to mine or something? That sounds like its unwise, but I already did it and it doesn't feel too bad. I think. Gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelette anyway, if it's my new cheat I might as well get some use out of it, even if it's creepy. 

I'm reserving judgement. I need to see what I can do with this first.

Lifeforce Menu

1 life force equals the life energy of a low leveled living being. Only beings beyond a certain level of intelligence and size can condense a soul core to store their life force and anchor their soul in. Unanchored souls can be stolen, it is highly advised to anchor your soul. Life force may also be generated with mana at a low rate. In this menu you may spend the stolen life force of your foes to reshape yourself in their image.

Current Lifeforce: 7

Maximum Lifeforce: 7

Lifeforce Regeneration Rate: .0000000167/s

Upgrades

Merge Soul Core: 5 Life Force

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Merge Mana Core: 5 Life Force

Graft Flesh: 25 Life Force

Examine Blueprint: 10 Life Force

Remodel Flesh: Active Drain

More unlocks may be available, consume your enemies and grow stronger!

Oh. OH. OHHHHHH! This is really cool! I take it back, I'll graft cores if I can have my own legs! Screw the consequences, I can handle it, I'm a beehive, and I beelieve I can do it.

I just got a growth spell, and there's lots of cool plants in here. Bees like plants anyway, lets build a plant body. First we need a plan though. 

I want to mount magic weapons on it, and some flowers so I have a mobile food source for my inhabitants. I want it to look cool, be tough, and be fixable with my growth spell if I get really mangled. After that fight a bit ago, my missing hand and fingers are really dragging on me. 

First I'm guessing I should remove myself from the zombie, then I should have a section of the hive built for soul cores. Then I'll see about giving myself some plant legs, it's less gross than messing with meat and I need to practice my growth spell anyway.

I can't afford anything right now, but I might as well start planning. It looks like I'm going to have to do some killing to get out of here after all. 

Let's see... Plants... Plants... Let's look at all the ones back in the sun room, and see what I have to work with. This one has cool flowers but it's too weak stem-wise to support weight. I like the yellow leaf highlights on this one, but it doesn't really have a stem, it's all leaf. This one is tough and stringy, but it's kind of ugly. Hmmm.

Wait, I'm I chimera now, I bet I can grab whatever traits I like later. Lets go for toughness first, We'll pick that ugly brown vine with the little thin leaves and red poppy like flowers. Decision made! Let's bud me some legs, then go hunting for rodents, but first, let's make sure I'm starting the clock on that slow Life Force regen. Merge soul core. 

That's a weird feeling. I think I blacked out. It felt kind of like being spun around really fast. I'm glad I can't throw up, ugh. Now I have 6 soul cores though, one bigger than the others with some dimly glowing wisps swirling about the center. That seems like a good thing, even if I still feel a bit queasy. My maximum life force went up by one, so I guess 2 soul cores that hold one life force each combine in to a single that holds 3. Nice.

I need to eat monsters to regain life force, so I'm thinking I might be able to do it with some roots. Who knows what sunlight will do for me, but it should be pretty decent. 

After a few hours of messing about with growth on those weird brown vines, I manage to make them weave together, yet remain flexible enough to bend on command. They're strong enough it takes 8 chops to get through a vine cable as big around as my wrist, and considering it took 7 to take off a whole dessicated zombie leg, that's way tougher than my current ride. Getting them to bend on command is oretty annoying though. I leveled up growth to intermediate from all the practice, but it's still hard. 

I build a big woven basket to put my beehive in, and make a large tree sort of thing in the middle to hook it to so it doesn't shake around. Judging by this basket, new me is going to be really big, and a nice brownish green. Lots of room for hive and other things, we can make a ton of pockets for crystals and such. 

I put some legs on it and try to stand it up but it doesn't work very well. Two legs are terrible for balance, and I'm terrified of falling over and crushing my fragile hive with the impact. 

How about I set my new body up with a massive set of 4 legs like a claw footed bathtub on steroids? I don't have any eyes on it so "front" and "back" are pretty irrelevant. It's not very giant robot like, but they all have giant gyroscopes and whatnot to stay balanced. If I want to not get killed I have to make concessions.

I make some long arms, but the fingers are hard. In the end I settle for a pile of longish vines that I can wrap around things for a grip. I put my axe in the hand and some of the fingers wrap around the handle multiple times, but the grip is sturdy. I'm gonna need something better later, but for now, it will do. 

I put some leaves around the rim of the basket at the top and make some leafy shoulders. I'm not sure what sunlight will do for my new body, but I do know I need it. I can grow leaves on command when I have time to rest, but a constant influx of light is probably better than none, and it might increase the time needed between sunlight breaks. Now all I need is some life force to graft flesh, and I know just where to get it. Those bastards tried to get me once but I was unprepared. I'm still unprepared but at least I have surprise on my side. 

It's time to hunt, and try to be a little smart about it. First, the bees are way faster than the critters blocking my exploration, so I'll ask for a volunteer to go figure out how many of them there are. Eliza volunteers immediately, looks like we have a combat junkie in training. Surprisingly the delinquents want to go as well, but they seem a little apprehensive, so I ask them to hang out near the ceiling of the room and all look different ways so we don't get jumped while Eliza scouts. They seem relieved. The rest of the bees would much rather increase our stores and... the queen is making more bees. Let's pretend I didn't see that. Nope, not a thing...