Herman and Eliza are still sleeping off the soul repairs, it hasn't been that long. How did they sleep through that, I wonder though? I can't find anything wrong with them exactly, but I think they're both getting bigger. Herman is turning a little greenish also. I'm worried, but I don't think there's anything I can do.

I finished growing myself some new bark and got enough light in me that I feel pretty good about exploring. Let's go see what's in the kitchen, then check out all the other hallways leading out of this place. I'm gonna let Mr. Biggs snore.

My goodness, there's so much dust. Everywhere I go I leave clouds in my wake.

The kitchen is kind of interesting. There's cupboards with food in them, but the cupboards are frozen. After scraping away some ice, I find some rather interesting spell constructs engraved into metal plates set into the walls in the back. The food looks really freezerburnt, so I decide to salvage away.

I grab a spatula and pry the plates out and stow them in my bag. But where is the power coming from? There's lines running from the plates in the back of the cupboards, and I follow them back to a junction box of sorts. The power goes into the floor, but there's a whole bunch of lones running every which way. I have no doubt they point at good things to loot.

After disassembling an oven for its heating spells, grabbing a motive force array from what looks kind of like a kitchenaid mixer, and salvaging a rune plate from a fan and a few dozen from some cupboard lighting, i pack them into my messenger bag and get ready to go. I can sense something about the oven though still. I keep poking at it, and find a latched plate that pops open. There's a fairly large heat crystal in there! I make some room and add it to my flamethrower. Not sure how much burn time that adds, but it doubles my recharge rate. If I get another two I can probably spew flames every 30 seconds or so. Nice! I also found a bunch of books. I can't read anyway, so I put them all in a pile along with the posters and the papers from my bag. No point in lugging it all around, I can always come back. Probably.

There's three hallways leading out of the decrepit cafeteria. One of them is lit, so I decide to try that one first. I proceed slowly, with Sam and Josephine scouting ahead. I don't want a repeat of getting jumped by moleratmadillos unprepared, so it takes me a while to make it to the next room. It's a... swamp? Why is there a swamp next to the cafeteria? I thought this place would start making sense, but no, it's just getting weirder.

There's a dryish path heading past some trees out in the water with large mossy beards hanging from their branches. Sam and Josephine hear frogs in the distance, and I get nervous and call them back so I can keep an eye on them. There's light in here, but it's fairly dim, and it seems to be coming from everywhere at once.

I pass a large log floating in the water next to the path when I see eyes flash open.

Shit! That's not a log!

It barrels out of the water at me, and it's absolutely gigantic!

I throw out three of my hands to hold it back while I reach for my axe with the 4th and desperately unfurl my flamethrower limb. I grab hold of the axe as I lose ground, sliding through the mucky soil despite my four legs as the creature bears down on me. It's jaws snap and take a few of my fingers but it barely grazes me. A swing of the axe bounces off its rough skin.

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Finally my flamethrower unrolls fully and I liberally spray the thing with fire. It flinches back and dives into the water. Soon all that's left is a ring of ripples.

Holy shit what was that?

It looked a bit like a monitor lizard but it was the size of a van!

I'm definitely shaken. Even more so when I look around and see more logs. At least one is slowly drifting my way.

I don't think I even hurt that thing.

I'm getting the hell out of here.

I pick up and run as fast as I can manage on the damp and slippery ground. Every time I switch from Sam's view to Josephine's facing rearward, I can see more lizards drifting closer trying to be sneaky.

I make it in the tunnel with plenty of time to spare, but I'm not happy. I take a few moments to regrow some fingers, depleting my stamina a bit more.

I decide that room can wait, i'm going to go sit in the sun for a bit and mess with my salvage. I need to build up some stamina and build up my nerves before I check out the next hallway.

Plus it's dark, and I have those lighting spellplates in my bag. I'm sure I can rig something up real quick.

After a little work I end up taking the makeshift heat crystal out of my flamethrower limb, and making another limb on the other side where I change it over into a makeshift light crystal and hook up four light plates to it. I still have that heat crystal from the oven hooked to my flamethrower, so I'm not defenseless, but it makes me nervous to reduce my attack power, especially after that.

The end result looks kind of like a lantern on a long stick, and it bobs along down the hallway above me as I press into the darkness. Behind me, the lights in the cafeteria flicker a bit and dim. Ominous...

I enter an archway at the end of the hall that opens into a large dark room. When I enter, the lights flicker on. Hmmm. Maybe the lights only turn on when someone is there. If the lights are already on, maybe I need to be more careful then.

It's some kind of lecture hall. There's lots of glassware along the back wall and lots of tools I don't recognize. Benches arc out from a large lectern and worktable on the right side of the room. I guess this is some sort of defunct school. What kind of school has killer lizards and angry rodents in it though? Louisiana schools maybe? Haha.

Also, there's lots of cabinets! Let's learn more about the previous residents and look for loot!

Let's see... Dead things in jars.... Gross.

Jars full of liquids and powders. They have labels but I cant read them.

A cabinet full of books. Looks like there' s three different books in it but dozens of copies of each.

More glassware and some weird tools. Poking around, I think I break one before I decide to leave it alone.

This cupboard is locked somehow. That means there's good stuff in here, right?

The door is locked and magically reinforced somehow. But when I open the cupboard on the left that shares a wall with it, I find it's easy to chop a hole in the cabinet wall there and shine some light through. I get Bob to go get me a good view inside and it's full of jars of little mana crystals!

Now that I know how to make it, it only takes a few minutes to pry a big enough hole in the wall and acquire and combine enough to make two more makeshift heat crystals for my flamethrower. Yes!

I mount one in my flamethrower, then I get an idea.

I make a spare flamethrower with one crystal that doesn't need to unfurl and mount it right in the middle of my basket/chest. Having to wait on it to unfurl all the way in the swamp was almost my downfall.

I make sure to add a lot of thick plant matter between me and it, just in case, but I feel like it's good to have a backup just in case regardless.

There's nothing else in the lecture hall I can use yet, but there is another door on the other side.

I'm just getting ready to head out and see what lies that way when Eliza finally wakes up! She's twice as big as the other bees, when did that happen?

I get real excited and link up my new psionics soul spell, and she feels more like linking up with Mr. Biggs than the other bees! Tentatively, I send out some words.

"Hey! You're awake! Are you feeling all right?"

"What? Oh yes! I'm feeling pretty good! It's good to be out of that nasty place! Wait, where are we? And how are we talkin'?"

"Well, it's a long story" I send, as I find a bench, unfurl my leaves, and get ready to tell a tale.