Going to see Grimal, he seems a bit healthier, even though his bandages bled through a bit from being so active lately. I think he's nervous about the centipedes, because he's chewed a set of clawholds into the wall in a sort of ladder, and he made himself a nice little cubby in the ceiling. Climbing up a ladder as a big centipede is hard, but mostly due to the weird balance required. The extra legs make it easier than I expected though.

I psionically announce my presence as I head up the ladder. "Grimal! If you're awake, I'm coming up to ask you questions! Also I'm a centipede now!" What I didn't realize, is there's cool stuff up here in the ceiling! Wires made of some bluish metal, some odd machines, I think it's related to the light system though, so I don't poke at it. I don't want to be in the dark, especially after my trip through the old classrooms, so I pick an empty area nearby and gouge out some room for me to coil up and show off my treasures.

"All right, what weird questions do you want to ask now? You're an interestin- GAH!"

"Calm down, Grimal, I'm a centipede now."

"You're... You just decided to turn into a centipede, is that it? Wanted to scare old Grimal half to death? How did you even get up here?"

"Well, I killed a centipede, but I almost died, so I thought about it, and if you can't beat em, join em! Right? I climbed up the ladder."

"You just... climbed up the ladder. You're telling me they can all do that and my ladder is useless?"

"It's not useless! It's really cool! I never knew this was up here. Also if you like, we can make a one use flamethrower array at the top of the ladder. It wasn't a fast climb, and if you can get the centipede in the head long enough, they'll cook inside. Maybe set up 10 or 12 flamethrowers pointing down the ladder, and serve up some centipede BBQ!"

"If you could help me get that set up, I would really appreciate it. It's hard to sleep knowing those things are out there lurking."

I had better not mention the antelope. He wouldn't like that at all.

"Sure, let's get you set up. Then I got some cool loot to ask you about from the old classrooms."

"Ah, very good. Maybe with enough of the old lab equipment we can figure out how to get rid of those things."

He might be right. Sunny seems to think so. On hearing that, he shouts "Defend!"

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"Who was that?" Grimal swivels his head about, looking for an intruder.

"Oh, you remember how we were talking about getting the defense core? That's the defense core. I call him Sunny, and he really gets excited about defense sometimes. Here, you wanna see?"

I move some plates aside and roll Sunny out of my storage space with a vine, uncurling the fern leaves covering him, but still keeping a grip so I won't drop him. That would be rude.

Sunny, meet Grimal! Grimal, this is Sunny. Sunny immediately pipes up. "Defend?" he asks. "No, Grimal is a friend." Sunny makes his sad noise. "Don't worry Sunny, we'll track down more invaders soon." "Defend!"

"Ah, very nice, but I can't see anything since Sunny is so bright. If you could put him away?"

Ah, I see. My weird vision must be pretty good then, since I can still see.

I wrap him back up, and we get to work.

Let's see.

Let's just add the flamethrowers into the ladder and around the hole in the ceiling to Grimal's hidey hole. Then we'll put the triggers next to where Grimal sleeps, and link them in two groups. The ladder flamethrowers and the ceiling flamethrowers. Then we'll start adding mana batteries and filling them up. How about some more? Ah, I'm running out... Unless... I've been burning lifeforce this whole time to assemble crystals and soul orbs into their larger counterparts. Let's take the next step and move from a size 64 orb to a 128 orb, size up my mana crystal, then go grab that centipede's orb and crystal where I stashed them.

I combine soul orbs with a little trepidation, but I don't feel the nausea that I felt before. Instead, I'm instantly present in a realm with a black sky, and green glowing winds swirling above. I'm in a human shape, which feels unfamiliar now, floating on my back in a black sea. I watch the swirling green and black sky for what seems like ages, until I see something move out of the corner of my eye. I turn over in the water and look down, only to see a sea of drowning moleratmadillows reaching for the surface. Oh....

I know these are supposed to be soul orbs, but I didn't think it was this kind of soul. Off in the distance, I see a spark of green light rise from the deeps and join the swirling clouds of green above. I look closer, and see it again. There's a figure down there chopping up moleratmadillows. Every time he swings, another green light leaves the depths, but some of it swirls and gathers into him. And he has Mr. Axe! Is that... The poor sap I found dead in the hallway?

It's a good thing he's good with that axe, and the moleratmadillows are mostly flailing about, but the ones nearest him are assaulting him.

I cup my hands together and shout. "Hello! Sorry about the mess in here! Didn't know you were in here! I'll be more careful in the future! Good luck!"

Suddenly I'm back to reality.

That was weird. I don't feel guilty about the vermin, they're mostly not sentient, and they hurt me and Grimal first, but knowing I trapped some random dude's soul makes me unhappy. I hope the zombies didn't get their original souls stuck in there too.

Looking closely at my big soul orb, it looks exactly like the vision. Swirling green sky, deep black ocean. I can't see anything smaller, but looking at it for a while, I see a little green wisp rise from the depths.

I'll wait to add the centipede's soul orb to my collection. And these ones over here, those were the giant lizards, it's a good thing I didn't add those in to the big orb yet, wouldn't want to make the dude's life even more miserable.

When I join the mana crystal from the centipede into my system though, my mana capacity practically doubles! Yesssssssss!

With that, it's trivial to finish Grimal's defenses but I'm depleted by the time I'm done. I curl up, and listen to Grimal talk about everything I picked up, pulling items out of my mouth one at a time with a giant hand. Maybe this isn't so bad after all.