Stiff fingers sent jabs of pain up his hand with every jolt that coursed from his shoulder, pain was fracturing in his mind creating segments of reality where his conciousness formed between the cracks.
Debby used her hands to fix the outer halls of the ship, the huge orcas were thrice evolved before they became true monsters, from animal to beast, to dire beast and then to monster, but she endured, retaining control and forming more complex idle routines that let her spread control over more monsters.
She accepted the player issued salvage request and her bodies morphed to their current state, she could now turn to almost human form with legs and hands, only huge in size and having sharp teeth in giant powerful jaws, but she enjoyed the water too much to hold that form for long.
Following Allen around gave her the weirdest feeling, like he was a ghost, never acting, only reacting to things he saw on his interface.
With the ship now fixed she moved her swarm back to the lagoon, hunting and playing with the other sea creatures, keeping her distance from the player ship and boats that went back and forth to the village and the ship.
Trying to leave brought her too close to the player ship, almost losing control on her pack when the idle routines took over and forced her to pay credits so she could run away back towards the hidden cove where Odacious was resting.
Inside the cave she set a routine of hunting and playing for the swarm and logged off, she needed to decide what to do with her swarm as soon players will come to the new area and the cove will be found, she could hide in the caves for a while but they will find her eventually.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
Other options were to run to the open seas and maybe lose some or all of her pack to player hunters and the last option was to kill any player that entered her area which would make them mark it as dangerous and probably leave it alone as animals weren't worth killing for higher levels and they wouldn't know the swarm was monstrous for a very long time.
Logging off she found herself hanging from the rig in an awekward position and her muscles were all cramped from all the strange contortions she did to force the animal body to resemble human postures and movements.
She did a long stretch and entered some changes to her daily excersizes, enhancing flexibilty and motion over strength and speed.
Debby went to eat at the cafeteria in her usual spot where she phased out and listened to the conversations around her, naturally a lot of it was focused on the ghost ship, many asking what was happening and others lamenting its loss for the NPCs as they wont get a chance to ride the instance now that players found it.
A familiar name caught her attention, "If you see this trent guy don't mess with him" the woman behind her was saying "they are all blacklisted".
"Who is?" Debborah asked
The woman studied her "there were four people but we only know the names for three", she looked at her friend who nodded, "Sam, Trent, and Devo, the fourth was a woman using rats or ratmen", she seemed upset "they fucked Janice bad, even messed with her blockers"
Then the friend added "But nothing like what they did to that poor captain guy", shaking her head "turned him into some kind of zombie for real".
"So if you see any of them just walk away and don't interact with them", the first woman said gravely, "I wish we knew who the rat woman was".
Debby nodded and stared at her food, losing her appetite with a stone sinking in her stomache, she thought to defend herself, after all she wasn't there at the end, but prudence was to be quiet and just walk away before she said something, this was a prison, and her inmates were mostly violent and dangerous criminals, she should know, being one herself.
The ship was rocking softly on the waves as its captain was busy fixing small things and carving faces and mural on its inner walls and doors.