Now, with all my preparations complete, I’ll head back into the temple for a second time to check for secret entrances. Or something. We’ll see!

I begin by ripping off one of my primary tentacles, but upon noticing that fuck it doesn’t fit I switch it up and decide to just cut off a single secondary tentacle, featuring a single core and a mere two tertiary tentacles. Kind of pathetic, but since it stands at around 80 meters straight, it’s almost too big. But if I make it lower itself and slither like a snake, with a diameter of less than 7 meters, I can still get into the temple, which is exactly what I do.

Man. Everything suddenly feels so cramped.

Those tools I saw before are no longer fit for a mouse, they’re pretty much made for insects. The tablets are the same. I’m just big now, huh?

That aside, I can’t really find anything I missed, even though I barely concentrated on anything specific earlier. Doors and abandoned bedrooms and big rooms with nothing in them and-, and a small door on the side of the main staircase. It’s almost too small for me to fit into, but as they say about octopuses…

We fit into almost any crevice. Hehe.

Squeeeeze. Even then, it is a rather tight fit, and I’m starting to think that I maybe should try to lose some weight.

But I get in! And then I close the door behind me because that is the polite thing to do!

A suspiciously long cobblestone hallway stretches before me. Oh god. I’m not sure if I’ll get through here. I’m not as nimble as I used to be!

Still, as it turns out, the hallway wasn’t actually that long, though it does end in a locked door. Eh. I rip it off its hinges.

And in just a moment, I’m struck by a wave of what feels like an acidic, burning gas that snakes into every pore I don’t have, burning away at my eyes, dissolving my skin, burning my non-existent lungs from the inside.

J-, jesus christ, what the fuck is-,

But I can’t close the door. ‘Cuz I ripped it off its hinges.

W-, well, fuck it, then! This tentacle can recover in seconds even if it’s destroyed fully, so there’s no real reason for me not to do this! Apart from sparing me the suffrage, that is. Oh well. Retreating is for losers anyway, so I pull myself through the doorway and pop out on the other side.

Well well well, whaddayaknow? It’s a cave!

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But icy.

The ground, although it’s mostly rock, is covered by a thin sheet of spiky ice, while the walls and ceiling are less subdued in the whole ice-aspect. All the stalactites have massive hanging pieces of ice encapsulating them. Same with the frosty walls. Altogether, the whole place is just a whole lot of blue. And it’s big, too! Heck, if I wanted to, I could (almost) stand up fully!

More importantly, it’s not like it’s only a cave, either. Although the sides are covered in ice, there are things inside them as well. Specifically what can only be described as ice crystals. Hehehe.

There’s also a bunch of half-made racks stretching up the sides of the cave, carrying tools that seem to be less made for excavation and more so for inspection. A lot of them have uses beyond my understanding, but others are less so. Since I can’t know how to even use them, I elect to ignore them and focus on the crystals. Hehehe. Right in there.

I press my mouth and eyes up against the half-translucent ice. There are crystals in there. Some are small and white, others are big and white.

Mentally, I’m drooling.

Now, how do I bust open this ice? I glance at my tentacles. Ah, right! Physical violence!

Crash!

Ice flies everywhere in great big shards as I try to ignore the stabbing pain from my tentacles. That acidic gas that’s just about everywhere is still gnawing at my body. My Regeneration and Resistance can’t keep up, but at the moment, I guess there’s some kind of equilibrium? Unimportant! There are crystals to eat!

A few have crashed to the floor, but two larger ones are still stuck in the ice.

I grab them all and shove them into my one mouth like a rabid monkey eating peanuts.

100 > 8 100

I successfully excavate and cronch one of the larger crystals alongside a bunch of small ones.

8 100 > 39 500

Nice.

I glance around. There’s plenty of crystals stuck in these walls, and I’ve got enough time to eat.

Let’s get to it, eh?

39 500 > 56 000

56 000 > 69 000

69 000 > 84 000

I feel a bit bloated. Despite my size, since I only have two tentacles to eat with, this is taking much longer than it otherwise would. But I think I’ve got them all now? Punching hard ice with half-melted tentacles was a bit of a pain though. Apparently, it’s not quite an equilibrium, more so that the burning is taking so slow I don’t really notice it at all until I’ve already lost most of my skin.

But I’m done with this first part now, so I guess I’ll just venture further inside!

I’m starting to get a real taste for these here caves.

I slither further inside. The inside seems to be lighted by the small crystals buried in the walls, but I eat them nonetheless. I don’t need light to see.

No, what I’m starting to worry about is the degradation of my tentacles. The air seems to be getting thicker, heavier with whatever is melting me, and even worse? I think it’s getting hotter, too. That regular coolness is getting replaced by some disgusting, warm humidity that makes me want to sweat and pant. Together with the acid in the air, I’m left dragging my heavy body along, feeling how the sharp ice grates away at my soft flesh, unable to really do anything about it except torture myself further with the excruciating pain of existing in this damned hellscape.

At some point, the ice started melting away to reveal smooth walls of rock and a harsher, rockier floor. The crystals are getting rarer, too.

Warm, warm, hot.

Melting. This is pain, huh? Dragging my half-dead corpse along through sauna-like caves. Am I even getting there? Am I even-,

-What’s that?