They were all built inside a carved out area in the mountain like that of a semi-large mine. And I’ve collapsed in the middle of it. What were they excavating?... By the looks of it, whatever they were mining, it’s mostly gone now. But not all. A few small white crystals lay scattered here and there. I pick up and eat a few.

84 000 -> 87 000

Yup, that’s a crystal alright. Were they mining for these? Weird.

But, more importantly for my purposes, there’s a large hole that the mine is leading into. It looks like a man-made tunnel, and by this time, I’m too desperate to ignore it. Though, going by its size, although I can’t fully go in myself, I think I could fit a secondary tentacle, so long as I braid it really tight. Probably.

...Yeah, it’s possible. I slither inside.

The first thing I notice is a sign. Yes, an honest-to-god sign! The kind for traffic and dangers and that!! The sign isn’t that much to look at and the description is written in a language I don’t recognize, but it has a picture. Namely, a green plant. With a scissor almost cutting the stem. And a large red X over it. Don’t cut down the plants. The only other picture on the sign is that of some sort of molecule, but I can’t really-,

No, wait, I can! This one, that is. I’m not good at most, but this is oxygen! Anybody can recognize oxy-,

Oh. Oh? Ah! Aha!

Wait. I get burns like acid from fucking oxygen?? Well, I mean, that would explain the water, but it doesn’t explain why this is happening at all! I don't have lungs, why should oxygen hurt me?!

Arghh…! The heck am I supposed to do, then? Can’t be in any place with oxygen, huh? Can’t be in any place humans might be, huh??

It’s not like I’ve got a skill to mitigate the effects of foreign bodies in my syste-,

...Immunity.

I completely forgot about that skill, huh? It wasn’t important! I just needed it to fight those fluffy spiders! I can’t even remember what the next upgrade would cost!

Upgrade Immunity? Cost: 150 (you have 87 000)

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….Goddamnit-, okay, fuck it. Buy like-, what? Five? Yeah, five of them.

87 000 -> 85 300

...Sure. Alright. Okay.

Let’s go, eh?

After just a few minutes of walking through the sterile hallway, I reach a door. Just a door. Likely airlocked and airtight.

I open it and close it tightly behind me.

My skin tingles. It feels a little hot, but not excruciatingly so. This is it, then? 1 700 points and Immunity almost completely protects me from the acidic gas that is oxygen? Wow. I’m just-, if I’d known this earlier…

I slap my cheeks. No! Now is now! No thinking about the past or learning from it! I need to keep my eyes forward. Let’s go.

The further inside I go the warmer it gets, but the filed down and sterile walls never become cave-like, only longer halls that I barely fit into. And, at the very end…

I find the pillar of light. Or the thing it’s coming from, at least.

A giant purple crystal, almost as large as myself. The room it’s housed in is like a hemisphere, the rounded walls all lined with desks and chairs and screens and things, none of which are active. But there isn’t just one crystal in the room. In a corner, several other ones, all in different shapes and sizes lie half-discarded. A single one of these is almost as large as I am myself!

The large crystal in the middle of the room remains the largest of all, held in place by… Nothing. It’s just floating.

Man. Science, huh? Almost like magic. I’m gonna ignore that.

...I approach the crystal. With this size, were I to eat it, I would no doubt gain enough points to flee this planet and even to grow large enough to survive almost anything. It’s massive.

-And it’s also powering the only thing keeping countless asteroids from smashing this planet and every creature and artefact on it to bits.

...Right. Let’s just eat these scrap things and if I can’t get out after eating them, I guess I’ll give up and eat something bigger, huh? Alright.

I solemnly move over to the scrap pile of crystals and gobble them down. I have to physically crush a few to be able to eat them, but the rest go down easily. Big rock candies. The smaller ones are like eating fistfuls of aquarium gravel. The dream of any modern man. Nom nom. This better be enough-,

85 300 -> 463 000

I almost drop the crystal I’m trying to shove in my pie hole.

...That so, huh? Alright, alright. Uh. Sure! Why not!

I keep eating.

463 000 -> 590 000

I eat the last ones, trying to savour a flavour I can’t taste and trying to ignore the timid memories treading the back of my head.

590 000 -> 760 000

I wish I could give a more physical response than “yum that was good”, but… here we are. Jesus shit. Just a whole lot of points, huh? I can’t-, I don’t know how to fathom that.

I turn sly eyes to the large crystal.

If I ate that one, too…

...No. No, I’ve already decided not to, and I’m not going back on that. There is nothing keeping me on this planet. No people to speak to, nothing I’m too interested in exploring… Let’s go. But, first, of course, I’ll need to make use of these points, yanno? I’ve got an idea for how to expand my number of tentacles, hehehe.

Now to get out of here. Yeah, sure, I could just walk out, but I think it’d be quicker if I took my life and regrew out there. Huh. That sounds really morbid now that I say it.

-In other words, I jump into the pillar of light, and within around four seconds, I burn to a crisp, my consciousnesses snuffed out.