The dream was disquieting.
Aunt Cheryl was there, but blurred out somehow. Her outline smudged and bent out of shape. Much like the leftover damage to overall quality old home movies suffered when the person filming them had an unsteady hand and an urgent need to pee.
She had been drinking again.
I could tell because the smell of her breath was overpowering, even from across the large living room. She had been crying too, if the bags under her eyes were any indication.
Meanwhile, Eva was tugging at my arms. Her face pleading.
"Please Cecil. Come play with me. I've been so sad. All by myself. I don't want to be alone."
The real Eva would never have said that. At least, I didn't think so.
She kept her feelings closed off these days. Singing along to pre-recorded shows to keep herself entertained. Only when she was alone did I hear her crying.
"Yes." I told her. "I'll stay and play with you. I'm sorry I've been away. I don't know what I was thinking."
Indeed. Nothing was more important than her. Than my family. I must have been mad to stay at the farm for so long.
'No. Not mad. The farm is important too. I'm saving the world.'
"Tell you what. Why don't we go to the fields. We can play hide and seek and tag and anything else you want. You can bring your other friends too."
"Dad won't let me see them and their moms say bad things about mom. They say bad things about me too. When they think I'm not paying attention. They're calling me a dud." The apparition sobbed. In a way to tore out chunks of my heart.
'I'll kill them.' My gut spoke up. 'I'll strangle them with their own intestines.'
"Don't listen to them." I told her instead. "We can bring my friends over instead. And Cupcake. You'll love Cupcake. Actually, where is Cupcake?"
I turned to see the room again, but found it and all the furniture oddly out of proportion.
Then the house began to crumble. Vines and mushrooms and worms slithering into widening gaps as walls gave way and floorboards rotted out from underneath me.
I tried to grab Eva's hand. To flee. But she wasn't there anymore. No one was here anymore.
Then, an orchestra began to play, though it did not use any instruments I was familiar with.
There were songbirds on branches and gusts of wind whistling between tightly-woven leaves. There were raindrops caressing blades of grass and tadpoles swimming through ponds. There were soft, near inaudible steps as wolves moved through the undergrowth.
Those sounds grew louder and more pronounced, while also not becoming overwhelming or annoying. As if their presence were somehow fixing something about my world. Giving me back a piece of myself that I never knew was missing.
When the changes finally stopped, the dream had turned into a nightmare.
Half-gnawed bones littering the floor as far as the eye could see. Half-plant, half mushroom monstrosities with six eyes and too many legs skittering along the embankments like primordial horrors from the carboniferous period. Their pupils reflecting a deeply-seeded contempt for all things foreign.
For any life that was not theirs.
Not mine.
I peered closer, into those eyes. Until I saw my own reflection staring back at me.
The thing they saw me as, was not human. Not even close.
It had a tiger's head and an eagle's wings. A crocodile's scales and a scorpion's tail. A goat's horns and a raptor's legs.
'No.' I thought suddenly. 'Only the rearmost legs are raptor-like. There are so many of them. Cow hooves and rabbit legs and flexible tentacles ending in bony blades or spears.'
Its eyes tracked me through the reflection. Sitting eerily still, even as I began to back off.
Then, all the sounds stopped.
So that the silence was deafening in and of itself.
Only then, did the thing in the reflection begin to move. Revealing that it was far longer than I had initially believed.
Its serpentine body stretching out for dozens upon dozens of meters.
I tried to breathe, but my lungs felt frozen and stiff. The air in the dream refusing to come inside of me.
I should have felt afraid. Terrified, but I was no longer the usual me.
I was the thing in the reflection, staring back at a thin, pale, human boy with sandy-blonde hair and trembling legs. And then the dream collapsed in on itself.
There was a calm, quiet nothingness all around me. Wrapping itself over my form like a snug blanket.
I felt tired.
More tired than I'd felt in weeks. More tired than I had ever felt since getting my core.
It was as if I'd been bled dry and left to shrivel under the desert sun. My skin feeling wrinkly and dehydrated as I lay on my bed.
'Wait, is this my bed? It feels more like... soil.'
I opened my eyes. Finding the endeavor more taxing than it had any right to be. My muscles aching and my eyelids coaxing me to stay still and rest for a few more hours. Or a few more days.
I was about to give in to the temptation. Thinking about how good it would feel to drift back into slumber. When I felt a slight poke at my side.
"Cecil! Please don't die!"
My eyes shot open then. My body jerking upright as my eyes searched for Eva.
She was right there beside me. Bawling her eyes out. All while trying and failing to hug me. Her little arms being far, far too small to envelop half of me.
Also, she was surrounded by what I could only describe as the collective nightmares a practical effects crew might have if they were all hopped up on paint fumes and bath salts.
They were half-ant, half-spider monstrosities the size of bears. With inhuman approximations of hands attached to stunted, protruding torsos above their heads and mandibles and tentacles that ended in savage scything claws erupting on either sides of their spines.
Yet that would not have been quite so disturbing by itself. What truly made the scene a horror show was the sheer weight of numbers.
Even at a glance, there had to have been thousands. Stretching in all directions and surrounding our house like a tide of pale pink flesh intermingled with stained vines and visceral fugal growths.
All of them stood there. Still as statues. Unmoving. Unblinking.
Waiting for orders that were not forthcoming.
And in their midst, was a pair of middle-aged human beings.
Unholy fury burning in their bloodshot eyes.
----------------------------------------
"Of all the stupid! Brain-addled! Imbecilic! Thoughtless! Lack-witted! Bullshit!" Uncle Uter kept going. His face redder than the apples I'd been growing yesterday.
I glanced over at Eva. Still crying as she held on to me.
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"Uncle, language..."
"Fuck your language!" He roared. Somehow growing even redder. His face puffing up like one of those tropical birds looking for a mate.
All while he flailed his arms like a drunken tightrope walker about to have a very unfortunate reunion with the ground. His fat index finger threatening to pierce the heavens themselves and all that stood in between.
"What the fucking shit is this Cecil!? Why is our house surrounded by motherfucking monsters straight out of Guillermo del Toro's rotting asshole!?"
Now that...
Was an excellent question.
One I could only vaguely guess at.
On the one hand, I could sense all of them, much in the same way that I could sense Cupcake. Who, as it happened, was curled up next to Eva.
Meaning I must have made them. At some point. Somehow.
This theory of mine was supported by the fact that they had not immediately turned my family into large stains of chunky salsa in the time that I was unconscious. Which might mean they knew enough about me and mine to leave them alone.
Also, a closer inspection revealed that roughly half of them had fewer tentacles than the rest. The limbs replaced by a pair of shoulder-mounted green-bean rifles.
As if that weren't enough, I could still feel traces of my own magic inside of them and they twitched when I reached out with what little juice I had left. Almost as if waiting for orders.
On the other hand...
I genuinely had no clue as to what the fuck was going on.
One moment, I had been on the third, experimenting with added brain matter.
Then I was here.
Witnessing the wrath of a man who had never been particularly wrathful before.
"I, don't know." I answered honestly.
"YOU DON'T KNOW!!!!???" Uncle Uter asked, calmly.
And just like that, his face went from a ripe, vibrant red, to a deep, unhealthy purple.
His eyes growing a deep supernatural crimson that threatened to overflow into literal crimson tears. His blood pressure clearly entering ranges that should not have been humanly possible. Until I could almost see clouds of steam coming out of his ears.
"CECIL!!!!" He started up again. "First! You disappear for days at a time! Then! You don't come back after that ape Russell said you'd be home!! Then!!! You go down into the murder-pit by yourself!!!"
He paused to catch his breath
"BY YOURSELF!!!! THEN!!! YOU!!! YOU!!!!! YOU DAGNABBIT GOSHDARNED DFFFFBERFEFDFFDDFHASDFDDFTRSBRF!!!"
He said, calmly.
Channeling the spirit of some long-dead pharaoh or something. Whatever that had been, it hadn't been English.
Then he paused to catch his breath again.
"YOUSRFRDFEEEFF!!! GRRRRROOOOOUUUUNDDEEEFDFDTFFTDTFD!!!"
"Uncle, I... I don't think those are words."
"I MADE MYSELF PERFECTLY CLEAR!!!"
He lied, calmly.
"YOU'RE GROUNDED FOREVEEEERRR!!!!"
----------------------------------------
My first day in confinement was spent in quiet contemplation.
Uncle Uter had taken my computer away so there wasn't much in the way of things I could do to pass the time.
So, I spent hours looking at my Analyzer. Wondering just what had happened in the time I had lost.
[Vitality: 7.9 -> 10.1 (Over 12 hours.) - (Monster hunting - estimated 7439 specimens killed directly. Experimentation with skills. Enduring physical damage. Enduring toxic damage. Enduring burning damage. Enduring freezing damage. Enduring shocking damage. Enduring psychic damage. Enduring curse damage. Repeated usage of regeneration. Repeated stemming of hemorrhaging. Extreme and repeated instances of continuous physical stress. Extreme semi-permanent mutations to muscular system. Extreme semi-permanent mutations to skeletal system. Extreme semi-permanent mutations to nervous system. Error - unusual changes detected - please see manufacturer and / or hospital staff.)]
[Endurance: 7.7 -> 9.9 (Over 12 hours.) - (Monster hunting - estimated 7439 specimens killed directly. Experimentation with skills. Enduring physical damage. Enduring toxic damage. Enduring burning damage. Enduring freezing damage. Enduring shocking damage. Enduring psychic damage. Enduring curse damage. Repeated usage of regeneration. Repeated stemming of hemorrhaging. Extreme and repeated instances of continuous physical stress. Extreme semi-permanent mutations to muscular system. Extreme semi-permanent mutations to skeletal system. Extreme semi-permanent mutations to nervous system.)]
[Potency: 5.1 -> 8.1 (Over 12 hours.) - (Monster hunting - estimated 7439 specimens killed directly. Experimentation with skills. Extreme and repeated instances of continuous physical stress. Extreme semi-permanent mutations to muscular system. Extreme semi-permanent mutations to skeletal system. Extreme semi-permanent mutations to nervous system. Error - unusual changes detected - please see manufacturer and / or hospital staff.)]
[Precision: 5.2 -> 7.9 (Over 12 hours.) - (Monster hunting - estimated 7439 specimens killed directly. Experimentation with skills. Extreme and repeated instances of continuous physical stress. Extreme semi-permanent mutations to muscular system. Extreme semi-permanent mutations to skeletal system. Extreme semi-permanent mutations to nervous system. Error - unusual changes detected - please see manufacturer and / or hospital staff.)]
[Fortitude: 7 -> 9.3 (Over 12 hours.) - (Monster hunting - estimated 7439 specimens killed directly. Experimentation with skills. Enduring physical damage. Enduring toxic damage. Enduring burning damage. Enduring freezing damage. Enduring shocking damage. Enduring psychic damage. Enduring curse damage. Repeated usage of regeneration. Repeated stemming of hemorrhaging. Extreme and repeated instances of continuous physical stress. Extreme semi-permanent mutations to muscular system. Extreme semi-permanent mutations to skeletal system. Extreme semi-permanent mutations to nervous system. Error - unusual changes detected - please see manufacturer and / or hospital staff.)]
Name:
Cecil Fowler
Core:
[Life] (7th Stage) / Gains skills from: [Adaptation] / [Constitution] / [Healing] / [Hunger] / [Effort] / [Animal] / [Plant]
Level:
1
Vitality:
10.1
Endurance:
9.9
Potency:
8.1
Precision:
7.9
Fortitude:
9.3
Skills:
[Drain] / [Perseverance] / [Heal] / [Transform] / [Spawn] / [Terraform] / [Over-Mind] / [??? - Error - please see manufacturer] / [??? - Error - please see manufacturer]
Now, the sudden jump in stats was suspicious. The error messages were likewise very alarming.
But the explanations the bracelet gave me? Those were absolutely horrifying.
From the sounds of it, it was as if I'd recently survived a crash-course through a few dozen gulags in quick succession. If it was even the slightest bit accurate, then I had just been bludgeoned, mauled, stabbed, cut open, electrocuted, frozen, set on fire, poisoned and cursed, whatever that meant. All within the span of a single night.
All while apparently running a marathon of such proportions that it rivaled Terry Fox himself; while also going on an unbelievable homicidal rampage throughout a fair few floors of the Dungeon.
To say that I was suspicious would be like saying that Austrians too rejection from art school poorly.
And yet, I could not for the life of me recall what the fuck I'd been doing.
Nor could I ask Cupcake as, apparently, she'd hit it off with Eva. Providing some much needed emotional support and following her around everywhere.
Which meant she wasn't currently in the house.
'Though that's probably for the better. She needs the support more than I do. I'm glad she's taken a liking to Cupcake.'
I heard a series of grunts and strikes then.
Which led to me poking my head out the window.
Which led to me gaping at uncle Uter as he took an axe to my monsters.
He was struggling at first, but he soon got into a nice rhythm. The head of the weapon finding the heads of the monsters with unerring precision.
Granted, they weren't moving or reacting in any way, but still...
It was a far cry from the man I knew.
Never had I seen this rage in him. Never had I dreamed that it could blow over into anything other than a verbal lashing.
He was putting his whole back into the extermination. Despite how hard the natural armor he was striking was.
I had expected him to get winded after putting down a couple.
I was wrong.
He was sweating bullets and wheezing in a very porcine manner. His shirt sticking to his chest like a wet rag as more and more moisture gathered onto it.
But he did not stop. He never stopped.
For minutes, then tens of minutes and then hours.
In all honesty, he looked kind of badass doing it too. His arm never stopping, despite chopping off hundreds upon hundreds of heads. So that he ended up looking like some Greek hero out of legend.
Lawnmowercules or hedge-clippercules or something.
Problem was, they regenerated from those hits. Even the ones that seemed to be absolutely fatal.
The affected unit would drop down as soon as my uncle had finished with it and then it would sit still and cover itself with another layer of leaves. Its efforts going towards some kind of advanced photosynthesis while its roots dug deep into the earth.
Within an hour, any given critter would be back as if nothing had happened.
If he went to the trouble of cutting them in half or crushing their bones into paste, then they tended to duplicate on top of that. Each half regrowing a whole new half for itself.
Uncle Uter did not relent.
He came back with a chainsaw on the second day. Its teeth glinting prettily in the sunlight.
Again, he went to town on the monsters that hadn't moved an inch. Again they showed no resistance. Again it was all for nothing.
I ended up waiting away the hours on my bed. Only checking up on him on the odd occasion that the sounds faded for a minute or two.
Aside from that, I practiced more with my [Spawn] ability. Managing to create winged, buzzing plants that resembled giant hornets, after I set a goal to myself. I had been trying to make birds like eagles, but this was fine too.
Uncle Uter came back again on the third day. With a flamethrower of all things.
It seemed to work at first, but the monsters soon proved less flammable than he would have liked.
Their outer shells hardened without my input. Going into some kind of suspended animation as their hides thickened and they began to draw more water from the earth through newly grown and enlarged roots.
Within 30 minutes, he was back to the axe. Which was a shame, because it ended up breaking soon thereafter. The axe head snapping clean off and flying sideways until it lodged itself in a nearby tree.
Leading my uncle to bellow something along the lines of:
"OYAWAWACELLULALAU!!! UWAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!"
His eyes were bloodshot once again. His mouth open so wide that I could see his tongue moving in the air like some primordial pink worm reaching for the sky.
He bent his spine backwards as he screamed out his lungs. Until I heard a resounding crack that echoed through all the surrounding woods.
Then he let loose a faint, "Egh!" That nonetheless carried over to me.
Then he bent forwards and wheezed. His trembling hands clasping is knees.
Then he went right back to it. Only this time using a shovel, instead of an axe.
Now, I thought this was actually a fantastic development, as he likely got more training and stat points from these last three days than from the last two weeks of relatively relaxed Dungeon delving. This was especially convenient because, unlike the beans, I could control these guys down to the most minute of movements with next to no effort. Meaning he wouldn't have to worry about getting munched on while grinding out improvements to his body.
Sadly, he didn't seem to share my enthusiasm.