As Lucy returned to the cliff-face to feed, the water around her continued to thicken with the forms of clustered egg sacs drifting in on the current.

She fed with all the ferocity afforded by her new tentacle-tipped arm, and as her metabolism got to work on the organic material she consumed, she felt strength flowing into her body.

Already she had gained a significant number of points, bringing her ever closer to the halfway mark of her next Evolution.

The possibilities it might offer danced in her mind, mingling with the memory of crackling energy she’d felt from the magical stone that now rested safely encased in her private tunnel.

Even as the tide of eggs closed in around her, Lucy felt that her world was opening up. In her small sphere of Awareness, the possibilities available to her stretched into an endless horizon far beyond what she could currently see.

A thrill of nervousness rippled through her as she imagined what was going to happen when the eggs began to hatch. If they kept pouring in as they had been, she would have to retreat for shelter at the first sign.

Which hopefully won't be any time soon.

She stuck mostly to the area near her cave, and kept alert for the juddering increase in activity that would precede such an event.

Lucy consumed as many of the eggs as possible, sometimes darting out into the open water to release a cloud of enzymes where the clusters were more densely packed.

Rikorlak and Sam made the most of the situation as well, though without mouths they had to awkwardly squish the eggs or rely on Lucy to release the nutrient-rich liquid inside.

She needed a break every now and then to let her metabolism catch up anyways, and she was happy to oblige.

Their plan was to feed as much as possible before the worms hatched, then to seal off the entrance of their cave and wait out the next few days. Lucy wasn’t sure exactly what would happen, but organisms that released thousands of eggs usually relied on just a few surviving, so it was likely that most of them would end up dying off. In the meantime, she would learn all she could about magic.

It wasn’t a perfect plan, but the stream of worm eggs extended as far as she dared to swim in every direction, and she didn’t want to abandon the cave she was just settling into.

Just as she was thinking about making the most of a difficult situation and preparing to hold out against impossible numbers of enemies, the flood of eggs stopped.

Or, more accurately, changed direction.

She first noticed the change when she was out in the open water, and she immediately darted back in the direction of the cliff-face, wary of getting lost in the shifting tide.

At first she thought she had simply gone too far out and had entered a different flow of water, but as the steady rain of eggs began to slow, she realized the current in the whole area was shifting back to how it had flowed when they first arrived.

Egg sacs scudded along the face of the cliff, and while some found a place to adhere, more and more began to drift harmlessly by.

Soon, no additional eggs were piling up, though Lucy could still see the endless procession of them drifting by at the edge of her Awareness.

Relief slowly sank into her. A huge number of eggs had already stuck to the stone, but as long as the current held, no more would accumulate.

It felt a bit like borrowed time, but she would take what she could get. And as she looked around and saw just how many eggs were left, Lucy realized that she hadn’t just been granted a reprieve; she'd been presented with a feast.

The shifting of the current left behind a buffet of incredible proportions. As long as the eggs took more than a day or so to hatch, she should easily be able to—

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

The tasty clump of eggs she’d been about to devour disappeared, collapsing into a hole that hadn’t been there a moment before.

Her cilia tingled with the rippling vibrations that came out of the hole, which were quickly followed by a wide, sucking mouth plastered in slime from the eggs it had just consumed.

Snuffling around, the digging creature pulled itself out onto the cliff-face with long, flat claws, and Lucy stared at it.

“That was my meal,” she told it in a stream of yellow molecules, but the creature made no reply, only shuffling over to the next batch of eggs it could sense. It moved awkwardly in the open water, with claws more suited to pulling itself along the narrow confines of microscopic tunnels.

She looked around, but Rikorlak and Sam had eaten their fill and apparently gone back to the cave.

Lucy swam around to get a better idea of what was going on.

A small burst of dusty debris plumed through the water at another section of the cliff, followed by more long, flat claws heaving another leathery body through the newly created hole.

Soon, more of them than Lucy had ever imagined living in the area were lumbering across the stone of the cliff face,emerging from cave entrances new and old to gobble up clusters of eggs.

Oh hell no, she thought, stabbing her new tentacles into a slimy mass of eggs and sucking up the sweet nutrients within.

Not wanting to miss out on the easy source of points, Lucy got back to work with a vengeance.

It would perhaps have been more efficient to hunt the digging creatures, she knew. They were slow and ill-equipped for combat, but with an alternative source of points available at the same time, Lucy couldn’t bring herself to start killing creatures that posed no threat to her.

That being said, she wasn’t about to let them steal her free meal.

As she butted in ahead of one of the digging creatures like she was cutting in line at a cafeteria, she wondered if this was how bullies had felt back in high school.

It feels…powerful.

She paused for a moment to reflect on this rather disturbing development in her psyche, but then she saw that the creature was still coming for her meal, so she pushed it aside and gobbled up the eggs herself.

Sorry, buddy. Survival of the fittest.

Luckily, the clawed organisms were easily cowed and almost docile, apparently not having any idea of how to handle a foe that wasn’t a worm. And there were more than enough eggs to go around.

Over the next hour or so, Lucy fed, packing her tiny body with as much microbe-caviar as her metabolism could handle.

Then she remembered that Sam and Rikorlak had gone back to the cave before the eggs had stopped falling.

Lucy was reluctant to leave her feast at first, but as she looked around, she saw that the digging creatures had slowed down as well, and more than half of the original eggs still remained.

Scooping up a single egg to test how long until it would hatch, she hurried back to their cave to tell them the good news if they hadn’t realized it already. Her body felt dull and heavy as she swam, stuffed full.

She found them floating silently in the water of the main chamber, a few body-lengths apart. At first she thought they were resting, but then she heard Rikorlak say in a calm, soothing stream, “And as your doubts rise, thank them, then gently slide them into the current, where they will trouble you no more.”

Lucy wasn’t sure what that was about, but now that the threat of Wormageddon had lessened slightly, she wasn't sure if she should interrupt.

She started to swim into her tunnel, but Sam noticed her passing by, and called out happily.

“Rikorlak is teaching me Mind of the Warrior!”

Lucy looked over at him, and he bobbed wisely in affirmation.

“If we are to prevail over our enemies in battle, we must first confront the enemies within.” He took a deep exchange of molecules with the water around him, and Lucy marveled at his changed demeanor. “First, we find our fear, located—well, normally it’s located around the swim bladder, but that’s not the main point.” He directed a stream of molecules to Lucy. “Would you like to learn as well?”

“I’ll, uh, think about it.”

Lucy supposed that she would have to reevaluate her views on religion now that she knew gods existed, though this seemed more like a practical exercise than anything.

“But for now at least, the eggs have stopped flowing in.”

A huge swish of water flowed out of Rikorlak, and Lucy could feel the relief in his words as his air of calm deflated completely.

“Oh, thank Helgrith. It’s been years since I’ve done that meditation, and worms are parasitic, you know, so really they're an internal enemy too, and the meditation can’t really do anything about parasites.”

Not wanting to waste too much time, Lucy told Rikorlak and Sam about the competition outside, and the three of them agreed to go make the most of the meal.

As they ventured outside, Lucy realized she still held the single worm egg in her hand. She swam back in and started looking for a small alcove where she could seal the egg in and periodically check on it over the next few days.

Next time, I’ll know how long we have.

Finding a suitable indentation in the wall, she gently placed the egg into it and turned around to scoop up some of the sludgy binding material Sam had made.

As she turned to plaster over the hole, however, she froze.

Inside the alcove, the egg was wobbling back and forth, the worm inside wriggling as it strained to break free. The eggs were starting to hatch.