10. The Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Purple Line
Lying at the end of the Underside’s purple line was a funny little realm appropriately known as the Abyss. All things considered, the Abyss was one of the easier places to describe. There were no weird pulsing walls, red skies, or strange night and day patterns. In fact, there wasn’t really anything at all.
The Abyss was, for all intents and purposes, an endless void of inky darkness, broken only by occasional drifting pieces of rubble from who knows what and the endless floating path traveling through it that led to who knows where. Whereas the Inferno was hot enough to make Isaac feel like his skin was going to dry off, the Abyss had a subtle chill to it, the kind that wasn’t noticeable at first, but the longer you sat in it, the deeper it sunk into your bones until you were shivering before you even realized it.
Despite the place being a seemingly endless expanse of empty space, sound echoed loudly, and each step Isaac took down the narrow path reverberated over and over. He shuddered, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead and ignoring the silhouettes slithering and shifting in his peripheral vision.
For once, he was thankful for the soft glow of the tablet screen as he tracked a dot that was slowly spiraling around. Based on its pattern of movement, the creature should be nearing soon.
Just as he’d predicted, his eyes soon caught a hint of movement. Isaac swallowed as the shadows around him shifted to make room for the creature swimming through the expanse of the Abyss. He could only catch brief hints of its appearance through the cloak of darkness: slimy skin, flashes of razor sharp teeth lining a long, serpentine body, waves of antenna running along its spine, more eyes than he could count. He could tell that the creature was massive, the occasional glimpses of the eyes were larger than he was tall. Isaac swallowed as quietly as he could, remaining still and unflinching as the creature drew nearer.
NAME: 🗌🗌🗌🗌🗌🗌🗌🗌
SPECIES: ELDRITCH HORROR SERPENT MANY EYEBALL TYPE 4
LOCATION: THE ABYSS, THE PURPLE LINE
[CLICK TO EXPAND DETAILS]
ATTACK: 37
SPEED: 13
SKILL: 23
DEFENSE: 44
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
INSTINCT: 30
INTELLIGENCE: 33
STAMINA: 42
CALCULATED LEVEL: 79
Isaac cleared his throat, keeping his voice as steady as possible considering the looming presence of the eldritch abomination in front of him. He thought he did a pretty good job at it, if he did say so himself.
“Stat update request…?” He nearly attempted to say a name on instinct, but caught himself in time, seeing as he couldn’t pronounce whatever this creature’s name was to begin with. He wasn’t helped by the fact that the tablet apparently didn’t have the correct symbols inputted. He was fairly certain that Lilith just hadn’t bothered, if the name of the creature’s species was any indication for how much she’d cared. Not that he really blamed her for this one.
A deep rumbling noise followed his question, which could be mistaken for distant echoing thunder, but he assumed it came from the creature in front of him and promptly tapped the general stat update scan, not knowing how to communicate “What stat” to the thing.
Thankfully the creature’s 33 intelligence wasn’t for nothing, and the moment the tablet’s glow had reached its maximum, a blast of air nearly knocked Isaac off the path as the creature shot upwards. He looked around, trying to see where it had gone, eyes scanning the shadows. He spun back to the front just in time to see the creature reappear several feet ahead, crashing straight through the floating path and rendering that section into flying rubble.
“Shit shit shit!” Isaac cussed as he dropped to the ground just in time to avoid a particularly sharp piece headed straight at his skull. He really should get paid extra every time he had to go to the purple line, he thought.
By the time he’d made it back onto his feet, the path ahead was completely obliterated, leaving only the inky expanse of the abyss. He caught the glow of eyes staring at him, waiting.
It took longer than usual to finish the recalculations, given every stat had been tested instead of just one. Finally, the new stat sheet appeared. It was exactly the same.
“No changes,” Isaac called out as clearly as possible. His voice reverberated around, bouncing and repeating. He held up the tablet for good measure. There was no hint of movement, and he could feel that the creature was still there, directly in front of him, watching.
Finally, one eye opened a mere foot away from his face, vertical and twice his size. The eyeball stared at the tablet Isaac continued to hold up and slowly blinked. Hundreds of other eyes appeared, surrounding him in a coiling shape. He swallowed, keeping perfectly still as those eyes all simultaneously blinked painstakingly slowly.
More time passed, seconds feeling like hours. Then, in an instance, all the eyes shut, disappearing from view as they blended into the void. Isaac heard a rumble resound from around him, then the shadows shifted once again. The pressure around him lifted as the creature finally departed, swimming through the void to who knows where.
Only once Isaac was confident it was gone did he slowly lower his arm and take in a large gulp of breath. He exhaled, his limbs steadying at the same time.
“This is why I hate the purple line,” he muttered to himself. He turned and began walking back on the part of the path that hadn’t been destroyed, taking very slow and careful steps to ensure he didn’t lose his balance and fall.
When he finally reached the gold line platform, where an empty train stood waiting with its doors wide open, he stepped inside and collapsed onto the hard plastic seats.
Lilith had better have made the best goddamn tea in existence.