Penny was pretty sure the girl was going to kill her.
Oroborus loved tricks like that. In Inkarus, Prince's first game, a haughty, beautiful princess sends you on a quest to slaughter a village of zombies. Only after you clear the village and return the head of the chief to her, you realize the princess is actually a demon in disguise, and the villagers' only sins were being a little decayed, and worse, now with the power gained from their deaths, the demon has enough magical juice to begin waging a campaign of terror on the surrounding countryside.
Penny braced herself as the fish girl brought her nose up to the face of Penny’s unconscious body, and opened her mouth. The girl's single sharp tooth glinted in the dim cave-light.
Penny covered her eyes.
The girl leaned in.
Then she pressed her lips to Penny’s cheek in a wet open mouthed, slobbery kiss.
In her astral form, Penny’s eyebrows rose, although her body remained completely still.
The girl frowned at Penny’s body’s lack of reaction. Then she poked at Penny’s cheek with a webbed finger, hard. “Mamma?”
The girl's voice came back in a cascade of echoes, fading off into the deepness of the cave, bouncing between stalactites, softer with every repetition.
Hopeful, the girl turned around, thinking someone was there behind her, but she found only darkness. Then she started to cry. It was a soft mewling sound that made Penny's stomach feel like someone had grabbed it and clenched it into a fist.
Manipulative asshole game designers.
Still.
Penny knew the sound well. It was the kind of cry you made at the end of the wake after the funeral, when everyone else is gone and all that's left are too many flowers and too many casseroles. It was the kind of cry you make when you know the person you're crying for isn't coming back.
Penny started to move. She didn’t think about why, except to remind herself that nothing really bad could happen to her even if this was a trick, since her pain sensors were set to zero, and she couldn’t listen to someone make that sound, even if it was just a game, even if it wasn’t real, even if the game was doing this on purpose to get her to play.
She just couldn’t.
When Penny reached her body, she slid her astral’s self fingers back into the flesh of her hands. For a moment it felt like putting on a glove, then there was a snapping sensation, and her vision turned, and there she was, blinking, staring at the side of the cave wall, and the fish girl's stubby legs.
The fish girl and bent down, her face level once again with Penny’s. “Mamma?” Her eyes bugged wide.
“Hi,” Penny rasped.
“Mamma!” The girl broke out in a giant, gummy smile, her single tooth standing out prominently. Then she buried her face in Penny’s chest, and started to cry again, louder this time.
“Woah, hey. It’s okay.”
“Mama.” The girl tugged on Penny’s arm trying desperately to communicate something.
“I’m sorry. I’m not your Mom. We can find her though, okay?”
“Mamma. Mamma. Mamma,” the girl chanted.
Penny found herself wrapping her arms around the little girl. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
“Mamma!” The girl grabbed Penny’s hand, then she nuzzled her face into it. Her eyes made contact with Penny’s and for a moment Penny thought it looked like she was asking permission.
“Hey, I –” But before Peny could finish the girl chomped down on Penny’s flesh, burying her single sharp tooth into Penny's flesh.
Blood welled up around it immediately, although there was no pain.
Penny yanked her hand away and rolled over. “Son of a bitch. I knew it. You want to eat me.”
HP [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[
Penny's HP went down by exactly three ticks.
The girl keened, her eyes closed and she thrust out her arms towards Penny, her tongue flicking out of her mouth. “Mama.”
“If you come at me I will just astral project out of this body and then I will explode, and you don’t want that.”
To Penny’s surprise after her words the girl didn’t attack again, just pointed at Penny’s bleeding hand, and gave Penny a look as if she thought Penny was the stupidest person in the universe. “Mama.”
Penny looked over her shoulder, half terrified that the fish girl’s real mother was going to come lumbering out the darkness. Maybe the girl was trying to summon her so they could eat Penny together.
Penny needed more info.
The little fish toddler lunged for Penny's hand again, but this time Penny was ready. She grabbed the girl by the scruff of her seaweed woven dress, and held her at arm’s length.
“No,” she said sharply.
The girl pouted, an expression so overdramatic, Penny almost laughed.
Then with Penny’s other hand, she brought up her settings. It stood to reason that if bringing down her inputs could grant her magic powers, that increasing her settings might as well. Maybe something that would give her more of a HUD.
The girl squirmed in her arms.
"Just. Stay. Still. I don’t want to hurt you if I don’t have to.” Penny wasn’t sure why she didn't want to harm the girl. She girl was just a piece of code made by an asshole, and the girl had literally just tried to take a bite of her.
This is why you never won his stupid leadership games, Penny thought. You were always too nice. Even when people tried to hurt you, you always still tried to help them, like an idiot.
With one hand, she brought up the sliders for sight and hearing all way to one hundred percent. Then she swiped away the menu.
She blinked in shock at the world that greeted her.
It was like she'd put on some combination of glasses and night vision goggles. Where before, deep into the cave had been a hazy pattern of indistinct shapes, now she could make out a bead of water glistening on a mossy stalactite at least a hundred yards back.
Sound crescendoed too, the distant crashing of waves growing to roar, that almost, but not quite drowned out the other noises, the harsh exhale of her breath, and the faster, hitched breathing of the fish girl.
Two more green boxes popped in the corner of Penny’s vision.
FOUNDERS PERK ACCESSED
EAGLE EYE
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
STATUS: Available
892/1000 Players Have Unlocked This Perk
You have adjusted the settings to improve your eyesight.
Perks
Gain additional information when inspecting objects.
To inspect an object simply squint.
Constraints
No experience can be gained while any setting is marked at less than 30%.
FOUNDERS PERK ACCESSED
Sharp Ears
STATUS: Unavailable
600/600 Players Have Unlocked This Skill Tree
You have adjusted the settings to improve your hearing.
Perks
-Treasure emits a light buzzing sound that can be heard from up to two meters away.
-Dangerous creatures emit a base low tone that can be heard from up to ten meters away
Constraints
No experience can be gained while any setting is marked at less than 30%.
ERROR:
This perk has already been claimed by the maximum number of allotted players. Keep experimenting, in order to find perks others haven’t used yet!
“Mamma. Mamma. Mamma,” the girl chanted angrily.
“Okay. Okay.”
Penny banished the boxes. Then she turned to the girl.
Before she even squinted at her, there was so much she noticed now she hadn’t before. For one, while girl had fish-like eyes, she didn’t have any scales, instead her skin was stippled like a frog’s. The other thing was how thin the girl was. Although she was the size of a human toddler, she had almost no baby fat. Her arms were twigs. Penny thought she could see her ribs. She also had deep bags under her eyes, and dirt smudged on her face. It had been a while since she’d seen civilization, although judging by the sea-weed dress the girl wore, she clearly at one point had.
Penny squinted. Beside the girl, a blue box appeared.
Alflowa "Leesie" Shoalheart
RACE
Nyxie
AGE
14 months
CLASS
None
HEIGHT
37 inches
WEIGHT
15 pounds
HP
3/5
MP
0/0
ASTREAN ATTRIBUTES
INTELLIGENCE
8 (-1)
STRENGTH
4 (-1)
DEXTERITY
2 (-1)
CONSTITUTION
8 (-1)
WISDOM
7 (-1)
CHARISMA
11 (-1)
ALFLOWA SHOALHEART is currently HUNGRY.
SPECIAL SKILLS AND ABILITIES
FEEDING --
((AGE LOCKED)) ((RACIAL LOCKED))
Like all Nyxie children, this character has the ability to gain sustenance from their caretaker by consuming their caretakers blood, doing so creates a CARETAKER'S BOND.
Each Nyxie child can only have up to two character's bonds at a time, and the CARETAKER must be of childrearing age, and of humanoid shape.
Extensive time away from the bonded character, will create SEPERATION ANXIETY, and cause the child to go into acute distress, causing them to take drastic measures to seek out a new CARETAKER.
***Once the Nyxie reaches the age of 2 years, FEEDING ability disappears.
***
NYXIE CHILD EFFECTS:
BONUS:
When well fed the Nyxie gains a +5 bonus to intelligence and + 2 bonus to strength.
PENALTIES:
If not fed fresh blood every 12 hours, Nyxie will gain HUNGRY attribute, and will lose HP until death.
CARETAKER EFFECTS:
Penalties:
Feeding removes a variable amount of HP.
-1 to Constitution
Bonus:
+2 to Wisdom
Gain temporary ability SENSE DANGER. Within a radius of 300 yards hear a low humming sound if danger is near.
INVENTORY
Waterweed Weave Gown
INFORMATION
Current resident of the Nyxian village of Bayrock.
Penny read through the boxes, and then with a frown dismissed them. It had been hard to focus with the girl wiggling in her arms, determine to take another bite out of Penny, but somehow Penny had done it. When that was complete, Penny stared down at the girl. The girl was still frantically reaching out her arms, desperate for Penny's blood, but it was more than that.
Yes, she wanted to eat Penny, but only because she was hungry and lonely, and she clearly didn't want to kill Penny, just have her as a teensy snack.
For the first time in a long time, Penny brought up the log out counter.
LOG OUT COUNTDOWN
45 minutes remaining...
"Mamma?" the girl asked, her voice as small and soft as it had been when Penny was asleep.
For a moment Penny wanted nothing more than offer up her arm to the little girl, and let her drink as much of Penny's blood as she needed, to rub her back and lie to the girl and tell her that sure, she was her Mamma, but as Penny stared into the girl's life-like big, black eyes she knew she couldn't do that.
Penny was many things, but she wasn't good at playing Prince's games. Even if she wanted to be some kind of hero, which she most definitely did not, she wouldn't be able to. She had tangible historical proof of this. She had tangled with Prince's world once before and lost everything.
If she told this girl she could protect her, it would be a lie.
Anyway, In this game, Penny didn't have any magical abilities other than one skill hat let her run away, and another that let her explode, harming everyone around her friend or foe. Neither of those tricks would help her take care of a Nyxie toddler.
And even if she was a hero, even if she was going to waltz into whatever the nearest town was, and quickly begin shaping it into some kind of civilization, all while bonding with this tiny creature, by the end of it, in five days the beta-test would be over.
This girl was clearly an automated, possibly even sentient piece of code. After they left Astrea there was a possibility the world would keep on going without them. Galatea had hinted at as much. In that case, even if she was the best leader and player in the universe, by the end of this all, she would still end up abandoning this girl, and this girl would be in exactly the same place she was before -- looking for someone to take care of her who wasn't coming.
"I'm sorry," Penny said. "I can't. I've got to go."
The girl didn't say anything, just looked away from Penny, her expression oddly empty. As she moved Penny caught sight of the sharp edge of her cheekbones. The girl was so skinny.
"But I'll tell you what. Before I go, we'll find you some blood, get you well and fed, and then we'll take you back to Bayrock, and find you someone to look after you, okay? It didn't say you needed my blood every six hours, just fresh blood. "
The girl crossed her arms and frowned at Penny.
Penny reached out her hand anyway. "I'll try my best to find you food, it just can't be me." She patted the girls matted dark hair, plucking out a stray shard of broken shell. "I'll try, I promise."
The girl didn't look up at Penny again, or smile, but she did, wordlessly, slide her tiny hand through Penny's own, and squeezed.