I am currently walking back...actually I’m sitting atop Cake’s shell as she walks for me, but I am moving back to my monster lair. My mantis egg is inside the safest place I could think of, Cake’s shell. It’s surrounded by a thick shell and guarded by the Cake the Cannibalizer, a very menacing name for something as cute as Cake.

Gothalyn also went ahead of us to the ledge above the cavern of dissipated hell farts, excited about escaping, although her face now has a permanent crazed smile attached to it.

I think she still might be trying to latch onto her last shreds of logic trying to wrap her head around me and Cake.

She is just making it harder for herself to accept if she tries to think about it, I gave up on logic a while ago and I’m all the better for it.

Almost nothing can surprise me anymore, almost being the keyword. The system aka, GladOs, throwing 2000 evolution options at me was a big surprise just by the sheer number. The filter really helps sort through all the one’s that boost intelligence because intelligence is definitely the way to go since I’m guessing it’s the only way to convert a monster into something like Cake without extreme luck. It also helped me sort through all the rock stick evolutions because I’d rather have a mantis instead of a creepy rock stick. Mantises are also more powerful than a rock stick although rock sticks seem to be more agile but mantises deal more damage and have greater defense, and look better than rock sticks. Overall I would say a mantis evolution is better than a rock stick one even if mantises sleep alot but hopefully my parasite fixes that since it wouldn’t make much sense for a brain parasite to sleep.

But what do I know about sense, I'm a tentacle monster, after all.

Also, you would think 2000+ options would give me plenty of options that fit that criteria and it does. That being said quantity does not mean quality, after asking GagOs’s to give me the description of them, I learned that some of these intelligence based mantis evolutions seem to be quite...bad.

Evolutionary Option #538

Eddar Weakling: [The attacking appendages of this organism will be used to generate new brain tissue and a gland that creates a skin secretion that refracts a small amount of light away from it, allowing the creature to become slightly invisible to sight.]

[Intelligence: (+)]

[Attack: (- -)]

[Stealth: (+)]

Mutations:

Optoe Refracting Gland

What’s the point of an invisible mantis spy, if they can’t attack using those scythes?! That’s basically just a stealthy rock stick with a mantis skin?! No, I am not picking this disgrace of an evolution.

I continue my search through the 50 or so mantis and intelligence based evolutionary options. Eliminating all the bad ones in the process. At the end I realize that none of them were that great and all of them had trade-offs unlike Cake’s first evolution, but if I had to pick one it would be this one.

Evolutionary Option #314

Prayma Hunter: [The defensive rocky carapace of this organism is replaced by a weaker smooth carapace on all parts of the body except the forelegs and abdomen. The material from the more defensive carapace will be used to generate new brain tissue in this organism. A unique mutation of the Prayma Hunter is its ability to split apart it’s forearms into a weaker version but giving it extra forelimbs.]

[Defense: (-)]

[Intelligence: (+)]

Mutations:

Scythe Splitter (Toggle)

It’s not perfect, and it has drawbacks, but come on its an intelligent mantis that can split it’s scythe like arms in two! That’s about the coolest thing I have ever heard! It might have a little less defense which to be fair is a drawback but compared to that crappy spy mantis with no arms, it isn’t even a competition.

[Would you like to evolve your subject [unnamed] into a [Prayma Hunter]

Yes/No

I pick ‘Yes’ and excitedly wait for my little mantis to pop out of its egg. I’ll think of a name for it when it pops out but for now I’m gonna sit back and relax as Cake walks me home.

Cake continues to scuttle home following the trail she made with her claw when she was still an itty bitty crab. Cake and I used to be the same size and now I can comfortably sit atop her shell without even having to grip onto it. It seems my previous life's motto doesn’t apply in this dimension, evidently size really does matter.

“That’s just sad...for you,” GagOs adds.

It really was but…

As I’m about to inner-monologue with GagOs about the extensive list of perks of being a tentacle monster. Cake reminds me of today’s objective.

‘Meister, I have reached our destination. If you would allow me to touch you, I can set you down?’ Cake mentally asks.

Oh! I’m home! Cake is also asking permission this time instead of just picking me up like that time during battle. That monster parasite must be able to differentiate between different levels of danger to protect me or something. Otherwise Cake would have asked during the battle of the mantises, which is not really the best time to ask someone for bodily permission. It is a tempting offer to accept, but I think I’m going to have to decline due to Cake’s claws looking a little sharper than I remember them. I don’t think Cake will actually hurt me but I can’t imagine being picked up by serrated claws feeling that good.

‘No uhm… Cake I’m good,’ I say as I hop off Cake’s shell and open up the rock door to our house.

Cake enters our hole that has been transformed by Gothalyn into some weird abomination, and I ask Cake a question that puts her question about bodily permission to shame in terms of weirdness.

‘Cake, can you grab the egg inside your shell?’ I ask Cake.

‘Of course, Meister!’ Cake says excitedly, before her shell lifts up behind her and she tries to reach in behind her to grab the egg.

‘Meister, I apologize but I can’t reach far enough to grab it,’ Cake says trying to reach into her shell to pull out the fleshy egg.

‘It's fine, Cake, I’ll just grab it,’ I tell Cake as I begin to crawl up her carapitic legs and onto her shell before crawling inside it to grab that egg. I quickly grab the egg and pop back outside and set it down on one of the monster mats Gothalyn used to sleep.

I task Cake with guarding the egg, and I go and help Gothalyn make her escape out of this cave since she seems to be in such a rush to escape. Geez, why can’t she just wait a day or two for the radiation to go away. It’s not like living in a monster infested cave is that bad...actually it is pretty bad, but that’s besides the point. I’m just going to be doing Gothalyn a quick favor since she did help me acquire that mantis egg, even if she did destroy the other one. I would love to escape along with Gothalyn since she seems to be mostly an ally, a little bit of a crazy one but an ally nonetheless, but I don’t want to be swatting radiation off of Cake, Gothalyn, and that mantis egg; especially that egg since I might end up destroying it if I hit it too hard. Besides that if this planet has a sun even if I do end up escaping I might be blinded as soon as I step outside. My best plan of action is to follow Gothalyn to the exit since she knows how to get out, then head back and spend a day or two getting Biomass to max out my radar sense’s dimness mutation. Hopefully after getting that the radiation down there will be mostly done with and I can escape with Cake and a mantis.

Another reason I’m helping Gothalyn is that I’m scared that if I don’t help Gothalyn escape she might try to put me in a cage again or worse...attempt to kill me. She knows where I live and if I leave she could probably just track me and force me to slap radiation off of her and I would rather do it out of my own will than be forced to do it.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Helping Gothalyn with her radiation problems to let her escape is definitely the way to go. This better not bite me in the ass...well actually it can’t since I don’t have one, effectively meaning that I can never get screwed over!

*mental sigh*

I wish it worked that way.

10 Minutes Later, I arrive at Gothalyn watching over the large cavern of glowing radiation gas that has slightly diminished since I last came here.

Gothalyn turns around and looks at me using one of her glowing rocks that I mined for her. Her face still looks a little bit less twisted by absurdity but overall seven creepy faces out of ten, could be worse.

Gothalyn gets up and turns around to look at me.

“Climb,” she says before beginning to cough a little blood once again. She points downward into the abyss and I make my way over to her as she starts to descend down. I follow her and small rocks start to pop out of the rock face as she quickly hops down from rock to rock like an olympian-like rock climber.

I can barely keep up with her speed even though I am literally built for this type of movement. I could still beat her in rock climbing if I activated the little nuclear reactor inside me for some extra energy and radiation gas or if I simply let go and fell down there and let gravity do it’s work. I’m a squishy ball, I could probably survive any height distance. That doesn’t mean I’m going to put that hypothesis to the test. I had a fear of heights as a human and you might think climbing down this large rock face might activate it but it really doesn’t since I just imagine the wall as a slightly tilted floor.

I actually do end up beating Gothalyn in our rock climbing competition down to the bottom but only by a thread and I also don’t even think she realized I was pretending to race her but that’s besides the point. In the end I won, that's all that matters.

Gothalyn’s eyes glare at me and she lifts her arm and points in a direction, telling me that the exit is that way.

I put thoughts of my win behind me, and I begin to check for radiation in the direction Gothalyn pointed. Using the glow of radiation to guide me on the path of least radioactivity. I’m able to safely guide Gothalyn toward wherever she points. Eventually, though that comes to an end as Gothalyn ends up leading me down the cave where I was when the gas initially exploded. Mother’s corpse was nowhere to be seen, but I’m going to assume that much time in radiation must have turned her corpse to dust.

Before Gothalyn takes a dip into the radioactive gas she looks at me and puts her hand out toward me as if she is trying to give me a hand shake.

“Please,” Gothalyn says before coughing a little blood out.

I don’t know if I like that handshake but I’d rather do as she says before she forces me to do it.

I reluctantly put a tendril in her hand and she grips it so hard that I feel that I may need to cut off the tendril to escape her grasp.

I debate whether or not to activate my gas gland to force her to let go but I decide against it since she didn’t sound like she wanted to hurt me and I would like to avoid death by an angry ghost girl if possible.

Before I have anymore time to think about my decision to accept the handshake, Gothalyn starts to run through the hell gas faster than I have ever seen a human run before. She zips and turns through the gas making her way in a certain direction that seems oddly familiar, but I can’t place my tendril on it. After about 13 seconds in the hell gas Gothalyn smacks me against her left thigh to clear up any radiation on it.

*smack*

Then she does the same for the other one.

*smack*

Then the right calf, then the left.

*smack smack*

Gothalyn’s plan was to *smack* use me as a bath sponge for *smack* radiation?! My life can’t get any weirder, I refuse to believe it can weirder! Gothalyn you better get to that exit, so I can guide Cake out of this cave!

Cake is lucky she’s cute otherwise I might have just ditched her.

After about half a minute of smacking me against her body to clear radiation the radiation begins to thin out and she lets me go.

I drop to the ground feeling a little dizzy after being slapped around so much and I spot a glow coming from a tunnel in front of us. The glow is about as powerful as the flash light was and would have blinded me if I didn’t upgrade my radar sense with dimmer.

Gothalyn begins to laugh maniacally when she spots the glow as well. I put two and two together and figure out that it must be the sun’s rays bouncing around in that tunnel.

Especially after Gothalyn says this.

“HAHA! I escaped! *cough* *cough* *cough*” Gothalyn screams in excitement before looking like she’s about to keel over due to her coughing fit.

Alright, I helped you escape and I learned how to get out of here, I’ll be going back to Cake now and escaping with her after all that gas clears up some more. It was a fun time being with you creepy ghost lady...who is now staring at me with a piercing glare that seems brighter than the sun’s glow.

“You. *cough* Come,” Gothalyn says with a bit of a crazed smile.

I think I’m good. I’d rather not stay with you any longer actually. Thanks for showing me the way out of this hell hole but I think I’ll be going back to Cake now to gather some more Biomass to be able to see with the sun out and to wait out that hell gas a little so Cake and my new mantis can escape without risking their lives.

“Too. Special. To. *cough* Leave. Behind,” Gothalyn says as I try to retreat back into the hell gas.

Before Gothalyn can even try anything I flesh flash away. I watch as another cage forms behind me and I’m barely able to dodge out of the way and I fling myself back into the hell gas to shake her off.

“Puffball! *cough* *cough* *cough* damn it,” These are the last words I hear from Gothalyn as I scurry along in the hell gas to head back to Cake.

Holy crap! She nearly locked me in a cage again! That would have been really bad if she managed to drag me out into the sun’s light. She would have totally turned me into her weird pet.

You know you're really a monster when I feel safer being inside hell gas in some cave than I feel to be out in the sun. Also, I may have misheard her but did she just call me PUFFBALL! That is such an oddly fitting name for a white ball of tendrils but I still hate it. I’ll give her a pass since I call her Gothalyn...wait I never found out her name. Oh well, it’s not like I’m gonna be seeing her anytime soon.

What is she going to do? Camp out next to the exit and wait for me to leave?!

“There is a 96.4% chance, you may have just predicted the future. Good on you.” GagOs says in my head.

What?! Is she really going to do that!

“There is a 96.4% chance that she will indeed do that. Have fun.”

You wouldn’t know fun if it slapped you in the…

‘Maistear?’ A new fresh voice says in my head.

Who is this?!

‘Meister, I believe the egg has hatched.’ Cake says.

A mantis called me Maistear?!

Well, atleast it’s better than Master, it even sounds a little italian.

“Master” always did need that little italian flair.

I think I’ll name my little italian mantis…

Kiwi

[Confirmed, you have given your second subject the name, Kiwi]

I always did like diced kiwi on my pizza.

But don’t think that just because I like kiwi’s means I like pineapple on pizza.

Even I won't go that far.