Cake’s punishment was dancing. It may seem weird, why I gave my hermit crab slave a punishment as ‘cruel’ as dancing but it served a dual purpose. First of all Cake no longer wanted to self-mutilate and second of all it allowed me to take my mind off the Radioactive Itch.
I think it is about time to go out and kill something.
[You have Consumed 1 Biomass]
Another day has gone by, I wonder how long I have been in this cave since being born?
...definitely not longer than two weeks.
‘Cake, I'm going to head out and get some food, can you expand our little cave while I'm out.’
It has been a little cramped ever since Cake has grown up from tennis ball size, and I have just been putting it off ever since.
‘But.’ Cake was about to tell me that she should come too.
‘I may be itchy, but I am not weak. I'm sure I can manage a few millipedes.’ I reply before she has a chance to make any argument.
Cake looks uneasy but starts to dig away at the wall on the other side of the small, empty, rock room. I head the opposite direction and pop out at the dead end of a tunnel.
I use my Pill body and latch onto the wall and make my way up to the ceiling as I peer around corners to look for millipede groups.
There doesn't seem to be a single enemy I can see around my base. I can't tell if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
GladOs upgrade my Radar Sense to be able to see farther.
[Confirmed, using 9 Biomass to upgrade Radar Sense:(Distance) from (Slightly Far) to (Max); remaining Biomass, 13.
I fall from the ceiling as I pass out.
1 minute later:
I’M UP! That was scary even though I knew that no enemies were around, upgrading out in the open is definitely nerve wracking.
I kind of upgraded that without thinking too much about it, thinking that seeing further in this maze of tunnels would make it easier to look for enemies to eat. But it doesn't help as much as I thought, I can see further but the further I try to peer around corners the worse my vision gets, it gets so bad toward the end of my range that I might as well be looking at an abstract painting.
I can't seem to find any enemies, well, I can see one hotspot of activity though the Millipede Nest or atleast near it.
I regret buying that upgrade, now.
Imagine looking at a nest of cockroaches in your house but not being able to do anything about it, you're just forced to watch. It may be blurry, given how far away it is but, I'm going through something similar as I peer around 20 corners and see the bustling stream of millipedes crawl over each other.
That place is an official NO JOY ZONE along with its partner in crime, Hell Gas Valley. There shall be no Joy found in these areas, whether that be metaphorically or literally.
I move away from the millipede nest and head toward the direction where I saw the wolf from
yesterday.
Who knew I would have to be actively searching for monsters, I am so used to running away and them finding me that this doesn't seem natural.
I crawl on the roof and search around me for signs of movement, I do eventually manage to find another wolf but as I get closer I realize that it is a zombie wolf meaning that a honey badger is nearby.
I can't seem to find it though, did it just abandon its wolf buddy.
I start to move away from that area but as I do I see the wolf just flop over on its side and die.
*rumble*
Followed by a quiet rumble.
I have a bad history with rumbles and I start to move at top speed and activate a combo of Flesh Flash and Anti-Gravity to move at a speed that my brain can't even react to.
IT'S GONNA BE SOMETHING BAD, I JUST KNOW IT; NO RUMBLE IS A GOOD RUMBLE!
I keep running away and eventually I run out of steam and I am forced to rest. I try to look back around all the corners I just took and I don't see anything chasing me.
I don't know what just happened and I probably don’t want…
Something catches my radar and it turns out to be the last refuge of hermit crabs from the war. It seems I ran straight into their nest, the same one I stole Cake from.
It does look a lot different without all the crabs and snails moving about. It's actually very desolate, I can only make out about five crabs left over from the war.
It would be sadder if they were not monsters and I wasn't hungry.
But sadly for these crabs they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and were about to become my Biomass.
[You have gained 20 Biomass]
And that's how hermit crabs went extinct on this floor, except for Cake.
GladOs, upgrade my regeneration like last time.
[Confirmed, using 30 Biomass to upgrade Regeneration:(Usability) from (Weak) to (Medium); remaining Biomass 3]
I relax as the itch lessens once again and is able to be almost completely ignored, unless I try and think about it. I check my health and stamina.
[Stats:
[Health: 70/80(100) (Radiation Poisoning)
[Stamina: 70/80(100)
Still got Radiation Poisoning but at least it's slowly getting better; I wait for my regeneration to bring me back to full health and I start to make my way back to Hole Base.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
I pass by a tunnel that leads down to Hell Gas Valley and it seems to be a little brighter even though basically nothing in this cave glows, well except the Hell Gas, but the glow from that should not be able to reach anywhere near this high up.
I crawl over to the edge of the hole and I peer downward using my maxed out distance sight.
The light moves away and everything returns to normal.
Curious about the moving light I decide to make my way down until I can see the source of it, gripping the wall I start to make my way back down until I can see the faintest glow of the ground.
The glow is much less intense than when I took a swim in it, but I am still not going anywhere near it.
That light better be a fairy or something for me to risk getting anywhere near the ground.
I focus toward the source of the light, a flashlight, the light coming off of it is almost blinding and it's not even pointing at me.
Wait a minute! A flashlight?! Humans!
I put even more focus toward the light to try and make out, if the figure holding the light is human.
It is hard to make out but it does appear to be someone in a very heavy duty looking suit with a scooper that he uses to pick up the ground.
I HAVE FOUND HUMANS?! I EXPECTED IT TO TAKE A YEAR AT MOST!
They don't appear very medieval either, not what I was expecting but, a human is a human. Whether they be a knight or someone in a radiation-proof suit.
What should I do now?
I can't follow them down into the gas and I'd rather they don't point that flashlight at me and fry my core in light.
I think I'll just take this info as confirmation, that humans exist and be on my way. And then when I figure out how to get through the gas, I can follow their footsteps out of the cave.
Sounds like a fantastic plan!
I start to make my way back up the wall and a small rock falls off from my suction cup. As I grab at a loose rock, I manage to loosen it from the rock face and when I let go, the rock falls down to the ground.
The human immediately shifts their blinding light toward the rock that fell to the ground from above and then starts to move it up toward me.
I start to grab at all the loose rocks near me as I quickly move to the right to avoid being blinded.
This causes a cascade of rocks to start falling to the ground as I scurry across the wall to avoid the light.
The light moves to the rock face where I just was and starts to follow me, eventually it catches up with me and completely stuns me like a flashbang.
I’M BLIND!
I can't see anything and I start to scurry in a random direction using a mix of Flesh Flash and Anti-Grav causing me to become even more dazed but I manage to confuse the human with the flashlight enough that they lose me.
When I finally manage to regain my sense of sight, I realize I am much closer to ground level than I thought I would be, the light is still frantically searching for me from above.
I pick up a rock from the rockface and I throw it at the human trying to knock the flashlight out of their hand since they might have a gun and try to shoot me.
If they have the technology to make a suit to block out radiation, they most certainly have guns.
I missed most of the rocks, but I think the human gets the idea and starts to protect the flashlight with their padded arm to cover it from being destroyed by rocks.
I would have started to make my way back up to safety by now, if there wasn't a massive centipede with two heads behind the person in padded-gear.
I immediately chuck a rock at the centipede, alerting the human to their impending death.
That centipede must be the millipedes breeding factory and it is big!
The 12 foot centipede wades through the radiation with no issue and is even carrying a wolf in one mouth and the other tries to chop the human in half. The human manages to dodge most of the attack even with the heavy gear. The centipede continues to throw its body and jaws at the human, the human is forced to take on most of these hits and the suit gets ripped apart enough to see the metal plates underneath the cloth.
Some of the metal plates that were damaged by the centipedes mandibles start to meld back together.
The ground also starts to move weirdly and I can see spikes form out of the ground and start to try and impale the centipede. The centipedes carapace is tough and the rock spikes only leaves scratches on it.
IS THAT MAGIC?! Spikes just popping out of the ground out of nowhere!
The suit continues to be ripped apart by the fast moving centipede as the person dodges as many attacks as possible while also counter attacking the centipede by clumping rocks around their fist.
I can tell the person is struggling being in such a heavy suit but I am just a spectator. I am not going down there just to get mauled by a centipede, I highly doubt that humans is going to win this fight.
I start to make my way back up the rock face while still watching the fight. The human does something I don't expect, taking off the radsuit.
The human starts to take off the upper part of the suit and the metal in the suit starts to move downward causing the shoes to get concealed in metal that ends in a sharpened point.
The girl?! I can tell because of the revealing black tank top that became visible due to her shedding the layer of radiation protection for more flexibility.
Her shoes are very weird looking as she cuts off one of the centipedes legs with them. They look like silver military boots except with a blade that goes from the toe area up to about half way up the shin.
After shedding that cumbersome suit, she is completely destroying the centipede if a leg tries to stab at her she just kicks it and it gets sliced in half, if the mandibles come flying her way she easily moves out of the way. Although the radiation may be getting to her now, the centipede is having an even worse time.
The centipede after losing some more legs and getting its carapace sliced up, does something unthinkable for a monster, it RETREATS?!
The centipede starts to run away, but the girl grabs a grenade out of a destroyed pocket and pulls the pin before throwing it at the centipede.
*Boom!*
The grenade explodes, next to the retreating centipede giving it a last bit of damage before the centipede dives into the tunnels limping due to the amount of damage its body has taken.
The girl made a very poor decision by taking off the suit though, and is currently experiencing the same thing I went through, being slowly melted alive. How can I tell since I have managed to get higher up and from here she looks blurry.
“AHHHHHHH!” She screams in pain as the high level radiation peels off her skin.
That’s how! Tsk tsk. You shouldn't have taken off the suit, lady. That radiation literally melted parts of my body into liquid and you just took off your only protection, I mean she would have probably died to the centipede anyway, but death by centipede is better than death by radiation in my opinion. Much less painful, and faster to let a centipede chop off your head.
The lady tries to piece back the suit that the centipede destroyed and she took off but passes out on her back due to the pain.
Should I help her?
I am no longer a human, so I'm not really obligated to go and help out a human that will most likely try and kill me. I also have Cake to take care of.
On the other hand, if she doesn't try and kill me, she could be a valuable asset in this new world. It will also feel guilty if I just watched the first person I ever meet die to radiation.
I think I'll try to save her and then leave her alone whether she survives or not would be due to her actions not mine. The longer she sits in that radiation the less likely she will survive. This better be worth it because I hate going anywhere near down there even if the radiation is not nearly as bad as it once was.
I start to make my way down to the radiation to save this person, as I move closer I can see the person's arm start to be covered in blisters.
She is going to be in a lot of pain if she survives this.
I put a tendril on the ground and it feels like I just touched a hot coal, I once again use Anti-Grav and Flesh Flash causing my stamina to be rapidly drained but allows me to move fast enough so that I can reach her without the radiation poisoning me even further even if it did progress the itchiness.
[Stamina: 20/80(100)]
I manage to reach her and I lay on her body to get off the radioactive floor.
How am I going to save her? Well, I could try to move her by dragging her body but I highly doubt she would survive and I would most likely make my radiation poisoning so much worse if I did something like that. Instead I am going to try and take control of her body to move her.
I stick a tendril up her nose, it glides its way through her body and eventually manages to reach the brain, I do have to make a little spike incision though. But hopefully it doesn't kill her.
And somehow this works?!
[You have Successfully taken over a Body]
Honestly, I never expected that to work.
I am now technically human again, I guess. I can control her body and make it do whatever I want. That sounds weird actually, I'm just trying to save a damsel in distress by borrowing her body, actually that somehow sounds even worse.
I control her body and make it get up and start to run toward the rock face that leads up, using her rock powers I manipulate the rocks at the wall to pop out which allows me to rock climb using her body.
I look at her blistered body and I can tell that if I wasn't controlling her body to move, a human would never be able to completely ignore this type of pain while rock climbing.
Eventually we manage to reach the top where the hole is and I let her sit down and I exit her brain causing her to go limp on the floor immediately, still breathing but not in the best of conditions.
She should live though, as long as a monster doesn't sneak up and attack her which I doubt would happen, given how I've been having to actively search for things to kill. The only thing that might come this way is that giant centipede, but she gave it a really good beating before the radiation got to her, so I doubt that centipede will be able to climb a wall for a while.
I should let her know that I saved her just in case we meet in this cave again. She might try and not kill me which would be nice.
As my tendril fully exits her nose and blood covers my tendril, I get an idea albeit a very creepy and very serial killer-ish idea, but an idea nonetheless.
Not knowing if we can speak the same language, as I never heard her talk other than her scream in agony. I draw a picture and then leave and make my way back to Cake and Hole Base hoping that I made the right decision by saving her.
========
3 Hours later:
Brookyln starts to wake up.
During the fight with that massive monster she had to take off her protective gear to defeat it, she knew all the risks of taking off the suit, but thought that she could beat the centipede and then put it back on but she underestimated the damage the centipede had caused to the integrity of the suit and the pain of the radiation, before she could put the suit back on she passed out due to the pain.
She had fully expected that would be the end of her life as soon as she passed out.
She turns on a backup flashlight that was in her back pants pocket and tries to stand up while turning it on.
Her body is still in alot of pain, no matter where she moves it feels uncomfortable and scratchy and making standing up difficult.
Her body is covered in blisters and cuts and her back looks like it has been burned, she even somehow got a bloody nose along with a serious headache, causing her to lay back down in pain.
She points the flash to the front of her and sees a drawing made in blood. That shows a pill shaped monster with tendrils carrying a stick figure person up a wall, away from the floor which has a crude skull drawn on it. There is even a heart shape that surrounds the two figures.
She realizes that the weird white pill monster that she saw crawling on the wall before getting attacked must have somehow saved her by dragging her all the way up here.
Brooklyn is very weird and instead of being creeped out by the message finds it a little endearing and cute.
She doesn't know how a monster is even capable of empathy, but she is grateful for it.
Since she can find out why her Boss never told her about the monsters, even after he said that he scanned for them.