I stood frozen in terrified silence behind the stalagmites as I waited to ensure the monsters had left. My large, bat-like ears scanned for every sound they could to tell me if the fiends had stayed around. The sounds were so magnified that they made me wince whenever a roar sounded outside the cavern. Only after five minutes did I feel comfortable leaving my hiding spot, taking slow, soft steps, and sticking to the shadows.
My claws clicked as I crept around the cavern to ensure I was alone.
It was really touch and go for a minute there. Between the horrible fern monsters and that titanic mammoth, I for sure thought I would die before I even had the chance to figure out what happened and why I ended up here. I haven't even had an opportunity to explore my new body, for goodness sake!
Why would you poke a random alien plant, Aria?! This isn't Earth! You know nothing about this place!
I continued to reprimand myself before being interrupted by a chime and a voice in my head.
[Hearing has reached level 2.]
Wat?
I vaguely remember the system saying I had a skill called Hearing, but it leveled already. More importantly, how do I even access my stats? Is it a verbal command? I don't think I have vocal cords anymore.
Could I be as simple as...'Status.'
A page scrolls in my mind as I think of the command.
Success!
[Status:]
Name: Aria
Level: 1
• Might: 25
• Toughness: 18
• Cunning: 25
• Will: 15
• Health: 37/40
• Mana: 0
[Skills:]
• Bite (Level 1) : Improves the ability to accurately and forcefully apply a bite using fangs, mandibles, or teeth.
• Hearing (Level 2): Improves the ability to hear precisely and from long distances.
• Tail Attack (Level 1): Improves the ability to use the tail for bludgeoning, stabbing, and restraining.
• Rake (Level 1): Improves the ability to precisely and forcefully use claws, talons, and spines to cut.
I'm slightly overwhelmed with information as the system tells me about my various skills and what they do. As I look through the four skills I have available; I get more and more excited. It's fascinating. The skills don't seem to add any quantifiable numbers for the improvements, but instead, they impart knowledge on how to use the skills more efficiently and effectively.
My hearing has already noticeably improved from my level up. The sharp sounds that were so jarring initially seem to have dulled and don't hurt as much as before. How intriguing! If I can level my Hearing skill enough, I wonder how loud sounds I can hear without hurting myself.
As I muse to myself about being able to listen to the harmonies of a nuclear explosion, a quiet ping continues to sound in my mind. Focusing on it, another prompt shows up.
[Would you like to spend your skill points?]
Excited, I internally selected yes, trying to calm my eager mind as it raced from the possibilities a new skill might offer.
Just as before, a page floats in my mind.
[Skill Points can be used to unlock new skills or upgrade existing ones.]
[Biomass can be used to improve aspects of your physical, monstrous form.]
• Skill Points: 1
• Biomass: 1
[Skills available to purchase:]
• Dash: (1 SP) Provides a burst of speed at the cost of higher stamina drain.
• Chomp: (1 SP) Bites have increased penetration and are harder to dislodge.
• Stealth: (1 SP) Improves the ability to hide and move unseen.
• Precise Shooting: (1 SP) Improves ability to hit targets from a distance accurately.
[Mutations available to purchase:]
• Skin: Increases skin tensile strength and durability, decreasing damage from cutting and blunt attacks.
• Teeth: Improves bite strength and teeth sharpness.
• Claws: Improves claw hardness and sharpness.
• Decay Stinger: Improves venom transmission and potency; Reduces the time between stinger growths.
• Eyes: Improves eyesight.
• Ears: Improves hearing.
• Tail: Improves strength of tail and range of motion.
This is really interesting. My skills and "mutations" are split and offer different ways to upgrade myself, so I don't get bogged down with choices. Now, what to choose?
I look over the skills that would fit me where I am now. As it stands, I'm classified as an infant monster. I'll probably be able to grow once I hit a certain level, but even with my stinger, I'm not very strong and have little to no combat experience. Seeing what those fern monsters did to that massive one, I'm unsure if I could even go against one of them in a fair fight. The key point is a fair fight, mind you, and Stealth would help me in more ways than one. If I understand how skills work here, they teach me how to move my body effectively and efficiently to do specific actions. I assume this also includes how to hide properly, be it stalking or trying to hide from something that wants to tear my ass a new one.
Mentally selecting the Stealth skill, I move on to my mutations. I'm less sure about these. Not just because it doesn't tell me how it improves these aspects of my new biology, but I don't know what would help me at this point.
Going through the list, I try to weigh the pros and cons of each option. Upgrading my Skin would help if I ended up in a front on scrap, but I'm not sure if I want to risk myself like that. Back on Earth, I had only gotten into a couple of fights. Fights for food or money when I was on the streets, mostly, but there were some just out of spite. Even then, I wouldn't say I liked to get hurt. Upgrading my skin might help reduce the damage and pain, but I didn't plan to get up in the face right now, so that was out. My Teeth and Claws are in the same spot, unfortunately. Not wanting to get up close and personal neuters these options for the moment.
My Decay Stinger is...different. Focusing on the body part, a new page opens.
• Decay Stinger: A hard bone-chitin stinger infused with Death mana. Specialized muscles, tendons, and bones allow the stinger to be shot, releasing all stored venom on impact. The stinger will regrow after a short period, allowing up to three spares to be held in the tail.
...
Awesome! This stinger is easily my most potent attack, especially if I can shoot at enemies from range. It seems to pair well with my new stealth skill, too. Depending on how good I get and how potent my venom proves to be, I might be able to take on the hunting tactics of a rattlesnake. Inject venom while hidden, let them run, and finish them off when they're weak enough. I'll put this at the top of my upgrade list and continue.
Moving on to my sensory organs, my Eyes and Ears, I'm not sure which would be better. As it turns out, being turned into a monster has its perks. My eyesight is way better than a human's.
Looking around the cave I'm in; I can see the minute details of the walls. The walls are a mixture of packed dirt and hard stone, crisscrossing "veins" that seem to be flowing with liquid, covering everything, providing a bright pulsing blue light that shines all over the cavern. In fact, it seems to have gotten brighter since I've been here. Weird. Is this some seasonal variation? Maybe summer?
My eyes and ears snap in the direction of a sudden noise to my left. My acute hearing helps me here, letting me pinpoint the exact spot the sound is coming from. My body tenses as the noise starts to become more recognizable.
Skritch.
SkritchSkritckSkritch.
SkritchSkritchSkritchSkritchSkritchSkritchSkritchSkritch.
'Digging! Something is digging through the wall!' I realize, horrified. Similar noises surge throughout the tunnel, making me sink into a little scaled ball of anxiety. My points! I need to use them before the monsters burst from the walls! I mentally select my Decay Stinger and the Stealth skill for my two upgrades, and the system prompts me again.
[Would you like to purchase Decay Stinger and the Skill: Stealth?]
Yes! Hurry up before I'm eaten!
As soon as I confirm my choices, two things happen. A soft trickle starts across my brain, reminding me of a slow-moving stream. The second is a strange itch inside my tail. It's unpleasant since I can't scratch it. No sooner do I accept the changes; the monsters emerge from the walls.
The cavern I'm in isn't massive like the place I woke up in, but it has some width. A couple hundred feet across, studded by thick stone pillars to hold up the ceiling. This makes it to where I have some distance from the creatures that burst from the stone and dirt.
I activate my new Stealth skill and draw myself into the shadow of a pillar as the first of the monsters break free. Now, I'm not sure what I expected from a beast born of this demented place, but I sure as hell didn't expect that.
A brown, fuzzy creature pushes through the wall. It's around my size, if a bit taller, myself being around the size of a large dog. Two pointy ears sit atop its head, and four eyes frame its face. A little nose is peppered with white whiskers, and a sizeable bushy tail sits at its end. It's a squirrel! A fucking monster squirrel! Why does it have to be so cute?! Monsters shouldn't be cute! Although I'm a monster, and I'm pretty cute. But I'm an exception, damnit!
As I seethe about how this creature could possibly be as cute as me, monsters continue to come out of the walls and begin to fight—large rats with multiple tails charge at grotesque bundles of huge centipedes. Spike-shelled lizards fight wolf cubs with long, scaled tails. Even an odd deer beast thrashed through swathes of smaller creatures before being brought down. As more and more monsters emerged, I noticed something strange about the monster that first captured my eye. Its mouth is much larger than usual, stretching up around its face like a twisted smile. As the squirrel saunters up to a newly emerged centipede, I figure out why.
Like a snake, the squirrel's bottom jaw splits and stretches, engulfing the centipede as it tries to swallow the arthropod whole. The centipede, although surprised by the sudden ferocity, tried to slash down with a spike on its tail, no doubt infused with venom. The squirrel dodges to the right, the tip failing to hit home as it scratches along the centipede's side, leaving long gouges that drip with clear Ichor. The two monsters go back and forth as a single thought goes through my mind.
I am so fucked.