Jjhutto_Son of Flame
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B3. Ch. 48 Face Huggers
🕑 Added 2024-10-28 15:48:26 +0000 UTCBrokenridge released his beam of superheated energy just in time to arrest the giant spider’s insanely fast jump attack. For the millisecond that it had been frozen before them, Tilly was shocked by its size, which he had to reestimate to something closer to a football field.
The supercharged breath attack hit it square in the abdomen, stopping the bus-sized fangs from reaching the dragon by a few feet, and launching it back toward the stone structure.
“AAAHHSSSS!” she hissed as the Brokenridge’s attack slammed her into the side of the artificial mountain, and buried her in melting stone. The attack cut off after another few seconds in an incredible display of power. Screams and hisses rose in a collective wail from the surrounding forest, seeking to assault Tilly’s senses, but his amulet grew frosty on his chest, absorbing the psychic attack.
Completely unbothered, the dragon turned his head, sparing Tilly a glance, “I will crush the bugs, you go and fetch me my spoils.” He growled in a low voice, pulling back his draconic arm.
“How-Ahhhh!” Tilly screamed in reply as the dragon launched the stone in his hand toward the top of the ziggurat. This not being the first time he had been thrown, Tilly managed to choke down his scream and tense his body as it whipped through the air at speeds only possible due to the dragon’s legendary Strength.
The several-hundred-pound stone ripped through the air in a B-line for the shattered opening left by the Broodmother. To his relief, the projectile rushed perfectly through the opening, and Tilly followed, his shallow vector of pursuit allowing him to run the same path as the stone like a train on its rails.
He passed through the gaping opening and the darkness of the space robbed him of his vision as he plunged through the air, now traveling through what seemed to be the hollow inside of the mountain. He desperately snapped Erash’s twig, and almost immediately felt the magic’s hold begin to loosen, right as the stone ahead of him crashed into the ground.
The timing was almost impossibly perfect, as the link around him was ripped free, taking on much of the shearing force of the sudden stop, and allowing Tilly to continue forward at a much-reduced speed, with only a few bruised ribs. Moving on instinct, he brought his arms ahead of him just before he crashed into the ground somewhere near the rock’s impact zone.
His incredibly sturdy bones cracked as he impacted at an angle sliding through dozens of strange protruding rocks that jutted from the ground of his impact site. The protrusions significantly softened his landing, shattering upon impact and releasing a gushing warm liquid.
Tilly Groaned as he finally slid to a stop against one of the protrusions. He had crashed head first, sliding on his stomach in the hopes of protecting Kindle from any of the kinetic destruction his body had just undergone.
‘Are you alright?’ He sent along with his groan. His hands clutched along his belt to find the clasp holding the health potion. Once he found it, he hesitated, checking his health.
Health: 65%
Kindle let out a squawk of surprise, but he could feel her pulling free from his jacket, and he decided to wait on the potion until he knew what he was facing. Tilly got to his feet gingerly, as Kindle finished pulling free of his collar, her soft glow illuminating his immediate environment.
Before him, arranged in seemingly random clusters were the stony ovular protrusions he had felt along his crash vector. They continued down the interior slope of the mountain as far as he could see. Tilly’s heart sank and his bile rose as he turned back to look at the path of destruction his crash landing had left. Shattered protrusions reached back into the darkness along the line of his landing, and his eyes focused in on the nearest one… almost reluctantly investigating its contents. At this point, the potion at his belt, and even the distant pain of his injuries were forgotten.
Amid the shattered stone-like shell and the splattered viscous liquid was a pale creature made up almost entirely of broken legs and a long vertebrate tail. A shiver of terror ran up Tilly’s spine, as he spun around, trying to keep all of his surroundings within his field of version…
“Kindle, we need light. Now!” He whispered harshly, his voice tinged with a slight edge of panic. He had seen way too many movies where some hapless fool discovered a field of eggs. It never worked out well for him.
She trilled in an affirmative, fire blazing to life along her plumage as she leaped into the air, gaining altitude with every flap of her wings. As she rose, more and more of the interior of the structure was illuminated, revealing a chamber many times the size of an NFL football stadium. As her light reached further to illuminate the whole of the interior, Tilly saw the egg clusters covering every available surface of the interior of the structure, including the walls and ceiling, with the exception of the very center of the basin.
“Nope, nope, nope, nope.” He immediately began muttering to himself as he oriented toward the bottom of the interior and started to jog downward as fast as he could without touching any more of the eggs. Kindle dived back down and hovered about twenty feet above, giving him better light for his flight to the center of the structure. He could just barely make out a huge statue standing in the open space made noticeable by its absence of eggs.
The closer he got, the more the layout of the center became clear. Tilly leaned fully into his Dexterity to keep his pace supernaturally quick, without touching any of the nightmarish protrusions. Kindle’s light began to sparkle and shine as it hit the area around the statue, illuminating huge piles of treasure…
‘Ok, don’t panic… Steal the treasure and get out… Fight a few bigger spiders on the way out…’ Tilly formed his plan in half-panicked thoughts as he rushed down the last few hundred feet of slope. As he approached, he slowed and pulled up his notification log, needing to confirm what he already feared. He scrolled it back sixty seconds and found what he was looking for, the moment of impact.
You have sustained environmental damage. - 13% Health
-1.2% Health
-2% Health
You have encountered a hostile entity. Level 1 Arachnid Parasite.
You have destroyed an Arachnid Parasite. +.002 % to your next level.
You have destroyed an Arachnid Parasite. +.002 % to your next level.
You have destroyed an Arachnid Parasite. +.002 % to your next level.
You have destroyed an Arachnid Parasite. +.002 % to your next level.
Tilly barely dodged around another cluster as his speed increased. He was in a chamber the size of a super stadium chock-full of face huggers...
He didn’t care if they were only level one… he couldn’t stand the thought of any of them even touching him, let alone getting any more of their goop on him. His eyes flicked up to his HUD and the new experience readout he had added next to his name came into view. He had made some changes after his talk with Ichiro and Hiro about the Level 50 bottleneck, and the way most higher-level beings handled it.
Level: 37 (14/100% Experience until next level.)
Getting rid of the frankly unwieldy experience numbers had been a relief, but that dismally small percentage next to his level depressed him as he realized he would have to kill…
God, he hated math.
The answer was too many. He would have to kill too many of these things to get to his next level, and he wasn’t sure he had anything in his arsenal to get the job done. He didn’t have the Wisdom to sustain any sort of damage output over that period of time, even if he swapped stats, and without his superlative Titles in effect, any sort of ace with an empowered intelligence was out as well. That left his normal moves only, and he couldn’t think of a synergy that would be enough to handle these things if they all woke up.
His dislocated shoulder snapped back into place as he leaped the last of the clusters and arrived at the piles of treasure, further illuminating the statue of this Faction’s Patron. It was thirty feet tall and unsurprisingly had a spider’s abdomen, which seemed to be stabbed into the ground in some way. The rest of its body, however, was more unexpected. The spider's abdomen only had six legs, and its thorax shrunk down into a petite waste of an incredibly attractive woman wearing a corset and holding a staff with a huge malformed emerald at its tip. His approach slowed as moved forward in a crouch as quietly as possible until he was within arms reach of the treasure piles.
Mounds of gold and silver, taller than Tilly, and interspersed with jewels had been dumped all around the statue, whose womanly top half had her arms open wide in a posture of acceptance. The statue’s eyes were blindfolded, but her mouth displayed a small, almost playful smile. Her lower lip was dimpled by a pair of wicked-looking fangs, somewhat dispelling the allure of her form.
A roar sounded above, shaking the entire structure before the whole thing shook with another huge impact against its side. Rocks rained on from the ceiling, crushing a few more clusters, and Tilly winced, looking around.
Thankfully, the eggs remained dormant. Whatever was supposed to trigger their hatching had not been activated. Tilly allowed himself the slightest sigh of relief, and stepped up to the nearest treasure pile, reaching out his hand with the world ring, and sending a tiny pulse of Mana to activate it.
Nothing happened, and his worried wince turned into a deep frown of concern as he once again pulled up his notification log.
Warning, you have attempted to loot claimed objects of value from another entity. The owner of these objects has been notified of your attempted deposit.
Just as he had finished reading the last line of the notification, a sound like a grating stone broke the silence of the room in front of him, and he looked up to find the statue had turned its head in his direction.
“Oh sh-”
“EEEEEEEEE” The statue opened its mouth emitting a strangely siren-like wail before a disembodied voice resounded through the structure.
“Arise, Little ones. Feast on the profaner of our domain!”
Tilly tore his gaze from the moving statue to sweep over the sea of eggs, instantly calling his hatchets to his hands and covering himself in Wrath’s Shroud. The eggs, as far as his eyes could see, started to shiver and crack, and Kindle let out a battle cry, swooping down and laying a stream of fire the nearest clusters.
Mind racing, Tilly ran through his options. Doom Duckie was out, he had no clue what it would do and he refused to find out at close range. His shroud would only last another 98 seconds at best before he ran out of Mana. A Flame’s Expulsion, even if he went all out and swapped his Endurance for Intelligence while using his title [All or Nothing] would still result in a limited-range explosion, leaving him empty before even half of these things were done. That left burning one of his items, or giving up some experience…
Spindly legs started to burst forth from the nearest eggs, and Tilly’s face fell as he realized what he had to do. A quick mental command to his armor caused it to shift from its base form to the slick black leather and chitin of the Nullspider set, embedded with a network of strange patterns and chiplike pathways.
The eggs nearest to him burst open, and several dozen, face-sized, multilegged forms shot through the air at him. Tilly boosted his passive Shroud and watched with some satisfaction as they were almost instantly incinerated as they touched his flames. The floor, wall, and even ceiling of the structure seemed to be moving, as the entire creepy infant spider population came to give his face a nice warm hug. He didn’t know how these parasites worked, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to find out today.
They continued to throw themselves against his Shroud, which was rapidly depleting his Mana, he briefly pulled up the Mana Overdrive description one last time, to make sure he was ready to set himself even further back.
-Mana Overdrive: You may perform abilities without paying the Mana cost in exchange for unused Experience stored in the subspace of your soul at a rate of 100:1 while wearing the Nullspider Set.
Comments
Zachary Koffink
Dang spider momma, why you gotta do Tilly like that?
