I didn’t respond.
“So, anyway. Please pass a message on to Clara for me. Tell her ‘You-know-who misses her mommy. But not to worry. She’s in great hands.’”
I growled. “How about you go fuck…”
Before I could finish, my health ticked down one more notch.
You have died!
Half your experience toward level 18 lost!
***
Pain.
***
You have died 13 times!
Due to debts incurred, your regeneration spot has been overridden.
Entering Kinnegad.
I gasped, screaming back into the world with fire still licking my skin. I remained attached to the harness, in the same place as before. My clothes returned, but they were the ones I started the game with. My leather harness that gave a storage bonus was gone forever. But my fingers, my toes, my feet, and most importantly, my cock had all been restored to their former glory.
Jenk and the circular shield that had protected him was gone. He and Olga the frog had wandered off somewhere. He must have assumed I’d have regenerated back in Bast. But he couldn’t have gone too far. It’d only been two and a half minutes. I looked around, seeking him.
The place was abandoned. Burning husks of mechs surrounded me. The pavilion was painted red with groundling blood. Jenk and his frog had killed everyone in town.
But the NPCs would be back at any moment. Before, Madame Throb had regenerated right away. But had she regenerated that rapidly because I had died too? I hadn’t thought of that before. If Jenk had killed the NPCs, would they stay dead longer? I knew a few other games did something similar. But either way, the NPCs would return. What would happen then? Would they start the ceremony again? I had to get out of here. I grasped at the strap holding my chest with my powerful left hand.
Self escape is not possible until your debt is paid or canceled.
“Goddamnit,” I cried. I read the debt notification again. It would only be canceled once the day had passed, once the child died, or once the ceremony was completed. Completed by Gulch. But Madame Throb had killed little Gulch, hadn’t she? I looked off toward the temple. The mechs guarding the entrance were splattered all over the place. Throb had brought the kid in there somewhere. He must not be dead yet. That meant I’d have to wait until the end of the day before the debt would go away. Would it take that long for the NPCs to come back? I doubted it.
The entire cave shook, followed by a distant explosion. I heard screaming, followed by a very, very loud howl, louder than the detonation. Rocks fell from the ceiling, crashing around me.
What was happening now? My minimap was awash in red. I pulled up the main map, zooming out to get a better view.
The howling was coming from Orthrus, Jenk’s two-headed kaiju. It had moved from the fields to the east to directly above our position.
Then I remembered what Jenk had said. I’m going to close these caves off. He had control of his kaiju, making the giant two-headed dog cave in this entire town. I wondered if that would finally cancel the debt. I welcomed the idea, even if it meant dying once again. Anything to get out of here without having to go through any more of the amplification ceremony.
The distinctive hissing of a mech suit punctuated through the distant sound of roaring. My heart started to thrash as I struggled in my restraints.
“Your lycan friend did not try to save you,” a familiar voice said, sounding odd as it was amplified through the loudspeaker of the mech suit. All around us, rocks continued to plummet from the ceiling. The large mech clunked into my view. The unit’s blast shield was down, obscuring the driver.
I was expecting this to be Madame Throb. I was surprised to see it was not.
“He’s not my friend,” I said through gritted teeth. My eyes caught the name over the mech suit. Jazz. She was not wearing the same type of suit that Madame Throb and the rest of the guard wore. This suit was a head bigger than the others and wider, too. But it also looked older, more worn. It did not appear to have any built-in weapons. Hoses threaded from the back and into the center, making it look more like an old school diving suit.
The suit wasn’t armed, but she did appear to have a weapon. Her suit carried a giant, metallic block on the back. It was the size of a dishwasher and appeared to be a solid hunk of metal. A chain hung from the side, each link as wide as my arm. The thing was some sort of flail. The whole thing appeared to be outrageously heavy, and I kept waiting for her to topple backward.
The restraint around my waist snapped off, followed by the one at my shoulder as Jazz easily removed them with her mechanical hand. I fell forward, hitting the ground hard.
You have been broken free of incarceration!
The moment I hit the ground, my pack and rifle returned, settling over my shoulder with a satisfying weight. Relief flooded me. I was free. For now. A quick glance showed me the debt was still active, which meant if I died again, I’d still regenerate in this stupid town.
The ceremonial knife still sat there on the tiles. Gasping, I picked it up.
The knife hummed in my hands. It was more a surgical tool than a proper weapon. It had a long, silver handle and a short, glowing energy blade as thin as a razor.
It cut through bone like butter. It had a slide on the side, and I could make the blade about seven inches long, or I could retract it completely. So less like a scalpel and more like a box cutter. I retracted the blade and slipped it into my belt as quickly as I could. If Jazz was going to kill me, I wanted it in my inventory so I’d keep it upon regeneration.
The knife’s information popped up.
Knife of Amplification
Used in the Sacrament of Amplification, this knife is able to finely pierce and slice organic material with precision.
+20% Celestial Prayer Points when worn.
I waited for a fatal blow from the mech, but it never came. I looked up, and the mech stood over me. The blast shield retracted, revealing the woman groundling. Her eyes were rimmed red.
The weird brass skullcap was gone, and she had what appeared to be a square, metal patch woven into her forehead. I wasn’t sure if she had the patch before or not, but I didn’t think so. Blood oozed from the metal square. This was an upgrade she had just installed onto herself.
“You’re going to help me get Gulch back,” she said.
“I thought they killed him,” I said. I knew he couldn’t be dead, but what else could I say?
“He may not be. He has been training against this possibility. He may yet live within the oblation chamber. Kinnegad is about to collapse.” She gestured at the temple. “We need to get in there and rescue him before it’s too late.”
A new quest notification flashed.
I stood to my full height. I still had to look up to face Jazz. Her mech vibrated and coughed like an engine with a bad valve.
“You owe me this,” she said.
I shook my head. No. While I needed to level up as rapidly as possible, it was crucial I get back to Clara and Banksy. Now that this Jenk guy knew we were here, everything was going to be much more difficult. I didn’t have time for side quests like this.
“I don’t owe you shit,” I said.
The mech reached forward, picked me up like a ragdoll and turned and walked into the open mouth of the badger temple.
I fought, scrambling to grab at my rifle, my knife, anything but she held my arms tight.
I cursed and struggled until I saw the notification as we entered the temple. I froze.
Entering Moritasgus – Mouth Region
Warning: Guardian Moritasgus is in poor health.
I stared stupidly at the notification as we walked along the pews. Jazz’s mech was so wide, we cleaved through the room, throwing the benches aside like a boat cutting waves.
Deep Dive activating! World Map is not available during a deep dive! Gross Anatomy map activating! Surgery menu activating! Frame Vision now available!
Multiple purple waypoints ope
ned up in my vision as the guardian map activated.
We passed the pulpit, and she pushed me through the curtain that hung at the back of the altar. Darkness washed over us as we passed through the temple and into the fleshy back of the kaiju’s mouth. We stood over a dark precipice, the dark cavern of the kaiju’s throat.
Heat blasted me as the guardian exhaled. A terrible, fetid stench, like rotten cabbage, overwhelmed me.
“Hold on,” Jazz said.
“What…” I began.
She jumped, and we fell, swallowed by the darkness.
Chapter 26
We smashed into the fleshy inside of the gullet, our descent stopped by the cup of a U-shaped shelf on the interior throat. My Frame Vision turned on, but only for a moment before a pair of bright lights activated near the head of Jazz’s mech, illuminating the interior of the beast’s throat. The passage was as wide as an airplane hangar. Humid, putrid air rushed by, in and out.
Jazz let go of me, and I plopped onto the ground made of pink flesh. The thump, thump, thump of the heart hit me like the beat of a drum. I realized that was the pounding I’d heard throughout the entire city.
I stood, my legs unsteady. My mind reeled. This wasn’t a temple for Moritasgus. The damn temple was the guardian! I looked up at Jazz. “What the hell did you do to his head! Why does he just sit there?”
She looked at me like it was the stupidest question that had ever been asked.
I couldn’t access my world map, but I knew several of the kaiju were missing. I hadn’t even thought to look for this one. It had been under our feet the whole time, and I’d had no idea.
The ground heaved, and we both flew up into the air, almost dislodged from our spot and back into the throat. The cup in which we perched was momentarily turned inside out, like the guardian was clearing his throat. I bounced as the world settled again. I fell hard onto my ass.
“Calm, my lord,” Jazz muttered. She patted the flesh.
I pulled up and placed the Gross Anatomy minimap in the top corner. The badger appeared to be buried standing erect in the ground, with only his head poking out into the center of Kinnegad. We sat right on what appeared to be the kaiju’s epiglottis.
Jazz climbed up the edge of the flesh cup. A chain emerged from the mech, and she attached it to a tire-sized loop of metal that appeared to be drilled into the kaiju’s flesh along with several other loops. A single chain was already attached to one of the loops, next to the one Jazz used. This was how they entered the deeper realms of the kaiju, I realized. From this spot we could go into either the digestive tract or the pulmonary system.
“Why is your kaiju buried like this?” I asked again.
Jazz paused and looked at me. “The demons came. It is our responsibility to protect our god from the unholy. We keep Papa Mori safe.”
“But why is he just sitting here? Why doesn’t he struggle, try to get away?”
Jazz tapped the brass metal plate on her forehead. “Pastor Broc held the controller. I took it from him when the chaos erupted. Okay. So we are going toward the lung region. I need to pick you up again.”
“Controller?” I asked, not making a move toward her. “So that thing in your head makes the kaiju do what you want?”
She looked outraged. “This thing in my head tells me Moritasgus’s will. Now come to me. Unless you want to live the rest of your days stuck in the throat of a god.”
I reluctantly stepped forward, reaching to grab her hand. She pulled me to her, wrapping me tightly against the metallic hull of her mech. The mechs of the town guard had twin boilers on the back. This wider mech held her massive flail like a backpack in that same place. Instead, a single, but larger, boiler sat underneath the hunk of metal, part of what was holding it up. It rattled and hummed and sputtered.
“Okay, we’ve got a long way down toward the lungs, but we’re not going all the way into them. We’ll stop just before the branch, and then we’re going through the hatch into the heart. That’s where they bring them.”
And then she jumped off the edge. We fell, ratcheting down with a click, click, click as an impossible amount of chain emerged from the shoulder of her mech. We occasionally bounced off the wall of the brachial tube, and I wondered idly if the creature could feel it. The air in here was hot and foul, rushing back and forth like waves as the giant badger breathed in and out.
As we fell, I glanced at my waypoints. A waypoint pulsed over the heart area, and I focused on it.
Level 5 Dirofilariasis Infestation
107 Meters Away – Heart
Warning: You must treat this infestation at the direct location.
Warning: Guardian Moritasgus is in poor health.
I had no idea what “dirofilariasis” meant, but the game seemed to believe I’d be able to handle it at my current level. The last time it gave me a warning when something was beyond my ability to heal.
We stopped with a jerk. For a terrifying moment, I thought she’d drop me as I continued to slide painfully down. We hung loosely in the air. Directly below, the tube split into two directions. The beating of the heart reminded me of being just outside of a nightclub. You could feel it in your bones. It rattled your teeth. Even Bast didn’t have a heartbeat this loud.
Jazz pointed up at a round, riveted porthole built into the side of the tube. The door was large, big enough to accommodate Jazz’s mech. Several more eyelets were drilled into the flesh above the entrance. A single chain was already attached to one. This was the other end of the one already attached above.
“We need to swing over there. This part can get tricky,” Jazz said. She started to push back and forth, swinging.
“I got it,” I said. “Just don’t drop me.” I reached forward with my left hand, aiming for the metal loop of the porthole.
My hand shot forth, easily making the distance. My aim was true, and I grasped onto the ring.
“Okay, hold on,” I said as I retracted the arm. I grunted with the effort of pulling both myself and the heavy mech back up. For a terrifying moment, I feared my implant would rip right off of my arm. But thankfully my newfound strength was enough. We reached the eyelet, and Jazz grasped on with her free hand.
A small shelf was built into the flesh just under the round portal. I slipped out of the mech’s grasp, standing awkwardly on the ledge, my hands grasping onto the round, spinning handle of the door.
This ledge and whole travel system only worked if the kaiju was in its current position, buried almost vertically in the ground. Bast was always rolling all over the place, and the interior spun about like a washing machine. I wondered how long the groundlings had trapped their guardian in this position.
“Get that door open,” Jazz said as she unhooked the chain from her mech and onto the second eyelet. “We can’t keep it open for but a few moments before he starts to feel discomfort. So once it’s open, go quickly through and I will follow.”
The portal turned easily in my hand. It opened inward with a whoosh. I practically blew inside. The temperature rose, and a terrible roaring filled my ears.
Entering Heart Region
Warning… Diagnosis is recommended.
I expected to step onto flesh, but instead my feet hit solid metal. The ground swayed up and down like one of those funhouse bridges. I received an Unsteady notification, and I had to stand still while Jazz crowded behind me and slammed the door. The roaring noise solidified into a heartbeat mixed with the rushing sound of a waterfall.
A guide rope was built across the bridge, and I grasped it with my right hand as I took stock of my surroundings.
We stood upon a broad, metallic bridge about as wide as the one that led into the town of Kinnegad. A white glow mixed with Jazz’s bluish light, giving the chamber a sickly feeling. The slats were connected with bits of chain, but they were far enough apart that I’d fall through if I wasn’t careful. There seemed to be a track of sorts built into the slats, and I realized it was for the groundling mechs. The bridge led off toward what
appeared to be a small, glinting building nestled into the shadows ahead. The round building looked similar to Anatoly’s base that was built into Bast’s large intestine. If it was a player base, I likely wouldn’t be able to go inside. It would be empty as nobody was playing the groundling this season.
The bridge heaved, thrumming with the heartbeat. I could feel it in my chest, each thump like someone slapping me. The bridge, according to my map, spanned directly over the heart. But if there was a heart underneath all of that, I could not see it.
Below my feet, and stretching out as far as I could see into the darkness was nothing but a writhing mess of white worms. Thousands of them. Or maybe it was just one. I could not tell. They pulsed and wriggled and slithered, undulating as they swarmed the guardian’s heart like a living mass of bleached angel hair pasta.
Heartworms.
Each white worm was only about fifteen inches in diameter, but they just stretched and stretched, so long that I couldn’t see any beginnings or endings.
The curling, twisting knot of parasites filled me with an overwhelming revulsion, more so than anything else I’d yet seen in this horrific game. I felt my gorge rise, and I had to fight to keep it down.
As I stared, my kaiju healing menu popped up. I hadn’t ventured in here since a few level-ups, and I glanced at the menu of my available surgical talents:
Antiparasitic: Level 5
Cauterize: Level 3
Incision: Level 3
Lance: Level 3
Vaccinate: Level 3
Numb: Level 2
Detoxify: Level 2
Reroute: Level 2
Diagnosis: Level 2
Cleanse: Level 1
Patch: Level 1
BloodBorne: Level 1
The Diagnosis spell pulsed, and I instinctively selected it.
The worms all now glowed with a red outline. A muddle of yellow and red warning exclamations suddenly appeared, helping me discern individual worms. There were thousands of them.
Kaiju- Battlefield Surgeon Page 22
