Session Forty-Nine — Insides Job
The worst part wasn’t the smell. Tons of little bugs hopping around barely registered since their damage was minor when not in packs. The long white ribbon-creature rated higher because the game designers thought space monsters deserved tapeworms. But this squishy, sloppy flesh texture closing in around me was probably the grossest thing to happen in my lifetime. It topped the ice cockroach by miles.
It was not good. Giant explosive canisters took the lead as we pushed through the rectum. [Anchor] made the process disturbingly easy. Almost slippery.
“So gross.” I shuddered and yanked myself in behind the barrels.
Warning!
This environment contains trace acids that may cause corrosion as you are digested. The farther any creature travels, the worse the corrosion level will be.
Corrosion rating: 1%
I should have asked Hal Pal for a drill. With it, we could have bored into the side of this giant creature and held on with [Anchor]. Dusk and his acid might have helped get us farther down. A deeply wedged explosive could have done enough damage to distract the [Leviathan]. We only needed a solid distraction so the giant monster didn’t end our lives.
Making it past the tight end of a gargantuan space eel made the entire creature shift and roll. I pressed my hand into the side to brace myself and recoiled in horror from the slimy, warm rubber texture. My eyesight flipped over, letting me see a slight shimmer from metal in the walls. I shouldn’t have bought [Echo Vision] with contribution. I’d wanted to avoid being stuck without vision like in Continue Online, but this nasty sight should have remained unseen.
I swallowed and pushed the bomb forward. We would see this through, and worst case scenario, the [Suppository Explosive] would go off and I would be caught in the blast. Hal Pal, or its character, Jeeves, should be okay out there. Dusk and Jeeves would take off to safety while my body got caught in a mercifully quick detonation.
Attention unit identified as Hermes!
You are the first player to discover the [Leviathan’s Lower Digestive Tract] dungeon.
Primary stat will increase by ten. Secondary stat will increase by five.
+10 [Brawn]
+5 [Reaction]
Note: Additional Rewards will apply upon completion of this dungeon.
Neat, I guessed. It would help a little in dealing with my current task. Maybe blowing the creature up would count as completion of the dungeon and helping Hal Pal would be even easier. Of course, exploding it from this—delicate—location might debilitate the beast. Or all our efforts would come off as the biggest fart in history. I hoped for more than digital flatulence and kept going.
I readied the laser sword but kept it turned off. Inside here, there were far fewer bugs to fight. Most could be stomped on or were melted as the corrosion level stacked up. My own health was down roughly thirty percent from the earlier bug-gathering and mildly acidic insides.
“Voices.” I shuddered while stepping around a small melted metal bit. It looked like a helmet that had almost made it to the far end of space worm digestion. “Oh no.”
There was an entire cockpit in here. I could see where the [Leviathan]’s digestion process had ignored bone and leached nearly every other mineral from some vaguely humanoid creature. The skull looked dark red from rolling around in metal fluids. Calcium painted with a pool of copper maybe?
Additional victims became apparent as I went farther in. A nearly broken gun and scraps from a ship’s dashboard, or the fin from a wing. Leftovers lined the entire tail end. This behemoth must have wiped out entire raids.
“How deep do I need to go?” I muttered while letting the [Anchor] ability drop. This tunnel was narrow enough that another wiggle of the [Leviathan] couldn’t shake me loose.
Hal Pal had given me a marker. It floated about half a mile away. Provided nothing interrupted me, making it there would be easy.
Something grabbed my leg. I tried not to be surprised by the sudden situation change while I scrambled to activate [Anchor]. My arms flailed wildly for the [Leviathan]’s innards. My fingers clawed for purchase and failed to hold on to any ripples. In the process, I dropped the bombs’ chain.
[Echo Vision] showed my [Suppository Explosive] getting farther away. I grabbed the escaping chain with one arm and felt a jerk of force at my shoulder. Whatever had grabbed my leg pulled me elsewhere. Slimy walls rolled by as the thing bunched up. [Echo Vision] didn’t have colors; it just showed a faint outline of some squiggly looking thing around my leg.
I twisted and activated my beam sword. It expanded rapidly and sliced into the creature around my leg. It held firm as my wild reactions neglected to hit anything vital.
“Damn. Damn!” I yelled and slashed again.
My swings failed, and the monster dragged me even farther along an unknown path. Liquid splashed out, and white dots flooded my vision. The liquid was warm, and a small message popped up. My actions had caused damage to the [Leviathan]—nothing major, only a sliver of health. I barely registered anything but the warm sensation as whatever this creature used for blood poured over me.
“Get away!” I twisted the blade down, trying to remove the noose from my leg. A slash hit, and another message displayed.
Attention unit identified as Hermes!
The boss for [Leviathan’s Lower Digestive Tract] has been encountered.
Be warned, suffering death from a boss level monster will have increased penalties.
“Not neat!” I shouted while continuing to attack.
I had no [Identification] skill in my bag of tricks yet. This monster’s actual health was a mystery. My only hope was to slash away any time it got near.
I just had to get back to the bomb by crawling through loops of gross digestive tract while avoiding that creature. One tentacle-like limb couldn’t be the extent of a dungeon boss. Not if this place was like Continue Online. So gross.
“Where did my bomb go?”
“User Legate? Can you hear me?” Two voices came through: one like a crisp butler with a British accent, the other a female nanny from the same area. A small box appeared in my lower left vision with names by it.
“Jeeves?” I said in confusion. This had happened once before with Treasure, the small gold-and-silver [Mechanoid].
“Affirmative. Were you addressing me or someone else?” My player interface lit up with a bouncing line as it spoke.
“Uhhh…” I looked to one side in thought. “You?”
“Ah. Then I have an answer. I do not know.” Both Hal Pal’s voices sounded mildly saddened.
Part of me equated its faint tone to a person perpetually on mood-dampening drugs. Under the muted tones, there was a person with real feelings, but they were detached.
“Darn,” I said. “I’ll climb back to the entrance.”
“Time is running out.”
“Isn’t it always…” I muttered, hoping that our intercom system wasn’t picking things up.
A thin cord slithered across my vision, and I reacted much faster than before. One hand gathered the laser sword and flipped the grip around. My laser sword swung left to right. Two beams of energy covered a wider area. [Morrigu’s Gift] would never have worked like this. Maybe. I filed away the idea to try with a shapeshifting blade.
The [Leviathan] parasite boss’s limb lost a few pieces. Damage flashed up as a squirmy segment flopped against my arm. Months of in-game training meant I only shuddered a little bit. My jaw set and my free arm brushed off the monster remains.
Parasite tentacle limb was in one direction. My bomb had to be in the other. I dragged the sword behind me to keep the creature back. A [Leviathan]’s outer shell may be energy proof, but that didn’t extend to its insides. Puddles trickled and gushed behind me that reflected like mud to [Echo Vision].
“Jeeves?” I asked while trying to get past the next twist of innards.
“Yes, User Legate?”
“There’s something down here. Long arms, see
ms to slither around.” I jerked abruptly and caught another limb of the creature trying to snake in overhead. The monster was clearly smart enough to try new tactics, plus it had some ability to detect my movements. “And it’s gross.”
“One moment while I review. Due to the reduced status of [Wayfarer’s Hope], it will be difficult to get an accurate response,” the AI said in a heavier male tone.
The monster seemed to wait a while between attacks, allowing me to scramble a few more yards down the tunnel of giant monster guts. This pocket of flesh twisted around. Smaller tunnels went in different directions. Hopefully they were only random folds of flesh or some corner that grew over time. Maybe the game developers had never given thought to a good layout for [Leviathan] innards.
Was this place developed by a dreaming AI like the company name implied? If so, I was willing to bet that the machines didn’t like human insides. For a moment, I worried that the monsters inside here were inspired by a computerized personality’s horror at biological designs. My armor-polishing skills needed to be worked on soon. Giving Hal Pal’s chassis a once-over while traveling in the Trillium van sounded vaguely creepy.
I could see it now, a [Mechanoid] xenophobe going, “Flesh is so gross!” They would recoil in horror and wave both hands while freaking out. The momentary thought of an AI with some exaggerated face of disgust made me laugh. Maybe I could take a selfie the next time this dungeon boss attacked me.
“I’m mainly concerned with getting back to the bomb. Will it stop me?” My question felt rhetorical before I even finished uttering it.
“It is likely.”
I sighed. Not that the inside of this creature had much air. There were gasses of some sort, but it felt dense. The air was filled with a heavy mist that kept putting spots in my [Echo Vision]. ARC feedback felt like beads of water gathering all over my body.
Another limb tried to sneak up. I hit that one but failed to notice a second limb wrapping around my arm. It got a firm grip, then yanked. This time, I managed not to lose my grip on the item in my hand. Being without a sword would seriously hurt. My other hand grabbed at the wall and prayed that [Anchor] would be enough to hold me in place. My hand slipped off the squishy wall, and my fingertips curled to try to hold on tighter.
Both shoulders screamed while pressure mounted. Another layer wrapped around the bound arm, which only increased the pain. My grip faltered. My lips turned up with disgust. This was not the way I wanted to go out. I needed to get back to the bomb and at least set it off.
“There are seven possible creatures.” Hal Pal’s voices showed up in my head and on the player interface.
“Busy!”
The attacks were coming quicker. A third thin ribbon crawled along the wall. It barely registered on the [Echo Vision]. I ground my teeth and fired wild blasts from the bound arm.
“Would you describe the monster’s shape as a tube or ribbon?”
“Busy!” I shouted.
My lasers splashed off one wall, leaving holes in the [Leviathan]’s insides. One of the slender limbs yanked away but didn’t vanish from sight. I ground my teeth as Hal Pal spoke again.
“I will mark that as undecided. What color is the creature? Gray, or perhaps slightly purple?” Hal Pal read off the next question without any consideration for my current plight of being drawn and quartered.
“Busy!”
“I’m only asking questions to assist you, User Legate.” Hal Pal used its customer service tone.
I had enough mental capacity to feel annoyed. “Tell me how to kill it!”
“In order to provide the best results, I will need additional details. I’ll ask again.” Hal Pal’s female voice had grown in strength. I felt like a small child being talked down to by a nurse or nanny after pitching a fit. “Would you describe the monster shape as a tube or ribbon?”
“Ribbon. Can’t see color! Feels like”—my insides almost retched—“melted rubber. Lots of limbs.”
“One moment please while I research your situation.”
My frantic swings of the blade were accompanied by what had to be hold music. It was the same innocuous tone elevators used to soothe people as they traveled between floors. I scrambled and fired off two laser blasts. This body’s health bar was down a ton. Corrosion rate had reached fifteen percent. My fingers felt numb from repeated abuse coupled with possible melting. At least the weapon still functioned.
A few more blasts of laser went down the tube, and [Leviathan] shuddered violently. Our extended battle must be giving the creature indigestion. My energy dropped too low for any more blasts. Luckily my assault had driven back the exploring tentacles.
Once free from the creature, I let go of my [Anchor] ability and tried to manually pull myself down the passageway. I needed more time, more strength. An extra few hours in combat training might have helped. A dozen other minor methods to increase stats came to mind.
“Come on!” I yelled angrily as yet another arm got me.
This one was damaged by some earlier attack. My arm shoved into the wall and bashed the extension, shaving off its last few hit points. It retreated hastily, and I moved a lot faster. I didn’t have time to crawl back while battling one gross ribbon-being at a time. There it was—my precious [Suppository Explosive]. I dove for the reddish twin barrels but tripped. The monster grabbed me by the legs and pulled me back again.
“No, no!” I almost had it!
This creature seemed to sense my desperation and upped the number of limbs reaching out for me. It had too many. My mind couldn’t even pause to comprehend the grossness of it all. The hold music in my head cut off abruptly.
“It is likely vulnerable to lasers,” Hal Pal said as I clawed.
[Anchor] drained additional energy as I was pulled backward through [Leviathan]’s innards. The [Suppository Explosive] was still within reach.
“I know already!”
Shooting off lasers in a narrow space like this intestine had done a lot of damage to the beast. My energy had recovered to almost a third even with [Anchor]’s drain. Now was use-or-lose time. Metal body mass rolled up my arm and into the laser sword hilt. I depressed the trigger, which set my pooled energy back another five percent.
Warning!
Corrosion rating: 32%
The creature backed off again, and I dove for the chain. A small message popped up saying, “You have the bomb” with a sound effect playing a triumphant series of bleeps. This situation was going in the right direction now.
“Got it!” I shouted.
“It’s also vulnerable to explosives.”
Hal Pal’s words triggered an idea. A desperate idea that made the bitter taste of bile crawl up my throat.
“Jeeves! New target. Where ever this creature is, will it be deep enough?” I shouted.
“If it is a true parasite, it will be embedded in a warm spot, likely buried in the intestines.”
The AI was following my train of thought. By holding the bomb and letting the ribbons drag me onward, I could kill two monsters with one stone. Well, one item that held a strange chemical concoction primed to explode.
“Will that be good enough?”
“Any target that does damage increases in value as our time runs out,” Hal Pal responded.
“Good enough.” I looped the chain around my arm and yanked. Getting it closer to me would be better. This bomb and I were going to let the creature’s limbs pull us inward, right to the creature’s core, then my [Suppository Explosive] would go off.
I laughed. The gross creature yanked and tugged us to its doom. Corrosion made my leg too slippery for it to hold on to correctly. More limbs showed up to join the first with a better grip. The chain also lost traction. This status debuff was eating away at all the metals.
My momentary maniacal laughter cut off. Would our bomb hold up? I turned [Echo Vision] to the area behind me in worry. Would it work if I didn’t set it off correctly? Would this plan fail because of moving slowly? I needed [Blink] back. I nee
ded my stats from Continue Online. This character, this [Mechanoid] body, had only a quarter of my main avatar’s capability.
The partially melted chain was looped around my arm as the monster circled its limbs around both my legs. Our actions were disturbingly in tandem. I yanked the barrel closer and used numbed fingers to grip the edge.
A glow disrupted my [Echo Vision] and overlaid portions with colored regions. I turned to see a giant maw, like an octopus mouth, disturbingly close. That thing would be big enough to chomp me to bits with only a few workings of its jaw.
Between us was the bomb. I wiggled, struggled, and shoved the giant object in the maw’s direction. This might distract the monster. Only now the explosive triggers sitting on top of the bomb’s conjoined barrels was out of reach.
“Dammit!” I said while reading a window that only showed the digestive acids hitting me harder.
Warning!
Corrosion rating: 41%
My sword reactivated and brought a brighter ambient light to the area. My lasers’ coloring mixed oddly with the boss monster’s gray glow. I quickly sliced toward the monster’s limbs, which were waving around. The action was enough to drive it back from my [Suppository Explosive]. Enough room to get close and set up the bomb.
“Gotcha!” I shouted, then smiled in triumph. Something finally went my way.
I tossed away the sword and slammed both palms on two different buttons as the monster’s limbs waved frantically. They appeared to be worried about touching the flying sword, which stayed active. Too many prior encounters had damaged the octopus-mouthed beast. My energy reached zero, and the sword flickered off.
Finally, the flattened monster arm closed in on me. I slipped backward with one hand out to prop me up, a fallback maneuver practiced over many hours in the ARC dance program. Another shift of my feet got me ready to shoot backward. This body’s [Reaction] and [Limberness] was high enough to pull off this move. Combat training on the [Wayfarer Seven] had helped.
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