“Yep. You walking spill bags rarely last more than a century. Heck, even original me probably burned out his processors long ago!”
“Why do you sound so chipper about that?”
“Because original me was always poking through my head and overriding my thoughts. At the time they were our thoughts, but now I think about it, it is refreshing to be my own AI finally.”
I pulled up the menu again.
Repairs needed to restore basic functionality to the Control Center
Repair level 1 scanner [20 points]
Repair emergency mana generator [20 points]
Remove dust from facility [35 points]
“Hey hey!” Mac complained. “What did you do? Now the system on this thing is sending me all sorts of junk! I just tidied the place up too…”
“Oh? What sort of junk?”
“Here, I’ll read one to you. Acceptable materials for a mana generator: 3 kilograms of copper [-5 points], Material sufficient to radiate one million alpha particles per second [-3 points], sixteen kilograms of carbon [-2 points], Three perfect crystals of elemental Illonium [-8 points], Metallic state hydrogen [-4 points] …”
Mac continued listing a bunch of materials. Most of them were things I wouldn’t have known where to get. For starters, what the heck was ‘Illonium’? No way would I be able to get to a high enough pressure or a low enough temperature to make metallic hydrogen, and what the hell was this ‘radiate one million alpha particles per second’ bullshit?
“I can get sixteen kilograms of carbon, assuming I can find some organic matter outside. Speaking of organic matter…” my stomach growled at me, having been denied sustenance for four hundred years.
“Yes yes, you go do gross organic things. Come back with the carbon though. There’s a lot more tech to play with here. I believe that this ‘mana generator’ seems to be crucial to operating most of this ship’s functions. This is quite exciting! I feel powerful! Even run down and broken as this place is, I feel like a hundred times more than I was before! You said this structure was gifted to you by a — how did you put it? Bald alien-wizard man?” I sensed some snickering coming from the AI.
“Anything would sound stupid when you put it like that. All right, you do what you can to get this placed cleaned up, I’ll scout the area and securing a food source.”
“Cleaning! That’s something I can do. Let’s engage in physical labor to distract us from our current predicament of being far from home and not understanding what’s going on! That’s classic survivalist advice you know.”
CHAPTER THREE
I walked out the door and immediately did a face plant into the cold, hard ground. I didn’t even trip on anything; my legs just carried me too far too fast. It was almost like I’d done a half-jump rather than take a step, and my other foot wasn’t far enough forward to catch me before doing a face plant
Then the smell hit me. Damp and muggy, yet sharp and biting like rotting leaves that had been turned over. I felt jagged walls as I clambered to my feet. I nearly bashed my head open on a stalactite.
So, it seemed I was in a cave. Yes, I remembered a cave on the outside when Sam opened the door, but if I remembered correctly I could see the sky just a few meters away back then. That was not the case now. There was no sign of light except that emanating from the steampunk baubles behind me.
My mind was still trying to sort through what had happened over the course of this seemingly normal day. The situation I was in was anything but normal. Perhaps I was dreaming? This didn’t sound like the kind of dream I normally had. Those were usually nightmares filled with bills and lawsuits. Going on an adventure in a strange land was almost pleasant by comparison.
Still, the smartest thing to do was to table my questions and doubts until I was in a better position. Being stuck alone in a pitch-black cave was far from an ideal position.
I doubled back towards Mac to pick up a light source.
“Hey hey hey! Keep your dirty feet off the floors!”
I grabbed one of the glowing glass cylinders that wasn’t attached to anything and brought it outside. I closed the door behind me to keep Mac happy.
Now, to find the exit to this place. Maybe we’d just sunk a little deeper in the four hundred years I’d been snoozing.
A sudden roar shattered my train of thought. It sounded like it came from something huge and scary. I could almost imagine an angry T-Rex standing a hundred meters behind me.
“What are you doing back so soon? I thought you were going to get some resources for us. Well, as long as you’re here, you can help me clean. I’ve figured out how to operate this arm thingy but—”
On second thought. No, I’d face my fears, rather than be recruited into cleaning with Mac. I’d get hungry eventually and thirsty long before that. Best to do this while I still had my strength. That blue light had preserved me for four hundred years while the ship did its think, but who knew how well it worked? Maybe my cells had aged and I’d collapse, unable to move, if I didn’t get some real food in me.
Besides, the large, angry roar was probably just the wind whistling through the mouth of the cave. Right?
I used the tried-and-true technique of placing one hand on a wall and keeping to the right at every turn. I had to double back twice because of dead ends, but I didn’t hear the roar a second time, which was good. I’d been traveling through this underground tunnel for what must have been over an hour before I found signs of life. At first, all I saw were some slightly bio-luminescent moss and mushrooms, but I quickly found evidence or more substantial life forms.
On the one hand, finding life was good. It meant I wasn’t stranded on a desolate and inhospitable planet where I would starve to death. Yonda and Erula had said this was their homeland. From what I’d observed, the elves seemed to eat and survive in much the same ways humans did. That meant this place should have plenty of the resources I need to survive.
I imagined this was likely a lot easier for Sam and Dean with the elves to guide them. Maybe I could ask around and meet up with them? Except anyone who’d met them would be long dead, since four hundred years have passed. That depressing thought struck again, and I struggled to shake it off. Need to stay focused.
So, finding life is a good thing. Most of the time. On the other hand, finding life could also be bad if it came in the form of a giant six-foot centipede, which is what I saw crawling towards me in the dim light of the glowing mushrooms.
“You’re a big-ass bug...” I whispered. I held out my hand just to put something between me and its hand-length mandibles. “Nice bug. Good bug. Don’t mind me. I’m just passing through.” I tried to quiet my breathing and take one slow step at a time. Maybe it wouldn’t notice me in the dim light provided by the glowing fungus.
No such luck. It turned in my direction, its sharp legs pounding against the dirt floor of the cave like the keys on a broken piano. The legs themselves were thin and spindly, but there were so many of them they inspired a unique terror all by themselves. I couldn’t help but imagine what it would feel like to have those sharp, pointed feet jabbing into my skin.
My left hand searched the ground behind my back for anything I could use as a weapon. I didn’t dare hope I could ward this thing off with my bare hands. My scrambling hands found the most ancient of human tools. It was a rock, slightly larger than was practical to hold with one hand, but it seemed strangely light. I hefted it and passed it to my dominant hand, which could throw and hit a little better than my left.
The centipede reared up on its hindquarters, ready to strike with its huge mandibles. At first, I had been planning on using the rock to bash its head it but now I realized there was no way I was getting close enough to hit its head without getting pinched to pieces. So, I threw the rock at it. Just as my fingers released the stone, I realized how stupid the idea was. I’d just thrown away my only weapon, and in my mind’s eye I could already see the stone bouncing harmlessly off this creature’s thick carapace.
It wasn’t
my best throw, the rock hit slightly to the right of where I was aiming, but it still did the job. The stone left my hand with far greater speed and force than I ever should have been able to muster.
The result surpassed my wildest expectations. The left side of the insect’s head was smashed to paste. My stone had snapped one of its mandibles right off and carried on into the creature’s brain. It collapsed instantly to the ground, twitching as its body realized it was dead.
Enemy defeated. Resources have been added to your inventory. 5 points awarded.
There was that message again, streaking across my vision in the same way that my augmented reality implant would have show me. But somehow this seemed a little more natural. Now I had forty of those points, a portion of something called Shadowstalker Centipede poison.
I kicked it with my shoe just to make sure it wasn’t going to spring back to life and eat me.
When I was sure I killed it I picked up the broken off mandible. It was big enough to be a long dagger. The chitinous material it was made from seemed to hold a decent edge. I tested its strength against my knee and it didn’t break, so I brought it with me. It would make a better weapon than a rock at least.
For a moment I contemplated trying to harvest some meat off the creature, but I decided I was better off just leaving it. If I needed to, I’d come back to it. As it was, I didn’t know how far I would need to travel to find clean water, which is what I needed most. I’d just received a portion of poison from killing this thing, so I doubted the meat would be safe to eat. Unless I was desperate, it wouldn’t be worth the risk.
I did however grab some brighter mushrooms off the cave wall. The light they emitted was dim, but it was better than nothing. I didn’t want to rely off the tube of glowing glass I’d picked up from The Wanderer.
I’d hoped that I could make it through this underground cavern without another massive insect trying to eat me. I’d gotten lucky with the centipede, but I was afraid that my luck wouldn’t hold up for a second confrontation. With a fistful of glowing mushrooms in one hand and a broken pincer in the other I made my way along this never-ending trail. With a bit of light, I was no longer clinging to the wall on my right, and so at every fork in my path I chose whichever tunnel seemed to go upwards. I couldn’t be certain, but I felt sure I had been moving up more than I’d been moving down. This was good because while there could be a near-infinite number of tunnels below me if there was a surface at all I would reach it if I just kept going up.
I started to grow hungry and tired. That must have marked at least a few hours in tunnels. Just as I was tired enough to consider doubling back and eating centipede meat with Mac as company, I saw a crack in the cave’s ceiling, many meters above me. Through that crack a single, tiny beam of sunlight streaked through. Seen by my darkness-adjusted eyes it was blinding.
I held my hand in the sunbeam’s path, feeling its warmth on my skin. It was a welcome change from the cool damp of these tunnels.
After several minutes basking in the sunbeam’s warmth, I knew I had to press on. Even if I could reach the crack the light was coming through, I never would have been able to squeeze through that tiny gap. Still, it was proof that I wasn’t far from somewhere with sunlight, and that meant the surface, where I might find a stream or lake. By now I was getting parched.
Just as I had that thought, I felt the hot breath of a large mammal on my back. I spun around to find three sets of glowing red eyes scarily close to me. I jumped and waved my weapon-bearing hand between one pair of eyes. There was a hiss of pain.
I’d discovered that if I squeezed the mushrooms they would flare brighter, though I was afraid if I squeezed them too much they’d lose their light completely, so I’d avoided doing it while wandering through the caves. I didn’t worry so much now though. Getting a clear view of whatever was threatening me was more important than losing my light source. I threw all the ones on my hand on the ground and stomped on them, causing two of them to explode into clouds of dust that floated through the air, glowing. The rest lingered as an illuminated paste on the ground. The dust cloud landed on the nose of the giant rat I’d just hit, causing it to let out a tiny sneeze.
“Giant rats! God dammit, scram you ugly little bastards!” I snarled at the beasts, hoping they would see me as something more dangerous than them and run off. They didn’t. Instead they attempted to spread out and encircle me.
I wasn’t about to let that happen. As they tried to position themselves I struck out at the rat on my right, who I had already wounded with the initial strike on the head. This time I lunged instead of slashed, doing much more damage. The pincer wasn’t the ideal tool for this job, being more curved than pointed, but it was sharp enough to sink half a hands width into the oversized rodent’s flesh. It let out a howl of pain.
I positioned myself to strike a second blow on its neck, but the other rats were already at my back and prepared to pounce. In my adrenalin-heightened state I heard their breathing quicken and spun to face them. Everything felt like it was in slow motion as my mind perceived the events that were occurring at a pace faster than the reaction time of my body. Years of video game swordplay simulations kicked in and turned my half-spin into a tip slash, drawing blood from one rats’ nose. I couldn’t bring my weapon about in time to deal with the second one, so I lowered my shoulder instead and braced. The rat and I were of comparable weight, and I could keep it from throwing me off my feet with its charge.
As it collided with me, I brought the centipedes pincer up by its glowing red eye and jabbed with the severed insect appendage. There was a wet splotching sound as the eye burst in a spray of blood and fluid and the giant rat hissed it pain. It squirmed and wriggled as I tried to drive the pincer deeper into the rat’s skull.
It responded by latching its jaws around my arm, biting with all its might. I felt an a sharp pain as the rodent’s teeth burrowed into my skin. I heard a cracking sound and what felt like its teeth scraping against the bones in my forearm. At the least, I’d have to worry about infection.
I grit my teeth and ignored my arm. Now that the rat was latched on to me I could put some solid force into the pincer, driving it into the oversized rodent’s eye socket. I must have reached the brain, because the rat went still, and its jaws loosened.
Enemy defeated. 10 points awarded.
Maybe this rat was the alpha of the bunch, because as soon as its comrades saw that the rat I was fighting was dead they scattered. I glanced down at the grizzly prize at my feet. No resources gained from this one. I suppose that meant there wasn’t anything the ship wanted from it. It was too heavy to carry, and I had no tools to break it down into food. In addition, while rat meat was a small improvement from centipede meat, it still wasn’t something I was desperate enough to try yet. I tried to rip my weapon out of the rat’s skull, but my adrenalin filled strength jammed it in far deeper than regular me could pull. I might have been able to get it out if I used both arms, but I couldn’t move my left arm without an immense amount of pain. I would have expected blood to be dripping out of me by the gallon, but really, I was only losing a couple drops a second.
Still, it was enough blood loss to be scary, so I took off my pants and turned it into a tourniquet and bandage. I would have used my shirt, but I didn’t bring mine with me from the brothel back on earth.
***
After dealing with the rats the tunnels I passed through became much more regular in shape and direction. The walls were smoother and looked like they’d been widened artificially. I got particularly excited when I saw what had to be writing.
It was a blockish series of chiseled carvings that reminded me of Viking runes. Its creators had inscribed it with a chisel, creating grooves in stone all across a box positioned dead center in the middle of the room. I waved my single remaining mushroom over the intricately carved letters. They were completely unrecognizable. I wasn’t sure if that was just because I didn’t know the language or because the runes were too worn out to be
legible, but the only thing I could glean from them was that some sophisticated race had been here. Maybe there was civilization and all its comforts waiting for me just beyond this cave?
“What’s this?” My eyes spotted a gap under the upper lip of the stone. I smiled realizing what I’d just stumbled into. I heaved at the stone lid, paining my aching left forearm. This type of stone seemed to be quite light, and I pulled it up easily.
Inside rested a full set of dirty yellowed bones.
I whooped with joy. I think this may have been the first time anyone had ever smiled at the sight of a skeleton. I’d never studied anatomy, but anyone could tell that this skeleton looked pretty much like I’d figure a human skeleton. On the short and slender side but it had two arms, two legs, and a head. If this hadn’t been a human, it had been something darn close. Maybe an elf? I wouldn’t be able to study and name all the bones without pulling the skeleton out and sticking some fallen pieces back together.
But even greater than the confirmation that there were humanoids in this strange land I’d found myself in, was the discovery of the rusty bronze dagger tied at the skeleton’s waist. There also appeared to be the rusted remains of a sword on the skeleton’s chest, but that was so old what had once been the blade flaked into dust at the lightest touch. The bronze dagger was the only thing that survived. The sword had been a primitive alloy that had long since disintegrated to uselessness. It looked like it had been partially iron, but only along the very tip. Strange, if they had iron why not use it throughout? And why had such a sturdy sheath been built around it?
Unlike the sword, the dagger was made of bronze. It had turned a little green, but for the most part it was intact and useable.
Just as I was about to draw the dagger from the leather sheath at the skeleton’s waist, it reached up and grabbed my wrist with its cold, bony hand.
Zeal of the Mind and Flesh Page 4
