Douglas forces himself into an upright position using both his arms but falls down again. Clacking his teeth in frustration, he finally notices that a large part of his spine has regrown and that half of his ribs are reconstructed. Instead of trying to balance upright, the skeleton starts noisily dragging himself towards the nearest doorway.
The room he is flopping around in has near black floors with a smooth but grippy texture. The walls are off-white with darker grey stripes, the ceiling a faintly glowing, warm white. The wall he just emerged from is covered in one-metre holes, most of them sealed by near seamless and featureless metal plates. Two doorways are gaping pits into the unknown, bare halls lit by a glowing ceiling beyond them. The floor of the closest doorway is covered in a thick layer of slime and colourful goop. Douglas sees countless tiny marks in the goo, obvious signs that both large and small monsters have gone that way.
Douglas turns around and starts crawling towards the clean doorway. The room is empty except for rows of randomly shaped forms stuck to the walls. The floor also looks to have cutouts on it in neat rows. Douglas is nearly at the doorway when a metal glint at one of the square’s bottoms catches his hollow eye. He holds out a white and black-clad hand and pulls the folding seat down.
He looks at it for a while, slowly opening and closing the seat. He eyes the other shapes; some are round with holes in the middle, other sawtoothed, and yet others are simple squares like the one he is toying with.
Douglas lets go of the thing and starts moving through the doorway. The spring-mounted seat makes a rather loud slapping sound which rings hollow through the large, open space. A fast pattering of feet is all the warning he gets before he is grabbed by the back of his suit and thrown backwards.
He crashes into a wall and immediately expects to feel his bones break and shatter under the heavy impact. The lack of any new breaks confuses Douglas for a bit until he remembers that he’s no longer frozen. Relieved that his body is a bit stronger than glass now, something he should have figured out earlier given how he was smacked about in the pod, he looks upwards.
A snarling beast stares back at him. Four legs and about as high as Douglas’ current body, less than a metre, the fur covered beast is crouched low and ready to pounce. Corded muscles bulge under furred skin that seems a bit stretched, patches of pale flesh showing between dirty clumps of fur. Douglas is at a loss for words and actions, completely unsure how to react to the situation.
Then the dog-like being starts ripping at his spacesuit, chomping down on the empty legs that are trailing uselessly behind him. Douglas feebly slaps at the creature but only gets his left hand bitten as a result. The dog bites down, and Douglas feels the characteristic shocks of splintering bones travel up his arm. Douglas tries hitting the beast with his right hand, forming a fist, but the creature jumps away, avoiding his clumsy attack by letting go of his arm. The dog lunges at the skeleton again, now ignoring Douglas’ feeble self-defence attempts.
The feeling of splintering bone continues to be transferred up his arm as the thing keeps chewing, and Douglas starts to feel a hint of panic. He has the dark suspicion that all his bones can be crushed into powder - no problem - but that his forehead needs to stay whole no matter what. If that beast can crush his arm bones, it surely can do so to his head. The fact that every single splinter of his arm is safely caught inside his suit does little to soothe his worries.
Fumbling at his belt, Douglas manages to tear the photon projector free. That thing can cut through trees; an animal surely won’t be a problem. He nearly drops it in his haste but manages to get the thing shining with a bright light. Another turn of the button transforms the harmless stream of brightness into a glowing shard of destruction.
The moment the menacing blade touches the beast, the handle flashes red and shuts down, causing Douglas’ ruthless killing strike to transform into a useless head pat.
Some of the near-impossible-to-understand fine text, especially the part that goes ‘… way, shape, or form this item being used on metabolising organisms will cause total shutdown according to pre-described …’ suddenly makes more sense now. Helplessly looking at the useless, smooth object, Douglas drops it. Not knowing what else to do, he goes limp. So far, nearly all his problems have gone away after a while; maybe this one will too.
Laying there without moving, Douglas endures as the snarling beast gnaws his left arm to powder. His suit stays whole but provides no protection from the beast’s powerful jaws. The massive thing from before also shows up, spreading more of its goop as it makes a slow trek through the room. It leaves after staring at Douglas’ unmoving form and the chewing dog for a bit. The smaller finger spiders follow and leave.
The dog thing loses interest after his lower left arm is once again completely crushed. Douglas helplessly stares as the beast walks off after showering his spacesuit with some sort of liquid.
Douglas glares at the red photon thing for a bit, a flat anger at the uselessness of the object after it was advertised as something that could cut through trees with ease. Then Douglas remembers the four smaller formations that were shoved inside his mind. Looking around the room, he sees that the dog is still hanging around, licking at the slimy trail the large monster left behind.
Douglas starts recalling one of the formations at random. The outside of the shape in his mind is made up of wavy shapes that are being drawn inwards towards a rather harshly cornered square shape. Lots of detailed markings and complex runes help reinforce this idea, a gradual path from formless air into the hard truth of earth. Or at least, that is what he would have realized had the skeleton bothered to listen to all the hints and tips bubbling around in his empty skull. The complex formation shines brightly in his empty mind, all his focussed attention on the shape.
Douglas takes the flow of mana from his forehead, preventing any of it from going towards his regrowing spine and ribs. His loosely held together radius and ulna scatter back into dust, the freshly pulverized shards of bone not yet having had time to set and grow together. Instead, Douglas takes the flow and stuffs it inside the spell shape. He guides the flow into his skull where it somehow trickles inside his vivid mental image. Feeling the horrendous lack of power, he grabs hold of the glowing centre of this forehead, pulling part of his very self into the now shimmering form.
Air packs and clusters, concepts foreign to this space forcing stone into being. A steady stream of air disappears, causing vents and doorways to become home to fierce winds as the partial vacuum is filled. The gently glowing ceiling turns an ominous red, and doors start slamming closed everywhere the emergency protocols still work. The door Douglas is lying next to grinds shut, splashing goop everywhere.
Douglas knows it is enough and releases, his gaze fixed upon the destroyer of his left arm. The hulking dog in question has enough time to look around in a panic, the sudden change in air pressure alerting it. The last thing it sees is a spike of earth falling down, spearing it through the torso.
[ UNKNOWN lvl NAN slain; NAN xp earned ]
[ Processing new creature. Touch corpse for additional information ]
[ Spell Shaping lvl 4 ]
A loud and squishy pounding wakes Douglas from his mana-drained haze. The door next to his sprawled form shakes in its housing as something slams against it repeatedly. Looking around, the magical skeleton sees a large spike of brown earth sticking out of the hulking dog. Its vacant eyes stare accusingly at the wall just next to Douglas.
Sections of dirt are crumbling off the spike, the brown piece of stone slowly returning to its natural state now that the spell has run its course. The dog-like beast has slumped down to the floor, the spike holding it up against the wall vanishing piece by piece. The ceiling is shining its previous off-white colour again, the red harshness gone now that no more pressure drops are detected.
Douglas looks at the trio of blue lines. This is the first time he is asked to do anything tangible, the first time this system has requested something of him in the real world. Haltingly cra
wling over to the still beast, Douglas stops at the edge of the spreading blood puddle. The hammering on the door continues as he holds out his left hand.
The small shred of guilt Douglas is feeling vanishes the moment he looks at this dangling left arm, the glove part of his suit rounding out as the bone splinters settle at the bottom of the fingers. Touching the wretched beast with his right hand, absolutely nothing happens. Douglas then spends the next ten minutes slowly removing his glove, going through the complicated procedure needed to manually remove the apparel item.
Dropping the glove to the ground, he touches a bony digit to the cooling corpse. Immediately, a blank blue screen pops up. Douglas’ jaw nearly drops as he sees the empty thing appear in front of him. He stubbornly ignores the escalating sounds that are coming from the door behind him and keeps his finger pressed to the malformed canine.
[ Hulking dog lvl NAN slain; UNKNOWN xp earned ]
Slowly, the information fills in. The skeleton would almost accuse the blue boxes of being slow in the head if he wasn’t a rather deliberate thinker himself. So deliberate, in fact, that he keeps laying there, his left arm slowly regrowing as he patiently waits for the last few bits of information to be filled in.
Ignoring the slowly bulging door behind him, Douglas keeps staring at the screen with his finger touching the corpse. Claws and long talons have started tearing massive rips in the door by the time something gives and all information clicks into place.
[ Hulking dog lvl 1 slain; 100 xp earned ]
Now Douglas stares at the screen even harder. His memories might be vague, but he clearly remembers that killing an emaciated cow and a starving farmer netted him around thirty experience points, even though that old necromancer stole the majority of it somehow. This dog looked like it could eat an army of cows and farmers for breakfast and only gave three times that amount …
Casting a glance backwards, Douglas decides to let this topic be for now and starts shuffling towards the other doorway. Leaving the hinged chair alone this time, he quickly spots what has been keeping the sliding door from closing. It takes him some effort, and he has to pry it free with his splintered left humerus, but he dislodges the metal shard successfully.
The door slams shut, and Douglas happily tries to dust off his hands. His right hand flapping against the dust-filled remnant of his left puts an immediate damper on his mood. The raucous cacophony dimly sounding through the closed door doesn’t help much either. The single armed skeleton can vaguely make out the sounds of tearing flesh and snapping bone.
Deciding that it’s absolutely none of his business, Douglas moves on. Opposite him is a locked door. To his left is a dark blue hallway that ends in a sharp turn to the right. Douglas shambles forwards, completely unused to the pull of gravity dragging his limbs towards the ground. Stumbling on one arm and half a spine, the uncoordinated skeleton shuffles forward in a rather ungainly manner.
He manages to reach the end of the hallway while face planting close to a dozen times. One hand holding on to the railing, the skeleton rounds the corner and sees the hallway stretching far into the distance. The entire corridor is the same colour scheme as before, the black floor contrasting with the grey walls and the warmly shining ceiling.
The hall is straight and is filled with doors. Douglas stares into the seemingly endless hallway for a long moment, feeling like something isn’t quite right. He can’t remember whether it’s normal for corridors to bend upwards like that.
Douglas then decides that there are other things he probably should be worried about, like his incredibly poor way of moving around. Grabbing onto the railing with his single hand, he starts hauling himself forward again, half of his spacesuit flopping uselessly behind him. A crunching noise forces him to pay attention to his surroundings. The floor is rather clean and nothing he sees could be making that noise.
Looking backward, Douglas sees that he has been leaving a trail of bone fragments in his wake. Each time he moves his right arm, small pieces of his splintered body leave the suit through his right sleeve. Leaving behind that glove was not the best idea he ever had.
Inspecting the rest of his suit, he finds his medical gear missing. The rope and water gadget are still secured to his suit’s belt area. Douglas feels like frowning. Even his thick skull starts to realize that his current way of handling problems is not ideal. Inaction and waiting things out have not helped solving any of his problems, no matter how much he thought so before, and might have led him to burn inside the ship’s hull had he been slower.
So Douglas strips. He methodically removes the spacesuit, shaking all the bone fragments out of the parts he detaches. All his worldly possessions are divided into two piles an hour later, a small mound of white gravel and a dirty heap of spacesuit parts, capped by a scratched helmet.
Douglas then inspects his own bones, twisting and bending his neck in impossible ways to closely look at each inch of bone he possesses. Then gritting his teeth in a forgotten reflex, he grabs one of his slowly regrowing ribs.
Halting his mana from going into his body, he starts pulling on the rib. Douglas does not know if it's because of his strength or because he somehow willed it, but the bone snaps loose relatively easily. Suffering through a very weird kind of phantom nausea, he slowly works on stripping his ribs from his spine.
The pile of white-yellow bone shards grows as Douglas piles a sizable collection of partial ribs on top of it. His long, meditative study session during the flight in the escape pod allowed him to regrow a large part of his ribcage. The slow bone growth had slowed down even further with each additional bone that was being reformed, yet the many orbits around the planet had netted him a few kilograms of new bone.
The only ribs he leaves intact are the top two; his clavicles are attached to that pair. His shoulder blades feel looser and less steady with each rib he removes, but Douglas perseveres in his self-dismantling efforts. Laying on his back, he twists his neck once again to inspect the fruits of his labour.
All that's left of the skeleton is his skull, three-quarters of his spine, and his entire right arm. He sees that his left shoulder is intact, and taking a large mental breath, he starts pulling on the shattered remains of his left humerus. The bone pile grows yet again as he lays his left clavicle and, finally, his left shoulder blade on top.
Now seriously feeling sick, he looks at the pile for a long time. It will have to do, Douglas tells himself. Dragging himself over to the macabre pile of resources, he shoves his spine inside the heap after a few missed attempts.
Twisting his spine upwards, he inspects the results. Small bones and large splinters are now stuck inside the glowing outline of his lower spine. His shoulder blade catches on the glowing form of his pelvis the moment his mana reaches that low. He then carefully and slowly places some of the smaller ribs inside the complex curves of his pelvic bone.
He uses some fragments to fill in gaps here and there. He moves his single arm slowly, especially so when adding pieces to the joint areas. A good third of the pile is gone by the time his pelvis is full and both his femurs start shining a dim blue.
Douglas divides the leftover bones in two piles and starts working on the beginning of his legs, starting at the knee. He avoids adding any bones to the head of his femur, preventing bones from scraping over each other with each movement.
Neither femur is completely filled by the time the pile is used up, his lower half a ruinous mess of glowing shards. Douglas does not care about the way his legs look. Instead, he grabs hold of the railing and pulls himself up. Just the feeling of sitting on his ass is enough for the skeleton to smile. He then pulls some more, his single arm fighting against gravity, and hauls himself up to his knees.
Douglas casts a glance towards the pile of clothing and tools, the entirety of his earthly possessions. He is thankful for the suit; his left arm would have been eaten by the dog otherwise. He doesn't appreciate the way it prevented him from moving, though. Although the skeleton is quite strong fo
r a collection of bones, the unwieldy fabric was still rather cumbersome to move around with.
Douglas leans down and picks up the three remaining tools: the water fan, the rope reel, and the sonic mapper. He tries sticking them on his bones, clacking his teeth in irritation when they fall to the ground. Instead, he puts them in the shattered hollows of his pelvic bone, wedging them tightly inside his repairing core. He then proceeds to walk.
The first steps he takes make him want to break out in song and dance. Instead of doing so, Douglas keeps hold of the railing with a death grip while shuffling along. Moving like a geriatric quadriplegic, Douglas walks for the first time in weeks.
[ New skill learned; Regeneration lvl 1 ]
[ Regeneration lvl 1; missing limbs can be regrown using large amounts of mana ]
Douglas stands still as he reads this new message. He stills and feels for his mana, trying to gauge if there’s a difference. There are no hints or tips this time either. Neither does he feel a difference in his mana or in the speed of his recovery. He glares at the message for a bit, wondering why he is shown something he already knows.
Mentally dismissing the useless blue boxes, he continues making his way down the endless hall, accompanied by the sound of bone scraping on hard flooring. He keeps walking for a long time, patiently shuffling forwards. He tries walking on his own each time the handrail is interrupted by a door. The first couple dozen tries are all heavy falls. He then spends more time gathering the small chips of bone that have broken loose before getting up again. A couple dozen doors later, he manages a few steps on his femurs without falling.
He can walk unaided by the time he is faced with the end of the hallway, the gently curving path stopped by a blank wall. Looking backwards, he sees that his starting point is no longer visible, hidden by the curving ceiling.
Looking around, Douglas sees more doors. All of them are blank metal without any visible handles to open them with. One of them is different, though, and that’s the door with the big, green arrow painted on, right next to him.
Histaff Page 7
