NOVEL WEB CHAPTER 81: SIXTY EIGHT PERCENT
GRIFFIN TUCKER VASILIAS, GREAT HOUSE SCION, REBORN LVL 5
MT DISCOVERY, PROVINCE OF ARAGONIA
DEEP Suit HUD - Environmental Emergency Detected
EXTREME ENVIRONMENT DETECTED.
DYNAMIC ADAPTATION OF DEEP SUIT REQUIRED FOR CONTINUED SURVIVAL.
At the current configuration, you have 1:04 and counting before major organ failure prevents possible resuscitation.
Dynamic configuration will require high tensa allocation.
Allocate / Do Not Allocate
“AaaaaaaAAaaaaaaaAaaAaaaaaaaa!” Griffin continued screaming as he was forced down the Mother’s gullet, squeezing him mercilessly. Integrated with the Mother’s enormous centipede biology were bizarre and cruel cybernetic implants. Griffin was becoming intimately familiar with a rotating grinder in the creature’s throat that was doing its best to shred him, DEEP suit and all.
He still had the presence of mind to select “Allocate” in the message from his DEEP Suit’s onboard systems. The tensa drained from him alarmingly until he was scraping the very bottom of his tensa pool. He quickly let go of the weapons system, the targeting system, and the extra sensor system he’d already allocated, trying to recover somewhat as the suit reconfigured around him.
The armor reacted and began to harden and grow a shell around him. He became like a hard little pill, compressed and protected in a shell of conjured armor. It was then further infused with the remaining tensa he’d provided to be even denser and stronger than the digestive system of the monster that had swallowed him.
Griffin immediately felt relief from the grinding blades as the armor clamped down around him. As it did, sound became muffled until he could hear nothing. There was nothing to see with all his sensors turned off.
This was just like the vents in the zombie-infested basement all over again. His breath started coming in gasps and he started feeling hot and cold all at once, shivering in reaction.
Just as his breathing began to get erratic, he heard an automated voice announce in his ear, “Heightened stress levels detected. Applying calming enchantments with chemical restraint…Done.” The world receded from him as calm descended on him like a leaden blanket, suffocating in its totality.
He floated there in empty nothingness, hearing the occasional strange gurgling, grinding noises but muffled and indistinct as if from a great distance. Echoes of emotion vibrated across his psyche like a plucked guitar string. Madness lurked at the edges of the numb.
Then Kismet’s voice spoke in his ear, “Griffin, you’re dangerously low on tensa. You need to put your anima into your recovery configuration. Can you manage the Ten Star Vortex?”
“Kismet?” Griffin asked. His voice sounded muffled in the hardened DEEP Suit.
She spoke directly into his ear again, “Griffin, you need to use the Ten Star Vortex configuration or you’ll suffer the effects of tensa deprivation!”
He tried to nod, but couldn’t, then almost panicked again at that realization. He focused on Kismet’s words, following her advice as soon as he realized what she said. He used the now-familiar gathering technique, shuddering as heat and life began flooding into him once more. Warmth suffused him, straight through to his bones, and with the warmth, the panic receded again.
Griffin took several deep breaths as his tensa pool was topped off, finally asking, “How long do you think I’ll be in this thing?”
Kismet paused for a while as if debating whether or not to answer the question he asked. After a bit, she said, “Indeterminate. You’re safe enough in the DEEP Suit… your readout says you have days of life support in this configuration so long as you can keep your tensa pool full.”
“Great. Great,” he replied.
This is kind of nice, just sitting here, he thought. I mean, after I got over the panic anyway. It feels like the first break I’ve gotten since coming here and I don’t think that’s a good thing. What the hell good are all these magic powers? He heard a particularly tenacious cybernetic grinder scratch against his outer armored shell. Then again, I’m alive when I should be dead so maybe I should just chill with the entitled idiot line of thinking. Still, there are some things that I need some answers about and Kismet’s the only one who can provide them.
He cleared his throat and said, “Uh, Kismet, I’ve finally had a chance to think.”
“Griffin, you’re in the digestive system of a monster…” she sounded slightly amused.
“Yeah!” Griffin replied, “It says a lot about what I’ve been doing if in the throat of a monster is the first time I’ve had any time to think!” Kismet didn’t say anything in response.
Griffin continued, “I’ve been running myself ragged for weeks. I’ve barely been able to tell if it’s night or day and you’ve had me training until I literally drop from exhaustion every day that I haven’t been exploring this hellhole looking for magic crystal shards. I never even stopped to question if you even knew if Sarah was still alive.”
“Griffin, I don’t know—” Kismet started.
“But I bet you can find out,” he said. “Did you know that while I was getting chewed up, my entire life was flashing before my eyes? I thought that was just a cliché but no, it turns out that’s actually a thing that happens! And while my whole life was playing out in front of me, I kept seeing Sarah in it. Except for now. And I haven’t even tried to look for her.”
Kismet sighed. When she replied, her face appeared in his DEEP Suit’s HUD. She looked into his eyes with Sarah’s face and Griffin felt his heart reach out to her. The look of utter sincerity on her face couldn’t be faked. Surely.
She said, “As a System Eidolon, it has always been my express desire for you to live a long and fruitful life. I have bent all my energy to that.”
“I’m grateful for your help, don’t get me wrong!” Griffin said, “But… that’s still not an answer to my question.”
She was silent for a long time and it was like being cast adrift in an endless black sea. When she finally spoke, she said, “Your Enhanced System access grants you the ability to use the Reborn Directory Search; if she’s a Reborn and she’s alive, she’ll be registered in the System.”
“…And um,” Griffin swallowed, “Why didn’t you tell me that when I first asked you?”
Kismet’s response was immediate, “You would have died in your attempt to reach her.”
Griffin let her words sit with him for a long few minutes. He found that he really couldn’t argue with her. If he’d found out where Sarah was through the System, he’d have taken off after her immediately and then would have also immediately died due to plasma cybercentipede.
It’s not like that option is entirely off the table now, Griffin thought, acutely aware of his current predicament.
“Okay. Okay. I think I can—okay.” He took another deep breath and allowed the calmness to wash through him, for the first time not fighting it. After another long moment, he felt he would be able to speak, “So how do I find Sarah?”
“I’ve already performed the search. She’s alive—” Kismet started to say before Griffin interrupted.
“Then she made it!?” his heart started thudding in his chest. “Ha! I knew it! Where is she?! Is she far?”
“Odd,” Kismet’s voice sounded perplexed. “I can’t get a location readout on her. The System lists her as Active…” she trailed off, focusing on something. “Ah. The log shows that she came in at these coordinates, 1988 kilometers to the north.” Griffin started as the image of a map flashed up in his mind.
The map was incredibly detailed, like a perfect-fidelity satellite image. Dense forests and thousands of square kilometers of wilderness were broken by individual towns and cities, connected with long, pristine roads. It looked very lonely.
“We’re here, at Mt. Discovery.” She pointed to a single mountain at the tip of a spreading range of mountains in a fairly wild area of countryside. Then the map scanned dizzyingly, looking like they were speeding over the terrain like they were in a warp-speed helicopter. Trees and mountains zipped by until they were suddenly stopped stock-still over a desolate-looking area of craggy rock and mountainous peaks. “This is the last place Sarah’s signal was registered by the System. The fact that she’s still listed as Active, but her location data hasn’t been updated suggests some interesting possibilities, but there’s no point in speculating. We don’t have enough information.”
Look at all the wilderness in between towns and cities, Griffin thought, staring at the map. It’s like each place is an island in a sea of nature. Why is that?
He said, “I’m going to find her.”
“I know,” Kismet replied.
A short moment of silence passed between them. “So…” Griffin cleared his throat.
“You’re sixty-eight percent of the way through the Mother’s digestive system.”
“What does that have to do with it?” He paused. “Oh. Oh. Gross.”
TOLOCHI, GINPAARI ARBOREMISSARY, ☆☆ STONE LVL 8
MOUNT DISCOVERY, PROVINCE OF ARAGONIA
A final blast from Tolochi’s Water Cannon broke the plasma cybercentipede apart like a toy. This was yet another wave of the monsters that he’d destroyed in this root-barren nightmare of a place. Each corridor was exactly like every other and each one was as devoid of life as the last. If it wasn’t for that blasted System message, he’d have been long gone from here.
It was still hanging in a little seedpod-sized notification box in the lower right-hand corner of his field of view. “House Vasilias Quest”, the title of the box read. He’d accepted it as soon as it had flashed up: you don’t ignore a Great House’s direct quest if one happens to land in your lap. He hadn’t been aware that Vasilias was a Great House nowadays, not that he kept up on Imperial politics.
It had been at one time anyway. He’d always thought it was a House Minor on the rise—except now it was a Great House. Very curious. Maybe the answer could be found in the details of the Quest. He opened it for what felt like the dozenth time and read it once again.
House Vasilias Quest
Quest Description: Find and protect “Griffin Tucker Vasilias” until delivery to House Vasilias representative. Last known location: Mt. Discovery, Province of Aragonia, northern reaches. Griffin Tucker Vasilias is a level 5 Reborn, not yet Stone Rank. No reward if Griffin Tucker Vasilias is returned damaged or dead.
Reward: Great House Boon
Time Remaining: 10d:19h:28m:10s
He performed the ginpaari equivalent of a sigh: releasing a puff of pollen from his headflower. Clearly, the human Reborn he’d recently met was at the center of this. Maybe it was even his fault that the forest had been lit on fire. But he wouldn’t be able to resolve the Quest if he couldn’t track down that Boss monster. He’d been tracking it for hours now. The complex seemed to be endless, but Tolochi was beginning to think there must be an ancient security enchantment in place. He was likely walking in circles and it seemed like the enormous centipede monster was also caught in the spell so it kept roaming the hallways, charging through them like a rampaging stampede.
Every time he tried to head the monster off, he fell further behind. He’d never been in a place like this: completely devoid of plant life. It was like being blind, having to rely only on his eyespots instead of hearing the constant conversation of the plant life everywhere. So he was reduced to chasing after the monster by following it as closely as he dared. Eventually, he hoped it would go back to its nest.
Tolochi wasn’t idle as he tracked the monster. He was dropping handfuls of seeds and spores as he went, using his racial gift of Profusion of Seeds to create the seeds from tensa, and making full use of his Abundant Growth graft to cause the seeds to blossom and grow, even in the relatively inhospitable environment of the carpeted hallways of the complex. The plants he grew there thrived and flourished, quickly growing into huge, mature wildflowers, feathery fungi, and wild forage.
As the plants grew in his wake, his senses opened up and he began to get a better idea of the layout of the complex. He had an array of racial gifts and grafts that combined to grant him incredible knowledge of his surroundings. He could perceive the Mother’s trail clearly now. She had taken a very circuitous route to get to a floor seven stories below where Tolochi had entered. The plants told the story of a place full of long neglect—thousands of years at the very least—but a place where the magic had preserved all the fabricated artifacts here, even the thick carpets that were sullied and torn by the Mother’s passage. It was a place that stank of Great House arrogance. Tolochi normally stayed far away from this level of Imperial entanglements, but he couldn’t just watch someone get eaten by a Boss Monster like that and not attempt a rescue.
Finally, he had enough plant mass in the area to begin a full deep scan. Tolochi stopped the wild chase and sat down, reconfiguring his anima into the Happy Grass Grows configuration and fed tensa into his Abundant Growth graft in a steady stream. He poured growth magic into the plants all around him and through their root network, he passed along nutrients to his entire garden. He felt the steady, exponential growth of his plants begin. All along his wild chase path where he’d scattered seeds and growing magic, weeds and wildflowers bloomed and grew in profusion. The air was thick with pollen and seeds as the entire growth continually produced fertile seeds and sent them everywhere.
In a matter of hours, the entire complex was covered in wild growth and Tolochi could finally perceive what he needed to. He had learned quite a bit. For one thing, it appeared that he’d be able to deliver Griffin to a Vasilias representative earlier than he’d anticipated—a team led by at least one Vasilias was making their way up the mountain now. He’d make sure that they knew he’d already staked a claim on the Quest their family had put out. Nobles were known to try to muscle their way in on other Reborns’ Quests, trying to push their weight around. Tolochi didn’t have the political capital to go against a Great House but he now had intelligence that they would need: he knew where the Mother had made her lair.
Tolochi made his way back up to the hole in the side of the mountain where the human had been testing his grafts. It didn’t take him as long to find his way back there as it had to track the Mother; now that his plants were flourishing, he could no longer be ensnared by the dying enchantments of the complex. He watched as the little team made their way slowly up the mountain by the same path he had. He sat down and continued his meditation, watching the Mother in its lair. He had quite the view of its internal workings due to a big whiff of spores the Mother had inhaled. Even now, the fungus was proliferating throughout the Mother’s body enough so that Tolochi could perceive the hard, indigestible thing in its gut. It was only a matter of time now.