VoC: B1 — 15. Prisoner by Design
Added 2025-09-03 22:49:47 +0000 UTC- Day 4 -
Cold teeth carried Sophia through passages that sang with the absence of warmth, [Perception] feeding her fractured mind as she drifted in limbo.
PoV:
1. Sophia (Our Mimic Lady Needs Hugs AND FOOD!)
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- Day 4 -
Cold teeth carried Sophia through passages that sang with the absence of warmth, [Perception] feeding her fractured mind as she drifted in limbo.
Something carried her.
Saved her.
Danger faded with her thoughts.
In the hollow between pain and senselessness, she found a blanket of serenity that reflected a world torn asunder—the call of a life lost to her.
Wake up…
Don’t fall into the tide.
I’m alive.
I’m still alive…
All she knew was spear-like pillars, keeping her hovering over a cold abyss.
A sanctuary of fangs, supporting its treasure…her.
Currently, a gold coin, whisked away to wherever the creature tucked away its prizes.
Hot breath cycled—in…out—like a flaming ocean, pulling a sole vessel into the heated waves, keeping her safe…keeping her stable. The lick of rough liquid. A fox’s tongue? A frozen sky above, attempting to assail her with ice arrows. Floor 7’s terrain?
Abruptly, gravity flipped.
Her sails fell dead with the blazing wind.
A sea of fire left her rudders…
She fell like a prayer into a wishing well.
Above, the flaming ocean retreated.
Below, the frigid heavens opened their mouth.
A wrecking ball—
And her? Porcelain.
Abandoned.
Gold and ice welcomed her into her grave.
Her broken body—hard and round—struck metal and bone.
[Shapechange: Deactivated]
Consciousness fading in and out, her vision cleared to see a fluffy tail whip out of sight.
Silver light refracted through ice above—not dancing but drowning, each photon bent through frozen geometry into spectrums that had no names.
I’m not dead?
No… Just broken.
Spent muscles quivering, she cracked her mouth open. Poetry she’d written into her heart rose and fell within her bleeding heart as glimmering ichor seeped out of her wounds.
A coin…has muscle?
What am I?
A girl.
I’m a human girl…
In the light of my demise…
…True colors can’t escape.
I am a masterpiece made of my mistakes…
A monster.
I’m a monster…
Her split tongue inching out to slide across half-eaten corpses of smaller prey and metal—iron. Enchanted iron.
I made it to Floor 7.
Above, ice blurred into a collage of her life, tears flowing over her chest-like frame, twisting and turning barely above the surface of her consciousness.
It cast prisms that showed her seven versions of herself.
In one, she was still Sophia, brown paper bag clutched like salvation that would damn her. In another, something with too many teeth—fangs the size of railroad spikes—smiled with her face. In all of them, she was alone.
The darkness here tasted different than Floor 8’s humid embrace. This was the blue-black of spaces between heartbeats, of silence so complete it had its own sound, of cold that existed before the universe remembered what warmth meant.
The thought surfaced through consciousness thick as frozen honey, sweet with confusion, bitter with the aftertaste of transformed flesh remembering what it used to be.
And her hope?
His back was turned.
Damon…
Damon, don’t leave me!
Damon!
“Graarhg!”
The guttural sound was foreign. Monstrous from her lips and thrashing tongue.
Words were worthless now.
[Slumbering Titan Blood: Deactivated.]
Oh… I’m still here.
Time passed in a lull of slow pain and heartache.
Above, she saw the creature she was—
A treasure chest, bleeding as if flesh, lacerations marring her painted pigmentation.
I’m out of combat.
Around her lay the treasures of the fox who had spirited her away to safety. A locket that had stopped keeping time when its owner’s heart faded. Small piles of iron or steel coins with an ‘I’ printed on the front.
Torn clothes, armor, enchanted and non-enchanted weapons, half broken.
And bones.
From monsters or humans, Sophia didn’t know.
[Current Level: 3]
[EXP to Level Four: 1,856]
[Current Intelligence: 5. Incompetent.]
[Current Mana: 12/75]
I have mana?
I do…
The notifications flickered like dying stars in periphery vision that shouldn’t exist.
Think. Need to…what? Think?
No… I can’t think…
Fog. The fog’s closing in…
Feed.
Heal.
Collect…
Her yellow eyes flashed in the mirror as the arctic fox entered its hideout again, freezing upon gaze locking with its.
Feed…
No, run… her human mind begged.
Feed.
Run!
Feed! the hunger roared.
It was too late.
[Pseudopod.]
Fleshy tongue lashing out, it split to strike its windpipe and sides, barbs siding out to sink into its flesh, toxin injecting into its nerve system.
[Paralysis Unsuccessful.]
It thrashed, sharp teeth baring to bite down on one rhizome, only for it to snake out of the way as her tongue wove around its throat.
[Grappler: Successful.]
It choked a whimper, as the fox’s frosty haze cut off from freezing her.
She lurched forward, jaw unhinging, glistening teeth gleaming as her mouth fully enclosed its head, and she bit down hard, fangs only partially sinking past its thick coat.
Tough thing…
Its long tail lifted high, Sophia’s eyes widening as a blue glow surrounded it and ice shards formed in the air.
Danger!
Absorb!
Releasing her grip and jaws, sweet white blood coated her teeth and gums as she shot back, opening her maw wider. Teeth marks marred the fox’s coat, yet it didn’t tremble, its vision glowing blue with defiance—three-inch spikes rained down on her.
[Pocket Dimension] drew them in like a vacuum, segments of its treasures and bone piles flowing into her storage.
A short cough came from the fox.
Then, a deep breath.
And a torrent of rapidly expanding fog erupted inside the space, blinding her.
Snarling echoed through the mist.
Anger.
Hunger.
Desperation.
She lurched forward.
Nothing.
Several seconds of raging in the haze as she drew it into her belly, and it was gone—
The arctic fox—her prey—was gone.
“Grharaaa!”
The fog scattered around her gnashing teeth as she slammed against the walls, fracturing ice and causing chunks of the den to splinter.
“Graaaaaa!”
Several seconds more, and gold ichor painted the zone, breathing heavily.
Then, she saw the blood.
The trail of white…
A ghastly grin reflected off the walls from her colossal, chest-like monstrosity.
Resistance and a frown followed.
Feed!
Her tongue slid out to sample the alabaster honey, yet just before contact, she froze with ice creeping into her veins.
No! It saved us.
Prey!
Not prey!
Frame trembling, her tongue slid back into her maw.
Not prey… Treasure!
Treasure…
“Gmmgmm…”
At war with herself, somehow, her focus shifted to the goods now scattered around the hole…which she began to collect.
Bait for prey.
Learning.
Understanding.
Mimic their shape, texture, and value.
Rather than destruction, she chose exploration.
Her mangled form slid away from the den, two of her many eyes tracking the bright liquid droplets of blood freeze along her path. She could feel the itch to pursue, yet she stayed the course. She liked things. Pretty things.
Prey liked things.
Good tasting prey liked things, pretty things. Treasure was pretty..
The cavern beyond glittered like the inside of a god’s frozen heart.
Ice formations grew from every surface in patterns that wasn’t entirely natural. The intriguing thing was it wasn’t empty ice—life had been corrupted here, adapted to the dungeon biome, evolved into forms that shouldn’t exist.
Crystalline moss clung to the frozen walls, its structure more mineral than plant, feeding on ambient mana that leaked from cracks that flowed toward the Core like veins.
When she touched it experimentally with a pseudopod, it chimed like wind chimes, the sound rippling through harmonics that made her teeth ache.
Beautiful, she thought, and the thought felt like betrayal of her poetic heart. What is beauty?
The thought didn’t last long.
Movement caught her fractured attention.
Tiny sprites of living frost danced through the air—frost wisps, her instincts supplied, though she didn’t know how she knew.
They moved in small clusters, their bodies composed of ice crystals held together by mana more than physics.
Food?
No food.
They were too weak.
Too much trouble to chase.
Level 2, Level 3.
Barely worth noticing except—
They were feeding.
She watched, fascinated despite herself, as they swarmed around one of the glowing formations embedded in the cavern wall. A frozen cluster of jewels, pulsing with inner light like a heart made of aurora.
Mana.
Weak sources of raw mana, but mana nonetheless.
Instinct told her why they did it.
Outside of the mana frost zone, they’d collapse.
The wisps drew energy from it in thin streams of light, their crystalline bodies growing brighter, more solid.
Sustenance without killing.
As she observed, she noticed something else—the cluster was defended. An ice elemental, hidden within the wall itself, easily Level 5, stood guard over the formation. Its body was geometric perfection, all angles and edges that could cut through flesh like tissue paper.
Her memory flashed back to the treasure fox and toxic sovereign.
Monsters use the environment.
Ice everywhere.
Learn.
Grow…
She slithered deeper into the cavern system, her form adapting to the cold with each passing moment. She took on the form of a rolling ice rock, tumbling down tunnels, eyes shifting as she spun, somehow not getting dizzy in her search.
The hunger gnawed at her consciousness, but it was manageable—for now. Her wounds were freezing over; not healed, but contained until she could enter combat.
She needed to understand this place, its rules, its hierarchies.
Time moved strangely as she explored. Minutes or hours, she couldn’t tell.
The eternal twilight of the frozen caverns made everything feel like a dream wrapped in ice. She found more treasure caches—some guarded by foxes, others by creatures she didn’t recognize yet, but the more she studied, the more knowledge fed into her brain—
The Core was singing to her.
It was telling her to become its defender.
However, during moments when she’d find items to slurp up into her pocket dimension, she’d have thoughts… Otherworldly thoughts.
Each item told a story of death and failure that caused still pictures to flash in her mind.
An adventurer’s pack, frozen solid with its contents perfectly preserved.
Inside: three healing potions, their red liquid turned to slush but still glowing with magical potential. A journal whose entry was chicken scratch. Chickens?
She absorbed it all into her [Pocket Dimension], the space within her that existed outside normal physics. Each item added weight to her soul more than her body—the weight of lives cut short, dreams frozen mid-flight.
Items were plentiful.
Bodies? Bones?
Surprisingly sparse.
Not monsters, though.
Fixed on the ceiling—an icicle—she waited, she watched.
[Silence] was a new Feat she’d discovered she had. It passively helped to reduce the noise of her movements. It was as if every twitch came with a built-in suppressor.
[Stealth] seemed to attack the mind of those observing her rather than affecting her or her environment—that was hard to understand, but it just hit her in the gut at one point. She’d tested it. It also cost mana…and that was an issue.
The status menu popped up on instinct, her clouded mind fixating on the numbers that meant something bad.
[Mana: 12/75]
Mana… Need mana.
[Stealth] brings easy food.
[Stealth] brings power.
Mana is easy food.
Intelligence gives mana…
Intelligence gives easy food.
It had been higher earlier due to it naturally regenerating, like her flesh, but it wen up slowly. She knew her flesh regenerated if she was in combat. Mana didn’t, though.
That was a problem.
The window vanished as her attention was diverted.
Something unexpected happened below her solitary perch.
A fox limped out of a small tunnel, ice shards sticking to its side, white liquid leaking out of wounds—her treasure fox.
Hurt…
My treasure is hurt…
Meat?
No. Treasure! her brain shouted at itself. Treasure saved us!
Her vision focused on the fox as it paused underneath her, trembling, looking between tunnels. Its wounds weren’t only from her. There were new gashes in its side.
Icicles dug into its fur, illuminated with magic.
The sound of scampering claws clicking against ice made it lurch into the den she’d been staking out.
Treasure…
Save…
Sophia’s gaze lifted as three more foxes shot out from where her treasure had escaped. The leader was larger than her treasure, its tail longer, lifting high.
A signal.
It’s trying to steal our treasure!
Quiet.
Steal my treasure?
Be sneaky!
No touch!
My treasure!
[Stealth: Activated.]
The mental shroud settled over her like silk, making her presence forgettable even as 4,500 pounds of alien mass disconnected from the large shard on the ceiling. The lead fox paused as her maw opened.
[Titanic Growth: F-tier Activated - Instant Trigger]
[Size and Weight increased by 20%. +1 Constitution, +1 Strength]
[Current Weight: 5,400 lbs]
[Current Strength: 38]
World slowing to a crawl as saliva gleamed in her peeled back jaws, her form exploded in size, metallic surface rippling as she fell like divine judgment. The fox’s ears lifted, and it looked up just as her pseudopod shot out, wrapping around its belly to lock it in place.
[Grapple: Activated]
[+2 Strength = 40 Total]
[Heavy Fisted: +13.5% damage from weight]
[Barefisted: Hardened limbs for maximum impact]
[Barbarian Proficiency: Unarmed combat expertise]
[Haymaker: Activated]
The impact was pulverizing.
5,400 pounds focused into her rapid, falling frame, delivering a single devastating blow, enhanced by every Feat, every skill, every point of alien strength she’d accumulated.
The fox didn’t just collapse with her pounce, its skull and flesh turned into paper, brain matter painting the ice in abstract patterns of sudden death as fractures spiderwebbed across the floor.
[Stealth: Activated.]
[Critical Hit: Instant Kill.]
[You have slain Arctic Stalker - Level 6.]
[Experience Gained: 792.]
[EXP to Level 4: 1,064]
The other foxes’ legs gave out as the shockwave rippled around them, ice shelves and wall sheets collapsing in her focused assault.
Her jaw unhinged, sitting on her side with their leader’s still cicking corpse thrashing, a harsh roar reverberating through the frozen tunnels.
“Bggrraaaa!”
Her tongue was already moving, righting herself, form still rippling as she shifted into her actual visage. The second fox tried to bolt, but terror made it clumsy. Her barbed appendages sank into its side as she jerked it toward the other in its escape.
Both yips were cut short into chokes when striking the ice shelf, chunks raining down on them as she opened her jaws wide.
[Pocket Dimension: Release.]
Her treasure’s volley of icicles ejected out, peppering them against the wall as debris hailed from above. Launching forward, she zeroed in on the stronger one—the one whose back leg wasn’t torn to shreds.
She landed on its side, pinned it, and crushed its ribs into its lungs as her maw unhinged. Rows of teeth that telescoped outward in concentric circles of grinding horror peeled back to show her gums, its frantic eyes reflecting her [Bite] swallowing its head whole.
The crunch of its spine and windpipe echoed through the chamber like breaking bells.
[You have slain Arctic Stalker - Level 5]
[Experience Gained: 693.]
[EXP to Level 4: 371.]
White blood illuminating her pink gums, she turned her attention to the whimpering sole survivor—the third fox.
The smallest.
The weakest.
Legs mangled by the collapsed shelf.
It was already trying to tear its own leg off to escape.
Too slow.
…Far too slow.
Her tongue split into barbed spears, neurotoxin dripping from each point. It struck the gnawing corrupted animal twice—throat and haunch—paralysis spreading through fur as the creature collapsed mid-leap.
Then…she fed, guts and blood pooling into her mouth like warm wine.
[You have slain Arctic Stalker - Level 5.]
[Experience Gained: 693.]
[Level 4 Achieved!]
[EXP to Level Five: 3,803.]
[3 Feat Points Gained; 3 Available.]
[3 Stat Points Gained; 3 Available.]
[Achievement - F-tier Stealth Killer.]
[1 Feat point Gained; 4 Available.]
Silence fell like a shroud over the den. Silver ichor painted the crystalline walls, steam rising where her acids met the supernatural cold. She stood among the corpses, breathing heavily, waiting for the familiar surge of satisfaction that came with feeding.
Only…it didn’t come.
Instead, she felt…empty.
Where was the joy?
Where was the rush of power, the sweet nectar of experience flowing into her transformed flesh?
What did come was relief.
Odd relief…
Her treasure was safe.
Yet, one thought kept stubbornly poking her in the eyes as she stared at her prey, stomach snarling—her status menu, open to her current stats.
Intelligence…
Intelligence…
Intelligence gives easy food.
Almost mechanically, her desires met reality.
[Base Intelligence Increased from 5 to 8. Slightly Below Average.]
Abruptly, her life changed.
The questions surfaced through the hunger, through the fog that had clouded her mind since her transformation. The fog of instinct that was suddenly stripped to a murky color, and memories—
Hell returned.
Oh.
Oh, God.
Memory crashed through her enhanced consciousness like a tidal wave of broken glass.
The brown paper bag—the two life-altering items she’d kept inside it.
The choice made in silence that killed louder than screams.
The words—
“You keep taking these stones from a glass house—your righteousness is paper-thin!”
Her own voice, screaming at Damon a week before their deaths, burning a hole in her soul. Hollow words to herself when she was the one hiding everything that mattered.
The drugs.
Yes, the drugs were bad.
Damon never would have accepted dirty money…if he knew.
But she was desperate.
He would understand her need to help him, even if wrong.
But the other item?
No…
No, there was no understanding.
Only death.
And the only way her heart could deal with it was to express it.
“All the stupid lies…the stupid games, I left a vacancy in our picture frame… And I am alone,” she whispered to the ice, her first human words distorted and monstrous to her own ears as she stared at her deserved, twisted body. “I am a prisoner by my own hands.”
Somehow, in this moment of sharp clarity, she remembered a conversation with a goddess in private: that only she could heal the damage that she inflicted, but instead, she burnt the bridge with her own hands. She would welcome Hell instead of facing his tears.
Those words cut worse than everything she’d suffered here.
Yellow liquid leaked out of her many eyes, pooling on her sticky tongue as the worst part of it all stabbed her to the core—her love’s agency.
“Damon is looking for me…”
And if that wasn’t enough.
Her decision to hide a drug drop in the veil of a fun, illegal fishing adventure was compounded with the reality that if she had backed out…they’d still be alive.
Damon and Aria would have still been alive.
All she saw now in her reflection was him.
Hurt in his hazel eyes.
Questions she couldn’t answer as she played roulette with a broken gun.
Her image—the woman she should be—confessing her sins with a sharp, spiteful tongue.
Outlined in guilt, my portrait stares…
In a gallery, where the walls lie bare.
True colors can’t escape the brush of fate.
How do I apologize…when I can’t even let you cry?
I don’t deserve you.
I don’t…
What have I done?
I killed everyone.
I…asked to be placed here.
Damon, I broke our family…
This is where I belong.
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[ Next POV: Damon]
[ Theme: With Sophia spiraling, how is our dhampir MC doing with his new cub companion? Our mimic will certainly need cuddles when this is over! ]
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