Ch. 90 - Rest

Rest

Alice lay panting between the tall grasses that covered the undulating prairies around the forest, her back pressed against the ground as she slowly caught her breath after the frantic escape from the horrid creatures that had been following her.

Her silken rucksack was strewn right beside her, along with the long metal spear that she was tightly clutching in her right hand, the left one still holding the small piece of monolith that had somehow saved her butt by opening the armored door and which was still trying to direct her somewhere, the feeling much weaker and less pressing than before, almost like an afterthought in the back of her mind.

Pocketing it in her bandolier for the moment, she instead focused on the state of her body, fighting the headache that was still throbbing under her skull as she carefully accessed the small amount of magical energy that her starving body had managed to replenish in the previous minutes of inactivity.

Tightly controlling the flow of her warmth, she started doling it out throughout her body in very small doses to help her Regenerationskill as it sealed the numerous bleeding wounds that had reopened in her internal organs during her mad dash to safety.

As she slowly worked her way throughout her system, the process soon became automatic enough that Alice had the time to think back of what had just happened, her pain-addled mind slowly focusing on the events and reaching a conclusion that filled her with a deep sense of unease.

Those were the monkeys of the upper city, she realized, they have followed me all the way down here and must have been tracking me for a while now, a shiver running down her spine as she thought of the sounds that she had heard back when she was sleeping near the wisteria, only in that moment connecting the dots between that occurrence and the creatures.

I was lucky I was woken up back then, and what if they had caught me while I was improving my muscles? I would have been dead without even a chance to fight back.

Now, Alice couldn’t help but wonder whether they had managed to escape the eel unscathed or if it had managed to get them before they could flee.

After running away from the armored door and its perils, she had clearly heard the first, crazed cry that had reverberated through the forest as she ran, immediately followed by the bellow of the monstrous eel and the frantic, hooting cries of the surprised primates that had found themselves facing it.

By the time she had left the thick copse of trees, however, the area had returned to its previously peaceful state, her ears only catching the whooshing of the wind, the chirping of birds and the shrill whistles of the green marmot-like creatures that inhabited the numerous piles of rubble littering the many small hills.

Alice really wanted to believe that her problems had solved themselves on their own but she knew that she couldn’t allow herself such fantasies if she wanted to survive.

I’d better prepare for some kind of monstrous alliance between fish and ape in their communal hatred for my person or something. She grimly thought as she pushed herself in a sitting position and remained perfectly silent, her free hand moving to still the small green snake that had started moving through her hair while she listened to the sounds around her, straining her ears to catch any suspicious noise coming in her direction.

By the time she was finished with her body, the last rays of the sun had finally disappeared past the huge circular wall that held the perfect crystal dome over her head and Alice was at least somewhat sure that nothing was currently on her heels.

Only the sound of the almost constant breeze broke the silence of the nighttime prairie, the entire enclosed landscape only illuminated by the light of countless alien stars dotting the sky.

Even if she was currently safe, however, Alice still needed to find a safe hideout to rest and recoup for at least a day or two before she felt recovered enough to continue with her journey.

Between the few options she could think of, she finally picked the domed building that supported the wisteria, all the way back towards the wall.

Even if it was quite distant from her position, Alice was positive that it would offer a degree of safety, mainly because if there was something horrid living in those ruins, she would have already met it while she was moving through them the first time.

At the very least, she was pretty certain that it would be less dangerous than searching somewhere she hadn’t explored yet.

It’s going to take me a while to get there but, at least, I’ll know what to expect, I can’t risk sleeping out in the open and I can’t go and explore somewhere new while in this state, she told herself with a sigh as she started moving in that direction, keeping her natural luminescence turned off and using the spear as a crutch to support her weakened body after the severe blood loss she had incurred into.

As she walked, Alice continuously turned around and searched for signs of being followed, her steps slow and careful to avoid making excessive noise and waking up something she didn’t want to meet.

She had just reached the top of the first hill when a barely audible scratching sound made her freeze in place, her grip tightening around her weapon as she held her breath and searched for the source of the noise, ready to defend herself from any would-be ambusher.

After more than five minutes of incredibly tense searching, she couldn’t help chuckling when the memory of the marmot burrow she had spotted nearby just a few hours before came back to her mind, quickly finding its entrance despite the darkness enshrouding the place and briefly listening for the shuffling noises coming from underneath, her expression growing pensive as she stared at the tight bore, an idea slowly taking shape in her mind the longer she watched.

Turning around, she glanced at the still-distant building that she would need to reach, thinking of the numerous hills she had had to climb on her way to the forest and then staring back at the borehole in front of her.

That marmot didn’t seem particularly dangerous and it won’t take me long to at least check if it could work, she told herself as she took control of the Lumen in her body and easily directed them into the hole while keeping them non-luminous to avoid being noticed too early.

Under her directions, it didn’t take long for the glimmers to start coating the underground lair, giving her a chance to check its internal layout as a small smile started blooming on her lips.

I think someone is going to get an unexpected guest, she thought as she quickly removed her backpack and laid the spear on the ground, expertly using her Lumen to gradually enlarge the entrance so that it would be able to let her through, ignoring the increasingly frantic sounds coming from inside as the magical specks of light did their work on the biological components of the ground, leaving only rocks and other sediment on the floor of the rapidly growing tunnel.

Less than ten minutes later, Alice had managed to carefully crawl into the burrow and taken for herself the first, three-meter wide room that had previously been used and occupied by a small family of greenish marmots, the displaced rodents having escaped deeper into their complex system of underground caves upon discovering of her intrusion.

As soon as she was sure that the place was solid and wouldn’t cave in on her head, she quickly went back outside to retrieve her belongings and then used the loose rocks and dirt to partially seal the outer entrance, leaving only just enough space for air to flow while hopefully preventing anything too large from slithering in her hideout unannounced from the outside; at the same time, she also placed the backpack over the inner entrance, hoping that it would be enough for the night as she didn’t really have any more energy to spend.

The place was definitely not comfortable with its hard ground and unpleasant smell of stale grass and gassy rodent that hovered in the air, further exacerbating the constricting feeling that the tight room was causing on her slightly-claustrophobic self.

Despite that, Alice forced herself to keep calm and, over the course of around half-an-hour, managed to pull her throbbing mind away from her discomforts and phobias and to instead focus on the warmth that the enclosed space was keeping in, her eyelids growing heavier as the tiredness in her body slowly caused her to fall into a deep slumber, the headache slowly fading as the time passed and magical energy flowed in her reservoir.

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She instantly found herself in her mind room, her thought processes thankfully removed from the burden that was her body, allowing her to concentrate on her thoughts instead of the numerous wounds that were plaguing her after the fight. There were far too many things she needed to process and not enough time to do it.

Before she could even start, however, her attention was immediately caught by what was happening in the center of the void-chamber and Alice stared in complete astonishment as the portion of the non-space in which hovered the glyphs of her many skills and levels started suddenly taking shape, the same dark stone-like substance that had formed the monoliths in the underground room slowly appearing where nothing had been before.

Over the course of an incredibly long and exhausting instant, a deeply inscribed rectangular slab gradually replaced the hovering symbols in her mind room, the inscriptions now glowing with their fiery light in stark contrast with the cold blackness of that unknown material that she couldn’t even begin to understand.

By the time the hovering menhir in front of her had finally stilled, her eyes were already reading the new line of symbols that had taken shape right under all the others, it’s meaning searing into her brain despite the glyphs themselves remaining unknown to her.

You have reached Level 31 in the Biomancer of Symbiosis Class.

You have made direct contact with your patron and received insight in return. The skill Biomagical Instincts has been melded into the Whispers of the Mother skill. Your knowledge of matters arcane and biological runs deeper and your connection with The Whispering Mother grows stronger.

That doesn’t sound ominous at all. She stated as she slowly approached the new object, tapping it a few times with an incorporeal finger to check if it would cause any kind of reaction, soon resuming her aimless floating when she confirmed that it was as inert at the rest of the void.

Talking about ominous and scary, why did a Monolith hidden inside a ruined city formed a connection to my mind while I was dying? I never got a damned answer, only more eldritch visions that don’t really tell me anything. I hope I’m not unknowingly working for that horrid thing in the temple. Was the metal chamber some kind of hidden sanctum? An altar for the gods? It called them higher beings the first time, is that different in some way?

And what the heck was kept under that hatch on the ground? That definitely screams Boss Fight if you ask me. I just wish that overgrown fish hadn’t interrupted my exploration… maybe I could have convinced the Mother that I was good enough for more knowledge?

She couldn’t help but grimace at the memory of that shower of sensations, her mind still reeling from the feeling of inadequacy that had filled it.

I guess not, which means that now the previous plan of moving out of the dome is back on track. Even if I’ll need to make some preparations if the wind is to be a clue of what’s going to wait for me outside.

And like that, Alice started planning once again while her body rested and healed itself, her ideas going in dozens of different directions as the night slowly turned into the morning.

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A constant munching sound was the reason for Alice’s awakening, her sleepy eyes opening up to the sight of a very large marmot busy trying to gnaw through her hair with its quite large and sharp-looking teeth.

“Aaah!” she screamed in pure panic, her cry followed by a very dull thudding sound and a pained groan when she attempted to jump back up on her feet, only resulting in her head painfully slamming against the low ceiling of the room while the equally startled rodent attempted to book it out of the inner opening as quickly as possible, the mad dash thwarted by the tiny green snake that had been hiding in wait between the folds of her dress up until that moment, its hollow teeth instantly sinking into the neck of the creature before it could escape past the rucksack it had pushed away to move inside, causing its muscles to start seizing as it was halfway through the hole.

“What the actual heck,” she finally muttered after taking a couple of minutes to recover from the scare, her hands clutching her bruised forehead while she stared at the snake slowly slithering back towards her, showing no interest in the creature it had just managed to take down, “you can’t not be sentient. Can you understand me?” she asked, first in her language and then in the one she had learned from Maath, picking up the tiny creature with her fingers and watching its forked tongue poke out of its mouth as it stared back at her for a few seconds before coiling around her arm, seemingly content of its actions so far.

“Mhhh… don’t think for a second of having fooled me,” she told it, wincing upon touching the section of slobbered and broken hair that had been caused by the marmot, the long fibers completely ruined by the teeth of the creature.

“Dammit, at least now I have a reason to cut them, I let them grow far too long after all,” she muttered before moving back to the initial topic, “whatever the truth, I think it’s time to stop thinking of you as ‘snake’ and give you a proper name, even if I don’t know whether you are a girl or a boy. Oh well…”

Ignoring the sore spot on her head, Alice took a more comfortable position and started thinking on the issue while, at the same time, she used a bit of Lumen to clean up the mess in her hair.

“Slithers would have been cool but we already have Skitter so that’s a no, same thing with uninspired things like Nagini and Jormungandr, even if Incredibly Deadly Viper would have been pretty funny. Maybe it can be the name of your species,” She decided, thinking of one of her favorite books from when she was younger..

“How about Basil?” she suddenly asked, her energy returning after more than a dozen of very bad ideas, “it’s the short of Basilisk and it would be perfect since you are green, it’s cute too which is always important,” she chuckled, “I think I’m okay with that,” she finally settled, placing a single digit on the snout of the newly-named Basil before turning her attention to the marmot that still lay halfway through the hole that led deeper into the tunnels, reaching for it and starting to drag it back into the room with her, her expression once again turning into one of surprise when she realized that the animal wasn’t dead yet, only perfectly paralyzed by the venom coursing through its veins.

Very useful, she thought as she accessed her power and delved deeper into the creature’s body while it couldn’t really react or fight back, gently moving through the system and feeling the way it functioned, almost taking a sigh of relief when she didn’t observe any kind of magical ability or incredible characteristics that could make it dangerous in a fight.

The only difference from the marmots she had often seen living on the Italian Alps was in the color of its lustrous coat, its green almost identical to that of the grasses of the prairies, probably as a way to hide themselves from predators.

Nonetheless, the animal’s dense coat and surprisingly thick layer of fat was perfectly able to keep it warm even in extremely cold environments, giving her a very good direction for one of the plans that would have to come to fruition before she felt ready enough to brave the true outside.

“You’re going to become a very good jacket,” she whispered to the paralyzed animal before quickly shutting down most of the creature’s brain, using her new skill to only maintain the very basic functions that would keep the marmot alive.

Alice really didn’t want it to suffer but, at the same time, she also needed a direct access to the body if she wanted to at least attempt one of her ideas.

And now I just need to get more. She told herself as she pushed the creature to the side.

Before she did, however, Alice made sure that her own body had recovered from the previous day’s ordeal, quickly entering a state of trance and delving deeper into her own system to observe the effects of her regeneration, feeling reassured when she found out that most of the internal bruising caused by the constricting coils of the eel was already fading while her bone marrow had already started replenishing her severely depleted reserves of blood, even if it would probably take a few days before she was back to normal levels.

Even more if I don’t eat, she muttered in her mind upon feeling the deep growl coming from her empty stomach, all the food she had eaten having been turned into nutrients a long time before.

The second she was sure that she hadn’t received lasting damage, Alice quickly came back to consciousness and immediately rushed to her bag, opening it up and immediately starting to rummage inside until, after a couple of seconds, she finally pulled out the first of the sweet fruits she had harvested from the plants in the wisteria building, pleasantly surprised that the very thick rind had somehow prevented them from splitting open despite the numerous impacts they had received, even if, if she had to be honest, the flesh inside had turned into a syrupy mush that she was forced to slurp down like a very thick juice, the texture even worse than that of raw screechling meat as it slid down her throat in warm, goopy chunks.

Despite that, she finished her breakfast feeling somewhat satisfied with her meal, using the Lumen to consume the peels while placing the cleansed, round core back in the bag.

Who knows, she thought,maybe I’ll be able to cultivate them. I already have the mushroom spores after all; by the time I find a way back home I’m going to have the best garden in the damned world.

When that too was done, Alice briefly crawled up outside and inspected the area for any signs of passage, finding nothing aside from her own clumsy steps through the vegetation, the line of broken stalks clear for anyone to see.

Mhh… maybe tracking me wasn’t that difficult after all, she realized with a wince before extracting her knife and starting to cut off her hair as best as she could, only stopping when they barely reached her neck.

By the time she was finished with all her preparations, the sun was already pretty high in the sky and she hurriedly crawled back into her temporary base with her cut hair in her hand and a plan in her mind.

It was time catch some critters.