Chapter 1701 Strdl’s Thoughts

--- Strdl ---

Strdl was very uncomfortable. Her footing was constantly unstable, her eyes burned and her head was constantly pounding. She felt like throwing up but couldn’t bring herself to stop. Those… tentacle things had shown up a few more times but never too close to Hunter. It made her wonder if the lamia was summoning them somehow to scare everyone… at the same time…

The world around them was completely warped. It was broken and twisted. Hunter even lead them back the way they’d come a few times… only for the path to open up into a ’new’ area. For a certain value of new anyway. The deeper they went the more things distorted. Especially after the intersection.

It had looked like something out of an MC Esher painting. With various tunnels all overlapping as they all spun together into what looked like a single point… but as you walked along the path you found yourself turning around, following the unnatural curve of the floor until you were upside down for a time. Strdl very nearly crawled along the ground for those moments. Her sense of balance told her she was upside down but her feet remained firmly planted on the ’floor’ the entire time.

A slight test… just a bit of spit… and it flew UPWARDS once it left her mouth. Strdl wasn’t game enough to test anything after that. The whole place was wearing on her in multiple ways. Her mind and body were sore and she was tempted to wrap herself up like Ronldo and just let Hunter carry her around. He looked much less green and was just handling all of this nonsense better.

Well, not better then Hunter. She was just slithering along with seemingly no problems! And I feel like I’m losing my mind! Ronldo isn’t even trying so he can avoid this stuff but Hunter looks like she’s taking a casual stroll. Plus there was that one time where a hole in space had opened up underneath her. Strdl was nearly certain she was a moment away from being erased from existence. Only Hunter catching her saved her but the lamia just kept walking!

*Or maybe I spoke too soon?* Strdl pulled to a stop beside Hunter, dutifully ignoring the fact that the stone beneath her feet felt squishy for some reason. Hunter seemed to be examing some marks in the wall for some reason? "Um… what’s up with the wall?"

"These are scratches that I made specifically. I put one down to mark our progress and then repeated the action every time the marks came up again in the future," stated Hunter.

"Right… um… so we’re going in circles then?" asked Strdl.

"Inconclusive. Despite the markings showing up further down the path I have been ensuring that we do not pass over our previous scent trails. It’s why we’ve taken odd paths at times. The thing is… despite these markings matching my fingers quite well as they are and perfectly once you account for the distortion… they don’t smell like me. According to my sense of smell… we’ve never been here before," explained Hunter.

"But the markings are there? So what does that mean?" asked Strdl.

Your next read awaits at empire

"It means we’re in deep shit," added Ronldo

Ignoring him, Hunter explained. "It could mean a few things. It could mean that our scents are being erased for some reason. It could mean that the walls and such are being mirrored as the space stretches… but I deliberately added some spit to every second marking and yet there is no sign of it.

"That could mean that biological material can’t be copied over or that the process focuses only on the stone… or it could mean that someone or something is playing games. This is far, far past the capabilities of the shard alone. I’m just not quite sure if this had some intent behind it or not. Perhaps you simply happened to be near an alternate source of time or space energy… or an old machine from before the end of the world that caused all of this. Ronldo?"

"I couldn’t say. Pebbles excavated this whole place and he did say there were a few areas he couldn’t properly manipulate so we just stayed away from them. Apparently, it’s pretty common, especially for him with his ’metal’ control issues even when it’s ore. I didn’t think too much about it. I mean… there are plenty of OTHER places around here Pebbles couldn’t move so the idea that we just so happened to pick the one place that would cause issues is a bit ridiculous… but…" replied Ronldo, carefully keeping his eyes closed. He could still see things occasionally but it was probably better on his sanity.

Hunter nodded along for a few moments before Strdl jumped in to ask. "So what does that MEAN? What exactly is the goal here? I mean… I get we want to reach the core but…" Strdl glanced at the way forward and winced. For a moment the hallway had looked like it was a giant mouth but that was just an illusion… right? "Are we even getting closer to it?"

"For now I am assuming so. The increasingly warped nature of the nearby environment would indicate that we’re onto something. It is possible we’ll need to break through space at some point and pierce through what may or may not be a trap but for now there’s no way to tell, or at least I personally am lacking in such detection methods. I likely should’ve taken the compass from Meg before heading off like this…" answered Hunter.

"Do you think they’re ok?" asked Strdl.

"Probably," said Hunter before setting off again. Not at all concerned with the others.

--- Kat --- (At the same time)

Kat sighed as she kicked the Trvis back into its buddy. She’d been doing this for a while now as Meg and Pebbles tried various ways to restrain the thing. Inevitably failed, and then went back to the drawing board. Kat was in charge of making sure that neither of these last two escaped and it… really wasn’t hard. "I’LL GET YOU!" shouted the two figures when they reformed. Kat just kicked them together again. It was a nice way of knowing when to start the kick. They weren’t entirely solid until after the scream anyway.

At that same moment, Kat felt Lily’s mind shake in surprise, and glancing upwards she could see that Kamiko was groaning and trying to sit up. Lily was supporting her with various shadows to help pull her into a sitting position. "Urgh… that was… not the best idea…" grumbled Kamiko.

"Oh? Really?" said Lily after transforming. She didn’t say much though, not wanting to mention any specifics for now.

"Yeah… trying to make a bubble that big was definitely a mistake. Did it even manage to heal the guy?" said Kamiko as she started to look around. "WHAT THE HECK?!" Pebbles hadn’t gotten around to fixing the street yet so it was still a complete mess and the big gashes in the stonework were rather new. Plus she’d just seen Kat kick a guy so hard he became a cloud? And reformed?

"Yeah… you’ve missed some stuff," said Lily diplomatically. [Do we tell her?]

I don’t know?

[What’s the right thing to do as her friend? Not for the mission.]

*I still don’t know? Platitudes about truth and honesty say we should probably tell her but I’ve got no idea how she’ll react. I really don’t want her having issues when we’re in the middle of a mission. Especially not when the crisis isn’t over. Contained for now but very much not over.* "Meg, how is that containment going?" asked Kat to by herself some time.

"Welcome back Kamiko," said Meg up at the roof before turning back to Kat. "And as you well no it’s NOT going. We’ve tried boxes, sheets, sleeping bags, water, slime which was a bitch and a half to make. Several other liquids that sit in between slime and water along with mud which actually might have been our best test yet but these idiotic things always find a way to kill themselves and I really can’t tell how much of it is intentional,"

"Do they have a weakness indicating it would be?" asked Kat.

"No they have a weakness indicating that they’re less intelligent then a slime or a rock. They’re just smart enough to be extra stupid in fact," stated Meg.

*Well… not sure how that works exactly but it was all true. Confusingly true… but I can’t disagree with anything on the face of it.* "So what’s the plan then?" asked Kat.

"I’m not sure. I had expected my Sis to have managed to fix whatever the issue was up at the manor if it was easy to deal with. We could head over if you want. I’m not sure it’s necessary and I do trust her to deal with whatever it is… but I’m not going to pass up a chance to spend more time with. It’s just a question of what to do with these two things…" explained Meg.