It sounded like someone speaking, but with a squeaky voice that was somewhere in the vocal range of a toddler.
The sounds it was making had no meaning, and it sounded oddly like a creature than a human. It reminded him of Gollum, his sister's ragdoll kitten. His deeper meows sounded about the same as this.
Is it speaking words or not?
"Nalo!"
It sounded like words, the creature was screaming it with a human cadence. He tried to fit some words with the sound, and came up with a plausible combination that matched the tone. It had said ‘nee nee nalo,’ which sounded like a phrase.
Leave me alone?
He had to see the creature making these sounds. He dropped low to the ground and stalked his way towards the the voice. It wasn't too far.
There was a faint blue glow on the grass. He saw it as he was about to round a fallen pillar. Seein that blue light, he was instantly reminded of the Norghals. This looked exactly like their glow.
His first instinct was to take off right away, but if those hell horses were here, he had to know exactly where it was.
Leaning to the left, he took a careful peek.
It was nothing like a horse.
The creature was much smaller–a tiny thing about a foot tall. It stood with its back pressed against a fallen pillar, two tiny hands with three fingers each raised above its disproportionately huge head.
The head itself was quite interesting. It looked almost like his own head, but without the tentacles. A translucent, bulbous core with stubby little protrusions around the rim.
A winged creature almost four times larger was on the ground before it, twisting its long neck around at it. This winged creature had leathery wings folded between its arms like a hairless flying squirrel.
That must be one of the creature that cling up in the ceiling!
"Nee nalo!"
The little thing screamed. As alien as it looked, it was strangely humanoid. It looked like a mushroom, a jellyfish, and a baby mixed together at a very specific ratio. All of its outer flesh was transparent, turning more translucent toward its core. The blue light emanated from the stomach, spreading toward the boundary of its skin.
It had big gem-like eyes and a very tiny mouth with one visible top tooth like a rabbit.
The winged creature pecked at the blue creature with its long snout. Teeth clashed against something that Arcen couldn’t see, the impact sending blue and yellow sparks flying everywhere.
The little thing was protected with some sort of invisible energy field. He could only see it at the moment of impact. It rippled and then turned invisible again.
In its own way, the creature was undeniably cute. It wasn’t the default cuteness of Gollum the ragdoll, or the ugly cuteness of Meronolith King. This thing was beautiful, like a precious stone.
It’s some sort of a jellyfish alien baby.
He felt the tickle at his throat.
As he gazed the creature more closely, he saw something odd. It had a white side bag strapped to it, like a mock accessory strapped on a Barbie doll.
Wait, why does it have a bag?!
He remembered what Gareth told him about tribes in higher floors. A tribe would be things that he could talk and communicate with. That sounded like exactly what he needed if he was to find a way out of this hell tower.
The tiny thing was clearly in trouble. He decided to intervene.
He activated Mirage Blade.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯CONTRACT╰︶
????
MIRAGE BLADE
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
Arcen breathed a couple times in quick succession, pumping himself up.
Jumping out of cover, he dashed around the corner.
Both creatures jolted as he loomed behind them, three long steps away. He pushed himself face-first toward the pillar, swinging his blade arm across the winged creature.
There was contact before it had a chance to turn.
The blade slashed right across the winged creature's torso, sending one of the bat wings flying. Falling sideways, the creature screamed.
No you don’t!
Sliding on the grass, Arcen doubled back around. He leapt and came down hard on the creature, pinning its long neck to the ground with his foot before it could recover. It flopped around, trying to crawl away.
Arcen slashed it furiously as if he was sweeping the floor. The creature’s neck got sliced in six different places, and the last one cut deep enough to decapitate it completely.
He took his heel off the creature’s neck, drenched in thick green splashes of blood.
Oh dear God! I did it!
For once, he'd managed to do something without screwing up. He’d killed a flying creature the size of a big dog.
He felt powerful.
He looked at the little thing, huddling in the corner, looking up at him with its huge eyes. Its tiny mouth lay partly open in an apparent expression of surprise or shock.
Arcen extended his hand, getting on one knee.
"Eek!" It squeaked and dashed between his legs. It turned into a blue laser-like line as it ran and it disappeared fast in the distant grass.
"Wait!" Arcen yelled, chasing after it.
The blue line slowed down after he desperately called out for it a couple times.
Stumbling on his feet, Arcen leapt on it to catch the creature as it slowed down. It protected itself with a transparent shield bubble as he picked it up off the grass.
Holding it like an apple on one hand, he took an even closer look at it.
It really is a fucking jellyfish baby!
"Hello?" he flicked his fingers gently on the transparent shield. Blue sparks flew, repelling his finger. The little thing had its cheeks puffed, its small mouth twisted to a pout as if it was holding its breath.
"Can you speak? Hello? please speak again! please!"
It made no sound at all. It remained on his hand, contained in its shield bubble, frowning at him with its big gem-like eyes. The little thing was holding its breath for some reason. He knocked again and it started shivering. The jellyfish-like head trembled.
"Why aren't you breathing? hey! stop!"
He got his answer almost immediately. It opened its mouth and relaxed. The bubble vanished and the creature dropped onto his palm. It was really squishy, even more than he was.
What the?
"Elaniko! heralo! hei! kar!"
It exploded with words, trying to run away again. He used both his hands to restrain it, making sure to keep all of its limbs gathered together.
"Can you talk in English?"
It was pointless to ask. The little thing kept blabbing furiously with no regard for his question. Arcen decided to hold onto it until it calmed down or exhausted itself. He clamped the creature under his arm like a side bag.
"Calm down kid!" he whispered, ignoring its incessant blabbering.
I wonder where It came from?
It didn't look like it belonged in this chamber. It was fighting with a winged creature. This chamber didn't feel like a safe place where a community of these things could thrive.
Wait, reveal.
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╭────────────────────╮
︶╯SKILL╰︶
????
REVEAL
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
The result was rather unexpected.
╭╰︶?? ERITHERIA ??︶╯╮
╭────────────────────────────╮
︶╯ACTIVATION SUCCESS╰︶
╰─────────────╮╭────────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯NAME╰︶
????
JELLY
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯SPECIES╰︶
????
NYVARLEN
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯SENTIENCE╰︶
????
100%
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯TRAITS╰︶
????
REGENERATE
??
SPEED
??
EXTRACT
??
SENSE
??
BUBBLE
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯TRIBES╰︶
????
NYVARLEN NEST
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
?╭─ GOLD ─╮?
╰ 0 ╯
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯AURA╰︶
????
1,122,729
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
This thing's actual name is Jelly?
That was such a freakish coincidence. He had no idea why it would have such a self-descriptive name.
It had over one million Aura somehow. It had no skills or contracts just like the Meronolith Queen. Back then, he had attributed it to low sentience, he’d thought there was a hierarchy of sentience to have access to skills and contracts.
But this thing had one hundred percent sentience, no skills or contracts.
He couldn't figure out how any of that worked. If it wasn’t sentience, then the tower was differentiating between humans and every other species. Only humans had access to skills and contracts.
Regardless of what it was, he couldn't tell if he was holding a full grown man or a small child in his hand. He couldn't even tell if this 'Jelly' was supposed to be male or female.
He kept walking down the stream.
Jelly stopped blabbering at some point and just hung limp from his hand. Arcen checked every now and then to confirm if it was alive.
He thought he’d stressed it so hard it just died like a rabbit. He was relieved when he realized it had just closed its eyes and gone to sleep.
He sat down on a patch of grass to rest when he was close to the chamber wall.
He placed Jelly next to him.
What's in that little bag?
Curious, he pried it open with his fingers and pulled the contents out carefully.
Something heavy rolled out first. It looked like a seed made of metal with complex ridges and grooves all around it. A faint green light radiated from the deeper grooves, like glow-in-the-dark paint.
He had no idea what it was.
There were other things inside the bag, but nothing made any sense. There was a card of pills—some sort of painkillers. There was a single plaster and a long piece of nylon string wrapped around a small twig.
This thing is just collecting random stuff?
This was no tower creature. It was collecting items from humans.
A small laminated photograph was one of the most unusual items. He unfolded it carefully.
It was a human. A young, skinny black girl with wavy hair and braces. She was smiling widely, holding up two fingers for the picture. She looked like a teenager. The photo was old, with frayed corners and a yellowed white border.
What the hell is happening in this tower?!
There weren't many explanations for finding something like this in a tower. It could've been looted off a corpse. Maybe someone dropped their wallet.
He was shoving it all back inside the bag when Jelly snapped awake.
"Eek!"
"Please calm down!" he grabbed it by the leg before it could dash away again.
It saw the photograph in his hand and completely lost it.
“Elaniko! zuara! jelly!”
It had just made the sound for its own name.
"Calm down, Jelly please!" Arcen said, calling it by its name.
He handed the photo back because Jelly looked genuinely upset about it. It took everything in a hurry, and packed it all into the little side bag with its tiny hands.
"I'm sorry, I just needed to check!" Arcen said, trying to sound as apologetic as possible. He was sure this thing didn't understand a word of it. "Jelly? hey? Jelly?"
Jelly looked at him when he kept calling it by its name. He couldn't tell if it recognized the sound, or if it understood at least part of what he said.
The creature was glaring daggers at him as if he was the single worst thing in the world. Something about that feeling made Arcen reconsider his actions. Considering it could be a child from a tribe, he certainly didn’t want to drag this thing along like a hostage.
If it wasn't a child, keeping Jelly around felt like trying to maintain a pet he didn't know how to take care of.
He let go.
Jelly backed away, holding its breath again, forming the invisible shield bubble.
"Fine, you can just leave then, if you hate me that much."
I shouldn't have bothered.
He stood, walked over to the stream and started drinking more handfuls of ice water. He had to get going. Wasting more time with this thing wasn't going to help him.
Jelly scooted off several meters away, but it stood there staring at him through the grass blades.
“Run along, Jelly!” he yelled, clapping his hands to scare it off. He had a fair assumption that this was a child. Either way, this chamber wasn't safe for things that small. Jelly squeaked, and ran a few meters away but stopped again, staring at him for no apparent reason.
“Whatever then, You do you!” he said, taking one more glance at the blue glow on the grass.
He turned around and shuffled his way down the stream toward the chamber wall.
It occurred to him when he was few minutes into walking.
Wait, why don't I follow Jelly instead?
That seemed like a better strategy to get somewhere interesting. Going downstream into an unpredictable room wasn’t a good plan. Jelly clearly had places to be. It would likely be somewhere safe where other foot-tall-things can live in relative safety.
Such a place would definitely be safe for him as well. He turned around, looking for the blue glow in the grass. Jelly was moving slowly, about a hundred meters away. He kept himself low to the ground and started following.
Jelly took him in a great circle around the chamber, away from the stream and the grass. It knew how to navigate holes and corners that Arcen couldn’t fit through. He lagged about two hundred meters behind in the dark just to make sure Jelly didn’t see or hear him. Every now and then, he saw the blue light emerge from the grass, and he followed those flashes like way points.
Where is it going!
He passed the same landmark twice in the dark. He couldn’t hear the stream anymore, and he’d lost his bearings. At some point, he saw Jelly reach the chamber wall on the direction it was heading. He saw the faint silhouette of the veil there. Jelly turned around, stared for a second at the darkness, turned back around and dashed off into the next chamber in a blue line.
Oh, fuck that little brat! It’s playing with me!
He dropped his stealthy act and ran full speed ahead at the exit. Jelly was running surprisingly fast something that was just a foot tall. He chased it all around the next chamber.
This one was full of fungi of all shapes and sizes. Unlike the other chambers, nearby this one had some ambient light due to some glowing spots on the ceiling.
What the hell is that thing?
He squinted catching his breath for a moment. It looked like a giant beehive on the ceiling with fireflies the size of magpies going in and out of it. The hive spread far and wide with luminous nodes that glowed like ceiling lights.
They gave off enough light to bask the entire chamber in a dim, yellowish moonlight that was barely enough to see the shapes and general colors.
The entire chamber was mostly brown and dead.
Looks like something sucked this place dry.
The mushrooms were laid on top of each other, fallen into various positions as if they suddenly went limp and dried out one day. There was a black water pond at the center of the chamber with skeletons jutting out of the surface.
It was hard to track Jelly through this mess of dead fungus. There were way too many holes and crevices for it to weave through.
Something else caught Arcen’s eye at the edge of the pond at the center of the chamber.
He didn’t need to chase Jelly anymore. There was a tent with two yellow lanterns. He saw it clearer after circling around. The tent had been put together with skins peeled from these dried mushrooms.
That’s got to be where all the other Jellys are!
He made his way there, only stopping to observe and listen. As cute as Jelly looked, these creatures could be hostile. Pissing off a gang of foot-tall jellyfish babies with a million Aura each sounded like certain death. He needed a plan.
The plan was what it always was.
Mirage blade if they want to fight. Ball lightning if I’m about to lose.
He cleared his throat loudly. “Hello, Anybody here?” He called out as he walked towards the tent, trying not sneak up on them. He didn’t want to start this interaction on the wrong foot.
“Hello?”
He opened the tent, imagining a jellyfish household. The tent looked nothing like what he expected an alien tribal hut to look like.
There was a sleeping bag and an analog radio on a supply crate. There was a weirdly shaped machete stabbed cleanly into a piece of wood that looked like a chopping block.
Far from being Alien property, this looked like another human’s camp. He was immediately suspicious. He went for the machete and pulled it out of the wooden block.
A real weapon was better than the Mirage Blade when it came to threatening someone.
A book poked out from under the sleeping bag. He crouched to take a better look. It looked battered. He read the title. The Cradle Of Civilization: Brief History Of Mesopotamia. It was bookmarked with an earmarked page.
What kind of lunatic climbs a tower to read this shit in a tent?!
He didn’t want to find out. He stood and exited the tent from the other end. There was another entrance hidden under a dried giant mushroom head. It was made with different material from the main tent, with a membrane made of tangled threads that felt soft to the touch. A vertical tear in the wall opened like a curtain. He walked inside.
Dried carcasses hung from several tethers all around him. There were so many creatures that he'd never seen before. The variety was staggering. There were insects the size of a palm to a cleanly split half of a Norghal. That thing looked like melted polythene wrapped around bones.
Eugh. What does it even taste like?!
Everything was neatly wrapped and hung from the ceiling with thin transparent threads. He touched one carcass to feel the texture. It was slightly sticky, like glue that dried halfway.
As he slowly backed off this meat storage, he felt something pinch his back. He turned around, brandishing the machete.
"Who’s there!"
He felt something clinging to his back. Whatever it was, it moved when he moved. He felt its weight tug at his skin.
What the fuck is that?!
He managed to reach back and grab it. A slimy thread. He couldn’t pull it out of him no matter how hard he tried. It felt almost as slippery as the oily girl.
He tried to cut the thread with the machete but his arm moved slower and slower as he raised it. Suddenly, he felt like he was floating.
Then he actually was floating mid-air, as light as a feather. Everything slowed around his world and he landed gently on the ground, the machete clattering away, freed from his grip.
He saw Jelly smear into his vision from somewhere to his left. He was at eye level with it and Jelly looked as large as a human child from this angle.
A leather boot came into view behind Jelly. He saw the mud flaking off it in slow motion. Jelly looked up, pointed their tiny hand at him, saying something. The boot moved next to his face.
He felt someone touching his shoulder, turning him up.
A blurred humanoid shape with black hair and brown skin leaned over him.
“Now, where did you find this guy Jelly?” A muffled voice asked as his eyelids fell close despite his best efforts to keep them open.
“Help!” he tried to yell, but the words got stuck at his throat.
“I don’t think we’ve ever eaten octopus,” the figure said nonchalantly.
Before Arcen could open his mouth, everything went dark.
Next chapter on Wednesday.
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