Chapter 2: 2 – Flesh-colossus

From where she was she could see that the Failures in the direction from which she came weren’t moving directly towards her, but rather towards one particularly developed specimen, standing atop the lower half of a leg and two fully-formed, although stubby arms. It had three noseless faces between its limbs, and atop its mass there gaped a mouth spanning nearly its entire circumference, from which there issued not a screech, but a low, rumbling gurgle.

She observed with some curiosity as a limbless Failure reached the Tripod, pressing itself up against it as its skin began to melt at the point of contact, and within seconds its entire mass was absorbed into the Tripod’s. Liquid visibly sloshed about in the Tripod’s skin-sack, its skin tightening as its limbs became visibly more muscular and its stub leg ripped itself free, extending out into a fully-formed, twitching limb. 

With lightning speed, the Tripod leapt up and began sprinting at her, stomping on Failure after Failure and pulling them into its mass as it went. From three limbs to five, to nine, to eleven, a wrecking ball of flesh and mouths barreling down the chamber and collecting a carapace of glass shards as it went.

She took a deep breath, silver Fog pouring from her nostrils with the breath out. The corners of her mouth quirked upward and she was filled with anticipatory exhilaration. 

“Just one good gash and it’ll go pop,” she thought. “Just one straight hit and I’ll get crushed.”

Another deep breath in, another deep breath out, wisps of silver Fog snaking around her head. Legs planted wide with the left in front, glass shank in hand, a grin plastered across her face. The Colossal Failure’s mass swiftly approached and she leaned to the side, pivoting on her left foot as she stepped forward. It sank into the Failure’s mass, its edge gliding through the meatbag’s surface as its many limbs grasped and kicked at her and a discordant chorus of screams shuddered from its many biting maws. A flood of guts and blood poured from the hole she had made, the monstrosity’s own mass acting to force its innards out, which boiled and turned to green liquid before they could even touch her.

The deluge of emerald substance flooding forth covered her utterly, green Fog spraying out of the monster’s skin-sack as it deflated and further melted away. The sensation of warmth and life suffused her body once more, the remainder of her skin gaining colour and exposing the metallic, serpentine markings that snaked all across her body. Even still, the chamber’s floor flooded with what Green she didn’t take in, a thin layer of green Fog settling atop it.

Still she heard slithering and screeching, with a few more of the Failures having come alive, pathetically dragging themselves through the Green, so weak they were melting alive. The desire to exterminate them was quickly quenched by the sound of straining metal and grinding stone as the ground shook beneath her feet and the light-crystals flickered. 

“Need to get out. This place will sink into the Sea of Fog soon,” a thought not entirely her own flashed through her head as she passed through the doorway and began her ascent up the long, winding staircase. 

On the way up she passed the doorways to perhaps a dozen identical chambers or more, barriers of translucent silver fog preventing entry, the tanks on the other side all empty or shattered. One floor had a wall of seared flesh pressed up against its barrier, an amalgam of all its Failures. Another was full of featureless humanoids, some impaled on the broken edges of their tanks whilst others just lay face-down on the floor.

She didn’t take the time to get a closer look, with the tremors becoming progressively stronger and more frequent as she ascended. She scaled hundreds, thousands of stairs, and with each flight she went faster, driven by a growing sense of impending doom. By the time she reached the uppermost floors, the staircase was quaking in perpetuity.

“I’ll be safe if I reach the ground floor,” another foreign thought intruded. Faster up the stairs. Faster. Faster. Though she didn’t look back, she knew the staircase was being consumed behind her. When she finally leapt through the doorway a sudden wave of buzzing static rushed over her, and as she looked back, she saw the doorway filled with a wall of silvery fog. The Fog dissipated, revealing a slab of solid marble with an occult circle etched into its center, glowing with otherworldly light that soon flickered and faded as well. 

The smell of damp air and moss filled her nostrils as she scanned the room. It was an uneven hollow carved out of solid stone, with a metal ladder leading up into a shaft against the wall to the left. In the corner immediately to her right was one of the glass tubes, pristine and empty, and next to it there was a large stone table with a large cloth draped over it, as well as two shelves carved into the wall above it. “Could use something to cover myself with,” she thought, approaching the table and yanking the cloth away, wrapping it around herself like a large cloak. It was barely longer than her hair, but it would have to do. What the fabric had been covering momentarily grabbed her attention away from the ladder - it was some sort of arm harness, with a heavy wood and metal contraption attached to the gauntlet. What was the word… “A gun,” she remembered, instinctively looking for a powder horn, lead balls and shells. Both these and several loaded cartridges were to be found in the lower shelf, right next to a strangely intriguing marble tablet, bearing a bizarre pattern of carved lines and symbols. She let go of her shank, placing it on the table and reaching for the tablet. 

Buzzing static filled her fingertips when she picked it up, small wisps of Fog rising from the tablet.

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