🙡 Chapter 6.1 🙣

The prisoner

Sometimes one wonders how much media we consume affects our instinctive reactions to life circumstances. How many people responded with stupid TV series reference at a funeral. Or, instead of behaving like a normal person tried using a trope from a romantic TV series only to sound like a creep. Or said “Long live the king” when making their brother fall to their death. You know, things all of us had experienced at some point or another.

If you are thinking what brought this up—against my best judgment, I had this urge to take my tentacles, wrap them around the bars and scream “LET ME OUT! LEEET MEEE OUT!”.

Instead, I observed my surroundings, while continuing to pretend to be asleep. I was in a cage big enough for a creature five times my size, so I had quite a lot of space left. Well, me and my new companion—a stuffed plushie, very well made though a bit used up, of a cat with wings. Unlike modern plushies, which are far more stylised, this one seems to try replicating its model quite faithfully. Faithfully enough to, for a moment make me doubly glad I decided to try playing dead! On closer inspection I could tell It was quite old, even if someone took good care of it—there were quite a few mended holes, and part of its coat must have been replaced. Both of us lay on a floor stuffed with fresh straw, though I was also covered with a blanket. I could not see any rations, though there was a small plate filled with water. The conclusion was obvious.

I was to be made a subject of terrifying experiments. The stuffed toy was there to scare me into obedience, and show me that failure to follow proper procedures will end in being sent to death by being eaten by a flying tiger.

What? You think I’m wrong? They might have just put me here for now, and they will want to make me a pet? Oh, you sweet, sweet, naïve soul, that is reading my diary that I shall soon start writing with my blood on the floor of my prison. What I have yet to mention was the OUTSIDE of the cage.

A white wall completely covered in blood-red symbols, with wooden beams peaking here and there. Closed shut windows. And finally rows and rows of jars filled with floating body parts of a multitude of creatures—ordered and labelled. A clean and well maintained chopping board, showing signs of being used for many years. Humanoid hands and small wooden babies drying from ropes hung above my cage… and finally DRYING TENTACLES! Nooo! My cousin! I have never known you but I will do my best to avenge you! And living well is the best revenge so I have to get out of here! And, close to me, what must be a scene of struggle of the previous subject—scattered books and scrolls, and a big black stain on the ground, still wet, hastily covered with a dirty blanket. 

A lone man-topus, armless (tentacless?) against an unknown mad researcher? I can’t give up, but my odds look bad. I mean look at these meagre stats! I was overpowered by a child, how am I supposed to fight against anyone?

... Firstly, who the hell is Sir Yarnball? Also when will I finally be able to read the rest of my status? Well at least I got a new skill

I sighed out mentally. I got my complaints out, now it’s time to do something about my situation. The new skill should be helpful..

I was not foolish enough to repeat the same mistake twice, so no touching anything until it is necessary, and even then—no using hands. There was a place of peculiar interest on the cage—hinges to the door of my prison, and it’s lock. I’m afraid I had no picking skills, so the likelihood of opening it was miniscule, but a bad lock should be openable by applying force on the latch directly.

The time has come to stop the pretend sleep. Under the watch of hundreds of eyes floating in a jar, I slowly rose up, and once again searched for any living creatures inside the room. Not finding anything I got closer to the lock. And hope! The mechanism looked relatively primitive, if I found something thin I might be able to move it up! The hinges on the other hand were blocked on both sides, a countermeasure against beasts that might have enough brute force to open the door this way. It made the simplicity of the lock more suspicious— could it really be that easy? On the other hand, would you use an expensive and complex mechanism to lock up a chicken?

For now I decided not to risk my appendages (and I knew they could be made thin enough to fit in, as when I was thinking about attacking the shackle, a few of them were moving next to it, unconsciously getting thinner and thinner, moving around seemingly testing the ways to break in, as if they had brains of their own), and picked the plate with liquid provided by my captors.

I quietly floated above the plate, spilling the liquid on the plush toy to reduce the noise. The shiny ceramic surface reflected an ominous glow of small fire slowly cooking a certainly evil concoction I couldn’t see, but could hear bubbling away.  I put it under the shackle. My tentacles tensing into spirals close to my body. The well oiled mechanism slowly  gave way, the quiet sound of gears turning sounding like a jackhammer in this situation, and…

Success! Nothing happened, apart from the doors slowly opening! Not even a loud creak of the doors, they seemed well oiled actually. I looked back into the cage, and I felt a bit bad about leaving Mr. Cat inside, a foolishly sentimental thought. So I went outside instead.

Thanks to the magic of jumping off the table, I could just slowly float away, not even risking making the floor creak under my steps. Flying like a bird towards freedom! Floating like dandelion seeds towards sunnier pastures!

WOOOOOoooOOOoooOOOOOooOOO!

Reisinling

Yey for the new cover. This is the cropped version. I will experiment with different cropping's (the full body looks bad as a thumbnail, but nice in higher res). From next chapter onward status will be in collapsible spoiler tags.

I should try making a map of the room, to not mess it up later on.

EDIT: No idea what causes the rows of status table to take too much vertical space, trying to fix it still

Discord link- https://discord.gg/7jAXDhPY3M