Unsurprisingly, given that she was currently enjoying the wonderfully unique experience of having a large portion of her body dissolved by spooky acidic mist, Catnip was still in massive amounts of pain regardless of her newfound determination. However, she didn’t really have any way of getting out of that pain, at least without waiting a bit. Which sucked, majorly.
Thought processes were strangely hard to follow when the majority of your body was being eaten away, but the cat girl was still able to come up with a brilliant plan now that she actually intended to escape: Literally just let herself take damage while regenerating mana. Then try to do something.
So that’s what she did.
By the time Catnip had gotten enough mana, she really only had one leg and one arm left, the entire right half of her body just gone. By a stroke of luck, and the Lost Soul’s propensity to savor their meals, her head was undamaged. That didn’t really help her in regards to movement though - Unfortunately walking and crawling both tend to depend on having limbs, and generally pairs of them. Just one arm and one leg were not the most effective method of movement, although being a cat girl, her tail was also left too, which was sort of a pseudo limb. This wasn’t even addressing the issue of no longer having functional clothes, although that would be a much bigger problem once her body regenerated. They had made a valiant effort to conveniently not expose her too much so far, which Catnip had very much appreciated earlier, but the mist’s erasure was one step too far.
Fortunately, sort of puppeting her body with blood did not really require her limbs to be functional, especially since she started with a very sudden ‘throw’ of all the blood in her body as fast as she could.
The vines pinning her down ripped against the remains of her body, damaging it further but eventually falling to hold her down, leaving Catnip arcing into the mist in the general direction Flora had left in. A trail of blood followed her body through the air, giving some of the mist a reddish tinge. And with a thump, Catnip’s body hit the ground again, rolling slightly before she used the remaining half of her mana to do another blood ‘throw’, leaving her both dead and without mana again. And thus both regenerating mana and health incredibly slowly again.
Fuck, she probably should have considered that happening. Maybe at least saved some mana at least to prevent ending up in this ‘super dead’ state, as she had now officially named it.
Mercifully Catnip’s unwise decision making worked out just this once as her body just so happened to fly directly into Flora carrying Myra, causing her to jump in alarm and immediately restrain her with vines via plant magic. She looked back after a second and seemed to relax a bit at seeing Catnip, only to immediately tense up and bolt forward after seeing something else behind her.
“Catnip, it’s good to see you” she breathed out between gulps of air as they ran, carrying Myra with her arms and using the vines restraining Catnip to carry her as well, “but you appear to have been followed.”
Being super dead, she declined to respond. It would cost too much mana.
“Fuck, I’m just going to assume you’re somehow okay,” Flora muttered under her breath. “Hopefully the vines give up the chase once we get out of the forest, the Lost Souls never followed us before after all.”
Flora swayed to the side seemingly at random, barely dodging another vine attempting to spear her, the plant seeming frustrated upon missing, as much as a Creeping Vine with no face could emote anyway, utilizing the energy gained from such mild frustration to gain speed as it crawled forwards like a mass of snakes, almost matching Flora’s speed due to her baggage. Flora cursed, and once again seemed to make a random movement, avoiding another attack from a different side. None of the attacks were aimed at Catnip so her danger sense never even went off, but it kind of seemed Flora had her own variant right now. Or maybe she was just hyper aware of plants in her vicinity due to her magic?
The mist swirled around them, sometimes seeming to part while other portions drifted towards them, barely recognizable as Lost Souls. It almost seemed like the forest itself was coming alive, the Creeping Vines being joined by others of their kind, some hanging off trees, others trying to trip them through the undergrowth. It was like they smelled blood in the water, previously unseen Souls and Vines acting almost in coordination, the trap they fell for determined to not let its victims escape. The mental manipulation had lured them deep into the forest and turned its entirety against them now that they were there, much of the previously inert forest furiously attempting to kill them, or at least trip them up.
And as if that wasn’t enough, Catnip’s vision started acting strange, her eyes simply drifting over some of the vines, Flora only managing to dodge at the last second via her plant sense, the direction they were running seeming to shift on its own, the pulse of the mists seeming almost hypnotic, the rustling all around them sounding like strange whispers in a voice she vaguely recognized.
“... together the peace, found anew…. “
“Shut up!” Flora yelled back, failing to notice a Lost Soul of the Mist that they were about to run into, her plant sense not helping her here. Fortunately for her, delirious as she was, Catnip’s danger sense still worked, and she wasn’t quite as dead anymore. “...left!” she managed to croak out, additionally moving the blood in her body slightly to lean them in that direction. Flora almost tripped from the movement, but they succeeded at not running directly into the thing anyway, although Catnip’s remaining arm did get nicked by it, dissolving away her skin there and leaving it bleeding and raw. Not a big deal, if there was one thing Catnip knew, it was that her physical wellbeing was not important in the slightest.
“... to return a promise, repair true-” the faint whispering continued from around them, Catnip realizing her familiarity with them came from the distant voice of Zack that echoed under their words. That kind of hurt, but it also seemed like almost trying too hard to be creepy or something, the spooky classicTM of using your friend’s voices against you was a fairly common trope after all. Sadly knowing that didn’t change the feelings hearing Zack’s voice invoked.
“... our last salvation, for us and you”
The catgirl, totally not attempting to distract herself from her feelings about Zack’s death and subsequent return as both mist and plant voices, wondered if plants were able to conceptualize this stuff themselves, or were just regurgitating some weird shit someone said in the forest before. How much could monster plants with no nervous system think at all? Or actually, maybe it was just like a soul thing, being able to draw on the memory of the person that soul was or something. Which promptly made her kind of uncomfortable again because that would imply the things would be able to draw on all of Zack’s memories and life as well.
“ An endless cycle, a coiling snare -”
Flora was just ignoring them at this point, which was probably wise since they were likely laced with additional mental magics, but Catnip knew she couldn’t miss any juicy lore even if it was random nonsense told by weird spirit plants. She simply didn’t roll like that.
“As one we shall at last subdue -”
Regardless of Catnip’s thoughts, Flora’s dedication to escaping had started paying off as the edge of the forest was in sight, Flora gaining a burst of energy at the sight and quickly leaving the vines in the dust.
“Rising dawn, we must prepare”
Still, the forest started to close ahead of them, having gotten the message to prevent them from escaping, rustling bushes around them starting to reveal themselves as Lost Lights, preparing to shoot their attack. The lights made the forest seem almost magical, which Catnip would spend time appreciating in any other situation. Currently, she was much more concerned by the acid globs they just shot at Flora and by proxy those she was carrying.
“A world awaiting to end despair”
Flora didn’t panic, dodging the first shot from one of the lights, but another hitting her in the shoulder, melting away at it. She just grunted, and continued on towards the closing exit, like the badass she was. Pretty soon they were at the edge, the way almost completely blocked by the forest’s attempt to close them in, but she was sure something like that wouldn’t stop Flora, nor would the blocking vines trying to stab them. Although Catnip did also start gathering up her falling blood and sending it out as sickles to cut through some of the blocking plants, because she wanted to feel useful. The mage took the opportunity to rush through the gap while using her own vines to clear the remaining blockages, and tripped out onto the somewhat rocky bottom of the valley, the dungeon entrance in sight. They were clear.
“For now we rest in silence” the whispers finished, Zack’s voice clearer than ever, the rest of the forest having fallen eerily silent after their exit. Although it almost seemed like the forest floor was sort of creeping forward subtly, moving towards them and the dungeon. It was like they had awoken something that had no plans of stopping its pursuit of its victims, even if they went off and wandered into the dungeon again.
Wait shit if it was going to keep advancing their entire group probably needed to be ready to get moving on their dungeon escape plan soon -
“haaaa- “ Flora sighed quietly, abruptly dropping both Myra and Catnip onto the rocky floor, having reached the dungeon entrance and seemingly somehow managing to absorb the conjured vines she’d been using to carry them thus far, rather than how they normally disappeared. Myra continued being not aware of the world and rolled over, and Catnip herself just made a little oof sound and proceeded to not move or get up. They had all just been through some shit.
“Catnip, are you up and aware? I think we should, I dunno, prepare for what we’re going to tell the rest of the group about Zack’s death,” Flora said mumbled solemnly, sitting down next to Catnip’s regenerating form that was still kind of bleeding out onto the ground.
Catnip tilted her head slightly towards her. “...the forest seems to be advancing as well, so we also have to tell them about that” she added with a sigh. “Plus I should probably put on some clothes before doing that. The ones I was wearing are kind of not a thing anymore.”
Flora glanced over at her, startling in surprise as if just noticing the fact that other than a few patches of rags on the side of Catnip’s body that hadn’t been erased, she was entirely exposed. She quickly looked away and muttered something under her breath about “going to grab some of her spares'', retreating into the dungeon. It was interesting how surprisingly not embarrassed about being seen Catnip was, she was so used to being hurt and having holes in her clothing that she’d simply stopped caring. Kinda strange, as back in her old body she had always done her very best to hide away as much as possible.
Oh wait that was probably because previously she hated her body and was thus dysphoric -
Shut up! She couldn’t forget they were just a man that got lucky, there was no way she was actually trans! Yes, she’d tentatively started using she/her pronouns due to Flora’s support and suggestions but, she had to remember: She wasn’t a real girl, nor a real trans person. She couldn’t start using terms like ‘dysphoric’ like that, those were reserved for transgender people and their struggle. A struggle he completely skipped by giving a body for free like this. RIght, crisis aver-
Oh shit they still had that whole gender talk planned for tomorrow, hopefully she wouldn’t let herself be convinced of something that wasn’t true then. That she actually deserved to be a girl, a straight up cat girl(she had really not been taking advantage of that cat aspect by the way, the ears and tail were hella cute so why didn’t she appreciate them more?), to be happy. It always came down to that, didn’t it. The idea of her deserving to be happy, when she knew that she was so selfish and useless and just a horrible person who needed to be chained down by her own self hatred and depression for the well being of everyone - it was insane! No matter how delusional that all sounded, Catnip couldn’t let it go, not today, and not tomorrow in her scheduled gender talk. Especially not just after she proved herself right by letting Zack die. She knew herself to be a mistake already, but after that? There was no doubt.
—
“So I guess we’ll just be risking the whole spore infection thing then,” Rose commented after things were explained to everyone, all sitting around in a circle and all that. “Whatever, I have no fucking clue what else to do, so it’s fine.”
“To minimize the risks we can stick to the border area between the dungeon itself and the fungal infestation,” Frank suggested, nodding to himself. “Does anyone have a problem with that plan?”
No one did.
“Alright, then I advise that everyone gets ready to leave and takes time to go over your stats and leveling rewards. We need every advantage we can get,”
“Sounds good,” Catnip agreed, “But I think there’s something missing here,”
“Like what?”
“We’re forgetting Zack is fucking dead. Like he’s gone forever, and we’re just like, not even addressing it.” The atmosphere grew solemn, Dacre seemingly the most affected by the reminder due to her pampered upbringing. Everyone else was…. Somehow okay.
“Look girl, this probably isn’t what you want to hear, but death is just part of the life of any mercenary or adventurer. And none of us even knew each other before this whole debacle anyway,” Sorjorn spoke gruffly. “You get used to it.”
As Catnip listened to his words, she had one thought: She didn’t want to get used to it. To forget about the people that passed through her life, no matter how quickly they did. She didn’t want to accept that this was a different world with different views on violence, that life was any less valuable in a world where it can end in an instant. It was most definitely a naive view. And Catnip knew, if she really did keep every passing person in her heart, it would tear her apart, cruel as this world was. But….
“...Can we at least have a small funeral for him once this is all over, at the very least? We didn’t know him, and his body can’t be recovered, but he deserves better than an unmarked grave.” she conceded for now. It was the least she could do to accept the reality of this world.
“Yeah, we can do that,” Flora answered quietly, the rest of the room agreeing in silence. “But we don’t have the time now. Now we must deal with our classes and get ready to leave.”
And so they did. A large part of her cried out that how dare she just move on to doing anything after her failures got Zack killed, but another knew now that this world would keep moving, heedless of all the death and pain. If Catnip wanted to make up for even a fraction of her failures, she had to be able to push onwards like her allies. She refused to grow accustomed to this world’s cruelty, yes, but all her ideals would be for nothing if she spent forever stewing in guilt and grief. So, leveling, and uhhh, important system stuff, she could at lesat do that.
Catnip personally had not been focusing on her leveling at all, sometimes she all but forgot the gamelike mechanics of this world, the world in front of her seeming too real and raw to be run off something like stats. She had mostly just used the system to sense how much mana or health she had left, although she was still very unsure about how the health thing worked. In the moment, she never really saw the health bars, what she saw was the physical damage and generally that meant enough. Could someone be rather illogically beheaded(without an undying skill) and survive because technically they had some health left? Could they drop dead suddenly after being hit repeatedly with no actual mortal wounds, the health bar having reached zero? What even was the system? She sure hoped it wasn't like the one from a certain spider’s world, she’d prefer a world with no Taboo and no MA energy.
She took a deep breath, and sighed. It didn’t matter, or well, it did, but that was not something to worry about now. She had to work with the constraints of the reality she was in, and to everyone here, this was perfectly natural. And many otherworlders, like whoever the summoned heroes were, probably didn’t look too deep into it, recognizing systems from fiction and videogames and such. Or maybe they did, she shouldn’t look down on her fellow isekai’d comrades. Either way, this world was harsh, and stats were the tools everyone had to survive in it.
Name: Catnip
Species: Catkin
Gender: egg cracking in extreme denial
Sex: Female
Titles: Otherworlder, Death Defying, Human Shield, Seeker of Lore, Ⲙ̴̢̼̏͘ⵁ̸͇̖͆̇Ɉ̵͙͉̓͠ʜ̴͈̫̀̕ɘ̸̫̓̄ͅɿ̷̧̢̋̌’ Seen
Class: Feline Fighter[Rank 0] lvl 170/200
Class skills - Feline Instincts lvl 200/200
2nd Class: Blood Mage[Rank 0] lvl 166/200
Class skills - Blood Manipulation lvl 200/200
General Skills:
Identify lvl 29/350
Undying lvl 30/100
Pain Resistance lvl 87/100
Poison Resistance lvl 61/200
Throwing lvl 20/150
Punching lvl 11/150
Claw Slash lvl 40/300
Very Weak Body Enforcement lvl 72/200
Mana Manipulation lvl 176/250
Blood Magic lvl 205/250
Mind Magic Resistance lvl 182/250
Mist Magic Resistance lvl 53/250
Blood Puppetry[Self] lvl 94/250
Blood Enforcement lvl 61/250
NEW! Soul Magic Resistance lvl 7/250
NEW! Fade Magic Resistance lvl 7/250
Stats:
Health: 1163/1163
Mana: 802/802
Strength: 348
Speed: 664
Mana regeneration: 80.2 per minute
Health regeneration: 30 per minute
Unspent Stat points: 68+79 [147 earned - 60 used on Spd, 87 on Mana]
Available classes:
Thrower[Rank 0]
Brawler[Rank 0]
Feline Fighter[Rank 0] in use
Student[Rank 0]
Blood Mage[Rank 0] in use
Necromancer[Self][Rank 0]
Novice Historian[Rank 0]
NEW! Ⲙ̴̢̼̏͘ⵁ̸͇̖͆̇Ɉ̵͙͉̓͠ʜ̴͈̫̀̕ɘ̸̫̓̄ͅɿ̷̧̢̋̌ Touched[Rank 0]
Well, it was something at least. She was still leveling pretty fast overall, and would likely be reaching Rank 1 pretty soon, but that was kind of given due to the situation. Catnip had sure hoped the previous 4 days capped off with… today would be worth a lot. She checked the two skills that had maxed, and got back - Class Skills cannot rank higher than their Class, which kind of sucked but also made sense. Hopefully the fact that it specified class skills meant that general skills lacked that limitation. After distributing her stat points as she saw fit, mostly speed and mana again since those were still her main limiting factors, she went to check on all of the new stuff.
Ⲙ̴̢̼̏͘ⵁ̸͇̖͆̇Ɉ̵͙͉̓͠ʜ̴͈̫̀̕ɘ̸̫̓̄ͅɿ̷̧̢̋̌’ Seen
-
- You’ve been discovered by one of Them. No idea how exactly, given their typical nature and living spaces. Either way, congratulations on remaining mostly untouched, and pray you remain so.
- You are 2% harder for Them to affect, but more noticeable for having been seen before. Slight ability to perceive higher dimension planes.
Uhhhhhhhhhhh - Catnip already knew something with cursed text or whatever was going to be some freaky shit, but it was still rather concerning to read such a description. She had no clue what could have given her this. The mists maybe? That did seem like the most alien location she had been to so far, and the whole creepy singing-in-your-dead-friends-voice thing had sort of suggested that there was likely some sort of intelligence behind whatever was going on there. Whatever they were, she did not want to join them in the rest their words had suggested. Hopefully it was just that, and not some random entity discovering her at random that was now watching her and possibly planning to affect her in some way. No incomprehensible parasitic space whales for her, thank you very much. At least the mists felt like an ever so slightly known threat.
Soul Magic Resistance[Rank 0 Skill]
-
- You’ve managed to encounter something that ate away at your very soul, or tried to take or influence it in some way. And yes, souls do indeed exist, and you can sell yours in the right places. The system does not want your soul however.
- Shockingly leveling up increases resistance to Soul magic damage.
Fade Magic Resistance[Rank 0 Skill]
-
- Fade magic, an incredibly rare magic that fades away one’s physical being, as if making one more translucent. Can create drifting beings unattached to the physical world, though it’s often paired with soul and or mind magic that prevents that from happening. If you desire your continued existence on the physical plane, it is advised you avoid interacting further with situations that end in exposure to this magic.
- To the surprise of no one, increases resistance to Fade magic damage with leveling.
On second thought, the mists were still scary as fuck. Shit, did her Undying status even account for stuff like that, for the death of her soul or the loss of a physical body? Would she eventually regenerate her body from nothing, or would she be stuck without one forever? Briefly, she felt panicked at the concept of actually being able to suffer very permanent harm, before realizing she was okay with that. Being unable to die wasn’t a normal thing after all, and she never wanted to get used to the idea of her being immortal or something. Everyone around her wasn’t immortal at all after all, and honestly the people around her were what motivated her to live anyway. If she hadn’t remembered that others were depending on her just earlier today… she couldn’t dwell on it right now, Catnip had already gone way past the recommended daily amount of depressive spirals. She very rarely paid attention to things like that, often consuming copious amounts of sugar and sodium regardless of food labels, but this was one time where she’d gladly comply. Still, the possibility of being able to permanently die through some obscure method didn’t seem particularly dire to her, nor completely unwelcome.
Although… She couldn’t deny that her existence as Catnip was one she was becoming increasingly attached to and happy with, even though she knew she didn’t deserve any of it. She knew she wasn’t transgender, that she had cheated to get the body she did, that she was a horrible person who deserved none of this, but - Dammit, she could at least admit to herself that she absolutely loved being cute and feminine and cuddling with Flora and the smoothness of her legs and her cute little ears and her voice and the way it just felt so light and wonderful and made her want to giggle! and - Catnip shut off her thoughts there once again, this was becoming a real problem. She was inching closer and closer to indulging herself, and scariest of all, she was having trouble with finding that to be an issue.
Clearly, the solution was to just think about anything else and pretend everything was fine. That one new class option she hadn’t looked at yet would serve as an excellent distraction.
Ⲙ̴̢̼̏͘ⵁ̸͇̖͆̇Ɉ̵͙͉̓͠ʜ̴͈̫̀̕ɘ̸̫̓̄ͅɿ̷̧̢̋̌ Touched[Rank 0 Class]
- Touched by one of Them, you can accept Their gift and take this class. As someone touched by something more, you can begin to conceive the countless higher dimension planes, and creep ever so slightly closer to Their truth. Warning, this class will cause severe permanent physical and or mental changes as directed by Their will.
- 1 strength, 5 health, 5 mana, 2 speed, and 3 free stat points per level. Additionally 2 AAAA points.
There were many things Catnip was unsure of in this world. She had zero faith in approximately all of her decisions and her newfound happiness that she was just coming to terms with didn’t change that fact. However, she was sure of one thing: Choosing this class would be a very bad idea. Even if it did provide the best stats out of any she’s seen so far. She vowed to herself to avoid whoever the hell they were for the foreseeable future. As she had realized earlier, being unable to die doesn’t mean being immune to true harm, and she bet whatever they could easily provide such.
Catnip finally looked up from her stats, looking around the room. Dacre was sitting in the corner with Fresia, pouting. She hmphed a little when Catnip looked at her, and managed to communicate solely with her eyes ‘hurry the fuck up peasant’. Mia was quietly discussing something with Flora, and Frank was with the mercenaries discussing plans, excluding Myra, who was staring into space in another part of the room. It occurred to Catnip that the forest incident, as she shall now refer to today’s happenings, were actually incredibly traumatic, possibly even for a sellsword used to trauma. Mental manipulation, soul magics, literally having your physical body fade away, all of those things were quite different then just seeing others die or nearly dying, and it seemed Myra was feeling the effects. She chose to leave her alone for now, but put a note down on her imaginary notepad to try to comfort her and talk things through later. Zack was gone now, and she never even tried to get to know him much at all. She refused to make the same mistake with the other mercenaries.
For now, she decided to wait a bit, then maybe join Flora and Mia or something, since they were fun people to be around. Then hopefully everyone would be ready to head out. That was a rather important thing to do after all, given that Catnip swore she could see some mist starting to drift in from outside, and though she didn’t think something like that would be able to make it that far into the dungeon, the dungeon itself fighting back or something, she didn’t want to bet on it.
___
They planned to stick to the border of the fungal infection, letting the dungeon creatures and infected hopefully keep to their own battles. It wasn’t a foolproof plan, and getting stuck between both sides as they both attacked would likely end rather badly, but that's what they planned for now. The exit out in the direction towards Verbon did require passing through a significant chunk of the fungal portion in the end, but it hopefully wouldn’t be too bad. Hopefully. They didn’t really have a choice in this, and honestly the whole concept of sapient beings being affected by some fungal plague was a bit far fetched in the first place. Catnip just didn’t want to risk it, having tangential knowledge of that one game with that one girl with all the mushroom zombies, yeah, that one. And she also read one of the original D&D monster manuals when she was younger, which included a plant monster with yellow flowers that took people over and made them like, flower zombies, which was kind of similar. Reality had no real reason to follow the trends laid out in fiction from earth, but that might not be completely true about this reality given its various litrpg archetypes.
The dungeon itself was monstrously large, if the map was accurate, so they’d likely be stuck in it for at least several days or longer. To Catnip, this place seemed like a bit much for her first dungeon, as it was basically intended to be a city in the first place, and thus sprawled underneath much of an entire mountain, or maybe even multiple. Or more like, a portion of the range. Yeah, let's just go with that.
Due to the extended nature of the dungeon delve, the first place they stopped was the mushroom farm they had found a way into the non infected portion, full of nutrishrooms and a variety of other varieties she didn’t care to name. These cultivated mushrooms had proven to be perfectly nourishing and not poisonous so far, but there were no bets about any further into the dungeon, especially any that were remotely in the vicinity of the sickly yellow fungi that clung to every part of the ‘infested’ section. Mushrooms also generally didn’t go bad very fast, or at least these ones didn’t seem to, so they could carry a lot with them for the journey. Possibly only about a week’s worth, especially since they only had a few bags and such that weren’t lost in the carriage’s fall, but that would be enough. Water wasn’t an issue of course, with Dacre’s water magic.
Catnip and Mia lead the group forwards, Catnip since she wasn’t really risking herself and Mia because she was the only scout left. Because Zack was still dead. The going was slow, but mostly not all that dangerous. Mia would detect the monsters ahead of either variety, let the two factions fight each other if they happened to be in conflict, or lead the group mostly around them. The things they did fight were manageable, the [Rank 0]s and [Rank 1]s feeling like good training more than anything else, Mia managing to avoid any [Rank 2]s so far. It was almost fun at times, dancing around masses of flowing hexapedes, slashing at them with claws or turning the blood from her wounds into sickles the instant it left her body, Mia avoiding all attacks with nimble movements and answering with the occasional blade of wind mixed in with regular slashes, her single arm hardly seeming to hinder her. When the going got a little rough, the others caught up, Fresia stealthily assassinating the few remaining monsters while Dacre and Flora moped up any others. Notably, Flora’s fighting had improved quite a bit since their last battle, her vines moving quicker and sometimes extending from her arms almost naturally, the way Flora had regained her substance by almost subsuming her plants apparently having made her more in tune with them. Perhaps she gained a skill or class or something, apparently the specifics of one’s system stats and skills were normally considered private information for some reason so she didn’t really know how everyone had improved. Catnip had just directly told Flora and Mia about her leveling to their amusement, she saw no reason not to. They were her friends. Right? Was she allowed to onesidely declare friendship like that? Did she need permission?
“Hey Mia, we’re friends right?” she asked as they scouted ahead through a large open room with a long dry fountain in its center, surrounded by what perhaps was once an artificial lawn, now faded and rough. Perhaps a miniature park, if a lame one.
“Of course we are Catnip, why wouldn’t we be?” Mia reassured, noting the corpses of a number of insect-like creatures covering a portion of the room, mixed in with yellowish mycelium. Though remnants of much older corpses were also scattered around the room, ‘fresh’ corpses on one side of the room marked the dispute as ongoing, the corpses showing a history of the fungus slowly advancing deeper into the room. A yellowish haze could be seen drifting off some of the most infected corpses, the exit in that direction marked by creeping veins of sulfuric yellow.
“I just didn’t want to like, assume, I guess,”
Mia sighed, troubled. “We care about you and like you as a person, you’re not assuming anything” she muttered, as the rest of the party began entering the room behind them.
The scouts continued onward, the park followed by a large stone pathway with branching corridors along the sides, towards what looked like residential areas and limited fungal gardens. Artificial lights lit most corridors, but it seemed as though they weren’t able to cultivate many living plants despite that, the dull minimalist shelter only featuring moss in some places. At one point they had to duck into one of these side quarters to wait out a fight between several hexapedes and what appeared to be beetle-like creatures spotted with mold-like fungal growths, apparently too far away for them to use identify on.
Their luck in avoiding fighting fungal monsters eventually ran out at some point in the day, finding themselves beset by small [Rank 1] infested hexapedes, most of the party ending up in battle at times against the significantly more tricky foes. Over time, they were forced to move further and further to the left, the yellow infestation creeping further into the dungeon the deeper they went. At times, they passed through sections that were distantly recognizable as shopping districts, ambushing Creepers mixing in with the hexapedes throughout these sections, making the goings slower and more cautious. But, they continued on anyway, and for a while it seemed like things would be fine, that they could do this. Although such a successful journey would mean Catnip would likely have no excuses to avoid that gender talk with Flora once they settled down for the day, which she still didn’t feel ready for at all, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.
Of course, one should never think anything should ever be fine if they actually wanted things to be fine. Murphy’s law or something, or jinxing it, or whatever other cultural idea about things going badly if you said out loud that they were going well. Either way, it was rather undeniable that something had gone wrong once their party failed to follow them and sounds of shouting could be heard.
Catnip dashed back, quick as she could, Mia hot on her heels, only to find themselves cut off by a shifting mass of sickly yellow covering the floor, the rest of their party, sans Dacre and Fresia for some reason, visible through the doorway and fighting another similar mass. In the corner, the corpses of several infected hexapedes oozed out the substance, leaving husks behind, their fungal infection drained. Which probably meant what they were now facing were the fungi responsible for taking infesting and controlling them in the first place. Needless to say, Catnip would rather avoid touching that.
Haven’s mold[Lvl 58][Rank 2]
Catnip wondered why this stuff hadn’t acted earlier briefly, thought about it for a second, then realized she should probably be paying more attention to fighting the things. Which had just created multiple tentacles out of their mass and were lashing out surprisingly quickly.
With only a moment’s hesitation, she slashed her wrist with her claws and accelerated the blood forward in the form of several blades of crimson, the pain barely noticeable. Mia reacted similarly by slashing her sword and extending its blade with her wind magic, cutting off the remaining tentacles. Which promptly continued acting as though they hadn’t just been cut off, and wriggled forwards like worms after the rain.
Why did people like tentacle hentai again? Why was it even a thing? Seriously, seeing them in person, tentacles were just kind of disturbing! She didn’t want to kink shame though, that wasn’t cool.
“Any clue how to more permanently kill this stuff?” she called out as she continued to attack by draining concerningly large amounts of her own lifeblood, even trying out making a tentacle of the stuff despite her personal dislike of them, like the hypocrite she was.
“Uh, no?” Flora called out from her own battle with more of the mold, her vines shriveling as they touched the stuff yet doing damage all the same. “I would say to kill it with fire, but I don’t think any of us actually has any fire magic.”
“Oh, right.”
“Damn.”
Their mold gurgled and shot out a piece of itself, danger sense allowing Catnip to dodge only barely. Mia tried slashing it with her actual physical weapon, only for it to eat the metal away in an instant. She went back to wind magic, looking sadly at her blade for a second. Fortunately due to duel wielding before the loss of her arm, she did have another sword.
Hoping that these mold’s still had a health stat and thus could still be killed even by seemingly ineffective slashing, Catnip continued slashing with blades of blood, occasionally lashing out with her blood tentacle thing as well. It was oddly effective, and unlike her blades or sickles, it was reusable and thus significantly cut down on her blood usage. Projectiles of blood were useful at a distance of course, but she had to admit that despite her insane regeneration and large amounts of blood from her class, she didn’t have an infinite amount at any given time. It would also probably be a bad idea to use so much that she straight up got anemia.
For the most part, they had no real problems for the rest of the battle. There was a lot of ooze, and it had separated their party rather effectively for a small time, but the actual stuff wasn’t exactly the strongest for a [Rank 2]. Though it was the kind of thing that you couldn’t fight physically really due to it’s infective and corrosive nature, making swordsmen like Frank unable to do anything to it, magic use made killing them trivial. Mostly. Okay, yeah, she did accidentally get a bit on her tail at one point, which hurt like hell and forced her to cut off the end, which sucked because her tail was her life despite her basically never mentioning it’s existence, but whatever. Minor damage that would cripple an entire appendage wasn’t really that big of a deal really.
Cutting apart the stuff did eventually make it stop moving, although it took a while. By the time Catnip and Mia had cleared enough of the stuff to get into the room with Frank, Flora, and the mercenaries, Flora had already dealt with most of theirs. Though it was just Flora who had done the killing, as no one else really had much magic. Apparently it was generally kind of hard to learn or something, and required being taught. Huh. Frank’s weird pseudo sight was basically magic at this point though, even if it wasn’t offensive, and Myra, who had been brooding in the corner over her inability to take part in a good fight, apparently knew a soldier’s skill that allowed one to imbue their weapon with some degree of mana to strengthen it. She just didn’t think it was strong enough to hold up against the corrosive slime.
They found Dacre and Fresia holed up in a side room that branched off the route they had been taken, unfortunately on the fungal side, the mold or or less having herded them there. Dacre looked slightly shaken, and tired from mana usage. Apparently she had needed to take a bathroom break, her maid standing guard over at the door of the room, and they had been attacked exactly then with the mold even briefly separating them.
At this point, they realized they were all incredibly tired and in need of a meal or two, so once everyone was grouped back together they set up camp in a rather dull looking building on the non-fungal sign that seemed to be home to cheap apartments. Or something, the sign above its entrance labeled “Best Western Quality Holiday Comfort Apartments”, a truly inspired name. There looked to be more than enough rooms for each separate group to have their own, but the mercenaries at least chose to stay in the same one for security, choosing their own little area since all that was left of the room’s two beds were rather unappealing stone platforms, their mattresses having rotted away. Fortunately the remains of them didn’t smell. Dacre and Fresia slipped away to find their own room at some point, even if Catnip personally thought that separating the group much would be unwise. Though it wasn’t really a big deal, just another part of the building.
She ended the day leaning comfortably against Flora, Mia sleepily curling up on Flora’s other side as if doing her best to join the catgirl clan. Frank sat a few feet away from them, his posture reminiscent of a meditating monk, perhaps focusing on the strange sense he had developed since being blinded. It kind of reminded her of the concept of cultivation, though it was rather unlikely that things like qi and the dao were a thing here. Probably for the best honestly, given that despite the unpleasantness she had experienced so far in this world, none of it was nearly as bad as an average day in a Xanxia-world.
Sorjorn just brooded in another corner while Rose and Myra leaned against each other, Myra looking distinctly tired and troubled yet joining her friend in unconsciousness all the same. Myra… she didn’t know much about her, but there was a certain comradery gained by experiencing incredibly traumatic experiences involving death together, so she felt close enough to her to be concerned that perhaps the forest weighed heavier on her than it seemed, given the way her face seemed disturbed even in sleep. She was a mercenary right? Fighting for money, fighting for the joy of it or something, seeing plenty of people die and killing them herself, right? So she should be able to cope with stuff like this fine, right?
Admittedly the specific situation of mental manipulation and soul stealing mist that turned friend into foe in an instant was a rather unique and nasty trauma, but she would probably be okay. Right? Right?
Dang she’d probably need to talk to her in the morning about all that stuff. And Flora, since she was also had the privilege to experience the events in the mist, and she guessed she kinda needed to talk about it herself too though - Though Zack’s death really was her fault, so maybe she didn’t deserve help - but
“Catnip, about that talk…” Flora interrupted her thoughts, stopping them in her tracks as she began to realize that despite her delaying efforts on that whole gender thing, she likely would actually have to have the talk tonight, much to her dismay. “Do you want to keep it more private-like in one of this place’s other rooms or something?”
“...Yes, um, that would be nice,” she answered after a moment, glancing around the room as she considered the optimal route to delay this conversation even just a few more minutes if possible, stumbling upon the fact that the Dacre and her maid had somewhat unwisely left on their own to another room, and thus should probably be checked on. There was no way her scheme would be seen through! “How about you talk to Mia about joining while I go check on the cheese lady?”
“Now that you mention it, they kind did of go off alone without much thought, which is honestly kind of concerning. So sure I guess, as long as this isn’t just a delaying tactic.” Flora replied after a second, immediately seeing through Catnip’s ploy yet for some reason allowing her to execute her master plan regardless.
“Admittedly it is, but I kind of also do think that having them separated from the rest of the group like that is unsafe, so I’d like to check on them myself,” she confessed, turning to honesty after her previous failure.
Flora stared into her eyes intensely for more than a few moments, seemingly considering things deeply. She sighed and looked away.
“Fair. Cya soon”
Catnip quietly left the room and into the hallway, looking around before heading to the ‘lobby’ area they had entered through. No one was there, the ground slightly scuffed from their original entrance but otherwise undisturbed.
She spent a moment there, staring towards the rest of Stone Haven, empty buildings visible along a long road branching off from the one they had traveled, an eerie silence about the structures carved of the very stone of the mountain above. She hadn’t really appreciated the impressiveness of that so far, overlooking the achievement due to the danger and very utilitarian building style, but Stone Haven was massive, a city within itself. A final shelter of a distant people, ultimately futile against the might of some unknown calamity. But, this was a city in itself. People lived here, for a time, for some perhaps their whole lives, given the records had shown at least 20 years of living. She wondered how long they had spent carving out the initial boundaries of the place in the first place, as massive as it was, what tools they had used, how they had lived.
It wasn’t that far off down that road till the yellowish haze of the ‘infestation’ overtook the stone, a strange jungle of fungal life that grew thicker the further you went, the overwhelming yellow mixed with oranges and whites and even some greens, far off in the distance as far as she could tell. Unlike the preceding areas, seeming lifeless even when she knew beasts stalked its corridors, the encroaching fungi seemed very much so alive, very much so present. A creeping mass of living material that brought life anew to the corridors of the long dead ruin, clearly hazardous, yet oddly intriguing all the same. Perhaps if Catnip had been alone, had had no reason to fear anyone’s death due to her own immortality, she would have ventured deep into the strange subterranean fountain of fungal life, a unique area likely like nowhere else in the world that she alone would get to discover and explore, a fascinating ruin of long past peoples overtaken by a fungal jungle. The exact kind of fantastical local one might look to explore on their incredible isekai adventure!
On second thought, she was overhyping it. It was literally just some shrooms in a ruin. She should probably get to finding Dacre, although standing around thinking like this had been a rather effective method of delaying the dreaded talk of gender she would soon face, so whatever. Dacre and Fresia should be somewhere down the hall in one of the apartment’s rooms, not out in the lobby anyway.
She almost ran into the lady herself when she went back down the hallway, the girl looking a little anxious for some reason.
“Dacre? I actually was just coming to check on you, cause I’m not sure the whole ‘separating the group’ thing is very wise.”
“Hmm, we’re only a room away,” she muttered in reply, clearing her throat. “Do you happen to know if you saw my bag at any point by the way? I don’t seem to have it myself, and I simply cannot afford to lose the valuable research material in there.”
She thought for a second, “Maybe? I don’t actually remember what your bag looked like,”
“Hmph. I’ll have to check myself then,” she snorted, turning away and walking towards the shared room. “If you’re really worried about separating, you can talk to my maid. She’s always on top of things like security.”
Catnip wondered why said maid wasn’t sent to check for the lost bag, rather than the lady herself searching, but decided not to worry about it. Perhaps Dacre wanted to personally deal with her research bag or whatever. She headed over to the room Dacre had left from earlier, a ways down the hallway for whatever reason.
Fresia stood in the back of the room when she entered, staring into space while remaining in her standard ‘ready to serve milday’ posture or whatever. She turned to Catnip when she entered, looking slightly surprised, and took a hesitant step towards the entrance.
“...You okay?” Catnip hesitantly asked, a strange feeling of something simply being off overtaking her.
“No,” Fresia muttered, almost choking on the words. “I…” she began before seemingly tripping on nothing, catching herself at the last second with a jolt. Catnip quickly rushed over to steady her, growing slightly worried.
The maid turned to her, a strange, almost sad look on her face passing by in an instant, replaced by an empty stare.
“...Fresia?” Catnip queried, cursing her prior self for not paying more attention. Fresia just always seemed so put together, and she fit that one maid archetype, and… on hindsight, Catnip had let her assumptions about fantasy worlds completely blind her to the idea of Fresia being an actual person. She felt a brief need to smack herself in the face for her follies, only stopped by the fact that her arms were kind of preoccupied steadying Fresia. That and the fact that punishing oneself via physical harm probably wasn’t a good road to go down, even if she deserved it.
The maid continued staring blankly at her, her lips twitching strangely like she was trying to say something, only to be unable to get it out. Catnip let herself be patient, and waited for her to be ready to talk, or something. She was really entirely unsure what was going on at this point, this whole encounter was getting kinda weird.
“..orry” the maid rasped, and grew still.
“Fresia? Sorry for - “
Suddenly the women moved, wrenching Catnip’s body and face directly in front of her eyes, a wrongness about her suddenly becoming clear to Catnip as she struggled against her far to late to escape her iron grip but surely that whatever this was she would be fine because she couldn’t die but that didn’t change the sheer horror she felt as the woman’s eyes clouded over with a sickly yellow that started to drip drip drip like tears down her face, crossing the gap to Catnip’s face with a sudden lurch, the slime almost seeming to seep into the pours of her skin while her breath started getting out of control because this- what - what the fuck what the fuck what the actual fuCK! - but it didn’t stop she had no power to stop it oh god she wasn’t even religious what the hell - she tried to move but it wasn’t working a strange mist trying to settle about her mind like something other was in there with her, silently, steadily, seeping through into her mind and body in a violation she had never felt before and she - she - she -
And then it was over, Fresia dropping her hold on her, her yellowish goop retreating back behind her eyes, the woman once again seemingly perfectly human but - but - what the hell had been done to her, she swore, trying to collapse to the ground and sob out her fears but - wait
She was still standing up. In fact, she could feel it, that other presence about her mind, her body that - that - that - that - that -
Her body moved on its own, taking a large breath and sitting down by the wall of the room, and sighing. She tried to stand up - but it didn’t work - and with dawning horror she realized the otherness was entirely in control even though she still had her own thoughts and she tried to speak only for her lips to freeze in position trembling, looking just like Fresia’s had before the attack and -
Catnip should have realized. Just because you could never die, didn’t mean there weren’t things out there that could hurt you. She felt the coils of a foreign mind settle around her brain, tendrils reaching out almost in fascination, as if this thing, this fungal infection that had been merely theoretical mere moments before, but a distant fear they had ultimately ignored, was trying to communicate with her, in some way, a prospect as terrifying as it was possibly the only escape from this situation, an offer of possible negotiation she had no choice but to accept and -
In this moment, this moment of pure terror and distress and violation of her most private space, her mind and body, she had truly begun to realize that yes, there were things much, much worse than death, and she had just met one of them.
Well fuck.
Thanks for the chapter! It was really good, if harrowing at times.
Love the Eldritch stuff, I'm always a sucker for those things. I was afraid that someone would get infected soon, though. Scary stuff, for sure, hope Catnip finds a way out of this one.
this is such a great series.
:)