Chương 164: 164

Mark walked into the war room of Castle South, with Isoko, Sally, and Eliot at his sides. The room was made for war operations, for techies and people capable of Communication magics, so it had screens and keyboards and readouts lining the walls, with multiple redundancies everywhere. Eliot had built the bones of the place, but a lot more than him had contributed to the space. Eliot had put in the big sensor systems, though, including the one in the middle of the room.

A waist-high octagon of a holodisplay sat in the middle of the room, like a standing block of stone, while a similar waist-high 'stone' was on the ceiling, about 8 meters overhead. Walking into the war room was like walking into a cave with walls made of displays and with a giant illusion hanging in the air. Currently, the illusion in the center was an image of the mushroom mini-kaiju, as compared to a human, which was a good comparison for size and also shape.

The thing looked like a mutated human, but about 25 meters tall. It was red, bulbous around the middle, and bipedal with two swinging arms. If it had a head it was hard to distinguish from thousands of child-sized mushrooms that grew off of the thing's 'shoulders' and 'neck'. They called it 'Shroomer'." Ah! There you are!" said Sam Ranger, hero name Nightbolt, who stood at the other side of a holo display. He walked around a little as he smiled and gestured up at the mini-kaiju, "I love this machine, Eliot!""

I'm glad you do!" Eliot happily proclaimed. It was just Mark and them on the main floor of the war room, but there were a few other people at more important scanning stations up on the wings of the place. They were sitting next to machines and watching them, but also just chatting with each other. Those people took notice when they recognized Eliot's voice. One of those guys called out to Eliot, "Eliot! Thank gods— Section C is fritzing. Can you check it out?" Eliot said, "Sure, Quentin!"

And then he glanced around and walked over to what Mark assumed was section C, because the big screen over there had a slightly yellow image of the land beyond the walls, and Eliot was, of course, walking that way. With a flicker of his vector slipping into the walls, Eliot fixed the screens and then he paused. He hummed. Eliot turned back and said, "Someone installed a relay system inside the do-not-cross lines. I don't know who did it, but—" Eliot held out a hand and the floor opened up.

A cubic glowing metal thingy floated into his hand, and Eliot closed off the floor again.

"These things are not allowed inside the do-not-cross lines." The tech guys got mad, and disbelieving, and then there was a small conversation between them all while Eliot set the offending tech onto the top of the scanning machines— The glowing robot-thingy grew some legs and then plugged itself into the scanner underneath itself. Everyone stared at the object. Quentin said, "That's Deedee's."" Oh yeah, Deedee's for sure," said some other guy." It probably couldn't get a signal so it crawled inside and…"

Their conversation continued and they started making calls, but no one was upset about the tech, now that it had been identified. Mark was kinda worried that there was some strange tech inside the walls, getting where it shouldn't have gotten, but from what he was seeing this incident seemed like a 'normal' breach of protocol. One they had gone through a bunch of times already. Eliot rejoined Mark, Isoko, and Sally, next to Sam Ranger of the Kaiju Kill Squad." Sorry, so, uh..."

Eliot said, "We're killing mushroom kaiju today?" Sam looked at the glowy cubic thing that was currently drilling into the scanner underneath it, which nobody seemed to really care about, and he asked, "That's not a problem?"" There's so many Techy guys doing so much shit inside the walls like you would not believe. A ll of them want information, all the time. It's a warzone down there, but it's also pretty contained." Eliot shrugged.

"Deedee will fix her bot and not do it again, I'm sure." Everyone was worried but Eliot and the tech guys. Mark asked, "Is that really how it's done?"" Oh hell no," Eliot said, "Usually it's just one tinkerer's stuff in any one area. Maybe two or three all playing nice with each other. That's in established cities though, where territories are controlled and understood. We're in a settlement and everyone is worried about everything, so every techy is spying on every other techy.

But we have the do-not-cross lines for reasons, so that the main security feeds aren't interrupted. There are lots of places to plug in besides there, so..." He waved a hand.

"I'm sure Deedee will get a big talking to, and then it won't happen again until next month." Mark wasn't sure how he felt about that—" So! Shroomer," Sam said, drawing attention back to him. There was a mini-kaiju to kill, and though they had all killed monsters together, this would be Mark's team's first big mission. That monster was 25 meters tall! Sam said, "This bulbous, humanoid-shaped mini-kaiju here, which we are calling Shroomer, is the fruiting body of a mycelial colony."

The mycelial colony is an actual kaiju, but only because it's a living thing that is as large as it is, and it is capable of acting in unison against certain threats. But the colony doesn't move, and it doesn't really do anything, but it does grow protectors, like Shroomer but much smaller. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions." You won't be killing the colony."

If you, Mark, connected to it you might severely injure it, or you could draw its full attention onto yourself. Don't expect to be able to kill it, but do expect it to try and kill you, if it can. Could be dangerous to connect to it, could be beneficial. Make the call yourself when you're out there. You won't be killing the colony, though, because the colony is what we call a kaijuvore." Like all mushrooms, but bigger, Shroomer is actually the reproductive organ of the colony.

It's a lure that is bright, bright red, and that shimmers in a bunch of different color spectrums, all in order to draw the sights of any passing kaiju, in order to get eaten. Then, inside the kaiju, it releases its payload and either succeeds in colonizing the bigger monster, or it doesn't and it dies." Just like its main body, Shroomer won't bother attacking you or anything smaller than a kaiju because it doesn't care about small things. It wants to get eaten.

Don't get it wrong: The fruiting body will try to infect you and devour you to keep itself alive while it searches for its real prey. But you're not its real prey, and Shroomer is still attached to the main colony, so it's getting fed through the colony. When it breaks free it will start to wander and probably pick up things to digest them, to keep itself strong as it walks across the land." Other than that! It's just a big bruiser." Nothing special to it except the size and the resilience."

That's more than enough." If you don't take it down today then that's fine. It'll keep growing for about 15-20 more days." Sam rolled a hand, adding, "Yadda yadda, don't use fire or decay, because it will die fast to that magic and you're not here to just kill it, you're here for experience. That's it! 10, 000 points to each of you if you can kill Shroomer here. Other teams have tried and they haven't managed to injure it and they also haven't managed to make Shroomer move.

It will move if it senses a big enough threat, though." This is not a kill-it-quick quest." This is testing your readiness against kaiju-ish threats, where information isn't always easy to come by and fights need to happen fast." And that's about a good level of what the average person gets when it's time to fight, and sometimes not even that. Most of the time you'll get a 5 minute rush job, like this, and you'll be relied upon to know the monster you're fighting before you even get to it."

I'm sure you've seen all sorts of mushroom monsters by now, so tell me what you think you'll encounter out there." Sam looked to Sally.

"You first." Sally instantly said, "Skin-burrowing miasma attacks, hallucinogens both on the wind and touch-based, caustic substances, pure masses of flesh slamming into you. On the upside, I expect—"" Stop there," Sam said, "Isoko." Isoko picked up where Sally left off, saying, "On the positive side, I expect physical slowness and lethargic reactions, and possibly a complete inability to directly see its targets, though it probably has proximity triggers everywhere.

It won't be able to see us, but it will be able to sense us. If Sally and I keep in strong TT with the ground, it won't be able to sense any tremors in the ground." She added, "Though I doubt I will be on the ground on this one."" Correct; you won't be on the ground at all," Sam said, "Now Eliot. What are you doing?" Eliot said, "Fallback support, rescue operations, and distractions. I'm gonna have a mobile base spidering around. Isoko will be with me." Isoko nodded. Sam asked Mark, "And you?

Are you ready for a fight?" Mark was fucking pumped." Sir yes sir!" Sam was amused, but he tried not to show it.

"And how will you fight?"" Probably chopping at the legs first, trying to get the feet, if it even has any—" Sally went, "Oh! Fuck! That's why you were talking about cutting off Tartu's feet!" Eliot shared a look with Sally and just started laughing.

"It's a hobbling method!"" Of course it is!" Sally said. Isoko just raised an eyebrow.

"Well yeah. I got that. You two didn't?" Mark said, "Cutting the feet off is how you start taking down a kaiju… Or hands first, I guess?" Mark looked to Sam.

"Shroomer doesn't have bones or muscles, right?" Sally muttered something about feeling dumb, while Eliot said something about how it all made sense now, right? Mark got the impression that the two of them had talked about Mark's feet-cutting threat a few times, trying to understand it. Maybe Mark would have said something to them, asking what had happened, but— Sam was saying, "It has some semblance of an internal structure, but it's more like a lattice than bones and muscles. Technically, it's not even a monster.

It's more of a seed. Anyway! Yes. Normal kaiju fights start at the legs, if it has them, but the general idea is to poke and hobble the kaiju to give yourselves more time to figure out the monster's tricks…" Sam breathed in, then stared, his voice full of seriousness, "Only when you think you've learned everything, OR, you're capable of simply deleting the monster, do you actually go for the kill. I cannot stress this enough.

Do NOT go for a kill unless you know you can, because these bastards are always tougher than they look. Very few people in these two worlds can fight kaiju and win without worry. SO! Poke, prod, hobble, and above all, stay safe!" Mark, Isoko, Sally, and Eliot all announced together, "Sir yes sir!"