Chương 58: 2.17 The Largest - BigXthaPlug (2:12)

Z3ke (Original Poster) Hey Grave, I want to say something, but I also don't want to be banned for saying it. Can I just preface this by saying "I don't really mean it." But I absolutely do mean it. GravemindLegacy (MOD) As long as you remain mindful of the forum's rules. Z3ke (Original Poster) Okay, then let me figure out how to phrase this in a way that won't get me banned.

It is my dearest wish that people with stupid usernames would burn in the deepest pits of hell because I hate everything they are, everything they've done, and everything they will ever do, and most importantly, everything they've talked me into doing. Specifically, I hate the entire idea of me marching into the Under-MIZ and fighting the Reclaimer. Which, just to be clear, is an idea so monumentally stupid, horrible, and idiotic, that if stupidity were energy it could power the entire world for a decade.

And the person (not naming any names) who suggested this idea and kept pushing me towards it should really sit down and reflect on the terrible choices that they've made in life. CrushDaddyXx (Primary) I think he's talking about you Mushroom. SignalLoss Uh… Zeke, I know your last update saw you being a little iffy about your fight with the Reclaimer and everything, but what brought on this sudden outburst?

Z3ke (Original Poster) Because I just got my first real look at the Reclaimer, and it really drove home the point that trying to kill it is the stupidest thing that has ever been attempted. I'm legitimately rethinking everything right now. The agreement I made with Daryl and Jared was that they'd get the bulk of whatever salvage we found while heading through the Crushed Skirt and Flooded Neighborhoods. Milicent gets the glyph book once we get back to the Roaring Drake.

My share of the loot was supposed to come from the Reclaimer itself, which seemed like a great idea before I actually saw the thing. Now, I'm rethinking the entire plan. StoryLeech Well… don't keep us in suspense. You can't just say that and leave it there. What did you see? What was it like? Give us the details. R+L=J Did you poop your pants when you saw it? Z3ke (Original Poster) No. That's not how this conversation is going to go.

First of all, it's been a while since you all helped me with something actually useful. The last time I followed your advice with the whole Spine and Flood thing, you all managed to get me sent to a random ass village in the middle of nowhere. Since then, the last several pages of this thread have basically been all of you sitting comfortably behind your screens watching as I wander deeper and deeper into the nightmare that is the Under-MIZ. So here's how this works now.

You're all going to explain to me, very clearly, how the glyph system actually works. Then you're all going to give me the glyphs that you promised. If I'm going to go through with this completely insane plan to kill a massive monster, I'm going to need the actual tools to do it. Once that's done, then - and only then - we can get back to you asking if I pissed myself when I saw it. JimothyTheBarber I'm altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it further.

Saltmines You're forgetting when we gave you the heat glyph and the rubber-band glyph. That helped out, didn't it? Y_Ddraig_Goch I was just thinking about the glyphs and how they're going to kill the Reclaimer. Who exactly gets credit for the kill? Like, does Zeke get it, since it's sorta his plan? Does Milicent get it due to being the one who actually makes the glyphs? And how many rank-ups would you get for killing what is essentially an endgame boss? SignalLoss Ugh.

I don't want this thread devolving into an argument about experience distribution, so let's focus on the more immediate problem. Zeke, you already understand the basics of glyphs but I'll lay it out in a clearer way. Think of them as a magical computer. They're things that you can program by creating the structure, defining what the mana you collect is supposed to do, and then executing the instructions. Each glyph has three core components: the anchor, the pattern, and the output.

The Anchor: this connects the glyph to the enviornment. Without an anchor, the glyph can't draw mana from its surroundings, which means it collapses almost immediately. Most glyphs will draw ambient mana from the world around it, but technically you can also power glyphs through sacrifices of creatures or by using mana batteries. But we're not getting into that today. For your purposes, the ambient mana in the research district (and the mana from the Reclaimer) will be more than enough.

The Pattern: this is the instruction for your glyph. It tells the mana what to do, whether that's forming a barrier, generating heat, pushing something away, pulling something closer, detonating, stabilizing, or any number of other effects. This is where all the creativity happens. The Output: this determines how the energy is released or directed. Think of it like the difference between a spotlight and a floodlight. Both deal with light, but both have completely different results.

And that's all there is to glyphs. It's simple, but of course you can get a little fancy by modifying one of those three components. If you change the anchor, you change the power source. If you change the pattern, you change the function. And if you change the output, you change the effect. Everything else is just variations on those themes. MushroomCleric Alright Zeke, here you go. I'm dropping the PDF with the glyph designs that you're going to need for your Reclaimer kill.

It includes both the attunement glyphs and the central construct glyph. (What you're calling the sacrifice glyph) 7 and I did some quick math. We jumped onto Frontiers and tried to estimate the basic size of the Reclaimer. From there we made some rough calculations about how much mana a creature that large would generate and how many attunement glyphs you would need. You're going to need AT LEAST twenty attunement glyphs for the plan to work.

It might be closer to twenty-five if you want to err on the side of caution. Any fewer than that and your main sacrifice glyph might not properly lock onto the Reclaimer's mana signature. That means the sacrifice glyph won't trigger. Which means the entire plan falls apart. Memorize the glyphs and then teach them to Milicent. Before anyone says anything, yes, she's a little sketchy. That's why I'm telling Zeke to memorize the glyphs.

Zeke, you don't want her realizing that you can just pull new glyph designs straight off your Tech Slate. That would be a bad idea. <attunement_glyph_set_v3. pdf> Z3ke (Original Poster) I'm seeing a lot of maybe's and at leasts and a general uncertainty in this plan. What do you mean by maybe? I don't wanna head over to Milicent and say " maybe we can kill this thing with glyphs." That's not exactly confidence-inspiring.

7Spirals In our defense, the glyph system you're using is from Shards and the Reclaimer is from Frontiers. You're asking us to build you a strategy using mechanics from two completely different games. There's going to be some guesswork involved, but the math holds and the plan'll work. Z3ke (Original Poster) Jesus. You guys aren't exactly filling me with a whole lot of confidence here. BabyBloos | And how many rank-ups would you get for killing what is essentially an endgame boss? | That doesn't even really matter.

If Zeke pulls this off, he's about to convert an entire kaiju organism into alchemical materials. The payday for that is going to be so big that rank-ups would be the least interesting part of the story. RidiculouslyAverageGuy Rather than just burning the energy off pointlessly, I wonder if they can't use this humongous sacrifice to power something useful. Shootingblnks Yeaaa… technically there are ways that he could do that.

If he wanted to get fancy with it, he could redirect the mana output into batteries or storage arrays and then sell those to the Pale Regiment or someone. But that would have been complicated as hell and would require soooo much more planning. Plus, it would take a lot more time setting things up in the research area which would give the Reclaimer a bunch of time to search out Zeke and squash him like a bug. It's better he just do the alchemical thing.

CrushDaddyXx (Primary) The best plan is the one he's currently working on = using the Reclaimer's own mana to turn its body into a boatload of alchemical reagents. Stick to the plan Zeke. The plan is good. StoryLeech That should be enough help for you now Zeke. You got the pdfs. You got a brief explanation for how glyphs work. Now give us the details. Tell us how you met the Reclaimer. R+L=J Tell us how you pee'd yourself. Z3ke (Original Poster) I didn't piss myself.

And I will tell you about seeing the Reclaimer for the first time so that when you guys read it, maybe you'll keep in mind one very important thing: this entire situation is all your fault. We set out the next morning after packing up our gear and kicking dirt over the remnants of last night's fire. We stepped out into the empty streets of the research district and the whole place was gloomy as hell. It was bad last night when we got in and the morning didn't make it much better.

For one thing, not much light reaches the research district. The Under-MIZ ceiling far above us is broken and uneven and only thin shafts of light filter down through the cracks. It's just barely enough to see by, and most of the district sits in this dim gray gloom that makes everything look gloomy and abandoned. The buildings all around us gave off the unsettling feeling that the place had been abandoned in a hurry. There were glass towers and small research facilities that rose on either side of the streets.

Some of the towers had observation decks that allowed researchers to look out from high up above. Jared took point again and Daryl walked just behind him with his shotgun out and ready, his eyes constantly scanning rooftops and windows. Every now and then Jared would brush a hand against the ground or a nearby wall, using whatever weird skill he had that helped him navigate places like this.

Milicent stayed close to me and one quick glance in her direction told me she wasn't exactly thrilled with what we were there to do. To be fair, the plan I laid out sounded completely insane when explained out loud. Which I had done the night before.

"So let me understand this," Milicent said while we were settling in for the night.

"You want us to hunt something called a Reclaimer." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Yep."

"And this thing is some kind of giant experimental horror that lives in the middle of a crater full of nightmare vegetation."

"Also correct."

"And your plan," she said slowly, "is to kill it with…glyphs."

"A lot of glyphs," I corrected. She pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a weary sigh. Next to her, Jared looked fascinated.

"Okay," she said after a moment.

"Explain the whole thing." So I did. I told her that I'd done a ton of research before setting up this expedition. That was a complete lie, but she didn't need to know that. And I told her that, from what I'd "learned," the Reclaimer had originally been some kind of biological reclamation experiment built before the Fracture. It was this massive organism that was meant to break down waste and rebuild entire ecosystems. At least… that was the theory.

Then the Fracture happened, the world ended, and the experiment was abandoned and left to rot down in the Under-MIZ. Decades or centuries later, the thing had grown into something completely different. It was a self-sustaining ecosystem engine with a monster at its core.

"And you want to kill it with glyphs," Milicent reiterated flatly. I nodded.

"I'm not a glyphwright. But some friends of mine, the ones who wrote that book that you're obsessed with, explained that glyphs can be used for a lot more than what people usually think. Most glyphwrights use them in small ways. They create barriers or traps or little bursts of force. But that's not all they can do." Milicent nodded as she followed what I was saying, her expression slowly shifting from skepticism to cautious curiosity.

Daryl and Jared leaned in closer, even though I was pretty sure that neither of them fully understood what we were talking about. Hell, I barely understood what I was talking about and only knew about it because of Crush's plan and the glyph pdf.

"My plan is to build a network of small glyphs. We place a series of attunement glyphs all around the research district. Each glyph would attach itself to the Reclaimer and slowly build a connection to it. Then, all those smaller glyphs would feed into a single central glyph. One big glyph right in the middle of the district. And that glyph would act sorta like a kill switch for the thing." Milicent was quiet for a moment and I could tell she was thinking about it.

"If everything works the way it should…then that central glyph will overload the Reclaimer's biological systems. It'll break down its body and convert everything into alchemical ingredients. The brain, heart, lungs, and everything else will be turned into useful material for us. The creature dies and we don't have to even fight the thing directly." Milicent stared at me for a long moment before finally speaking up.

"That is either brilliant…or one of the worst ideas I've ever heard." Jared grinned.

"I vote we try." Daryl shrugged and settled back against the wall, clearly okay with whatever we planned to do. And somehow, that counted as a group consensus. The next morning we went out in search of the Reclaimer. We were walking through the research district and Jared was keeping an eye out, guiding us forward. Occasionally he slowed and placed a hand against the ground.

"What's up?" I asked.

"What does your skill say?" He didn't answer right away, instead he closed his eyes and focused. Finally he looked up at me.

"It's pulling me deeper."

"Pulling you?"

"Yea." He pointed towards the center of the district where a cluster of taller research towers loomed in the distance.

"That way. There's something important down there." Milicent looked uneasy at that.

"That's probably where the Reclaimer is."

"Yea," Jared nodded slowly.

"Probably." We kept moving deeper into the district. The streets were more broken as we went along. Abandoned vehicles littered the road and we were forced to weave around sections where buildings had collapsed and the security fencing had fallen. Everything around us was getting… stranger. The buildings all around were ramshackle and gave off this eerie feeling of abandonment. Some of the buildings had heavy reinforced doors with corporate logos that were still faintly visible.

Others had massive observation decks overlooking sections of the district. Every now and then we passed broken signs or faded directory boards listing departments. Bioadaptive Engineering. Environmental Reconstruction Systems. Containment Wing C. As we walked, Milicent and I began marking down locations. I pulled out my journal and she pointed out potential spots where we could place glyphs down.

They were plazas or street intersections or clear spaces between buildings; anywhere with enough room that we could place a glyph without it being disturbed. Milicent occasionally crouched low to the ground and ran her fingers across the pavement. Then she'd look up at me and say "this one might work," or "too much structural damage here." I wrote down the coordinates and descriptions of the place as we moved, slowly building our own map of the research district one potential glyph site at the time.

All the while, Jared guided us closer to the center of the whole place. I'm gonna pause here for a second because I've tried writing down what happened next, but it's… difficult. Even with my Performance at skill level 2, which I think makes me better at telling stories and describing things, I still can't really find the words. Some things are just… too big to explain properly. But I'll try. We pushed through the research district.

Jared guided us forward and Daryl kept an eye out and Milicent muttered under her breath. And as we got deeper into the district, things began to change. The first thing that I noticed was the life that was slowly blooming all around us. We went from an abandoned city neighborhood to something resembling a rain forest within a few blocks. It was disconcerting too, not just because we were in what resembled an old city and it's weird to see nature reclaim everything like that. But also because…

the life there was wrong. I've lived in this world for a while now and, at least with the Deadlands and The MIZ, there isn't much nature out there. What little plant life can be found is just a little bit of scrub. And that's completely different from what we found down in the research sites. At first, it was just a small bit of life, a few splashes of green that poked up through the ground and covered the walls of the abandoned buildings.

But as we delved deeper, the nature thickened and grew until the whole place felt like a rainforest had exploded. There were plants and vines and fungal growths and strange vegetation that spread throughout the place. And what's worse was that it wasn't a healthy growth of nature. It wasn't a natural growth. It was like some demented god had taken an entire rain forest, shook it over the district, and then twisted everything that landed there into something wrong and chaotic.

The ground was soon carpeted with swollen fungal mats that pulsed slowly as if it were breathing. Thick vines the size of power cables crawled across the terrain and knotted together in tangled masses that made it almost impossible to walk across. There was one point where Daryl stepped wrong and I heard a curse and turned back to find that his boot had got trapped in the vines. He tried to pull himself free but I could see the vines visibly tighten around his ankle, trying to draw him deeper into the ground.

He fell and MIlicent rushed forward with her machete to hack away the vines. All the plantlife that we passed grew as we walked. Yea. That's right. It grew. The vines stretched out and the moss thickened and strange flowers bloomed. We passed these bulbous sacks of meat-colored tissue that were scattered around the place, and they would quiver as we walked past. Everything glowed a faint sickly green or yellow.

In another area that we came to we found thick streams of viscous fluid that oozed slowly out of the ground and pooled in stagnant puddles that smelled like rot. The whole place was dense and aggressive an unnatural, and the only way to describe the place was that it was like a cancer. It was as if life was growing too fast and in too many directions at once. Eventually we reached the center of the district and we found this colossal crater there that looked like a wound carved into the earth.

The ground sloped downwards for hundreds of feet, forming a basin so wide that when you first step up to the rim it doesn't feel like you're looking down into a hole. It feels like you're gazing into a diseased valley. The buildings all around the rim lean inwards, their structures warped and partially collapsed. And in the center was the Reclaimer. Even now, thinking back on it, the word "enormous" doesn't really do it justice. The first time we caught a glimpse of the thing, the four of us just froze.

Milicent looked like she wanted to turn around right then and march all the way back up to The MIZ without stopping. I could tell that she was silently cursing me in her head, wondering if he book of glyph information that I promised her was enough of a payment for her to take on this… thing. The Reclaimer was sprawled out across the crater floor like a living mountain of flesh. The shape of it was vaguely octopus…

if you took an octopus and scaled it up to the size of a building and then handed it to a mad scientist with a biology degree and no ethical boundaries. Its massive bulk was in the center of the crater, all swollen and disgusting. And from the mass stretched dozens of enormous limbs. Some were thick tentacles that dragged themselves slowly across the ground. Some of the limbs ended in clawed appendages and just looking at them, I knew that they could tear through concrete or rip buildings apart without effort.

Others split into branching tendrils that dug into the soil. Have you ever seen those swamp trees where the roots grow above the water and plunge back down into the mud? Yea. That's what they looked like. And all around it, the crater was pulsing, like the plants and vegetation and everything was hooked up into the thing's circulatory system. The most unsettling thing about the Reclaimer was the skin. I know what you're all thinking.

There's a massive kaiju creature in front of you, and its covered in tentacles and pulsing biomass and glowing ecosystem weirdness, and somehow the skin is the most disturbing thing? Yes. The skin is the worst. There are chunks of the thing where the skin was translucent and the entire surface of the creature looked like a thick gel that was stretched over massive internal… structures. I don't even want to call them organs because that doesn't feel right.

It was like the creature had gone out an eaten buildings and absorbed all the metal and stone and whatever else and all that got folded into its internal structure. Light from up above let us see the creature a little bit better, and that was not a boon. We were able to see some slow-moving organs just beneath the skin. Yea, that's right. The organs fucking moved. I watched as, what I'm sure was a lung, slowly slid through the creature's body. And there were so much more too.

There were other shapes, like lungs and hearts and whatever else, and sometimes those shapes didn't quite match the body of the creature. It was like entire pieces of the research district had been swallowed whole and were now drifting inside the Reclaimer. The skin itself never stopped moving. It rippled constantly and there were sections of it that sagged like melting wax before slowly pulling themselves back into place. Then the worst thing happened: the creature moved. Just slightly.

But the entire crater trembled. The Reclaimer took a slow, deep breath and then huffed it out and it reminded me of an old dog settling down beside a fire. It breathed, and the entire ecosystem around it responded. The vines twitched and the fungal beds pulsed and the bulbous growths swelled and released clouds of spores that drifted through the air like dust in sunlight. That's when it really hit me. I couldn't really tell where the creature ended and the rest of the ecosystem began.

We kept to the edge of the crater and slowly picked our way through the biome, circling the Reclaimer and trying to keep out of sight of it. Eventually we reached what we think was the front of it and somehow things got worse. The Reclaimer's head, or whatever the hell passes for one, was just a mass of writhing things at the front of the body. It's got these clusters of glossy black eyes that bulge out of the flesh and they look like barnacles that are stuck to the side of it.

Slits along its "face" open and close as if the thing was tasting the air. Its mouth is a massive gaping thing that was surrounded by dozens of thin tendrils that swept along the ground and dragged through the living jungle that it created. All of us just stood there in silence, gaping at the thing and trying to understand the sheer size of the beast. That's when it lifted its head and shook slightly and I'm not even gonna pretend that I can properly describe that moment.

Again, I've got a skill that is literally meant to help me tell a story but that thing is indescribable. We weren't looking at a monster. I've fought monsters. I fought those jackal runners and those splitmaws and saw things peek out of the water in the Flooded Neighborhood. No. This thing was so much more and so much worse. It was an entire ecosystem. It was a living thing that was meant to break down biological matter and rebuild ecosystems.

Or at least, that's what it was originally meant to do but it's gone so far beyond that now. I'm gonna amend my previous description of the thing. The worst thing about it wasn't the size or the tentacles or the horrible skin. The worst thing was the feeling that creeps in when you see it. Most of the monsters that I've fought or come across or even just been told about by all you guys are easily understandable as dangerous. They look dangerous and they sound dangerous.

I told you all about my thalassaphobia and how the Flooded Neighborhoods were horrible because you could never tell when the creatures are near or whether they're hiding in the deep dark. The Reclaimer triggered something deeper. When we all took it in, the sheer size of the thing, we all just stopped. Our shoulders sagged and our weapons lowered and all the heart was taken from us because some instinct deep in the back of our minds whispered a simple truth.

We were looking at something that was too large to fight and too alien to understand and too deeply rooted in its environment to truly kill. Standing there on the rim of that crater, I could easily imagine other scavenger teams reaching that same spot and seeing the beast and the environment that it created and deciding right then and there that it wasn't worth trying to fight. They'd know that the smartest thing to do was to turn around and leave. Which is exactly what we did.

There was a part of me that was seriously considering running away as fast as I could and heading back through the Fossilized Factory Belt and selling the map to the Anchor Guild. We could have called the entire expedition a success and pretended the Reclaimer didn't exist. But instead we just slowly crept away from the crater and decided to find somewhere we could rest and think about what to do next.

We kept the broken buildings between us and the Reclaimer and picked our way back through the living mess that surrounded the rim. The vines still twitched under our shoes and the fungal mats still pulsed like slow breathing lungs and every now and then we heard wet popping sounds somewhere deeper in the growth that none of us wanted to investigate. None of us talked until the crater disappeared behind us. Once we were far enough away I felt my shoulders un-tense and I could breath a little easier.

We were back in the main research district and all the unnatural growth had been replaced by unnatural decay.

"We should find somewhere to plan," Jared said quietly.

"Not out in the open." I nodded and Jared guided us through the streets. We passed some toppled buildings and made our way back to the small guard shack that we'd slept in last night. But as we walked, we passed one building where the logo on the doors was still mostly intact. It was three curved lines that formed a stylized double helix. Even through the grime and the cracked metal, I recognized it immediately.

I'd seen it in the library back when I was digging through the old archives and research reports that you all have me looking through.

"Hold up," I said. The others all stopped and looked back at me and I could see a feeling of nervousness on their faces. They wanted to put a bunch more distance between us and the Reclaimer.

"That logo is Helix Industries." Milicent tilted her head.

"And?"

"I've seen the name before. They're the corporation that made the Reclaimer." Milicent shot me a concerned look and Jared just looked interested. I turned to the building and headed inside. The front entrance of the building was blown wide open as if something had burst through it. The hole in the wall was massive and the concrete had been shattered outwards in a jagged circle.

It looked like that one guy's chest in Alien when the facehugger tore through it, except this hole was big enough for a truck to drive through it. The edges of the hole were warped and partially melted, as if whatever came through it had forced its way out in a hurry. Daryl let out a low whistle when he saw it.

"Ominous," was all he said. We stepped inside and instantly noticed how wrong the interior of the building looked. It wasn't destroyed. It was… empty. And not in the empty that I'd grown to expect while picking through the buildings in the Crushed Skirt. The lobby had been stripped down to bare floors and walls. There weren't any chairs or desks or broken glass. There wasn't any scattered paper on the ground or small potted plants.

There was none of the usual debris that you'd expect to find in a place that had been abandoned for decades. It wasn't scavenged or anything either. It was more like everything had been erased. Every piece of debris was gone. Dust patterns on the floor showed where the objects used to sit, but the objects themselves had completely vanished. Milicent crouched down and brushed a hand across the concrete.

"That's strange," she murmured. Daryl gripped his shotgun tighter and I heard him say "I don't like this place," which was almost enough to get us all to leave right then and there. A few of the interior doors of the place were still intact, and when we opened them we finally found remnants of the facility. The whole place was filled with laboratories. On the walls were glass cabinets that were filled with beakers and flasks.

There were rusted metals with instruments laid out on them, and shelves that were filled with old chemical containers that had long since dried out or crystallized. The rooms looked like the researchers had simply walked out one day and never returned. In an office near the back of the building, I found a computer terminal. The monitor was dusty and yellowed, but the hardware itself looked mostly intact. I glanced over at Milicent and asked if she could power it up. She studied the machine for a moment.

"Maybe." Then she pulled out a small piece of chalk and quickly sketched out a small glyph next to the terminal. I don't really know glyphs all that well, but I figured it was something that was meant to funnel a trickle of mana into the computer. The glyph flared softly and a faint hum filled the room before the monitor flickered to life. The interface was ancient, but it still worked.

I reached out to grab the mouse but immediately remembered what happened when I touched computers, and instead asked Milicent if she could search through it. She shot me a confused look before shrugging her shoulders and then reached out for the mouse and started poking around. She navigated a few corrupted directories until she found a folder labeled PROJECT ARCHIVE - EXPERIMENT 12-B.

"Play it," I said, pointing to the file. The screen filled with static for a moment before resolving into the image of a lab. Researchers stood behind thick glass observation panels, talking excitedly to the camera. Charts and readouts glowed on the walls behind them. One of the researchers - a thin guy with tired eyes and a lab coat - stepped closer to the camera.

"Experiment 12-B is progressing ahead of schedule. The adaptive biomass has shown remarkable environmental integration properties. Early trials indicate it can break down biological and industrial waste at an accelerated rate while simultaneously promoting aggressive ecosystem regeneration. The reclamation potential is… extraordinary." The video cut out and the next recording played. And all it showed was chaos. Alarms blared. People shouted.

The camera was tilted sideways on a lab bench while researchers ran back and forth across the room.

"The containment field collapsed!" someone yelled.

"That's impossible." The building shook and the equipment all around the room rattled. I felt a chill run down my spine and instantly knew what had happened. This was a video of the Fracture. We were watching the moment it happened. Lights flickered and something smashed through the observation glass behind the researchers. A mass of writhing biomass flooded into the room. It was all tentacles and gel-like flesh that pulsed and flowed into the area like a living tidal wave.

One of the researchers barely had time to turn around before the thing grabbed him. There was a scream and the video was filled with thrashing limbs and a wet tearing sound. Another scientist tried to run for the door but a tendril caught him around the waist and yanked him backwards. The camera toppled to the floor and the only thing it showed was flashes of movement and blood that spread across the tile. Then something huge passed over the camera lens.

A massive translucent wall of flesh slid across the frame and when it passed, all the blood that had spilled out onto the floor had disappeared, along with the research equipment and every living thing in the lab. The video ended in static and nobody said anything for a long moment. Finally, Daryl broke the silence with a quiet "well… shit."