Chương 39: Go get me that guy’s pants!

HUNTING ROUND—TWO Ability Activated—From the Fragments to the Aftermath Threat Level 1 Knickknack Savant - Level 1 Bonus Event Quest Update! Description: Survive a voting or hunting round. Completed: 2/X Reward: +1 Will, +10 gold, and +1 skill point for each round survived. +50, 000 clicks. Delivered immediately. Received: +1 will (5 total) +10 gold (48 total) +1 skill point (4 total) +50, 000 clicks (453, 433 total) >>These bonus clicks are going to level us up a lot faster.

Each one is about an hour of clicks at our current rate. >>We'll hit level 19 in 20 minutes. >>Nod, right now, I'm more concerned that we are floating in the middle of a room with no gravity. The room was a large, white-walled sphere. George could see one portal in the wall. Long, straight tunnels led to other places. Red handholds were set into the wall at the mouth of the tunnels. The inner wall of the sphere was not smooth, but objects and apparatus dotted its surface at irregular intervals.

At one spot, a ladder jutted up from the wall toward the center of the room. In another place, a low fence bisected the sphere. There were also floating blocks that looked like giant brown boulders scattered around the room. Each one had a network of handholds built into it. Some seemed to be stationary; others seemed to be floating freely. >>OK. >>Here's what I'm seeing. >>You're probably supposed to be able to enter the portal and then jump around from object to object to navigate the room.

>>But we didn't come through the portal, so we're stuck floating in the middle. >>Any ideas on how to get out of this? Otherwise, we'll just be floating here for the next 60 minutes. >>Yeah, unless someone else comes in, shoot us like a floating fish in a barrel. >>That would be embarrassing. >>I don't suppose your welding finger can, you know, sort of blast us toward the wall…? Like a rocket. >>Oh, George. >>Dear, sweet, sweet, innocent George. >>That idea is so bad that it's cute.

>>But let's go ahead and strike it from the record and pretend you never said it. >>A simple "no" would have done. >>What can I say, George? For some people, banter is a hobby. For me, it is an art form. >> Would you be up for cycling through some familiar upgrades until we find something like "Go, go gadget arm extension"? >>No. >>Well, while we are just floating here, want to see what the nodling has been up to?

>>Our little spider is still going walkabout like Magellan of old, exploring our horrible, twisted new world. I've taken the liberty of putting together this handy room list. Behold. Room of Death Cheat Sheet (with annotations) • Everything Floats Down Here: The zero gravity room you are currently in. • Cloud Gate Phenomenon: A bunch of floating platforms above an infinite abyss. • The Skunkwords: A warehouse of shelves with a bunch of junk on them.

• The Death Self: Lady Greesh is setting up some kind of fortress here. • Floor is Lava: The room with all the floating roads and bunkers. • Are You Not Entertained?: Sand coliseum with freaky snakes. • What Big Teeth You Have: A sweet, snowy village straight out of a Thomas Kincade painting. • A Change Is As Good As A Rest: Your average suburban house except everything is giant-sized. • The Distance: Giant ring track. • Hell For Leather: A crazy race track with all sorts of vehicles.

>>The nodling explored some of the portal connections between rooms, but I get the feeling that there are a lot more it didn't find. >>These names are weird. How do they relate to the room? I understand why this one would be related to floating but why is that other one called The Death Self? >>Dunno. >>It is what it is. >>This place is fulla weird stuff. >>The real question is, why did Greesh set up shop there? That old dame seems like she's been around the block a few times.

It also seems like a lot of funny business is happening behind the scenes. Maybe she was randomly assigned that starting room. Maybe she wasn't. >>Anywho, the nodling found a few prestige tokens and interesting items in these rooms, but I'll keep you apprised of all that if we ever find our way back to them. >>How did it cover so much ground in the 20 minutes we were gone? >>I told you. It just draws itself around. It's so light that instead of pulling objects toward it, it flies toward them.

That's how it covers so much ground. >>Hey, look! Skill upgrade time! If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Skill Upgrade Unlocked: Bind 3 • Unbind • Increase strength of Bind • Increase duration of Bind >>I recommend Unbind. I could see that coming in handy. >>Works for me. Skill Selected: Bind 3—Unbind >>OK. I have an idea about how to get out of here.

>>Truth be told, I had this idea a while ago, but I wanted to show off my death room list, and I thought it was funny that you were trying to swim your way to the wall in a zero-G environment, and I wanted that futile attempt to go on as long as possible. >>So, the nodling figured out how to fly by using draw to jump toward objects heavier than him. I think that might work for you too in here. >>Give it a try. >>You mean draw myself over to the wall? >>Yeah. It should work, seeing how you are weightless right now.

Just pick something stationary. George stretched out his hand and cast draw on one of the nearby large boulders. He instantly stopped spinning and floated rapidly over toward the boulder.

"It worked!" George said, then crashed into the rock as his hand missed the handhold. He careened off of the boulder and spun away into the air. >>Ow. That looked like it hurt. >>This is going to take some practice. When one of the tunnel entrances spun into view, George focused on one of the handholds and cast draw. Again, his spin stopped, and he moved quickly in that direction.

He did grab the handle this time, but it slipped from his grasp as his momentum carried his body into the wall, and then he rebounded off. Once again, he was spinning away into the open air. >>Well, this helmet might be a death trap, but at least it's keeping you from severe head trauma right now. >>Ok. Try again, George. The clock is ticking. >>This time, grab the handle and use your legs to absorb the impact. >>You know, "the enemy's gate is down" and all that.

George focused on the top rung of the ladder jutting out toward the center of the room and cast draw. He flew over to it and managed to hold onto the rung while his body spun in an arc around to the opposite side of the ladder. When he swung around and collided with the far side of the ladder, he wrapped his legs around it and hung on.

"Yes!" George shouted into the empty room. >>I'll give it a 3. 3 for execution and a 9. 3 for sheer, pathetic, bless-your-heart moxy. George spent another ten minutes using draw to bounce around the room until he could reliably launch himself from handhold to handhold. The landings were still ungainly, but at least he wasn't bouncing off things anymore. Then he tried something new—pushing off a boulder and casting draw mid-flight at an object across the room. It didn't stop his momentum, but it reoriented his body.

He flipped around so his legs pointed down at the wall he was flying toward. The collision that resulted was one of his more painful landings, but at least he was learning how to navigate. New Achievement: Level Nineteen (464, 054 clicks) +2 Gold (50 total) +1 Skill Point (5 total) +1 Will (6 total) >>Look at you! My boy's all grown up. Two more levels and you can legally drink. >>I'm going to explore one of those tunnels.

Then, George drew himself toward the nearest tunnel mouth and grabbed the handle, stopping his body by bracing his legs against the wall as he landed. The tunnel was narrow enough that he could barely touch both sides if he stretched his arms out wide. He leaned down into the tunnel and gently pushed himself forward, trailing his arms and legs against the walls so he would not move too quickly. When he reached the other end of the tunnel, he stopped himself and peered out. He saw another spherical room.

This one was similar to the last one, though unlike the first room, which had large boulders hovering around it, this one had a tangle of metal that looked like twenty monkey bars floating in the center. >>Do you see what I see? >>Yep. George gently pushed himself off the wall and slowly floated over to the snarl of metal. He took hold of two handles and pulled himself deeper toward the center until he could reach out and touch the orange prestige token floating there.

Collected: 1 prestige token (2 total) >>I say we explore some of these other tunnels and try to find a few more tokens. >>Works for me. >>Maybe if we're lucky, we'll go the whole round without seeing anybody else. >>We probably would have if you had not said that. George cautiously navigated through the tunnels and two more spheres similar to the first two he encountered. Instead of floating boulders, one of them had nothing in the center but a network of railings along the inner wall of the sphere.

The other one was crisscrossed with a web of interconnected ropes. He randomly chose the tunnels, but each sphere had three or four tunnels leading away from it. None of the spheres he had explored held prestige tokens, nor had there been a portal in any of the spheres. That changed when George peeked around the edge of the tunnel leading to the fifth sphere. Ability Notification! Threat Level 2 Knickknack Savant - Level 3 He first noticed little bits of pulsating green slime floating through the air.

George stopped himself and perched at the edge of the tunnel. None of the little bits of slime were near the tunnel. A larger pile of slime clung to the far wall beside a portal. There was a big scorch mark against the wall beside the slime. Instead of boulders or ropes, this room had four large metal balls lazily drifting through the air. One bristled with handles. One was covered in spikes. One was perfectly smooth. The last was encircled by razor-sharp rings. >>You don't think that slime can see us, do you?

>>I don't know. >>It must have some ability to sense its surroundings. >>And to move, unless it just slurped through that portal as it overflowed from whatever room is on the other side. >>How did all these little slime balls get everywhere inside this sphere? Do you think it can spray itself around? >>That is a scary thought in zero-G. >>If that is the case, then it will take over all of these no-gravity spheres. Then, a body floated into view in the middle of the sphere.

The outfit was recognizably Webb, but the face was badly mangled and half engulfed in slime. Judging by the condition of his face and the limp way his limbs floated in the null gravity, he was dead. <Name: Webb Race: Human, Augmented Level: 150, D-Grade Profession: Sentient Machine Therapist Abilities: Maniac Cludger; Budge Nuzzard; Blood Radian; Sad Day For The Hangman. Kelsior Upgrades: Emissary Shard of the Ill-Starred Knight; Faraday Exosuit Guild: Moa Metadata—Encyclopedia Esoterica: Blocked. > >>Ah. >>I see.

>>What? >>I see what happened here. >>That slime isn't by that portal on accident. It is camping and waiting for someone to come through. >>Then, our friend Webb came through and got a face full of ooze. He blasted back with some kind of fire weapon, scorching the wall, but the slime got him. >>And then it sat there waiting for another unsuspecting victim to come in. >>Look. It got into his mouth. Gross. Is this one of those moments where you pull a good idea out of nowhere and it actually works?

>>Isn't this ability of yours supposed to facilitate that? >>Well, I don't want the slime to take over these zero-G spheres. >>I think if I can get a little better at this zero-gravity stuff, I will actually have an advantage here. It would be nice to be able to fly in a place where everyone else is stuck crawling on the walls. >>So, how do we kill the slime? >>We don't need to kill it. >>We can trap it. >>Doesn't that silver ball floating out there look like it might fit nicely over the mouth of this tunnel?

>>We draw it here, and I'll bind it. >>I'll see your good idea and raise you a grosser yet potentially more profitable one. >>Doesn't Webb look like he's basically your size? >>Before we seal the slime in, let's loot the hell out of that guy's body and steal all his stuff! >>You'll go from looking like a dummy in bright blue capris to looking as badass as the late Webb did. >>You remember what Pine said about these Moa guys. They have guild members in every house because their gear is so good.

>>You are suggesting that we strip the clothes of a dead man and then wear them? >>Everyone will think we killed him. >>Great! >>Too far, man. >>A slime just ate a man's face off. Before that, you saw a guy get sucked into the sand by jumping snakes that are going to hatch parasites inside him and then eat them. Before that, two people started bleeding everywhere and then exploded. Before that, a man transformed into a monster and you burned him with a bomb made of his own alcohol.

>>When it comes to dodging those fates or any of the other crazy stuff that is about to happen, there is no too far. >>What is your level, again? Oh, let me check… >>That's right—a measly nineteen. >>Meanwhile, all the enemies arrayed against us have insider knowledge and powers we have never even heard of. >>Plus, you saw his Identify. I don't know what a Faraday Exosuit is, but I want one! >>Time to get our hands dirty, George. >>If you want to see your kids again, ya best jettison those irrelevant scruples.

>>AND GO GET ME THAT GUY'S PANTS! >>And what about the slime all over his head? Are we going to bring that in here with us? >>I have an idea about that, and it involves my brazing talon. >>Strip a dead guy and wear his clothes… >>Fine. >>Whatever.