156 expected some kind of falling sensation, unease, anything from using the skip. She didn’t expect to simply be elsewhere without any semblance of things happening in between.
Thankfully, her infiltrator reactions kick in immediately, and her perception of time slows down. The strange transportation must have turned her around, because she’s not upside down, rather she’s starting to fall in the direction of her legs. She almost spreads her wings on reflex, but stops herself as the next thing that trickles into her mind is the faint grinding of her right shoulder on stone and a rock wall on the left edge of her peripheral vision.
Uneven rock walls hugging me on both sides. If I open my wings, they’ll get shredded.
However, she feels that her falling momentum is just picking up, so she spreads her armored legs to the sides and stops the drop before it can get dangerous. Her leg holes secrete some resin which she uses to glue herself to both walls so that she doesn’t need to keep pushing to remain still. Now that she has time to look around properly, she turns her head as much as a changeling body allows, which is a horror movie amount of degrees.
She’s inside a narrow, natural crevasse that’s opening in the downward direction into an open space too dark to examine with only the bioluminescent blue glimmer of her eyes. Her brain quickly comes an unpleasant realization:
Even if the skips connect only open spaces, which is a dangerous assumption already, I could have appeared in the middle of an enclosed rock crack with next to no air or a way to get out. I can’t sense any hive links to connect to in order to gauge my own location on the map so I have no clue where I am.
Oookay, this was a foolish mistake and I got lucky. Next time let’s leave exploring these to the drones. At worst, they can just dig upwards and get to the surface. Now let’s see if I got lucky enough to be in a survivable situation.
This time she spits out a glob of glowing resin into the darkness underneath, revealing a solid surface a some distance away. Without wings, it would likely be a crippling drop at best, instant death at worst. Or maybe vice-versa, if one thinks about it logically.
156 dissolves the resin holding her steady and lets herself slide through the crevasse. Once the walls on her sides vanish and she falls into a presumed cavern from the ceiling, she spreads her wings and safely floats down to the surface.
With the exception of her breathing, there’s complete silence.
She spits out three more resin balls, charges them with love so that they glow, picks up the original one, and throws one in every direction as far as she can. With how sparingly she’s using her love reserves, the resin lamps fade to black and dissolve within seconds, but that’s all she needs to create a mental map of the area, because with the exception of one they all hit a wall not too far away and bounce off onto the floor. The final one splashes into water and sinks.
So, a partially flooded cavern. The air smells of rot and moss so there can’t be much flow, but there should be enough to last a while. Biological rot. That means life or carcasses. Carcasses means hunters. With how small this place is, they’re bound to be in the water.
As if on cue, or more likely due to the resin ball disrupting the water surface, several shapes break the water from below, moving towards 156 who quickly throws five more glowing balls ahead to outline the edge of the water and backs off until she has an idea what she’s facing. The danger becomes clear as seven weird creatures crawl out. They are vaguely alligator-shaped, with a fish-like tail and only two clawed front legs with membranes between the claws. Instead of a head, it looks like they have just an elongated tube full of teeth.
Clearly something used to hunting underwater but which can also catch something careless on land. No threat at all, even in numbers.
With the creatures’ bodies assessed, 156 remotely snuffs out the glowing resin balls by draining the remaining love from them. They won’t be needed to prevent an ambush. Just to be sure, though, 156 feels out the monsters’ minds.
Barely any intelligence, only instinct. There’s no way to even evoke love in them to feed on.
The only good thing about them being here is that their size means they can survive here, which also means that the water here must lead to someplace else. Well, I can either transform into one and sneak through their territory, or…
I haven’t had a chance to practice this in a while.
In the darkness, 156 smiles and focuses her mental power. A short moment later, one small and localized underground species goes extinct, all members at once.
Heh, easier than I thought.
With a green flash of transformation, 156 jumps into the now safe underground lake and swims through the connecting tunnel. A deadly eel version of 156 finds the stream feeding the lake, and carves her way upwards, transformation after transformation, shape after shape, until she starts sensing the links of drones finishing off their shifts. Instead of wasting love by further following random tracks leading in a vague upwards direction, she just links up with the nearest drone, synchronizes the hive map with her own recently mapped areas, and orders it to come dig her out in the nearest place where she can transform back into a changeling.
Roughly twenty minutes later, a drone head peeks into the cubby hole inside which 156 is squeezed and quickly starts widening the dig while asking:
“Whoa! What are you doing here? Why are you here?”
“To give you a hug, of course,” 156 smirks and pulls the drone towards her.
“Yaaaaaay!” cheers the drone, all questions immediately forgotten.
Some problems have very easy solutions.
***
Near the end of worky time, 99200 is creeping through a tunnel in the depths in a distinctly non-working manner. While the tunnel is sized so that ranked changelings could easily walk through, it lacks the smooth finish and the marks of reinforcement of the new building style. Considering that the majority of the tunnels which 99200 took on the way here as well as most other tunnels on this level are built in the new way, it could signify that there’s something beyond this point that makes the area not worth rebuilding and maintaining.
Either there are no valuable resources, or it’s simply too dangerous.
99200’s behavior hints at the latter. The drone is crouched, moving slowly, and its ears are twitching as it stops every couple paces and listens. The second hint are its hooves, each transformed into a wider shape and its bottom covered by a soft and mushy layer of… matter. The final layer of ‘protection’ is the drone’s mind constantly measuring the hive map, careful not to venture too far in the wrong direction. In short, 99200 is skirting the outer edge of the deadly region marked as rumbler territory. Ever since 65536 showed it how to make items out of webby spinner webs, 99200 has been exploring a couple semi-dangerous areas for anything interesting, and this time it’s going for something huge. Anything rumbler-related is bound to be an amazing find.
Something grinds behind the drone, prompting it to freeze and turn its head. Normally, it would bolt straight ahead, but in these circumstances there’s too much of a chance it would alert a rumbler despite the distance and hoof transformation.
Nothing.
99200 slowly breathes out, but remains standing there and listening for a while. When nothing else happens, it looks ahead and starts moving again.
Claws grab its neck from behind and pull it up while a second set covers its mouth before it can make a noise. It kicks back with its hind legs, hitting something hard. Before it can start digging, the limbs holding it spin it around and 99200 finds itself face to face with a high rank narrowing his eyes. The last time it was in this position, only 65536 saved it from death.
“If you make a noise, I’ll snap your neck,” whispers 838. 99200 has too many things on its mind to wonder why the warrior isn’t using his hive link, and just nods as much as 838’s claws allow. To its surprise, the warrior slowly lowers the drone back on the floor, “What are you doing here?” he asks in a tone that’s less aggressive and more just disbelieving.
“Practicing sneaking around and trying to find some rumbler bits,” 99200 whispers back, “Mostly the practicing. I’m scared to go deeper.”
“Then go practice somewhere else,” 838 rolls his eyes, “You drones are always complaining that something's trying to eat you and the moment things get better you do this,” he huffs, “The rumbler area is off limits. Get out of here. Slowly.”
“Why are you here then?” 99200 shows its lack of self-preservation instinct that’s made it into the survivalist it’s today.
“I sensed you and came to get you out of here which, as I’m noticing, you still aren’t doing,” the warrior bares his fangs.
With a gulp, 99200 reaches the limit of its curiosity and starts carefully shuffling back the way it came.
Phew. He was much nicer this time.
After a short while, it looks around and doesn’t see 838 anywhere. Just like before, it can’t sense the warrior either, although it notices a weird tingle in its head. In response, it checks its hive mind tasks just in case someone added something to do before worky time ends completely, and finds nothing new.
With a shrug, it keeps sneaking back to the HSC. That’s enough adrenaline for one outing.