During the process of creating Luna’s outfit, Kain and Ythane asked about how she was able to shapeshift into a goblin and how she knew everything she did about her new body. Luna explained how the machine implanted the knowledge directly into her conscious mind and instincts, and how the machine gave all of the knowledge about DNA that the Dubai Corporation was able to collect.
“So all of the knowledge about DNA that these people knew was implanted into your head? Are you sure you’re alright?” Kain asked, imbuing a bit of blood mix with a concept used in his Ether shield.
Luna looked up from her nearly complete pants. “Hmm… it was really boring at first, but got interesting after a while. It also did sting a bit, but kind of like the sting you get when you rub your fur… uh… hair too hard,” she answered. “Other than that, there are only a few completed DNA templates from the change and a bunch of random strands of DNA that I can use for other stuff. Sort of like this,” she said. Her arm distorted a bit, her hand and forearm melting and reforming into a bony sword that extended from her elbow. “This stuff is as strong as the blue metal from the beetle herds, but needs a constant supply of Ether to keep it as strong as it is.” Her bony arm melted and morphed back into a normal human hand.
Kain looked at her arm with concern. “Are you sure you’re alright? That looked like it hurt.”
“I’m fine! The nerves are special in that they don’t register pain from transforming, so it won’t hurt. Besides, I can just disconnect the nerves from my arm if they ever do start to hurt, so it’s fine!” she said cheerfully.
Kain sighed and Ythane gave a smile. “I believe that she is fine, so you should simply trust her,” Ythane said. Kain nodded and went back to imbuing the diluted blood with concepts he needed, giving them very faint color differences. Once the outfit was finished, Luna was sporting a medium sized cloth tunic with baggy cloth pants. She also got a new cloak, with a big enough hood to hold her ears if she pressed them against her skull and neck. She decided to forgo shoes, as she said she wanted to feel what it was like to walk around with human feet. Kain said it was her funeral.
*=====*
A Grunt backed off from the everlasting fight with the moss, bloodied and with a cracked shell. She decided to retreat back to her pack’s nest to lick her wounds and protect the young in case any predators found them. Taking one of the bridges, she walked through one of the doors that showed themselves in the alcove in the wall, followed the labyrinthian hallways, and found a metal grate embedded in the wall, sitting snugly in a mold made by brute force. The Grunt climbed up the wall with her two main arms and carefully used the third in her chest to remove the grate from the wall, climbing into the space behind and pulling the grate shut behind her.
The trick was one that would not fool the moss, but would fool most of the other predators that liked to stalk the Grunts’ nests. She quietly stalked through the ventilation duct and soon found what she was looking for after a few turns: a wide open, dark space. The Grunt silently climbed out into the long, dark tunnel and gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness. She looked up and down the tunnel, trying to find any predators that could be lurking around but seeing none. Without further ado, she dragged her beleaguered body up the tunnel and found a doorway after a few minutes. She crept through the doors and noticed the two Grunts hanging from the ceiling above the doorway. They eyed her for a moment, and then ignored her. She crept into the room and laid down next to the small group of immature Grunts.
As she was getting comfortable, though, she heard two sets of feet hitting the ground. One was light and barely audible while the other was slightly heavier but nearly as quiet. The Grunt stood, drawing eyes from her packmates. She crept into the tunnel and looked around. Her vision was a bit limited, but she would have enough room to react if something were to come charging out of the darkness.
At that moment, a flash of movement made her snap her head forward. At the same time, a dull pain ached from her chest. Looking down, she saw a fleshy tendril protruding from her chest right next to her third arm. The limb extended into the darkness, beyond her field of view. Suddenly, a jerk flung her forward and before she could even utter a yelp of surprise, she saw her neck meet the edge of a bladed limb.
*=====*
“Welp! That was effective!” Luna cheerfully said.
Kain put a hand over her face and put a finger up to his lip. “Shh. Do you want them to know we’re here?” he whispered. “Who knows how many Grunts there are over there.” He sighed, calming down. “But yes, that was quite effective. Now we have a Grunt saved for later.”
Luna nodded, and began to turn back to the way they came. “Well, I think we should stop here. We can’t attack a nest of these things, that would mess up the balance around here,” she said. Kain nodded and the floating gem with ethereal eyes and a necklace wrapped around it floated up and down slightly to signal assent. They began to walk back to the ventilation shaft with Luna leading them.
A mouth manifested on the gem and began to speak in Ythane’s voice. “Well, whatever creature that strand came from must have been a deadly predator. You did say that the eyes and tongue come from the same being, correct?”
Luna nodded. “Mhm! I have a part of it, but it seems like most of it is missing; all I have is the head. From what I see, the head was quite like a human’s, having large, sunken eyes and missing its nose, hair, and eyelids,” she explained. “Even though we’ve done this so many times, I still have a bunch of random strands of DNA to test as well as that Duvalid and Duvalad DNA. It’s still so strange that the DNA from here is made up of 10 building blocks while Yth’s is made of 5 and big bro’s 4.”
“Since when did you give me the name Yth?” Ythane asked.
Luna smirked, a facial expression she had fallen in love with after gaining a human form, “Just now!” she cheered. “But, we are getting closer to the bottom, right?”
They reached the ventilation shaft and Kain took the lead, as the ventilation shaft was lit by dim light. “We are, we only have a few more floors to go. We should be able to get there soon. Besides, it looked like the bottom was clear of that moss so we should be able to have a look around quite easily,” Kain replied. Luna nodded as he removed the grate from the wall and climbed out of the vent, helping Luna out along the way. Once they were finished, they walked out into the tall room that they had been descending for the last week. Their progress was slow due to both the amount of moss that stood in their path and the biomachines fighting the moss. Although the moss was less prevalent in the underground portion of the structure than in the upper portions, it was still prevalent.
Looking at the on-going battle between the moss and the Grunts, Luna pointed at them. “Should we just burn them or should I try something new?” she asked. Kain shrugged and Ythane did something similar once she remade her ethereal body. “No? Okay, I want to try… this!” she yelled, morphing one of her hands into an oversized insectile thorax. The thorax bulged, then shot a chunk of strange orange slime, nailing an unassuming Grunt in the back of the head. The thorax bulged again and shot a small wad of black slime. After a second of travel time the black wad caught fire and landed on top of the orange slime chunk. Upon contact, the mixture exploded in a fiery blaze, sending gunks of flaming slime, blood, and chitin into the moss and other Grunts. Most of the Grunts died in the explosion, but one was unfortunate enough to survive with flaming chunks of chitin dug into his own carapace and flaming slime smearing his face. The moss did not fare much better, as the explosion had taken out most of the moss on the platform and left fire eating at the edges of the blast zone. “The path is clear!” Luna cheered with a theatrical movement. When she heard no response, she turned and saw Kain face-palming and Ythane trying not to laugh. “What?”
Kain sighed, which finally caused Ythane to burst out laughing. “So much for keeping the local ecosystem balanced,” he stated, causing Ythane to laugh even harder.
He shot her an annoyed look and she took a minute to calm herself down. “Sorry, sorry. It’s just that she reminds me of a young Duvalad who just learned how Ether works and wants to use it to help, but blows up an entire forest instead,” she laughed.
Kain smiled at her words. He was a bit worried at first about her seeming disregard for her grief, but was reassured that she was okay after she let all of her emotions out and was able to open up. He had actually asked her about her relatively normal state of mind, and she mentioned that the Duvalad were always trained to be able to compartmentalize their emotions. While he was thinking, Luna puffed out her cheeks, another tendency she had developed after getting a human body. “Hey! What’s that supposed to mean!?”
Kain sighed. “Well, you wanted to keep the local balance of the ecosystem earlier, but now you’re blowing up entire packs of Grunts. Did you think about that?” he asked, causing Ythane to burst out into laughter once again. “Why am I getting the feeling that I’m the most responsible person here even when I’m technically the youngest?” Ythane just laughed harder. Luna gave a deer in the headlights look and looked up, turned around, began to whistle, and walked to the staircase going downward. “Ugh… where is she getting all of this body language from?” he mumbled to himself.
The group of three made it to the staircase and went downward, once again finding themselves at a 3-way intersecting bridge. There was not a singular biomachine, scrap of moss, or any life apart from another of the gnarled trees in a planter pot. They idly made mention of it and reaffirmed their theory that biomachines shied away from coming close to those types of trees.
They ignored the other doors that were present on the level, as they would always lead to either more labyrinthian tunnels or to a storage closet with every glass pod in it shattered and nothing else, and moved on to the next level. Once they reached the bottom of the stairs and looked out, they realized that they had reached the bottom of the shaft, and they were faced with three doors. One had a sign with the words ‘Mass Biomachine Storage’, the next had a sign saying ‘Maintenance room’, and the last had a sign with the words ‘control center’ above it.
