Chapter 15: The Leash.

Catherine casually strolled down the halls, finding out quickly that this whole place was a maze. She had stumbled around and ran into enough dead ends to come to the conclusion that she was lost, but was only frustrated at the fact Rose and Nyoka might catch up to her or even end up passing her and moving on to the next floor.

Coming up to another dead end she frowned “Ok this is getting ridiculous.” She inspected the wall, knocking on it a few times and shrugged. She was not sure if she could break it or if even trying to do so was a bad idea so she turned around and continued forward, deciding to stick to the left wall to make some progress.

While she was alone, and seeing as this floor lacked monsters, she decided to fiddle with the ball imbedded in her chest. She focused on it, trying to move it to a different location and she could do so with ease, letting it rest on her palm. She then tried to hide it, something she was specifically told not to do, by absorbing it below her skin and finding no difficulties in doing so. An issue arose, however, when the ball started to heat up.

“Ah shit.” Quickly letting the ball come to the surface and sighing in relief once the heat died down. “So it can tell when others cant see it… does give some leeway.” With the ball still in her palm she reached inside herself with a free hand, pulling out a glove from the stored armor of the dead soldiers she killed on the ship. And unlike the armor the goblins wore, she found herself unable to completely dissolve this armor.

Getting back to her experiment, she wore the glove over the ball and waited for a reaction. Much to her surprise the ball didn’t heat up, instead it rose to the surface of the glove, phasing threw it enough to be visible “The hell?!” Catherine shouted, then tried to remove the glove only for the ball to phase right threw it and plopping back in place on her palm. “The fuck is this thing made of?” She then moved the ball to her chest, body armor that she wore when impersonating Catherine oozing out of her body that she jumped inside of.

She looked down at her chest, and was annoyed when the ball phased threw the armor to appear on top of it “This fucking…” She quickly absorbed the armor and looked down expecting to find the ball back on her chest, much to her surprise however, the ball was missing. “Wait, what?” She moved her arms to her open chest, prodding around where the ball used to sit. “No way.” In disbelief, she made her body transparent, looking inside of herself she still could not locate the ball.

“It can’t be that fucking easy!” Her body expanded, forming one big giant mouth on her belly that spat out the armor before shrinking back to her normal size. She rushed over to the armor “huh?” As she inspected the armor she noted the ball was missing. A sinking feeling came over her as she looked down, and sure enough the ball was sitting on her chest as if nothing happened.

She huffed, figuring it went back into place the moment she summoned the armor from within herself. Shrugging she tried to store the ball directly but found she was unable to. “Figures…” She then equipped the armor, flowing into it and waiting for the ball to appear on the surface, once it did she stored the armor, the ball being stored as well.

Catherine chuckled “So I can store it if it is imbedded into something, seems like a fatal flaw.” It almost seemed too easy, there is also no telling if it could go off in her inventory. They had a way for her to dump everything inside the inventory, so it would not be a stretch to say it would go off inside her if she did anything stupid.

Summoning the armor just long enough for the ball to return to its spot on her chest before storing it again she continued with her tests while she had the time. “I can hide it when necessary, what that does to the leash is still up in the air…” She decided to possible ways she could avoid dying if it ever did go off. Moving the ball to her palm again she decided to do the most simple method and chuck the fucker. She picked up the ball between two fingers and reeled back before attempting to throw the thing down the hallway.

Not seeing it fly down the hallway as expected, she looked at her hands and groaned. Attached to the very tip of her fingers was the ball sticking defiantly. “Peace of…wait.” With an idea in her head she reeled back again, and this time as she threw she separated her hand from her body, launching it down the hallway with the ball. “Yes! I am a genius!” She cheered, but then frowned. While she could throw it she still didn’t know the specifics of what happens when it goes off, all she knew is what frig told her about, but it was still an option that might save her skin.

Through her connection with her separated mass she could tell the ball was still attached, to her annoyance. She cut the connection to see what would happen, the mass that was her arm turning into just a puddle of white liquid. After a small delay the ball beeped, before rolling rapidly towards Catherine. “Beep?” She raised an eyebrow, that was the first sound the ball had made without an input.

As the ball approached her she decided to test something, jumping up to the ceiling she watched as the ball stopped directly below her. Wanting to see if it had any means to reach her but raised an eyebrow when it started beeping. “this might not be a good idea…” She said, and as if to confirm her suspicions the ball lit up, ceasing its beeping it spoke “No contact with host in the 30 seconds. No enemies in the area. Assuming escape or abandonment, If host does not re connect in the next 10 seconds event will be logged and will start the termination process.”

“Shit!” Catherine fell from the ceiling, landing on top of the ball and feeling it move back to her chest. She sighed, lifting herself up and continuing to walk down the hall. Cursing to herself, she looked down to the ball “So I can’t just leave it in a ditch somewhere…” She sighed, going over what it said. She seemed to have some leeway when it came to it getting detached from her, with how she fought and how common it would be for her to split and lose body parts it would be cruel for contact to be held at all times.

It also could remotely terminate her, or so it said, so the inventory idea was now even more questionable. But what was most worrying at this moment was “It said something about logging the issue…” Catherine did NOT want them knowing she was fiddling with the damn thing, if they got stricter then all loopholes she found so far would most likely be removed and her leash tightened. What was also worrying was, this was the only time it said it would log something. There was no telling if it had already logged something.

She sighed, figuring there was no helping it now. What done is done, and could only hope the lazy and full of themselves bastards underestimated her more than she already knew. For now she was satisfied with what she found out, but the ball suddenly becoming vocal spooked her out of trying anything else for the time being.

Continuing with the maze she stopped, briefly looking back before looking forward, then letting out a giant groan “This floor fucking sucks!” She shouted, “At least give me something to fight, or something!” She waited for a bit, but with silence as her answer she stomped her feet in frustration before continuing.

After what felt like an hour and Catherine growing so bored, had devolved into her slime form, oozing across the floor with the ball floating around inside of her, she had found the stairs leading down. Two small nubs formed on her body that reached up into the air in victory, oozing towards the stairs and falling down them, step by step, making a wet plopping sound as she landed. Hoping the next floor would be more interesting than this giant maze.

Much to her disappointment, what greeted her on the next floor was another maze. Groaning inwardly, she lazily oozed towards the left wall, placing a little nub on it she continued forward. She did not get very far before her body sank a bit with the floor and with a *clank* the top half of the hallway shot out, colliding with the other side. If she had been in her usual Catherine form, her top half from the waist up would have been flattened.

A small mouth formed on her slimy body “Oh, that is something new.” She said, glad that this new floor wouldn’t be that boring.