I find myself staring down into a deep hole, listening to a distant chewing. A dozen or so bees, one Eliza (not sure she counts as a bee anymore) and a giant tree are all attempting to get a look. Blackjack doesn't have eyes, but he's very eager.

I say the words everyone's thinking. Well, everyone except Blackjack.

"What the fuck is that? How did it dig a hole so fast?"

"No idea." Buzzes Eliza. "But we should kll it in case it's dangerous."

"How do you propose we do that? It's huge, and it is definitely out of reach now. I don't have any way to tunnel, and I absolutely couldn't dig that fast even if I could. I think it might have been made of metal too..."

"It'll have to come up sometime. When it does, we'll kill it." Eliza seems very confident.

"What if it doesn't?"

"If it never comes up, then it doesn't matter. We can ignore it then. But I don't think that will be the case."

"Hmm. That sounds right." I send. "I need to go build some better weapons and work on my magic. It'll be a bit boring. How about you and Blackjack see if you can dig it up or something, and send someone to let me know if you guys need a hand pulping it. I'm going to wander around here for a while, then head back to the cafeteria. I've got something I've been wanting to try for a while." I pause for a second. "Then I'm going to go and clean out those moleratmadillows and liberate that glowing orb back where we started, if you want to come."

"Yes, do invvvite me to the zzzlaughter. I would be happy to aid you."

Not really comforting, but I'll take all the help I can get.

All right, Bob, Sam and Josephine are coming with me and eveyone else is staying with Blackjack for the moment. I can get behind that. The delinquents will be relatively safe, since I'm not planning anything violent.

If I'm going to ascend a weight class and get stronger, I think I need to better use the abilities I have.

For example, I'm a Chimera, but I haven't actually done anything cool with that besides add more body parts.

If I go back and look at my lifeforce menu

Lifeforce Menu

1 life force equals the life energy of a low leveled living being. Only beings beyond a certain level of intelligence and size can condense a soul core to store their life force and anchor their soul in. Unanchored souls can be stolen, it is highly advised to anchor your soul. Life force may also be generated with mana at a low rate. In this menu you may spend the stolen life force of your foes to reshape yourself in their image.

Current Lifeforce: 170

Maximum Lifeforce: 170

Lifeforce Regeneration Rate: .05/s

Upgrades

Merge Soul Core: 5 Life Force

Merge Mana Core: 5 Life Force

Graft Flesh: 25 Life Force

Examine Blueprint: 10 Life Force

Remodel Flesh: Active Drain

More unlocks may be available, consume your enemies and grow stronger!

There's an ability I never used that I probably should have been using. Now that my lifeforce is full and I have nothing to spend it on, let's see what Examine Blueprint does.

Let's try it on this viney plant I made my body out of first, get some idea what it does...

Oh my.

This is way too much data.

Common Blackvine

Turgidity : 4

Fibrosity: 12

Meristematic Activity: 8

Cloning: False

Ovulation: 4

Major nutrient needs: Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium

Minor Nutrient needs: Copper, Iron, Zinc

More Info -->

I scroll through, pressing More Info repeatedly, and there's 26 pages. 26! PAGES!

A lot of it doesn't mean anything without context. Cytokinesis has a value of 5. Is that good? I have no idea.

Some of it I don't even know what the words mean. It's been ages since I was in school after all.

After paging through all the info on the plant, I conclude that Examine Blueprint might be useful for a Botanist, but it's going to take way too much effort for me to get anything useful out of it.

Let's use a better method instead.

Experimentation.

There's quite a bit of plant life here in the swamp. I see a plant with gray flowers on it, some kind of parasitic vine clinging to a tree, lots of lichens and mosses, and a few other kinds of plants.

I find a few samples of a nice fern, and graft it up near where I tend to grow my leaves. I figure it's more energy efficient to save leaves than to grow new ones every time, and fern leaves roll up when prompted. We'll see if these really work better though with some use.

I take a hard look at the parasitic vine, and decide there's no real way to see if it's better than what I have than to try it out. I grow a piece of vine into a replica of my left lower arm, and stick it on below while I do some tests.

How far can I throw this rock with each arm?

Hmm.

How well does it bend?

Hmmmmmm.

How well do they resist damage?

This parasitic vine sucks. It heals really easy, but it's inferior in evey other way that I care about.

I rip the test arm free and toss it on the ground.

I have another idea. Leaves get in the way too much while I'm moving around, so I'm mostly bare woody vines. If I graft some moss on the surface, I should be able to harvest more light without hindering myself.

Let's try it on my arm first.

That... actually feels quite nice. Let's do it.

It's moss time.

Annnnnd now! Presenting the Jolly Green Giant!

Or something like that.

This is actually quite nice, I'm glad I thought of it.

I think that sums up what I can do here, lets go back to the cafeteria and work on weapons.

*Rustle*

I pause. Where's that noise coming from?

It stopped.

I move again and I hear more rustling.

Oh, I forgot to roll up the fern leaves. They're pretty noisy. I might have to rethink those later.

I enter the cafeteria, and there's holes in the floor. I see two giant metal centipedes eating one of the metal tables, and Grimal is nowhere to be seen.

You're telling me there's more of these things?