Ow. That hurt. Sitting back up, she stared in disgust at her naked body before quickly glancing away. Pale limbs and a torso covered in a sheet of red. This lump of flesh was so inefficient! Why was it solid all the way through, and shouldn't it have more than four appendages?

It was so much better being a massive ball of stringy substance.

Staring at her naked body, she had a feeling something was missing, however she couldn't place it. She knew it had to do with showing too much skin, but she didn't see how that was a problem. She decided to think on it later.

Rubbing her sore knees, she contemplated crawling to the now motionless heap of tendrils.

No, there was a better way.

The tendrils within her body started to writhe, slithering through her forearms toward her hands. Numerous threads pierced her flesh and exited through her fingers, sliding across the floor and linking up with the motionless heap.

Charlie laughed in delight. The connection was forged, and her reach expanded. She could feel the heap of finger-width feelers trailing through the door and branching out, covering three hallways and carpeting several rooms.

She luxuriated in the familiar sensation, and sighed with relief. So what if her body was weak and ungainly? Her eldritch abilities would more than make up the difference.

With a shake of her hands, she pulled in her reach, reeling the feelers back towards herself and into her body.

Along the way, she scooped up the minced bodies of the cultists that had fled the ritual chamber, and yet weren't fast enough. Sweeping threads also sponged up the pools of blood. Every drop of blood and every scrap of flesh was swept away, leaving a pristine white hallway. The only sign that a fight had broken out were the gouges in the marble surface. And the discarded pieces of cloth.

Charlie gazed at the room in satisfaction.

Now, every scrap of food was piled up at her feet. The rest of the chamber and hallway were once again sparkly-clean. Tidied up in Charlie's quest to not waste food.

However, she could only feel that the corridor was clean and couldn't see through the fist-sized hole in the door. Deciding the hole wasn't wide enough, the feelers peeled the steel apart with a screech of rending metal.

Annoyed, Charlie blocked off her ear canals with wads of thread.

The screeching increased in volume, and with a groan the metal deformed, bending a hole in the door large enough for her to pass through.

Hmmm, a hallway. As she had sensed through her tendrils, it was a spotless marble hall that stretched into the distance. There were periodic branching intersections, but the facility was mostly featureless.

As she took her first glimpse into the rest of the facility, her tendrils reeled in her meal and retracted into her body. Absentmindedly, she grabbed a morsel and started gnawing on it.

Munch... munch. Slurp. That was kind of tasty. She quickly finished eating her meal, mostly drinking the sustenance, since the majority was a pulped mess. Saving the bones for last, she savored their crunchiness as a fitting dessert.

It would be nice if there were more lying around.

Charlie skipped down the marble hall, occasionally peeking into nearby rooms. She was initially ecstatic to be out of the plain steel box, and was happy to look around the facility.

However, everything was made of marble. The entire facility, with its floors, walls, and ceiling were all made from the same shade of colorless bland marble. Amidst the sea of white, only the furniture and other miscellaneous objects were interesting.

Spending most of the time touring the rooms, she had already passed the guard barracks, the dining area, and the laboratories. It was all very fascinating, but there doesn't seem to be anyone. Maybe they all left.

Or they were hiding.

A playful grin stretched across her face. It would be so exciting! She would love a game of hide and seek, especially since she was starved for company.

Selecting one of the tendrils supporting her body like a many-legged spider, she split it into thousands of thin threads, and sent them slithering down the branching intersection.

Wait. There was some resistance down the left corridor.

Charlie quickly saw the issue as she pranced down the new path. The hallway ended in one of those ubiquitous steel doors, which wouldn't be an issue except for the shimmering barrier covering not only the door but the entire wall.

Several finger-width tendrils shot forward—but stopped when they passed halfway through the barrier. Like the previous barriers, her tendrils felt like they were flies trapped in a thick molasses. Trying to push her way through proved futile, but pulling back her reach was a lot easier.

Reeling them in, she directed them towards the ceiling. They pierced the marble ceiling with a crunch—then there was a grinding of cracking marble as the tendrils rotated, sawing a circular hole.

She hoisted herself through the circular hole, pushing the marble chunk aside.

After taking a few steps, she was directly above the room that the barrier was protecting.

She grinned as she rubbed her hands together. She hoped that she would finally be able to meet someone alive.

Stabbing her tendrils downward, she created a circular hole in front of her, and took care to remove the marble chunk instead of letting it fall. It wouldn't do if she accidentally crushed anyone.

Before she finished lifting the marble chunk, a muffled scream came from below.

She peered excitedly through the open hole. A cowering cultist was pointing at her, while his other hand was clapped to his mouth. His flowing grey robes looked quite nice. It might not be the same color as her tendrils, but she could appreciate the interwoven threads.

There was also the little issue of a dozen humans wearing silvery chainmail or plate armor staring up at her and holding an assortment of weapons. Half of them were wielding swords and maces with the same silver shine. The other half were holding wooden bows with a silver-tipped arrow drawn back on the string.

Oh, the humans had their arrows trained on her.

"Loose!"

The twang of bowstrings snapped through the air. Charlie barely ducked out of the way as the arrows sped past her, detonating and showering her in a spray of marble flakes.

That was dangerous. Her instincts were screaming that something was different about this group. After all, a normal arrow shouldn't be able to do that!

There was a loud crunch before the ground gave out from under her feet. Gravity grabbed hold of her for a moment before she anchored herself by hooking her tendrils into the nearby walls.

Hanging in midair, she realized she was a prime target for archery practice. Ducking and weaving, she evaded the explosive arrows and kept out of reach of the humans waving swords and maces.

"Wait! I don't want to fight! Can't we talk this over?" Charlie pleaded.

As she dodged, Charlie wondered why everything was going so wrong. There was no reason to fight! She just wanted to make some friends and have someone to carry out a conversation!

"You know how many you killed!" a human roared.

He loosed another arrow which she easily dodged.

"But that doesn't mean we can't talk!" she replied, now spread-eagled on the ceiling.

"Die, you abomination!"

While focused on the archers, Charlie forgot to account for the melee fighters. An armored figure made a running leap—and in one slice sheared through several anchoring tendrils.

Charlie dipped down before quickly righting herself. She stared aghast at her severed tendrils. They were eroding at their ends and refusing to reconnect.

Only now did she register that the armor and weapons were not made of silver, but was instead made of a silvery material. The same material as the silver oozes found throughout the abyss.

An arrow hit her right shoulder and exploded.

The blinding light seared her to her bones, and the explosion launched her down the hallway, sending her rolling before slamming her crumpled form into a wall.

Pain wracked her body. Her head felt like it was smashed open from where it impacted the wall, and she could only hear a light thrumming through her pounding headache. Her entire right side felt like it was bathed in oil and set aflame. The pain radiated from her burned right shoulder and rebounded through her screaming nervous system.

With a strangled gasp, she felt for her wounds, but her muscles spasmed and her twitching tendrils refused to heed her. Through teary eyes she saw her severed right arm lying in a pool of blood.

She silently screamed as she tried to move. To get away.

However, nothing was working, and she was stuck, slumped motionlessly against the wall.

The first humans were already climbing out of the warded room.

Charlie could only cry in agony as she watched the humans give the others a hand up, and start making their way towards her.

The humans cautiously moved forwards, closing the distance with melee fighters in front and the archers keeping their bows trained.

Charlie stayed silent even when she felt the fingers on her left hand move, and the twitching of her tendrils subside. With only a slight pause, she immediately made the tendrils continue twitching.

Her head injury and other wounds started to close, but her right shoulder refused to heal.

By now the humans were only ten meters away, and decided not to move any closer.

"Jaraxx, do you think it's dead?"

An armored human asked while keeping his eyes trained on her. The cowering cultist at the back of the group shifted closer to look, and licked his dry lips.

"It should be dead... Cut off its head just in case."

Her vision was still blurry with tears. She longed to blink her eyes, but she held them open.

"I say we should just riddle this blasted thing with arrows and burn the remains," another armored human grumbled as his hand tightened on his bow.

A very faint grinding was coming from behind her as her tendrils dug at the wall.

"No! That's unacceptable. Such good material is worth a fortune."

The humans glanced at each other, but no one stepped forwards.

Looking around, the cultist sighed and proffered, "Whoever cuts off its head will be given ten gold."

After nudging each other, one of the armored humans carefully walked forwards. Holding his sword at the ready to fend off any attacks. He kept his eyes peeled for any sign of movement as he shifted his two-handed grip, and aimed his sword for her neck.

A tendril pierced his foot.

His scream turned into a bloody gurgle as tendrils stabbed through his neck and any other openings in his armor.

The corpse fell with a crash in the ensuing silence.

Arrows spun through the air, aiming for her motionless body. A thunderous explosion rang out, spewing chunks of powdered rubble and caving in the wall.

However, she had already jerked aside.

Tendrils shielded her from the debris and swung her above the humans trying to slice her with their swords or club her with a mace. The humans were too slow.

Anchoring herself to the ceiling, she shot dozens of tendrils down the middle of the hallway. The humans dodged toward the walls as they sliced her tendrils or blasted her cloud of threads with explosive arrows. She blanketed the corridor with a wave of threads, where the only place of safety was along the walls.

The cultist and two archers didn't react in time. They were engulfed in the swarm, and fell choking as their airways were clogged.

However, the other humans found safety along the walls, and were fending off the wave.

Her tendrils were being severed.

They fell limply to the ground without being able to reach their target. Whenever a tendril tried to stab a human, they only had to lean a little for the tendril to impact silvery armor instead of wielding flesh.

Any attempt to grab the humans in nets of thread would be sliced down or battered apart.

Once severed or blown to pieces, the tendrils couldn't be reconnected.

Some of the archers had developed some nicks, but they were already shuffling down the hall to regain their range.

She could only watch as her tendrils were destroyed. As the humans repositioned themselves at more defensible locations.

By all rights the humans were winning.

However...

Charlie smiled.

The humans were pinned against the walls.

Tendrils pierced through the marble walls with a dull crunch, skewering the humans through their necks and anywhere not covered by their armor.

A few managed to evade a fatal wound, but were taken by surprise. Their hands were skewered or they were knocked off balance when tendrils slammed into their backs. They were quickly roped and pulled into the mass in the middle of the hallway.

With tendrils snaking into their armor and boring into their skin, the humans quickly stopped moving. The splattering continued for a few seconds before stopping.

She retracted the tendrils that emerged from the walls, and pulled them through the hole she initially made as she was playing dead.

Charlie slowly lowered herself and gingerly placed her body on the floor.

She winced as she tried to move, and lay down to soothe her aching injuries. The still working tendrils swept the room and gathered her meal, while also pulling all the motionless tendrils toward her.

Not wanting to move her only arm, a web of threads reeled a morsel to her mouth, and she chomped down.

As she ate, the crippling pain receded and her right shoulder finally started to heal. Ribs clicked back into place, and flesh flowed over the wound caused by the silver-tipped arrow. Reeling in her right arm, it was slotted and stitched back into place.

She stood up as she munched on the last of the motionless tendrils. A grey, blood-splattered robe lay on the ground. She picked it up and examined it. It was quite nice, although the blood was distracting.

Slipping it on over her head, she didn't bother covering her head with the hood. Her own threads slithered over the robe and sponged up the stains.

It was warm and cozy. However, she had a feeling something was missing. She had a nagging thought that she should be wearing more than just a single robe—no matter how comfortable.

Right, some of the armored humans were also girls, and they were wearing clothing underneath their silvery chainmail.

Happy that she figured it out, she filched some articles of clothing from the female remains and slipped them on underneath her robe.

She gave a quick twirl and found that the clothing fit her nicely.

That nagging feeling that she was naked was also gone.

Cheerfully, she looked around the pristine and yet ruined hallway, only to immediately droop.

Staring sadly at a piece of silvery armor, she sighed.

"I just wanted to ask them a question. Honestly, why am I calling myself Charlie?"