Chapter Two

Eleonor

Her entire body was being gently caressed by innumerable viscous appendages who were inspecting her, with a special attention for her right wrist. That, by the way, wasn’t hurting anymore. She just had the strange feeling that something was patching up her wounds like someone fixing a hole in a wall with plaster. Something was put into her mouth, that she recognized quickly as a flesh fruit she had eaten so much the past few days. Without thinking, she took a bit of it, eating it fully. Satisfied, she fell asleep…

She woke up in the middle on the tiny room. The tentacle pool was especially quiet, its liquid still like a sea of oil.

The pool. One of the supporting pillar of the Sauriot Swarm, a marvel of bio-engineering developed to build armies. This is the last one, at least in this brood. It is not, by far, at full capacity anymore, but it is still capable to heal you, from time to time. It is exhausting to heal something as complex as you, so try to avoid overusing the pool, let it some time to rest. Fortunately, those injury of yours weren’t that bad. And maybe, by feeding it some biomass, you could wake up its latent capacity… But it’s a story for another time, you’re barely able to feed yourself…

It’s this thing that healed me ? Asked herself the young woman while getting closer of the pool. She put two finger in the liquid, expecting it to be disgusting, but was quite surprised when she found it reassuring instead, as if this tar had some motherly aura, strange and wicked, but still motherly.

She pulled her hand out, playing slightly with the substance before she recalled something significant.

I’m still hungry ? Didn’t i eat while being in the pond ? She wondered while rubbing her hand against the wall, creating a long black mark on it.

She turned back to face the door and took a step before stopping, hugging her recently healed right hand against her chest. She remembered the pain, the despair that filled herself, all the blood, the fight to go back here, to live, and she started to be afraid, afraid to go out, afraid to be attacked, disgustingly afraid to be hurt again.

She never was the kind to like pain. Oh, don’t misunderstand, nobody really like to be hurt, but for Eleonor it was something else entirely. She was fleeing pain with all her might, trying to avoid it, to dodge it whatever the price was, even if it created issues for someone else. She was so afraid of it that she could hide from the world, isolating herself to not suffer from something or someone. She wanted to be left alone.

Those thought spinned in circle for a long time in her head while she was contemplating the door and doing nothing, her hunger becoming more and more insistent with the passing time. She then took a decision, moving forward and crossing the fleshy door, even more watchful than before. She came back to the balcony, welcomed by a crepuscular light. She saw the corps from her assailant, in the same state she let it when she fled for her life. She reached it while her stomach rumbled from hunger, remembering what the voice said.

To be a scavenger, wasn’t it ?

She touched the carcass of this little monster, disgusted by its texture, its smell, quibbling it while a battle took place in her head, the one opposing her revulsion and her hunger. Hunger won, and she started eating the inert corps bit by bit, wincing each time she took a bite of it. Despite her retchs, she fully cleaned the carcass, a process appearing less and less difficult as things progressed in her meal, to the point of just being distasteful, nothing else.

Not entirely satiated but not famished either, she stood up, getting ready to go back to the little room.

Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed. Don’t forget to bring back biomass to your pool, young girl.

Eleonor stopped herself in her motion and frowned, trying to understand what the voice was trying to say, looking back at her bounty.

The skeleton of the little thing stood still, with the fangs and tooth, the claw.

Do I need to take those back to the pond ? She asked herself, surprised, before shrugging and taking them with her. She get back as she could to her room, a mass of bones, claw and fangs difficult to transport between her hands, mass that she threw in the black tart as soon as she came in.

She watched it sinking slowly between the tentacles, disappearing in the viscous liquid while letting out some bubble of air, and that was it. Eleonor watched closely for a minute, then two, then five. After ten minute, she was going to sit in a corner but, suddenly, a tentacles jumped out of of the pool, grabbing her arm and contorting around it, taking it into the pond. She tried to resist, in vain, the limb too powerful for her.

WHAT DO YOU WANT ? Asked a big, low-pitched and monotonous voice.

Excuse me ? Who are you ? Responded the young lady reflexively.

WHO ? I’M THE GENESIS POOL, REGISTRATION NUMBER… A-0, AWAITING INSTRUCTION FROM YOURSELF.

Genesis pool ? Why did you grab me ?

NEED OF DIRECT CONTACT TO COMMUNICATE.

Yes, but why now ?

BIOMASS HAS BEEN INSERTED, AWAITING ORDER FOR ITS UTILISATION.

Biomass ? You mean the bones from the rabbit ?

RABBIT ?

The thing I gave you.

YOU DIDN’T GAVE ME A RABBIT, BUT A MUTATED SPECIMEN BRANCHING FROM THE PAWN SPECIES WHO HAD ACQUIRED MIMICRY CAPACITY FOR HUNTING. SPECIMEN RANK : 1,5

Mimicry ? It was hiding itself into something else to hunt ?

AFFIRMATIVE. LACKING EXECUTION, BUT ELEGANT AND EFFECTIVE TECHNIQUE.

Her arm still in the pond, the young woman took some time to think, absorbing all the new knowledge she received, searching the good question to ask.

What is a Pawn ?

PAWN : BASE UNIT OF THE SWARM. EFFECTIVE TO DROWN ENEMY IN NUMBER, DISTRACT, ANCHORING A POSITION, DISPOSING OF CIVILIAN TARGET. WEAK ARMOR, WEAK VITALITY, WEAK DAMAGE POTENTIAL, VERY CHEAP AND FAST TO PRODUCE. DO YOU WANT ME TO UPLOAD THE SCHEMATIC OF THIS UNIT INTO YOUR BRAIN ?

Yes !

A jolt of electricity seemed to cross her brain, mildly painful and quickly gone, and she started to see a tridimensional projection of a little monster, with some line of text, like when she received a fragment from the voice and that she saw a character sheet of herself

[Pawn]

[Level : 1-15]

[Ressources :

Health point: 10/10 - 150/150 Stamina: 10/10 - 150/150]

[Body : 1-15]

[Mind : 1-1]

[Soul: 1-1]

[Natural armor: 3-45]

[Natural weapons:

Fangs: strength*1-2.5 damage, anti-armor 1-5

Claws: strength*1-2 damage, anti-armor 0-2]

The tridimensional projection was slowly spinning on itself, showing a four-legged

beast, covered by a chitinous armor, with little nasty eyes and vicious claws and fangs.

Surprised by those stats, she looked at hers.

[Eleonor]

[Level : 1]

[Ressources :

Hp: 50/50 Stamina: 50/50]

[Body : 1]

[Mind : 1]

[Soul : 1]

[Natural armor: 1]

[Natural weapons :

Fangs: strength*1 damage (5)

Feet and fists : strength*2 damage (10)]

Eleonor noted with astonishment that two new stats had appeared but, more importantly, she now understood just how weak she was. Her strikes shouldn’t even be able to hurt this cannon fodder creature, and her armor was pitiable.

You asked me what i wanted. I want to go back home. She thought, discouraged.

I DON’T UNDERSTAND. PLEASE CHOOSE A USE FOR THE INSERTED BIOMASS.

Of course, what did I expect.

She sat down, slipping her legs into the black pond to get into a more comfy position and stood there, her eyes lost in contemplation. Finally…

So, I inserted biomass, but what can i do with it.

NORMALLY, A LOT OF THINGS, BUT SYSTEMS HAVE SUSTAINED CATASTROPHIQUE DAMAGE. ONLY RESHAPING AND MENDING SYSTEMS ARE ONLINE.

RESHAPING : INSERTED BIOMASS IS RESTRUCTURED TO PRODUCE AN OBJECT OF THE SHAPE AND FUNCTION ASKED.

MENDING : INSERTED BIOMASS IS INJECTED INTO THE HOST STRUCTURE OF THE USER TO OVERHAUL PERFORMANCE.

So you can upgrade me, or making me something ?

AFFIRMATIVE. ADVICE : FOCUS ON MENDING.

Why ?

OBJECTS CAN BE LOST OR BROKEN. YOUR BODY IS YOURS AND HEAL ITSELF AUTOMATICALLY. MENDING MORE EFFICIENT, ELEGANT.

The young lady thought again while swinging her legs into the pond of tar, creating ripples between the tentacles.

What is going to happens if I choose the mending ?

YOUR STRUCTURE WOULD BE MODIFIED ACCORDING TO YOUR WISH AND THE AMOUNT OF AVAILABLE BIOMASS.

Yes, no, but how would I change ?

YOU WOULD BE OPTIMIZED.

That’s not what i’m asking !

...I DON’T UNDERSTAND.

Indeed. She thought while sighing loudly.

Well, what options would you offer me ?

LOW QUANTITY OF BIOMASS. MAINLY BONES AND CHITINE. PROPOSITION :

UPGRADE OF YOUR WEAPONS

OR

UPGRADE OF YOUR ARMOR

Armor ?

AFFIRMATIVE. NOTE : TO LITTLE BIOMASS TO CREATE A FULL BODY ARMOR. ONLY PRIORITY PARTS WOULD BE COVERED BY IT, NAMELY THE HEAD, CHEST, SPINE AND HANDS.

And this could spare me from injuries ?

AFFIRMATIVE.

Let’s go for this then ! Offense is good and all as long as you stay alive but, as the adage say, the best defense is the best defense !

DO I NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT YOU WANT THE INSTALLATION OF THE ARMOR UPGRADE ?

Yes !

PLEASE IMMERSE YOURSELF IN THE POND TO PROCEED. Asked her the pool, which she did promptly.

She felt herself taken by the tentacles who sank her deeper and deeper into the pond, palpating her, caressing her before entering her mouth, throat, vagina, nostrils, anus, lungs and stomach, reminding her of the first time she woke up in this world, with a noteworthy difference : she didn’t feel herself invaded, didn’t lack oxygen. She was just floating, peacefully, in what was more and more becoming for her a maternal embrace. She felt herself falling asleep, but a voice made her stay awake for some more time.

This good old Genèse. An extraordinary biological machine, obsessed by its directives : Survival, evolution, optimization. It’s what it is made for, the very reason of its existence, the very thing why this place is Hell for it. Nobody to serve, nothing to do, nothing but waiting and praying that someone, anyone, come to give it a reason to exist again. My master hears its lamentations since a long time ago, he hears all the lamentations, wherever they come. Use this pond rightly, it’s its reason to exist, what makes it happy, that is why my master gave it to you. Had nices dreams my dear.

The voice faded away, and the feeling of warmth, comfort, security finished to make her fall asleep, taking her into a welcomed coma.