Chapter 31

Daniel held up a finger to warn Tamara that his focus was needed elsewhere.

Then, instantly, before the motion had finished, his consciousness abandoned his body. He dove into the conduit and then sped straight to the third ramp that Finigan had been monitoring. His mind spread through the ramp and he was aware of all of it. Even small insignificant details were apparent. There were multiple spots where the vines had been crushed. Weight distribution was off in places. One vine acting as a strut was a little shorter than its partner on the other side, and so a step was at an angle. He could feel the hastily included restraint netting set up about a third of the way down from the top. Despite it being made of plants, it was painfully separate from the rest of the construction.

Finigan sensed something, Daniel reminded himself.

The sense of oneness with his plant creations was always alluring. Often when in this state, he wanted to help correct minor issues.

Finigan had… Forcefully he focused on outside forces affecting the ramp. He instantly felt the tension building at the bottom of the construction as a zombie pushed off with its foot. Its claw slicing through one of the insignificant vines laid down to provide a rough surface over the wooden slats and prevent people from slipping.

While he had completely depleted his mana earlier, a small amount had regenerated. He assessed the reserves and compared it against what he would need to release the knot holding the bridge up and was pleased that he had significantly more mana than required, which meant he could be proactive in his defence. Immediately almost half of the regenerated pool to improve the restraint netting.

His skill had grown so far that even those couple points of mana made an enormous difference. While the fighters had done a good job creatively jury rigging the net into place, actually an amazing effort without plant powers, Daniel’s changes took that to a whole level. Instead of a knot to secure the restraints in place the substance of the plant ropes fused with the ramp at the floor, hand rails and vertical support levels. Before shifting his attention away, Daniel strengthened the components of the ramp that he had attached the netting too. The vertical supports would almost certainly have teared, which would have defeated the entire purpose of the restraints.

It would hopefully be enough to prevent a speed zombie from getting amongst his fighters before he dropped the bridge.

About a second passed while he made his improvements, and now the zombie was halfway up.

It was fast.

More zombies were scrambling onto the bottom of the ramp. A mass of them as they attempted to send a pack up to overwhelm whoever was above them. Two seconds since the first one stood on that first plank and those numbers crowding in had increased to seven of them and based on relative weight at least two were hulks. The vines strained under their mass, but the genius of Cindy’s design meant they did not break.

The first two speedsters swept fully up the ramp and slammed into the restraints. The force they hit with was sufficient to kill themselves, but from a military perspective they completed their aim. The nets, even reinforced as they were had broken.

Priscilla acted.

Connected as he was, Daniel felt it as she pushed energy into the knot. As designed, it gave away instantly and within a single stride of the zombies their footing went from slightly unsteady to non-existent.

Then the ramp, complete with eight live ferals and two dead was in free fall.

Roars of shock echoed from below them with a changing tone as the monsters accelerated away.

Lying on the floor with his connection to the ramp severed he heard the thump as they hit the ground so many floors below. It did not seem possible given the distance, but his ears were not lying.

Tamara had leapt to her feet and was looking out the window down where they had landed. “Lots. Do you know how many?”

“Ten.” Daniel answered.

“Looks less from this angle.”

“Any of them moving.”

“Doesn’t seem like it. I don’t think there was an ultra in this group.”

“No two speedsters, five elites and three regular.”

“Poor things. Sob,” she said, pretending to be upset. She looked sadly at Ivey. “This plan was great. We’re up to double digit kills, including an ultra and potentially a super.”

“It was almost a disaster.” Daniel whispered.

Everyone in the room was looking at where Ivey lay. They knew exactly what he meant.

“Without what ever she did.” Daniel’s voice broke. “It only worked because of her.”

“Ratag Arad.”

Tamara cocked her head. “She’ll be okay?”

Dave nodded and then gently stroked her forehead. She lay on his lap and chest, appearing tiny.

Luke caught Daniel’s eye and shook his head. “I disagree.” He hesitated. “Did she divert a disaster? Maybe, maybe not. Without her, we would probably have lost people while slowing the monster down. We’re pretty good now at defensive fallback even if we’ve only trained it with drills. The monster might have followed us up the ramp and we could have disposed of it that way. More costly, sure, but not a disaster.”

Privately, Daniel did not think that was likely. He believed that monster would have been too smart to have taken that risk. It wasn’t worth debating it, though. Any debate on that subject had the potential to derail morale. “You’re right.”

And I’m becoming a slimy politician he thought to himself. Justifying lies for the greater good. He turned back to Tamara. “While we’re waiting for the last ramp, why don’t you keep telling me about the magic options you have.

“As I said I get offered everything. The ones you’ve seen are air, earth, nature, force, and dark magic. Then there are some common ones that will be out there, but I’m not sure anyone in this group took them. Water being the most obvious.”

“That would have been damn useful. Filling up bathtubs with ice has worked, but it sort of looks like a pain.”

“It is,” she confirmed. “You’re telling me apart from a couple of moments before we fight something my mana has not been full at all during waking hours.”

“You realise you’re complaining to the one person who has you beaten.”

“Yes, we’re both superheroes.” She laughed. “Anyway, stop distracting me. Besides those common ones, there are the more esoteric options such as light, dimensional portals and mind effects more often in the guise of what you’ve done with Priscilla than Jayden.”

She stopped talking instantly after mentioning the name.

“I’m sorry.”

She frowned. “I should have known.” She punched the ground. “I should have guessed. It wasn’t like I was completely unaware of the potential for that sort of stuff. But it was Jayden. He had his flaws, but I didn’t think he would choose something like that. Hell, I’m pretty sure he didn’t know he could do that.”

A single zombie ran up the last ramp and hit the restraint netting. The toughened vines held as the zombie struggled. A stray claw severed two of the vines. Lightning and arrows blasted down to kill it.

There was a moment of silence, and then another feral attempted it. This was not even an elite. There was a boom, and it fell with a hole blown through its chest.

“What’s happening?” Tamara asked. Her eyes were misted and while she could hear the sounds, she could not see like Daniel through his plant vision.

“They’re sending ferals up one by one and our ranged fighters are eliminating them.”

Animal pulse flashed out and there were around twenty zombies milling in the rooms below, but there was no impression of strength like he got with ultras.

A non-elite ran up and once more it failed to reach the netting.

“This is such a waste of cores.”

Tamara laughed. “I think we should be happy just to kill them.”

A speedster zoomed up the ramp and slammed into the restraints. The vines stretched dangerously, more snapped. It was eliminated where it stood.

What the zombies were going to do was obvious and the restraints might not stop the next zombie and if it was a speed one. Probably not worth it to get a couple of extra kills. “Nope.” He muttered. Power flashed, and the ramp collapsed. There were loud boos from the other room.

“What?”

“I dropped the ramp. There was too much chance the next speedster would have blasted to this floor.”

“They don’t seem to like it.”

“They’ll get over it.” Daniel shuffled around to look at Dave, as he still did not quite comprehend what had happened. “Did you know she planned that?”

The big man nodded.

“You made me stay clear.”

Another nod. Daniel wished he had learnt Dave’s language because it would make this a lot easier. He thought hard.

“So you knew it was dangerous.”

Dave said nothing, but the stare that Daniel received conveyed exactly what he was thinking. ‘Are you dumb or something?’

“Moving along,” Daniel said hurriedly. “Ivey didn’t know she was going to be unconscious?”

A shrug, then a shake, and then nod.

“So she didn’t know, but suspected.”

A firm nod.

“But you ran at her almost before the black stuff disappeared. She had told you how long the spell would last for?”

Another deliberate nod.

There was a sound of a throat clearing. When he looked up, Luke was standing in the hotel doorway, having returned from talking to the others. “Sorry to interrupt. I have to ask what’s next.”

Daniel looked out the window. “Secure the floor and then the funeral.”

Priscilla had headed down to floor nineteen once the last ramp had been released, but she did not have vision yet. His mana was also depleted, so he couldn’t keep track constantly with animal sense, as he had to let it recharge. “Spread out to cover the entire floor till we know what’s happening downstairs.”

“Don’t you normally know that with your spider senses?” Tamara teased.

“That takes mana or Priscilla. She was on ramp duty and it’ll take her a few minutes to get down. It’s also dangerous for her if there are too many speed zombies to make sure we could live.”

A short time later, Priscilla showed that the clump that had been ready to come up the third ramp had broken up, with the majority going downstairs. Even the sentry structure had broken up for all intents and purposes. No counterattack was coming.

“Looks like we’re safe for now.”

Luke nodded solemnly. “Floor forty-three?”

“I think so. Then down for food and drinks afterwards.” He pushed to his feet and looked down to where Blood Drinker lay by itself so far below. He had to get down there quickly.

Log Report 5 - Entry 14

She did it!

It worked!

I’m so impressed with myself.

I can hear them talking. Ivey this, Ivey that, ‘she was so brave’, but I can’t blame them for not understanding my genius, they’re just Bipeds.

After all, it’s not like she did anything impressive. It’s easy to run at a monster when you know you possessed an offensive defensive skill as incredibly designed as ‘Something accidentally attacked me and I responded with claws of shredding blackness and boiled them alive, oops.’

Hell, if I was in her position I would have been excited to use it.

My host.

Frowny face.

Did not share the same level of overwhelming anticipation. In fact, the chemical spikes in her brains suggested the complete opposite. I even double then triple checked the readings and compared them to the understanding of the biological system pack that we received to explain bipeds. Fear, terror, doubt???

What’s with that?

The results were certain. After all, I had designed the skill. Despite that fact and after our time together, she is aware of my brilliance; she felt doubt!

Suspicion instead of happy excitement. I know her identification put the creature on the pedestal of run away as fast as possible… And I know the biped natural reaction in that sort of situation is to listen… Fight or Flight instinct or something like that with bipeds being biased to the runaway with their tail between their legs while screaming hysterically response.

That’s instincts.

I expect my host to be better than that. She knows identification is a dumb tool, and I told her to ignore it. Sure, she ran at the deconstructed sapient who had gouged itself on lots of other deconstructed sapients and probably wanted to migrate to chomping on sapients. That willingness to approach I guess was something. However, those chemical spikes that showed terror it’s like she doesn’t trust me!

She was feeling, bah it doesn’t matter what her emotions were. We’ve already established she’s a weird one who makes bad choices, and this does nothing to disprove that hypothesis. Fancy being afraid instead of excited about the opportunity to use ‘Something accidentally attacked me and I responded with claws of shredding blackness and boiled them alive, oops!!!’

But she used it!!

And the aftermath was glorious. It was like experiencing the rapture.

Disintegration.

Death.

Destruction.

Deterioration.

Despair (for my enemies)

Absolutely Delightful.

There were a few wrinkles. The blow back on the host was greater than expected. She’s currently unconscious… blah blah… some tribunal will probably blame me for that… but the news is that there’s definitely a slight chance that she’ll maybe possibly recover… eventually.

But enough about that.

When you do experiments, there are bound to be blowbacks. You’re never going to get it right the first time. When I’m famous and the ability saves species in future Alpha events, her contribution will definitely be noted in one of the minor footnotes.

If she recovers, oops, slip of the tongue. I meant when she recovers.

*Pointedly closing one protective membrane of electromagnetic seeing thing to share conspiracy.*

I’ll need to get her to detail her experiences for science.

I’ll also remind her that the skill is not foolproof.

Yes, it killed the extremely powerful sapient deconstructed, but let’s be honest. That thing was not that strong. If the co-wobub was not so lazy and bothered to master all of its abilities, he would be stronger than that sapient deconstructed.

What’s with that, anyway? What sort of creature would have access to all that power and not bother to master it all. It makes no sense…

Oh…

Biped…

Forget I expressed confusion…

The co-wobub is a biped.

That explains everything.

Anyway, I need to remind my host that ‘Something accidentally attacked me and I responded with claws of shredding blackness and boiled them alive, oops.’ will not be effective against the Broncada lizard. The skill has been created to viciously destroy biological entities up to but not including class four monsters. Now I don’t want to blow my horn… because others should do that… The rules are clear that the ability is not allowed to be strong enough to defeat class fours… and you know I don’t break rules

*wink wink*…

And the design is extraordinarily clever, but even with that there is no way it can take out a class four.

*Rolls on the floor uncontrollably, slapping the ground and making weird wheezing noises*

Class four versus ‘Something accidentally attacked me and I responded with claws of shredding blackness and boiled them alive, oops.’

*wink wink*

We all know how that’s going to end.

With a more serious tone. Class four is one thing, but the lizard is class two and that’s not four times tougher. It’s more like four hundred times.

And as incredible as ‘Something accidentally attacked me and I responded with claws of shredding blackness and boiled them alive, oops.’ is it will only scratch the Broncada lizard soft underbelly and then only if it hits perfectly?

I’ll make a note to warn her later.

I only recently submitted a log report so I don’t have a lot more to say. I’m still annoyed at the idiotic pet and the silly host that drove him away. Anyway, that’s *H2O under a device that aims to allow you to walk above said H2O*.

Note. Don’t mention the idiotic co-wobub and foolish host decision again.

A list of all outstanding notes are.

Note to self 1: Prematurely triggering emergency blast ability crosses the whole self-determination thing.

Note to self 2: Bipeds’ preferred term of address is ‘humans’.

Note to self 3: Is ‘pet’ the correct term? Research! I’m going to say confirmed as 59% agreed it was the appropriate terminology with affirmative statements such as. ‘What do you think?’ which I interpreted to mean yes. And *Laughter*… ‘Absolutely.’ And ‘Scientifically that’s definitely the right description.’ Note closed!

Note to self 4: Check with others to confirm that ‘Something accidentally attacked me, and I responded with claws of shredding blackness and boiled them alive, oops’ is a superior name to ‘Emergency Blast’. Confirmed. Note closed!

Note to self 5: I should see if I can make the pet the Pobournes’ mascot. Monkeys are good mascots, aren’t they? And if it’s a lucky one, then that has to be even better. Theory about being lucky was disputed. Motion was dismissed. Note closed. Frowny face.

Note to self 6. Warn Host that ‘Something accidentally attacked me and I responded with claws of shredding blackness and boiled them alive, oops.’ will not work against class four and above monsters.