Unfortunately for my personal rest, there was still work to do. If I left the slyk’s corpse alone it would spread all throughout the warehouse, then looting it would be a major pain in the ass. I also needed to dig Okeria out from under his oily tomb, which was what I should’ve prioritized in the first place. He needed medical attention at least, and a eulogy at worst.

I peeled myself off the oily surface that had barely cushioned my fall, my entire body screaming at me to take it much slower than I was willing to. A slew of notifications attempted to distract me from getting to Okeria; a core mastery increase, all of my corrupted gear gaining a few individual levels, the copied core from the signaleech, and a reminder that the slyk had died under //WIPE-AWAY. I’d gained quite a bit from this oil-bug’s death.

It was what I’d potentially lost that worried me. I limped over to the pile of oil that I remembered being where Okeria had fallen and gently pushed my fingers into the goop, feeling it harden around them, and slowly but surely dragged it away. Bit by bit I exposed Okeria’s armor, which had taken quite a beating from the signaleech, but was still the watermelon-like shell that I recognized as his.

I couldn’t make out any breaks or stabs on the armor itself, but that didn’t mean the man inside of it was still among the living. I knocked on the helmet’s visor to try and get Okeria’s attention. Absolutely nothing met me in return. But just as I was about to pop the gumball into my mouth just to get Keratily here a little bit sooner, the sound of something mechanical working caught my attention.

A little drone appeared on Okeria’s chest. It was a pyramid with the connecting tips of the triangles lopped off, and it opened slightly to reveal a deluge of blue light that coalesced into a recording of Okeria.

“If you’re seeing this, it means I decided to trust ya and that I’m still alive.” The little holographic Okeria informed me. “This little thing is a drone I made ta tell people ta let my armor do its thing and heal me; I put a whole lotta work inta the regenerative matrix inside my armor, and I don’t wanna die because some healer thought they could do better. Unless you’re Keratily, stand back and let me heal myself. And if you’re the one that put me in this state, then I’ll meet ya in the abyss when ya get here.”

The drone buzzed quietly and closed back up, then melted into liquid metal and soaked into Okeria’s armor. I had no reason not to trust that Okeria had his best interests at heart, so I dusted off my knees and turned to the signaleech’s corpse. Half of this shit was mine, whether Okeria agreed to the split or not, and I wasn’t going to let him sweet talk me out of my share.

I scraped the last of the oil off of Okeria and squished through the slyk’s exploded corpse to reach what I assumed was the main body. Rocks and oil were all that I could really see, but if Okeria could make something out of them, then I definitely could as well. I opened my inventory and pulled out some of the vacuum canisters Jun had given me, kneeling down in the oil to scoop up as much of it as I could. Even though the signaleech was undoubtedly dead, which I confirmed multiple times by attempting to analyze its remains, electricity still flowed through the oil I took from the slyk.

I filled all twelve canisters with the oil that was closest to the signaleech’s exposed core. My logic was that it would be more powerful the closer it was to the source of the signaleech’s own power, and the bolts of lightning that swam through the oil seemed to confirm my hypothesis. And even after I’d done all of that, there was still more than enough for Okeria to take the lion’s share.

The one thing I didn’t leave for him were the shards of glass from the slyk’s eyes. It was blackened and scorched from the electrical discharge from when the signaleech bit the dust, but I knew that I could find a use for it. I scooped up as many of the shards as I could find, but they were pretty damn hard to find under a thorough coating of electrified oil. Finally, I took as many slyk-rocks as my interface would let me. I could corrupt them into something interesting at the very least, and something wonderful at best.

Okeria was up and groaning by the time I finished securing my portion of the spoils. I walked over to him while he was struggling to push himself up onto a single elbow and leaned down to talk to him.

“How’s your armor patching you up?”

“Mrrrghm.” Okeria groaned, slowly rotating his head as if to check it was still attached. “I’m still alive somehow, so I’ll give it full credit. Did ya call in Keratily ta do this?”

Okeria gestured at the destruction around us, and I took pride in the shake of my head I gave him. “This was all us.” I said happily, omitting the part where I took a risk that could’ve killed me instead of taking the easy way out with Keratily. “I left you your share of the spoils. How long until you’re in good enough shape to take them?”

After a seconds long battle with gravity, Okeria gave in and lowered himself back down to the ground. “Too long.” He chuckled grimly. “I’ve lost a charge on my resurrection matrix, and I don’t gotta tell ya how badly that means I was doing. Go do whatever it is ya gotta do. I’ll be right here waiting for my body ta stop being a liquid.”

Nap time it was, then. I stretched and turned to look at the pod in the middle of the signaleech’s remains, but decided that the scavenger hunt could wait a dozen more hours. “Do you want me to get Keratily to come help you?”

“No… ah, who am I kidding.” Okeria sighed. “Yeah, go get her. It’ll speed this up a hundred times over, and I know she won’t scoop up all our hard-earned dead slyk. Don’t forget ta tell her that whatever’s in those pods belongs ta ya, either. I’m betting it ain’t a coincidence that there’s one dead center where the signaleech bit it, and even I won’t skim anything from whatever just saved my life.”

I didn’t believe that for a second, but I was also way too tired to do anything about it. “Fine. Remember that you’ll be the one paying for it if you take those slyk shards. The thing they’re going to build is really fucking important, and it takes all of them to make it. Don’t make me regret trusting you.”

“I swear I won’t.” Okeria said seriously. “On all of Thraiv’s waters, I will not disturb a single one of these ‘slyk shards’ you’re talking about.”

“Your word means literally nothing to me.” I said plainly. “If I trust you on this, and you fuck it up, there’s someone who will make you life a living hell for however little time you’ll have left. And no, that isn’t an empty threat.”

Okeria nodded, but didn’t seem to take me seriously. I shrugged and turned away from him, beginning my semi-long trudge back to the safe room. And a couch that had my name written all over it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

I pounded my fist against the tightly shut doors twice, sent Jun a message that I was outside, then leaned back and waited. It swung open to reveal Keratily sitting at the same table that she had been when I’d left, an unfinished game between her and an empty seat. Jun looked both bored and annoyed, but when she looked over my shoulder, all of that boredom drained away.

“Skies above, what happened out there?” She asked incredulously, taking in all the ruin that Okeria and the signaleech had caused. “Did you kill Okeria or something?”

“No, but something else tried really fucking hard to kill him.” I replied, stepping into the room when Jun gave me the room to do so. I glanced at Keratily, then pointed a thumb over my shoulder. “He needs you to help heal him. The signaleech did a lot of damage to him before we killed it.”

Keratily reluctantly looked between me and the unfinished game before her, then sighed and pushed herself out of her chair. “I suppose that’s urgent enough. We’ll continue this when I return, Juniper.”

“Not on your life.” Jun muttered as Keratily donned her armor and slammed the door shut behind her. “I hope your afternoon was more interesting than mine was. Rootia still puts a whole lot of emphasis on me marrying someone important even after everything else she said.”

“That sucks.” I yawned, glancing at my fleshy body’s status for a second before doffing my armor and collapsing onto the couch. It was beyond tempting to fall right into a blissful sleep, but I had a core to consume and WIPE-AWAY’s experience to divvy out. “I’m going to sort through all this then take a nap.”

“Alright. When you wake up, though, we need to talk. Rootia’s really starting to get on my nerves, and I need you on my side for this.” Jun half-said, half-pleaded. “She’s trying to set me up on dates for when we get to Rainbow Basin. And I have about as much interest in anyone she’d find for me as I have in drowning in the abyss.”

“You don’t even have to ask.” I said sleepily, lazily swiping through my interface to get at the notifications I needed. “We’re in this together.”

Jun smiled wide and sat back down at her side of the game board. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say. Hope you got something worth your time out of all that.”

“Same here.” I agreed, pressing on the signaleech’s main core and designating myself as the recipient. I was half expecting a torrent of nodes and experience unlike anything I’d ever seen before. And I certainly got it.

//CREATION ACTIVATED. COPY SELF-DESIGNATED.

//INITIAL NODES GRANTED: 42.

//7 NODES FILLED: 2 BATTERY, 1 SPEED, 1 POWER, 1 RESILIENCE, 2 RECOVERY.

//NODES TO BE GRANTED OVER 120 SECONDS: 84.

//CORE MASTERY INCREASED BY 2.

That was a whole lot of potential right there. It was definitely the most I’d gotten from anything in this life, but it almost felt anticlimactic. Since all of those empty nodes would be going right back into creating gear, I’d only have those seven stat nodes to show for my troubles. There was still one thing I had left to check, though.

//WIPE-AWAY SECONDARY EFFECT FULFILLED: MASSIVE CRYSTALLIZED EXPERIENCE CREATED.

//WARNING: CORE MASTERY CAN BE INCREASED WITH THIS EXPERIENCE, BUT THE AMOUNT NEEDED TO LEVEL UP A CORE IS 10X THAT WHICH AN ITEM OF SIMILAR LEVEL NEEDS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

//BREAK THE EXPERIENCE INTO SMALLER CRYSTALS?