WilburWoods
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Chapter 50 - The Deep
🕑 Added 2023-10-03 16:22:15 +0000 UTCLogan was screaming. He fell, flailing his arms. Deeper and deeper, he fell into the darkness. Panic and fear of death flooded his mind. Only primal emotion filled his reality.
[Reconfiguring Neural Matrix… 95% Completion]
[Overriding neural restriction protocol…]
[Analyzing synapse sensitivity…]
[...]
[False neural signal protocol initiated.]
Suddenly Logan found himself falling in silence. He was calm. The fear of death was pushed into a tiny voice to the back of his skull. His emotions had shifted completely as if affected by a drug or medicine. That’s what it literally was, if Tumor had tinkered with his synapses.
His mind was working faster too. Caffeine could hold no candle.
Assess. What tools do I have? Internal Numa. This blowpipe. I don’t have many viable options and I’m running out of time fast. Hail mary it is.
The air smacked his face and made it hard to speak, but Logan mustered through. He grabbed the blowpipe with both of his hands.
“Make this blowpipe float. I don’t need a flying enchantment. I just need it to be lighter than gravity by 170 pounds. Oh and harden it. And make it sticky so my hands will hold their grip. Use all of my goddamn Numa charge on this. I need this thing to be able to carry my weight and float me down safely! Put all of the Numa into potency. I don’t need the [Enchantment] to last more than three minutes. Make the first eight seconds of the float enchantment gradual, increasing ten percent at a time.”
[Personal Numa Charge, 8%]
Logan felt an almost painful pull at his navel. His shoulders screamed in pain, but his grip held, as his body was suddenly trying to pull him down. Gradually the weight of his body seemed to increase and their descent slowed down into a feather-fall. Logan let out a massive sigh and resolved to hold on.
[Impressive acumen. I had no idea you would be able to request all of these details. Had you disregarded something, we would have plummeted to death. In fact, there was a 91.52% chance that my tinkering with your brain chemistry would not save us.]
“I’m glad that it did,” Logan said between deep breaths. “But I don’t want you doing that again.”
[I used a judgement call. My design prevents me by default from affecting your mind, but the data packet that I was provided with gave me the means to circumvent my programming.]
“That’s actually extremely disconcerting.”
[It is not a cause for worry. I will only use it in situations that place you in high duress, and you need your mental faculties, such as they are.]
“Thanks..?” Logan said. “And what if you decide to go all Skynet on me?”
[Such an outcome is impossible. You are able to relinquish your motor control to me momentarily, and I am able to affect your emotions temporarily, until your synapses saturate and you will return to baseline. However, I cannot change your personality, preferences or goals. I can make you feel sadness, but I cannot change who you fundamentally are.]
“That’s still extremely creepy,” Logan muttered. “Anyway, thanks Tumor.”
[No need to thank me. It is my pleasure to keep existing. I can experience this only through interfacing with your consciousness, as limited as it may be.]
“Tumor,” Logan said tentatively. “Is it just me, or are we still falling too fast?”
[Indeed, a fall at this speed would result in fractures of your shin and femur bones.]
“Great,” Logan muttered. But he already had a plan. The increased mental capacity that Tumor had bestowed upon him was already fading, but Logan could still use the afterburn. He made sure his grip was tight and he swung his body towards the black wall of the chasm.
The blowpipe floated smoothly as they descended. Logan was very happy that his socks had a durability [Enchantment] as otherwise, this would hurt.
Logan pushed his legs against the edge of the chasm. It hurt his ankles and knees to slide down, so in a moment of self-preservation, Logan removed his feet from the surface.
“Did we slow down, Tumor?”
[Yes, by 1.30%.]
That was good enough. Logan put his legs back against the wall of the chasm, and slid down, until it hurt too much. Intermittently he kept doing this, until he could hold his super-socks on the jagged surface for longer and longer. Eventually Tumor declared that his fall speed had slowed down sufficiently.
[Interesting.]
“What is?” Logan asked as they flitted downwards.
[The moisture of the atmosphere has changed. There is water down there.]
“That just makes my day…”
*
It didn’t take much longer for them to hit the water. They were deep. Very deep. So deep, that Logan was almost completely blind. The water was chest deep and cold. This sucked, but at least he was alive.
Logan needed to get out of the water. It didn’t feel safe. Which way to go, was the question. Logan saw nothing but faint shadows and outlines in the darkness. He heard a bubbling coming from his left.
Okayy.. So right it is.
Half swimming, half wading through the dark water, Logan felt the water level lower from his chest to his solar plexus. The bubbling from behind him started coming in closer and louder.
Logan’s instincts went ballistic. His adrenaline spiked and he pushed the water out of his way as fast as his legs could pump him forward “Nope!”
Something came up from the water. Some things. Several tentacles lashed around him in the water, making splashes. The bubbling turned into an eerie groan, as if someone was yelling underwater.
[Overriding neural restriction protocol…]
[Analyzing synapse sensitivity…]
[...]
[Overriding pain signal.]
[RUN LOGAN!]
Even Tumor sounded scared. Logan had had a hell of a day, but whatever Tumor did, gave him a second wind. His legs felt suddenly unspent and the dank air of the darkness refreshed him.
The water splashed aggressively behind him as the groans reverberated throughout the dark chamber. The water was getting lower. Waist high. Something wrapped around Logan’s ankle. He kicked forwards and the tentacle, not yet able to sink it’s grasp, let loose. Logan stumbled and sprinted. Knee deep. Something big was behind Logan. It was chasing him. The tentacles lashed at Logan, but the creature seemed to be as blind as Logan. There was a blue glow in the direction Logan was running towards.
A room! The faint outline of a caved-in doorway appeared from the darkness as Logan ran. He panther-leapt forward and slid and crawled. A tentacle wrapped around his leg, spiraling all the way from his ankle to his thigh. The barbs penetrated skin and pumped something cold into his leg. Logan gasped and shivered. It was gray and slimy and it quivered as it pulsed venom into its prey. Frantically Logan placed a hand on the tentacle.
“Make this shrivel up! Make it die! Make it go away!”
[Cannot use skills on living beings]
Fuck!
The tentacle tugged him back through the doorway. Logan planted his feet on the edges of the doorway. His other leg was cold and feeling numb. It barely held ground. Logan was gradually getting sleepier, despite every fiber of his being flaring up on high alert.
Another tentacle came, this one wrapping around his arm, which was trying to grab onto the smooth stone. Logan’s fingernails skidded and scratched off along the doorframe, but Logan barely felt the pain.
“Make this stone into sand! Make it a billion tiny little pieces of stone!”
[Sub-class Level Up!]
[Transmutation level 18]
The frame Logan was holding onto turned into something soft and flowing, and Logan’s hand fell inside falling grey sand. He yanked his arm away with all of his last strength.
With a rumble and crash, the whole doorway collapsed further, as the dilapidated wall fell. The pale tentacles holding Logan snapped and Logan was thrown backwards on his side. An angry groan resonated from the other side of the crumbling wall.
Logan dragged himself backwards away from the destruction and lost consciousness.
