Doctor Hao Sung-Hwan was nearing on completely sober, mostly because the stash from her lab was running out, but it wasn't te only reason. She looked at her hands, and noted their shaking. The painful pounding behind her eyes as the blood vessels there dilated. She looked back at the young man, swimming through the glitchy waves, toward the sinking plane. Something about his appearance made her finally decide that this must all be real...
This whole mess had started, as was fairly typical for her, with a new drug. Her usual dealer said he had found her another new bit of fun. Some kind of extract from a Himalayan monkey-spider? That part probably didn't matter. After taking her usual precautions, she’d tried the stuff.
The injection had felt warm, she’d started sweating, and then her last memory of that moment was the thought that the mental effects were extremely strange, though she now had no notions of what sensations even caused her to think that! Frustrating.
When she fist awoke she had been stark naked, covered in strange bruises, and hiding in a cabinet. Not the most comfortable position, but it was hardly the first time she'd had a bad trip, so Dr. Sung-Hwan wasn't immediately worried.
Exiting the cabinet confirmed that she was still in her own lab room, although the place seemed as though it had just been through a rather severe earthquake. Every light was dark, meaning even the backups had failed, and the only reason she could see was that the sunlight filtering in through the floor-to-ceiling windows over in her corner office, reached even this far into the building.
She stepped carefully around her usual clutter as well as the new debris, and went to check on her current experiments in the specialized storage room, only to stop, handle in hand, when she saw movement through the door's small window. Cupping her hands against it to see clearer, she peered into the room, and saw a lumpy mound of writhing flesh.
At first Dr. Sung-Hwan had thought it was just the drugs. An aftershock of the psychoactive effects, distorting her perceptions... but as she gaped at it, the shifting, scrotal skin movement suddenly stopped. One of the lumps slowly turned to face her, revealing a face that was bloody red, seeming skinless. A single cyclopean eye sat on its brow, and it smiled a lipless grin, with flat teeth that were too short to be human.
She ran, of course. Justified moments later by a gut churning thump at the door she'd just left. She stumbled a bit, ran into a few of the secure chemical canisters and office chairs she wasn't technically supposed to leave in the aisles of her lab room, which suddenly seemed suffocatingly cramped.
Upon reaching the hall, she saw that the end of the hallway near the stairwell had been blocked by a solid wall of grey, mottled, natural stone. As if someone had cut away that section of the building, and replaced it with a cliff face.
Dr. Sung-Hwan turned back along the other end of the hall, and nearly poked her eye out on what she initially thought was a plague doctor mask... until the beak split apart, as the new creature spoke. "Well hello there dearie, what's all this then?"
Its voice was high but pleasant, almost musical, belying its horrifying nature. It stood a bit taller than she did, humanoid, cloaked in unnaturally dark silks and leathers. None of the sunlight still filtering in through her office was reflected on any part of it, giving it a distinctly unnatural presence. Its eyes were like empty black portholes, giving no indication of any life, let alone where it was looking, and when it spoke an overlong tongue was visible, the only part of the thing with any color.
Dr. Sung-Hwan staggered back, fear catching her scream in her throat. Too startled to remember the flesh creature still thumping in the room behind her... and all the while, the back of her mind was exhilarated at the prospect of such a powerful new psychedelic. After all what else could this be but a drug-induced nightmare?
The bird-faced creature made placating gestures with its hands. "Woah there, little lady. No need to be feisty.." But as it spoke, it pulled an ominous syringe out of its coat. "You're gonna be a good little piggy for me, oh you betcha."
A crash from behind sent movement surging back into Dr. Sung-Hwan's legs, and she tried to skirt around the sinister bird-thing, out of its reach. She dodged two of its swipes, but as she made it around and ran, the creature landed an overhead swing into her ass cheek. If it had been holding the syringe more securely, the needle would have broken off inside her!
The pain and surprise caused her to trip, but she quickly pulled the needle out, and threw it in the face of the laughing creature, before scrabbling to her feet and continuing her escape. Come to think of it, had she ever figured out what it had dosed her with? If this was all real, then she'd have to look into that at some point, but for now, things like food were still a somewhat higher priority.
When she reached her office, she locked the door behind herself, and then took the time to pull on a spare set of scrubs she kept there for emergencies. Her reasoning at the time being that it might not keep her safe from the monsters behind her, but it was all a drug trip anyway, so she might as well be comfortable... right?
As she did so, she offhandedly noticed that her office windows were completely missing. The expensive, floor-to-ceiling corner windows were totally absent, letting dense foliage peek between her blinds, and into the room... foliage that definitely wasn't there before.
Dr. Sung-Hwan had shrugged to herself, and then began to wander around the arboreous dreamscape, with little care for safety or sanity, since everything was obviously a dream.
She wandered past a clearing where hands grew from the ground like grass, and made lewd gestures at her. She passed a herd of giant cow-looking things. She hid from a plethora of flying sea-life with various intensities of gigantism.
When the sun set, and she could no longer see well under the tree cover, she followed sounds of water to an ocean that seemed at war with itself, glitching and crashing into itself chaotically, glittering beautifully in the moonlight. There was an elf nearby with a broken arm, and Dr. Sung-Hwan had helped to set and bandage it.
Her doctorate was actually in pharmaceutical biochemistry, but she had gotten certified as a nurse after seeing a rather funny scene in a movie wherein an issue had arisen with someone being “not that kind of doctor”. The anatomical insight had been endlessly helpful in her day-job, and rather cemented in her mind, the usefulness of her more whimsical tendencies. In this case, Dr. Sung-Hwan had assumed that helping to heal a figment of her own imagination was probably some kind of symbolic therapy... well, it made sense at the time!
The elf, for her part, was not Dr. Sung-Hwan’s type. A skinny, shy little thing, dressed like a cheap forest whore. She’d also flinched like a beaten dog every time Dr. Sung-Hwan had done or said anything, making the whole process take much longer than necessary. At some point, the sun had decided Dr. Sung-Hwan’s head was not yet in nearly enough pain, and begun to poke its loathsome visage above the only visible horizon. Dr. Sung-Hwan had idly wondered what real-world stimulus was causing it, since she had been able to see just fine when it was still “dark”.
A short time later, a blue, translucent gypsy dancer had sashayed up and begun watching her help the elf. It had nodded when greeted, and then placed a hand on its chin, apparently in deep thought… and since it was otherwise mostly unresponsive, Dr. Sung-Hwan had been happy to ignore it…
Days had passed as they did generic castaway things. The jungle had enough fruit to make food a triviality, so Dr. Sung-Hwan had mostly just sat around with the badly shell-shocked elf, and the curious blue gypsy, doing sweet fuck-all.
At some point she had the two follow her back to where she thought her lab was. It took a while to find, but it turned out the thing was pretty close to the beach where they had built their fire pit. Luckily, neither horrifying creature had stuck around, and they'd retrieved... various things? The shelter they built from salvaged pressboard was practically worthless, but it kept the rain out. On the other hand, the substances from her stash were really nice, and nothing bad happened, so nobody questioned anything.
The first time that she had been forced to reconsider whether or not this was truly all in her head, was when the tutorial challenge had pulled her group into that weird padded gymnasium.
It was a bit too structured to be completely imaginary. The tests made a bit too much sense, and even the parts about magic were a bit too logically sound. There was also the area they could visit between tests, that healed them... The elf's arm was almost immediately fine, but it gave Dr. Sung-Hwan a feeling of lightheaded arousal, so she stayed out of it after that. Her hypothesis that it accelerated her metabolism somehow, had surprised her with her own clear-headedness...
When they had all been judged as fit as the magic president, or whatever, the system had spit them back out exactly where they had been... but the whole thing didn't sit well with Dr. Sung-Hwan. It felt like this was an isekai story, like the ones she'd heard about from friends in college, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she wasn't the main character... in her own dream?
It unsettled her. And hadn't this drug trip lasted a little too long to be normal? Maybe she was in a coma or something? That was the point where she decided to try letting herself go completely sober. Her current headache was the result, but she'd sunk enough effort into the endeavor that she hated to waste it by relapsing so soon.
The next morning came with a giant woman. Over two meters tall, she stepped out of the trees and asked where this place was… Dr. Sung-Hwan still felt sure that she could not have imagined such a beautiful creature on her own.
The giant’s lustrous dirty-blond hair fell like a waterfall, down to her shapely behind, and was kept from her face by two tiny crown braids. Her pert creamy bosom threatened to overflow from the cord-threaded cleavage of bright magenta, poofy, medieval garb she wore. The giant’s face was Asiatic, despite her hair color, and her eyes held a kind mirth to them, like she could burst into a happy song at any moment… The very thought made Dr. Sung-Hwan’s heart flutter.
Introductions had been awkward, but necessary. The tall musician was called Shyuria, the elf was Stella, the blue one still hadn’t talked. Further small talk had been made, but not really heard. It had been apparent that all present were both worried about finding themselves in this new location, and glad to have found friendly faces. The situation had twigged something in Dr. Sung-Hwan’s memory of a popular manhwa she had read in med school, and she felt reassured once again, that this was all a dream...
Then that guy showed up.
Something about him was weird. Looking at him, she had felt like… he was moving in a higher framerate than everything else? The effect was disquieting even now… She had avoided watching his approach, her headache being what it was.
When he introduced himself as ‘Dan’ some other memory had twigged… but she never had the chance to investigate it, because a split second later, a fucking plane had crashed in the water nearby.
That had NOT been there before. It should be physically impossible for it to have gotten so close without making enough noise to draw attention… Nevertheless, the plane did splashdown, putting another point in the ‘this is all a drug fueled nightmare’ column. Maybe she should've been keeping track of those?
That Dan guy had immediately discarded his shirt, bag, and shoes, running to help… He must’ve seen or thought of something at the water, because he’d run back to get a knife from his bag.
Dr. Sung-Hwan, for her part, had helped herself to his discarded shirt, thinking at first to wear it for modesty’s sake, then giving up and using the dark fabric as a hood to keep the rising sun out of her aching eyes... Hadn't she had scrubs at some point? Where had her clothes gone?
She now realized there was a smell to his shirt. A tropical deodorant of some kind… and something else? She sniffed a different part, and… She stopped herself. Inappropriately sniffing a stranger’s clothes was probably a bad first impression… She decided the smell wasn’t unpleasant, and tried to refocus.
Shyuria, the tall beauty was the one to break the stunned silence: “What’d’ya think a stud like that’s packin’?”
Dr. Sung-Hwan had made the mistake of looking up at the musician whilst trying to parse what she’d said and almost had an aneurysm.
The doctor’s withdrawal addled mind worked slowly through the statement. First she rejected the idea of that man as a stud. Too skinny and scruffy, more like turkey jerky than beefcake. Then she realized that the musician’s voice was high an melodious in a way that seemed completely at odds with her height. Between that and her accent, she sounded like a country singer... Why hadn't she noticed sooner? Then she wondered if she could convince the guy to help her score with this scintillating sky-scraper. Finally she realized that she hadn’t actually answered the question… She made a show of considering it, as she gathered up her scattered thoughts.
“I suppose we’ll just have to think up a way to find out” she said eventually, as coyly as she could.
The conversation continued, and she anxiously evaded most of it. Some pink-haired tomboy had clambered out of the waves to stand around without joining in, answering questions with pained grunts.
Dr. Sung-Hwan recognized the hallmarks of hangover, and didn’t push the issue, though it worried her: She’d never seen anyone hungover in a dream before.
In fact, she was just coming to the decision that flip-flopping was getting her nowhere, and that she needed to take this predicament seriously… when she was distracted by that Dan guy finally getting back, holding a fucking fantasy princess of all things.
“Anyone here know CPR?”
The shout had made her wince. Dr. Sung-Hwan sighed and waved him over. “Not so loud, guy. Just set her down, and we’ll see what we can do.”
To his credit, the guy listened well and was easy to direct as she led him through the steps. Maybe it was the dregs of drugs in her system, or her new girl-crush’s earlier question… or just garden variety sluttiness? Whatever the reason, when Dr. Sung-Hwan noticed Dan taking peeks at her nudity, she immediately started teasing him for it. She cupped herself, and traced her curves with her hands. Dan was into it, and a sideways glance revealed that her tall musician was as well, so Dr. Sung-Hwan had escalated to crouching down and spreading herself for him…
Debating solipsism with herself was lame, and the way she felt at that moment was decidedly not too bad... And that was how Dr. Sung-Hwan was thinking when the sleeping princess woke up... To the immediate sight of Dan crouched over her with a significant tent in his pants.
Suddenly, the sparkly woman had horns, and she tried to slap him! Her first swing didn't reach, but when she tried again, Dr. Sung-Hwan was surprised by the way she sent Dan skipping across the water like a stone... Almost as surprised as she was by the awful crunch noise that emanated from where Dan hit the... now un-sunken plane? What!? Why couldn’t reality make up it’s fucking mind about making sense of not?!
Dr. Sung-Hwan quickly drew her lab coat around herself, to cover her nudity. She was struck by a sudden burst of nausea, fear, disgust… loss for some reason? Feelings swam through her head as it pounded in time with her heart, which wasn’t exactly slow after watching that sparkly bitch off-handedly murder the guy that Sung-Hwan had been masturbating to/for only seconds earlier. FUCK!
Dr. Sung-Hwan focused on her breathing, ignoring the outburst of noise as everyone present started talking over each other, each essentially saying the same things: ‘What the fuck was that? What the fuck is going on?’
Before things had the chance to escalate much further, the blue gypsy shouted, “look!” Dr.Sung-Hwan hadn’t even known the thing could speak, but the unique warbly quality of the voice made it cut through the confusion so everyone heard it. They followed where the thing was pointing, and saw something splashing its way toward shore…
The stiff silence that followed was broken when the princess pulled a crackling fireball out of thin air and started taking aim.
“He just saved your life, do you really need to kill him?” Dr.Sung-Hwan heard herself saying, and immediately regretted it as the princess turned cold grey eyes in her direction.
"Explain yourself.” An order, not a question. The princess' sharp gaze felt like a knife at her neck. Is this what it meant to stare daggers at someone?
“Ah, well, uhm-” The imperious woman’s eyes seemed to bore into her, and Dr.Sung-Hwan realized with a shiver she had slitted pupils, in addition to those horns... What was she?
“You were drowned!” The pink one cut in, pointing accusingly. “He got you and me both outta being stuck in…” she waved to indicate the crashed, sunken, but now somehow floating plane, “that thing, and carried your shiny ass outta the water when you were too drowned to do it yourself. Then he and the medic did CPR and that’s why you’re still breathin’!”
“Ridiculous. We are of dragon! Water holds no such dangers for us.”
Some of the girls were shocked, but Shyuria snapped back “So you’re gonna kill him for ignorantly trying to save you. That’s sooo much better.”
Dr.Sung-Hwan had to sit down as her mind weathered the mental and emotional taffy-puller that all of these revelations were putting her through.
Dan wasn’t dead, but probably seriously needed help and no one was doing anything about it?
The pink person didn’t know what an airplane was, but did know CPR?
The silver princess was 'of dragon'? Apparently!?
The fear and confusion felt real, but her logical mind was screaming at her to just ignore all this obviously hallucinated melodrama… Maybe this was why she was so lonely? She came to the conclusion that her singular data point was unscientific and resolved to find someone with which share her exploration of psychoactives. Or maybe a therapist.
She laid back in the sand, and again, ran through the day so far in her head, committing it to memory. She almost couldn’t wait to get back to her trip-journal. In her normal, non-destroyed office... On normal, non-magical earth... This was how she usually dealt with this kind of hallucination, right? So if she followed her normal steps, eventually the step where she woke up and wrote it all down would come... right?
She was pulled from her short reverie by a bark of pain as the pink girl and Shyuria dropped poor, excitable Dan. She watched him get up and hobble the rest of the way to the group... They were all just standing around, next to the fire pit. Only a few meters from the treeline... Why though?
When Dan reached them, he looked much the same as before; all gangly and wiry, but now ugly bruises marked his chest and ran up his left side… The salt water and sand had seen fit to matt his scruffy hair until it looked outright mangey, and it framed his pained grimace in a way that would only seem fitting on a total maniac. Dr. Sung-Hwan was still wondering why he was coming to them when they all had legs, when the man actually just out and asked the princess if she was alright.
“You ok?”
Of course that wouldn’t go well! The little dragon princess puffed up her chest, and snarled, “What? Impudent whelp! Assess your own injuries before bandying about with your ignorant concerns!”
He tried to move his mangled arm from where he was being held upright by the pink one, then seemed surprised that he was.
Princess continued, “More importantly, why are you enabling him? Weak fools like that aren’t worth the pity!”
Dan answered lightly, seemingly without taking any time to think. “You didn’t have a pulse when I carried you outta the water, and I got tossed before I heard it start again, so I’m just makin’ sure.” Then, with a bit more solemnity, "I know it probably looked pretty bad, and I apologize for tha--"
The man must have also been hit on the head at some point, given that he was now being flippant with the dragon… wait, did he not know? Flames erupted around the princess’ dragon horns, and she went on her tiptoe to grab a fistful Dan’s hair. She pulled him down from where the others held him upright, and slammed his ear to her modest chest with another animalistic snarl, cutting him off.
He paused there, perhaps a moment too long, then spoke somewhat dramatically, “Oh, but how strong you are! Surely a weakling like myself can rest assured, surviving alongside such reliable strength!”
The princess’ horn-flames dimmed to candle sized, but her harsh expression didn’t move.
“In fact,” the fool continued, still pressed against the dragon, “could I trouble a big, strong, regal beauty like yourself to go retrieve that plane?”
She pulled him up to her eye level, and sneered at him. “Bugs like you don’t tell me what to do.” Then she threw him aside, and began trying to interrogate the elf, who was too busy crying to answer. He didn’t go flying this time, just fell backwards, and kinda writhed in pain for a bit.
Dr.Sung-Hwan sat down again. When had she stood up? She still hadn’t really had enough time to fully process that first surprise because stuff kept happening, and it was all too much! She'd never had a drug trip like this before, where nothing happened for so long, and the all at once things refused to stop happening! She felt like a kite in a windstorm, slowly losing its tail...
She glanced at Shyuria's anxious expression, and resolved to try to get some tail soon... And with that Dr. Sung-Hwan returned to her meditation. The idea that this must all be real loomed large in her mind, but regardless, she went through her motions, memorizing events.
When Dr. Sung-Hwan finished her little meditation, (and managed to relax enough to feel alright). Dan was back on his feet, and handing out assignments… and leaf-hats? He leaned on a stick and looked… kinda stern, if still definitely in pain.
“Remember, before noon, or else you won’t be back in time.”
“Aye, captain!” Shyuria, the tall, pretty, musician waved without turning back. Her hips were doing something magical as she walked away, and Dr. Sung-Hwan wanted to watch forever…
“Doctor medicine?”
Dr. Sung-Hwan turned back to find Dan looking at her… He couldn’t know, right? He had no way of knowing just how perfectly that nickname fit her. And where did he get that modern walking crutch? This place HAD TO BE just a drug trip! He must have taken her silence as attention, because he continued, “Could I ask you to help me see to my bones? If they set wrong and I’m permanently crippled, I would find that supremely inconvenient.”
Dr.Sung-Hwan opened her mouth to respond negatively, but it just came out as a sigh. Why not, right? “Sure, let me go get some supplies.”
She grabbed the utility knife from his belt and started making her way back to the ruined lab she’d woken up in.
Less than a minute after she left, the sound of a small explosion reached her… but nothing else of not happened on the short journey. She used the screwdriver part of the utility knife to get the med-kit (that she really should've retrieved sooner, if she was honest with herself) off of where it was mounted to the wall, and then hurried back to the beach.
When Dr. Sung-Hwan returned with the med-kit, she also brought some of the intact glassware, and some papers for starting the fire. Upon exiting the tree line, she was flummoxed to find that somehow the plane had been dragged from the water.
She glanced around to look for Dan, finding him lying unconscious in the sand, next to a small crater of scorched glass… But that made no… How could..? Dr. Sung-Hwan shrugged to herself. Either she would have time to better understand these people, or the drug trip would end soon, and both scenarios could only be worsened by overanalysis.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Proud of her logical acumen, Dr.Sung-Hwan set about... well, setting and splinting the strange man’s bones.
Those four months, comprising what would be Anni’s final attempt at spider village, would always be somewhat hazy in her mind. Apparently, the untested cocktail of variably toxic bug-based mystery fluids had lasting detrimental effects… Shocking, right?
Especially considering her eventual realization that her reliance on river travel almost always resulted in her picking up a parasitic passenger, meaning that she actually had more bug-juice in her than anyone knew, even the doctor!
But, having no way of knowing that yet, Anni once again made her way to her familiar lazy river, fighting off despair by attempting to consolidate what she had learned and accomplished. What little she could remember came in short clips, and washed out emotional patches. Trying to make sense of what had happened felt like trying to figure out the plot of an anime, through only its doujins… That having been said, she did have a hobby like that in her old life, and so things weren’t as bad as they could have been.
For example, at some point that first night, Anni had sneezed and grown bored with watching her little moonbeam. She thought perhaps the drugs had finally worn off? She’d thought they had worn off a few times already, but also she had no other idea as to why something like that would be amusing enough that she’d stare at it all night long… Had she even been awake? She didn’t feel like she’d gotten any sleep, but also she thought she hadn’t seen the little spotlight’s entire journey.
She still wished her menu thing had at least some kind of clock, but at the time, she had checked it for… like, debuff icons or something?
“Status”
Aniron Honemashite: Level 0
Class:Fodddddddamsel
Physiological:33/95
Paraphysical:-ER/93,040
Physiculpable:?3/017
Physical:7
Epiphysical:4
Endophysical: ??
Nonphysical: "Threebleteen"
Psychophysical:25
Aphysical:12
Astrophysical:-13
Metaphysical:20
Diaphysical:1.5
Physiclical:9
Geophysical:5.5
She hadn’t been surprised when her status menu had given no information about status effects or ongoing conditions.
What had surprised her was that the numbers had been different again! Presumably because of the injuries… and maybe also the drugs? Unless she was mistaken, some of them had even gone up…
At the time, she had been distraught, overwhelmed by the whole situation, and in no small amount of pain. The appearance of decimal and even nonsensical numbers, had felt like a cruel admonition by the system for her ever daring to hope to understand it. The memory tapered off when she had hugged her leg-and-a-half to her chest…
Upon reflection, the only number that hadn’t changed was her negative astrophysical stat… that had to mean something, right? The previously overwhelming addition of decimal and nonsensical numbers felt similarly significant, like maybe those were dummy stats, or were calculated non-numerically?
The real main issue, however, was that her (presumed) mana had remained broken, but also risen to be extremely high?
Anni’s stomach dropped, churning with fear, anxiety, and apprehension. All at once, she was deadly certain that she would have died if her mana wasn’t busted. She shivered, and flexed her restored limbs…
The next memory must've been hours later, from the lighting. Just as she had been testing her range of motion, a soft knock had come at the bedroom door and startled her half to death.
“The Anni has awakened, has she not?”
Anni had calmed herself before calling back, “Yeah, Whooshy, come in. I’m up.”
Anni remembered vividly how the door swung aside and was replaced by Whooshy’s powerful curves, backlit by the flickering of one or two little candles in the main room. Even in the dim light, Anni had seen her face sink in shame, and couldn’t help thinking ’She’s a good person…’
Anni had comforted herself, knowing that her injuries weren’t permanent, but Whooshy hadn’t known that.
Her friend had spoken in her odd cadence, “Our captain of defense requests your time. Have you the strength to share with us your tale?”
“What, like a debriefing?”
“Ha!” A short bark of a laugh had come from behind Whooshy, followed by a voice like a chain-smoking frog. “She doesn’t sound like ‘just a civilian’, Shishi.”
Whooshy had grimaced, shrugged, and held one of her lower hands out for Anni, to help her up.
The next thing Anni remembered, she had been in a different room, sitting on an extremely plush couch.
The same gravelly voice had said, “Speak into the fuzzy part, kid.”
She had looked, and seen someone that she had recognized as the spider village’s guard captain… But hadn’t that been the first time she’d seen this person? Why could she recognize her? Another mystery for the ever-growing pile.
She had said something like, “I know what a microphone is. I’m just thinking.”
And it had been true. She had been caught up thinking that the captain looked like a blue klingon biker chick… or, upon reflection, as though Yondu Udonta had done the fusion dance with MK9 Sheeva… She had no solid memory of the captain's clothes beyond 'leather'.
“Focus please." The captain was patient, "You were telling us about your, uh… future danger sense?”
Anni had calmed herself, and held the microphone closer as she wiggled deeper into the plushness of the couch.
“So when I got here, there was this lake…”
Anni remembered speaking aloud about some of her various deaths, though not what she had said. Her memory centered around the way her insides had made a concerted effort to knit themselves into a mess of anxious nausea… When Anni had finished her story, the captain had sighed and steepled the fingers of her topmost hands.
“A day-one newbie? Any of these things should’ve gotten you, yet here you are telling me about them...”
“That’s why it’s a future danger sense, not a current problem sense. It’s mostly useless though. It only works consciously, and only if there’s a relatively easy way to avoid the danger.”
“And what changed when you met Shishi?”
“Ah… by the time I could sense the danger, there weren’t any easy-outs… Sorry, I know it’s kinda shit…”
“Not at all, missy. You’ve been very helpful, and we’d like to support your recovery.”
“Thank you… I think?” If the conversation had continued past that point, Anni could not remember it…
It was a convenient kind of lie to tell, and Anni was glad that her heavily drugged self had been able to come up with it... Maybe she could add something about it having a set number of uses in her system window, to explain why she couldn't do it anymore? Hopefully she wouldn't need to.
Next were a few smaller scraps of memory. Being shown a small library, and feeling disappointed at its small size. Reading about the kraken-y thing that had tried to grab her, and learning it was supposedly friendly... Could that be right? Meeting a butterfly person, and learning that the proper bug-people village was a ways downstream from the outpost where she and Whooshy lived.
Anni remembered an overly spicy meal. Receiving a prosthetic leg, and Whooshy helping her attatch it. She remembered many little snippets of practicing, but only the sweat and the struggle, not what she was even doing. She remembered four separate stubbed toes, an acid burn, a cooking burn, and a particularly bad splinter...
Her penultimate memory took place in what she thought was a different library from the first, making out with someone. She had no earthly idea who they were, or what they looked like, because her eyes were closed for the kiss. What she did remember was thinking that this person was someone she could rely on. She remembered reaching up to squeeze one of her partner's strange, chitinous breasts, then getting jabbed in the mouth by something, and feeling a rush of euphoria as everything faded to blackness.
Her final memory before the restart was much more clear than the rest. She and Whooshy had gone somewhere grassy, intending for Anni to get her first level. Whooshy herself looked eight months pregnant, and smiled brightly around her cute little tusks.
Anni had asked if there was anything she should know about leveling, and Whooshy had laughed and told her that systems were different between folks, and though it could do no harm, they would just have to hope it gave Anni something useful...
The landscape was deceptively idyllic, an odd valley of grass that stretched for longer than she could tell. An abruptly huge forest, and a single mountain were visible in the distance.
Anni remembered the feeling of a surge of lust running through her, and how she had impulsively stepped forward, and reached for Whooshy's firm, round behind, only to be intercepted by one of her lower hands.
"Will it take too long? The air is getting chillier, and I'd like to get inside before the fogs roll in.."
"She thinks that you have grown more amorous, than how you were, while you were in her care." The towering spider-lady pulled her close, and kissed the top of her head. "When we return, the doctor you must see. The island forced all to be more lewd, but it has better ways, and it has worse. Despite your start, you mean a lot to she... She would not see you taken by its curse."
"Thanks babe, me too. With you... um," Anni had been fully and desperately aroused at that point, but she told herself that she had to finish this work before they could play...
Anni remembered nearly every minute of tracking the gravity goat with Whooshy. Toward the end, her vision was pink in frustration, and even the goat was looking like an outlet... But that thought in itself had shocked Anni out of whatever spell she was under. She really did need to see a doctor.
Even so, Anni had to bite her lip to keep focus as Whooshy brought the goat crashing down out of the tree where they had caught up to it.
Just as they had practiced, Anni brought her sword point down on the creature's neck, and it gushed blood all over her. Only a second later, she had gotten a level-up notice from her system, and collapsed to the bloody ground in agonizing pain.
Some unknown number of resets later, she was awakened by a familiar falling sensation... That was where she was at the moment, floating downriver, glaring at her stat screen, and desperately trying to make sense of things.
Aniron Honemashite: Level -2
Class: Damsel//Player
Physiological:116/120
Paraphysical:14/240 (+1????)
Physiculpable:03/70
Physical:14
Epiphysical:18>16 (-2)
Endophysical:11>9 (-2)
Nonphysical:24
Psychophysical:15>16 (+1)
Aphysical:9>12 (+3)
Astrophysical:-13>2 (+15)
Metaphysical:22>23 (+1)
Diaphysical:2
Physiclical:7>4 (-3)
Geophysical:5>9 (+??)
Why do I have a negative level? What are the question marks for? She sighed. At least I'm not fodder anymore. Whoop-de-doo.
As she stared, her 'paraphysical' stat, which she still hoped was mana, ticked up to fifteen. Hopefully that was a good sign?
She didn't really want to see Whooshy again for a while, and she still had no way to enter the outpost while unmaimed, and the maiming always resulted in death, or the bug-drugs... Anni supposed this time, she'd try to see what the kraken's deal was. Hopefully it was actually the same creature she'd read about, or this loop would be... no, she supposed it wouldn't be a waste of time. She had quite more of that than she knew what to do with right at the moment...
Or so she thought, but when Anni finally made it back to the waterfall, she got cold feet, and tried leaving the river before she went over the falls. She'd tried this before, obviously, but in the moment she couldn't remember the exact details of the danger...
As it turned out, the danger was twofold, between between the flying purple scorpion over half her size, and the giant, sexually aggressive bigfoot that always accidentally crushed her to death.
Four resets later, she was now at level -7 and was quickly losing hope.
This time, when she went over the waterfall she tried to stay in its current to go as deep as she could. When that familiar, terrifying tentacle reached out for her, she grabbed it with both hands and pulled.
The sunlight danced on the surface of the water behind her, casting obscuring shadows around what appeared to be a flooded canyon.
Knowing what to look for, Anni was able to make out the shape of the giant-squid-octopus-person-thing, as it dragged her deeper. She held her breath, almost as tightly as its tentacle. She was glad to confirm that the creature matched the description she remembered, but even so, the beast's fast descent had her popping her ears regularly, and when they diverted into an underwater cave, she felt almost relieved.
Dan’s relatively uninjured arm and leg pulled him from the water. He puked, and collapsed in the sand, insensate, but not unconscious.
Pain is weakness leaving the body.
He rolled the thought around in his mind and found he liked the feel of it. He couldn’t remember the context of the quote, but it helped him here. He felt sure that while this experience might not make him stronger, it would definitely make him less weak. He had wanted that, right?
Dan felt as he was picked up, and a significant amount of weakness left his body. He tried to pull his mind away from the pain, to give himself room to think, to conjure his usual systems of thought... It didn't really work. Each jostling step taken by the women carrying him sent multiple lances of pain shooting through his injuries, and right into the center of his being. Distrupting any attempts at cogent thought.
He tried to move, and it startled the girls into dropping him. The pain didn't really register? It almost seemed like he had already been in the most possible pain his brain could feel, so this new pain wasn't even felt... It probably wasn't a good sign, but it made things a whole lot easier!
Dan rolled over, and pushed himself to his feet- er, foot. The pink tomboy gave him her hand, and he leaned on her as he hobbled over to the rest of the group. The beach wasn't huge. Perhaps a hundred meters at its thickest point, which this wasn't... Dan still felt like the trip took ages.
It gave him time to consider what to do next, to take in his surroundings, and to worry about every single little thing to flit through his aching head... Priorities? I think I remember watching a survival thingy that said water should be first, but I don't remember after that...
Dan cast his gaze over the silver woman, taking note of her fancy clothes, haughty expression, stiff posture, horns... That probably wasn't as important as smoothing things over among this group of castaway survivors, so with that aim in mind, he let his mind slip into an old familiar pattern... One that he had hoped that he would never have to use again, as he asked himself 'how best can I manipulate this woman'... At least he wasn't trying to sleep with her this time... he hoped.
He took stock of his situation, and quickly came to the conclusion that he needed to focus on his good intentions, and completely ignore what he did wrong. Between that, emphasizing his injury, and a bit of well-timed flattery, he should be able to make it through this in one piece.
They reached the group, and Dan made a show of wincing and wheezing. He had always had an easy time acting, and he was legitimately in the most pain of his entire life, so it wasn't exactly a difficult impression to give. He tried to speak a good four times, before he was finally able to choke out a strained, “You ok?”
Her face twisted in outrage, and Dan immediately regretted saying anything, but tried to stay the course.
“What? Impudent whelp!" He watched some color creep into her face, "Assess your own injuries before bandying about with your ignorant concerns!”
Dan tried to lift his injured arm, but the pain made him so dizzy that he almost puked again, and he forgot what he had been planning going to say. He tilted his head in confusion.
“More importantly, why are you two enabling him?” The pompous princess glared in turn at the girls who had helped him out of the water, as her voice got colder, “Weak fools like that aren’t worth the pity.”
“You didn’t have a pulse when I carried you outta the water," As he slurred out the words, Dan knew it was a lie, and even almost felt bad about it. He had been so focused on starting CPR that he'd totally forgotten to check for a pulse. Between her normal human appearance, and her distracting beauty, his only relevant thoughts had been about keeping her alive. "-And I got tossed before I heard it start again, so I’m just makin’ sure.”
He watched her flush a bit more, turning more and more red as the conversation progressed. Gods, but she is beautiful. Even if the doctor lady hadn't been teasing me, I still might've given a bad impression... actually "I know it probably looked pretty bad... a-and I apologize for tha--"
Because he was busy admonishing himself, Dan didn’t notice her response until it was too late to dodge it: She grabbed his head by the back of his hair, and pulled him down and off balance to slam face-first into her cleavage. She also said something, but it came out too snarled for him to understand.
Dan tried and failed to struggle out of her grip, as his mind swam. Boobs. What is her dress made of? Part of it is poking me in the mouth. This is an awkward angle. Titties. She could probably crush me like a grape. She's so soft and warm. I wonder what her name is? Breasts. She's been blushing too much at this conversation. How must she have been raised to feel such shame at someone else caring about her? Quick, say something, and don't mention her boobs!
“Oh, but how strong you are! Surely a, uh, weakling like myself can rest assured, um, surviving alongside such, ah, reliable strength!”
He felt the woman shift somewhat, but he couldn't see how. Her grip on his hair loosened and her heartbeat grew quicker. Her breasts are the perfect size, too; not too much, not too little. She looks like she's from the moon, with all the silver. I really don't want to die here.
“I-i-in fact, could I trouble a big s-strong beauty like yourself to go retrieve that plane?” He tried to point with his good arm, but he didn't know if he managed to convey the direction well enough.
There was a pregnant pause, then she pulled him up to her eye level by his hair. She was a bright, almost vibrant red now, from her neckline to the tips of her pointed ears. Her mouth was pulled into an adorable little frown. Her breath smelled of salt and smoke, and when she spoke, flame peeked out of her mouth like she was a furnace. “Bugs like you don’t tell me what to do.”
Then she threw him aside, and began trying to interrogate the elf, who was too busy crying to answer. He didn’t go flying this time, just fell backwards... and kinda writhed in pain for a bit. By the time he had collected himself, the pink haired tomboy was explaining to the princess what CPR meant.
Dan was completely unwilling to interject there, so he caught his breath, gathered his thoughts, and tried to make some kind of plan. The plane was a good source of shelter, what with being made of metal. Also, I think I left my knife in there... He had an infinitely renewable source of water: so long as he drank the last sip, his bottle would refill because of the quest. Food wasn't such a big problem, with the amount of fruit he could see, even from where he was... So according to Maslow's funny triangle, their next step should be... community? Or maybe health? Were those right? He couldn't check.
Dan tried to get up, and did not succeed, so he crawled over to his bag, retrieved his dinky little utility knife, and then made his way to the tree line. Looking up from a much shorter vantage point than he was used to, he surveyed the most accessible tree branches and fronds, trying to see if there were any that would make a usable walking stick, or crutch... when he was pulled from his consideration by a familiar notification.
["This one, pick this one!"]
The blue box moved to circle a specific stick, still attatched to a weird looking tree. Two thirds of its leaves were purple, ahile the rest were normal green, and Dan made his way toward it. "Oh, look who decided to show back up!" He grumbled at her, "I was beginning to think you were too shy to appear in public, but while you're here, I need a healing potion, a queen sized bed, and the lizard wizard's wand of blizzard. ASAP."
["You know that's not how it works. >:("]
This box joined the first, circling the branch. Dan balanced on his good leg, and reached up toward the stick in question... He came up short, but when he tried to lower his hand, the string ring he had worn on a whim, felt like it was caught on something.
He pulled a bit harder, and the branch that Emmi had indicated bent lower as he did... if his other arm were usable, this would be exactly what he needed, but as things were, he had to wait for Emmi to push it even further down with her boxes, and then grab its tip in his teeth.
["You're not gonna ask where I was?"]
Dan pulled until the larger branch, from which his target-stick was an offshoot, snapped backwards to hang limply down where he could reach it. Once he no longer had leaves in his mouth, he answered. "You're not gonna ask why I look less put together than usual?"
There was an awkward pause, as Dan eyed his target branch. The grain of the wood was broken, but the branch was still attached to the tree. If only I had a chainsaw...wait. Dan snapped his fingers, and got to work. Tying a bit of his magic string to a twig, throwing it over the branch he needed, and then using it like a manual wire saw. He pulled one side, then the other, sawing away at the base of the branch... behind where he'd broken it, but whatever.
["Holy shit dude, have you considered learning to chill?"]
"I'm just goal oriented." Dan wheezed around his twig, more than slightly delirious. "Is magic normally this easy, or am I burning something important here, keeping this line stable?"
["Nothin' burnin' I can see just yet. Also probs don't bite that particular tree anymore. I picked it for magic conductivity, but it has other properties."]
Dan watched as Emmi's text box flew over to its siblings, and formed the backbone of a little boxy person. He thought that with how she talked, she'd be a budget Cortana in no time, but for now she was closer to Navi...
His branch chose that exact moment to fall on him. He'd cut most of the way through it without noticing, since his mana string was sharper than a normal wire, and the weight of it just broke it off the rest of the way. It fell directly on top of him for the simple reason that he had been cutting it from directly below. Like an idiot.
["Hey, listen! The sap of the Jackinonya tree has pretty severe effects."]
Dan swam in and out of consciousness from the severity of the pain, but indulging it would solve nothing, so he soldiered on like he usually did. "You're fucking with me." he managed to slur out. The section of branch he had cut was almost ten inches across, and longer than he was tall. It hadn't fallen far, and nothing new was broken, but it had jostled his injuries when it knocked him down, and it was also very heavy.
Dan was distracted, but not enough to miss the loud [Ping!] notifying him of... something? He checked around his status and found:
(Quest complete: (Fetch)
Reward: Making that stick into a more usable crutch (Uncommon)
He was then able to watch as the section of the branch that Emmi had initially highlighted glowed a bit, and morphed into a perfect modern elbow crutch... an aluminum one, with rubber and plastic in all the right spots.... Sure. Cool. Great. What was I even expecting? Dan laid in the sandy grass of the tropical jungle, and let himself rest a bit, as he tried to gther energy to keep going.
["You were expecting something closer to a solid wood walking cane."]
["Also you can save the rest of your stick for later if you put it in your inventory."]
["Yes, you have one of those."]
["No, I didn't tell you."]
["Yes, it's because you didn't ask."]
["Yes, I know you've been hoping if you didn't ask obvious questions, I'd start offering more information on my own."]
["No, I can't do that, dude, I told you about my inability to offer unprompted info."]
["Dude, I told you!"]
Emmi's boxes came at regular intervals, cluttering his vision, before they pulled back and formed into a distinct fairy shape. Dan stared at her for almost a minute, trying to think of a way to explain what he wanted.
["Dan the man, with more than a plan! I'm reading you loud and clear, and I'll do my best."]
["No promises."]
["lol"]
["(????)"]
That last box sounded awkward as Emmi's voice said it aloud, but its purpose was obvious, as it formed the face of her little fairy avatar. With it complete, Dan watched her begin to practice moving it around, and sighed. He was tired. He wanted to rest there for a bit longer... but daylight was still burning, even if nothing else was, so he read through his newest quest.
(Hat distribution system)
Details: The sun is a deadly laser. Gather big leaves to make into hats for your party.
Reward: Expedited hat crafting. (Common)
Dan thought that seemed perfect for his purposes. He grabbed his branch with the intention of storing it and it disappeared. Its entire weight just vanished, and he got a distinctly magical sense of where it was, and how he could summon it back whenever he wanted... in any orientation... with no immediately obvious drawbacks or cooldowns!
"Well that's OP as fuck."
["Yupyup!"]
"Kinda sketchy, to be honest. We'll have to keep an eye out for when it might fail us at a crucial moment... Or, knowing my luck, it'll turn out to be the most ultimate forbidan on the entire island." Emmi only nodded, and gestured for Dan to hurry up...
Dan took his time, getting to his feet with his new crutch. He tried it out, and it wasn't a perfect solution, but it was SO much better than nothing. He hobbled over to a nearby plant that looked like a giant Bird of Paradise. Emmi's fairy was dancing on it, so he assumed it had the kind of leaves required for the quest.
The knife attachment of his utility knife was not up to the task of cutting the plant's wrist-thick stems, but the rasp did alright. In short order, Dan had nine leaves the size of his torso, sitting pretty in his inventory.
As he made his way back to the group of women, he also cut a few giant coconut palm fronds, and Emmi helped him gather several assorted fruits, once they found out that her boxes counted as his touch for inventory storage purposes.
Exiting the trees, Dan saw the group of women exactly where he left them: Gathered near the very amateur fire pit, his bag, and the overwhelmingly pathetic pressboard lean-to.
The princess was standing away from the rest of them, staring dramatically out to sea, where the still floating plane was bobbing lazily in with the tides. The tall one and the pink haired one seemed to be comforting the elf, while the slime girl was sitting by the fire pit... not really doing much? The pervy doctor was seemingly asleep nearby, with his shirt still over her face to block the bright midmorning sun.
Once he was close enough, Dan pulled all the leaves out of his inventory, letting the quest complete.
The magic involved in the leaves folding themselves into various shapes and sizes of hats was well beyond Dan's understanding, but it was at least mildly impressive, and it gathered the girls' attention.
He gestured to the slime girl, for her to come over, but spoke to the whole group. "I think I've said it before, but I'm Dan. Nice to meet you ladies. I personally don't want to die, so I hope we can all get along, at least until we make it back to civilization..."
The slime girl bowed when she reached him, then she spoke with a voice that sounded like a strange amalgam of squid and kid. Some kind of squid kid. "{This slime has no name, honored mage, nor a master in this wretched new world she finds herself in. She begs: Would you bind with her and become her master, that this world might not reject her, and return to making some semblance of sense?}"
She ended her words by holding her hand out, and so Dan clasped her hand in his and shook it in greeting. He smiled at her, as brightly as he could. "Ok, cool. I didn't understand a word of that."
almost every sense. (It tastes just fine, imo.)
What to name the Slime Girl?
