Old-School (Unfrozen Book #2): LitRPG Series, page 8
He managed to get to the ship just as the first creatures reached the location of our recent battle. By then, Diana has already switched off all the lights and put the reactor into neutral gear. The spy didn’t leave. He stayed invisible and watched our visitors from above, standing directly on St. Permadeath’s hull.
He wasn’t going to get any experience for doing this, since his highlighted targets weren’t under attack, but I agreed that it was a good idea. For now, all we knew about our neighbors was that they only hunted at night, crawling to the surface of the planet when it was dark and cool. The thermometer was already showing forty-two degree Celsius and dropping quickly.
It wasn’t just the quantity of our visitors that intimidated us, but their level of experience was quite something, too. Even though only a few of them were in the three-digit range, even one of those creatures could spell out a guaranteed death sentence for our entire group. The same went for the creatures of the hundred and fiftieth level. There were at least two dozen of those. The majority of the creatures were below a hundred, but there were so many of them that we lost count.
“St. Permadeath... “ Shandine sighed, looking at the enemy statistics.
“Just look at all that experience walking around!” I was excited at this opportunity.
The rest of the team just laughed nervously.
On second thoughts, I was wrong - that was just my fear talking. If a killed mob is at least a level less than you are, you will receive nothing for killing it. Worthwhile experience comes only from killing strong opponents. It forces the players to grow and improve themselves.
No, development takes time. We would need a good strategy to get rid of this crowd.
Or a tunnel.
Only Velion noticed a newcomer but, unsurprisingly, he didn’t bother informing the roaring crowd of monsters. To make it easier for us to see, the spy colored the newcomers blue, so that they wouldn’t blend in with the others on the mini map. It would’ve been easy for them to do so, as they were moving deep under the sand.
The newcomers were relatives of the toothy worm which had almost had us for supper. At first, I thought they might have come over to avenge their wounded brother. But, it turned out that they were mainly interested in the crowd of land-based monsters. The sand-worms level of experience might have been low, and their number small - but they were able to attack suddenly and sneakily, from below.
Their synchronized attack was immediately successful. A few dozen land mobs slid into the wobbly quicksand, and only one of them managed to struggle and crawl back to the surface. The mob, enraged by the sneak attack, dug down deep into the sand, dragging out worms who'd got too excited about hunting and hadn’t watched where they were going. Outside of their native environment, they became easy prey. The land mobs weren’t afraid of getting fat and were only too happy to turn them into a midnight snack.
In their excitement, they forgot all about the ship, as though it wasn’t even there. But Shandine and I were still on their radar.
“Hey, you two... they are trying to dig you out!” Velion sounded depressed.
“They are very kind, we should thank them.”
“That’s right, I’m already getting a cramp!” The scout agreed with me.
“How much longer are your cocoons going to last?”
“Maybe another ten-twenty minutes,” I said. “But only if they chew us slowly.”
“Maybe I could distract them somehow?”
“Nah, don’t risk it. We are already dead meat, it will be a more interesting way to die than from hypoxia. Plus, we won’t have to dig out our stuff in the morning.”
“Maybe you can still make it back to the ship?”
“Don’t upset them. They can even dig out worms, despite their ability to move through sand! There is nothing wrong with their speed.”
I looked at our progress scale and grimaced. This will cost me a newly acquired level, I was only about a quarter of the way there. Judging by the quiet cursing, coming from our scout, she'd just had the same revelation.
“Cooldown, maybe we should try killing one of them?”
“It’s a good idea. We should thank them somehow!”
We were being dug out by five mobs at the same time, each of them level fifty or above. Thankfully, one of them had been wounded during the worm hunt. He was the most vulnerable of them all. Velion, without any directions, targeted him by highlighting the silhouette through the layer of sandy rock, which was becoming thinner and thinner due to their efforts.
Their many protuberances worked as well as migrant workers’ spades, and after a few minutes, they'd dug down to us. We were pulled out from the sandy trap like ripe carrots from a garden bed. I twisted in the air, and with great pleasure chopped off a flexible arm of the most impatient predator. It was somewhat impolite on my part, but on the other hand, they weren’t digging us out to offer us a cup of tea. Squealing, the upset mob attempted to nail me down with his spikes, but I was already rolling off the sand dune, and hiding under the fat belly of his more damaged relative.
Shandine didn’t even bother moving. She opened fire as soon as we reached the surface. That ‘carrot’ was ripe for the fight! The mobs didn’t expect us to move so quickly, and these precious seconds cost them dearly. Five attackers became four. Excellent!
That was the last of our resistance. One of the predators, level sixty eight, didn’t fuss. Instead of clumsily waving his paws about, he juicily spat some sticky saliva directly in my face. It felt like being dunked in resin up to my ears. I didn’t even have time to pull my sword out of a twitching corpse. Then the resin set in the fresh air, and I became an immobile statue to myself.
Damn it! I'd only just had time to warm up!
Shandine was also slobbered all over, from her head down to her toes. However, she was being held in place by several tentacles.
“OK, I have good news and bad news.” Velion sounded very serious. “The good news is that you won’t get killed. The bad news is that I’ve seen wireworms, bound like you are, carried off somewhere. While they were still alive.”
“Dammit, we are going to lose our loot...” The scout was upset.
“We have at least another hour of air left. At least we’ll see how they live underground.” I tried to cheer her up. “I hope they won’t put us in a creche, after swaddling us like babies!”
“Ugh, your fantasies are too much!”
“You are not going to spend much time there anyhow.” Diana sounded suspiciously cynical. “We all know what kind of parent you are...”
“I’m still better than you as a driver! Are you the same in real life? Do you count all the light poles before parking? Or do you just park on autopilot?”
“Are you kidding? I can drive, you know!”
Velion bravely interrupted this friendly female banter.
“I can’t follow you,” he said. “They have very good detection sensors, my cover will be blown immediately. They’ve already almost noticed me twice, even though I’m barely moving.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll check it out and bring you back a fridge magnet,” I promised.
I was carefully picked up, pulled away from the corpse of their fallen comrade and carried away into the darkness.
Chapter 32
“HEY, WERE YOU DOING a full combo or something?”
“No, I am just busy,” I said. “I’m trying to free myself.”
“How’s it going?”
“Not too well...”
I was lucky - when the monster spat on me, I was facing it sideways while pulling out my sword. Because of this, my right arm from the wrist to the elbow was shielded by my body. My arm was free from resin, and I could move it a little. For now, I wasn’t able to use that to my best advantage, but I didn’t lose hope and continued to try to move the solid resin. It didn’t shift easily. For now, I'd just managed to break off two pieces around my bicep.
“Well, I'm out of oxygen.” The scout sounded resigned. “I’ll be off, see you tomorrow.”
“Give me one more minute, I think I’m getting somewhere.”
“What’s the point? The cocoons are dead, we have no idea how far away we are from our base, and we won’t be able to get back by ourselves.”
She was completely correct in that regard - even though the mobs hadn't eaten us immediately, saving us “for later”, our chances to get out of this cold storage were negligible. I wasn’t joking about the ‘cold’ either - it was only a couple of degrees above zero.
It was understandable that Shandine didn’t want to experience hypoxia, even virtually. It’s much easier to leave the game and get reborn at the start of a new session directly on St. Permadeath. Still, I didn’t want to die here for free, without finding out a little more about the underground inhabitants. Especially since I'd finally managed to break off a large piece of resin and free my whole arm.
A free arm is almost a victory!
“Wait a minute, I am just going to try one last thing.”
When the mobs threw me down, I felt that the living statue I’d become was quite unstable. It felt like I'd landed on a pile of frozen dumplings, just like myself. Unfortunately, my face mask was completely covered in resin, so I had to feel my way.
Even through an armored glove I could still feel some kind of sharp object next to me. I pushed and pulled at it... it was fixed well. That meant that I could push against it. It’d do.
I grabbed the unknown object and started to rock back and forth, trying to increase my amplitude with every swing. After one more effort, my center of gravity finally shifted, and I rolled somewhere, bouncing on every bump and hole that came my way. Suddenly, there were no more obstacles, and I went into freefall for a moment, hitting the ground hard.
The shell that was confining me cracked like a rotten nut on a stone floor, and I was free. After all, my armored suit added to my already substantial weight, and I was moving fast.
“How are you?” Shandine asked, when I clumsily climbed out of my shell, like a baby chicken from its nest.
I doubt baby chickens can curse like I did, but that’s a minor technical detail.
“All good. I’m fine. I’m free!”
I was glad that, in the past, I'd invested in Constitution. This escapade only cost me a quarter of my health. Suddenly, I sensed danger, as though the solidified alien snot was my only protection against this cruel world. Just in case, I pulled myself together and switched on the head torch, preparing for the worst.
My intuition wasn’t wrong. The bright light immediately showed a full set of bared teeth, which would make even an industrial stone crusher envious. These teeth clamped shut right near my leg, crunching on sand in an ineffectual attempt to taste a well-padded human. Like all the other residents of this storage ‘refrigerator’, this monster was wrapped up to its chin in the light grey resin. I quickly looked around, but couldn’t see anything else, apart from a bunch of multi-shaped formless sculptures. I was safe, for now.
The toothy monster was also only half covered in spit, and it managed to chew out a small breathing hole for itself. It seemed that these mobs weren’t interested in living creatures, as they were saving us for later in a kind of vacuum packaging.
The entombed monster opened its maw, and sorrowfully roared. The toothy mouth was surrounded by sickle-shaped mandibles, obviously intended to hold the prey steady while it was chewing. I didn’t feel sorry for it and crawled a safe distance away. The poor thing could only manage to helplessly grind its teeth in my direction.
“Sorry, friend. Another time.”
“What?” Shandine sounded confused.
“I was just chatting with our neighbors.” I was trying to locate the pile from which I rolled down. “Can you continue playing? I have a few spare air cartridges.”
“Yes, of course!” She cheered up immediately. “I’ll just write my eldest a note to start reheating dinner. I can do another couple of hours.”
“Hey, what does your husband think of you spending all your time in the game?” I just had to ask.
“He doesn’t mind it.” She sounded relaxed. “I am going to return from the game before he gets home from work. I’ll have time to check the kids’ homework, and we’ll have supper together. He’s actually happy that I switched from The Lords. At times, my earnings were higher than his. For now, he’s doing better than me though.”
“Hmm, it won’t last,” I promised. “He might get upset with me soon...”
“I’ll sort it out, don’t worry. Hey, can you hurry up? I am kind of choking here.”
Thankfully, I didn’t have to spend much time looking for Shandine. The neurointerface was functioning well, highlighting the silhouette of my teammate on top of one of the plaster hills. The bad news was that we'd lost connection with the rest of the team. Anyhow, they'd probably already left the game and wouldn’t be able to help us.
I started climbing carefully, checking every step. The frozen statues had plenty of protuberances which made good hand and foot holds. Using them for climbing practice was a simple task. They were too large for me to move while wearing medium armor, but there was a strong chance of losing a limb to another trapped toothy prisoner if I wasn’t careful.
Finally, I made my way to a long, bent shape, which didn’t look at all like a human. It looked nothing like a lovely statue of Venus - only a lit-up nickname before my eyes confirmed that I was looking at my teammate. At first sight, it seemed that she was covered in a thicker layer of resin than I was. What could I use to break it, since I'd lost my sword?
I didn’t spend long thinking about it. It was simpler to push her down the pile and hope that good old gravity would do its job. The statue obediently rolled down to the stone floor to the accompaniment of the scout’s irritated shouts. Unfortunately, despite a loud thump on the rocks, the hard shell didn't split.
“Cooldown, I am going to kill you!”
“Get out of your shell, first!” I grumbled, scrambling back down to the ground floor.
“I heard a crack. You should be able to split this shell, just be careful.”
Her request was timely - the fall had destroyed half of her life points. On making my way down, I'd discovered that the smooth ‘shell’ around my teammate was covered in cracks. They just needed to be expanded. It would take more than my bare hands.
This was possibly the only time in the entire game where I missed having a fighting knife. Or even just a tin opener. It seemed that I would have to use a simple rock.
Looking around for a handy prehistoric weapon, I saw a weak metallic reflection shining nearby. Interesting. All I could see before was just dull rock and plaster figure. Even the shells of the local frugal preserve-makers didn’t reflect any light.
I went to have a look, and discovered a curious metallic shape laying on the ground next to a huge boulder. I would’ve never noticed it before had some clumsy man not stepped on it earlier, partially smearing a thick layer of dust off its reflective surface. Obviously, working on my Perception was time well-spent.
This item didn’t have an entry in the information database, although it was obviously artificial. It looked like a half-meter long sharp railroad spike, without the compulsory head. Instead of deformed metal, it had some kind of narrow tubes and hairline wires sticking out of the top end. It had obviously broken off something, but I couldn’t begin to guess what.
It didn’t really matter at this point in time, anyhow. The important thing was that this strange spike felt good in my hands. It would do well as a club, even if it came from a super advanced technological age. I had my doubts it could be returned to its original state. At least it could be useful for the last time. It would do much better than a simple rock. I got a better hold on my newly acquired weapon and turned back to Shandine.
It was time to finish what I started. I wasn’t going to kill her, of course, but at least I could try and free her from the cocoon.
First, I started with a few light strikes, but the alien substance was hard to crack. Hitting it harder brought some results. A piece of shell about the size of my palm broke off immediately. The job became easier after that, even though the scout complained about being used as a schnitzel. Also, the oxygen levels in her costume had dropped below critical and her health had begun melting away without any effort on my part.
When I'd finally managed to extract the exhausted girl from her stone prison, she barely had ten hit points left on the counter. If she was allowed to stay in the red, she could fall into a coma. It would require a medical module or a medical support player to revive her. Obviously, I didn’t have access to either.
“Hold your breath!” I ordered, quickly unclasping her helmet.
The ambient temperature was acceptable, but it would be a grave mistake to breathe the local toxic atmosphere, even for a healthy player. Even monsters wouldn’t do well with it. Only azarhadons could cope with this level of toxicity - their race is special like that. I remembered wondering, when I was at the Astra-13 station, why a certain player without a special chemical protection suit didn't die from that terrible virus. Turned out that the solution was simple as muck - he had a premium account. Just a ‘pay to win’, nothing special about it.
He wasn’t going to get any experience for doing this, since his highlighted targets weren’t under attack, but I agreed that it was a good idea. For now, all we knew about our neighbors was that they only hunted at night, crawling to the surface of the planet when it was dark and cool. The thermometer was already showing forty-two degree Celsius and dropping quickly.
It wasn’t just the quantity of our visitors that intimidated us, but their level of experience was quite something, too. Even though only a few of them were in the three-digit range, even one of those creatures could spell out a guaranteed death sentence for our entire group. The same went for the creatures of the hundred and fiftieth level. There were at least two dozen of those. The majority of the creatures were below a hundred, but there were so many of them that we lost count.
“St. Permadeath... “ Shandine sighed, looking at the enemy statistics.
“Just look at all that experience walking around!” I was excited at this opportunity.
The rest of the team just laughed nervously.
On second thoughts, I was wrong - that was just my fear talking. If a killed mob is at least a level less than you are, you will receive nothing for killing it. Worthwhile experience comes only from killing strong opponents. It forces the players to grow and improve themselves.
No, development takes time. We would need a good strategy to get rid of this crowd.
Or a tunnel.
Only Velion noticed a newcomer but, unsurprisingly, he didn’t bother informing the roaring crowd of monsters. To make it easier for us to see, the spy colored the newcomers blue, so that they wouldn’t blend in with the others on the mini map. It would’ve been easy for them to do so, as they were moving deep under the sand.
The newcomers were relatives of the toothy worm which had almost had us for supper. At first, I thought they might have come over to avenge their wounded brother. But, it turned out that they were mainly interested in the crowd of land-based monsters. The sand-worms level of experience might have been low, and their number small - but they were able to attack suddenly and sneakily, from below.
Their synchronized attack was immediately successful. A few dozen land mobs slid into the wobbly quicksand, and only one of them managed to struggle and crawl back to the surface. The mob, enraged by the sneak attack, dug down deep into the sand, dragging out worms who'd got too excited about hunting and hadn’t watched where they were going. Outside of their native environment, they became easy prey. The land mobs weren’t afraid of getting fat and were only too happy to turn them into a midnight snack.
In their excitement, they forgot all about the ship, as though it wasn’t even there. But Shandine and I were still on their radar.
“Hey, you two... they are trying to dig you out!” Velion sounded depressed.
“They are very kind, we should thank them.”
“That’s right, I’m already getting a cramp!” The scout agreed with me.
“How much longer are your cocoons going to last?”
“Maybe another ten-twenty minutes,” I said. “But only if they chew us slowly.”
“Maybe I could distract them somehow?”
“Nah, don’t risk it. We are already dead meat, it will be a more interesting way to die than from hypoxia. Plus, we won’t have to dig out our stuff in the morning.”
“Maybe you can still make it back to the ship?”
“Don’t upset them. They can even dig out worms, despite their ability to move through sand! There is nothing wrong with their speed.”
I looked at our progress scale and grimaced. This will cost me a newly acquired level, I was only about a quarter of the way there. Judging by the quiet cursing, coming from our scout, she'd just had the same revelation.
“Cooldown, maybe we should try killing one of them?”
“It’s a good idea. We should thank them somehow!”
We were being dug out by five mobs at the same time, each of them level fifty or above. Thankfully, one of them had been wounded during the worm hunt. He was the most vulnerable of them all. Velion, without any directions, targeted him by highlighting the silhouette through the layer of sandy rock, which was becoming thinner and thinner due to their efforts.
Their many protuberances worked as well as migrant workers’ spades, and after a few minutes, they'd dug down to us. We were pulled out from the sandy trap like ripe carrots from a garden bed. I twisted in the air, and with great pleasure chopped off a flexible arm of the most impatient predator. It was somewhat impolite on my part, but on the other hand, they weren’t digging us out to offer us a cup of tea. Squealing, the upset mob attempted to nail me down with his spikes, but I was already rolling off the sand dune, and hiding under the fat belly of his more damaged relative.
Shandine didn’t even bother moving. She opened fire as soon as we reached the surface. That ‘carrot’ was ripe for the fight! The mobs didn’t expect us to move so quickly, and these precious seconds cost them dearly. Five attackers became four. Excellent!
That was the last of our resistance. One of the predators, level sixty eight, didn’t fuss. Instead of clumsily waving his paws about, he juicily spat some sticky saliva directly in my face. It felt like being dunked in resin up to my ears. I didn’t even have time to pull my sword out of a twitching corpse. Then the resin set in the fresh air, and I became an immobile statue to myself.
Damn it! I'd only just had time to warm up!
Shandine was also slobbered all over, from her head down to her toes. However, she was being held in place by several tentacles.
“OK, I have good news and bad news.” Velion sounded very serious. “The good news is that you won’t get killed. The bad news is that I’ve seen wireworms, bound like you are, carried off somewhere. While they were still alive.”
“Dammit, we are going to lose our loot...” The scout was upset.
“We have at least another hour of air left. At least we’ll see how they live underground.” I tried to cheer her up. “I hope they won’t put us in a creche, after swaddling us like babies!”
“Ugh, your fantasies are too much!”
“You are not going to spend much time there anyhow.” Diana sounded suspiciously cynical. “We all know what kind of parent you are...”
“I’m still better than you as a driver! Are you the same in real life? Do you count all the light poles before parking? Or do you just park on autopilot?”
“Are you kidding? I can drive, you know!”
Velion bravely interrupted this friendly female banter.
“I can’t follow you,” he said. “They have very good detection sensors, my cover will be blown immediately. They’ve already almost noticed me twice, even though I’m barely moving.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll check it out and bring you back a fridge magnet,” I promised.
I was carefully picked up, pulled away from the corpse of their fallen comrade and carried away into the darkness.
Chapter 32
“HEY, WERE YOU DOING a full combo or something?”
“No, I am just busy,” I said. “I’m trying to free myself.”
“How’s it going?”
“Not too well...”
I was lucky - when the monster spat on me, I was facing it sideways while pulling out my sword. Because of this, my right arm from the wrist to the elbow was shielded by my body. My arm was free from resin, and I could move it a little. For now, I wasn’t able to use that to my best advantage, but I didn’t lose hope and continued to try to move the solid resin. It didn’t shift easily. For now, I'd just managed to break off two pieces around my bicep.
“Well, I'm out of oxygen.” The scout sounded resigned. “I’ll be off, see you tomorrow.”
“Give me one more minute, I think I’m getting somewhere.”
“What’s the point? The cocoons are dead, we have no idea how far away we are from our base, and we won’t be able to get back by ourselves.”
She was completely correct in that regard - even though the mobs hadn't eaten us immediately, saving us “for later”, our chances to get out of this cold storage were negligible. I wasn’t joking about the ‘cold’ either - it was only a couple of degrees above zero.
It was understandable that Shandine didn’t want to experience hypoxia, even virtually. It’s much easier to leave the game and get reborn at the start of a new session directly on St. Permadeath. Still, I didn’t want to die here for free, without finding out a little more about the underground inhabitants. Especially since I'd finally managed to break off a large piece of resin and free my whole arm.
A free arm is almost a victory!
“Wait a minute, I am just going to try one last thing.”
When the mobs threw me down, I felt that the living statue I’d become was quite unstable. It felt like I'd landed on a pile of frozen dumplings, just like myself. Unfortunately, my face mask was completely covered in resin, so I had to feel my way.
Even through an armored glove I could still feel some kind of sharp object next to me. I pushed and pulled at it... it was fixed well. That meant that I could push against it. It’d do.
I grabbed the unknown object and started to rock back and forth, trying to increase my amplitude with every swing. After one more effort, my center of gravity finally shifted, and I rolled somewhere, bouncing on every bump and hole that came my way. Suddenly, there were no more obstacles, and I went into freefall for a moment, hitting the ground hard.
The shell that was confining me cracked like a rotten nut on a stone floor, and I was free. After all, my armored suit added to my already substantial weight, and I was moving fast.
“How are you?” Shandine asked, when I clumsily climbed out of my shell, like a baby chicken from its nest.
I doubt baby chickens can curse like I did, but that’s a minor technical detail.
“All good. I’m fine. I’m free!”
I was glad that, in the past, I'd invested in Constitution. This escapade only cost me a quarter of my health. Suddenly, I sensed danger, as though the solidified alien snot was my only protection against this cruel world. Just in case, I pulled myself together and switched on the head torch, preparing for the worst.
My intuition wasn’t wrong. The bright light immediately showed a full set of bared teeth, which would make even an industrial stone crusher envious. These teeth clamped shut right near my leg, crunching on sand in an ineffectual attempt to taste a well-padded human. Like all the other residents of this storage ‘refrigerator’, this monster was wrapped up to its chin in the light grey resin. I quickly looked around, but couldn’t see anything else, apart from a bunch of multi-shaped formless sculptures. I was safe, for now.
The toothy monster was also only half covered in spit, and it managed to chew out a small breathing hole for itself. It seemed that these mobs weren’t interested in living creatures, as they were saving us for later in a kind of vacuum packaging.
The entombed monster opened its maw, and sorrowfully roared. The toothy mouth was surrounded by sickle-shaped mandibles, obviously intended to hold the prey steady while it was chewing. I didn’t feel sorry for it and crawled a safe distance away. The poor thing could only manage to helplessly grind its teeth in my direction.
“Sorry, friend. Another time.”
“What?” Shandine sounded confused.
“I was just chatting with our neighbors.” I was trying to locate the pile from which I rolled down. “Can you continue playing? I have a few spare air cartridges.”
“Yes, of course!” She cheered up immediately. “I’ll just write my eldest a note to start reheating dinner. I can do another couple of hours.”
“Hey, what does your husband think of you spending all your time in the game?” I just had to ask.
“He doesn’t mind it.” She sounded relaxed. “I am going to return from the game before he gets home from work. I’ll have time to check the kids’ homework, and we’ll have supper together. He’s actually happy that I switched from The Lords. At times, my earnings were higher than his. For now, he’s doing better than me though.”
“Hmm, it won’t last,” I promised. “He might get upset with me soon...”
“I’ll sort it out, don’t worry. Hey, can you hurry up? I am kind of choking here.”
Thankfully, I didn’t have to spend much time looking for Shandine. The neurointerface was functioning well, highlighting the silhouette of my teammate on top of one of the plaster hills. The bad news was that we'd lost connection with the rest of the team. Anyhow, they'd probably already left the game and wouldn’t be able to help us.
I started climbing carefully, checking every step. The frozen statues had plenty of protuberances which made good hand and foot holds. Using them for climbing practice was a simple task. They were too large for me to move while wearing medium armor, but there was a strong chance of losing a limb to another trapped toothy prisoner if I wasn’t careful.
Finally, I made my way to a long, bent shape, which didn’t look at all like a human. It looked nothing like a lovely statue of Venus - only a lit-up nickname before my eyes confirmed that I was looking at my teammate. At first sight, it seemed that she was covered in a thicker layer of resin than I was. What could I use to break it, since I'd lost my sword?
I didn’t spend long thinking about it. It was simpler to push her down the pile and hope that good old gravity would do its job. The statue obediently rolled down to the stone floor to the accompaniment of the scout’s irritated shouts. Unfortunately, despite a loud thump on the rocks, the hard shell didn't split.
“Cooldown, I am going to kill you!”
“Get out of your shell, first!” I grumbled, scrambling back down to the ground floor.
“I heard a crack. You should be able to split this shell, just be careful.”
Her request was timely - the fall had destroyed half of her life points. On making my way down, I'd discovered that the smooth ‘shell’ around my teammate was covered in cracks. They just needed to be expanded. It would take more than my bare hands.
This was possibly the only time in the entire game where I missed having a fighting knife. Or even just a tin opener. It seemed that I would have to use a simple rock.
Looking around for a handy prehistoric weapon, I saw a weak metallic reflection shining nearby. Interesting. All I could see before was just dull rock and plaster figure. Even the shells of the local frugal preserve-makers didn’t reflect any light.
I went to have a look, and discovered a curious metallic shape laying on the ground next to a huge boulder. I would’ve never noticed it before had some clumsy man not stepped on it earlier, partially smearing a thick layer of dust off its reflective surface. Obviously, working on my Perception was time well-spent.
This item didn’t have an entry in the information database, although it was obviously artificial. It looked like a half-meter long sharp railroad spike, without the compulsory head. Instead of deformed metal, it had some kind of narrow tubes and hairline wires sticking out of the top end. It had obviously broken off something, but I couldn’t begin to guess what.
It didn’t really matter at this point in time, anyhow. The important thing was that this strange spike felt good in my hands. It would do well as a club, even if it came from a super advanced technological age. I had my doubts it could be returned to its original state. At least it could be useful for the last time. It would do much better than a simple rock. I got a better hold on my newly acquired weapon and turned back to Shandine.
It was time to finish what I started. I wasn’t going to kill her, of course, but at least I could try and free her from the cocoon.
First, I started with a few light strikes, but the alien substance was hard to crack. Hitting it harder brought some results. A piece of shell about the size of my palm broke off immediately. The job became easier after that, even though the scout complained about being used as a schnitzel. Also, the oxygen levels in her costume had dropped below critical and her health had begun melting away without any effort on my part.
When I'd finally managed to extract the exhausted girl from her stone prison, she barely had ten hit points left on the counter. If she was allowed to stay in the red, she could fall into a coma. It would require a medical module or a medical support player to revive her. Obviously, I didn’t have access to either.
“Hold your breath!” I ordered, quickly unclasping her helmet.
The ambient temperature was acceptable, but it would be a grave mistake to breathe the local toxic atmosphere, even for a healthy player. Even monsters wouldn’t do well with it. Only azarhadons could cope with this level of toxicity - their race is special like that. I remembered wondering, when I was at the Astra-13 station, why a certain player without a special chemical protection suit didn't die from that terrible virus. Turned out that the solution was simple as muck - he had a premium account. Just a ‘pay to win’, nothing special about it.
