Chapter 241: Steve the Hypersnake (Patreon)

The days passed in a flurry of activity. Zodiac and his illusionist were elusive and only struck wherever Vincent wasn’t, crippling the production of any Influence he wasn’t directly overseeing.

Even the production he was overseeing was hampered by red tape, trying to avoid killing monsters inside any of the ever-shifting ‘disputed territories’.

Zodiac had to be burning through mountains of Influence, but it was likely worth it to the old man to keep Vincent suppressed until reinforcements arrived.

And he was suppressed. Even with the entire Stronghold behind Vincent, he barely had enough Influence to skip three floors, as long as he was going down instead of up.

A fourth Floor was prohibitively expensive, represented by  a jump in price from from a bit over a thousand influence to more than fourteen thousand Influence.

As he was overseeing one of their Influence expeditions aboard the large transport ships, he spotted a cook a moving at outlandish speed, producing one dish after another in a matter of seconds for the crew of several hundred who hadn’t eaten all day.

It had to be some kind of time-dilation effect because no matter how fast you moved, food didn’t actually cook any faster, and yet…

“What’s that all about?” Vincent asked a nearby Climber, gesturing at the cook flickering back and forth in the kitchen, throwing out a plate of food every couple heartbeats to the rapidly moving line marching past him.

“That’s my Ability, actually. I’m Aaron, the receiving clerk at the dock.” The man shook Vincent’s hand. “I upgraded my Ability recently to expand its applications beyond just paperwork.”

Vincent’s brows rose in surprise.

“That’s pretty amazing. Can it be used in combat?”

“Eh…not really. It affects a field around the primary target, so everything gets the buff within a certain distance. In melee, you wouldn’t even notice, because both people would be getting the buff.”

I can still use that.

“This is good, but I’ll bet that between the two of us, we can figure out something even better. Let’s go have a chat about it.” Vincent said, thumbing over his shoulder.

“Oh? Sure, milord.” Aaron said, stepping away from the wall where he was leaning and following after Vincent.

A few minutes later, the time dilation effect cut out on the kitchen, but since the cook was already nearly done, he didn’t think much of it.

On the tenth Floor, Will was nearing the end of his Acclimation period and they were making plans to engage in a high-speed chase through The Tower.

“Behold, the Acclimation Bypass Bug mark seven.” Loth said, brandishing a shiny black vase that was nearly as big as she was.

“Is it in the vase?” Will asked, peering into the top of the torso-sized vase.

There’s no opening. Oh my-

“It is the vase.” Loth said. At some unknown signal, the ‘vase’ unfolded, revealing a horrific mutant centipede whose body split into four separate directions, vaguely copying a human’s bipedal configuration.

“EEEK!” Ria shrieked and scrambled backwards, restraining herself an instant before reflexively perforating Loth’s hard work with her phantom weapon.

“The Acclimation Bypass Bug, or Abby, for short, is far more advanced than the prototype bug-suit I made years ago. Instead of a bulging sack of hundreds of insects sucking the miasma out of you, it is a single creature, and far more capable.

It only has one purpose: to keep the person wearing it at the same miasmatic level as they were at when it was first donned. It will condense Miasma on lowers floor, or pump it away from the skin when going to higher Floors. I’m sure there’s a limit, but it should make it possible to move freely anywhere within the first fifteen Floors without having to stop for Acclimation.”

Abby wriggled her hundreds of legs cheerily, seemingly looking for someone to hug.

“That would be a game-changer…if you could convince people to wear it.” Will mused. “What if it’s destroyed in a fight?”

“Well, similar to when climbers move multiple Floors at once, you’ll be forced to Acclimate for a longer time, and it’s recommended you absolutely don’t leave the Floor you’re on until that’s done.”

The length of the acclimation period also indicated how dangerous to the body it was to bypass it.

A person could skip multiple Floors if the miasma was held off, whether that was by Abby or by a Door, but as soon as the new pressure hit them, they had to stop and acclimate.

It’s funny that Loth is trodding on territory reserved for Lords, Will thought with a smile. Loth was always pushing the limits of her Class beyond what should be possible, and it seemed like she’d come up with some amazing stuff over the last three years.

“This thing isn’t gonna eat me is it?” Will asked as Abby greedily reached out towards him with all her legs.

“C’mon, arms up,” Loth said, holding Abby up.

Heart hammering in his chest, Will closed his eyes and raised his arms. Loth tossed the enormous centipede up at him. The creature unfolded further and bound itself to his entire body, cinching down around his arms, legs, torso and head.

“This…isn’t that bad.” Will said, poking one of Abby’s legs that was clamped down around his cheek. It was tight, but the fit wasn’t uncomfortable. No worse than a tailored suit, and the parts that needed to breathe had plenty of open space.

It wasn’t armor, after all.

Abby had created a sort of hood that covered the back of his neck and sides of his face, all the better to keep the miasma under control.

“I’m not touching you with that on.” Ria said.

“That’s fair.” Will admitted. “How do I take it off?”

Loth showed him the nerve cluster on the inside of the suit that he had to pinch, and a moment later, Abby peeled herself away from him, rolling back up into the shape of a vase.

A week later, Will’s miasma had stabilized, he was ready to go see what kind of mess Void had made of the 11th Floor.

Will hadn’t heard any news from any of the Tangled messengers on any of the other Floors, all the way down to the 1st Floor and the outside world beyond The Tower. The norworm was still hanging around on the 11th Floor.

If it’s a Lord it’s gotta be building up Influence to buy a Door to bypass the 8th Floor. It’s probably waiting for a bunch of Lords to show up and then it’ll juke. Probably?

There was likely to be some kind of ambush, but it wasn’t like waiting would make things better.

Will checked and rechecked his Kit. Since he was wearing Abby, he was going to do his best to avoid close combat that might damage the bug, which meant that Hammer of God was equipped in his Phantom Hand.

Once he had everything squared away, he and Loth formed a Party and cleared a Key Site, moving up to the 11th Floor.

They met up in the middle of the void, floating silently, scanning the floating islands in the distance as the System indicated where the next Key Site was.

Everything looked the same as it had a few weeks ago. Everything was simply so small and so spread out that human affairs were meaningless against the infinite backdrop.

Loth tugged on Will’s sleeve, pulling his ear down to her as they floated.

“Let’s hit the Key Site first.” She said.

That wasn’t a bad idea. They weren’t planning on leaving immediately, but it never hurt to have a Door in their pocket, ready to leave if things turned sour.

The two flew in the direction the System indicated, Will by propelling himself with his Phantom Hand, while Loth donned a beetle shaped like a backpack that propelled her forward.

After half an hour of travel, they should’ve seen the Key Site. It was a floating crystal island like all the others, but the pillar of miasmatic light that rose off of it make it supremely visible from extreme distances.

Where the Abyss…is it hiding behind one of the constellations? Will thought, turning his attention from his spyglass to his map.

After another few minutes, Will saw a scale-like pattern on the edge of his map, and he motioned for Loth to stop.

I think we’re about twelve miles away from Steve. The continent-sized snake must be between them and the Key Site.

“I think we have a constellation in front of us. Probably Steve,” Will said, gesturing to the left. “Let’s go around.”

They couldn’t see Steve directly because of his near-perfect camouflage, and they weren’t at the right angle to make out his face, so they’d been on a collision course with the enormous snake right up until Will had seen it show up as terrain on his map.

Loth and Will proceeded to the left, putting on more speed, aiming to go around the enormous snake and find their way to the  Key Site.

Time slipped by, the only sound was the humming of the giant wings of Loth’s backpack beetle.

“Something’s wrong.” Loth said. “We should’ve seen the Key Site by now.”

“I haven’t seen Zodiac’s Stronghold either,” Will mused. That probably wasn’t anything to get super worried about it. Zodiac has hidden the stronghold before Vincent stole it from him, and unless the norworm had telekinetic abilities it hadn’t revealed to anyone yet, the Stronghold was likely going to stay exactly where Zodiac had left it.

Damn, I almost wish I’d let Bee stay active in the stronghold.

More information would be great, but it wasn’t worth the risk of the worm getting into Brianna’s head.

Well, nothing I can do about it now.

Will felt another tug on his sleeve.

Loth put her finger over his muzzle and then pointed at Steve.

The continent-sized snake was moving. The massive snake was silently moving through the void. Will could see its eyes and mouth against the background of stars, moving deftly through the sky, slowly opening its mouth and swallowing a distant island in a matter of minutes.

I thought that was supposed to take years.

The scales in Will’s map were moving.

“I think…” Loth said.

“Don’t say it.”

“I think Steve ate the Key Site.” Loth finished.

“Damnit.” Will groaned. The Worm figured out a way to cut off access to the other Floors.

Either I gotta kill Steve or find out why he’s moving that fast and put a stop to it.

Will knew who the culprit was already: It was obviously the work of the worm. The question was how, and whether it could be stopped.

The bastard had it eat all the key Sites, so…

Will frowned.

“It shouldn’t be able to eat those islands.” Will said.

“The gravity?” Loth asked.

“Yeah, if it came into contact with an island, the gravity would make it collapse under its own weight, especially if it had a bunch of them inside its stomach. That’s why it never ate the uninhabited islands before. They didn’t show any signs of life, so it just avoided it. It would probably get a terrible stomach ache from eating uninhabited islands.”

“And yet…” Loth said, pointing at Steve’s distant head, which was in the process of swallowing. The process was taking several minutes. Anyone as fast as Zodiac and Travis would be able to escape. It was simply a method to deny them access to places to land.

So the worm is not only speeding him up, he’s also reinforcing and controlling Steve somehow, getting it to do things that aren’t in its nature, and it doesn’t seem to be suffering any adverse affect-

“Oh, fuck.”

“It’s an undead,” Loth said, nodding.

“You remember Ria’s debrief about what fighting this guy?” Will asked.

“Yeah…He’s going to use the Ability that allows him to detonate his undead to flood the entire Floor with faefire, scouring everyone and everything off the Floor…as soon as he realizes there are more Lords here to oppose him.” Loth said. “He’s probably waiting for a critical number to show up to oppose him.”

“That sounds about right.” Will said. “We need to hide. Now.”

Loth nodded. “I’ve got just the place in mind.”

“…it’s inside Steve, isn’t it?” Will asked. It would be unexpected, and they could clear the Key Site while they were at it. Assuming they didn’t die horribly.

“I love talking to you,” Loth said, setting off towards Steve.