Chương 16: Chapter Fifteen

The waters were battering. It felt like he and every other bit of garbage strewn about the lake were locked in a race to reach their final, grisly destination. All shouldering each other out of the way in an attempt to cross the finish line first. Unfortunately, the event itself didn't seem to be one Bob could opt out of. Despite his desperate wishes to the contrary. Visibility was near zero.

The water around him a swirling kaleidoscope of off-browns occasionally disrupted by a menacing piece of stone or wood flying past; most coming grazingly close without impacting. His speed and the distance traveled a complete unknown in the mess of noise and motion. All of which meant that Bob had no idea he'd arrived at the pit until he impacted a massive stalagmite; his body once again flattened into a pancake upon contact. Alert! -2 Health! He stayed stuck there for a moment.

The rushing waters continuing to press his form into the limestone as Bob could feel the sensations of large pieces of debris missing him by fractions of a centimeter. Some even impacting the stalagmite directly above and beneath him, causing massive vibrations which felt like they would soon shatter the stone spike altogether. Eventually, after a few more moments of horrified waiting, Bob felt pressed to take some sort of action.

His mind trying to decide whether he should attempt to hold onto the stalagmite, risking being crushed in order to keep out of the massive hole in the ground; or whether he should try to push off, allowing himself to be carried away in order to avoid being turned into bag-paste. Neither option evoking much delight. As his jeweled eye slowly exited the battered bit of armor in an attempt to gain a better grasp on the situation Bob wasn't, given all the silt in the water, certain what he was expecting to see.

But it certainly wasn't what he got. A small bit of him had been slightly surprised by how little damage he'd taken from his most-recent impact. He'd been moving at a far greater pace then when he'd been flung into the boulder earlier after all, so it seemed strange that they'd both cost him the same amount of health. Now he could see, or at least partially see, the reason why. Bob was currently submerged in half an inch of transparent ooze.

Ooze which seemed to have coalesced itself into a thin layer around what parts of the stalagmite he could see; clinging to it firmly. Ooze which looked very familiar. He felt a brief moment of panic, memories of multiple near-death-experiences involving the creature still fresh and raw in his mind. The moment passed quickly however. It being quite obvious that the slime had greater things to occupy itself with than an insignificant appetizer like Bob.

As he watched the waters continually try – and fail – to peel the slime off the face of the rock, Bob realized that he finally had his answer for why the monster had never left the stalagmites. He couldn't help but wonder if there was a group of them engaging in this activity, or if it was just one particularly smart specimen who refused to leave the all-you-can-eat-buffet that was a town's garbage dump.

At least he'd been lucky enough to land on this one, given that its goopy texture was the only thing keeping him from a quick descent into the abyss. As if the slime had heard his very thoughts however – which given their priorly displayed telepathic abilities, couldn't actually be ruled out as an option – Bob felt its form begin to undulate underneath and around him. Slowly beginning to move his bracer even against the crushing weight of the floodwaters.

Unfortunately, that movement seemed to be toward the edge of the stalagmite. It was trying to push him off. Bob immediately began to struggle. His choice for whether to leave or go confirmed in his mind as soon as the slime tried to make it for him. Unfortunately, that struggle consisted of little more than wiggling within his leather prison.

While his mucous-like opponent might have the strength to move against the rushing water, Bob most certainly did not; the very weight of it pressing him into the stone feeling like it was on the verge of doing damage as is. So, he could to do nothing but watch, his jeweled eye barely sticking out one end of his armor, as he was slowly but surely pushed towards the edge of the stalagmite. Towards an unknown, but very likely unpleasant, future.

As he neared the curve of the spire, Bob could feel the water begin to tug at him. Clawing at every edge and flat surface available. Eventually he felt it take hold altogether.' Not Hungry.' The slime said, slithering one last, odious message into his brain before tipping him over the edge. The water took him instantly. He had only the briefest moment of fearful anticipation before he was pulled into the massive hole in the ground; what little visibility he had disappearing as Bob was swallowed by inky blackness.

Afterwards, it felt as if everything had been frozen in time. The howling roar of the waters so massive and all-encompassing that it soon seemed as though there was no sound at all. The speeds so swift and rushing, that it felt like he were being held in place and the world moved around him. Time seemed to stretch endlessly in this void of sensation; with Bob eventually wondering if he was even still traveling through the water.

Slowly becoming convinced that the pit had actually been some sort of magical transportation system, with him speeding through the aether to his next destination. This bout of optimistic thought was quickly put to rest by the sudden re-birth of sound. Followed by an even-more-sudden impact with a very solid and immovable object. Alert! - 5 Health The pain this time was degrees worse than any of his prior injuries, as well as heralding a sickly and unfamiliar feeling which quickly overtook Bob's body.

He felt broken. Torn. He became painfully aware that his seams had split as soon as he felt himself lose a few coins. Thankfully all copper, as the ticking numbers burning themselves into his brain informed him. Luckily whatever he had impacted this time didn't seem as inclined to dislodge him as his last perch. While he could still hear and feel the waters whipping at him, he also felt quite securely held by whatever he'd slammed into.

He swiftly focused his attention to holding himself and his remaining coins together. He still had no idea if he'd lose species levels if dropped below a certain coin threshold, but was very aware that, if he did, it would likely be an instant death sentence. The waters raged around him for what felt like hours, occasional large impacts shaking whatever he'd crashed into, but never quite tearing him loose. By the time the currents eventually began to slacken, he felt astonished that he was still alive.

Even once silence had regained its hold on the world though, he still lingered in the tight ball he'd wrapped himself in within his bracer. Unsure if he was willing to risk moving with his injuries. Part of him wanted to wait things out for a bit longer, give things more time to settle. But the rest of him was feeling desperate to at least get an understanding of his current situation. Dismal though he expected it to be.

Eventually the desperate part won out and he again slowly worked his eye free from where he'd been protecting it to get a look at his surroundings. What he encountered upon doing so leaving him far more dumbfounded than the previous slime-covered rock. His worries about being stuck in a dead-end pit had been abandoned some time back. The fact that humongous quantities of water were being sucked down the tunnel meant it must go somewhere after all.

Once he'd gotten stuck and still felt the water rushing past, he figured he must have gotten lodged in a tangle of garbage and debris somewhere in a side-passage. Not peeking out the shattered window of what appeared to be a ruined building. And certainly not on a mountainous overlook, gazing out at the sprawling, submerged ruins of a lost civilization. The first thing that struck him was the clarity. Bob had been trapped within the confines of a storm of silt and sand for what felt like days now.

Barely able to see a few inches in front of him at the best of times. Hell, even when the lake was at its most placid, the most he could hope for was a few dozen feet. The only exception being the sun-lit area around the garbage-reef. To now be able to view what seemed to be miles in crystal clear water nearly felt painful. As if he had just turned on the lights in a pitch-black room. The fact that there seemed to be no source for said illumination only lending to his confusion.

He simply stared, bewildered, for a good while. Eventually bending his eye upwards, just barely able to make out the faintest silhouette of a hole in the ceiling far, far above him. Then he turned it back down to the view below. His mind shrouded in a strangled sort of disbelief. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

The city – or what little he could see of it – could, by any modern metric, only be described as 'metropolitan'; stretching out far past the vision of his jeweled eye. Every building and structure looked to be buried deeply in silt and sand, making it impossible to tell how much of it was hidden from view. But what still remained visible spoke of an opulent and advanced society.

Massive, elaborately engraved spires loomed above all else, the nearest in sight reaching even above Bob's own elevated vantage to connect to the ceiling overhead. They were set in a grid throughout what he could see of the city. The positioning and placement of each one so perfect it almost hurt the eye to look at. Between them squatted thousands of what he could now tell were the tops of somewhat humbler buildings.

Though, given the relative size of the spires as well as his unknown elevation, it was hard to say exactly how large 'humble' might mean in this case. Littered amongst the pristine architecture was a sprawling debris field. One he quickly realized he was a part of. Or, more precisely, that he was at the center of. He looked up again at the gaping hole standing in dark contrast to the barely-there ceiling above.

A gaping hole that he, as well as an unknown tonnage of garbage and sand, must have just recently arrived from. For a moment Bob felt stuck, mind desperately trying to decide whether he should question the insanity of the situation – the bit of his brain that previously considered teleportation being particularly loud – or simply be relieved that he wasn't dead or stuck at the bottom of a pile of garbage. After a moment, the second option won out.

But only because, given his still throbbing injury and current entangled state, Bob didn't have time to waste pondering the insanity of his present universe. After getting a better look at the area, he realized that he was actually caught in the shattered remains of what had once been a massive structure. One which, perhaps due to being directly underneath the hole in the ceiling, apparently hadn't held up terribly well.

Only two or so stories still visible above the mountainous pile of sand it was otherwise subsumed by. A pile of sand he assumed also had an actual mountain hidden somewhere under it, what with the view. Or whatever it was you called a mountain, when it was both underground and underwater. Unfortunately, getting to the bottom of those two stories, much less the mountain beneath them, was going to be difficult. Given that he was currently crushed between several layers of waterlogged branches.

He assumed he'd actually crashed through several more in route to his current position; seeing as the roof of the building was already torn off and he was surrounded on all sides by tangled brush. He couldn't help but take a moment to feel desperately thankful for finding the bracer. Given the condition he'd ended up in, he figured his chances without it would have been slim to none. He could both see and feel how badly the piece of armor had been damaged by the unrelenting floodwaters.

As he made his first testing wiggles however, he realized that while the armguard had done an exemplary job, it hadn't been perfect. He could immediately feel a piercing pain radiate from his lower body as soon as he made his first attempts. After a bit of tentative stretching of his neck, as well as some slight tassel acrobatics, the reason for this soon became obvious.

Both he and his armor had been pierced almost all the way through by a seven-to-eight-inch sliver of wood; the broken branch essentially working to staple them together. He was actually able to feel, after a bit of cautious probing, the wood pass completely through him inside of it. Bob imagined that this was probably the cause of his last loss of Heath; the one that put him under a quarter of his total. Which, of course, was a problem all on its own.

So, to sum up, he currently found himself impaled, trapped under immovable-seeming debris, already near death and also under serious threat of possibly 'bleeding out' should he let another handful of coins slip from his torn and ragged form.' All in all, a pretty shitty day', Bob thought. Near the shittiest he'd ever encountered in his life, in fact. Only beaten out by the day of his arrival here; when the existential horror of his situation was still fresh and new.

The rest of the top ten being rounded out by various experiences which occurred sometime between the two. He had to say. Not currently the biggest fan of reincarnation. For a moment, Bob just sat there, simply staring off into the far distance. Eventually though, he started moving again. Beginning to slowly start picking what bits of his bag weren't operating as a pincushion loose from the leather bracer, trying to give the neck of his bag a slightly longer reach.

Part of him still wanted to wait and see if his HP would regenerate. He only had four Health left after all, which made trying to work himself loose seem a risky proposition. Unfortunately, with the damage from the catfish only disappearing after his level gain, he was left unsure if he healed naturally at all. Besides, even if he did have some sort of regenerative power outside of leveling, did he want to risk that it would work fast enough to heal him up before the next flood swept through?

Leaving him to be buried under literal tons of garbage, never to see the light of day again? No, if he didn't want to be trapped in an even more hellish existence, he would have to move quickly. He needed to get that stick out of his side, get free from this tangle of branches and then somehow manage to drag himself to some semblance of safety. All without losing any more of the coins jingling around inside his gut. The next few hours looked to be a less than pleasant experience.

His delicate pulling had slowly allowed him around six more inches of reach with the neck of his sack-like form. He quickly made use of it, stretching over to gently bite into the sliver of wood piercing his side.' Alright… Three, two, one!' As much as he was hoping that the branch would be yanked right out like it always was in the movies, he wasn't quite so lucky. In fact, it didn't seem to move at all. Instead, the attempt merely causing him unbelievable pain.

Worse pain than he'd ever actually felt as a human being, in fact; despite him now lacking such things as flesh, blood or pain receptors. He could feel the fibers he was made of being ripped, torn and crushed by the stick as he tried to pull it out. Feel its presence inside of him. An alien, uncomfortable sensation which left him nauseous with every move he made. He paused for some time after his initial attempt.

Were he not lacking the necessary pair of lungs, he would have explained this away as him needing to 'catch his breath', or 'take a moment'. But in truth he was desperately racking his brain, trying to come up with a solution which didn't involve him having to do that again. Unfortunately, none came to him. In the end it took over an hour. Eventually Bob stopped even taking breaks, realizing that the wait in between attempts was actually making things worse.

When he finally managed to pull it loose, he didn't even notice the small tumble of coins which went with it. Alert! 2. 22 – 2. 18 Silver Coins' Yeah, you can go fuck yourself.' Bob thought, as the screen popped up in front of him. Though admittedly, while also trying to seal up his new ragged edges. Once he'd taken a moment to ensure that he wasn't about to lose any more coins – as well as give himself some time to recover from the decidedly traumatic experience – he decided to reevaluate his situation.

With the branch gone, he was now able to easily wiggle out of the bracer. Which was good, as there didn't seem to be any way of yanking it free from the debris. It looked to have hit the pile at an impressive speed and thoroughly wedged itself in place. What wasn't good was his current condition. Even discounting the massive hole running through the center of him, he could feel that what seams weren't already broken or torn, were well on their way to being so.

He wasn't sure he even qualified as a bag at the moment, given that anything you tossed into him would likely fall right through. He was only managing to keep the coins safe by manually wrapping himself around them. Something which he doubted he'd be able to do while trying to squeeze his way through the tangle of branches. Which was a pretty big problem, given that he wasn't sure he'd be able to get through them in the first place.

After a few moments of thinking, Bob was finally forced to make a difficult decision. Slowly, he folded in on himself. His eye and 'mouth' venturing inside his own form. Once there, he identified the two silver coins in his possession and carefully grasped them in his tattered jaws. Feeling now desperately grateful for his choice in skill evolution, given that without the added dexterity he doubted he'd be able to do so.

Then, heralded by the slow fall of copper coins, buckles and bits of costume jewelry to the lakebed below, he began to wriggle himself free of the bracer and into the maze of wooden debris surrounding him. It hadn't taken him long to realize that the only truly important coins were the two silver pieces in his possession. They alone kept him safely past level eight and thus, not potentially dead. Everything else could be sacrificed.

And in fact, would need to be, if he wanted any hope of navigating his way through this mess. A small bit of himself screamed as the tiny bits of experience jangled their way out of him, but the rest of him ignored it. Focused on survival. Even with them gone however, he found himself frequently becoming stuck or tangled. He was forced to stop numerous times in order to slowly pull bits and pieces of himself through tight squeezes and around obstacles.

Being able to see clearly past the obstructions, with freedom and a ruined city just on the other side, had filled him with a false sense of confidence about his ability to get through them. A sense of confidence which was beginning to dim to nothing. Eventually, he simply couldn't move any further. To add salt to the wound, it was when he was within inches of getting loose; open water just a few twisted tree branches away.

He quickly realized that he wasn't able to move backwards either, his form too twisted and tangled by his attempts to get here in the first place. That was when the panic set in. A sense of claustrophobia and helplessness that he hadn't felt since those first few hours lying alone in the cave beginning to sweep over him. He forced himself to keep the thoughts in check. He wasn't going to die here. If he was going to die here, he would have done it earlier.

Before he spent an enormous amount of effort and pain yanking that stick out of his guts. He was absolutely going to get out of this situation. He just needed to figure out how. Unfortunately, as he hung there, the ideas refused to come. After the first hour, it was getting harder not to simply resign himself to becoming just another piece of garbage amongst the greater pile. To accept that his last moments as an existence would probably involve fish beginning to nibble away at his leathery hide… Wait.

Bob looked back out into the water and suddenly realized there were a lot more fish around than he remembered. Seemingly now willing to come out of hiding after all the silt and sand had finally settled. He also suddenly noticed how much larger these fish were compared to the ones he'd grown used to. While the fish in the lake had slowly grown larger the deeper he'd delved, they'd at most had three to four inches on the catfish which had originally attacked him. Intimidating, but not terrifying.

Here, the smallest fish in sight looked like it would probably beat that catfish up for its lunch money. With the larger ones more likely to stop at 'lunch'. And as he noticed how close some of those larger fish were to his current location, a horrible idea began to form in the back of Bob's mind. A bad idea which might well trump all other bad ideas he'd had since his unfortunate reincarnation into this absurd world.

Unfortunately, it was also the only thing he could think of which might actually get him out of his current situation. It just wouldn't likely get him out of it alive. Eventually, despite quite a bit of back and forth inside his own mind, he decided he really didn't have any other options. At least none that didn't involve deciding he was content with his new home and its wonderful mountaintop view. So, with a heavy heart and a mile-long list of apprehensions, he decided to put his plan into action.

What was left of Bob's form shook slightly; unable to fully brace itself for yet another Skill change in a precarious position. Before he then straightened himself back up, staring at the assembled crowd of plus-sized fish surrounding him.

'Good luck, me. Try not to die.' Ding! Taunt (E) has leveled up! 3 – 4