Of Wolves and Weasels - Day 608 - Terror on Moonbase Alpha - Chapter 9
Hey all, GoodShibe here!
So yesterday I completed Chapter 8, Part 2 of Terror on Moonbase Alpha.
If you're just joining us now, please feel free to get caught up here:
I've got a busy morning ahead of me today, so today's chapter is getting served up fresh extra early.
As a side note, would anyone be interested in a document (epub/pdf) collecting all of the chapters thus far? Let me know in the comments!
Without further ado, here's Chapter 9.
Terror on Moonbase Alpha - Chapter 9
She'd felt him go. The goop hadn't wasted any time and she had felt every single wracking, agonizing scream as it had ripped through him. As all that he was had been consumed by whatever this thing was made of.
As if that weren't enough, this malicious entity, in the fleeting final seconds of the Commander's life, had released its hold on the man's mind. The Commander had woken up screaming from a nightmare only to realize, too late, that he hadn't been dreaming at all.
Kara had done what she could to quiet his agony, to ease him back into a dream state, to cordon off his mind from the horror of what was being done to him.
It was a skill that had taken absolute concentration in the beginning but now, now that it was free, she had found that she could 'calm' people without skipping a beat. It had become like a process running in the background, whenever she'd felt that sizzle, that momentary jolt of euphoria that came with each a new 'latch', she would be there, calming the poor souls' mind back to slumber until it was... over.
She'd even been trying to race it for a while, trying to connect to its victims ahead of time, to warn them, to give them precious moments to react -- but any time that she had gotten close to succeeding, it had only served to stun them. To dumbfound them. To lower their guard just moments before the tendril would lash out.
Those tendrils...
This thing had become an excellent hunter in the last several hours, far more efficient - no longer risking its whole self, it had become adept at sending out dozens of tendrils at once. Each tendril would then find a victim and consume it, sending half of its prize back to the main host, while using the rest to create a sort of 'hub' from which to send out new tendrils.
It was making short work of Sector 4.
And yet Kara was learning that she could ride on its tendrils like a signal, and in doing so, she was even learning how to... keep several points in her mind at once. She was becoming aware of the fullness of this creature's presence and, through that, learning -- most importantly -- where it had not yet been able to grow. She knew this station well and, using that knowledge, she'd been able to decipher that it seemed to avoid areas with external views, especially the ones that were regularly exposed to sunlight.
She was not yet sure if this thing had become aware of her but if it had, it seemed to tolerate her presence. And, more importantly, it didn't yet seem to know what she knew. For the moment they remained entirely separate and symbiotic -- even at her most 'annoying' she had only succeeded in making the kills easier for it.
Yes, Kara hadn't yet done much to truly disrupt it, hadn't yet found a way to piss it off.
But she had been learning quite a bit about her host in this last while, snatching up little tidbits of information, avidly making note of the places it zigged instead of zagged, what its true limitations were.
Concrete, glass and steel were, so far, able to contain it, fire could hurt it - possibly kill it - and sunlight... sunlight it did not like that at all.
It wasn't much to go on, but it was something; it was as good a starting point as any.
And so, armed with these few bits of knowledge, Kara set out to experiment once more.
And that wraps up Chapter 9, I hope you enjoyed it!
It's 2:04AM EST and I'm sending positive vibes your way. Have a great day, my friends! Our Global Hashrate is up from ~1020 to ~1030 Gigahashes per Second and our Difficulty is down from ~20022 to ~16456.
As always, I appreciate your support!
Posted Sep 8, 2015, 6:10 AM UTC · edited