Unkown
Pain... was the first thing she felt, it felt as if her bones were breaking apart and placing themselves in different places, her flesh tore apart and reformed into something humanoid, and her skin stretched to cover her body. Soon, her eyes could see her body, it was finishing... whatever it was doing as the last patches of pale skin covered her freshly healed muscles, her body laid in a fetal position in a small pool of blood, while her body mostly looked human... but her hands were covered in some sort of short, white fur with strange purple crystals poking out of her skin that glowed faintly.
She attempted to stand up, but tripped a couple times, further covering her petite body with blood, though eventually she managed to stand on both feet... she looked around, she was somewhere underground, the only source of light was the faint purple glow coming from her hands, atleast at first, but soon she spotted a distant green glow further into the cave... or perhaps it was a exit? She wasn't sure as she thought *Was the sun green... What is a sun... My head hurts...* she said, clutching her head before shaking it and deciding to follow the light.
As she got closer, occasionally tripping over small rocks littering the cavern, she saw a strange green sack hanging from... the ceiling? It was too dark to tell, it illuminated the area around it, but whatever it was attached to was far too high for the light to reach it. The girl felt her stomach rumble, demanding food, perhaps this sack was a fruit? She reached for it, briefly touching it for a moment, before something tackled her. Something made of metal was on top of her, she couldn't see it, she was afraid and pushed it off, launching it towards the cavern wall causing a loud crashing sound to echo across the area, causing her ears to ring out... yet when she went to cover her ears, they weren't human like, they were more animal like, it was pointed but not cat like... no it was... bat like perhaps? She tried to remember what those two things looked like, though the more she tried to think of it, the more her head hurt, but now wasn't the time for that.
She looked at whatever she pushed off, it was humanoid... at least in terms of shape, but it looked like it was completely made of metal, four yellow slits glowed where it's eyes should be, it looked up and raised it's hands. "What... are you..." she attempted to interrogate it, but struggled to speak, as if she was speaking a language she could barely remember. Though the strange being was silent, it had no mouth, yet judging by the way it was waving it seemed to think for a moment before moving, it seemed to understand her. It's arms had no muscles, as if something else was allowing it to move, it pointed to green sack, when the girl looked over at it, the strange person suddenly pulled out a dagger and threw it at the cord attaching it to the ceiling, causing it to fall to the floor, followed by a high pitched screech which made the girl's ears ring in pain, she was disoriented for a few moments, but when she managed to focus, the man before was suddenly a few feet in front of her, causing the girl to jump back in fright. Her eyes widened as she prepared for it to do something, yet all it did was crouch and draw some symbols on the ground before looking at the girl... as if waiting for something. After a few moments of silence, it looked down, seemingly in defeat, before grabbing the green sack and tossing it to the girl. She barely managed to grab it, before staring down at it, it felt squishy... She wasn't sure if she should eat it after hearing a scream... but her body demanded food, she hesitantly took a bite which caused a squelch sound before a bitter tasting juice filled her mouth, the sack had a strange texture to it... She wasn't sure if it's meat or some sort of chewy fruit, either way it felt weird in her mouth and tasted awful, yet she couldn't stop herself from eating more of it.
By the time she finished, she felt sick, her stomach which demanded food earlier was now upset about what she tried to satisfy it with... she wasn't sure if this was much better than being hungry, though after a few moments, the feeling passed. The stranger looked at the girl for a moment, before it pointed at her, then itself, then a path that led somewhere else in the cave before walking towards it... The girl assumed they wanted her to follow, but she wasn't sure why... *Maybe they have more food?* She thought before she hesitantly began to follow the stranger deeper into the cave...
As they went deeper inside the cavern twisted, divided into multiple paths, shrunk to the point where the pair had to squeeze through, expanded into seemingly open spaces, and the pair occasionally saw various strange looking mosses or mushrooms... The metal stranger stopped the girl almost every time she attempted to eat something, and the girl felt as if she should listen to it, even if her body demanded more food, though she was allowed to eat a relatively normal looking brown mushroom which was a bit tasty! Though after some time had passed, they finally reached the place the stranger was guiding her too. It was a rather unimpressive hut made up of scrap metal, wood, and various other junk...
Despite this however, the stranger was proud of his work, and the girl can't remember seeing an actual structure before so... to them, it was practically a fortress, isolating them from the horrors wandering the caves outside. The stranger invited her inside which she hesitantly did, inside was an assortment of furniture made from various hides of monsters and clothes that appeared to be scavenged from various clothing. The girl began exploring the hut while the stranger went outside to retrieve something, the hut smelled of wet moss, the scrap wood and metal that it was made of creaked whenever she moved too quickly, the only thing lighting the damaged furniture was the occasional glowing orb that seemed similar to the one she ate... her stomach hurt whenever she looked at one. Yet her attention was drawn to what at first seemed like a window surrounded by a yellow metal, yet when she approached and looked out of it, she saw what she at first looked like another girl. Their eyes were almost completely black with the exception of a bright orange Iris, their skin was an almost unnatural pale with blotches of crimson blood, their hair was a short, silvery white which strangely also grew on her hands, with two large bat-like ears that were orange on the inside. Though the longer she looked at the other strange girl, the more she realized they were copying her own movements, she touched and even stretched her own small face to see if the other girl would do the same... only to realize she was looking at a... mirror she thinks it's called? She isn't sure how it works, but she knew she was looking at a reflection of herself, especially when she saw the metal person come out from the door in the mirror. She turned to look at it, it was carrying a wooden bucket full of something as it approached.
She tilted her head curiously at it, which was quickly followed by the metal person dumping all the water onto her. This caused her to let out a SQUEAK! As she felt the freezing water pour onto her body and for her to jump back in surprise, getting diluted blood all over the floor and nearby walls, her white fur became drenched in water and her body shivered as she felt as if she was nearly frozen. The metal person then grabbed her and rubbed a cloth roughly on the remaining blots of blood on her body, she disliked the cold water, the ragged cloth rubbing against her fur, and pretty much everything about this. By the time it was over the stranger placed another cloth on her body that absorbed whatever water remained, then forced her to wear what looked like a dress made of several other pieces of clothing stitched together... Though by the end, the girl had destroyed a few pieces of furniture, caused several dents in the metal person's body, and made a few holes in the walls in an attempt to escape whatever the stranger was doing to her though unfortunately she was unsuccessful...
Though after all that activity and traveling to get here, the girl felt tired, her body felt harder to move, she was still angry at the metal stranger, yet she didn't have the energy nor strength to attack him, she thought of destroying him tomorrow before she suddenly fell to the floor...
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Unit: Hunter-Killer 498
Entity: Unknown
Species: Unknown, most likely a chimera of humanoid and Bat origin
Treat level: Moderate, unexpectedly high amount of strength, crystals implies ability to use magic... Appears to be sapient and capable of some speech, however is unable to understand Kalbirian script, Intelligence to be determined.
Description: Humanoid female, around 4"8 in height, appears to be an adolescent, true age undetermined. Black sclera supports chimera theory, large ears likely grants the ability to detect noise from far away and noises on a lower or higher frequencies than other races can hear.
Conclusion: Must research entity more before actions can be taken
Recipient: ERROR
The Machine finished writing their report, one that will likely never be seen by anyone but them, their masters had been successfully disposed of by their own hands... yet it couldn't help but write down anything of interest it saw, was it a protocol hard coded into it's core or something it simply enjoyed? That was something it asked itself every time.
they looked down at the girl, their attention refocusing on her and- "Why is the girl asleep on the floor?" it thought to itself as it crouched down and poked her pale face, her breathing was soft and she looked surprisingly tired despite the short journey. If it had a mouth, it would sigh, their voice modulator had rusted long ago, and it's not like there's a factory or warehouse deep underground. It picked her up and carried her to the couch, placing her down on the couch and attempting to leave to find something more edible than that Barlic sack the girl was forced to eat... it could still remember the disgusted face the girl made when she bit into it, though it's plan quickly changed when it noticed something, the girl's bat like feet were clinging to their arm, tightly. At first it simply tried to remove them from their arm, though whenever he took her foot off his arm she'd simply grab it again, and again, and again. By the time they finally got it off of them, half an hour had passed, if they needed sleep they'd surely be exhausted by now, though luckily machines don't sleep.
They soon got it's weapons out of a chest they found inside a long abandoned caravan, they still remembered when people used these caverns to safely travel from Malveron to Salvumm, atleast until Salvumm was destroyed... They remember something being related to a large amount of mana being released but didn't actually seek out what actually happened to the city, but now that it was gone, the main underground routes have collapsed without anyone maintaining them, meaning the only way to exit the caverns is to go through the smaller, more dangerous routes. They probably would've left this place long ago if it wasn't for the Demon class automations guarding the surface exits preventing anything from entering or leaving.
After abit of preparation, they head out and seek out something edible. While most of the creatures down here could kill a normal person with a single strike, the machine had faced everything from domesticated wyverns to crazed mutants, they'd be surprised if there was something that could even touch it's body. Though the hardest part would probably be finding something, there's a few Barlics around, large barnacle like creatures that attach themselves to the cave ceiling and use a glowing sac to lure in prey, while their sacks are technically edible, the machine heard from adventurers that used to wander this place that the sacs tasted like a mix of bananas that became mush And spoiled meat, while the machine can't eat, strangely that description made it somewhat glad it had no digestive system.
After approximately one hour, forty two minutes and seventeen seconds, the machine finally finds something, a slime trail. While slimes aren't normally seen as edible, the machine listened to a group of adventurers talk about various ways to cook monsters, and how a dried and cooked slime tasted like candy. The Machine never thought it'd need to know this, but for once a bit of knowledge it randomly learnt was put to use, perhaps it'll figure out how to deal with the girl if it goes over it's data bank a few times... Though it's not like it can dump her off at Malveron considering there's a war machine guarding the only remaining exit, even if it could Chimera aren't exactly welcome there... Perhaps its best to keep her down here... but is it healthy to keep someone so young in a cavern full of monsters? No definitely not, even if it was built for killing, it had enough common sense to know this was not a good place to raise anyone. It would need to figure out a plan for her, but for now, it searched for the slime.
It followed the trail, passing by broken down turrets, various mutated cave critters, and glowing moss until it came across a large translucent mass. The Machine hid behind a rock, it used a nearby crystal to look at the slime indirectly, it's size and shape reminded it of wyverns... it wasn't uncommon for slimes to mimic the appearance of more powerful monsters, though recently the influx of mana had caused them to mutate, they've become more aggressive, larger, and more like predators than scavengers. The slime Wyvern moved it's false head around, perhaps it began to think it was an actual Wyvern? That's what the machine theorized at least, though whether a slime could think was quite debatable. The Machine prepared some of the weapons it brought, blunt objects were practically useless, it lacked any bones to break and was gel-like, so perhaps a blade or gun? Though the machine quickly looked at one of the larger weapons it bought... a mana rifle, it could launch crystallized mana at a high speed after destabilizing it, essentially making it an explosive bullet. Though it only had a dozen, while the mana in the area was dense, it was too unstable for crystallization to happen on a large scale, but not unstable enough to make living here too dangerous for the machine. It had to conserve the crystal shards it had, it only had around a dozen right now and the amount it could find around the cave wasn't exactly consistent...
After a few seconds of analyzing everything from the slimes's size, composition, area around it, and even the local mana density, the machine raised the rifle at the slime's Wyvern like body before it began draining the thermian mana from the shard inside it, causing it to rapidly destabilize as it attempted to drain the heat around it in a attempt to stabilize Itself. The Machine soon after shot It out, alerting the slime but it couldn't even react as the shard began to rapidly freeze the monster's body, forcing it to stand in place as the machine quickly dropped the rifle In exchange for lighter weaponry, normal bullets wouldn't reach it's organelles before they melted normally so the solution is to make the slime smaller overall. The Machine grabbed two rusted blades, the slimes acid would dissolve any weapon the machine used so it might as well use the low quality weaponry abandoned here nearly a decade ago.
It ran at the agitated slime wyvern, it let out a strange noise that sounded like a mix of a gurgle and a roar "RrAaAaAaAgGhH!" before a greenish blue acid shot out of the monster's mouth, the machine raised it's hand at a stalactite and shot a grappling hook at it, pulling itself forward rapidly before the acid could reach the machine and eventually creating a puddle of acid and melted stone. As the machine passed by the Wyvern it sliced though it's tail, cutting it off. Though it slowly began to regenerate... but at the cost of it's overall size, it can't simply create more of itself spontaneously, so instead it simply used it's mass to remake it's tail to maintain it's form. The slime soon regrew it's tail and used it to hit the the machine in retaliation.
The Machine was slammed into the ground, it was becoming rusty... figuratively of course, it takes care of it's body as much as it could, it would need some maintenance after this but it wouldn't let a hit like that take it down! The Slime began to prepare to shoot more of it's acid, but the machine quickly jumped up and stabbed both of the blades into it's neck before slicing downward on it's neck and dragging it's rapidly melting blades through it's membrane. The Machine had to move rapidly to avoid the acid but even then a few drops melted it's chassis, the slime roared as if it was in pain, but the machine knew it shouldn't have any nerve cells. The loss of so much acid caused the slime to shrink to a more reasonable size, it was too focused on closing it's wounds to even fight back, the machine used this opportunity to shoot it's grappling hook at it's rifle and pulled it towards itself before jumping away and filling the next mana shard full of Thermian mana, it quickly shot it at the slime's open membrane and hit it's nucleus before the shard suddenly expelled all of it's energy at once, blowing up it's core and roasting it's organelles, it's bluish body began to fall apart as the closest thing to a brain is had was destroyed. Now instead of resembling a Wyvern, it looked more like a pile of gel and burnt meat... looking at it's partially burnt organelles, the machine wondered if the girl could eat them...
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Unknown
The girl woke up, everything was suddenly upside down, she panicked! Though as soon as she did, her feet let go of the ceiling and hit her head against the floor. "AH! Owww...." she said, rubbing her head... but strangely, it hurt a lot less than she expected... It felt more like a slight bump on the head than her falling on her face. She quickly got up and smelled something... it smelt good, her stomach demanded she seek out whatever the smell was, she followed the scent to the door, and practically slammed the door open to see the metal person from earlier doing something with a sticky looking blue thing, there was also a pile of... something next to them.
The Machine looked over as the girl slammed the door open, it quickly picked up one of the burnt looking cylinders and tossed it over to the girl. The grabbed it reflexively and looked at it, it looked like someone burnt it, it smelled like a mix of ash and... meat? Where had she smelt meat before... her head started hurting again, so she quickly tried to forget about that, her stomach rumbled again, causing her to hesitantly take a bite out of the cylinder. The last thing the metal person handed her tasted awful, while this... tasted a lot better, it was similar, but it was only a little squishy, it didn't have a sour taste, and it's juices gave her tongue a tingly feeling that made her begin devouring the strange cylinder. Once it was gone, she wanted more, she rushed over to the metal person and reached for more food... until the person offered her some of the strange blue thing.
The girl stared at it for a moment, she wasn't sure if it was food or not... yet the metal person insisted she try it, they handed her food before, so it must also be food! She quickly snatched it and bit down, her eyes widened as she tasted something sweet, she chewed on it aggressively and tried to tear it apart, yet she soon realized it was very chewy and stretchy. She fought furiously to tear it apart with her mouth, she wanted to eat it and she was going to no matter how much it fought back! The metal person watch silently for several moments, before suddenly patting the girl on the head, which made her think it was trying to steal it from her, and resulting in the cave echo out a loud CHOMP.