Chapter 31, everybody! In which neurotoxin is dispensed….

Don't Starve © 2013 Klei Entertainment

Portal © 2007 Valve

"Here we are," Wilson chimed happily, indicating the hoses leading to a huge repository in the center of an even huger room. "The neurotoxin chamber."

Willow could still taste it in the back of her throat.

"Don't breathe it in!" Wilson had told her, covering his mouth and nose in a panic. "It's poison!"

Oh, did the "deadly" part of "deadly neurotoxin" give that one away? Maxwell asked, tipping his head and grinning, obviously excited about their coming pain.

Willow, however, was not going down without a fight.

She shot first one portal, then one beneath her—

And sailed out of the hole she had made, slamming her fist into his smug face.

Ow. Whoever said punching someone was satisfying had obviously never punched anybody. It had felt like hitting a wall—her hand ached, and she was pretty certain she had just broken her favorite finger.

The standing Maxwell had been caught flatfooted by the action and had staggered, but was now standing over her and touching his cheek, like he hadn't expected that to happen.

Huh, he said, glaring down at her. I guess we'll have to speed this up a bit, won't we?

She scrambled backwards as a horrified Wilson bolted forwards, gaseous death forgotten.

"No!" he yelped. "Don't you touch—"

"…those hoses—they might be dry-rotted and we don't want any gas leaking out here….Are you even listening to me?"

"Hmm? Yeah, sure," she said, turning to Wilson—he had his usual look of irritation on his face. "So how do we get rid of it?"

Wilson made a pensive noise and rubbed his neck, glancing into a glass room. "Good question—usually it would involve accessing the interface and disabling it from there, but as per my hacking comment before…."

"The one where I'm not allowed to look, or the one where he'd figure out we were poking around in places we shouldn't?"

"The latter. But it's way too dangerous to disable the neurotoxin manually…."

Willow sighed, glanced around the room—

"Can portals be made on moving surfaces?" she asked suddenly.

Wilson shrugged. "In theory—"

She fired to test the theory.

"Yes they can," she declared, disabling the portal before running down the hall. "I have to test something."

"So sad that that word has been permanently marred in my mind," she heard him mutter.

She decided to ignore that in favor of seeing if that laser hit a portable surface.

It did.

"Get ready!" she called.

"For what?" he asked.

She fired a portal so the laser hit dead-center, ran back to the ledge overlooking the neurotoxin, and fired the other portal on one of the travelling panels.

A laser appeared and sliced through the hoses.

"Ah, brilliant!" Wilson noised.

She glanced at him, noticed he had his mouth and nose covered again. "Are we safe up here?"

"In theory," he said. "There's too much room and we're too high up for it to be a problem, but I wouldn't tarry here. Should probably do that other side too, by the way."

She shot a portal on another travelling panel, severing the rest of the hoses.

"All right! We're set!" she cheered. She turned, saw he was happy too—wow, was that a smile?

But their victory was interrupted by the sound of stressed metal above them.

They looked up to see one of the tubes usually used to transport cubes, elevators, and other assorted detritus around.

"What was that?" Willow asked.

"That," Wilson said slowly. "Would be the sound of the neurotoxin unbalancing the pressure ratio of this room and that—"

The tube imploded, sucking Willow and Wilson into it and transporting them ungently away.

It took several tumbles before willow managed to balance herself out and properly take stock of what had happened.

"Wilson!" she gasped, looking behind her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm just dandy," he muttered, prompting her to look the other way.

"How did you get in front of me?" she asked.

"I'm actually too dizzy to care at this point," Wilson moaned, apparently trying to hold himself in a way that didn't hurt. He glanced around, taking stock of their situation. "Good news, though," he said, pointing carefully. "I think this tube takes us directly to his chamber—we just ride it out and…hopefully land on our feet."

Willow couldn't help but pump her fists in excitement, careful not to jostle the portal device. This was it! They were finally getting out of here!

Wilson seemed to share her enthusiasm, chattering breathlessly—he seemed unwilling to take a deep breath. Pretty obvious why.

"This is only a small portion of the facility we're seeing," he told her as they soared out through a huge area. "It goes for miles underground—a good portion of it was sealed off, though—"

"Wilson," she interrupted, looking ahead. "What is that?"

He looked to see—

A fork in the road.

"Ah," he noised. "That might be an issue—"

He was sucked one way, and she another.

"Wilson!" she screamed.

"Just head for his chamber!" Wilson yelled as they were quickly swept away from each other. "I'll find you, okay? I'll find you!"

The tube she was in made several abrupt turns—

And then she was deposited into blackness.