Chapter 32
Neptune takes some deep breaths before regaining his composure.
He looks at Magnus, "Don't. EVER. Tell me that."
"Sorry." Magnus apologizes, "But that's the way the followers of Nurgle are."
"Talk about disgusting." Demiurge says, "Yet I do have to admire the research."
Sun shivers a bit, "Let's just see what the fuck is going on here."
Scarlet asks Cocytus, "Hey, uh, Cocytus?"
"Yes?"
"Think you can use your ice powers to freeze these corpses? To reduce the smell. The cold might help with the stench in the air."
Aura has her nose pinched, "I have to agree. At least we can breath better."
But Ainz says, "Best to leave the bodies the way they are now. Best not to disturb the dead."
Mare then looks at one of the broken vats with the corpse in it while Aura complains. He takes a closer examination at the fungal covered corpse and sees one of the hands being reduced to bone. Some of the finger bones are covered in what appears to be black mold. He takes a closer look until he noticed one of the fingers twitch and freaks out. He let out a small scream and backs away.
"Mare!" his sister scolds him, "Hurry up!"
"But sis-"
"GET OVER HERE!"
Mare quickly heads on over to the other side of the room. The bony fingers then start to move in a slow motion as it tries to make a fist.
Sage tries to hack the door with his scroll but is having a hard time hacking, "Dammit."
Neptune looks over his left shoulder, "Try 1-2-3-4-5."
"It was my first guess."
Ainz look at Neptune, "You cannot be serious."
Sun says to Ainz, "It makes it easy for him to remember the combination of his luggage and everything else."
Demiurge push his glasses in annoyance, "Is he really that dumb?"
"HEY!" Neptune takes great offense.
He accidentally his Sage and Sage hits a few random keys on his scroll. However, it unlocked the door. The door opens up yet slowly.
"Oh," Mare went, "we got it."
They look inside but can only see darkness ahead. Team SSSN use their scrolls as flashlights after Sage punch Neptune on the shoulder. The light shines and shows all sorts of mold, mushrooms and various fungi in the hallway. But straight ahead, they see a pulsing mass of blackness ahead. The thing ahead starts to recede into the halls as if it is reacting to the light.
"The fuck is that?" Scarlet says before he is disgusted.
"It looks like some sort of slime creature yet has all sorts of fungi on them back in Yggdrasil." Ainz state.
Demiurge is showing interest, "But what exactly is it? It does look similar to the slime race yet far less intelligent and doesn't like light."
Something started shambling from behind.
"I wonder what experiments I should do with it."
"I would like to do so as well." Magnus is also interested.
Mare turns around and sees something. "Everyone! Behind!"
Everyone turn around and see the corpses starting to shamble straight towards them. Neptune screams and jumps into Cocytus' arms.
"Zombies?" Ainz question the things before them. "Or perhaps some form of undead."
"Possibly." Magnus is curious, "This does have Nurgle's signature but there is...something off." Magnus feels something is wrong. "Fungi and zombies are Nurgle's thing, yet I am not sensing any chaotic energies of any kind. This is something else."
"Uh, guys?!" Scarlet panics, "Can we just kill these things and get out of here!?"
Cocytus cast an ice spell on them and froze them into place instantly.
"Problem solved."
Sun and Sage focus their light on the mass to keep it at bay. Cocytus just drop Neptune.
Aura asks, "What are they exactly?"
Ainz looks at them, "I do not know. But they are filthy!"
With a wave of his hand, Ainz instantly destroy the fungal undead with no problem. One problem is solved yet another is still ahead. They look back at the hallway towards the pulsing mass.
"Now for this problem."
Scarlet looks at his teammates, "Seriously, that was cool what Ainz did."
Mare blushes, "I know, right?"
"Pay attention, Mare." Aura scolds her brother, "But it was cool."
Ainz look at the mass and tries to figure it out, 'How the hell are we gonna get pass this? I could use a fire spell on it yet might just burn anything of use and fry the electronics. It is weak to light sources. So maybe...' Ainz raises his hand at the mass, "Maximize Magic: Dragon Lightning!"
A bolt of lighting in the shape of a dragon charges right at the moldy mass. The mass quickly disperse when the spell pass by and it appears to be faster than lighting.
"Hmm..." Ainz went.
Magnus speaks, "It was a good idea. This form of mold is faster than light. Perhaps this might work."
Magnus steps forward and stare with his only eye.
"Withering Gaze!"
Magnus' eye starts to burn with the power of the Warp. The idea is that using this power to cause the mass to turn away in fear. But it has no effect. He is perplexed by the mass.
"It seems it has no fear yet intelligent enough to avoid lightning. Let's try this. Wind of Chaos!"
Magnus unleash an iridescent sheet of embers at the mass. It hit and cause it to feel intense burning that it bellowed a multitude of screams as it retreats further into the hall.
"That worked." Then he uses a different power, "Light of Chaos."
A bunch of orbs of bluish, iridescent lights appear in the air and hit the ceiling as they spread five feet down the hall.
Aura asks, "How come you didn't use that before?"
"I just want to test that thing's intelligence."
Sun looks down in the hallway, "But those screams..."
"Eh." Magnus shrugs, "You get used to such things after many millenniums in the Warp."
Sage gulps, "Remind me not to piss you off."
"Glad to hear."
They head deeper into this strange metal hallway as Magnus continues to create lights down this path. The mold mass heads deeper and deeper for each amount of light hitting it. They head down for what feels like a mile until they found a giant antechamber where there is a huge amount of the black mass with all sorts of mushrooms all over it.
"The fuck is this place?" Neptune asks.
"It looks like a mine." Aura states.
"I believe so." Demiurge takes a good look around. "This seems to be an antechamber of some sort and this collection of fungi here must've been found on accident. As a result; the colony must've been wiped out by this contagion."
Magnus goes, "Hmm... That is an interesting theory."
Ainz raises his hand, "Then perhaps we should exterminate this threat before it reaches to the surface. One simple fire spell should do the trick."
"Whoa!" Sun went, "Hold on there, Ainz! You might cause the whole place to explode if there are anything flammable in here!"
Ainz realizes, "You are right!" He lowers his hand, 'That was close! Sun was right. There might be demolition charges in here or combustible materials.'
Cocytus suggest, "Perhaps we should leave and destroy this place from orbit. If we do it, we can exterminate this fungus and make this planet safer for future colonization."
"Maybe we should." Sage agrees. "I mean, its not like we're gonna face anything dangerous in the future that could cause galactic wide devastation."
Demiurge thinks about it for a moment before answering. "Seems logical. Best to cut out the cancer now than to deal with it in the future. Although, I would like to get some samples to study this contagion further."
"How about some of the stuff from the dead guys?" Neptune suggests.
"Very well then."
And so, everyone headed out of what appeared to be a mining complex in the colony of some sort. Demiurge grabbed some samples from the once undead corpses to study the fungus. They all headed aboard their shuttle, headed back onto the Spearhead of Hope and gave their report.
"I see." Washu listened to what the others had to say. "So, we should destroy the black mold that is down there with the ship's orbital bombardment weaponry. But I'm glad you got a few samples in order for us to study."
"Glad you are glad." Ainz says.
Ironwood says, "Then we should prepare the ship's weapons immediately."
The Spearhead of Hope is now aiming directly down at the planet.
Coco speaks, "Target locked. Solar bombardment charging."
"Prepare to fire on command." Ironwood orders. "Then prepare to fire the purifier beam."
The solar bombardment is charging up as is the purifier beam.
"Solar bombardment ready!" Tucker says.
"FIRE!"
A barrage of energy is hitting the area where the building is at along with most of the surrounding area in order to dig deep to where the mold is at. The area gets blasted and expose the fungi to the sun and the waves from the solar bombardment that kills most of the fungi. After two minutes of bombardment, the purifier beam is then fire on the remains of the fungi just for good measure. The beam hits hard on what is left of the mines and destroy whatever remains of the mold. The fires from the beam spread far into the tunnels that burn the mysterious black mold and cause explosions due to the both the explosives that were left behind along with the natural gas deposits that are still left.
The whole area is now a flaming inferno with barely any trace of the ruined colony or the mines. The whole place looks like the gates of hell got open with a huge gaping hole at the center as the trees got burned to cinders, the soil scorched to shit, and whatever is left in the three mile area is now destroyed to oblivion. The Spearhead of Hope then turns towards where it needs to go and leaves. Yet everyone is placed in isolation except Demiurge in a quarantined lab in order to conduct his experiments. As expected, Albedo and Shaltear put up a fuss but everyone managed to calm them down.
In the labs of Spearhead of Hope, Demiurge experiments on some of the fungi he had collected and see what it actually is. He examines a sample under a microscope and sees that the mold started to behave erratically. It keeps on changing shape every second with some parts starting to look like they are forming faces of different species. They all look angry while some look depressed or sad.
"Hmm?" Demiurge went as he pull his head away from the microscope. "What the hell is this?" he takes a look again.
The thing is still behaving erratically while showing all forms of aggressive and depressive expressions. Demiurge points a light onto it and the faces look like they were screaming. Screaming in pain when exposed to light. Then the black fungi started to disintegrate. Demiurge then test another sample with a centrifuge to see what he can get. Once finished, he takes the test tube out and the sample is destroyed.
"Well that's annoying." he mutters to himself, "How can I conduct my research if my samples get destroyed?"
For his next experiment, he expose the sample to some chicken blood. He examines with a magnifying glass and see the mold take over and turn the blood black. Demiurge then uses a spell to increase magnification as he sees the red blood cells are slowly getting transformed into miniaturized fungus cultures with microscopic mushrooms and various types of mold before some of it start to dye black. Then he starts to see the faces again on the mold. A flash of light then shined upon it and caused the scorch faces to scream before disappearing and reappearing. Demiurge then seals it up and puts it in cryo for further analysis.
"Hmm..." he is hypothesizing, "I wonder what would happen to it in freezing temperatures. But I will wait until later. Time for the next experiment."
Demiurge take out another sample and place it in a scanner. He press a few buttons and see if there are some other elements at play. The scanner does it thing for a few minutes but all the screen reads is, 'UNKNOWN'.
"Guess advance science can't help." He then makes a call, "Entoma?"
"Yes, Lord Demiurge?"
"I would like for you to bring some magic items once the quarantine is down. I would require a magical detection device, something to help me understand about my samples more, and one of those psionic crystals of the Protoss."
"Very well. But I can deliver the items through the same vent used to deliver food."
Demiurge smiles, "That would be wonderful. Send them to me immediately."
Team SSSN are in a quarantined room as they watch some of the few movies they have. Good movies such as the original RoboCop, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Pete's Dragon, The Mask, Braveheart, and Pulp Fiction. They decided to watch RoboCop. The room is clean and white with a white fur rug and bunk beds. Although, the room is completely different in design that look more Terran than Protoss.
"How long are we stuck in here?" Sage asks.
"48 hours." Neptune answers. "Standard procedure they said."
Sun is a bit frustrated, "Ugh! I don't think I can sit still for that long!"
Scarlet is watching the movie, "Hey, do you think the cops back on Remnant would strike if they got completely replaced by Atlesian robots?"
Sage thinks about it for a moment, "I think they would, but Atlas has a military."
In another quarantine room, Ainz is watching a movie with Mare on one lap and Aura on the other. They are currently watching The Dark Crystal movie where they are at the part where Jen tries to find the crystal in Aughra's observatory.
'Where did they find movies like these?' Ainz questions. 'This is an old film with puppetry. Although, seems scary for a kid's movie with those weird bird, reptile things. What were they called again?' But he notices that Aura and Mare are asleep. 'Aww! So this is what it's like to have children!'
Magnus and Cocytus are in another room with Cocytus turning most of the room into an icy place.
Magnus gets upset, "WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP LOWERING THE TEMPERATURE!?"
"Sorry!"
AN: Hey everyone! Hope you enjoy this new chapter. Just to give you guys the heads up, I'm gonna be working at a campsite real soon so expect things to be a little slower because...you know. But anyway, I hope to gain some insights on maintaining a cabin because I think I'll have one as a tiny house. Maybe, still haven't decided. Anyway, catcha' guys later!
