"Something's coming." Riley whispered.
"Wha-"
Pinky began to say something, but Riley held up a finger to her mouth. She hoped the gesture had the same or similar meaning here.
Pinky nodded, jumped off of her, and vanished.
The smell of cookies got stronger.
Riley stood up. Part of her was worried about stepping on Pinky. She hadn't known that the Fraerling had a Stranger power. How was she supposed to coordinate with her?
Instead, she focused on the edges of the plateau. If there was something there, is should still give off infrared light. She just had to spot it somehow.
She pulled a vial from her backpack as she scanned. If the unseen intruder was what she thought it was, then poison wouldn't work. If it wasn't, she still had some bows left on her dress.
The smell of cookies got stronger.
Riley focused on the scent.
Stronger.
Weaker.
She started to move her head back in the other direction.
Stronger.
She HAD to be facing it right now. Whatever power let it escape her notice still produced ripples. It still produced heat. It still had infrared light coming off of it. Riley still saw that light. Something was affecting her perceptions, but the synaptic energy still had to go somewhere.
The more heat, the more light. The more light, the more effort it took to block that from her mind. The more synaptic signals were diverted, the stronger the smell.
She KNEW where it was. She'd seen through whatever this was before. She just had to concentrate! Focus!
There!
A flicker in the air.
It moved outward quickly. Riley could just make out its edges.
Again. It was more like a stream as it flowed upwards. Riley recognized the sight. It was someone's, or something's breath! Her eyes tracked the heated expulsions back to their source and focused harder.
A large blur slowly seemed to fade into existence. Riley knew that shape. Badgers shouldn't be able to climb so well, especially blind ones, especially so silently, but it apparently had.
Riley drunk the contents of her vial and crouched down. If it behaved the same way it had before, then...
She dodged to the side as the blur leapt forward! The invisibility and Stranger effect vanished as it moved, which made it practically impossible to avoid!
...Except that Riley had started dodging beforehand.
The twin tails of her hair rose as electricity coursed through them. They ballooned out in the middle as they tried to spread out, but the ribbons at the top and bottom of the strands kept them together. Riley didn't need a weak area defense, she needed a focused jolt. If poison didn't work, and acid was only partially effective, she'd use electricity!
She reached out with a hand as the badger barreled past. Her fingertips grazed it, but that was enough for the conductive tissues in her body to release the charge that had been building.
A bright spark lit up the night and the badger howled in rage as it flew past.
Riley smelt burnt fur.
The badger snarled as it landed and turned around. It swiped with one of its massive paws. The campfire was struck and burning embers scattered across the ground.
The badger recoiled slightly before cautiously moving forward while sniffing the air.
Riley moved to the side and tried to keep the flames, and more importantly the smoke, between them. A scent bomb. THAT'S what she should've been working on! She ground her teeth. Scent and sound were the only senses the stupid badger had left.
In fact, something that blocked those would be extra effective against creatures that had evolved to deal with their invisible habitat. It would've been so easy too! She just had to mix some-
Riley shook her head. Now was not a good time for her Passenger to send her ideas!
How to deal with a Brute? Poison, her default option and best attack didn't work. Acid had blinded it. A more concentrated amount than a mist might work, but she didn't have any on hand. Her pustule was only a third full as the process to even make a knock-off of Crawler's venom took time. Electricity hadn't done much either. She'd expended her entire vial's worth of charge at maximum amplitude to no effect.
Perhaps its fur was insulating it? A shock directly to the skin on its head might work, but how could she pull that off?
The badger slowly advanced. Riley backed up and waited for it to pounce so she could dodge to the side, but the beast wasn't repeating itself. Was it intelligent enough to adjust its tactics?
Or did it not know where she was?
Riley turned and ran. She didn't have much room on the plateau, but if she could get to edge then a timely dodge might see the badger fall to its death.
The badger continued moving forward, but it didn't increase its speed or pounce.
Riley stepped to the side, and moments later the badger turned to follow.
Think. It wasn't using smell to track her. If it was, then it would have to follow her path. So using her suit to cover her completely was out of the question. Besides, the badger would still be able to track her clothes and belongings. She couldn't let it ruin them.
Sound?
Riley bent down and picked up a rock before throwing it to the side.
The badger whirled at the noise and sniffed the air. It let out a growl and turned back towards Riley.
Shoot.
What she really needed was a Brute of her own. If she had her mets, they might've been able to do something. A neural jack through its eye socket would work.
Riley stepped to the side, but the badger adjusted its course. It was almost on top of her, and she didn't have any place to run.
Think.
Think!
The badger lunged forward, but kept its paws on the ground. It tried to bite her instead of crushing her with its weight!
Riley dodged the first chomp, but the second grazed her. The beast didn't get to sink its teeth into her, but its massive head made contact. Riley stumbled back a step, but there was no more plateau left! Her arms whirled as she tried to regain her balance!
She leaned forward and fell to the ground, but the ground of the plateau instead of the ground far below them.
A heavy paw slammed on her back and she felt her ribs crack!
The badger growled as it bent its head close and sniffed. It then let out a roar of triumph.
Riley looked over her shoulder as fangs the size of her fingers slowly moved towards her. What could she do? How could she get out of this?
She was alone and afraid.
She missed Kevin...
"[Sneak Attack]! [Red Slash]!"
A crimson blur shot up from the side. It left a vermilion streak across the face of the badger. The animal reared back as it roared in pain. Its massive paws went to its nose.
"Bit! Get away from there!"
Riley tore her eyes away from the scarlet line that still seemed to hang in the air. The badger was thrashing about as it clutched its ruined face.
She rolled to the side and stood up.
Pinky landed on her shoulder. "C'mon. You have to run! That's a Bloodrage Badger. You won't be able to hide from it once it targets you!"
Riley breathed hard. It hurt. Her ribs were broken. Her mesh was keeping the shards from moving and causing more damage, but they were pressing against her lungs. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she shook her head. "No. We can't run." The plateau was the safest spot she'd found. She couldn't abandon it.
"Not forever." Pinky tugged at her hair and yelped when she received a small residual shock. "If we leave, it will follow. We can come back after it's gone!"
"No!" Riley ground out the word. "My scent is everywhere. It will tear up my equipment." She was done with running. "We're not leaving, it is!"
"What?" Pinky shouted in a high-pitched squeal.
"I can handle it." Riley held out her palm. The Fraerling stepped on it and was gently lowered to the ground. "We can't afford to lose this chance."
"What chance?" Pinky looked up from the ground. The Bloodrage Badger had ceased roaring and it's thrashing had died down. "I chopped off the tip of its nose. It will have a hard time smelling, but it's hardly a mortal blow."
"Not its nose." Riley moved to get the perfect angle. "It's position."
She crouched down and let her spine extend into the ground. The plateau was solid stone. Only the most durable of plants grew on its top. The bone roots from her spine couldn't pierce it, and instead spread out along the surface.
That was fine.
"Aaaaaahhhhh!" Riley screamed as she pressed against the ground with both her weakened legs and with her extendible spine. It was a short range charge, but it had surprising power for someone her size.
Her shoulder rammed into the side of the badger as it turned around. Its front paws were still holding its newest wound, so her collision knocked it off balance. It tried to crouch down and shift its center of gravity as it teetered over the edge, but it lacked the dexterity.
Instead, it fell.
"Rwwwwaaaarrrrr..." The badger's roar grew fainter before suddenly stopping.
"We did it." Pinky said while sounding surprised.
Riley looked over the edge. "No. It's still moving." The ground was too far away and too dark for her to make out the badger. It also might've turned invisible again. Its heat still radiated, and she could see it slowly crawling away.
"We need to kill it then." Pinky joined her at the edge. "Those things NEVER give up."
Riley grunted as her bone roots broke off and her spine retracted. "My ribs are broken. I can't make the climb down. Even if I could, I don't have anything that can kill it yet."
"Awww..." Pinky sighed. "Yeah, it would be [Foolish] to chase after it right now, and not the good kind of [Foolish]."
There are different kinds of foolish? Riley wondered to herself as she limped back to the scattered embers of their fire. "We need to gather these up. We don't have any wood to waste." Especially since there were only three trees that had managed to grow on top of the plateau. "After that, you're going to help me re-arrange my bones. I'll need an extra pair of eyes and hands." Even if they were tiny.
"What?"
...
"Are you sure you're not a [Saw Doctor]?" Pinky's face was flushed. "There's no shame in admitting that. Just be honest with yourself and your class."
Riley pulled the needle with the melding suture though her chest before tying it off and starting another. "Yes. For the last time, I don't have a class."
"I dunno..." Pinky was deliberately looking away. "That doesn't seem like something that someone could do without a class." She shivered. "I mean, I like blood as much as the next gal, but there was so much..." She hugged herself. "So much..."
"Pft." Riley snorted as she continued closing herself up. "There was hardly any." Sure, some might've seeped out since it was, you know, liquid, but she'd stopped her heart so any spillage was minor. Besides, even if her blood and been flowing, she wasn't about to nick any of her own arteries or veins.
That would just be embarrassing.
Pinky sighed. "If only you had more healing potions. I mean," She turned and looked at Riley with her hands up before turning back around. "Ahem. I mean that I'm glad you used what you had left on me, but it would've been a lot easier if you had some more. Not that you could take them with broken bones." Pinky frowned. "Although your bones were strange... In any case, it could make it so you didn't have to STAB YOURSELF AND HAVE THREAD HOLD YOUR SKIN TOGETHER!"
Riley raised an eyebrow as she continued to close. "I didn't bring any healing potions with me. My brother wanted me to take some of the ones he made, but I can take care of myself. ...Plus," Riley shuddered. "They are the vilest tasting things in the world."
"Oh?" Pinky turned around and puffed up her chest. "Fraerlings can make them taste quite good! I guess that's something your [Alchemist] brother doesn't know how to do!"
Riley leveled a flat glare at her companion. "Oh yeah? Well, if my brother were here then that stupid badger wouldn't even be an issue. He could take on the Dyed Lands like he was taking a stroll in the park!" Were all Fraerlings this arrogant and condescending about how superior their culture was, or was it just Pinky? "There. All done."
Riley cut the last suture. The first was already merging with her skin and making it seamlessly meld back together.
Pinky turned around as Riley was buttoning up her dress. "Oh good." She sighed. "That was... something. Better than the alternative... I suppose."
Riley nodded. "Yep. It wasn't a tricky operation, but it's hard to do it to myself without any assistants. Or with such poor lighting." She looked at the weak remains of their fire, and then the twin moons overhead. What could they be made of that caused them to reflect blue and green light? At least there'd been enough brightness from the two of them that she could work. "Now, we can worry about that, what did you call it? A Bloodrage Badger?"
Pinky strutted forward. "Yep. A nasty piece of work. If one gets it in their head to come after you, then they won't stop. It takes a city sp-, uhm, it takes some impressive effort to take them out. I hear that they even track Tallfolk [Explorers] once they leave the Dyed Lands."
"Still." Riley looked at the severed nose. "It lost a lot of mucus membranes. Its sense of smell will be at least a hundred times weaker." She smiled at Pinky. "Thanks for that by the way!"
"Nyeah ha ha ha!" The tiny woman rubbed under her nose with her index finger as she laughed. "Just returning the favor! I might not be a [Rogue], but I'm close enough to pull off some of their tricks! I can [Sneak Attack] with the best of them, just don't ask me to go head-to-head with anything."
"So it will come back, despite being so injured?" Riley rummaged around in her backpack and pulled out a couple of things. A quick mixture plus heat resulted in another glymphatic mixture.
"You can count on it." Pinky's eyes were glued to the large syringe. "Bit, what are you going to do with that?"
"This?" Riley hefted the needle and inserted it into her neck. "I just need a little pick-me-up if I'm going to get any work done tonight." She pressed the plunger and fluid was injected into her.
Pinky pointed and her mouth fell open. The Fraerling held the pose as she fainted and toppled back.
...
"There!" Riley finished the graft. The bloodrage bader's nose might help her understand how it was immune to her poisons and come up with a counter. In order for that to happen, it needed to 'live'. As long as it got compatible blood to bring it nutrients it should be fine.
Since she wasn't about to attach it to herself or Pinky, there was only one other source of 'healthy' blood - the Milk Box. Riley nodded as she examined her work. "Yep! That should keep it stable until I get back. Now for a better poison."
Riley had a lot of different poisons that did lots of interesting things. What she needed was one that was airborne, spread rapidly, was fast-acting, and that preserved the corpses. That last part was important as it was soooo much easier to distribute her compounds to live bodies. Doing it once the heart had stopped beating was a chore. Sure, a targeted electrical mixture could start the heart or constrict the veins to have the body propel it, but those were HARD to make.
Plus, she'd given all she'd made to Kevin to go with his supply of death-state powder.
It took a while to mix up what she needed from her supplies, but better to do it in the relative safety that the plateau provided than in the middle of an invisible pack of animals.
Once she was satisfied with her work, Riley went over and poked Pinky. The Fraerling mumbled and rolled to her other side.
"I should let her sleep. It's past midnight, I think." How long had she spent on the grafting and poison? "I need to make sure to get back before dawn." Riley gently picked Pinky up. "Still, I should put her in her tent. Wouldn't want another bird flying away with her." She crouched down and pulled open a flap on the red tent. Riley peered inside, but didn't see anything like a bed or sleeping bag. "Must be further back. Or still in her bag." She reached inside and set Pinky down. "It should at least be more comfortable than sleeping on the ground."
"Right." Riley stood up. "I need more materials." Food, spare parts, minions. Some animal corpses were needed for anything substantial she wanted to make. Riley looked at her bag. "The problem is that I don't have that much space, but I also don't want to leave anything behind. You never know what might come in handy." She shrugged. "I climbed up with it full before, I can do it again. What I really need is a rope... but I'm not sure how to make one. Plus, it would probably take a long time." She frowned as ideas for extendible limbed creatures came to her. If she made one long enough, it could act like an elevator. It would need to have hydraulic chambers in its arms to give it the necessary...
Riley shook her head.
"It's not a bad idea, but it's also not something I could make now." She pulled out her jar of mucus. "Besides, it's not like I'm going to camp out of the plateau forever. There's civilization out there somewhere."
She slathered the solution on her feet, knees, and hands. Her leg was healing nicely, but it still wasn't one hundred percent. Better to be safe than sorry - especially with that stupid badger still out there. She undoubtedly healed quicker than it, so now was the best time to venture out. It had to be licking its wounds somewhere. Riley didn't want to encounter it until she came up with something that would be effective, but she should at least be able to outrun it if worse came to worst.
The climb down was uneventful.
The next step was finding, well, anything would work really. She could walk around to the pond and try and lure out an alligator-thing, but she didn't want to rile up her 'neighbors'. She'd go out for about a mile and see what she could find.
...
"Whaaan!"
"Whaaaaan!"
Okay. That was creepy. Riley freely admitted it. Still, the sound meant that there was something in this direction... and it probably wasn't a crying baby. That would be too strange.
Riley crept through the waist-high grass. It was a pale white, like everything else, now that the sun had set. If need be, that meant that she could actually use it to hide in. She did so as soon as she saw a heat blur.
She slowly crawled forward. The night wasn't exactly silent, but it would still be best to not make any loud sounds. Riley occasionally poked her head up to observe her targets. She couldn't make out details at such a distance and with a heat signature, but they looked like small primates. They had large eyes, long ears, and a bushy tail. Apart from that, they most closely resembled monkeys.
A group of them was living in one of the few trees that existed in the savanna. Riley watched as they crawled around and made quick snatching motions with their hands. Probably catching insects to eat.
They were the perfect targets for her preserving poison.
Riley was sure they had some sort of nasty surprise, how else could they survive here? Her poisonous gas would allow her to wipe them out from a distance. Riley licked her finger and held it up. She just needed to get upwind of them.
That carried its own risks, as she didn't know how good of a sense of smell her quarry possessed. Still, it was self-defeating to plan around every possible outcome. Sometimes you just had to take risks!
Riley circled the tree while staying hidden in the grass. She felt melancholy as she imagined Sibby praising her for being such a patient huntress. She missed her mom/pet/whatever Sibby was to her. It was hard to put a label on it, especially these days, but she was family and she loved Riley.
Riley hoped she was doing well. At least Kevin had her for company. Riley wished she could summon a friend instead of making a minion. It would be nice to have her sister around, even if Panda couldn't do much.
Enough of that. Riley shook her head. She could feel lonely later. Right now, she had monkeys to kill.
She mixed together a substance that made her poison billow out from the jar. The smoke was thick here, but it would disperse in the air while remaining lethal. It would also break down in about five minutes.
She had to be responsible after all.
...
Riley looked around warily at the base of the plateau. She hadn't seen any indication of the badger, but that didn't mean it wasn't laying in wait. It would be bad to encounter it with the mucus on her feet. She sniffed the air, but didn't smell anything.
Satisfied that she was alone, Riley applied another layer of the sticky gel to her limbs. The jar was half empty. She'd need to either Tinker up a replacement, or come up with a more reusable method for climbing the sheer cliffs.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Arm. Leg. Arm. Leg.
Riley hauled herself and her rather heavy backpack up to the top. It was a good thing she'd improved her muscles. This required a lot of upper arm strength.
Once she was at the top, she pulled out her newly acquired bodies and placed them on the ground. She smiled at them. Opposable thumbs! How lucky! She could make those, sure, but having them naturally meant that the monkeys already had all the appropriate nerves and other hardware to make them work!
It would save a lot of time.
Riley nodded to herself and smiled before going to Pinky's tent. "Pinky? Are you awake?" She cupped her hands as she loudly whispered.
No response.
Riley got down on her stomach and pulled open the red flap. Pinky was sprawled on her back and gently snoring. Riley felt a tension in her chest ease. She'd been worried about her new friend. Pinky might have some useful powers, but she was also small and vulnerable to pretty much everything.
How did Fraerlings survive? They were such an interesting evolutional mystery. Pinky ate too much. Her voice was too loud. Her brain was too capable for its size. Riley could feel her Passenger urging her to find out how the tiny woman's body worked.
Riley ignored it.
She'd be able to learn plenty given time. Besides, Pinky had mentioned that there were LOTS of other races on this world. She'd have amble chance to experiment in the future. Besides, this world seemed... magical for lack of a better word. That meant there were all sorts of fantastical creatures like the stupid badger. She'd just have to find them.
Who knew? There might even be unicorns!
Riley beamed as she thought about encountering her favorite mythical creature. However, she had work to do. Riley schooled her face. First things first. She had a badger to murder.
...
Riley watched one of her more generic poisons interact under the microscope. "Now that's interesting."
"What's interesting, Bit?" Pinky yawned as she stepped out of her tent. "Is it that I slept in my clothes? I mean, that's a little odd, but it's becoming more and more common. Just one of the many unforeseen trials of the Dyed Lands."
"No, it's how the badger's biology interacts with poison." Riley stepped away from the microscope and did a quick scan of the plateau. The plants were invisible once again under the morning sun, and she didn't see any large sources of heat. She also didn't smell cookies. "Or, should I say, DOESN'T interact with it!"
Pinky gasped and brought her hands to her mouth. "You don't mean..." She furrowed her brow. "Wait. What don't you mean?"
"So, the way most poisons work is to block enzymes and receptors, right?" Riley entered her lecturing mode that she usually used with Kevin. "It's either that, or they straight up prevent oxygen from entering cells, but any accumulation of toxic chemicals can do that. So the shape of the poison and the receptors is the important part."
"Uhm... okay?" Pinky stretched and yawned again as she walked over from her tent.
"Cells need to be able to interact with each other. That's why they have mechanisms that poisons can utilize." Riley decided not to go off on a tangent about different enzymes and what they did. "Think of it as a jigsaw puzzle." Her audience still looked confused. "No? How about a lock and key then?" Did Fraerlings have those? They had to, right?
"Oh, you mean with teeth and tumblers, right?" Pinky sat down on a small rock.
"Right!" Riley nodded her head. "So less complicated locks can be opened with a key the presses the insides in the right place. They can be picked by having tools mimic what the key does."
"And poisons pick open cells?"
"Sure." Riley shrugged. It was a massive oversimplification, but the analogy held. "So just like with locks and keys, there are lots of potential interactions with cells and poisons. The badger," She motioned to the monkey she'd grafted the nose onto for testing. "Has an extra layer of security."
"Oh? What is is?" Pinky leaned forward.
"I thought it would be like 'normal' animals that are resistant to venom. Those have cells that adapt by having more complex locks. That means that most toxins can't trick them." It was similar to what she'd done to her own body to render her immune to everything - except that she'd gone a step further. "The badger's cells just don't interact with poison - even if it's the exact right shape!"
Pinky blinked. "Is that possible? Wouldn't that, uhm, be like having, uhm, a door that's barred from the inside? Does the cell look through a peephole to see if it should open up or something?"
Riley shook her head. "No. Cells aren't that complicated. They can't contain decision making capacity like that." Though, that WAS an interesting idea. Something to think about later. "It's like the badger's cells have a key card scanner instead of a regular lock."
"A what card?" Pinky looked more confused than normal.
Right. Fraerlings, or this planet for that matter, didn't have lots of advanced technology. "I'll just jump to the end. The badger has the usual anti-venom modifications, but it also has a color restriction!"
"Color?" Pinky perked up at that word, like it was significant somehow.
"Yep!" Riley smiled. "It only interacts with 'white' things." Which was a real pain since she didn't know HOW you dyed a strand of DNA white. Her Passenger wasn't giving her any clues either. Riley motioned to her microscope. "When you cut the badger, the cells along the edge were dyed red."
Pinky nodded. "My [Red Slash]. That makes sense."
"Right. So the pinkish cells no longer interact with the badger's white cells. They also are more vulnerable to non-colored poison."
Pinky hopped to her feet. "So I just need to slash it a bunch of times! I can do that!" She paused. "No, wait. I can't do that." She sat down with a huff. "I can only use [Red Slash] five times a day. That won't be enough to take out something that big."
Five times? Why that arbitrary restriction? Was their system like the Shards and imposed limits to further experimentation? Or was there a power source that Pinky drew from in order to perform her special moves?
Thoughts for later.
"There's an easier way. I just have to make a poison out of white dyed creatures." Thankfully, she had a fresh batch of monkey corpses to use for just such a purpose. It shouldn't take long to mix together something nasty.
Author's Note: I'm using italics in place of color since ff doesn't support that sort of thing.