"Wow, this place seems so different. Dragon was right. The similarities just highlight how unalike everything else is. I wonder how many of the changes are due to no-" Riley looked up as Kevin stopped talking. The world had suddenly lost all color!
She blinked. No, that wasn't quite right. The sky was still blue. Her eyes narrowed as she gazed at the cerulean expanse above her. Her eyes were orders of magnitude better than a regular person's. She'd modified them extensively. Different particles in the air blocked and reflected light differently. The sky over New York was different than the sky over Brooke's Creek.
The sky over Iota was vastly different than the sky over Bet.
This sky was even stranger.
The... base sunlight was off! And was that two moons? She could see them clearly despite the surrounding light pollution.
The Tinker frowned. On one hand, this meant that they'd stumbled onto the occurrence they'd been trying to find. Just because Dragon didn't know what precisely was happening didn't mean she'd been unable to formulate some predictions and theories. Case in point, it was an abduction.
That made sense. Matter didn't just vanish. Not without noticeable energy expenditure.
She glanced around the area she was now in. It was perfectly white. How odd-
Something bit her!
Riley's heart stopped beating.
It was an automatic response she'd added to her nervous system. She wasn't afraid of poisons. Her body was immune to all of them. The reaction was to prevent blood loss.
In fact, it was redundant as her blood was so oxygen saturated she could go for hours without taking a single breath.
Riley glanced down. No, what was important now was what had attacked her. Attached to her calf was the outline of a snake.
It wasn't translucent or transparent. The light she could see moved around it. If it wasn't for the thermal components she'd included in her expanded range of vision, she wasn't sure she'd been able to see her attacker at all!
So this world had powers. She wasn't surprised.
She pointed at the animal. Capillaries around her distal phalange of her index finger constricted. A thin needle from the center of her bone embedded itself in the snake's skull. The neurotoxin killed it instantly.
A replacement needle moved up from her middle phalange to the tip of her finger while another needle from the proximal phalange took its place in turn. It would take a couple of hours for the largest bone in her finger to completely grow another needle, but she had twenty-three more shots if she needed them. (It was hard aiming with her thumbs, so she hadn't included needle launchers in them.)
Riley reached down and pulled the snake's jaws open and away from her calf. A pale venom leaked from her wounds. The snake was completely white and no longer invisible. Whatever power allowed it to bend light had ended when it died.
Riley scanned the ground around her. No more heat signatures. She was probably safe-
She suddenly fell as her leg gave out from beneath her.
Now that was interesting. The snake's venom was effective against her counter-measures.
Riley hummed to herself as she shrugged her backpack off and began digging through it.
A new venom! How exciting!
She pulled out a knife and started removing the damaged limb. Better safe than sorry.
Besides, she could always re-attach it later.
It took her a while to remove her leg, even if she didn't have to cut through her reinforced bones, her tendons were also tough. Once she was done, there would be no risk of the venom spreading. Riley nodded. "There. Now I could use some extra hands." She rooted around her backpack some more. "Hey! All my Mets are missing!" She frowned. "I was sure I packed them... Oh! Here we go!"
She pulled out a small, yellow cube and placed it on the white ground.
Riley ► Expand.
The Met Factory responded to her command and grew to its full size.
Riley ► Create.
Nothing happened.
Riley ► Create.
No new Mets appeared. While the ones the Factory made weren't as nice as the ones she'd made by hand, they still were helpful. Riley picked up the yellow box and shook it. "What's wrong with this thing?" She hummed as she thought. "Malleable." The outfit Kevin created for her morphed to cover her head. "Observe."
[Met Factory]
"Well... that's something I suppose." Riley shrugged and sent the signal to restart her heart. Her leg was sealed and wouldn't be leaking any blood. "Kevin will have to fix it when I find him." She stood up on her remaining leg and looked around the barren, white plains. It should be easy to spot him in a place like this...
...which also meant that she was easy to spot now too!
"Uh oh."
Riley ► Collapse.
The yellow box shrunk back down into a yellow cube. Riley grumbled as she awkwardly crouched down to pick it up and toss it back in her backpack. She then noticed a large heat source moving closer to her.
Riley raised her right arm and pointed at it with all of her fingers. The action apparently clued in the heat source that it had been spotted and it dashed towards her! It became visible as it ran. It was hairy, large, and also pure white.
Riley fired all four of her needles, but the creature continued its charge!
An appendage swiped at her once it was a few feet away. Riley tried to dodge, but it was impossible to avoid the invisible attack with only one leg.
Time seemed to slow down as she was batted to the side.
Riley flew through the air like a rag doll before crashing to the ground. "Malleable." Her costume flowed away from her head and towards her leg. She rose on her new foot and winced. The bear-like creature had broken two of her ribs.
She got a better look at it now that its invisibility power had faded away.
It wasn't a bear. While it was the same size as one, the thicker fur on top of its head and back along with the shape of its muzzle and claws made it resemble an albino honey badger that had grown far too big.
It snarled at her and charged again. It was either immune to her neurotoxin or, more likely, her attack hadn't managed to pierce its thick fur.
Riley bit down on a small pustule in her cheek and bent her knees.
When the animal pounced, she fell backwards while breathing a plume of acidic mist above her. The badger passed through it as it flew over her head!
Riley rolled to the side to avoid the fallout from her own attack and sprinted towards her leg, backpack, and snake. There was a cry of pain and rage behind her. She picked up her belonging and continued to gain distance. Her attack had been based on Crawler's saliva. While it wasn't as deadly as the original the acidic poison should've killed anything. The fact that the badger was still making noise was concerning.
She'd love to dissect it and see exactly what made it tick, but that could wait until she had two properly functioning legs. Fighting things with their hands were Little Mac & Sibby's deal. (And occasionally Kevin's too. Stupid brother.) The animal had survived her most potent poison, so it might be able to kill her before she could do the same to it.
No. Her best bet was to put as much distance between them as possible before finding a place she could Tinker in peace.
...
Riley ran through the tall grass. The most notable thing about it was that the grass, like the two animals she'd already encountered, was invisible.
How did that even work? Plants NEEDED sunlight to survive. That was how they obtained the energy necessary for life! What evolutionary purpose did letting light pass through them serve?
She could also make out a large, wide tree on the horizon. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world to see the grass and bushes that dotted the countryside. All of them were invisible. The plants were cooler than the surrounding air, but not by much. That made discerning their locations difficult.
Except for the tree.
The tree was invisible, but it was also hot. Extremely hot!
The badger was still chasing her, but she'd gotten far enough away so that she could no longer see it. In theory, that meant that it couldn't see her either. In practice, any predator in this world had to have the capacity to find its prey using non-visual means.
Still, if it was tracking her, it couldn't be running after her, so it was probably okay to slow down for a little bit.
Riley eyed the tree. Whatever made it special also made it dangerous. She should probably give it a wide berth.
Just as she angled her path to circumvent it, multiple balls of heat broke off and began flying through the air towards her!
She'd enhanced her cardiovascular system, so she was still good to continue running. It wasn't a long term solution, but it should suffice to get away from whatever was making so much heat.
Unfortunately, the flying creatures were faster than her. Even worse, once they got closer, they became engulfed in flames! This allowed her to see them with her regular vision, but it also meant that they were probably about to attack.
The flames obscured their forms, but Riley could hear a buzzing sound as they approached.
Insects?
Giant, invisible, fire-creating insects?
She now wished she'd packed one of Kevin's laser guns in her backpack. Even with it being larger on the inside, there had been only so much room. It had been more important to bring all the things she'd need to Tinker with. Unfortunately, her most useful tools had vanished - not that the Mets would've been effective against these particular opponents.
Riley raised her left arm. One, two, three, four. Needle after needle struck home. Her targets fell from the sky, spasmed, and turned visible as they died.
Bees. Giant, white, fire bees.
How'd she love to cut them up!
The rest of the hive didn't seem inclined to let her, as their flames grew larger and hotter.
Riley ran.
She paused to turn around and raised her right hand. One, two, three, four. Four more needles. Four less bees.
Hopefully they'd give up once she got far enough away. She only had so many needles.
...
"Stupid bees! Them and their stupid flames!"
Riley nursed her burns as she continued her trek. She was out of finger needles! Bone took time to re-grow!
Plus, she hadn't even gotten any new specimens out of the fight.
She needed a different bomb. The stupid fire had burnt away her poison cloud before it could get close enough to the insects.
No. What she really needed was something that could stop their fire. A non-flammable gel would work... except it would be too easy to dodge. She needed something that could put out fires in an area. Something like a fire extinguisher...
That's it!
A carbon-dioxide cloud wouldn't work on its own. It was too dense. What she needed was to mix up a non-flammable gas that had the same density as air. As a bonus it would work against a lot of creatures. She would have to include a paralytic of course. It wouldn't do to have someone leave the cloud. If she wanted to suffocate something, they needed to stay put!
Riley saw movement out of the corner of her eye.
She turned her head, but there was only the outline of bushes.
Wait.
There!
A hotter than normal bush! And another! And another!
Something was sneaking up on her. A group that wasn't only relying on the ubiquitous invisibility that creatures of this world possessed.
Well, she was done running.
She could block the pain signals, but her broken ribs were getting worse. Her burnt arm was chaffing. Finally, she still was missing a leg!
Riley took her backpack off and set it down on the ground in front of her. She then took the bows out of the ends of her pigtails and placed them inside. "I'm glad I finally get to use this, you know?" There was no response from her soon-to-be attackers. "I mean, I still like to look cute. So I normally don't go this far, but it seems worth it now."
She pulled two vials from her backpack and straighted up. "Besides, I prefer live subjects." And not just because they made it easier to Tinker with. She liked the praise that Kevin gave her when she subdued people non-lethally. One of the problems with that was actually finding suitable subjects to test on. This would be an excellent opportunity to see just how deadly her most recent modification was.
Dog-shaped heat blurs emerged from their hiding spots and slowly approached her from every direction.
"C'mon." Riley smiled as she drank one of the vials. She tossed the other one up and down. "If you don't get this over with, I'm going to start throwing things."
The canines charged as if they'd understood her threat.
Riley tossed the vial at the one coming at her from the front. At the same time, she activated the bio-electric charge she'd built up. Her individual strands of hair spread out as the electricity flowing through them let out a static charge. One after another, the animals rammed into her 'tazer hair'. She had it going at a pretty serious voltage, amplitude, and pulse frequency.
It was the amplitude that really determined how deadly electricity was. The pulse frequency was also important, as interrupting a target's nervous system for too long was dangerous.
Riley had opted for the 'usually lethal' setting.
At least one of the... oh, they were white hyenas!
At least one of the hyenas should survive.
...
It was getting dark. Riley didn't know what that meant for the local ecosystem. All the plants had turned visible as the sun set. It didn't help much, as all them were white too. Did invisible animals even care about daylight?
It was possible, even likely. It was colder at night. It was harder to walk when you couldn't see the ground. The need to conserve energy probably trumped whatever capabilities invisible predators used to hunt invisible prey.
Unfortunately, likely wasn't good enough. She needed to find a secure place to sleep. Food and water would also be necessary at some point. She could eat the hyena corpses she had. She could also drain them of blood... but that was more of an emergency water replacement.
It wasn't like she was in a desert. There were shrubs and trees. Their spacing suggested infrequent rain.
Probably.
She wasn't a meteorologist.
In any event, she was getting sleepy and she hadn't run into any more animals for a while.
Riley took off her backpack. While she wanted to cut open the hyenas and the snake, she had another goal in mind. A few drops of this combined with a splash of that and some heat... Presto!
Riley tilted her neck while feeling it with her left hand. She had to be precise with this. The syringe in her right hand plunged deep - right next to her brain stem.
...wow.
...whoa!
...that was... really... wow.
She'd targeted her glymphatic system accurately. Her solution swept across her brain, and flushed away the day's accumulated waste. Other things could keep her body going, but rest was essential for the cells in her brain to dispose of their by-products. Just like every other part of her, they had to take in chemicals, use them for energy, and dispose of the remains.
Having your brain flushed made thinking impossible. More like a strange waking dream. Thankfully, her manual cleansing didn't last long.
Riley returned everything to her backpack and continued walking. She'd find a cave, or a plateau, or some other natural feature that would keep away other animals eventually.
She almost stumbled on top of a heat source!
It was buried in the dirt. An animal poked its nose out of its burrow before turning around.
Ah good. Not something that was trying to eat her.
Riley barely got her arm up in time to block the spay of quills directed towards her face.
...
"Stupid porcupine, or hedgehog, or whatever." Riley's dress had stopped the quills from piercing her chest, but she still had a dozen embedded in her forearm. "They won't come out." She tugged at one of the ones protruding from her arm again. "I could just pull them out, or cut them... but then I couldn't see HOW they're so sticky!" She walked in silence for a few minutes before letting out a sigh. "I guess I'll just have to wait until dawn. Creating a light of my own would just draw more attention."
Of course, she'd also have to find a secluded place also.
It wasn't bad at night really. It was probably the best time for her to move around, especially with her thermal sight.
"I wonder if there are any sapient life forms. I mean, badgers, bees, and hyenas all exist on Earth Bet. That implies a common ancestry, or at least that a co-mingling also happened in the past." She stepped around a hole. "Dragon didn't say anything about animals being abducted, but that's just the current situation. In fact, there might be humans here - Neanderthals, or something. Heck, a whole civilization might have evolved."
Eventually the horizon started to brighten.
"So that's what? Fifteen hours?" Riley frowned. "Pretty long, plus its cold. So... winter? No snow that I've seen, but that matches with my rainfall hypothesis."
She heard a sound from above. In the sky and to the left there was a single heat source that was making noise. To the right there were a dozen more. Even as she watched, the solitary... bird? called out again. At the same time the flock dove down at her.
"Interesting." She mumbled. "They don't look big enough to be birds of prey, but they're clearly using pack tactics." She reached down and pulled a bow away from her dress. "Then again, my depth perception isn't the best right now."
She tossed the bow up above her head where it exploded in a fine red mist. Riley kept staring at the approaching birds. She was immune to her own poison. The foremost attacker fell from the sky as it inhaled her creation. "Looks like they aren't like that badger then." The remaining birds started to pull up, but they had built up too much momentum in their dive.
One after another, they fell to the ground around her. Their invisibility faded as they died. Yep, all of them were pure white also.
"My backpack is already full!" Riley stomped her foot. "I'll have to ditch a hyena to make room for them."
...
Riley heard them approaching before she saw them. She didn't even need her thermal sight to make out the cloud of dust on the horizon.
As she got closer, she could make out a mass of creatures who weren't even invisible. Like everything else in this stupid world, they were solid white. It made making out details from so far away impossible.
Riley frowned.
The herd looked dangerous... and it was heading straight towards her!
She started running to the side. She kept one eye on the approaching stampede, while the other one made sure that she wasn't going to run over any new surprises.
"Hey! No fair!" The charging animals were swerving towards her! "Aren't you herbivores? Why are you coming after me?" Most herd creatures weren't predators. It took a lot of food to sustain that many animals. It was impossible for an ecosystem to support that many carnivores. "Although, they could be omnivores. I guess." Riley stuck her tongue out at the approaching mass. "Or you all could just be a bunch of aggressive meenies!"
Still, she had to do something. It wouldn't take long for them to reach her. "Hmmm... Poison won't work. Even if it kills them, they still have a lot of momentum built up. What I need is... there!"
Riley picked up her pace. There was a large tree with a wide canopy to the side. She wouldn't be able to make it in time, but she could get the tree between her and the charging group. She smirked once she was in position.
THUD!
The tree shook as one of the leading animals crashed into it!
The beast veered to the side, and collided with one of its pack-mates. Other members suffered the same fate, but it didn't seem to slow them down much. "I guess that's not an uncommon occurrence, what with the trees being invisible." Riley frowned. "They have some hard heads and a good sense of balance."
Unfortunately, the mass came back together once they swarmed past the tree. "Still, I can do the same. I'm at least as sturdy as a tree."
Riley pulled the back of her skirt up and grunted as her spine extended. It was her most fortified piece of biology. Its thick bones had been hardened to an extreme degree. Her spine lifted her up as it expanded to its full length. At the same time, tendrils of bone shot out from its tip. They dug through the dirt and anchored her to the ground.
She wasn't as high up as the tree, but she was still out of reach of the... bison? Sure. She still couldn't make out much from the solid white mass, but Riley was 80% sure they were bison.
...Or bison-equivalent.
THUD!
The first one hit her spine and glanced off of it. Riley winced. Even with hyper dense bone, she'd still felt that. She didn't have a lot of space for padding.
"OW! You stupid cows!" That seemed like a good insult. Riley grabbed another bow from her dress and threw it at the ground. Bison after bison collapsed upon entering her poison cloud.
"Huh. I guess they aren't so dumb after all." The remaining herd abruptly swerved away after only three members collapsed. "I guess that's to be expected. Pack animals don't slow down for the slow, weak, or dead." Riley nodded from her vantage point.
Once the herd had passed, Riley lowered herself back to the ground. She had to break off the 'roots' she'd made as they weren't designed to retract.
"Ah, that really stings!" She gingerly started walking again. "Ow, ow, ow. I need to fix the pain receptors when I have the chance."
...
Water! She'd finally found water!
Riley had seen the outline of trees on the horizon. Her assumption that more trees must mean more water had been correct. She was so thirsty she'd been thinking about drinking the blood of some of the animals she'd killed.
She hadn't because, number one: it wouldn't be cute, and number two: it would be a waste of perfectly good blood!
If she had time she could strain all of the useful goodies out of the blood, but that would be kinda boring.
Riley scanned the area for heat sources. Watering holes attracted all sorts of visitors after all!
Nope. Nothing. Nada.
She walked up to the edge of the lake and looked around. The indentation that allowed water to settle was about fifty feet across, and twice that much length-wise. In fact, it was more like a non-flowing river than a lake. Riley started walking around the perimeter. Yup! There was a trickle of water coming from the east and exiting to the west.
That was assuming the sun rose in the east on this planet. Without a compass she couldn't be sure which way magnetic north was. Oh well, going by where the sun rose and set was easier and more useful anyways.
The river must form when it rained. In fact, she'd probably find similar water sources if she followed the path - which was something she was planning on doing anyways. That would be her best chance of finding civilization if it existed. If not, she'd find the ocean - or at least a much bigger lake.
Perhaps most importantly, running water meant it wasn't stagnant! While her body could take whatever Earth Bet threw at it, it would be foolish to press her luck in invisible-land.
Riley knelt down, cupped water in her hands, and drunk deeply.
She let out a satisfying sigh that suddenly turned into an "Eep!" when something soft, wet, and sticky struck her chest!
She was pulled off balance and into the water! She struggled, but the force was too strong and quick!
Something enveloped her. Bone spikes extended from her forearms, and she plunged them downward!
The sticky thing was still pulling at her, but all it was accomplishing was carving grooves into its own flesh. Riley grabbed another of her dress' bows and crushed it in her hand!
Her surrounding convulsed and relaxed.
Riley pried the now visible jaws of her attacker open. The thick and sticky saliva was already turning thin and wet.
Riley swam away from the giant frog. It had to weigh at least six hundred pounds.
"All that and it's too big to carry with me." She frowned. "If it wasn't such a high-traffic area, I'd cut it open and use it as a mount!"
...
The small stream continued to the west. "I'm so bored. Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored." Riley kicked a rock with her prosthetic leg. There was no feedback. It wasn't satisfying in the least. "On one hand, I'm glad that random invisible animals haven't attacked me in a while. On the other hand, it did liven things up." She pulled at one of the quills that was still lodged in her forearm. "On the third hand, I don't need more things added to my list of needed repairs!" She hadn't been able to examine and re-attach her leg yet, for crying out loud!
"Should I stop here?" She wondered. "Animals, or at least Earth Bet animals, don't make their nests close to busy places. But! This stream isn't exactly busy right now." She kicked another rock. "So I should be left in relative peace here." She let out a sigh. "Until some bird sees me from above." Riley frowned. "I guess I do need shelter after all..." She blinked. "Hey! Is that?"
Riley let out a squeal of delight. There was a clear bump on the horizon!
She picked up her pace.
There! A sheer cliff face rose into the sky! Or at least two hundred feet. It was noticeable not only for its bulk, but also because it was gray! That wouldn't normally be a prominent trait, but it contrasted with the ubiquitous white of the rest of the landscape.
Riley made it to the base of the plateau without incident. She walked around the natural structure. There wasn't much of interest. The cliff was nice and vertical the whole way around, rather than having a slope that connected one side. There was a singular deviation on the southern slope.
Water had clearly eroded that side. There was a clear rounded section at the top that probably formed a waterfall when it rained. A small pond remained at the base. Riley could see a trail that led from the pond back to the currently dry river, but she didn't get close. The stupid frog had avoided her thermal sight by remaining submerged. There was no telling what other animals might be hidden in the depths of THIS body of water.
Better to avoid it completely.
Riley moved to the opposite side. It was tall and almost perfectly vertical with a few hand-holds that she could see. She rubbed her chin. "I bet I can make it." She let out a hum. "But I am carrying a lot, and have a bum leg." She hummed again. "No, I'll need some help." She smiled. "Good thing I have some of that saliva saved!"
The small Tinker put down her backpack and pulled out the jar she'd scraped the frog's secretions into. "Let's see here..." She experimented for a while. "Just like I thought. It's non-Newtonian! Force causes it to become thick and sticky. I can work with that!"
All it took were the appropriate enzymes to modify the saliva's transformation time. Once it stayed sticker for longer, Riley spread some on her hands and feet. The trick was to get a rhythm going. One hand. Pause. The other hand. Pause. One foot. Pause. The other foot. Pause. Then back to the first hand as the mixture became less sticky. Riley slapped it against the cliff and pulled herself up.
She made it to the top and looked around.
"Nice view. No heat signatures." She walked around. "Oh! Hey! Someone else made camp here before!" A small circle of white stones surrounded some grey ashes. Riley poked around and found some divots too. "Someone had a fire going and a tent too!" She smiled. "Neat!"
The Bloodrage Badger sniffed the ground. Its prey had come this way. The huge beast snarled and continued to track.
Tireless, unrelenting, vengeful, it was the next-to-apex predator of the Chalk Lands.
Bloodrage Badgers were known by only a few people. It took an abnormal mindset to venture into a Death Zone. Of the [Explorers] who'd encountered them in the past, they all knew one thing: If you run across a Bloodrage Badger, one of you is going to die. Perhaps not immediately, but soon.
That was because the invisible animal was territorial to an absurd level. Bloodrage Badgers never let prey escape. It didn't matter how wounded they were. It didn't matter how far they had to travel. It didn't matter what skills its target used.
One with half its head blown off had followed the [Trapper] who'd wounded it outside of the Chalk Lands. Despite its quarries talents at remaining unnoticed, the badger tracked it. It followed him into a city and ambushed him in the street! The berserk monster had only been killed after taking the lives of a dozen guards and adventurers.
Bios:
Riley Grace Davis - Bonesaw. Has been through a lot with her big brother.