"Squeak!"
"Squeak!"
Stab!
Pssht!
"That's two more down. Where are the rest, Jimmy?" Liemann turned to his zombie companion, who only responded with a guttural noise.
"Okay, thank you for the grass." Liemann chuckled and tossed the blade of grass into the makeshift backpack he had placed over Jim's shoulder. "I don't need grass, Jim. I need you to look out for these hedgehogs that pop out from the ground every now and then!"
"Grah. Graass."
Liemann wanted to strangle the zombie next to him, but he didn't have the willpower or the need to do. He had abandoned the plan of using Jim as a meatshield or a bait of sorts as he'd somehow taken more of an interest in grass than being a zombie!
He wanted to puke blood at the reality that befell his travels now because Jim was utterly useless in combat!
"Grass."
And he'd somehow learnt how to say grass!
"Oh my god, Jim. Please just shut up, I'm trying to aim here!"
Whew! Stab!
"Squeak!"
Anyways, he had thoroughly explored the cavern he was in...and the name 'Grand Cavern' was an apt description for the massive opening in the earth. The hole he came through from the cemetery was one of the many scattered across the cave walls. All of which led to a dead end after walking for around 15 minutes, the sole exception being the one he stood on right now.
Liemann had thought to blast through the insides of the tunnel to see whether there were other cemeteries. But he just didn't have the patience or the willpower to spend another 20 days on a potentially fruitless search.
Whew!
Plat!
"Good! That's one more down. I think there are 5 left for the area that we're in."
Therefore, after careful consideration, Liemann resolved to pursue the hunt for all the hedgehogs in the cavern. Not only did they offer him a plentiful supply of crystals, but they also posed no real danger to him. Environmental effects on the ecosystem? He didn't know and didn't really care too much. Given enough time, it would recover, right?
Whew!
Pssht!
"Squeeak..."
Now...one may wonder what weapon he used for hunting these hedgehogs, sounding similar to a projectile being shot out...
A simple answer; it was a gun!
...
Of course not.
His dream of creating a gun this early was shattered even before he began.
You can probably guess why...
He didn't know how to shape or process the metal!
The crappy flame rune he had only produced temperatures of around 600 degrees, and the metallic spike he created was probably something like iron - its melting point sitting firmly at 1500 degrees as compared to the pittance that was the flame rune.
I mean, it's not even a proper flame but a tiny wisp of fire...but even then, what would I do if I figured out how to melt it? Shape it into a ball and throw it? I might as well throw rocks instead!
Whew!
Ding!
"Aw shucks."
Hence, Liemann was left with a stack of metal spikes and a whole lot of time to kill the hedgehogs for more purple crystals. He used the metal spikes as projectiles through a dark-light-wind combo to give it a 'little' boost - calling the spell [Dart].
Whew!
Stab!
"But damn...creating projectiles beforehand saves a lot of brain and time when you cast spells. I guess I couldn't do that with the flame rune though because flames don't tend to last..."
Whew!
Pssht!
"Squeeak!"
"And that will be the last hedgehog for this region of the cavern."
"Alright. Jim, come on. We gotta go collect the gems now."
"Grah."
Liemann cast a dark rune over their heads and slid down the little outcrop they'd been lying on, followed closely by mobile storage who had figured out how to slide down without tumbling and spilling everything.
Thud.
Thud.
"Jim, you take the left side of the area and search for those purple crystals. Remember. Purple. Crystals. No more eyes or grass, do you understand?"
"Grah." he nodded happily and began to search around...
"No stop, what are you doing?! I said purple crystals!" Liemann ran to the mobile storage and removed the corpse of a hedgehog from the backpack before ensuring he understood the assignment.
"Grah." Jim responded by raising a hand as if to imitate a thumbs-up before trodding off to collect...well, let's just hope he collects those purple crystals.
"It's like teaching a four-year-old how to do everything...haaa. Tsk, tsk."
Liemann messaged his boney forehead before setting off to collect his side of the field.
...
"One, two, three, four, five...twelve. Okay. Jim are you sure you picked up everything from the left side of the shooting field?"
"Grahaha." the mobile storage laughed and gave a thumbs-up.
"No. You missed three. Go back down and pick them up."
"Gra..."
"Go."
"Gr..."
Slide~
Thud.
"Almost got fooled by a four-year-old.", Liemann scooped up the purple crystals and added them to his small waistline bag made of hedgehog fur.
He was stockpiling them so that he could 'consume' them all in one go and would only have to live through that extremely unpleasant experience once.
Liemann had been at the 'shooting range' for a couple of days now since he found that loot was a thing in this world and decided to 'max out' his level in this area.
When killed, the hedgehogs dropped one purple crystal, which could be activated by squeezing them like candy when he had it in his hands. The first one he'd gotten, Liemann didn't know that he had already passed the pressure threshold and begun the absorption process until it was too late...so he had to go through that awful experience of being bathed in liquid nitrogen.
Each of the crystals was more or less a gamble with what rune he got. A constant reminder for Liemann and his previous life's gacha game addiction. The runes he got the most were duplicates of the same thing - the spike rune. And the 'rarer' ones were the runes that made his hands stronger or made his teeth more capable of chewing through the grass (yes, he had to test it out) or a rune that further enhanced his night vision ability as an undead.
He'd tried to crack why these strange crystals could contain information about runes, but even being his genius, Liemann couldn't quite figure out how they worked.
He presumed that 'dropped' runes were a sort of crystallisation of that life's experiences. A hedgehog who loved to dig would have a strong hands rune, while another who liked to search for food might have a vision enhancement rune. So on and so forth.
Still, he wasn't too sure, as it became contradictory when he thought about humans or any other intelligent creature.
"What rune would they drop when they die? Humans experience too much in their lifetimes to identify their one rune, or maybe they drop multiple? Hmm...I haven't met anyone other than the zombies, so I really cannot tell... Runes might just be a fixed thing that wasn't a crystallisation of experience but an inherent trait of that creature."
Liemann scratched his head with a feeling of frustration.
It was simply too outlandish and far from his understanding of reality that he'd learnt while doing engineering...not to mention that he'd been put through that experimental torture for a few years, so his memory was a bit fuzzy.
Either way, since he couldn't decrypt the code, so he just accepted that they acted as they did. After all, when the world imposes its laws, one must learn to adapt and move forward. It is simply impossible to comprehend everything, and one must learn to accept things beyond their understanding.
"Grah."
"Oh, you're back, Jim. Got the three missing pieces of crystals?"
"Grass."
Slide~
Thud.
Jim handed Liemann the last of the crystals that still had a trace of blood before hopping back down to the ground - presumably to observe and study more of the grass.
"Thanks...I guess."
Cling.
Cling.
He scooped up the crystals on the ground and put them in his ragged side pocket.
Slide~
Thud.
"Come, Jim. We need to move to another region. There's nothing left here."
"Grah, grah."
.
.
.
Somewhere below Liemann's position.
In a place shrouded in impenetrable darkness, where light dared not to tread, lay a desolate expanse stretching as far as the eye could see. It was a desolate realm, devoid of life and breath, where the darkness threatened to engulf everything in its path. Deep beneath the earth, in a layer beyond the reach of man, in a void where nothingness reigned, a pair of eyes flickered open.
Suddenly, a colossal body, several meters in diameter, materialised atop one of the massive stone pillars jutting upwards into the unknown. The fleshy appendages, previously motionless, came to life, writhing and wriggling as they shook off the dust and dead snow that had accumulated on the invisible creature over the aeons. Teeth and mouths lined the spherical body, clattering and chattering as the creature floated off the pillar, landing gracefully on its many tentacles. It stood towering above the ground, an overseer of the desolate realm.
Crack.
The heinous beast's weight caused the dull greystone ground to burst, shattering the once-pristine surface that had remained unblemished for countless years. The resulting sound echoed through the palpable darkness, penetrating unknown spaces.
Round eyes containing beady black pupils blinked rapidly as they took in their surroundings, examining every little nook and cranny of the empty space as though there was something else. The wet, fleshly tentacles waved around as they drew many runes at once, those which were magnitudes more complicated than the ones Liemann had.
Click. Hum.
Click. Hum.
Click. Hum.
Click. Hum.
Click. Hum.
Click. Hum...
...
As if a puzzle were being pieced together, a multitude of runes coalesced and merged into a single, unfathomable letter at the centre of the creature's primary eye. The rune vibrated and glowed in a hue that defied description, illuminating the barren terrain with its radiance, a sight not witnessed in aeons.
A sinewy tentacle extended itself, reaching forward to brush against the rune and pulling it closer towards an eye that pulsed with blue and gold veins. The creature's legs began to writhe and shift as it surveyed its surroundings. Tilting its gaze upwards, it stared at the smouldering abyss beyond the countless layers of rock, earth, magma, and caves. Finally, it penetrated through to an area with lush grass and glittering crystals that shimmered with brilliant hues.
It paused for but a second as it caught sight of its target.
"Godfell."
Spoken in a guttural sound of flesh grinding against teeth, it chuckled.
Smiles curled on those many mouths that whispered the word 'Godfell' repeatedly.
The creature deactivated the rune and looked down at its tentacles, holding up just two out of the countless many hung from its body as if to imitate the motion of looking at one's hands.
"T cannot beest. T hadst only been nay m're than a few thousand years. A godfell cannot has't awaken'd yet."
"But mine own und'rstanding hast been defi'd. Once m're by the unknown, the cosmos yond birth'd us."
Thud.
Crack.
Thud.
Crack.
The abomination began to move through the murky darkness, leaving a trail of smashed pebbles and broken stones in its wake.
"Godfellgodfellgodfellgodfellgodfell..."
Incessant whispering rang out in the void as the voices grew more excited with every passing second. The hissing and crying of the many souls simply a byproduct of their elation at the turn of events.
"Thee all did speaketh. We doth not has't the timeth to feeleth joy f'r the awakening of one. We shalt wend down to the hadal zone and inf'rm of the moth'r."
"T is timeth yond we executeth the final planeth, coequal if 't be true t beest did push f'rwards many years in advance."
"Mine own broth'rs and sist'rs, one of the same family, of the same kin, the timeth is near f'r anoth'r epoch to beginneth. Tis timeth we witness the birth of a true entity, one to ruleth us all, one to taketh on the invad'rs."
Rumble!
The ground shook as the abomination finished saying the last sentence. Many of the same pillars materialised out of the blankness of space, and so did many others of its kind, floating down to the ground as they detached from the massive pieces of stone that held the upper layers.
Crash!
Boom!
The ground quaked and the air screamed as the horde of abominations descended in droves. Among them were creatures as colossal as the very pillars of the earth, while others were minuscule, barely the size of a human eye.
"We might not but moveth to the hadal zone and beginneth our planeth. The timeth is near. Did spread the w'rd, did spread the meaning, did spread the significance. Anoth'r epoch shalt beginneth and has't t beest mine own witness."
Many of the abominations near the first began to entangle their tentacles and form a larger figure multiple times their original size, walking down the slope of the abyss that extended into the hadal layer. All the while chanting the same message over and over:
"The Godfell hast awaken'd."
"The Godfell hast awaken'd."
"The Godfell hast awaken'd."
"The Godfell ---
...