'... ... ... ...'
A smattering of soft sounds drift through the veil of my semi conscious mind, rousing me from not-quite-sleep. Oh, I must have drifted off... 'yawn' I wonder what woke-?
HRK!
Stalking through the trees, far too quiet for something so large, is a monstrous hyena. I don't mean a Monster Hyena, no no, though it probably has some relation... maybe an evolution or two along? Regardless, this creature is at least twice the size of any other hyena I've seen so far, and its jaws!
Shudder
Thick and wide, the monster's head looks too big for its body, slabs of taut neck muscle supporting a heavy skull with a rock hard jawline any Chad meme would be envious of. Quite distressingly, this particular... species? Good enough for me... this species of Monster Hyena has moved away from their relative's already suitably menacing piranha-esque chompers, instead opting to emulate the dentistry of an angler fish, of all things. The forest of long, literally needlesque teeth are packed together incredibly tight, reminiscent of an overstuffed suitcase you'd need to sit on just to close like in the movies.
The overall effect is horrifically effective at ensuring I am painfully aware of my squishy bits all of a sudden, and considering I'm entirely squishy bits, I feel personally targeted by this.
Now that I've spent the required bare minimum amount of time transfixed by the frankly excessive maw currently on display, I can finally focus on figuring out what woke me. The monster is snuffling the grass like a police dog sniffing out drugs, its steps measured and careful despite its enormous frame.
Seriously, I could walk into its mouth like any old doorway, and its hunched shoulders must be at least shoulder height on a human-!
Oi, focus!
I wonder what it's looking for? I haven't seen anything pass by recently, and if the monster's sniffing managed to wake me, I can't have been that out of it, even considering said 'whuffs' beat out the biggest dogs I've encountered on pure decibel count. I may be able to taste stuff, but smell is beyond me currently, so I have no idea what kind of trail it could be following.
A random thought sparks to life, making me wonder whether slimes even have a scent. Honestly, I'd be quite happy to leave bad BO well behind me, it's something I was always self-conscious abou-
.....
Oh.
Oh no.
There's no way I'd be lucky enough to be reborn as a totally scentless creature, this thing is tracking me! Of course, I realise this at the precise moment the monster takes another step and turns to look directly into my small, hidden nook, an unsettling gleam of satisfaction in its eyes as its massive jaws part just enough to let a low giggle roll out through its forest of teeth.
Oh, hell to the no! That is creepy as fuck my guy, you can't be giggling with teeth like that, regardless of your species!
Of course, my silent reprimand is ignored, the monster stalking forward slowl-
HOLY CRAB CRACKERS! NOT SLOW, NOT SLOW!
CRUNCH!
The monster had taken one slow step, only to blur forward much faster than should be possible, clamping its oversized jaws down either side of the roots bounding me in on either side, open mouth showcasing multiple rows of those same needle sharp teeth; the only things between me and a one way trip down the belly of the beast.
CR-CRUNCH!
Undeterred by such paltry concerns as splinters, the monster sinks its teeth nearly to the gum into the tree's roots, the monster's heavy grunts rippling the surface of my form alongside gusts of what I imagine is truly rancid breath.
Hurk! Yep, just got a taste of that, disgusting! Haven't you ever heard of dental hygiene?!
Levering itself free along with a few large chunks of wood, the hyena gnashes its teeth, spitting out the detritus while I nervously check on the integrity of the only thing between me and a VIP, behind-the-scenes pass to this mutt's next meal.
If I could whimper, I absolutely would.
Two large crescents of mauled wood mark the outer edges of my location between the roots, so thoroughly ravaged that I doubt they'll hold up to even one more monch like that. What the hell kind of bite force do you have!? Do you really need to crush your prey to death when you already have teeth like that?!
It isn't lost on me that I could be using this time to devise some kind of escape plan, but I have to admit, I've been caught more than a little off guard. I only recently managed to get my conscious mind with the programme, and my current situation can be summed up rather succinctly as 'rare or chef's choice, whichever is faster'. If it tracked me here, I won't be able to lose it without hitting some kind of body of water. That blindingly fast rush earlier assures me I can't outrun it, and trying to fight something that is, from my perspective, twice the size of an eighteen wheeler isn't just risky, it would be blatant suicide!
The beast is seemingly happy to let me stew while it works free a particularly uncomfortable shard of wood lodged in its gum. 'S probably confident in actioning the first two observations I made, so I use the time to rack my brain for some kind of plan or angle. There's always a way out, it just depends on how desperate you are!
Uhh, climb the tree? Unlikely. I couldn't climb it before, I won't be able to do it fast enough to avoid those jaws now. Attack it before it attacks me? If I get on its shoulders, maybe... but again, I don't know the limits of its speed, I could just be crawling to my death. So, what does that leave me...?
...I mean, I guess there's always that.
Looking up at the 'sky', I project two nubbins that press together in front of me...
Come, let us pray.
Oh, Attenborough who art in the System, marvellous be thy name. Thy Animal Kingdom come, thy narration be done, in Dungeon as it is in the System. Give us-
"Yip! Hahaheehee!"
GWAH!
Interrupted most rudely by a sudden yip and cackle, the monstrous hyena leaps forward and turns its jaw sideways in mid-air, preparing to smash through the damaged sections of root consisting my last lines of defence. I experience no poignant deceleration of time with which to better plan my escape, merely a streak of muscle and teeth and the sound of splintering wood. Acting more than thinking, I leap for the only place I can perceive that isn't either filled with teeth, or will be momentarily.
If it worked on the spider, lets try it on this thing!
My leap takes me straight into the maw past rows of piercing teeth, currently wedged open by audibly straining wood. My target, the monster's throat, is large enough that I have no issues hitting it- which is a terrifying concept in and of itself -so it's pretty easy to wedge myself in there once I slip past the tongue.
A brief moment after I successfully turn myself into a doughnut-like sleeve at the base of the throat, I feel a surge of taut muscle and a CRRACK! like a drawn out gunshot. The vibration of the monster's jaws clamping together after eviscerating my previous hiding place sends tremors through my form, my trembling not entirely due to the vibrations themselves. I have no idea what the hell I'm doing, so I just start digesting as fast as possible.
This prompts a sudden and violent response from the hyena whose throat I'm strip mining. I mean, it's only natural, what does anyone do when they get something stuck in their throat?
They cough.
Only, I doubt many have experienced being said obstruction. There's a sudden expulsion of breath, which I resist thanks to the air passing uninhibited through the doughnut-hole I've created, but that's not the end of it.
Not by a long shot.
It's a far more intense experience than I could have expected, rippling muscles constricting, rolling, trying to force me up and into the hyena's mouth, which would be tantamount to an immediate death sentence. As such, I'm stuck in a literal life-and-death version of that game people play on pontoons and other floaty things, where you have to avoid being pushed into the water below by a whole group of people. Or, at least, that's how it's meant to be played... my relatives were never quite so gentle as that, and water being below was- as they put it -'easy mode'.
Anyway, this hyena has some serious throat muscles! How do you even target these in a work out, big guy? Throat presses? Is that a thing? Only the fact that I allow myself to be pulled further down by the intake of breath following that first cough, settling me right up against the compressed entrances to both the monster's oesophagus and windpipe, has prevented me from an untimely ejection. Keeping myself in place by pushing as hard as I can into the walls surrounding me in an imitation of that famous scene from The Emperor's New Groove, I nearly get caught out mere seconds later into the struggle when I try to improve my grip on the walls. Even in here, this thing overpowers me to a huge degree, its flexing effortlessly breaking my grip on the smooth flesh and coming very close to dislodging me then and there like a wad of phlegm.
Instead, I fall back on a tactic that hasn't failed me yet; if in doubt, you're not soft enough. Rather than fighting to stay in place, I just let my membrane be pulled along by the racking coughs, making sure it's as smooth as possible, then push the membrane making up the inside of my tube-like shape further in. The effect is similar to squeezing a super slippery water tube, those weird little toys kids played with years ago. As long as I keep going deeper, the monster is actually helping me move!
Suddenly, the windpipe beside me opens, the hyena drawing in breath for another cough. Ha, bad move! Rather than simply slipping into a hole only half my width in diameter, I make use of the brief lack of struggling throat muscles to anchor my mass and project myself down like a frog darting out its tongue. Compressing my leading tip so I don't brush the sides, I only get a few inches before I'm foiled by the quantity of air getting sucked.
Bumped up against the ridges of cartilage that make up the support structure for the monster's windpipe, the muscle beneath me expands inward so fast I can't even twitch, severing the few inches of myself inside the closing windpipe from my main body and pressing me tight into the roof.
Or it would, if I hadn't thought to form a membrane sleeve inside this little part of me in case something happened.
Instead, rather than being wedged against the roof of the windpipe, I'm shot through it like a bullet travelling down the barrel of a rifle, propelled so fast I barely have time to notice I've smashed into some kind of soft, narrow wall. Leaning on my Pound instincts, I puncture through it, entering an open space before bumping up against an even softer wall, sliding down a steep incline to settle as a little puddle inside some kind of narrow basin.
Urgh, what the-?
Of course, this bastard doesn't give me so much as a second to catch my bearings. The basin I'm in trembles wildly, expanding, and I feel like my body is being pressed from all sides, despite nothing touching me but the floor. After a moment of frantic wobbling I realise that I'm not in pain and the trembling isn't actually that bad, so I try to figure out where I am.
Uhhh, okay. Sooo, am I in the monster's lungs? Well, one of them at any rate, since I'm pretty sure mammals have two of those....
What do I do now? And why am I down here, not up with the bigger part of my body? Is it because I was thinking of the tendril I sent into the hyena's windpipe as the 'me' part?
Wait, I only got a short way down before getting cut off, how're my hit points looking?
....
[Hit Points - 1/15]
[Mana - 5]
NANI THE FUCK?!
One hit point?! ONE?! Suddenly very aware of the movements of the lung around me, I immediately turn what minuscule number of digestive molecules I have left onto the floor beneath me, eating for all I'm worth to get back even a couple points of precious, precious life. I didn't even take this much damage from that damn plant! Though, I guess this isn't technically damage, so much as losing a lot of mass all at once. Resolving to be extremely careful of what I think of as 'my body' when I'm manipulating my shape away from my centre mass from now on, I eat a tract through the lung around me, eventually breaking through the wall.
I could probably eat my way into the hyena's body from here, but a thought occurs to me as pressure escapes the lungs and expands the small hole I made inside its chest. I have no idea how long it takes to die of a punctured lung. I've only ever seen it happen in movies, and they usually just end up doing that thing where they punch a hole in the poor bastard's throat with a pen or a feather. Since I doubt there are any amateur medics around here, I don't think the big guy I've ended up inside is going to get treatment any time soon.
Which begs the question, why leave? I don't need to breathe, there's no way it can hurt me in here without killing itself anyway, and I'm- to put it nicely -jus' a li'l guy right now. I need to eat to regain my mass, and I'm sitting in a whole room's worth of meat.
Is it gruesome? Absolutely. Will I be having nightmares about this afterward? Unquestionably. Is it also safer for me to hide in here and build up my strength before going out into open air and possibly having to defend myself from scavengers? Indubitably.
Firming my resolve, I start tunnelling through my poor victim's lung like a termite through wood flooring, leaving tracts of pockmarked, bleeding flesh in my wake.
[Hit Points - 2/15]
If only my rising hit points could lift my spirits out of their pit of discontent.
It takes almost two slime churning, horrific, infinite minutes for me to grow too large for the now fully collapsed lung. The monster tried to claw its way into its own chest at one point, but only ended up accelerating the blood loss, making itself weaker and weaker while I just ate further into its chest where it couldn't reach. Reaching the end of an ordeal I doubt I'll ever forget, my mass makes contact with the monster's muscular heart, each thump frantic, yet fluttering. It takes me only ten seconds to eat through the unprotected flesh and muscle, words as clear as day popping into the careful mental silence I've cultivated in order to get through this.
[Congratulations, you have defeated a Level 5 Adult Monster Hyena]
[Would you like to store the XP received from this defeat as evolutionary mass within your Mana Heart?]
Whoa whoa, back up. What? 'Evolutionary mass'? What do you mean, 'store'? Trying to get more information from the prompt, a screen appears that didn't pop up when I tried to look into the Mana Heart on my status earlier.
[By siphoning XP into your Mana Heart rather than receiving it yourself, it is converted into additional evolutionary mass, which is used to empower the evolution process. A Mana Heart is capable of storing a quantity of XP equal to half of your evolutionary Tier's maximum level.]
Okay, so if I give up progress towards levels, I can make my evolutions even stronger? If this is added on top of the general potency increase granted by just having a Mana Heart, I feel even better about my decision to postpone my evolution!
Actually...
Thinking about it for a moment, I break out in a sly grin, recalling I wasn't forced to access my evolution options once I hit level five. Opting to receive the XP myself, I see more sweet, sweet level up prompts.
[You have received XP]
[You have reached Level 2]
[You have reached Level 3]
[You have gained 2 Skill Points]
This was a big boy, he's given me as many levels as Planty McPlantface!
Muahahah! There's nothing saying I can't get to level five as soon as possible, maximising my strength, then simply farm XP for the sole purpose of filling my Mana Heart with evolutionary mass! It'll probably take a while, I essentially have to get to level seven and a half instead of level five before I can evolve, but I bet the payoff will be wild!
I go to leap around in glee, revelling in my genius, when the reality of my tight confines and grim discomfort resurfaces, reminding me of where these experience points came from.
...I'm sorry. I take a moment of silence while finishing off the heart. You didn't deserve to go like that, but you were way out of my league without some out of the box thinking. As I eat my way through the chest, slowly growing back to my usual size, I ruminate on the fact that I've found myself in this situation twice now. I think a comment regarding nickels would be pertinent right now, but who am I kidding? I'm at the bottom of the food chain 'round here, if this is the only way I can end up inside something deadlier than me without being dead myself, I'll take it.
What's happened has happened. I'm gonna use this boost to get stronger, and if I have to work through a little trauma in the meantime, I'll just have to get to workin'.
[Organism detected. [Initial] Profile: Adult Monster Hyena unlocked.]
[Once matured, Monster Hyenas will either join together with others of their kind to form a pack, or strike out to form and lead a pack of their own. Rarely encountered alone, these monsters have overdeveloped jaws filled with a variety of teeth, the traits of which often vary between individuals.]
[You have consumed 1 Impurity]
A wave of fear ripples through me at the thought of a whole pack of these things bearing down on me, but I comfort myself with the wishful justification that I would have heard them if there was more than one. That, and they would have begun eating the carcass already, if the behaviour of their pre-evolved counterparts is anything to go by.
[You have consumed 1 Impurity]
I wait until I have one more Impurity, bringing me up to five, then immediately pull up my Mutations and navigate to my Mana Receptors. I don't have to wait quite as long as I expected. Maybe because it's a higher level than me, like the Vine Parasite, it gives me more Impurities?
[Mutate Mana Receptors to +5, consuming 5 Impurities?]
Giving my confirmation, I get an unexpected surprise when another prompt immediately appears.
[Upon mutating Mana Receptors to +5, you must choose an adaptation. This will modify the Mutation's traits.]
A larger screen appears before me, filled with the longest list the System has shown me yet. Glancing over a few, just the names are enough to make my metaphorical eyes bug out!
[...]
[Microscopic- Increases clarity and ability to distinguish changes in mana at close proximity.]
[Extended - Increases the maximum range at which you can sense mana.]
[...]
[Focused - A general enhancement to your ability to sense specific types of mana.]
[...]
Going down the expansive list, I need to scroll a lot to hit the bottom, and that's with at least twenty adaptations displayed per scroll.
Oh boy. That is a lot of options.