Chapter 89

Snake Report: Life as a False God, Day 9/Lost in the Surface World, Night 2

Night has arrived, and I am still alive. The Forest is quiet, but in the distant trees I can hear the faint sounds of movement, of calls and shrieks.

Beneath the unreasonably thick canopies of the giant trees here, it's almost as dark as the Dungeon. Pitch black, and lacking the once taken-for-granted bioluminescence of the blue mushrooms. So, it might actually be worse. As the sun has now set, it's very difficult to see much farther than ten feet in any direction.

Not that it matters, currently.

I don't really want to see what's out there. Far as I know, there is nothing in this forest I want to be friends with.

There are the hunters, and the hunted.

Unable to safely leave camp Isla Nublar I'm hesitant to say anything further. If there are other species of forest-dwellers not intent on devouring all and every, I'd love to meet them, but I'm confident natural selection weeded out the friendly folk a long time ago.

Even if that isn't the case, I'm still not going to leave the shelter. These are deeply troubling times.

Behind the scrambled wall of rock, small peep holes let in the night air and what little moonlight seems to find its way down to the forest floor.

It's like camping, only I have a vault instead of a tent.

Hiss...

Even the small shrine I've paid to my lord and savior, the Tiny-Snake God, brings me little comfort.

Beyond the obvious threat of powerful predators, there is a much more obvious set of problems presented. The human-logic that picked Magic at the start of all this has most definitely paid for itself in full. I'd be dead a hundred times over if the applications weren't so versatile, and I have a feeling survival in this world would been close to impossible with those other options.

[Venom] or [Consumption] or [Massive] probably wouldn't have cut it. No matter how strong I could have been using those, there's no way in hell I would willingly tango with the creatures prowling around outside my make-shift barricade.

But Magic has some limits.

For example, [Earth Sculpting] only works on Earth. If a Forest floor is made up almost entirely of inter-woven roots, with just a tiny little bit of actual dirt and stone in-between them... well, that doesn't seem to be very helpful, now does it?

I ran into this scenario before. You might remember.

You'd think I might have thought of some sort of alternative plan for this type of situation after the Goblins scared me so bad I might have peed a litte. I couldn't burrow into the ground and escape, so human-side froze up and left everything on Instinct to handle.

It appears that when being unable to use choice number two with "Fight or Flight," Instinct's immediately implemented default-setting is to try and set everything on fire in a blind panic.

Not always the best plan, despite what some might tell you.

I guess it doesn't matter if it's Goblins or dinosaurs, this plan works about the same way, and that's good. Lots of magic fire = Lots of possibly assailants being on fire = Tiny Snake not being dead.

But, you know what this is not good for?

Maintaining a low profile.

Burning down a more or less perfect circle of forest is a very good way to attract attention.

Hisss...

A lot of attention... Scorched earth.

Fire, smoke, trees and foliage aflame with a brilliant blaze of heat and natural light. It's eye catching at first, especially with the magical elements of it mixed in. swirls of green and mana turning over the whipping grasps of ember as they simmer out to coal.

If I could have hidden my presence before, the possibility is more or less gone in its entirety. This tiny dome of earth is like an obvious and ugly pimple on the scorched forest floor. You couldn't overlock this if you tried. I quite literally, stick out.

I would stick out more, if possible- but there's not even enough actual earth for me to do that. The ground might as well be entirely choked over by roots, and as much as I've listened to [Voice of Gaia] tell me I have an affinity for flame, I'm not really sure that flame has an affinity for me.

Sitting in the shoddy and magical molded version of a primitive slow-cooker, my efforts to set anything else on fire are pending. I'd rather not be baked alive.

But...

"Grrrraaaaaa... Creeeee! Cra! Cra!"

The sounds that leak in through the makeshift earth-pimple I'm calling a Snake Camp are deeply troubling. I'm quite soundly trapped here, unless I want to slowly try to burn my way through a few dozen layers of roots and possibly melt into a snake-puddle.

"Graaa?"

I can't speak dinosaur, but instinct is telling me that's probably "What's this weird rock?"

"Creee?"

That's probably a "Can we eat it?" sort of question.

"CRACRA?"

Translation: "Yes, I think so!"

Hmm... Something is most definitly chewing on my little rock-camp.

I can't see much of anything, but they're moving around out there now. I can tell from the saliva that smells like certain death, dripping through my peep-holes.

"CRA! CRA! CRA!"

Yep.

"CRA! CREEEEEEEE!"

Wow, they've pulled my camp out of the root, they're really going at it now. This little rock-bubble is making uncomfortable crumbling sounds.

"GRRRRRAAAAA! GRAAAAAAAA!"

Yep. This is fine.

A whole pack is out there, unless the sounds are deceiving me.

This make-shift rock bubble is definitely not going to survive the night. I can hear the walls cracking, I think I've got maybe five minutes left before they're on me.

But this is fine.

Totally fine.

It's times like this, I'm reminded of a famous quote from my human life.

"When life gives you lemons, you need to make lemonade."

To hell with it all.

I came here to get some points.

Hisss...

So lets get some points.