WOW!

All I can say is WOW!

After I finished making my new beehive shaped soul jar and putting my poor spaghetti soul in it, I immediately started feeling better.

It's amazing how good I feel.

Of course the first thing I had done was mess about with this new soul thread. My conclusion was that it was AWESOME.

Any spell I could make, I could make better by building it out of soul thread. And I could feed mana in like normal, or feed it soul instead for a massive power output. The only problem was, I had to keep a spool of soulthread on hand because after a certain amount of use, any of my spells, including the one making soul thread, got kind of... melty

I built 2 more soul thread generators as backups and left them off but ready to start. I repaired the first one I had made, and built all the spells I knew out of soul. I was running out of room in my body, especially with a giant beehive soul jar in the middle.

I was pretty sure I could put it in my soul orb somehow, but the black color of the thing along with the violent swirling of the green sparks across the surface of the large one made me really nervous. I shelved that project for later, and figured I'd do a lot of testing first. I don't need to puree my soul again.

After breaking down the list of work to do, my priority list was as follows.

1. Build a cool weapon/spell to cut my way through the moleratmadillos

2. Figure out how to placate the bees who don't like fighting

3. Optimize this body a bit since it was still pretty awkward to use. Not as bad as the zombie, but still subpar.

4. Figure out what the deal with Mr. Biggs was. Why's he so big? Is he smart?

Scratch Scratch

Scratch Scratch

Ugh, they're back again.

5. Learn more about what the spell components I haven't yet identified do.

Scratch Scratch

Scratch Scratch

6. Kill all annoying hyperviolent rodents

I don't remember what else I need to do but it's mostly because of that annoying scratching

I take the heat brain core I have, and one of my larger mana cores, and copy the inscriptions that convert regular mana to heat mana with soul outside the crystal, and start filling the larger mana core with angry heat mana. I build a mana based spell output, since I'm sure I'm going to have to redo this a few times. I have almost figured it out at this point, but I need a way to direct heat without blowing myself up.

This is a little bit of items 1, 5, and 6 on the list. I'll finish up the rest when I get back.

I'm nearly there in theory, but crossing a line from heating up rocks with mana to actually making a working magic flamethrower is pretty hard.

After a few iterations, I finally have something working. I make a spell that has 2 components from the soul siphon spell that I don't understand yet and two intakes. One intake takes in a massive feed of mana and the other slowly uses a soulthread. The end result is that it sprays out a thin line of green flame 4 feet long. I can maintain the flow for almost 30 seconds with my makeshift heat mana crystal, and it takes a few minutes to charge the crystal back up from my main core. What I need is a magazine of makeshift heat mana crystals to throw out some serious death, but I'm low on crystals.

The range isn't that great, and I'm worried it might explode or something, so I grow a long vine from the rim of my basket that curls up into a roll and uncurls to a length of 4 feet, and grow a big lump of vines around the crystal and carefully move the soul spells and relink them up at the end of my arm. Now I have an extendable flamethrower limb. I couldn't be happier. It's time to test it on that annoying moleratmadillow scratching at the door.

I carefully retract some vines at the top of the door and unroll my flamethrower limb and poke it through the hole I just made. I get Sam to fly out and hang out on the wall farther down the hall so I can see where I'm pointing my new weapon, and once I get a good alignment, I spark up.

Holy shit. The fire literally cut the vermin in half right through the armor. There's smoke everywhere. The door is on fire.

The door is on fire!

I unbar the door and swing it inward and start flinging sand at it trying to put it out. I didn't design these hands for scooping though, just for gripping, and it's not working very well. Several burning corpses flop inside the door from the pile outside, and another vermin down the hall charges at me, but a concentrated blast reduces it to a crackling and charred rat roast. I shovel sand frantically, but the door is starting to catch and so is the pile of corpses.

How? I thought corpses were full of water? Sure a lot of the blood has run out of them, but they shouldn't be dry enough to burn!

The black, greasy smoke is roiling upwards now in great clouds, and I think fast.

I don't have to breathe oxygen but my bees do, and I am vulnerable to fire, being made of wood and wood pulp. This whole room is full of plants and it's going to catch like a torch. Mr. Biggs is looking quite alarmed. I need to get the hell out.

I recall all the bees except Sam, who's farther down the hall, I don't want him to go through the smoke twice, after all, then I grab my axe and gently place my messenger bag into my basket next to the beehive and start pulling burning corpses off the pile to clear a way for me.

Once I get a few off, there's enough room for me to squeeze my way through, but there's no way I'm not getting charred. Flames are starting to catch and come up through the pile and it's a tight fit. My hands are already charred and leaking clear fluids, but it's going to get worse the longer I wait.

I can't leave Mr. Biggs here to die though. I use my new psionic soul spell for the first time, and link up with his mind. The new spell works so much better! I rejoice for a minute before I remember I'm on borrowed time.

I send some thoughts at him. "Hey, I know we're not exactly friends, but this place is on fire, and you probably don't want to stay here."

Mr Biggs responds with a deep mental voice "I noticed. I'm not exactly in top condition over here though. Looks like those runts finally got me after all"

"Look, you might not be in great shape, but even a three legged dog can limp pretty fast if his life depends on it. I'll unanchor you from the ground, and loosen your casts so they flex, and you follow as fast as you can if you want to live, got it?"

"I guess the only other choice is to burn alive. You son of a bitch, I'm in. This is gonna hurt."

"Yeah it is."

I steel myself and dive through the pile, scrambling across the burning surface. It takes entirely too long to cross the pile, and my legs and the bottom of my basket are blistered and charred. Sam swoops down and joins the others in the hive as soon as I cross and my vision is limited, so I enlist Josephine to look through one of the larger gaps in my basket so I can see where I'm going. The makeshift heat crystal finishes charging just as I run out of the hallway and into the rodent room just as a now charred Mr. Biggs crawls across the pile.

30 seconds of fire. 30 seconds isn't a lot, but this fire is hot as hell. I'll shoot in small bursts to try and get the most out of this, and get my axe ready and try to conserve charge.

I'm a roiling ball of anxiety and fear, but I press forward. I already decided I don't want to die here. I won't go back on that oath now.

Mr. Biggs crawls farther down the hall and I send him a message.

"Once you get into the main room, curl up in a ball and hide your face, I'm gonna roll you. No offence but you're too slow, we won't live."

"I don't think we'll live anyway, but ok."

"It's dangerous, but I have a flamethrower. I think we can make it."

"I saw that too, that's the reason we're running. I have a strong feeling you're going to set me on fire."

I want to retort, but thinking about it, he's probably right. I already set both of us on fire by proxy. Shit.

I enter the room just ahead of Mr. Biggs, and unroll my weapon limb. Black smoke is pouring across the ceiling in here too, and the moleratmadillos are milling about yipping madly. I remember how tough it was to roll Mr. Biggs and fight at the same time last time, and get an idea and start growing myself an extra pair of arms underneath the first. They'll take some time to mature, but they should come into play soon.

I get behind Mr Biggs and start rolling towards the biggest tunnel out of the room. We'll both fit in there, but I'm worried it's a dead end.

I don't get to worry long though. We've been spotted and we're getting rushed. A horde arrives, and the axe lifts and falls, a pendulum counting murders. Any time a rodent gets too close to either of us, a short pulse of green flame leaves them squealing and burning, flailing in the sand. It isn't enough to kill them quick, but I don't have enough energy for mercy. Every pulse causes nearby vermin to back up, falling over themselves not to be the next to flash broil.

About halfway across the room I've burned through most of my energy in the crystal, but my second pair of arms finishes growing enough to take over rolling and I speed up significantly.

The still living moleratmadillows I burned are not going out. They're burning and it doesn't stop. Watching them run would horrify me if I wasn't so busy trying not to get mauled by their friends. Now this room is starting to fill with greasy smoke too. I'm glad I can't smell.

I swing my axe about, trying to save my last charges as I roll Mr. Biggs with all my might. We're almost there! I keep forcing mana into the makeshift heat crystal as fast as it will enter. The rodents crowd in and I pulse the fire right as we enter the tunnel. It's more effective in an enclosed space. As we continue down the tunnel, it gets darker and darker, so I am forced to sweep the tunnel behind and ahead of us with my psionic spell, looking for minds since I can no longer see my targets. Each time a mind pops up in range, it is quickly extinguished in a crackling burst of green light. Soon I've left a dozen bodies burning behind us and the moleratmadillows aren't courageous enough to brave the flames.

We roll on, almost 200 feet until suddenly the tunnel opens out into a room. As I roll Mr. Biggs inside the arch, light orbs flicker to life on the ceiling, revealing decrepit looking metal tables across the entire room. There's a counter set into the far wall with a large empty archway above it. Plates and cutlery are scattered everywhere across the floor. Old and disfigured posters written in what looks like the same language I saw before on the papers from the messenger bag hang on the walls.

Many of them have somewhat unnerving images of stylized human eyes drawn on them.

Is this a cafeteria? It doesn't matter, I guess. There's light, we have some distance on the vermin, and I have some great ready made blockades for the door. I flip up a table and push it against the opening. I slice off one of my fingers with the axe and grow a new finger as well as tie the table to the archway with vines to prevent entry.

Three tables later, and I'm satisfied that no one will be able to make it through the door. They might eat rock but I think this metal will give them pause, it's much harder.

I continue growing the vines around the door until I run out of mana and a giant wall of woody material stands between us and the horde though.

No way I'm letting them through without a struggle.

Exploration can wait. I roll Mr. Biggs to a sandy spot on the floor under the light, and push him onto his side while putting down my roots.

"We made it" I sent.

I tightened up his casts and made sure he was still breathing before I put down roots and spread my leaves in the light.

Finally I got a response.

"Wake me when you set the place on fire again. I need some sleep."