DISCOVERY PART 4H

Day 428; 0323 (Early Morning)

Focus: 513

After unloading his frustrations onto the Tree Mimic, 513 quickly left the area and marched back towards the campsite, leaving the creature he had just inflicted extreme violence upon, to slowly expire from its injuries.

513: “...a pyrrhic victory...”

He mumbled into the cold night air, as he slowly plodded through the drying, tar-like fluid covering the vast majority of landscape the Tree Mimic had traversed. Oddly, it smelled like evergreen trees.

[This...syrupy, viscous, almost non-newtonian fluid must be its blood...if it is, and if it’s anything like pine pitch, then it would be worth collecting.] He grumbled to himself while treading over the substance.

Upon reaching the campsite, 513 consciously swapped True Sense back to its passive mode, then began the relatively long and irritating task of retrieving every piece of equipment buried underneath the Tree Mimic’s congealing blood.

While toiling-away, he mulled-over his fight with said creature, groaning and cursing as he dug through thick layers of pitch-black fluid that had solidified into a rubbery substance.

His temper steadily rose as his exhaustion became more prominent.

Many times, he found himself slumped-over gear he had just uncovered, seemingly waking from a slumber he had no recollection of taking.

[Not good...not good…] He drowsily repeated in his head, his left eye twitching in quick succession.

But he pressed-on, digging and recovering items until his hands could no longer maintain their grip on the simple tools he had used.

Finding himself unable to counter the effects of fatigue any longer, 513 drowsily prepared a rudimentary bed atop the congealed blood. But before he could finish, he was lulled to sleep by the silence in the air.

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Day 428; 0807 (Morning)

Focus: 513

???: “Wa-ke, u-up.”

Something gently whispered into 513’s right ear, causing him to stumble awake.

513: “...w-who?...”

He mumbled, under panicked breathing.

The message seemed to echo inside of his head, repeating itself as he struggled to find its source.

[What is it this time?] He thought while scrambling to identify the culprit.

Seeing no other way, 513 pulsed True Sense. The high-intensity burst radiated-out from his body and into the surrounding area, rapidly scouring the land in three-dimension as he actively searched for any living or moving entities.

513 then furled his eyebrows after finding nothing out of the ordinary.

Still, he was unconvinced that he was all alone.

Concerned that he might have to face another Tree Mimic, 513 quickly armed himself, grabbing a large knife in one hand, and a durable shield in the other. He then surveyed his surroundings once more, this time with extreme vigilance. His eyes slowly moved between the trees as his vision adjusted to the faint light of the morning sun. Unfortunately, like his investigation with True Sense, he found nothing unusual in his part of the forest.

[What...what was that?] He questioned while stifling his heavy breathing. [No, no, no, no, no...there are no little girls in this forest…so why?]

His search for answers only led to paranoia, as the stark silence in the forest was broken by the sounds of his own labored breathing.

513: “Snap-out of it, you are delusional!”

He commanded himself, to little effect.

The droning, mesmerizing sound of his own breaths made him feel light-headed and prone to suggestion.

Unusual images began playing on-repeat inside of his head. Images of miniature False Arachnes -- spider children -- running across the ground in incomprehensible ways, occasionally darting near his face and whispering nonsense into his ears.

513: “Get-out, get-out, get-out…”

He stammered, as his voice became more incoherent the more he screamed.

Flailing his arms, he stabbed at the air with both knife and shield in an attempt to skewer the imaginary spiders attacking him on a mental level. Regrettably, since the arachnids resided only inside of his mind, every effort he took to drive them away, ended in failure.

The more he struggled to deny their existence, the more his mind fell into chaos.

[Breath. Calm. Breath.] He chanted in desperation. [This isn’t you. Regain control. Control. Control. Control...]

It took some time, but through repetition 513 eventually overcame what he believed to be an extreme bout of cognitive dissonance.

513: “Is this...am I feeling guilty? Why should I feel guilty about what I’ve done?”

He asked himself in a low breath, bewildered by how fragile his mind had become.

513: “I readied myself for this...this shouldn’t...hold on, was this something else?”

He contemplated, while unconsciously distracting himself by inspecting his dirtied armor, which now appeared two-sizes too-large for his body.

513: “In any case, I need to-”

His words were interrupted as corpses suddenly materialized from nothing, littering the local area in decaying fodder.

513: “Tch.”

More annoyed than perturbed by the event, 513 rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue.

[This again?] He thought. [Why now?]

Irked, 513 threw his knife at one of the materialized corpses, causing it to ripple and distort like a disappearing mist. Seeing the knife cleanly penetrate through the carcass without any resistance, 513 concluded that the recently materialized bodies were nothing but illusions.

513: “What spurred this on? Could it be linked to my fatigue?”

He muttered, as he stood-up and walked-over to retrieve the knife he had just thrown.

Shaking his head, he stared up at the canopy tops and took a deep breath.

513: “It doesn’t matter. Hallucinations. Guilt. Neither...none...nothing will stop me from achieving my goals.”

He declared with half-hearted conviction.

With cerebral struggles seemingly put behind him, he turned his attention elsewhere.

Hunching his shoulders forward, 513 gazed at his campsite and let out a series of melancholy sighs. He wasn’t looking forward to resuming his work on recovering buried equipment but knew it needed to happen, lest he remains in the same location for more than a day.

Luckily, since the task itself was mundane, he preoccupied his mind with some self-reflection.

[It is not out of convenience that I do this to myself, but out of necessity. Locking-away my struggles to the far corners of my mind are the only comforts I have in this...this land of solitude; this land of endless trials. I must...I must continue, I must press forward.]

◊◊◊◊◊◊

Day 428; 0843 (Morning)

Focus: 513

After recovering all of his gear, 513 trekked towards the corpse of the Tree Mimic, pulling the sled along with him. His intent was to gather any useful materials extracted from the creature’s body.

Looking back, he shot a glance towards a hidden pile of congealed blood he had sculpted into bricks. He had named the neatly stacked, rubber-like substance “Blood Pitch,” after pine pitch -- a hard resin made from pine sap on Earth.

The pile was tucked-away inside the opening of a heavily damaged tree -- the same tree that had once contained his campsite. It was covered in several layers of moss, artificially planted atop the pile to keep the blood pitch from catching fire. The moss also acted as a camouflaging agent, keeping the material hidden from wandering eyes. From afar, the large supply of blood pitch looked no different from the caches of moss 513 had compiled the day before.

513: “...haaah...good enough...”

He whispered, before returning his focus back to the Tree Mimic’s remains.

Drawing closer to the creature, the lingering stench of its ruptured innards clashed with the soothing evergreen scent given-off by the hardened blood, making for a confusing olfactory experience.

513: “...”

With his nose flaring due to his momentary lapse in focus, 513 decided -- for no reason -- to punish himself by taking a deep breath of the strange concoction of aromas.

513: “Blegh…”

He retched, as the bouquet of smells compelled him to envision tasting the Tree Mimic’s rotting entrails.

[I need to stop fooling around.] He internally groaned, completely regretting his most recent decision.

With focus regained, he prepared for extraction.

Using his spear-sword, multiple hooks, a myriad of pulleys, anchors, stands, and several lengths of durable rope, 513 managed to divide the creature’s body into large, equal sections for the purpose of study and collection.

Seeing the Tree Mimic’s body under natural light, 513 discovered that it was much more detailed than what True Sense could ever translate in the dark -- making it much more horrifying than he had previously thought.

Due to such skillful mimicry, he wondered if the changes it had made to its own body during their fight was purely inspired by evolution or a simple case of sadism -- sadism being a common theme behind most of 513’s encounters. He then considered the possibility of a similar entity copying his own features to perfection, which, upon reviewing the Tree Mimic’s abilities, was not that far-fetched

513: “So, doppelgangers are feasible in this world…”

He murmured aloud.

[Frightening.] He admitted. [...how did it...no, that’s not possible…]

While recollecting his fight with the Tree Mimic in more detail, a slight chill crawled-up 513’s spine.

513: “How was it able to speak words that I never spoke aloud?...never mind that, how did it know what I looked like? The only time I removed my helmet was...”

He frowned and grit his teeth, realizing that the Tree Mimic had stalked him for much longer than he had assumed. As a result, this revelation further compounded his growing doubt over True Sense’s viability as a detection skill.

[The more I try to make sense of this place, the more I become terrified of it...I cannot simply ignore these inconsistencies, yet I feel like I must…] He thought. [A grim fate. That is all that waits for me if I pursue these valid, yet nonsensical thoughts. The more I contemplate over the anomalous, the more I feel trapped.]

A whirlwind of thoughts consumed 513 as he struggled to contain his fear of the world.

Eventually, for the sake of his own psychological health, he decided that it was more beneficial to ignore the oddities rather than explore them. As such, 513 entered meditation, clearing his mind of any curiosities his subconscious may have latched-on to.

Upon collecting himself, he returned to the Tree Mimic’s corpse, revitalized and renewed.

Without putting much effort into thinking, he started dismantling its carcass.

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Day 428; 1051 (Morning)

Focus: 513

Although he had become well-practiced in the art of dismantling, the Tree Mimics body was simply too massive to finish in a timely manner. That said, 513 still finished the work before midday, though he felt he could have done better if he still had his stout body.

[I need to bulk-up...I’m rather...lacking.] He thought while cleaning a basketball-sized object he had removed from one of the Tree Mimic’s tube-shaped organs.

As the muck and grime encasing the object crumbled-away, a speckle of translucent, crimson sheen captured his eye.

513: "Wow...it’s a big-ass ruby."

He exclaimed in surprise, his eyes widening as a result.

513: “WAIT! What if it’s cinnabar? Fuck…”

He hesitated, tossing the large gem-like object to the ground as he held onto his breath, fearing mercury poisoning.

[Buuut...what if it’s a ruby?] He considered as a hint of greed shone in his face.

Compromising with himself, he ended-up depositing the gem-like object inside a clay jar that had been emptied of purified water. He then stuffed the jar with rolled-up leather before capping it with a water-tight lid.

[It was a good thing I drank all that water earlier. But I should start rationing from now on. Speaking of which, I need to stuff my face.]

Eating as he moved, he scanned the dismantling site in-search of useful materials he may have discarded or missed. Finding nothing worth collecting, he proceeded with his plans to cremate what remained of the Tree Mimic’s corpse.

He held a small brick of blood pitch over a crystal coal torch, causing it to smolder and release an odor similar to burnt wood. Eventually, it caught fire. He then flung the brick into the center of the site, causing the entire area covered by the Tree Mimic’s remains to erupt in flames.

The blaze raged-on for quite some time before he deemed it safe enough to leave the site to burn on its own.

He only stayed as long as he did to watch-over remnant patches of blood pitch burn without spreading the fire. The patches conveniently surrounded the corpse of the Tree Mimic and acted as an accelerant, hastening the cremation process.

With nothing left tying him to the area, he approached the sled, secured the crystal coal torch back onto its holder, and resumed his journey into False Arachne occupied territory.

---Chapter End