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Chapter 31: Noxious
🕑 Added 2023-08-21 15:00:07 +0000 UTC“I’m not sure he’s even still alive. I’ll have to check the hummingbirds to see if they’ve picked him up anywhere,” Jimmy said.
“Speaking of which, have you found any clues on your parents?” Rick asked.
“Yep. And I don’t want to talk about it,” Jimmy said and changed the subject before Rick could respond. “Unless he’s fled the greater Phoenix area, the hummingbirds will find him.
“Good. If you find him, we just have to find out what he wants and hope he’s dumb enough to take the job,” Rick said. He didn’t dare press Jimmy about his parents. Obviously, whatever he had found was bad news and Rick worried that if he prodded his friend further, he’d reach a breaking point. Jimmy still translated everything as Rick spoke.
“He’ll be a rich man either way. I imagine selling off fighter jets and bombs will sell for a pretty penny in the Shop,” Angelo said. “Anyway, I think it’s time for us to be off. I want to get a head start on killing these beasts before someone else does.”
“Make sure you stock up on health potions and whatnot,” Rick said. He wanted to stop them but knew that once his dad made his mind up, there was nothing to do but wish him luck.
“Bye, Rick. I love you,” His mom said, teary-eyed.
Before they could leave, Rick made himself only a little bit sick. He produced a piece of paper and wrote a simple message on it.
“I love you too, Mom and Dad. Be safe.”
Elena took the piece of paper and finally allowed a tear to roll down her cheek. Angelo put an arm around her comfortingly.
Kara ran up to Jimmy and gave him a big kiss. Jimmy’s eyes went wide for a moment in surprise before relaxing and returning her kiss.
“Stay safe dork,” she said and winked at him.
“Yeah — you too,” he sputtered out.
“Smooth,” Rick commented as his parents and Kara left.
“Shut up, dick,” Jimmy said. “Guess I better get out there and make sure everyone’s still alive and find Deandre. Take it easy.”
Once again, Rick was left to be on his own. It was always accompanied by a little tinge of loneliness. When he was human, he welcomed the moments when left alone. But now, the deep-down knowledge that he was essentially immortal, those precious moments with his loved ones were everything.
Of course, he still had his precious little minions. Would they get old and die too? He didn’t believe so.
With a lot of moving parts outside of his control right now, he decided to focus on the things he was in control of. Checking that the pile of garbage had grown to a sufficient amount, he rummaged for anything useful. The prize in this batch was a jar of hot sauce that he knew Jimmy would be grateful for.
After finding a couple of minor things that might be useful, he proceeded to enter his trance of using Resource Burn and Spatial Expansion. The second floor still needed miles of space before the Kaiju could hatch. The last thing he wanted was something with that kind of potential to go to waste. And, Rick had to admit, he was immensely curious as to what would come out of the egg.
After talking about Deandre, Rick also remembered that he had absorbed some skills. Since he had failed when he first tried to combine a skill with his minion, he had neglected them. Not to mention, nothing had been as powerful as the one he received from Deandre’s former partner, the poison gas slob.
Noxious Essence (Level 4): Your very essence is made up of Poison. Any food or drink consumed is broken down into poison and refined throughout your body. Your natural body temperature will heat the refined poison into a noxious gas. Gas can be expelled from the body in any preferred method.
This seemed like it would be perfect for a Trapper like Elza, but lizardfolk were coldblooded. Would her body temperature be enough to heat the poison into gas? Probably not, but perhaps the skill changed that on its own.
“Fuck it. Won’t hurt to try,” Rick mumbled. He let his mind continue to burn the garbage and expand the 2nd floor while he called out for Elza.
“Yes, dungeon?” She asked. She was helping Yosk create some bedding out of the grass in a small temporary shelter he had built. It only took a moment for him to notice twelve eggs, barely larger than a chicken’s in the middle of the bedding.
“Oh wow. Going to have some young ones running around soon, huh?” Rick asked.
“Yes, dungeon. Any day now,” she said proudly. “What was it that you wanted?”
“I’m going to try something. If it works, you should have a cool new skill that helps you with your traps,” Rick told her.
“I’m honored,” she said with a smile.
Yosk was beside himself, flicking at their air with his tongue incessantly and his tail swishing against the ground.
Rick started by probing Elza and sparking a deeper connection. He wasn’t quite sure if he needed to. The body temperature of cold-blooded creatures adapted to their surroundings. Rick knew that it was about 70 degrees Fahrenheit on the first floor and Elza’s body showed that hers was the same.
He then pulled at the skill from his registry and attempted to give it to Elza.
Nothing happened.
“Damn. I don’t know how to do this. I’m sorry,” Rick said, annoyed. “Wait, let me try something else.”
The lizardfolk looked at each other with some confusion and shrugged.
Rick was able to make fresh food by combining the ingredients he had in his registry. Why couldn’t he combine the skill with a dish of some sort? Or even water?
“Wait, what do you two like to eat?” Rick asked.
“Worms! Flowers!” Yosk shouted, excited to contribute.
“I’m not picky,” Elza said, playfully flicking her tongue out at Yosk.
“Ok, so pretty much anything. Got it,” Rick said. “We’re going back to pizza. You can put anything on pizza. Except pineapple.”
Rick started to produce a slice of pepperoni pizza. One of the things he did was create the exact temperature for any food needed. In this case, he went to 850 degrees and started to fuse it with Noxious Essence. As the pizza materialized, it came out green and the cheese glooped as the slice had too much grease.
A bubble of it popped and released a small wisp of gas that Yosk inhaled. Elza watched him as his eyes rolled back and he fell over.
“He’s just knocked out,” Rick said. “Uh, maybe try eating it fast.”
Elza’s tail swished nervously as she took a clawed hand and lifted the pizza. She tilted her head, hoping to avoid inhaling any more bubbles. Before she could change her mind, she stuffed the entire slice in her mouth and swallowed, not even attempting to chew.
Rick saw her face twist in pain and she collapsed. “Hang in there, Elza. Tell me what’s going on with you.”
The lizardwoman was curled over her knees and he tail spasmed. Slowly, she appeared to regain control as her breathing calmed. A few moments later, she uncurled herself and got back to her feet. When she opened her eyes, they were a different shade of green.
Before, her eyes had been a dark emerald. Now, they were bright, nearly neon green. The reptilian iris was gone completely. Rick thought they looked a bit like the ooze from that old live-action Ninja Turtle movie.
Elza heaved and spewed some kind of mana-infused acid on the ground, sizzling the grass beneath her. “It — worked, dungeon,” she rasped.
“It doesn’t look like it worked as intended. Are you even ok?” Rick asked. He probed Elza and saw that various poisons flowed through her body, but they didn’t seem to be killing her.
“Yes, it was a shock at first. But, I am adapting. I had the choice to accept it or reject the skill. There was a warning that I wouldn’t be able to fully utilize the skill. Namely, the gas creation,” she explained.
“I guess that makes sense,” Rick said as he probed her. “Your body temperature is the same as before.”
The lizardwoman nodded, “Yes, I think I absorbed it just fine, but there are changes. My sense of taste and smell feels off.” Elza shuddered then, “That ‘pizza’ was terrible. But now, I think I crave it.”
“I can make another one, but I’m not sure what’ll happen if you try to absorb the skill twice,” Rick said.
“No need,” Elza said. “I’d rather work on integrating my traps with some of these toxins that are in my body.”
“Sure, anything I can do to help?” Rick asked. He briefly wondered if Yosk would ever wake up or if he should have Elza just send him to respawn.
“Maybe some containers,” Elza said.
Rick immediately thought of the little glass vials he had used in chemistry class back in the day. Surely the shop had something similar to that. If not, he’d just use the potion bottles he had absorbed the day before.
“Will these work?” He asked as he produced one of the bottles.
Her glowing green eyes looked over it and she nodded, “Yes, but it is bigger than I need.”
“Thought so,” Rick said. “Remind me to ask Jimmy to get you some. I already have a large shopping list for him, but he’s been busy.”
Yosk started to groan loudly. Everything the lizardman did was loud.
“By Rick, you’re gorgeous,” Yosk said reverently as he looked at Elza.
“Did you just use my name the way I think you did?” Rick asked.
“Yes, my apologies. I will not use your name in vain again,” Yosk said, falling to a knee.
“Yeah, no. Only use my name if you’re talking directly to me.”
Yosk gave an unconvincing nod, never taking his eyes off Elza, “Show me what your gift from the dungeon can do.”
Elza grabbed Yosk’s machete and ran her finger down the blade’s edge. Surprisingly, her blood wasn’t the bright green that Rick had suspected, but a translucent yellow.
She handed the blade back to him hilt first, “Don’t touch anything but the handle, love. Slice anyone with that and the poison will burn their veins.”
Yosk’s tongue flicked in and out excitedly, “It’s beautiful, thank you.” His reptilian eyes widened as if he were holding the Declaration of Independence.
“Wait, why the finger? Now you can’t do shit with that hand,” Rick said.
Elza giggled, “I just wanted to watch Yosk’s reaction.”
“Was it worth it?”
“What do you think?” she asked with a sly smile.
“Yeah, it totally was,” Rick admitted. “Anyway, I’m interested to see how you use the poison on your traps. What are your initial thoughts?”
“Well, I started to make a breakthrough by connecting my pressure plates to the spikes through a string of mana. This means that I could leave the plates on the ground while I placed the spikes wherever I wanted as long as they were within five feet of each other,” Elza explained. “Unfortunately, my mana signature has changed with the merge of this skill. So I will need to start over.”
Rick felt a small pang of guilt, “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know it would do that. Did you lose any other skills?”
Elza shook her head, “All of my skills revolve around trap knowledge. I should be able to figure it out fairly quickly now that I know the process anyway.”
“That’s what I like to hear. I have a feeling that we’ll have Challengers fairly soon, so prep as quickly as you can.
“Yes, dungeon,” she said. Yosk was already hard at work creating a very sinister lair for himself and Elza.
“I better go check on Billy. Feels like it’s been a while.”
“It certainly has,” the floor boss gave his immediate response.
