INTERSTELLAR NIGHTMARES - THE DESCENT

Chapter 8

   "Wow," I marveled. Walking into the cavern greeted us with huge crystal formations the size of multi-story buildings, glimmering in what little light reverberated through the cave. The floors were lined with smaller crystal formations, and some larger crystals even glowed by themselves.

   "This place looks wonderful," I murmured to the others. "You can say that again," Fredrick hushily responded, marveling at the unorthodox scenery of the area.

   Kurt also stared in amazement for a moment before starting to mine up a bismor vein. Bismor is a yellow cube of mineral with orange crystal jutting out of it, similar to a cubic pinecone or something like that, and they're rare in this biome.

   Morris put his helmet back on and buckled the strap. "Well, might as well get to it," Morris sighed, "eggs won't wait forever."

   "Aww, alright," Fredrick whined, pulling out his flare gun, and firing into the ceiling. The cave lit up from the high-intensity flare, an almost blinding light beaming from the top of the cave.

   "This time, we're all sticking together," Kurt announced, coming back to us three. "After all, we don't need anyone picked off as we go alone." That's a fair point, I thought. Why'd we need to be alone anyway? We work much better together than separately.

   "So, we'll go after..." Fedrick drifted off as he was looking around for the nearest egg. "What is that?" he finally blurted, pointing his marking device to the ceiling and pulling the trigger. I looked up, following the trail of the laser up to this sack on the ceiling. It was a gray, fleshy, droopy-looking sack, softly pulsing and glowing.

   "Ah," Fredrick huffed, "my marker says it's a gunk seed!" Kurt chuckled a little. "Curse my childish sense of humor," he laughed. Then Morris started to laugh. Then Fredrick. Then I caught on. "Oh, hush," I chuckled, "and yes, curse your childish humor."

   This made me think afterward. Wait... if there's an ebonut...? I pinged the M.U.L.E. over. "Something in your brain, Moleboy?" Morris asked as he looked over. He seemed to have read my expression like a book! "Yeah, the ebonut then the seed... weird that two unique... plants or whatever reside here," I answered. The M.U.L.E. planted herself into the ground after and I took a look.

   "Gunk seeds," I sighed. Morris nodded and turned to the others. "We gotta collect those gunk seeds!" he announced. I heard a crack and I glanced in its direction. Kurt had torn open another ebonut. "Then... what about these? I'd say collect them for possibly more pay!"

   I tilted my head while looking up at the gunk seed. More pay... I thought. "Aye, grab it," I concluded. I pulled out the Subata and shot at the gunk seed after. The sack exploded, dropping an equally as fleshy but more pink, squishy, organic-looking ball.

   As it fell through the air, we all couldn't help ourselves. We all busted into laughter. "Now that made it worse!" Kurt roared, slapping his knee a couple of times. "Damn," I chuckled, then walked over and grabbed it.

   "Well, that's one of ten," I stated before putting it into the M.U.L.E.. "Beauty of Hoxxes, eh boys?" Kurt said uneasily as he let out a sigh and wiped the tears under his goggles. He fixed himself to a more serious tone.

   "Might as well get all these seeds off the ceiling," Kurt concluded, looking up, "after all, we need more of those than eggs." With that, we focused primarily on the gunk seeds. We found some in patches of three at most, while others were in fairly secluded areas from the others.

   Along the way, we heard the rocky digging of glyphids. "Get ready, boys; it's an ambush party," Kurt explained. "And what makes you say that, smart guy?" Fredrick joked with Kurt, checking his chamber to see if a round was in it. "It isn't part of the swarm," Kurt explained, "and they like to strike when you don't expect it. This comes at their advantage, with ambushes being more abundant with less bugs compared to swarms."

   "Ah, gotcha," Fredrick absorbed rhe new volcabulary, pursing his lips. "Get ready! Bugs detected!" Morris shouted as he racked the slide of his Warthog. He seemingly fired off a shot already! "Good thing it won't be many," I told them as the bugs rushed towards us.

   One's head immediately got turned into paste from a barrage of lead from a shell. "Take that, you ugly bitch!" Morris cried out. Fredrick looked up, and dove to the side. "Incoming!" he shouted, just as a ball of orange liquid splattered onto the floor and splashed onto my armor.

   I looked down, unsure of why it was a yellowish-orange color. I was answered by seeing the paint peel from my armor. "Something is coughing up acid or something!" I shouted, "Keep your eyes peeled!" I stepped towards the oncoming wave of bugs and pulled the trigger. With a mighty fwooooosh, my face heated as the flames beamed about ten meters forward, sweeping the glyphids ahead into a raging sea of fire. I heard a whirl behind me, then the deafening hailstorm of bullets spew from Kurt. A new glyphid-like bug fell from the ceiling afterward, dropping into the flame stream.

   I soon let go of the trigger, stopping the flames from coming out of my CRSPR. The bugs were practically eradicated. There were a couple left, being dispatched by Morris and Fredrick, but all others were swept away.

   "Well done, team," Kurt congratulated, "quick work makes the mountain a city. Now let's get moving." We killed off the rest of the bugs, then deposited the last few gunk seeds into the M.U.L.E.. We were missing one seed though, and it was on a ledge. "Huh," Morris huffed, "well shit." "I could get it," Fredrick offered. "I'll shoot you a platform to land on," Morris proposed, "it'll absorb the impact of the fall."

   Fredrick got out his grapple gun and shot it toward the wall above the cliff. He let go of the trigger, and it yanked him towards the area. He landed on the cliff and grabbed the seed. Morris shot at the ground with his platform gun, shouting "Platform!"

   Fredrick looked down, then jumped. When he landed, the platform deformed a little bit. It slowly morphed back after he got up and deposited the seed into the M.U.L.E.. "Damn," he grunted, "that hurt... I felt like I flattened my ass on that thing."

   We turned our focus to the fleshy mounds in the walls then. We went to the lowest hanging one, but we were jumped up upon by an ambush. We walked around a large crystal, and then, in a flash, a praetorian charged and rammed Morris. Morris flew a good three meters until hitting the ground.

   "Ack!" Morris choked. Kurt swung his pickaxe into the praetorion's arm, digging deep into it before he yanked it out. The praetorian roared out in pain, and swatted Kurt back, causing him to stumble and fall onto his back. I backed up and gave covering fire as a distraction from the others as Fredrick rushed to help Morris up. The praetorian was followed by grunts. It was after me. By myself.

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