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23. Oil!
🕑 Added 2023-05-02 17:44:24 +0000 UTCWeaving carefully within the vines Liam suddenly crouched dodging swarms of hellfire wasps flying about, they didn't hunt for themselves to eat, they chased animals pushing them into the vines for the giant pitcher plant to eat, then nectar will be given.
It was a very interesting part of this ecosystem for sure, those hellfire wasps might potentially mean honey or an equivalent but it didn't seem worth the risk to get. If there was something at all to get for that matter.
The blue vines were interesting too, their extreme elasticity and resistance being at the forefront, essentially they were colonies of smaller peculiar half plant half animals small organisms that grow around a silicon-based thread they seemingly produced, very similar to hard coral in principle but it's this very interesting instead of limestone.
When in contact they acted in a way similar to jellyfish's tentacles dragging prey, but instead of venom it was a sort of odorless acidic or alkaline glue. Horrible in the way the skin melted and 'fused' with the glue causing a great amount of pain to anything entangled, as such he didn't test on his skin.
His scimitar didn't like it either but the corrosion damages were grossly superficial, yet it didn't do anything to his bronze armor, which meant it was quite a unique substance that probably reacted to carbon or iron as the only point in common between his blade and animal was this.
It was an ecosystem working like a sole organism of which he was right in the middle.
Either way, he continued to go into this underground jungle, the air was humid and quite cold. The red bobbin of thread at his waist was used by a fifth as he regularly put wooden pall, cut the thread, and fastened it around before continuing. It didn't matter he had more of this red thread.
The more he advanced the deeper he went and the less of those carnivorous and blue were seen and the vegetation, if that could even be called that, took on a dark greenish-light purple, the ever abundance of natural bioluminescence giving light comparable to a twilight sky.
At this point the ground had more roots than ground, it was a mess of roots of all sizes entwined together. Living in between were the rare sleeping stingbats, strange spider space huggers look alike, three meters long (9ft8) centipede, strange vertebrates similar to geckos if human-sized, various flying insects and jellyfish-like creatures such as a deep purple sphere with tentacles and four leaves shaped 'wings' to float on about the hot air current coming from under.
The air was breathable to him, not that he had anything to remedy it if wasn't the case besides getting back to the surface as fast and carefully as possible.
It was without saying extremely dangerous yet he continued to go down, the red thread continuing behind him. The sound of wind echoing in a sort of low constant hum as if something gargantuan was breathing could be heard as he gazed upon dozens of boulders floating below, roots in no way large enough to support them, those roots came from below growing outward.
Approaching one of those floating silvery large pieces of stone the human walked and looked around, before picking a fist-sized rock that he stored, implant analyzing it as his eyes widened ever so slightly as it was pure pandorium/unobtanium at its core beside the outside where it was a mix of mainly titanium and platinum with a dozen more minor and unimportant element.
"This entire thing is made of that metal…", Liam mumbled, this metal was mostly unknown to him besides its unique magnetic property, as much as it was valuable as a resource for its nigh infinite potential in using it was completely worthless to him at the moment.
It was the case for one simple reason, his forge couldn't melt this 'magical' metal as of yet, he couldn't begin to melt tungsten which admittedly need 3400C° (6152F°) quite a considerable amount of heat so the most precious thing about this stone he picked up for him currently was the titanium and platinum.
Two he was more than happy to collect, they offered many new possibilities the first being for its similar strength to steel, corrosion resistance, and lighter even if the last part was quite unimportant on a personal level. It meant better armor and new alloy for a variety of uses. The second platinum had use for making electronic components such as wire and also laboratory equipment, very useful as well.
He picked and mined pieces of rocks, choosing the one with more of the two precious metals as he climbed down from root to root stone to stone, red thread, and wooden pole following him behind.
'Water?', he internally remarked as the sound of waterfalls started to enter his ears advancing on he stumbled upon a thin stream plunging from one floating stone to another, streams that grew bigger and bigger as more of them fused together the further they fell.
However they weren't only of water, below the colorless liquids was a black substance that was moving excessively slower, approaching one of such streams he tentatively dipped a long stick before taking it out and observed with unbidden befuddlement the black tar-like substance steadily dribbling back into the stream.
His grey eyes followed the origin of this stream to see it came from the same roots he climbed down, now that he paid attention all we're those streams started nods of roots dug in.
Finally, his curiosity won over and he took a glass bottle he filled with the help of a stick of black liquid. The sweet smell of it was overpowering nearly everything else.
Storing the bottle he let his implant scan it, it was akin to heavy crude oil with its general composition and viscosity, but distinct differences could be made such as the presence of pandorium particles, complex molecules likely responsible for the smell, and various microorganisms.
"Crude petroleum is the product of those plants…", Liam said out loud baffled but extremely pleased with this discovery, and so he continued to move downwards sampling resources as he did so.
The darkness was in fact a gargantuan lake of pristine clear water that turned at minimum 40 meters (131ft) deep into this same black crude oil that absorbed all light and it was of unknown depth. There were no waves or water movement except for the crude oil rippling exactly every minute. As if it was the beating of a heart.
Gigantic roots grew from it, giant purple algae flowed peacefully accompanied by blizzard half transparent ray-like fish, silvery floating boulders and stones were everywhere, some of the biggest forming massive floating islands on the water similar to icebergs or small hills.
They were full of lush flora with strange flowers adapted to this sunless environment, from glowing fungi-like to multi-colored floating flowers anchored to the ground by a single thin strand of fleshy tissue.
The overall blackness of what was below the water contrasted deeply with the all. And he was currently walking on one that was connected to a fissured wall of the cave by as anyone could guess, roots. They seemed to hold everything together with the pandorium/unobtanium here.
A fissure that was out of place even from afar, the long white vine being also a major reason he saw it, it wasn't the only one, just the closest and easiest to access. And he was curious.
Liam's eyes suddenly narrowed and his body instinctively tensed up as he heard the faint sounds of clawed feet getting closer all around him, from his left, right, behind, in front, and above.
'I wondered when this would have happened…', Liam thought, frowning ever so slightly as he roughly estimated their number just from the sound all around, they must be easily a dozen if not more.
Then the shape of viperwolves came into his sight as white bioluminescent patches sparked alongside their lean dark blue body, they didn't seem to be the same species as they were at the bare minimum 50% smaller, they didn't even reach his knees.
And it indeed was the case, those were leucomelas viperwolves, a subspecies of the common viperwolf.
His war scythe appeared in his left hand as he stood to his full height, chest pumped up and eyes full of composed alertness as he kept eye contact with the one in front of him. An error on the human's part but one he couldn't have predicted.
This viperwolf closed its eyes and opened its maw wide, a second pair of legs spread in an instant and the world for the human became white as a flash of light with enough lumen to blind a Na'vi was emitted right at his eyes.
"Shit! My eyes!", he swore at this, he didn't expect this kind of attack at all. Repeatedly blinking his eyes were filled with a burning sensation, he could barely make out distance, color, and shape, his heartbeat faster in his chest yet he stayed composed if pissed off.
At the same time the pack of leucomelas viperwolf pounced, two of them maw wide open they bit at the human armored ankle, not doing much but annoying the human further.
It resulted in one getting kicked so hard its head snapped backward with a loud crack, the other bisected from shoulder blades to the pelvis, its guts spilling everywhere as the still cognisant upper half fell into the water two dozen meters below.
It was only the start, two jumped on his back as he wildly hacked the air with his weapon, growling in irritation Liam grabbed behind him the raging animal catching what he assumed was a paw.
His grip shattered the bones while the viperwolf yelped in pain before being thrown randomly with extreme prejudice, it hit two others approaching hexapods wolves killing the three of them simply with how much force was put behind the improvised living projectile.
It was a massacre, the scent of blood and ruptured organs replacing the sweetness in the air, yet the viperwolves kept on coming, suicidally throwing themselves at the currently blind as if in a frenzy.
A big male jumped on Liam's head, furiously scratching and biting as the human shot randomly with his wrist crossbow in front of him, the poisoned bolt hitting one into its belly halting in its track with the sudden pain, the cocktail of toxins taking care of the rest.
"Go to sleep.", as those cold and calm yet irritation-filled words a closed armored fist flew through the neck of the one latched on him. Blood trickled down his armor as he killed more and more until nothing came back, yet he stayed vigilant.
Blinking more the burning sensation finally started to recede as he could see again even if blurry and there were white spots here and there but it was rapidly getting better. All around him were bodies, organs, and blood splayed. He breathed and something unexpected happened again.
'What.', was all Liam could think of as the rapid, almost buzzing sound of flapping wings entered his ears, and a red arrow-shaped creature zipped right at him and entered his sight from above. The next thing he knew was pain.
A needle-like shape speared through his armor like it was tin foil, the buff coat in between not giving much more resistance then came to his skin followed by right pectoral muscle, it continued on as it passed in his flesh and tissue between his ribs, to finally perforate the upper part of his right lung.
"FUC-AARGGH!", he shouted, pain and anger mixed together, but he reacted extremely fast. He let go of his war scythe to grab the thing stopping it from goring him further. And it instantly emitted high-pitched squeals as the needle inside suddenly pumped venom akin to tetrodotoxin.
Right after a creature landed next to him, red in color, headless with a praying mantis posture, its two hooked front limbs waving in the air as it silently and gracefully walked with its four clawed feet toward the squealing thing embedded in his chest.
A slinger is two individuals of the same species living as one. A silent, extremely dangerous predator, not the biggest or strongest but one of the most successful thanks to its unique hunting tactic.
The 'main body' and the 'head', with the latter being shot from the former and that's what happened and now the main body was following the squeal of the head embedded in Liam's right lung as it was blind without it.
"Fuck you!", Liam screamed with blood and literal venom coming out of his mouth, implant glowing a bright red, the continuous sharp pain or pieced lung not stopping him in the slightest from acting as he materialized one of his shotguns out of his inventory and shot point blank the slinger's 'head'.
The deafening boom of the shot echoed far and wide as the head exploded into bloody pieces and bits that flew everywhere, the proboscis was all that remained intact and it was still deep into his chest. Taking it out would be a bad idea, it would aggravate the bleeding, and there was his armor in-between anyway.
He coughed more blood-filled venom, his body working on purging the foreign substance, breathing heavily from his one good lung, his overly dilated half-blind eyes filled with adrenalin locked onto the confused main body that was no more than a red blur to him.
"Fuck you.", he said, gasping for air and the pain, holding the shotgun with one hand he aimed and pulled the trigger, a boom echoed again, the recoil barely affecting the human, the main body screeched incomprehensibly as one of its middle legs with part of its chest was blown apart.
"Should have aimed for the head.", he added as the empty shotgun was stored to be replaced by another fully charged one, and he shot again and again, the first blowing more of the main body chest, and the last ending all of its screech once and for all.
