Well, organelles, at least. This wasn’t some back-alley operation. The gods were involved, after all, so Lucy was sure the organelles were sourced responsibly.
As Lucy scanned the list she saw many that were familiar.
Vacuole - 10 EP: Tired of wearing a stupid external backpack that strains your back and makes you look like a dork? Try having one inside you, and reap the benefits of Nature’s membrane-bound internal storage solution!
Lucy had always thought she looked cool wearing a backpack. And since when was her System so sassy? She read on anyways.
Mitochondria - 50 EP: The powerhouse of the cell! What else is there to say? We could explain what that actually means, but we know you aren’t interested, so we’ll put it in terms appropriate to your evolutionary station: “CELL USE FOOD MAKE MORE ENERGY, EVERYTHING GO BETTER. HIT HARDER, MOVE FAST.” Got it?
Flagellum - 25 EP: The ultimate in one-cell self-propulsion. It’s a little tail that will make you swim much much faster. Limit of 2 per customer.
Nucleus - 1000 EP: You’re not seriously still using RNA, are you? Upgrade to DNA now and learn to do all kinds of cool things, like reproduce asexually! Let’s be honest; it’s the only way you’re ever getting past the incel— sorry, the one-cell stage. Comes with centrosomes, chromosomes, and everything else you need to dance the ole’ mitosis shuffle. It’ll make you smarter, too.
Anal Pore - 0 EP: You…know what this does. Just take it and do what you gotta do, and we won’t talk anymore about it.
Cytoskeleton - 5 EP: What, you’re just freeballin’ it with no support? Aren’t your organelles bouncing around uncomfortably—you know what, never mind, we don’t care. But if you’re tired of using Reform Body to maintain your shape, put in some rebar! Cost is per tubule.
Some of the other items for sale were…less familiar to her.
Heartseed of Rejuvenation - 100,000 EP: Crafted by the Goddess of Life herself, this Heartseed sits in a magical second layer around the physical heart, imbuing the body’s blood with the very essence of life. Increases Regeneration by 1000% and allows the use of Life Magic, though structures to improve magical use are sold separately. Soulbound on use. Do not try to remove. Seriously, don’t try it. You’ve been warned.
Lucy was beginning to get that dizzy feeling again, so she stopped scrolling through the seemingly endless list and looked over the things she could actually afford, then made her choice.
For 9 EP she could either get some minor upgrades, or buy…
Cilia - 5 EP: Little fuzzy things that will grow all over your body and help you move! Sort of, at least. It’s not much, we know. But you don’t have much money, do you? So here we are. They are protosensory organs though, so you should be able to more fully experience how terrifying the world around you is! Isn’t that nice.
Well, Lucy thought cheerfully, no need to save up and shell out for the Flagellum at least!
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She thought about saving up for something else, but right now she was slow.
Not just “last one to finish the mile at school slow”, either. More “race cancelled because someone couldn’t finish before the sun went down” kind of slow. She had managed so far by sticking to the stone and gripping with her membrane, but as soon as she left these tiny cracks, she was going to need to be able to maneuver better. Plus, it was hard to imagine a situation where it wouldn’t be helpful to be able to get around quicker. With one last glance at the Heartseed and a longing sigh that fluttered the water around her, Lucy purchased the Cilia.
A tingling sensation came over her entire body as proteins started to assemble in a new way throughout her cytoplasm. Before she could get a closer look, the proteins began to congeal and spread to her membrane, where they formed bases and anchored into the outer wall. Then they extended outwards in their hundreds or thousands, like she was being covered in the smallest forest imaginable.
It felt vaguely ticklish, and Lucy was surprised at the world of sensory information her new organelle opened up. Compared to the vague, binary sense of touch her smooth outer membrane had afforded her, each of the cilia was exquisitely sensitive and responsive to the environment around her, and she marveled as the sensation of being pushed around in warm water changed to something more like how swimming in place had felt as a human.
With hundreds or thousands of the new structures, she was able to completely control how her body moved in the water, automatically making micro-adjustments to stay still or send her moving in any direction she chose. In addition, she could feel the water around her in a way she couldn’t before, noticing subtle gradations and changes in the way it moved and the vibrations it carried.
Overall, Lucy was pleased. Not bad for 5 points, she figured.
Then she spent her other 4 points on the outer membrane upgrade, figuring that it was never a bad thing to have some more protection. It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as the cilia sprouting up, but she could feel the rigidness and durability of her membrane increasing as the upgrade took effect.
She couldn’t tell if her sphere of Awareness actually expanded, but Lucy suddenly felt like her world had opened up. Even in the small room she was in, she could tell just from the vibrations of water around her where the exit was and how the current was flowing.
[*Ding!* Congratulations, you have spent your first Evolution Points in the Shop of Life. The more points you spend, the closer you come to your next major Evolution, where you will be offered a choice between multiple specializations, each with its own unique abilities and future Evolutions.]
[1st Evolution: 9/100 EP]
She knew it wasn’t much, but somehow making the decision and seeing the fiber-like hairs springing up all over her body felt good. It felt like she had taken control in some tiny way and started to chart her own course.
And, she had to admit, the satisfying notification and visual reminder of her progress was nice. It showed her exactly what she needed to do. And there was a pretty little progress bar filled up 9% of the way. Lucy had always liked progress bars.
You had to start somewhere, after all. And Lucy was ready to go.
She started off by taking a few test runs up and down the tunnel where she’d been trapped by the spike monster.
As she moved, her cytoplasm began to gurgle, and she decided to venture all the way to the end of the tunnel to check the corpse. It had seemed like it was degrading pretty quickly, but…
[Energy: 85/100]
Man, those really were some intense dreams. Or was it the shopping? No, probably the god-dream. She shrugged mentally. Can’t hurt to check. Maybe there’s some pieces I missed the first time around that I can still use for energy.
***
Unfortunately, Lucy was not the only one who’d had that thought, apparently.
When she reached the corpse, a creature that reminded her a bit of a wolf stood over it, four stubby nub-legs suctioned to the ground around the body as it fed.
Well, I guess wolves don’t have suction cups, but this thing probably does have—
Lucy expected to see a mouth full of teeth, but when a small crunch reverberated through the water and the organism lifted its head up to chew, she saw instead a beak-like appendage that the creature was currently using to feed on the corpse.
Above the mouth, a snout-like protrusion stuck out.
Well, it’s got a nose like a wolf at least, Lucy thought, backing away gently towards the tunnels that led to her hiding room. Kind of.
She assumed the scavenger had smelled the cytoplasmic nutrients in the water, and if it had smelled that from however-far-away, it probably could smell her if she got too close.
When the organism looked up and made sniffing motions, Lucy congratulated herself for the astute hypothesis. It would be a great comfort to her as she died to know that she’d been right one last time.
The creature’s snout snapped to face directly at Lucy, and she abandoned any pretense at stealth, mentally urging her still-unfamiliar feeling cilia to move her as fast as possible down the corridor and away from the beast.
In its beak it held a black spike it had torn from the corpse, and even as it began to hobble down after her, Lucy saw the powerful beak snap the spike in half before retreating into the pale, eyeless face.
She gulped as she ran. Thinking fast, she’d already begun to produce a Protein Spike of her own to fight the creature if she couldn’t outrun it. She hoped she'd at least be able to get away enough to come up with a plan of attack, but she was depending on a totally new organelle to get her out of danger.
Well, cilia, time to prove your worth!
Behind her, the sound of madly clacking jaws grew closer.