All across the expanse of stone stretching off into the distance, clusters of slimy egg sacs jiggled and shook, quaking from the efforts of writhing worms within.
Soon, the entire area would be swarming with snapping jaws and coiled bodies as thousands of the hungry organisms broke free, each ravenous for their first meal.
Lucy didn’t intend to be the first meal of anyone, let alone a bunch of microscopic nematodes.
So when the hordes of worms began to tear free of their slimy prisons, she hid.
It was the only sensible thing to do, she knew, but it still felt a bit like running from a fight.
A brief peek had shown her the vicious revenge already being wrought upon the digging creatures, the near-instant shift of power that sent the clawed organisms scrabbling back into their holes as their kin were devoured around them.
She watched as a wave of newborn worms surrounded one of the creatures in a solid swarm as it tried to flee, their tiny sawing teeth trying madly to open up a hole in its tough hide.
Guess lunch-time is over, she thought. At least for me. She moved for the cover of her own cave.
Just as she did, she saw the final fate of the digging creature.
As soon as a single patch of membrane was worn down enough to split apart, the worms slipped inside one by one in a rush, consuming the creature from the inside out as they started their own feast.
Lucy didn’t stick around to watch any longer. Flicking herself deftly around the corner into the entrance of the cave, she kept the image of the organism being eaten in mind.
That is not going to be me.
Bunkering in the cave had been the plan all along, but as she heaved the blockage into place to seal off the entrance Lucy found some small part of herself yearning to slip through the caustic red slime just before it squished shut.
To join the carnage. To fight.
It was a mad thought, and not one she let herself entertain. She had her plan, and she would stick to it. It wouldn’t matter how many points she gained if she traded her life for them.
Lucy checked the blockage thoroughly for gaps as it hardened into place.
The half-smelled feeling of caustic sharpness slowly faded from the water, and her mind began to clear.
By the time she’d talked briefly with Rikorlak and Sam, the nonsensical notion of going back out in the storm of worms had faded completely, replaced by the slow return of a quiet, burning curiosity as she considered her next goal.
Magic.
Other than staying alive, this was the true excitement of the plan. To finally spend some quality time unearthing what secrets she could from the magical stone.
As she retreated back to her own quarters, a squiggle of motion caught her attention, and she remembered about the single egg she’d brought in to test how long they would take to hatch.
Although this one had been jiggling and shaking for some minutes now, she saw that the worm inside still hadn’t torn free.
As her thoughts of experimenting with magic mingled with the sight of the shaking egg, a very interesting idea for an experiment occurred to her.
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Carefully chipping away at the encasing shell of the magical stone, Lucy worked to reveal a sliver of the shining cyan light.
The shell of hardened goo was sludgier than she remembered, but she still had to concentrate to generate enough force to get through it. As she did, she reminded herself that she was not technically committing animal cruelty.
Just microbe worm cruelty. That's not as bad, right? And I'm not even sure it'll actually hurt.
Her dagger poked through and she quickly withdrew her hand, leaving a small hole behind.
Out of that hole, like a single ray from an alien sun, a beam of blue light stabbed out into the still water.
Straight into the jiggling egg sac Lucy had placed in front of it. The beam faded in color as it pierced the viscous gel within, and was stopped completely by the nascent worm’s body. It looked like a sphere full of thin, watery light with a dark and twisted shadow sleeping fitfully at its center.
The shaking of the egg, which had continued till this point, abruptly intensified as the worm inside started to twitch frantically.
In her Awareness, the desperate display reminded Lucy of a horror movie lit by strobe, as different parts of the twisting, struggling creature were intermittently back-lit by the magical beam.
She winced, and moved to pull the egg sac free of the light. But then she stopped, steeling herself.
She needed to know once and for all if the magical stone was dangerous or not.
Lucy pulled back her hand, leaving the egg exposed to the radiant light.
Soon, the worm’s frantic struggled ceased entirely, and the egg went still. Lucy had her answer.
The worm was dead.
As she approached the egg she looked into it, checking the shadow at its center for any signs of life.
Nothing. The energy it had absorbed seemed to be lighting it faintly from within, but there was no movement.
Lucy sighed into the water around her, then formed a spike into her hand, slipping the thin, sharp tip gently into the egg sac.
Well, now I know. I guess I’ll learn something from the autopsy at least, she thought, hoping the creature’s death would yield additional useful information.
But as the tip of her dagger entered the egg, the shadow at its center stirred.
Lucy held it for another moment before setting it down and swimming a short distance away.
Amazed that the creature was alive and hoping not to kill it just yet if she could avoid it, she still held her dagger ready and primed her cilia to release destructive enzymes, just in case something truly dangerous happened.
Lucy didn’t think that was likely, but she had seen enough superhero movies not to discount the effects of radiation in a magical world.
The water sat dark and heavy around her as she watched for any further sign of movement from the egg, which now lay completely still, like there was nothing inside at all.
Long moments passed, and Lucy began to convince herself that she had imagined the movement.
But as she approached, the gel-like substance of the egg sac began to quiver once more.
The worm inside started to shake, tiny oscillating movements of its form that only faintly resembled its earlier attempts to break free.
Lucy couldn’t tear her attention away from the shivering egg sac, and her concentration was suddenly rewarded as the dark shape at the center of the egg burst into motion, coiling its body into a tight swirl before shooting up and out of the egg sac in one graceful movement.
It shot upwards out of the egg like an arc of tiny lightning, and Lucy felt excitement surge through her along with it, her own little spark of hope jolting through her body.
It's alive!
The worm’s membrane was tinged by a pale blue glow that hung around it like an aura, despite the fact that it was no longer in the beam of light.
As she watched the glowing organism, reality asserted itself on Lucy’s mind, and she readied her dagger, preparing herself for the vicious, immediate charge she had come to associate with the little worms.
But it didn’t attack. The newly-born worm didn’t move at all, in fact. It just floated, motionless, as liquid from the burst egg-sac began to drift upwards in thin tendrils.
When those curling tendrils came near to the worm’s body, it still didn’t move.
Every other worm she’d seen so far had been ravenous, hungry for flesh from the moment they were born. The ones she'd seen devour the digging creature earlier had only hatched seconds prior.
Even if it didn’t immediately attack her, the glowing worm should have been feasting on the nutritious egg sac.
But as the tendrils of nutritious liquid dissolved around it, lit by an eery glow, the worm remained still, moving only in response to Lucy’s own motions.
She stared at the glowing blue worm in front of her, and the worm stared back.
Or seemed to, at least. Without eyes, what Lucy saw was more of a gaping mouth with a ring of small teeth, connected to a snake-like body.
And yet, it was following her movements, tilting and shifting in the water to track her not with the coiled tension of a predator preparing to attack, but with slow, gentle ease.
As absurd as it was, Lucy thought she recognized the display, similar as it was to what she herself was feeling.
Somehow, the worm seemed like it was curious.