Scene 5: Miros Quail Face Off

Mind the graphic violence warning. A bit of description about gore, but nothing too in depth.

(Line breaker)

When you come to again, besides the soft pattering of the remnants of rain, there is a strange huffy sound. You can't see much either. Confused, you go to dial your light sensitivity back up.

There is a lizard snout directly in your face. You yell, which startles the lizard, and it tumbles backwards, twisting around on the ground briefly before righting itself. It takes you a few more moments to recognize it as the hatchling from the previous cycle, who is now staring forlornly at you.

... you grabbed your spear. You drop it with a clatter. The hatchling immediately relaxes, but keeps its distance. You can't blame it.

They're omnivorous, you manage to remember amidst your scrambled thoughts. You fetch one of the bubble seeds and offer it to the hatchling. Still wary, it sniffs at the seed, then hesitantly takes it from your hand, skittering a short distance away before munching on the morsel. (-1 bubble seed)

One of its parents is also here, staring at you a good distance away with beady eyes. You push the spear further away, cringing to yourself. Of course the first thing you do is threaten the hatchling.

Lizard situation aside, your goals haven't changed. The beak of a Miros quail would be useful in fashioning some form of a permanent weapon. You could possibly make do with explosives, but you're not sure where cherrybombs grow, and out on the farmland, you're not sure where you'd be able to find enough scrap material to make explosives with.

>Give the hatchling another bubble seed as a peace offering, to show it how cool and nice you are. Because you are very cool and very nice and you want it to be your friend, right? Right? Right!?

...

You pick up another bubble seed, but offer it to the parent instead. The parent keeps staring at you, unmoved by the gesture. With a sigh, you hold it out to the hatchling again, who takes it from your hand a little more eagerly than before. (-1 bubble seed)

... you should leave. Now.

You keep your back to the lizards as you retrieve your belongings, and hurry back to the hole in the wall before you can figure out if picking up the spear scared the lizards again.

>Let’s go and stab a motherfucker! Take that big bomb spear and blow up a bird!! A permanent weapon would be excellent!

The water has receded a bit today. The exterior of the building is no less slippery, but it's easier to tread water once you're down all the way. It seems everything else has migrated away from this area due to the lowered water levels, as besides the two lizards peering after you from the fertilizer processing building, there's no other creatures here.

You heard Miros quail below you when you were in your aeration facility. You're certain there's more clusters of them around; wherever it's dark is prime grounds for their proliferation, which means the lower levels of practically any facility here in your waste department would make a decent living space for them. Seeing as you don't know the layout of the other buildings here though, you're not too inclined to go find out which other buildings have Miros quail in them.

Paddling over through the water, you end up near the base of your aeration facility. A series of clanks and mechanical screeches echoes from within. You can't tell how many there are, but there's definitely more than one of them. You shudder, reaching up for your spear. You hope their survival instincts are intact.

The last time you entered your aeration facility, you did so from the aerial bridges. There are more access points into each facility, so you could probably find a way in from down here. You are awfully close to the Miros quail here though.

>Find a hiding spot in the facility. The birds might be fierce, but they're not very smart; staying in cover and waiting for some to run by is probably your best bet.

You certainly hope so. You still have your flashbangs with you should you need any.

Circling the facility briefly, you find a second access shaft, the hatch half submerged in the water. You hesitate, but move towards it regardless, stopping briefly to listen for the sounds of Miros quail nearby. You hear the distant sounds of their feet hitting the ground, but none seem to be in the immediate area. Bracing yourself, you heave the hatch open.

The water around you struggles against the metal, causing it to creak loudly as you force the hatch open. You slip in with a shudder, then wince as the hatch slams shut behind you with a final gush of water. The sounds of metal clanking against metal are still distant though; you don't think any of them heard.

It's dark in here, much darker than in the floors above. Your neurons offer a bit of light, but not enough to fully light the way ahead. The layout of all of these access shafts should be roughly similar though, so from what you can discern, there's a series of corridors running throughout the facility, each connecting to various access rooms of aeration arrays. Though the Miros quail aren't here, they could be somewhere up ahead on the same floor.

You do also remember that the flow of processing in your aeration facility is from the bottom up. The arrays here are among the most acidic in the whole facility. You shouldn't touch any of them while you're here.

>Walk around a bit until you find a better hiding spot near some birds. Without dying.

You have no intention of dying here. You really hope there's a good place to hide if you need to.

Warily, you creep forward, keeping your spear in your hand. You can hear the Miros quail, but you can't pinpoint where they are. They seem to be somewhere off to your left at the least. There’s definitely more than one of them; you hope there’s not too many.

The soft pattering of your footsteps rings loud in your head as you carefully pad left, keeping your senses primed for any rapid changes in sound. You uptick your breathing and heart rate a bit; the extra oxygen will be helpful. You think. Maybe? Oh, stars above and Void Sea below, what are you doing? Are you really doing this? You're going to get yourself killed. But you're in too deep to run away now.

You round a corner and nearly launch yourself into the air in alarm at the sight of a Miros quail, only to realize in the same second that it's dead. It's laying on its side, organic parts partially dissolved. The room next to you has massive gouges in its walls, revealing the aeration arrays inside, in addition to the fact that they're conspicuously empty. The beak of this Miros quail also looks somewhat eroded; you can only assume it was at least one of the culprits of this development.

You probably shouldn't approach this corpse, let alone try to harvest from it. It's too dim for you to see where the acid is, but judging by how empty the arrays are, you're willing to bet it's all over the floor ahead of you. However, since the arrays are now empty, and the walls of this room are all warped and bent, maybe you could use this to your advantage?

At where the corner of the room used to be, much of the walls have peeled away, creating a small crevice that you have to bend down slightly to get through. It's not big enough for the Miros quail to wedge themselves through, so if things go sour, you could probably cram yourself back through the hole to get away.

... is the snipping getting louder, or are you just paranoid?

>Get ready to fight some miros quail! That or try to hide underneath or in the dead miros quail corpse. Some animals do that to avoid predators, but with the acid it’s probably not a good idea.

... you're not an animal, and you don't want to be anywhere near the acid. Or the corpse.

You cautiously step a little closer to the body anyway, pulling your umbilical cord lower so your neurons shed more light on the ground. The ground is eroding from the acid, the metal pockmarked and dented in various places around the corpse. Isn't there another floor below this one? How hasn't this building collapsed on itself yet? On the other hand, you'd rather that happen when you're not in the building, especially when there's Miros quail around.

... they don't have feet? Instead of where you'd expect talons to be, it's just... a strange metal rod. One of them looks kind of loose; you tug on it. It slides free from the flesh with a squelch.

On second thought, you don't want to touch this. You pointedly avoid looking at the rest of the corpse.

>Llleeets make some noise!!! Get those birds over here. It is time for Slaughter!

Stars above. Okay. Okay. This was the whole point of coming here anyway.

You go back to the crevice and crawl through it to the other side, holding the hem of your cloak to keep it away from the exposed metal. You'll need to be really, really quick about this. If you mess up... no, you're not going to entertain that thought. You've come this far already.

Taking a deep breath to brace yourself, you slam your fist into the wall next to you. It rattles loudly; you do it again. The snipping gets louder, accompanied with a few screeches, a sound that no normal creature could make. "Come get me!" you yell down the corridor, clenching your spear so tightly you dimly worry about loosening the joints in your hand.

With a loud clattering, a Miros quail appears. You immediately regret all the choices you've made up to this point. Miros vultures are, or used to be, important parts of any iterator's waste department, aiding in the sorting of metal in the heavy metal processing facility; you have—had—data on what those look like. But these Miros quail have mutated far, far beyond what their precursors were made to do. Instead of the sleek, slender avian mostly made of metal, you're faced with a misshapen, unsightly, haphazardly amalgamated lump of flesh swaying on metal stilt legs. Its body is asymmetrical, curving and dipping in ways that make no sense, and its short, thick neck swings around wildly as it crashes its way through the corridor, punching another hole into the wall. Its serrated beak snaps open and shut rapidly as it rights itself, stumbling on its uneven legs, and it screeches at you, a deafening shriek that you can only liken to metal grinding past metal.

It's running at you.

There's more screeching behind it. Loud snipping, metal screaming. It's running at you. Beak wide open, snipping, snipping. Metal slamming against metal. It's running at you. You wind your arm back and throw.

The spear explodes. The screeching peaks, a higher frequency than before. And then it dies down, grows more distant.

Silence, save for the quiet dripping of water.

Legs giving out on you, you sit, shaking on the floor. You're on the other side of the crevice; you must have scrambled back through without thinking. Doesn't seem like the Miros quail could have gotten to you regardless, but...

You creep back to where the Miros quail was, peering through the crevice. It's well and truly dead; relief gushes through you. You hit it in the neck it seems, because its head has been blown clean off from the rest of its body, which is... completely...

...

... you're suddenly very grateful that you don't have a digestive system.

The beak itself has a bit of gore still attached to it. You pick it up and hold it at arm's length, grimacing. You wanted this. But not... this, exactly. You have it now though. The beak looks sharp and strong, you just... need to clean it off. Which means you're going to have to—

You should get out of here before the rest of the Miros quail come back.

>Let’s go and find a good stick for the beak! Where did you say it was? Mechanical processing or something?

Heavy metal processing, a facility on the other side of your waste department. It'll be at least a cycle's trek.

There was that... dislodged leg from earlier. You go back to the other dead Miros quail and stare down at at it. It sure would work great as the pole for the lance, but the beak alone is keeping your hands full. You can't carry this too.

... you could just strap it to your back.

...

You really don't want to touch this. There's probably other options in your heavy metal processing facility.

>Alright time to mosey on out of there before you die! Go back the way you came and be prepared to flashbang and/or bomb any quail that come close to you (how dare they!)

You don't need to be told twice. You quickly go back to the hatch you entered from, and you lean your full weight on it as you shove it open. With a lot of groaning, it separates slightly from the wall, allowing you to see a small portion of the dark stormy sky before a flood of water crashes over you.

You let the water shove the hatch back shut, wiping your face off with your free hand. You should... probably take a different path.

There's a ladder to the upper floors near here somewhere. You take a quick look around the immediate area, but find only a puddle of acid near the wall; you give it a wide berth. The corridor extends further ahead, but with how close the clicking and clanging of the Miros quail sounds here, you're not inclined to explore that way.

Begrudgingly, you return to where you blew the Miros quail up. It's... splattered all over the walls. All over the ground. There's no way to avoid it; you'd have to step through acid.

...

Why did you subject yourself to this.

You gingerly weave your way through the carnage of flesh and blood and metal, holding the Miros quail beak away from you as you step forward. Your foot splashes into a puddle of blood (ew), and then something goes squish (ew), and, oh, the hem of your cloak is trailing (ew), but you keep going. You can't stop here, the Miros quail are still around.

You all but run to the end of the corridor once the field of exploded Miros quail ends, and you clumsily scramble your way up the ladder, feet slipping as you clamber up with only one free hand. But you're free, out of that torturous labyrinth of metallic avians, and you have your prize.

... you're absolutely filthy.

>Look around, get your bearings, and most importantly, figure out if there's any place you can take a bath or something? And clean the beak, too.

A bath? No, there won't be any viable sources of clean water in here. Not until the building... floods? Oh, stars, will it flood? You hope not. It shouldn't, but with the current state of things that can't be guaranteed.

You keep climbing up until you're on the same floor as where you first entered previously. No time to look for a new place to take shelter now; it's best to go somewhere you know is safe. Walking briskly into the access room, you drop the beak with a clank (and a squelch) and yank the door closed, and then slump against it with a sigh. You're utterly spent.

Now that you actually have the time, you glance down at yourself. You're covered in, unsurprisingly and disappointingly so, blood, the normally clear fluid turning a sickly yellow-brown on your cloak. It's already starting to dry. There's also random chunks of gore stuck to you, which you shake off in disgust. Though you can't actually smell, you can tell what compounds are stuck on you right now, and you're certain you smell putrid.

The beak... has a fairly sizable chunk of flesh still stuck to it. You don't have anything to cut it off with, unless you... use your hands? No. No, you're not doing that. You'll just deal with this later.

At the least, you're alive, and you have the means to never do this again. You can have a more permanent weapon to fend things off with, and you won't have to dig through corpses anymore.

You really, really hope you never have to do this again.

(Line breaker)

Additional notes:

"Face off" being a pun was purely coincidental, but when I realized that I laughed so hard I had to keep it. :D

Also, for anyone curious, here is the map I was using for the Miros quail encounter!

[Proceed to Status Update 5 | Return to Status Update 4]