Chapter 4

Now that the voice had a body it made communicating much less painful, the downside being that the voice would now be able to talk as much as it wanted. Even though the voice complained about the body it was in, 96 got the impression that he enjoyed being able to move around as he pleased.

Once he had fully rested himself from the whole rodent excursion 96 placed the chunk of bread on its little cloth and placed it in his basket. 96 sat down next to the basket facing the door waiting patiently for the voice to complete its exploration of the room as well as the rooms to either side of his own. He had expected the voice to have finished by the time he woke up, but that had not been the case. He had just started to consider using the needle, when he heard slight scuffling sound coming from the right wall. Soon after the voice emerged with a small wound on its shoulder. 96 tilted his head quizzically and the voice limped over quietly, "don't worry about it, it's nothing serious" 96 pulled out one of the strips of blanket that he had used for the trap and carefully rapped the wound to prevent further blood loss.

The voice sat back on its haunches and let out a long sigh "do you have something I can write on? it should make explaining much easier" 96 cut a neat square from his blanket which he found quite hard to do, he had grown quite attached to his blanket, and knowing that it was for the best didn't make it any easier to do.

Once the voice was supplied with the nesisary tools he used his claw to draw a diagram of the layout of the room and the a joining rooms. All of the rooms seemed to have a similar layout, each with a flagstone that was rather suspiciously placed in the left corner next to the door, the back left corner had a small fire that never went out, and the right corner in the back had a pool of water that was quite deep. All three of these things he knew quite well but it was good to know that all of the other rooms seemed to be the same.

After the voice completed its report it grew serious, "Now on to the next order of business. As I was passing threw one of the rooms I was attacked by a small group of rodents, it seems that the occupant of the room is subconsciously having the rodents both protect and retrieve food for them." 96 nodded his head that explained the rodents attitude rather well. But that raised the question, did that mean that others also had randomized abilities? The voice nodded its head "right on the money, the others have gone threw some rather odd changes as well... At least the ones who are alive that is, around half of the rooms I entered had dead bodies, burnt, drowned, crushed, and some of them seemed to have died due to mutations that occurred, it was quite the sad sight" The voice was shaking its head sadly, 96 patted its shoulder out of impulse he really didn't understand why he did it but it felt like the right thing to do. What ever it was it seemed to cheer up the voice because it curled up in 96's lap. He must have been tired becouse he emidiatly fell asleep, 96 absentmindedly stroked the voice's surprisingly silky fur as he studied the map that he had just acquired.

He knew that it took him several minutes to get to the different corners of the room but he knew that was becouse he was crawling. He decided that he would investigate the water pool first but he needed to make sure that he wouldn't drown. he looked at the basket next to him, and he had an idea that could be rather dangerous, but he found that the idea of his potential death didn't really bother him that much anymore.