CordAniCol Pt2

[Would you like to name: Cordycep Animatum Colony?]

"Uh… all of them?" I ask hesitantly, staring at the innocently questioning system prompt in utter horror. "I have a giant owl named Duck, do you really think I'm up for this task?"

[A Cordycep colony is a single entity, Hack…]

Just saying the trail of dots at the end of that last prompt told me everything I needed to know about how disappointed the voiceless message sounded. "Ah, yes, well," I say awkwardly, staring at the naming question prompt. "Uh… CordAniCol," I decide at last, slapping the first syllable of every word in the parasite's actual name together to make a name.

[Cordycep Animatum Colony has been named: CordAniCol]

Then my new pet's information just hopped up in my face.

[Name: CordAniCol

Level: -

Affinity: Corruption

HP: -

MP:-

PATK:-

PDEF: -

MATK: -

MDEF: -

Strength: -

Endurance: -

Agility: -

Intelligence: -

Willpower: -

Luck: -

Description: CordAniCol is a Cordycep Animatum Colony that attempted to steal the body of the player Life Hack but was instead captured through a combination of Beast Mastery and Alchemy. Now that the colony has been captured it has transformed from a controlling parasite to a submissive symbiote that feeds on its hosts mana and food intake rather than feeding on the host itself while using its abilities to preserve the host's life. When the host dies, the colony will die without a safe vessel.

Inventory: -

Skills: Assimilate LV MAX Replicate LV1 Corrupt LV MAX Shapeshift LV1 Spore Shoal LV MAX Devour LV1]

"Holy shit," I say as I start reading the information about the colony's skills.

All of the skills that were at max level were the skills the original parasite had. Assimilate and Corrupt were how the parasites took over a body, destroying the original tissue and replicating it while feeding on everything the host used to be through Corrupt. Spore Shoal, essentially, was how it became a spore cloud and infected new bodies after being disturbed in the wild.

Replicate was the skill that allowed it to replicate the host's tissues and fluids, healing me whenever I take damage. Shapeshift was a skill that branched off of Replicate, allowing me to change small aspects of my body at its current level like growing bony claws from my fingers. Devour was what would happen when I released a Spore Shoal without letting it take a new TEMPORARY host.

Finishing my task of collecting all of the liquor in the larder that was still good even after the places had been burned, frozen, quaked, and burned again. Luckily, it was all very well sealed and taken care of even though the wines had been breached from ruined corks. The liquor just went right into my inventory.

After twenty minutes spent searching the rest of the building while using a sword to gather up large bundles of Giantula and Gigantula silk. I ended up finding a few things like some old hunting weapons like a Worn Crossbow that did twenty-four damage with Iron Bolts that did eight apiece. For most our team the bows and arrows made by Oleander were much stronger and faster but would be good enough of a weapon for someone like Hermes or Cweeper.

Since Hermes was naturally a fighter and Cweeper was not, though, the crossbow and its bolts went to her before we finally left the lodge. However, we did not go far but instead to the opposite side of the next hill. I had no real materials to stake a claim with but I had replenished all of my mana and had even more than before.

Being level thirty with all of my stats at or above one hundred overall was a huge bonus in and of itself.

Placing both hands against the incline of the hill in front of me, I channel exactly one fourth of my mana into my hands and the hill before using a broad but short-range Quick Quake to shove the entire hill over. As the dirt and plants rushed forward and crested over itself like a wave on water it formed a tall and sheer wall of earth. Then, I went to the next hill.

After making four twelve-foot earth walls around the shallow valley that had suddenly grown with the loss of its hills, I lead my familiar back out into the meadows toward the highway. We did not even make it a hundred yards before another pack of juvenile kobolds struck. Unlike last time, though, I did not take my time watching the new mobs and learning.

This time, I quaked the entire hilltop we fought on so that y familiars could kill all but one. That one who was left suffered the worst fate yet. It had no choice but to watch as I cast Spore Shoal from my fingertips.

Honestly, I had expected a cloud of spores to just kind of flow out of my hand like a water or fire spell. However, all of my fingertips and even my gloves just turned into a thin and grayish small cloud of dust that drifted forward through the air. I had to remind myself that it was not just parasites and I but a more simple and unanimous US, now.

The small spore cloud settled about the half buried kobold's head and filled its nose, mouth, and eyes as it began howling and screaming. As I watching the spores began to Assimilate the beast by swelling it body slightly with its presence as it began replicating the tissues inside. Once the assimilation was fully underway, Corrupt took affect as the body started slacking and running with the excess softened tissues finally being consumed.

After a full minute of watching the kobold's hair and skin fall away to reveal gelatinous mass underneath that oozed away, the old tissues began being replaced around the jellied tissues to become a rotten looking and horrid smelling kobold. "Devour," I command after the spores took the host. Then, the kobold just started melting into the ground.

When the kobold was dead the original spore cloud simply returned and replaced my fingertips and the tips of my gloves.

[+30XP]

[Acquired Kobold Tail x3]

[Acquired Kobold Canine x6]

[Acquired Kobold Hide x4]

[Acquired Gold x45]

While killing a single kobold in a minute was not as impressive of an achievement as it could be, these parasites had the same opportunity to end my life in about a minute. As well, a single small cloud could probably Corrupt an entire group of people or monsters. I had yet to even test the regenerative powers they afforded me.

After a quick Q&A with Melpomene about the risks of being around my friends and other people I returned to camp to find that everyone else had already come back from hunting and sent the others out. Sitting down across the fire from where Go was studying a book about the basics of the different 'schools of magic', I simply stare at the flames for a while before deciding on a very appropriately inappropriate course of action.

Concentrating on the same hand that had cast Spore Shoal earlier, I will the parasites to detach from my body and am rewarded by my gloved hand crawling out of my sleeve along with the joint of my wrist. Scuttling forward around the fire while everyone kept themselves busy with their own things, my detached hand went around behind Oleander who was examining stones against the firelight before reaching Go on the other side.

The hand tapped Go's knee on command as if seeking his attention before hiding off to the side in the shadow of his thick half-orc leg. "What's up?" Go asks, turning his body back around from the side to look at Oleander curiously. "Did you need something?"

"What?" Oleander asks curiously, looking away from what I had appraised as an ungraded elemental mana stone. She was probably identifying its properties before Go interrupted her. "No, nothing."

"Then why did you…" Go starts to ask before trailing off while looking around. Then I made the hand tap his leg again before scurrying around behind him when he looked down and around. "What the hell?" He mumbles, all but rolling on the ground while trying to find out what had been poking him.

Poor Go had no idea that the hand had jumped onto the back of his armor to hang onto the claws and weaving while he searched. However, when he finally stood up and looked around, Oleander found the problem. "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!" She suddenly screams, throwing herself back and crawling backward on the ground away from Go. "It's on your back! IT'S A HAND!"

That same hand had no climbed up onto Go's shoulder and was in the process of twiddling its fingers at Go when he slowly looked over at his shoulder. He screamed. Long, loud, and shrill with a sound that started with a 'w' as if he were wailing as his shortly tusked mouth opened in a wide frown of horror.

Raising my arm with the limp sleeve hiding the stump of my forearm behind my wrist, I call back the hand in the form of a Spore Shoal. Then, looking at my own hand in surprise, I stand up and look around at the others in silent confusion and curiosity. Just as I was opening my mouth to speak I activated Corrupt so that my body began liquefying.

My chin, cheeks, jaw, and even my eyes began running slowly down my body to blur my vision before I could ever make a sound, pretending to take a single staggering step toward Oleander with my hand reaching out. That same hand and arm started sagging wetly toward the ground as my legs folded under me. The entire camp was alive with screams of terror as people crowded around me.

However, one person kept their cool. The youngest member of the part, an old barbarian man standing off to the side by my familiars and watching it all unfold. "Can you believe this crap?" Conan asks Hermes loudly, catching the others' attention so their volume suddenly lessened. "It's like they can't even see you guys just standing here without a care in the world. If he were dying, you guys would be in action by default."

Looking back at Conan, Hermes glances briefly in my direction before actually replying with, "Shit. Happen."

Solidifying into a standing position while everybody was looking away, I roll my shoulders with numerous loud popping noises from my newly formed joints before saying, "Cookie to Conan for being the only person in my party with a brain! Good job, everyone," I add, slowly and sarcastically clapping for them, "you guys make me so proud sometimes. Hermes is right, though, shit did happen. Let me know when you see it."

Displaying my Character page to the others by simply turning my own window around in midair by hand, I simply count the seconds while they survey the currently visible information. I made sure that the skills and stuff related to CordAniCol was not in sight, though. The only thing they would be able to see that had anything to do with it was the small script next to race that said 'Plaguedman'.

Ten seconds after Conan walked over ten seconds after everyone had already been reading the information, Conan points near the top of the page and says, "Shouldn't he be a human?"

"I'm just going to start excluding you from my activities, you're too much for them," I say flatly to the eight-year-old who was steadily ruining my fun. "But, yes, I evolved from a human into a symbiont with this fungal parasite monster I found earlier. Here, just read this," I add, opening the Carrion title for them to see.

"Where do you even find an a grade parasite monster this early in the game?!" Conan demands angrily, having finished reading before everyone else. "Now I see why everyone freaked out about achievements, you're a hog! As the newest member of the group, I petition we vote to remove his hunting rights."

"If anyone but you had-" I start to say only to be shocked by the most shocking of sources.

"I second that motion," Go states simply. "At least, he can't go alone/ if he goes alone, he's the only one who benefits from his… luck."

"My Luck was not even at one hundred yet when I caught the cordyceps, though," I complain with a wicked smile, throwing my stats in their faces. "Listen, guys, come on. I now have a doomsday device. I know you guys were talking about keeping me locked down in camp but for some crazy reason it sounded like you guys were asking me to melt you. Weird, right?"

"You think I'm scared of you?" Go asks flatly, waiting for me to start to come back with some witty retort before launching a sudden jab. I did not even dodge it but instead softened my body so that his fist sunk into my skull and did a total of ten damage.

Distorting my face into a thin but wide smile that wrapped around Go's wrist, I just start laughing in gurgles as Go starts struggling to retrieve his fist while stretching my face out from my skull. For the second time that night, somebody hurled but this time it was not me. Instead, Lil and Conan both walked away to become violently sick while watching this 'fight'.

Reverting back to normal with a quickness that caused Go to stumble back and almost into the fire, I stand there in a haughty pose with my fists on my hips and say, "Hear ye near me, all ye of little faith who wish to cripple my creativity and power. Fuck off. And when you get there, fuck off again. Then fuck off from there! Keep fucking off til you get back around here and then fuck off once more."

"Okay, let's see what everyone else has to say about this," Oleander says with a smirk. "Especially your precious Lana. What would she think when she finds out you're not even a real person anymore? Sir Beryl? Agar, Canley, all your NPC friends? Will they trust being around a plague carrier?!"

"The hell do you want me to do about it?!" I demand irritably after being threatened with such a cheap shot. If I could handle the initial information spread then the information that spreads could be controlled. If one of them started up the rumor mill out of spite, that very well could be the end of everything for me. "It's not like I can just undo it and put them in a bottle or something!"

Then, deciding to be petty, I take a step over close to the fire and open my inventory before taking out a half-gallon jug of brandy with floating bits and clumps of pulp in it. "Take back what you just said," I say flatly, unscrewing the crude cap from the glass bottle and upending it to take a deep drought. "You know I'll do it."

"I swear I'll never breathe a word, just put the alcohol down," she says quickly, raising her hands and taking a step back. "I know you'll do it, You've made me watch you die from alcohol poisoning before. Calm down, let's just talk this out."

Narrowing my eyes suspiciously at the pale green skinned half-fairy woman wearing nothing but a layered drapery of vines coiled about her body, I put the cap back on the bottle before holding it out to her. "I found a bunch of liquor and cooking stuff and monsters at a ruined lodge about a mile away, this is fifty-five-percent by volume and I got it for us to celebrate the fact that I got a territory claim from killing a bunch of giant spiders. A BUNCH. I'm level thirty, now. Can't we all just be happy nice things are happening to us?"

"To you," Lil points out. "We might benefit, but it's stuff that happens to you. You really can't be allowed to just run off and do whatever you want, though. What if the title came with negative reputation? You could be seen as some kind of demon and hunted down because those spores and what they let you do. What if they're still illegal even if you control them? You'd have the kill them yourself, which is probably killing yourself."

She had a point, as much as I did not want to admit it.

*