#096 – What do you mean I can’t be the tentacle queen, yet?

#096 – What do you mean I can’t be the tentacle queen, yet? I sighed. “Look, all I’m saying is that the octopus was totally fine,” I argued, still perched near a wall, while my ultradry towel lowered the water level in the boss room. “Like, yeah, it would make sense that changing the flow of time for just one of my limbs would probably screw up with all sorts of things but... Well, it’s a magical world. It’s probably gonna work out.” GonguuH: I’m just saying that it’s too risky to try JamieWasTaken3: it would be funny tho JamieWasTaken3: also cant u regen a ded arm? “No idea.” To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t confident enough that I would risk a limb, but so far, none of the skills had actively harmed me in any way. Granted, this wasn’t a skill you would normally be able to get. Who knew whether this wasn’t some edge case that the Fate Weaver – or whoever had made the system – hadn’t accounted for and would end up with my arm blowing up due to difference in blood pressure, or whatever the hell else chat had suggested. I stopped. I narrowed my eyes and looked to the side. Then I opened up DMs and typed in FateWeaver. I briefly deliberated how I should phrase things as chat began to either laugh or panic. AotoNana: Hello. AotoNana: Sorry to bother you, but can I ask a question? AotoNana: Will my arm explode if I use the Voidspeed Tentacle on it? I waited for a moment, before another thought occurred to me and I sent another message. AotoNana: If yes, I’m assuming that’s a bug. Could you please fix that? ... A pause. ... You have been blocked by this user and can longer send messages to them. I stared. “What the fuck?! Come on now! Now even a reply?!” I shouted, outraged. JamieWasTaken3: lmfao JamieWasTaken3: inb4 u get banned GonguuH: well that could have gone worse Irid123: awww I sighed and finally got up. It was annoying that I hadn’t gotten a confirmation either way, but surely, an admin wouldn’t ignore a bug report, right? Surely... Or maybe me using that skill and exploding an arm was all part of whatever grand plan the jerk had. Ugh, maybe I should have asked what the hell he wanted from me instead. But he would have blocked me without answering anyway, dammit. Shaking those thoughts aside, I grabbed my towel and swam over to the chest that had appeared when I’d killed the boss. Jeoff wasn’t in chat, so I bother doing any mimic checking. Instead, I just opened the chest and took in my loot. Another giant tentacle was there... right next to the familiar map that was already getting wet. Those two looked exactly the same as the first time I’d been here and a quick Appraisal confirmed that they were, indeed, the same items. Which was great. I got my map back without needing to clear the city dungeon. But, of course, the water gun that I’d really wanted from this dungeon was nowhere to be found, replaced by something else. “A trident...?” I asked as I shoved the map and the tentacle into my backpack and then picked up the item. It was a shining silver trident with a dark green tentacle-esque ornament curling around it. The tentacle also had an eye in the middle of it, just to up the creep factor. I quickly shot Appraisal at it as the chest completely flooded with water again. Octopus King’s Trident A trident that grants limited omniscience to the wielder by using a small amount of Intra, as well as the ability to summon tentacles out of liquid surfaces anywhere in its omniscience range for a small amount of Ether and Tempor. I blinked at the description. “O-kaaay? That sounds... kinda weird, but it might be useful.” JamieWasTaken3: i have seen enough hentai to know where this is going I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I’m going to do unspeakable things with my tentacle powers. Like... gently patting Mr. Gargle’s head! Mwahahahaha!” I exclaimed and grabbed the trident. Irid123: pure evil I fiddled with it a little since the tentacle kinda made it awkward, but then I found the perfect spot to put my hand, where the tentacle kinda acted like a handguard almost. I glanced around at the water slowly flooding the room again with a frown, then jumped out of the water, and used my ninja sandals to stand on top of it. It was even harder to stay afloat due to the water level constantly changing, but it was fine. It wouldn’t be for too long anyway. “So, how does this work then...?” I murmured, as I inspected the trident. Both with my eyes and with my magical senses. So far, the only other item that had me use Intra directly had been Mr. Gargles, so I wasn’t as experienced with using my Intra directly yet. It was kinda similar but also very different from using Ether. “Okay... I think I can do it like this...” I murmured as I used my Intra to poke around the trident to see whether it had any magical pathways like all the other Ether-using items did. It didn’t. But it did have some kind of empty space around the eye part of the tentacle that seemed to be more easily taking my Intra. It didn’t really connect to anywhere though, as far as I could tell. Actually, Mr. Gargles had something similar, didn’t he? And that was how I could use the remote control feature... Hmm... With a bit of fiddling, I managed to feed the empty spot some of my Intra. I lost concentration and quickly fell back into the water at the sudden flash of information that assaulted my brain. “Gah! What the–” I quickly reoriented myself and then jumped on top of the water. Then I looked at the trident in my hands. “...I probably shouldn’t try to use a mental energy-using item while trying to focus on something else.” JamieWasTaken3: no hardcore multitask training? “Maybe later. For now... let’s get out of here.” I took one unsteady step, then another, and another... I could actually walk on water, but I had to really concentrate and take it slow. Well, that was fine. I was still wiped out from using Skill Snatch and it was getting very late, so I wasn’t planning on continuing anyway. With that in mind, I slowly left the boss room through the tunnel and soon found myself back outside on solid ground again. JamieWasTaken3: tentacle time I rolled my eyes but decided to comply anyway. With the trident in hand, I closed my eyes, and channeled a tiny bit of Intra into the tentacle’s eye again. Once again, I was overwhelmed with information, but this time, since I didn’t need to suddenly fish myself out of water, I kept on concentrating and trying to make sense of things. It took a whole ten minutes – according to chat’s timekeepers and my bracelet – before I finally began to piece together what I was sensing. It was the ground under my feet... and also away from my feet and deep under my feet. All around me, in a circular area, roughly three meters away. I also sensed a person. A ten-year old girl with cyan hair, wearing a cool and cute outfit with ninja sandals and a backpack – that felt incredibly wrong on the inside – and holding a trident-shaped hole in space. In other words, I could sense myself, but couldn’t sense the trident. ...I could also sense inside myself. Gross. Well, at least that confirmed that I did have normal human organs and whatnot... Although, I had no idea whether this was how a normal human body was supposed to look like. I wasn’t a biologist... Maybe I could consult with chat, later? Well, not important right now. “...Okay... I’m... I guess I’m omniscient now?” I murmured. “But it’s very short-ranged... Can I expand this...?” I tried feeding it more Intra, feeding it from different directions, shaping the Intra in various ways before feeding it, and eventually figured out a way to not only expand the bubble of sensing in a specific direction, but also make it so that I wouldn’t have to look at my innards. I played around with it for a little bit until my sensing range reached all the way to one of the pools and I suddenly felt something. A weird sort of... connection to the body of water. Like I could pull on that connection and make something happen. Right, that was probably the tentacle summoning. Now how did this work...? I frowned and tried to look for any mental switches for it, but couldn’t find any. Just like the omniscience thing didn’t have one either. But... didn’t the tentacle summoning require both Ether and Tempor? I still had no idea how to channel Tempor manually! I scowled, but tried feeding the eyeball some of my Ether anyway, hoping it would work on its own. The mechanism inside actually took that Ether and began pooling it inside. I almost thought it would then start summoning tentacles, but nothing happened other than the blob of Ether inside it getting bigger. Just as I wanted to stop trying, the accumulated energy suddenly all burst out of it. “Gwaaah?!” A dozen of tentacles suddenly burst out of the eye in all directions, knocking me away, and making the trident clatter on the ground. I landed right next to the edge of one of the pools with an ‘oof’, and immediately heard a splashing sound. I didn’t hesitate, rolled to the side, pushed myself up into a squat, summoned my key sword, and slashed at the swimmer zombie who had just emerged from the pool. I dispatched it before it could do anything. Then I let out a sigh and glanced over at the trident that still had tentacles growing out of the eye. “...So, it turns out, that only feeding it Ether kinda works... But I guess the space-time energy is kinda needed if I want to summon it somewhere else.” It made sense. The Ether was for actually creating the tentacles and the Tempor was needed to create them from afar. Although it was curious that it had still made the tentacles, even though the description had said that they could only be summoned from a liquid surface... hmm. “Well, I guess I just need to figure out how to channel Tempor now.” Which would be difficult, since that was the one energy I had yet to even notice running out, much less sense the flow of, much less finely manipulate. I sighed again and then walked to the trident to retrieve it. I carefully reached around the tentacles and grabbed it again in that sweet spot before frowning and trying to figure out how to dismiss these tentacles. It was easier than I’d thought. With just a slight push, the tentacles dispersed into orange smoke, leaving nothing behind. I nodded and stood up again, the trident in hand. Overall, it had the potential to be pretty useful, depending on how finely I could control these tentacles, but right now, without me being able to summon the tentacles properly... it was kinda mid. Sure, I could use it as a scouting tool, but even when stretching it, the range wasn’t any more impressive than John. And as a weapon? It would just be too awkward to use. “...Anyway! That’s it for today. Time to sleep next to my favorite goo lake!” I exclaimed, put the trident into my backpack, and began walking back to the gate. JamieWasTaken3: hell yeah JamieWasTaken3: chillin with goo lake JamieWasTaken3: skipping wokr was worth it I snorted. “You skipped work to watch me chill at the goo lake, Jamie?” JamieWasTaken3: yea JamieWasTaken3: and cuz im sick but whatevs I rolled my eyes as I passed the gate and continued through the corridor. I continued casually talking with chat, theorizing about how to finally get a feel for Tempor as my headache slowly subsided and I made it all the way to the lake. “Wha... What the...? Oh... I completely forgot about you.” There was a large tree right next to the lake, bearing dozens of familiar pink egg-shaped apple-like fruits.