Celia couldn’t sleep after that. Even though the rising light of the sun stung her eyes, and all the noise made her want to vomit, she just couldn’t sleep. And how could she, after seeing that? A way home. It almost seemed to good to be true. Doubly so because it was, as far as she could tell, just a dream. A very clear and vivid dream with a portal at the bottom of what she assumed to be the ocean.
But there was also the chance that it wasn’t just a dream. That was the part that had her hung up. Face contorted with thought as she paced back and forth trying to decide on what she should do. A decision only made harder when she realized she had no idea where her dream ocean may even be. Setting out in search of it could just end with her going a pointless goose chase with nothing to show for it.
But on the other hand…
If she did find it, and then found a way down to her maybe real portal, she’d be home. And the hope that hit her from just thinking about it was like a drug. One that she took another hit of, if only because she couldn’t help it.
Besides, it wasn’t like she had all that much to lose other than her life. Which was gonna be at risk either way. For all she knew some big bad monster already had her in its sights right now and was just waiting to ambush her. Which was a deeply uncomfortable thought as she realized that was probably actually the case.
A thought that somehow led into her realizing that the screens that kept popping into her vision - and whatever sent them - had called her a glutton.
She wished she could take offense at that. But just one look at her body was enough to dispel the notion that it was wrong. As, in hardly less than a week at most, her weight had practically doubled. Thighs grown thick, her hips supersized, and her butt double stuffed. Not to mention her slow growing belly. She had a build that could actually fill a chair now. And somehow that was doing nothing at all to curb her rampant appetite, if anything she was just growing dull to the past standards she had once held herself too.
Not that they had been strict standards, anyhow.
Not strict enough to stop her from going out on a "leisurely" stroll and making breakfast out of the half a dozen small critters she could get her hands on. And by small, she meant relative to this wacky dimension where everything was a monster. Probably even the trees.
But after getting her fill, Celia waited for sunset before making her next move. Which was getting herself another bite to eat, followed shortly after by a mock up plan to find the ocean. Which she figured would be best down from somewhere up really high. To get a good vantage point to see from and all that.
She might even find a river on the way which would handle roughly half of her navigation problems for her. If it led to the ocean, that is.
Unfortunately, for Celia, she saw no mountain or river around. There was mostly uneven plain, a few patches of forest here and there, and lots of bloodshed. Which quickly threw her original plan in the garbage.
Up until she realized that most life needed water to drink from. A rule that she figured, at some point, would catch up with her. As she hasn’t had anything to drink in… days.
She tried not to think about that. Choosing instead to believe - rather than the uncomfortable alternative - that things out here in the beyond still needed water, just a lot less of it. So, by that logic, there should still be a local water source. It just wouldn’t be as close as she would probably like it to be.
And she could work with that.
Just after one last snack.
Except it wasn’t just one, and by the time Celia finished she had gained another Modification slot.
Modification(s) slot gained!
Slots open: 5
After that it was off to her search. A trek that took her over the plains, past areas that looked like semi-active war zones, and beyond the hills.
There was a lot of things she saw in those few short hours.
Eels that danced in mesmerizing patterns up in the sky above. Boulders that metamorphosed into humanoid like warriors, turning whatever poor creatures they happened upon into unwilling clubs. A cloud that had lightning falling out of it like rain, as well as acid. Its terrifying downpour absolutely destroying the land beneath it. And somehow, it wasn’t the craziest thing she saw.
No, that title fell to the lake itself. If the giant cube of water that had several titans drinking out of it could be called a lake in the first place.
Celia felt, considering the apparent nature of this place, that it probably still counted. Though that did nothing to help her understand the why if it all. Gravity still seemed to work here like it did on Argluz, which meant that the water should’ve been pooled up on the ground. Like a lake. But, and with blatant disrespect to pretty much everything she knew about physics, it wasn’t. And instead stood in the form of a cube, the waters trapped within otherwise behaving perfectly normal other than that.
Though, she guessed that wasn’t really all that important. She just needed to see if there was a river connected to it, which there wasn’t. A disappointment for sure. But this still wasn’t a total loss, as the sight of collection of giants drinking from the cube confirmed her earlier theory that life here still needed water.
Just not as often, she guessed. But they still needed it all the same. So rather than waiting till her body told her that she needed it, Celia decided to get some now. As soon as the titans here were done.
Titans that she couldn’t help but admire as she waited. Their forms ranging from that of a giant serpent with three heads, only one of which being snake like in appearance, while the other two bore a closer resemblance to that of a goat and a lion. All the way to a gigantic spider like thing with that stood on two legs, had a head that looked like a beehive, and six horrifying black hands. It was also a little hairy.
And somehow those two were the most normal looking of the bunch. While the strangest of them all was a thing shaped like a, well a shape that hurt both to look at and describe. Like parts of it were existing in places she shouldn’t be able to see and were connected to a giant central disc through a weave of red and yellow white strings.
Celia was also pretty sure that it was aware of her presence as well. They likely all were, actually, but there seemed to be some sort of peace agreement between them all as they drank. An agreement that seemingly extended to her as well.
She still waited though. Watching as they all eventually left one by one. Their movements as they fled, flew, or even straight up vanished in one case, shaking the ground beneath her feet. Like a series of impossible living earthquakes. But earthquake or no, they had left and Celia was finally free to head down and get a drink of her own.
Which she did with some manner of hesitance. Slowly approaching the giant cube and studying it a moment. Her short lived analysis of it from up close, however, yielded her no new information. The cube was, despite all its strangeness, made out of water. Plain and simple.
She only thought to question whether it was clean or not after she tried putting some in her mouth. Doing so via cupping up some of the water with her hands and drinking out of them like a poorly made bowl. It was suboptimal, got her wet, and felt like it took far too much effort to get even a little bit of water in her mouth. But she kept doing it till her arms got tired, if for no other reason than she couldn’t think of a better way to drink from the cube.
Up until she stuck her head in the water and started inhaling it that way. The act more of instinct driven one than rational thought. But it was working. Celia was sucking up water like a natural. Drinking deep of its refreshing bounty.
Things took a stark turn, however, when she tried to pull her head out of the water and found that she simply couldn’t. No amount of effort or force on her part seemed to help. She even tried whipping at the water with her shoulder tentacle in a bid to displace some. But that worked just as well as trying to back up did. Which was to say not at all.
And as her attempts grew more frantic and frenzied in nature. The water began to move. The cube collapsing in on itself, all the tides flowing around a central point. Where there lay a small round orb. An orb that had a singular red eye that briefly turned towards her before the entire water made structure began to lift off the ground. Dragging her fully inside with it as it did so.
Celia passed out right as it ascended above the clouds.