Chapter 54 - A Curious Girl

Erik was inspecting the 3D models made in his laptop using a mental helmet interface for editing, he had designed a new underwater suit and added suggestions from Rose of spaces to leave for technology he didn't completely understand, the final suit would use up a lot of high-end alloys but would allow him to go deep without increasing the internal pressure too much to compensate avoiding the worst of narcosis, it could also be filled with compressed air to go deeper, adding Neon(Ne) gas that is way safer than nitrogen, also the problem that below 55 meters (181~ feet) Oxygen starts to become toxic if under pressure, the suit would also help with that, as it would be impossible to swim at those dephts until he stopped breathing air, there had been experiments to breathe oxygenated liquids in the past and it had worked, but breathing air also eliminates Co2 while breathing liquid doesn't, there's also the awful feeling of filling your lungs with liquid and then coughing it out once you go out, he shuddered just imagining it.

( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_breathing )

He touched his neck, there was a valve there now, he would be able to run his blood through the gills system when underwater while inside the suit and also breathe the air inside the suit, the gills would also eliminate the CO2 so with a good water flow he should see his need to breathe highly diminished.

(https://images.app.goo.gl/4Eps75C2mqRN3aSt5)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EN5gHKyUEAASEWU.jpg kinda like this but in black and blue energy lines and artificial muscle)

He would be slow though but that shouldn't be much of a problem inside underwater caves, he would also take mining equipment, there's no way he would crawl through narrow corridors with that suit, even if he could he wouldn't do it anyways, getting stuck in a narrow place underwater would be an awful way to die and also stupid. He made a simple air pressure hammer, it was connected to the electricity in his suit, and would turn seawater inside a deposit into hydrogen and oxygen, that would create air pressure used to use the hammer, also called an air hammer or pneumatic chisel, with that he would be able to make way.

As for the descent cabin, it was shaped like a bell and made of thick carbon steel covered in brass as it would be a huge waste of titanium and alloys otherwise, he then would cover it with stones and gravel and algae for camouflage, and some hidden cameras and screens inside to see the surroundings, and then a hatch at the bottom to go out once it reached its destination, he also didn't know how deep they would need to go... it was really frustrating.

He had also made sure the octopeople used drones to patrol the perimeter from inside the city in a control room, as who knew what all that blood could end up attracting, it was better to be safe.

--- 1 week earlier ---

Meanwhile, while everything was going on on the surface, a crab girl was climbing a cliff and currently resting on a ledge on the cliff while eating some mussels, her tribe were weaker than other tribes and only had 2 arms instead of 4 so they didnt have claws and instead had arms, they had only 60% covered by exoesqueleton only also, they were more intelligent than other tribes but that didnt help much, according to the elders in her tribe their tribe had been the leader during the great war against the evil multiarm people that were limiting their their food sources, everything evil or bad happening during those times was their fault, if the neighbours chief daughter got pregnant then someone would say the multiarm people forced them, it sounded ridiculous to her actually, if they were that powerful how did they even win in the first place?, it was also said her ancestors ate their royalty alive and many others, their descendants then gained wishdom and these forms, and then lead the crab people to take over the city, but then the great calamity arrived, the vlood attracted enormous beasts that forced the crab people back to the tunnels. Thanks to the war the population had declined sharply so there wasn't a lack of food for some time, but the old ways die hard, and the blessing turned into a curse when the strongest revealed against the rule of the wisest and forced her tribe to run to remote caves. They had been found though and that lead to a carnage as the full-on crab people might be stupid but were much stronger.

Her mother was the tribal chiefs' wife, and that had apparently lead to lots of fighting against the meathead crabs and the victor of the fight to the death had kept her as a slave, she had given him lots of descendants while being imprisoned, most of her siblings had looked more like her father, she, on the other hand, looked way more like her mother so her father didn't like her and had almost eaten her once, her mother also didn't like her, all leading to the situation right now.

No one in her tribe of meatheads cared about her and only the elder slaves talked to her as they were kept encaged for consultation, too old to ravage or produce descendants, she had run away from the tribe lots of times to scavenge for food, it was really easy as the guards weren't even awake most of the time, they only grew excited when going to war.

On the other hand, she had always been curious and liked exploring, she remembers carrying lots of colorful shells to her mother to cheer her up when she was younger only to be slapped away and beaten up by her, she never got close to her after that... . Finished reminiscing and with her stomach full of mussels and other filtering beings stuck to the cliff, she stretched her arms and 6 legs and continued climbing, she had to stop from time to time though as ascending too much made her tired and a bit dizzy. She didn't know what she would find up there, but it made her excited just thinking about it! the unknown! new things! adventure! she climbed faster just thinking about it.

--- 1 week later ---

She could see it! the could finally see the top! it had been really tiring all this time and she was hungry and tired, her small meals not really filling her completely with so much exercise, when she was about to look for food though she smelled blood in the water, lots of blood and thought 'food!' excitedly, running quickly to the location, it took her hours with her tired small legs but she finally arrived and could see an enormous building in the distance, as she was getting closer though she saw a metallic sphere floating around and tried touching it as it turned and looked at her, remaining still.

Meanwhile, in the control room inside the octopeople city, a warrior monitoring a drone had seen something horrifying, it looked different from the stories but it was definitely a crab demon.

Warrior: " INFORM THE ELDERS! A CRAB DEMON WAS FOUND!"

chaos quickly descended as weapons were distributed and troops dispatched to the location.

Back inside the base, Erik was also informed by a frantic Inky and some pale-looking scouts.

Inky: "Erik, the demons are here! what do we do?" she was getting scared.

Erik remained calm though.

Erik: "how many are they?"

Inky: " just a small one"

Erik: "that's it?"

Inky: "it could be a scout leading their army!"

Erik: " okay, let's capture it and interrogate it then, we will find out what it does and doesn't know"

Meanwhile, the crab girl was playing with the drone without knowing the chaos she had just caused, she loved shiny things and the shiny parts of the drone looked cool to her.

Suddenly from all around her, she could hear sounds, and hundreds of octopeople surrounded her, with 4 big ones that looked enraged at her face,

(as her face looked like theirs instead of like other crab people, and that meant the death of other octopeople), then an armoured one walking on just 2 legs came in front of her, pointed something at her and it launched something that struck her neck, she was scared but before she could react she felt really tired and sleepy... she didn't know why but she fell asleep.

Erik stood there looking at the crab girl he had just sedated, it looked awfully similar to the octopeople and he knew the cruelty of what that meant on this world, the only differences were the partial exoskeleton and 6 crab legs with open joints, with a lobster-like tail with a soft underbelly, she was a strange mix and was both and neither at the same time. As he looked around he saw enraged faces all around, apparently, they had all come to the same conclusion as him, it would be tough to convince them not to just kill her, he could only sigh as he grabbed the girl carried her personally back to base to interrogate her, he just couldn't trust an octoperson to do this task calmly.