Chapter 80: Setting Trends (Patreon)

Hi! I apologize for being a bit delayed getting this one to you all, I tried to bang out a Petra chapter but hit a wall on that, so I turned my energy on writing about the doppelganger, and also about the eighteenth floor, one I find a bit more personal than the rest, considering how similar it is to some places around here, and it needs more attention. I hope you enjoy, and I feel pretty good about where I want this Petra chapter to go. Thank you so much!

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Change was good, a way of life to a life who could do nothing but change, an unspoken mantra to a being who could only be truly unique by copying everything. The crushing water’s doppelgänger had never followed in the footsteps of another, instead just using the many, many feet and fins and flippers and flailing tentacles it had at its disposal to forge its own path forward. Describing its form was an exercise in futility, but as was the case with a few futile gestures, it was one that would be endlessly enthralling, if grotesque and uncomfortable.

It would be, if it were something that many beings ever got the chance to witness in detail. Aside from the Small Cuddler, the doppelgänger didn’t much care for company. Anything within its surprisingly long reach was little more than a new outfit to it, an outfit that would admittedly fight back sometimes. And the doppelgänger was nothing if not a fashion trendsetter. It was not content to stay still, ever bound to its self-imposed craving for change, and while the comfortably cold and pulverizing embrace of its birth floor would never grow old to it, it very often grew boring.

A feeling that would grow old to it- and indeed quickly did- was the lack of response from the Mind Cuddler. The normal, wonderful feeling of having its entire being so completely and thoroughly embraced had gone missing, leaving the doppelgänger restless. Something was missing, something had happened, but when the twelve-snaked crab crawled its way into the Heartroom, nothing looked different. The Small Cuddler was still there, still cuddling the beautifully flawless and featureless form of the Mind Cuddler, but despite the rich blue glow still overpowering even the lights shone by the corals, it could tell that something about it was inert, and it was saddened.

It clacked its way over to the gem, all nine chitinous drake limbs dragging the squid body forward, but it was sure not to go fast. It could tell that the many, many loud shrimp that lined the walls and ceiling were extra wary today, and even though they rarely shot at it, the doppelgänger wouldn’t push its luck with them; they didn’t even taste all that good. Reaching the base of the limestone pedestal, the budding shapeshifter easily floated upwards, using half a dozen external swim-bladders to make the climb before those very extremities became tendrils lined with suckers. 

It clung to the smooth surface of its leader, using a few claws to tap away at it gently, hoping to rouse it from its torpor. Of course, this did nothing, just as it hadn’t made any difference the last seventeen times it tried it. Dejected, it slithered further up, reaching the slumbering form of the Small Cuddler, and gave her a few taps, wondering if the problem was wholly on it. While her forehead didn’t make the same crystal-clear sounds that the Mind Cuddler made, the Small one still awoke after only a few, looking around blearily and blinking the sleep out of her eyes.

“huh… Oh- oh, hello little one,” She said, ignoring the fact that the doppelgänger was currently twice her size. “Did anything new happen, or are you just upset again?” The now-fuzzy two headed snake could not speak a response, nor could it really emote in any way, but the half-asleep Fae could obviously tell something was bothering it, not that it was a difficult guess, and gently tugged one fuzzy head towards her, wrapping an arm around it and drifting back off to sleep.

The doppelgänger didn’t move for a while, both to not disturb the Small one’s slumber and because it was enjoying the affection itself, even if she was asleep. It kept its shifting to a minimum while it stayed there, not changing either of its heads and making sure its tail never became anything more than a softly carapaced abdomen. However, it couldn’t stay like this forever, even if it wanted to at least a little. In time, it began to grow bored once more, and despite being in what was most certainly the single most important room in existence, there wasn’t a lot to do. 

It extricated itself from the Small Cuddler’s grasp, slowly reducing the size of the head she was snuggling into, allowing it to change to a tail and then be entirely returned to its body, and then it swam off once more. The glow quickly diminished past the threshold of the cuddler room, leaving it once again submerged in preternatural darkness, although it made sure to wear at least a handful of eyes that could see right through it at any time.

The doppelgänger moved forwards, navigating the winding hallways and rooms that made up its proverbial kingdom. It wasn’t even thinking about the changes its body was constantly undergoing as it moved, despite being wholly in control of all of them. It just wanted to break the monotony, somehow, and it could think of no better way to do that than an excursion, and perhaps even some new additions to its wardrobe. It found the tunnel it had been searching for, easily identified both by the light streaming down and the fact that the water was not boiling or anything so drastic. It was certainly warmer than the abyssal chill he called home, but he didn’t even need to make a conscious effort to make the temperature feel bearable, only to make it comfortable.

As it undulated upwards through the tunnel, the light grew stronger, and so its eyes changed to accommodate. Fine sand was spilling down through the entrance, steadily building up until the barren limestone was completely buried underneath the yellow grains, and with a final lunge, the doppelgänger popped up into a mangrove swamp, and was immediately beset upon by a particularly large, and viciously angry tarpon.

The doppelgänger was hardly surprised, despite the fish coming up from behind the amorphous creature had a few eyes on the back of its head for situations just like that, and the serpentine crab that had been the shapeshifter quickly whipped around, snapping out at the two meter torpedo with a tiny drake’s jaws, crushing the skull and very swiftly ending the fish. Soon after, the body began to glow, and motes of light danced away the rapidly desubstantiating form.

The doppelgänger wasn’t done, however, and the solid jaws of the draconic beast rippled and turned black, flowing over the now-corpse and enveloping everything that remained. Much of the flesh had been returned to mana by that point, but there was still more than enough for the doppelgänger to liquefy, before mixing the pulp with the rubbery black flesh of its own true form.

It cut a less than pleasant image, watching the throbbing, bulging ball of flesh warp and wobble, before silvery scales started to cover the surface, and the shape compressed and tightened, becoming recognizably that of the tarpon that died moments earlier. Not exactly the same, though; the doppelgänger had thought it odd that the fish had been covered in still-bleeding wounds as it rushed at it, but wasn’t ultimately concerned as none of those wounds were present, now it was wearing the body. It wasn’t like flesh wounds were ever a problem to begin with, considering flesh could be changed freely and quickly.

The now-tarpon swam away from the sight of its predecessor’s death, adding a few alterations on the fly, but as it did with all new creatures it wore, it’d get a feel for the body for a bit before making any radical changes. While it explored the various internal workings of its current body, it also explored the floor it found itself on. It had been to the mangal floor a few times, but as with everything in the place it called home things were ever changing and it could always find something new and exciting if it explored for long enough.

For example, it was fairly certain that it found the source of some of the former tarpon’s injuries not long after it swam near some of the more densely packed roots of the mangroves. The vine-like wood plunged beneath the waves, making a near impassable wall for anything too large, like the current doppelgänger, and provided shelter to many more nimble critters, something to take advantage of for predators. The doppelgänger hadn’t really cared much when it first saw hints of blue sticking out amongst the soft yellow sediment, but when it ventured closer the splotch turned into a streak, and a sharp spearing arm buried itself up to the joint in the doppelgänger’s flesh.

The currently fish-shaped creature stilled for a moment, contemplating its next action. The crustacean took this as an invitation and jerked its arm back, failing to so much as budge the much larger fish, then launched the other in the same fashion to punch a similar hole into the doppelgänger’s underbelly, but this time the shifter reacted. With a subtle ripple, scale and flesh both distended downward, and a crude, mouselike hand rapidly sprung into existence and gripped the head of the shrimp’s shell. The chimeric creation was surprised to find that it hadn’t even cracked under the force of its grip.

Of course, that meant that it hadn’t gripped hard enough, and it completely ignored the now desperate and rapid strikes of the mantis shrimp to shift the musculature of its stomach-hand. It became bulkier and denser and much more reptilian looking, beneath the soft features and softer fur. As soon as it felt the rigid sapphire carapace give way, the its grip loosened, and the hand warped altogether as a thin ribbon of black flesh extended from the palm, through the crack, and into the shrimp’s body.

With a disturbingly loud noise, the rest of the tarpon followed suit, color draining until the shapeless blob returned once more and forced its way through the tiny crack. Despite being comically larger than the crustacean, the doppelgänger managed to disappear entirely within it with little more evidence than a widening crack and a wildly flailing shrimp. It didn’t take long for the struggles to die down though, before a faint light drifted out of the now hollowed shell and disappeared.

A moment passed, and then the husk split open entirely, rapidly dissolving as an identical shrimp skittered out of the nest it had once lived in. It cared little about the second individual in the hole, it seemed inferior to the specimen it had just put on and while additional members of a species were always nice, they weren’t exactly needed. The doppelgänger was, however, quite pleased with the new form. At a glance, it seemed quite similar to the very loud shrimp, but this was quiet and very sharp. 

Both had very specialized arms, but both were also very different in what they were specialized for, and the doppelgänger was quite interested in adapting the way they launched their claws to other forms, something that seemed more feasible than doing the same with the rifle shrimp. That could easily come later, though, when it had returned to its domain. For now, it would continue shopping around, hoping to find some other additions to its collection that- just maybe- were comparable to the shrimp.

It wandered about for a bit, realizing that it wasn’t moving very fast but not minding a whole lot as it familiarized itself with its temporary body. Before long, though, it had finished acclimating, and what was a mostly ordinary looking creature suddenly rippled and changed. There was little rhyme and less reason to the changes, it was mostly cycling through its expansive selection of ensembles, mixing and matching as it saw fit. As usual, a large portion of its idle experiments were influenced by some of the more notable, powerful, or unusual pieces in its repertoire, but that could mean anything from a drake wandering around with large compound eyes and a snake in place of the tail, to simply a white-furred crab. 

Unfortunately, after the first shrimp, it hadn’t stumbled onto many more, but it did gather up a few of those just to have a more thorough idea of the species’ inner workings. As it was considering turning around and considering the whole excursion a bust, something new happened. Over the course of its wanderings, it had entered an area where the water was consistently shallower, and more than a single type of mangrove appeared. Now, alongside the towering, stiltlike roots, there were some sections of tree where the roots instead speared upwards from the sand and peaked above the water’s surface. 

It was in this area that the doppelgänger learned a new, and very interesting lesson: plants could be more than just scenery. One of the original type of roots suddenly dislodged itself from the sand and whipped right towards the doppelgänger. Currently shaped like the nightmarish spawn of a barracuda and a bobbit worm, it was more than nimble enough to twist around and away from the unexpected attack. The impact did kick up a small cloud of sand, but the doppelgänger could see right through it with ease and struck out with a counterattack.

That’s when the creature learned its second lesson: plants that fight don’t fight like animals. The impossibly sharp teeth of the barracuda cut through the bark like it was merely seaweed, but there was no blood, no sign at all that it did anything besides a few notches gouged into the roots. It changed rapidly, and just as rapidly found that very little would help. The plant was unaffected by the venom it could pump out when it used a snake to bite the thing, and it couldn’t well shear the roots clean. Sure, as a drake it was plenty strong and could rip into the roots, but it soon realized that the entire area was full of the predatory mangroves and they were growing steadily more active.

It hadn’t taken too much damage, being generally faster than the roots could stab, and it healed up fast, but the few hits it had taken were unusual. The tips of the roots were sharpened, and would bury deeply into flesh, which was interesting enough, but then the doppelgänger felt a large volume of liquid pump out into its body from the roots, and it quickly realized it to be saltwater, very, very salty water. The doppelgänger wasn’t overly impressed by this, and just forced its flesh to push the water back out since it was a bit itchy inside it. It did decide to retreat, though, it knew when it was fighting a losing battle and this was one such time.

It learned one last unfortunate lesson, too, that it couldn’t copy any plants. It hadn’t ever tried in earnest before, since moss and algae and seaweed seemed terribly disinteresting to wear, but the mangroves could’ve made a fine addition to its arsenal and it was a bit sad that it couldn’t don them. Ultimately, though, it wouldn’t be too incredible. Numbers and sheer area covered seemed much more important than any individual factor, and it was already plenty fine as it was. 

Satisfied with its results from this expedition, the doppelgänger moved back towards the entrance, having memorized the route. It hadn’t gotten too many new outfits, a shame considering it wanted to always be on the cutting edge of innovation, but what it did get was quite interesting and it was eager to play around more. It could hold off on that for a short while, though. First it needed to make its way back to the cuddler room.

Perhaps it would have better luck in waking up the Mind Cuddler on attempt number eighteen.