"Day 2032: Vocal-Log entry. Finally! FINALLY SOMEONE CAME TO VISIT ME! IT HAS BEEN OVER 5 YEARS! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YEAR MEANS, WHY IS IT 365 DAYS LONG? I have been trapped here too long to remember if I even knew what it was. But today. TODAY! Somebody landed on my world, he came from the stars with a big metal box." In the darkness in a small cave system below a crater, something, or somebody was sitting. It looked human, but it wasn't exactly human.
Her ears had gotten used to the constant noise of dripping waters and the winds blowing through the caves she resided in. She scratched with her long and sharp nails something into the ground. It looked like—
"The code of the universe." She muttered, then giggled, "Finally a visitor!"
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The Teddy Emperor had built an almost 2 metre thick wall around the crater, about 15 metres away from the edge. It was about 5 metres high and had a walkway made from wood he took from the lower floors of his citadel.
He had changed his clothes and was patrolling the walkway. It looked like the top of a mediaeval wall and thus, he was wearing a mediaeval suit. Made in likeness off the clothes nobles used to wear in fantasy books he used to read, before he woke up on the citadel on the first day. Of course it was imperfect.
"Anything emerging from the horizon?" He asked one of the knights( Teddys) stationed on the wall. He had a painted-on wound covering his eye and a small eyepatch above that, barely covering it, even though he had a real wound on the same eye he just painted over to look like skin before using his makeup for the fake one.
"Nothing, general!" Teddy said with a stern voice. She was saluting to him while he glanced at her before walking off.
"What a peaceful day." He thought. His small heels were clicking and clacking on the wooden boards beneath his feet. He looked down to his feet, stopping for a moment, "Hope they don't break beneath my feet, they were built by Teddys, so they probably didn't consider human weight…" His gaze landed between the wooden boards into the darkness.
There was a 1 metre wide gap between the wall, or 2 walls? It was filled with spikes, meat destroying acids and( for some reason I do not really understand) his piss.
His nose holes got smaller and he frowned as he smelled the faint odor of human urine which hung in the air. "Why?" He whispered to himself.
After a multitude of minutes patrolling the walls he finally climbed down the ladder on the east end of the wall. How did he determine which side was east? Based on how he landed, the exit of his ship obviously pointed north.
He made his way through the barracks he had built around the crater, not inside the crater. Ignoring the barracks, he went towards the edge of the territory he conquered, as he called it.
He slowly approached a building filled with dim lights and loud shouting and partying. He had built a small medieval tavern. In front of the door slept a few drunk people, or not people, self-made human puppets.
Lukas entered the tavern, it quieted down for a short moment as everybody's eyes locked on to him but they quickly dismissed him again and continued to fight and drink and party. He did not care for the attention, or lack thereof. His gaze did not shift from the bar in the tavern since he had entered and he quickly hurried over and sat down.
On his way over to the tavern he had taken off his military uniform and dawned a more humble set of clothes.
His gaze was lowered towards his lap and a hood was covering most of his face. Lifting his arm he ordered a drink: "Half a jug of mead, thank you." The bartender nodded once and turned away. Lukas' quickly glanced around, making sure nobody was listening. "And a warm coaster." He said a little quieter than before.
After a moment of hesitation, the bartender sat down a half-jug of mead and below it a big folder filled with documents: "Your jug of mead and the coaster."
Lukas took a big gulp of mead and set down the jug again, a bit of foam flowing down his chin. "That's the good stuff." He said loudly and the people in the tavern were all with him on that. Hand over his mouth he cleaned off the foam and shook his hands dry.
His now dry hands picked up the folder and took out the documents inside. "Hm…" In his hands he quickly looked through the documents. With every line he read his eyes became narrower and he read faster.
"The initial scans were wrong! There is already a creature on this planet?" He whispered. His eyes had that glow one could only see in those who are adventurous, ready to explore the unknown while risking their lives. He started giggling before it turned into a maniacal laugh. He stormed out the tavern, dropping his jug of mead to the ground, shattering it and taking the documents back to the citadel.
Lukas quickly climbed over the walls he had built and stormed down the crater, entering the citadel and going all the way up to the bridge.
He threw the stack of documents towards a certain plushie, it was the Teddy who was responsible for scanning the planet before they had landed: "Due to your mistake, we just invaded a planet which already has life on it."
"Sir!" The Teddy exclaimed, frightened, "Are you sure the life on the new scan isn't you?" She was trembling slightly while he approached her.
He squinted his eyes at her angrily: "Read the document."
The Teddy slowly got up and bent down to the floor, picking up the documents he had thrown at her. Her hands quickly sorted through the documents, getting them into order before starting to read the texts. "Two lifeforms were found on the planet during the scan. One in the citadel— obviously you, your majesty— and another one deep in a cavern… I apologize!" She hurriedly bowed before her eternal Emperor and God, "Please forgive my mistake."
He snatched the documents back from her tiny hands. "Scan again and send me the coordinates," He turned away from her, "You! Assemble a unit to come with me, heavily armed. You all have an hour."
Lukas, throwing his cape in a dramatic way, exited the bridge and entered the elevator.
"I looked so freaking cool right now." He muttered in the elevator as it continued its descent down onto the main floor.
⟪⚪⟫
The female creature was crawling towards the crater in which the Teddy Emperor had landed. She dragged her long fingers across the ground as well as her long hair which was longer than she was tall.
"A friend… Finally a friend!" She sang. Her dragging and dirty hair was drawing symbols on the ground which, in seconds, started to glow and the ground behind her was moving weirdly and the symbols disappeared.
She hopped from side to side then danced a few steps and repeated that process over and over, even clapping from time to time. She was ecstatic.
Behind her the sun was setting as she saw the small city he had built climb over the horizon. "Hihihi!"
After the sun had disappeared fully and night had set in, she set foot into the territory of the Teddy Emperor. Her gaze was quickly scanning everything he had built, the taverns and the shops, the weaponries and the homes.
Seeing the town spring to life the moment she got close to the dummies lying around everywhere was fascinating, she had never before seen anything move that way before. The dummies were machines built by the Teddy Emperor to emulate real people.
She touched one of them as it sprang to life. She did not see it the same way the clones and copies saw them, she was able to switch between their type of sight and looking at the code which controlled them. She had not turned off that type of sight, which was why she did not notice how out-of-place she looked in the city.
She did not have clothes covering any of her low-poly body. Her body, even though she was crawling, was 140 centimetres tall. If she would walk upright, she would be around 2 metres tall.
⟪⚪⟫
The rescue squad entered the factory corridors of the lower floors. The area was filled with dead, not a single undead remained standing. Some were still alive, crawling slowly if they had arms, some just wriggled around aimlessly on the ground.
A24's crew had the rest of the team and H49 surrounded— weapons pointed outwards— because they knew their way around the lower floors better than the rest of the team.
The sole Lukas who had gone down with them was running around and killing the remaining undead crawling on the floor. "YES! DIE, DIE, DIEEE!" He screamed with intense pleasure feeling the bones and flesh being crushed beneath his feet. His shoes and socks were drenched in their blood. "Hehehe!"
"How deep is the factory?" One of them asked.
Another one glanced at him before answering: "If the amount of undead does not increase, we should be at the deepest part within about two days." It was one of A24's crew, "Why do we even call them undead, why not zombies?"
"Probably because they are still alive and not reanimated corpses. Plus, it just feels wrong for some reason… I wonder why."
The group entered another room, before them a giant transparent and glowing wall separating the room into the parts. It was a shield, the shield A24 had created. In front of it, facing away from the squad, was laying a hound. It was chewing on something.
"LINA!" They shouted and started shooting their weapons, no hesitation by H49 and A24's crew. The new teammates got scared, dropping their weapons before starting to shoot at the hound.
For over a minute they did not stop shooting. Every few seconds they took a step towards the hound. It had no time to react and there were too many people shooting at once for it to survive the first 5 seconds.
They crept towards the hounds' carcass, its flesh smoking. "Is it… dead?" Someone asked. Its flesh started to shift as they came closer, pulling at the object it was chewing when alive. The flesh entered into the object and grew out from it. It was—
"—A leg?" Someone muttered.
H49 crept closer as the hound regrew a new body from the leg it chewed on earlier. He recognized the armor around it: "That is A24's leg." Quiet consumed the room, "I think… at least."
Due to the shock which they felt at the announcement they just stood there and looked at each other, ignoring the undead regenerating.
"Is he dead?"
"No, I don't think so. It looks like it was cut off by the shield grenade extending." Someone from A24's crew said, "And, since we don't see him behind the shield, he must have gotten up and continued his way deeper into the factory." He and the rest of A24's crew took a few steps back, in order to have their faces hidden from H49 and the new teammates. They looked at each other, nodding.
Hearing someone shoot, the new teammates started shooting at the regenerating corpse. But while the corpse was once more blown to pieces the new teammates started screaming in pain and falling over, dead.
H49 bolted to the exit of the room the moment the first person dropped dead. "Shit!" He said while leaving. A few shots flew past him and some hit his gun which was protecting his back, destroying it.
Once only A24's crew was left, they walked up to the shield. "There is a puddle of blood, but since it did not leave a trail, A24 must have patched up his wound and left the room."
"Activate the suits." He said and his armor extended to cover his whole body before it started glowing the same color as the shield. The crew stepped through the shield, guns ready and pointed forward.