You decide it's safest for you to find some place where you can hide on you own rather than risking returning to the Clinic or to Ali's home.
The best hiding place you can think of is the Maintenance Tunnels, however this smaller apartment tower you're in is not part of the larger tower the maintenance tunnels are in (at least not at this level, maybe they join together further down). The nearest connection point you can think of is the bridge 2 levels down. If you're lucky, there will be a way to get from this shaft to the other towers somewhere around there. You glide down and search around that area. You find a small passage that might lead towards the right direction. It's barely large enough to contain you, you'd have to crawl and squeeze through it, but it's the only option you can see, besides walking out.
You remove your pack and start crawling through the tunnel, holding your pack with your mouth. It's slow going and even more tiring. You are tempted to give up and fall unconscious right in the middle of it. But the cold air and the faint sound of wind rushing by encourages you to believe that you are going the right way. Through perseverance, you finally manage to make it to where the tunnel joins another, greater tunnel.
You're pretty sure you haven't been here before, but you can tell from the general aesthetic that this is part of the maintenance tunnels. You should be able to make your way from here to the places you've explored before with a bit of trial and error.
You walk for another minute or so until you reach a large room with many exits. You find a perch on some rusty old pipes and immediately collapse, letting go of your hold on consciousness.
...
You dream of tunnels of rock and metal, deep beneath the surface, squeezing through the cramped spaces in your effort to escape. A voice in a language you don't know taunts you: "You can't run forever."
You dream of stalking through dense forests, making your way through the darkness left between the rays of light filtering through the canopy. Your prey is cunning and dangerous, with fire stronger than you've ever seen before, but with your ingenuity you've managed to remain hidden and with your own growing spark you should be able to-
...
The pain wakes you up. It's not the burning you felt yesterday. This is the familiar pain of hunger. You're starving.
Status lost: overfed, inner burning, exhausted
Status gained: hungryYou're not certain what time it is. There's no natural light in here. Must be sometime in the morning, probably late in the morning. You walk back to the tunnel you came from, but when you try to crawl through it you find out you no longer fit through it. You try to inspect yourself but you can't really tell if you've changed in size or in any other way that would explain this. Could it be that you changed so much I'm such a short time without noticing it? Could it be that you were somehow different yesterday and you didn't notice? Maybe you can take a closer look at yourself the next time you find a mirror. Or maybe you can have Eiwhyl give you another exam and compare it with the previous one. But for now your most pressing need is for food and water.
Age: a few months (hatchling)
Size: about the size of a large dog
Status: hungry, blood-soaked
Health: fine
Weapons: claws and teeth
Armor: soft scales
Abilities:
- Short Flight: You can glide in order to survive falls and quickly move great distances. You can even fly upwards for short distances. You can use favorable winds and updrafts to increase your glide time.
- Basic Human Language: You are able to understand many of the most common words of the human language, including some that express more abstract things, though there are still a great many words and expressions that you have yet to learn. You can also read, though it takes you some time to understand the words. You can also speak, though it's sometimes hard for others to understand you.
- Communication: You have a knack for understanding other beings, even those whose language you don't know.
- Basic Nursing: You know the basics of caring for patients and preparing and maintaining equipment used in their care. You can also administer certain simple treatments. However you still lack much of the knowledge necessary for you to be able to determine what said treatment should be.
- Large Sonic Rifle covered by old torn clothes (in Maintenance Tunnels, behind a pipe)
- Pack with plastoid tape modifications (equipped on left side)
- Half-used medpac
- 677 credits (8 orange, 8 blue, 1 red, 3 cyan, 1 pink)
- half-used roll of plastoid tape
- flashlight
- small can of droid oil
- small metal toolbox
- 2 blaster pistols
- 1 knife with button
- 1 datapad
- 2 packs of smoke sticks
- keycard
- Ali's Apartment (Lair): A tiny 2 bedroom apartment. The little human Ali lives there with Dad/Jobal and Mom/Ania. Room 327.
- Ali's Apartment Tower: Apartments arranged in a circle. Clean, bright, mostly locked doors, few hiding places. Little traffic during the night.
- Eiwhyl's Clinic: Sells medpacs and other healing items and provides treatment. Warning: stabby. Room 509.
- Streets: Dirty streets, parked hovercars, shops, building entrances, street vendors, little traffic during the night.
- Maintenance Tunnels: Interconnected tunnels, small and large, going low and high. Connect various streets and buildings. Wires and pipes. Dark, dirty, with old machines constantly rumbling. Scavenger-vermin and hunters-of-vermin.
- Garbage Pit: A large room with mountains of garbage half-submerged in a sea of sludge. More garbage frequently arrives from holes in the ceiling. A monster lurks here, may pull prey underwater.
- Hydroponic Pool: A room with a large pool filled with plants. A ceiling full of bright lamps. A spherical gardener-droid takes care of the plants. Patrolled by hostile gunmen. A corridor leads to other rooms. Storage room. Processing room. Other rooms are unexplored.
- Iyran Grower Shop: A store located deeper into the tower's streets. Operated by a cephalopoid. The grower sells cheap synthetic meat, amongst other things.