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SPECIAL BONDING: <span class="mu-g">GOOD!</span>
The nestling doll spider soon lowers herself onto the floor, laying completely flat on it. All of the energy is gone from her; For a brief moment, she's herself now. Being loved by someone.
"It's okay."
"I'm okay." Both of them mutter to each other with faint, comforting whispers.
That's when you move in. You hold the pendant you took and hold it right up towards SPIDER GRANNY. It is snatched from your hands almost instantly by a pair of spindly legs. She holds the pendant up to her face to stare down at the old yellowed picture.
<span class="mu-i">My husband. It. It was all so quiet once he left.</span>
<span class="mu-i">I ran out of tears so, so long ago. So did my children.</span>
<span class="mu-i">They saw the writing on the wall. They left me here, to rot. To decay.</span>
<span class="mu-i">Like a bug in a corpse. I'm just a bug to them. I.</span>
"..." The pendant drops to the ground. With a sickening crack, the nestling doll's neck opens up to reveal what's inside of the anomaly. Someone starts to crawl out of the now open doll and with a SPLAT, something hits the floor.
A woman in a faded green winter coat far, far older than anyone you have ever seen in your life lays in a puddle of dark yellow and orange mucus. Her body is ravaged with mutations; Her arms are sharpened spider legs from the elbow down. Thick layers of chitin cover the left side of her face while the right side of her face has four jet-black eyes scattered on it.
Four more spider legs poke out of her dress, resting loosely at her sides. What little hair she has left is not hair but thick, white webbing. It almost reminds you of Benedict; A half formed abomination of an anomaly and a human.
[SEEKER OF THE CITY] She's too far gone to become fully human again. Her mind is too ravaged by age and disease. She's doomed to become an anomaly again in a few days tops.
You can feel something budding in Quentin's soul as he sees the partially restored human before him. He's not awakening a PARADIGM or anything, no, but it's clear this has changed him. "Thank you." He mutters, both to you and towards the anomaly. Even if it's only short lived,
>QUENTIN gains +1 MAX RESTRAINT and CHARM!
>QUENTIN gains ESPRIT DES ABANDONNÉS!
>LYUBOV has temporarily joined your party! She won't be of much use right now.
[AIMER LES ABANDONNÉS] Even if you have never had true love, even if people abandon and forget you, the bugs will burrow into your heart. Quentin gains +1 to a random stat permanently for every 3 corpses he BIOJACKS. In addition, when first BIOJACKING a fresh corpse corpse, he'll temporarily gain a BOON from said enemy for the duration of said BIOJACKING.
Might be wise to get him a new body; The one he's in is barely holding together. You imagine the moment he leaves this frigid wasteland it'll melt into slop. At least he has some harvested organs from the SPOOKS to improve whatever body he hops into next.
That's when you hear a small army's worth of footsteps approaching your group.
