Can I just skate out of its mouth, Archive?


    [Well, it is, indeed, right there,] [You can try.]


    Oh.


    Those are–


    hundreds


    They don’t even look like bugs! What are they–


    [Barnacles are arthropods that are ‘sessile’, meaning they lack means of self-locomotion,] thuds[While most barnacles are suspension feeders, some are specialised parasites that survive by extending thread-like stems into their hosts’ bodies, feeding on their hosts’ biomass. Fun fact: the most common predators of barnacles are actually carnivorous sea snails, which you would think unlikely because of how slow snails usually are, but because barnacles are quite literally immobile–]


    What’s so fun about that? Focus, Archive! What the hell are they doing inside the remipede?


    [I believe those barnacles are specialised parasites of the remipede. In return for allowing the barnacles to feed on its biomass, the remipede can spit out the barnacles and attach them to surface ships, keeping the ships ‘pushed back’ and stuck in place until it feels like destroying its prey,] [in addition to having barnacles that can fire spines on anything trying to escape from its mouth, I suppose. They serve as automatic inside turrets for the remipede.]


    Why would the remipede have barnacles inside it for… what? This is ridiculous. What’s the point of evolving such a specific function–


    [It is a common misconception that living beings ‘evolve’ to adapt to certain changes in the environment, when, in fact, it is simply that living beings with certain ‘mutations’ are able to survive certain changes in the environment,] [The remipede controls nothing. It and its ilk were simply born with the mutation to allow for barnacles inside its mouth, and they were the only ones who survived the Worm God and his crusade against giant sea worms. Evidently, these barnacles are quite helpful in helping the remipede digest any still-living prey inside its body—case-in-point, that prey being you.]


    … You’re very good at raising the mood.


    [You asked, but I do apologise–]


    Is there a way past those barnacles, then?


    [The antennae of adult barnacles are ‘vestigial’, meaning they do not function and are only there because they have yet to be erased by natural selection,] [They detect changes in the environment by extending their hyper-sensitive cirri, which are eight pairs of long and wiry hairs they use to filter food—however, as these barnacles feed on the remipede instead, those hairs are probably embedded inside the remipede’s flesh, connecting its senses to theirs. That means–]


    As long as I’m skating on the ground, they can detect me.


    [Precisely.]


    weren’t


    [And if you do not go back out there, there is a one hundred percent chance you will die either way.]


    [What is the Sand-Dancer’s way, Marisol Vellamira?]


    …


    We live our lives on the very edge.


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Yes!


    They don’t see me!


    completely


    shuddered


    … This ain’t fun at all–


    [Down! Find some wreckage and take cover!]


    inside


    O… kay.


    I need… a minute.


    did lot


    [... While remipedes the size of critters may absorb water through their chitin in a process called ‘osmosis’, at its current size, this giant remipede has to periodically open its mouth and hydrate itself manually,] [Considering the barnacles that would appreciate the lubrication of saltwater, the wreckages that constantly need pushing in, and the fact that such massive waves of water could also help to kill off anything that might have survived the initial swallowing… I estimate the giant remipede will rehydrate every thirty minutes or so.]


    Thirty minutes, you say.


    Every thirty minutes, I’ll have to survive that wall of water?


    [...]


    really


    without absolutely


    [... As–]


    If, So it’ll be tough for me to get out through its mouth. Big deal. What about cutting my way through the walls? How’d the Worm God and the Thousand-Tongue kill their giant remipede from the inside?


    [They had firepower in quite the literal sense that you do not currently possess, but they did, in fact, carve their way out by attacking the walls.] [Search the nearby wreckage for any explosives. You may not have dealt any damage to the remipede when it swallowed that first round of explosions, but a second, third, and fourth round on a concentrated spot might just blow out a hole in its walls.]


    Got it.


    everything


    [Please refrain from doing anything that would sap your stamina and Hexichor inefficiently.]


    It’s an option.


    [A terrible one.]


    It’s better than sitting here and doing nothing if I don’t… find anything…


    …


    right