After some experiments involving burnt corpses, I took out organs from the corpses laying strewn about on the ground and stored them in my inventory while re exploring the prisoner's quarters.
Thankfully I didn't need to take the corpses from the once risen undead as Guillian had stated that they were modified by the malaise making them hard to use.
Elites and bosses were another thing entirely though.
Stepping into the hallway, I changed my head of a human being back into that of a living flame with only one eye ball, cutting of the stench surging towards my nostrils and observed the area around me.
For better or for worse, it was the same old confined space filled to the brim with the scent of death as undead roamed about.
I say better only because someone had stated offhandedly that time and space was twisted slightly, making it a not so low chance of things changing strangely.
Worse mostly because I felt extremely uncomfortable with my head turning into a living flame, something about not having a head just sat wrong with me.
I have come to terms with my situation now however thanks to witnessing the sight of a woman's entire lower body becoming a snake.
Touching the back of my flame head, heat transmitted through its flames tickled my fingers as a soft resistance stopped me from pushing further in.
It was as if there was an actual skull underneath that flaming head of mine.
It was hella weird.
Thinking that, one thing led to another and now I was here in front of the stupidly tall wall that seemed to spit at ergonomics and all that they have worked for.
No normal human being would be able to climb these ridiculously smooth walls.
'Seriously, it's like all the management costs being embezzled in prison's went into building this smooth wall.'
Sure I was speaking out of my ass here since I knew absolutely zero things about prisons, but I'm pretty sure an apocalyptic scenario where undead roamed the prison wouldn't have occurred if the overseer didn't embezzle funds to build this ridiculously smooth walls.
But I digress.
'But how am I going to get up there?'
Tapping the wall, I felt the smoothness that bordered on disbelief rub against my fingers.
Even when I scratched the wall with one of the twin daggers, the only that was left was a thin mark that wouldn't be of any help when wall climbing.
'Maybe if I... No that wouldn't work' Shaking my head, I assessed different forms of climbing these walls.
Jumping up once or twice didn't help things in the slightest as I could barely reach the ledge, I'm sure I could reach the top given some more leverage, but there's just so much stability a corpse could offer.
It didn't help that I couldn't perform jumps consecutively as I struggled with placing gathering enough mana into my legs to perform a triple jump.
It also didn't help I slammed my face into the wall due to how fast I flew through the air.
'Maybe I could try it if there was more space but the prisoner's quarters aren't it.' Glancing around the confined space narrow enough that only three men could walk shoulder to shoulder, I glanced at my legs.
Sure I could still try it with these knockoff jet propulsion systems, but last I checked, they were still in their infantile stage.
'I'd rather not have my neck broken again.'
Thankfully the aftereffects of having a broken neck didn't travel with me even after death so I had nothing to worry about there.
'That reminds me somewhat.'
Looking at my hands, I still wore the blue cloak over my body, allowing me to roll up the sleeves to take a gander at the tattoos on my skin.
'Can I...?'
Flames leaving my hands, I faced my palms downwards as flames slowly but surely began to blast out of the palm of my hands.
Slowly at first, then faster, and faster, and faster.
All the way to the point that I was slowly feeling myself lift off the ground.
'Oh. My. GooOODDD!!!"
Screaming in surprise, my body performed several flips in the air as my body lifted straight up the giant incline, slamming my back against the ground as the flames coating my legs and arms disappeared.
"Ugh..."
Groaning in pain, my head tilted to the side allowing me to take a glimpse at the green door with stairs heading downwards causing my non existent inner architect to die a little.
'If your going to make stairs go down, why the hell did you make this doorway inaccessible from here?'
Slowly trying to get up, my arms pushed up off the ground allowing me the freedom for air to leave my lungs
The air leaving my lungs sounded suspiciously like groans of pain however.
It seemed that this flaming head of mine was able to filter what came out of my lungs.
"Bloody hell..." Feeling my aching back, I noted that anything related to flight should now be conducted in an area with lots of space and no walls to bounce my flying body around.
In hindsight that should've been obvious, but the man of iron performed well enough didn't he?
'Now that I think about it, didn't he crash through his mansion several times?'
Feeling the ache in my back fade somewhat, I glanced over the edge of the precipice and looked for anything I may have dropped during the chaos of flight.
And lo and behold, one of the twin daggers was laying against a stubby green thing on the ground.
I blinked.
Turning my gaze to the stubby little green thing, I noticed that my twin dagger wasn't just laying against it, it was embedded into it.
'...'
Hoping that my intuition was wrong, the burnt vine rune on my hands activated causing the green stubby thing to bring the handle of the twin dagger where I could easily grab it.
Forming black lines on its surface, although it had a strange appearance, I could tell despite all of my desperate attempts to deny it
'...I feel stupid now.'
This green stubby thing was a bundle of vines that could've extended the entire length of the wall.
Something that could've saved me a lot of time and pain.
'...Bloody hell.'
Snatching the twin dagger from the green stubby long thing, I stuffed it into the inventory and got up from the ground in a huff.
Rubbing my still aching back, I turned to the glowing green door with stairs heading downwards and walked towards the door-
-And suddenly changed my pathing to the left for a room filled to the brim with skulls, a series of broken weapons were stuffed into the bone pile.
'A stack of bones... if that isn't ominous then I don't know what is.'
Curiously observing the room filled to the brim with skulls,my eyes were dragged to a table of the person who seemed to live here.
'A sick freak if they made a hobby out of this.'
But then again, they may have been driven to madness by the Malaise.
Madness always manifested differently from person to person.
'Another book...' I briefly flipped through the pages 'A diary by the looks of it.'
Placing it into my inventory with the rest of the books which I would read later in my free time, a particular bone set in the middle of the skill pile caught my eye.
Pushing away the broken weapons and skulls that crumbled into dust after the briefest touch, all that was left were fragmented weapons and the same bone that caught my eye.
"Well don't you just scream special?"
Picking up the bone, it additionally had a leather binding around its base that allowed me to grip it nicely.
Swinging it a few times, it seemed to hold well as a weapon, whistling through the air.
It seemed to be a nice replacement for a blunt force weapon until I get something better.
'Now that I've finished going on that little tangent...'
Placing the bone into my inventory only to be used when the time comes (Which may be never) I made my way to the green door that annoyed me to no end.
'Seriously, why are there stairs heading downwards when it took my so long to get up here?'
Disgruntled, I nevertheless entered the green door, a visible green haze making itself known as I descended into the depths.\
---
"Greetings once again Slade...I see you have been busy..."
+++
Dead Cells has a surprising amount of references to other games
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