Koty dared to venture deeper into the cave, entranced by the elaborate illuminated carvings. He caught recognizable images in the marks; humanoid shapes, trees and plants, four-legged beasts with sharp teeth. He made sure to capture as much as he could with his video recorder until he emerged from the corridor to a wide circular room. The domed ceiling's glowing markings had faded but still showed the image of a great bird, beams of light emerging from its claws and its single brightly lit eye casting a spotlight on a great stone plinth in the center of the room.
Eyes wide, his tail wagging furiously with excitement, Koty drew closer to the plinth, seeing a box like obsidian glass resting on its surface. He placed a hand on the lid; warm to the touch, like it had been sitting in the sun. He felt like that explorer in that old human movie his friend showed him the one time as he ran his claws along the edge and, finding the lid, dared to open the box and peek inside.
Koty was bathed in an ethereal white glow as he looked and saw a magnificent orb, perfectly spherical and emitting the most beautiful light he'd ever seen. Heart racing, he dropped the lid at his side and reached out to take it. Light as a feather, like he was holding a brilliantly bright cloud in his hands.
"It's...beautiful!" he whispered, the noise automatically activating his comm system.
"What is?" Eva asked urgently, plugging into Koty's field cameras and gasping as she saw the glowing orb in his hands. "Koty, put that back! NOW!"
A chill ran down the Felid's spine, but his arms didn't seem to want to respond. He felt a strange prickling sensation all over his skin, and his heart seemed to beat faster with each pained breath. And yet he couldn't keep the broad grin off his face as he felt something powerful and energized pulse through every inch of him.
"This feels...wonderful!" Koty wheezed. "I feel like...I'm gonna..." His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell hard on his back, the orb nestling comfortably next to his thigh, his last thoughts being Eva's panicked shouting through the headset.
---
Koty twitched and jerked around in the comfortable hospital bed, blearily opening his eyes. He spotted something bright green in the mist in front of him that let out a piercing shriek and suddenly grabbed him around the neck.
"Aach!" he choked. "E-eva?"
"Kody, you're alive!" Eva wailed, tears of joy streaking down her face. "You big dumb idiot, you could have gotten yourself killed!" Pulling the half-asleep Koty into a hug, she mumbled something intelligible into his sleeve as Koty looked around, recognizing the hospital at the scout command center, the spindly-legged robot medical tech looming over Eva's shoulder like a crane.
"I calculated there was merely a 65% chance that your heart would restart after such a long time of exposure," the medic said in his tinny sounding voice.
"My HEART stopped?" Koty looked shocked as he tried to pry Eva off of him. "What happened? What was that glowing orb thingy?"
Eva stopped hugging long enough to glare. "Seriously? You didn't recognize an Epican Light Gem?"
Koty's ears stood straight up at the last few words"...a what?"
"Light Gem, an ancient Epicanian device able to store extremely high volumes of energy," the robot medical tech recited. "Extremely rare, it's believed that these artifacts were capable of providing seemingly limitless power to Epican starcraft."
"I know what it is but...they're supposed to be mythical, aren't they?" Koty asked, still not believing what he was hearing, "No one's found anything to suggest they even existed, apart from inscriptions and records."
"Until now," Eva smirked. "Congrats doofus, you just stumbled on the find of the goddamn millennium. Company's gonna have a field day with this one!"
If he didn't feel half-dead right now, he'd have been dancing for joy at this news. Most scouts would have been lucky to find so much as a hidden spring of water or a couple old bits of pottery if they were lucky, and he found...well, he found the proverbial jackpot. The kind of discovery that could land your name in the historical books, next to names like Fourth of Krall, Tackaracku, or Aldrin.
"...well, do you think the famous explorer Koty Rashi could get a snack right now?" Koty grinned. "I'm utterly starved."
Eva and the medical bot shared a nervous look. "Well, about that...do you know how you passed out when you touched the orb? Well, I yelled at you to drop it because you were absorbing an extremely high dose of energy from that Light Gem just by being near it, let alone touching it."
"Yeah, well, I'm fine now, right?" Koty pushed himself up slightly from the bed, feeling oddly sluggish as he pushed the sheets off. "I don't think it left me with any after WHAT THE FUCK?"
Koty stared down at himself, finding...more of himself then before. Where he expected to see a skinny and flat torso, he found a hefty gut sitting there like a sack of flour. Prodding it with one finger, he felt the unwelcome belly jostle slightly, stirring up a pocket of gas that escaped from him before he could stop it. "Uuurp! Ugh, what the...how did this get here?"
"It seems your body adapted to the sudden influx of energy by metabolizing it, turning it into adipose tissue," the medical tech informed him, consulting a chart. "And your body is still containing extremely high levels of the energy from the gem."
"So wait you're saying...oh stars..." Koty felt his heart racing again, though this time not from the touch of that stupid gem. "I'm going to get..."
"Fatter, yes," Eva finished awkwardly. "I checked, you've been out since yesterday and you've grown like forty pounds heavier since touching the Light Gem."
Koty swallowed anxiously. "How...how much...?"
"I think based on these levels," the tech stated. "You should not be surprised if you lost the ability to move under your own power."
"I'm gonna be THAT huge!?!" Koty cried, grabbing at his short hair and tugging furiously. "You gotta do something about this, before I blow up like a balloon!"
"Unfortunately, I can't recommend any invasive procedures to correct the weight surge," the robot informed him coldly. "Not while the energy is still saturated in your body. It will need to run its course."
Koty wailed even louder then Eva did, tugging at his ears. "I'm gonna be a friggin space whale...my butt's gonna be the size of a battleship and I'm gonna be stuck in bed forever."
"Hey, it's not all bad," Eva said soothingly. "You're gonna make some headlines for this discovery, and the company's gonna cover all your expenses going forward!"
"Why, because I'm famous or something?"
"Well, there's that, and the fact that they're technically liable for you being 'injured' by the Light Gem, since you weren't prepped to deal with it." Eva grinned wickedly and gave a little wink. "I mentioned you might be considering finding a lawyer, and they basically gave you a blank check."
Koty considered this for a moment before giving a resigned sigh. "Well, can they buy me something to eat then? I wasn't kidding earlier, I'm absolutely starving..."
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