Marius

-Layer 1-

-Duskwood Cave-

Marius followed the pitch-black capillaries of the Duskwood cavern in the low crouch that was quickly becoming instinctive to him. ‘Stealth’ in this realm was a real, honest-to-goodness slog if you wanted to keep hidden. He felt like he was trudging through mud with each new step, surely making far less progress than the others who’d met the challenges of the Everloft’s first layer.

His leather armor had proven remarkably durable against the various natural threats of this place. Across a few of the tunnels a viscous, orange secretion of the Crocarachnids dripped from every nook and cranny. He’d tried to avoid the tangy spume, but had felt the sting of the liquid a few times no matter how cautiously he tried moving. It seemed almost like a test of endurance, and his Appraisal ability could tell him nothing about the origin or composition of the muck. But even as he felt drops of this foreign liquid sting him, his armor was able to bear the brunt of any damage it might have done. Compared to his prisoner’s rags the leathers virtually felt like wearing an armored exoskeleton in this place.

Every now and then he’d come to some opening in the tunnels that led to a wider black chasm. Within these places were some of the same thin pieces of green foliage that had surrounded Raava back in her cove – and a quick Appraisal had unveiled their secrets to him:

Verminous Fungi, LVL 1

HP: 1/1

Resistances: POI

He was curious – it had always been his folly (if his old instructors back home were to be trusted). And the problem with this Everloft was that it invited such curiosity – it granted you knowledge while keeping the cards close to its chest. The hell was ‘POI’?

"Everloft, if that is your real name, any chance of a manual here? I can read, I promise."

No answer.

"Would probably just wipe my ass with it anyway."

That was something else, actually. As he prospected the tiny swaying bush before him, shivering as he inched closer to it, he came to the realization that he must’ve been stalking these tunnels for at least four hours. He couldn’t have told the time from outside – out there it was nothing but shifting sands and miasmic skies – but he reasoned that, all in all, he must’ve been in the Everloft for six hours total. And in all that time, he’d never felt a single pang of hunger, or the need to relieve himself.

Looked like there was more benefits to this place than he thought. Mind you, if he really didn’t need food down here, did that mean that the simple pleasures of a juicy red sirloin were now forever denied to him?

Looking at the thin strips of foliage, he was suddenly taken by a desire that came from somewhere deep within his being.

He reached out and grabbed one of the fungi, pulling several strips of the plant’s stem from its root.

"Meh," he scoffed. "Mama didn’t raise no wimp."

He stuffed the stalks into his mouth and found that they disappeared down his throat almost instantly.

He waited.

He waited more.

And finally his stomach bellowed with a life of its own, and its rage was that of a furious parent chastising its child for bad behavior.

He hunched over in pain and belched a viscous green mucas from his throat, similar to that which Raava had slathered across his body.

Then all at once he felt the wound caused by the little Crocharachnid’s teeth earlier subside:

HP: +1

HP remaining: 9/15

"Aha!" he yelled to no one. So! The little weeds were medicinal! And now he had a reference point for HP – it was a measure of his innate health. His bodily vitality.

"You just earned yourself a free space in my pants, little guys," he said, eyeing each weed as they swayed without any other option around his legs. "And that’s not something I say to everybody."

He reached down to grab at another tuft, and the stalks recoiled away from him.

"Ah, ah," he said with a tut. "You’re just like what old mama Corbeck used to make: high in nutrition and shit in taste."

And he spent the next hour of his journey stopping to pluck every plant he found in the cave.

…

Deeper into the tunnels he started to feel disillusioned. They just kept stretching on. Here and there he’d had to avoid the odd Crocarachnid patrol but as long as he kept to the edges of each cavern he was generally fine. He knew at least that he could outrun them if he wanted.

Try as he might, the little ‘Hasty Retreat’ trick that carried him forward like a wind was on his ass didn’t work at all. He reasoned he must have to be actively fighting something to get that kind of speed again.

And it was as he was pondering this fact, pants now full to the brim with glowing green weeds, that he heard a distinctive voice bellowing from the left tunnel in a fork that he’d just arrived at. He knew the sound of swords clashing against bare skin – the tell-tale squish of flesh as it yielded to the bite of steel – and so he approached with caution, if a little quicker than normal.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The leftmost tunnel opened up into another dimly lit cavern where one single torch light shone. It was carried by a man that was vaguely familiar to Marius – a man clothed in beige prisoner tatters. His tufts of greying hair swayed about in the musky air as he brought a sharp shortsword down on the corpse of an eviscerated Crocarachnid beneath him.

"Four hundred and nine!" he was shouting in a manic voice. "Four hundred and ten! Four hundred and eleven! Four hundred and twelve! Four hundred and thirteen! FOUR HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN"

Marius approached him closer and saw that, unless he was very much mistaken, the little critter was quite dead. Its eight legs had long been hacked apart and now its still corpse was being hewed away to nothing.

"Four hundred and fifteen!" the prisoner was screaming. "Four hundred and sixteen!"

He was counting out his strikes?

Marius focused his eyes the way he had gotten used to in the past few hours – the way that matched his mind’s desire to ‘know more. Get information. Find shiny things.’

And the scribbled letters and numbers that etched themselves in the air before him gave him exactly what he wanted:

Appraisal: Success

Profession: Warrior (Lvl 1)

Status: Enraged

HP: 25/25

It was always the case that he knew there was more he could learn from this ‘Appraisal’ thing, but something behind his brain stopped him from gathering more information. It was as if there was a chamber in his mind that was blocked off to him. And for some reason he felt that blockage keenly – it felt like being told there were certain places he couldn’t go as a child, that he’d have to be back home before dark. Even though that’s when all the fun stuff went down.

Marius gulped quietly as he contemplated his options here. They were both ‘level one’ so at least that put them on some kind of equal footing. But he didn’t like the look of the old dog’s HP – way higher than his. The ‘class’ too – warrior? That didn’t sound good. Sounded like the kind of rube he didn’t want to get in a straight up fight with. Finally, he knew what ‘enraged’ meant in general – but in The Everloft? Who the hell knew what kind of connotations the word had.

Now, sure, he could just move past the guy – there was clearly a few screws loose in that noggin – but then again, that sword looked nice and sharp. And his little toothpick didn’t exactly inspire fear. Plus, he was a thief, right? He practically had to give this the old college try.

He crept up to the guy, keeping close to the long stalks of weeds that afforded him his only cover. The Everloft hadn’t yelled at him about failing yet, so he assumed the old nutjob hadn’t spotted him.

As he edged ever closer he heard the guy’s harsh, guttural breathing that become more pronounced every time he brought his dull blade down and swung his torch wildly in the air with his other hand. The guy was a sitting duck here. Surely the rest of this little creature’s brood would finish him off sooner or later.

Marius raised his hands when he approached touching range, and for just a single moment he imaged what this sight probably looked like to an outsider’s eyes – probably looked like a stalker about to acquire the pantaloons of his unrequited love. It didn’t help that he was currently covered in the Crocarachnid’s orange spume.

And then the lightning blazed against his mind again, and reality warped to its decree:

Pickpocket chance: 45% (Skill check) + ADV (Stealth)

Target: Engaged

Okaaaaaaaay, Marius thought. All these percentages made his head ache. He never had been one for calculus. But you didn’t have to be a math whizz to know that 45% was better than nothing.

Yet if he failed, what did that mean exactly? Discovery, and probably death. The old codger was nuttier than a sack of Tilonxeel shit. The crazies always had the most surprising strength.

But then this was The Everloft. That was the whole damn point – taking the chance.

He went for it – reaching forward and trying to grasp at the satchel tied to the guy’s back, trying to pilfer anything he could.

His right hand reached into the bag just as the old guy paused for breath.

Then lambent red scratches appeared behind Marius’ eyeballs:

Pickpocket: Failure

You gotta be kidding me.

The old guy turned round – his face a mess of grizzled hair and bloody scraps from Crocarachnid feelers. But his eyes were glazed over, like he was blind. Or just…elsewhere. When he spoke his voice echoed like the ghost of some long departed loved one talking to another.

"Peter! That you? What’d I tell ya? Stop botherin’ me whiles I’m working the forge!"

Marius double blinked, hands still mere inches away from the old one’s waist. Then he saw the wrinkled face contort in fury. He raised his spume coated blade.

"Ye remember what happens when you make yer daddy lose count? He starts on YOU!"

"W-wait!" Marius yelled, being instantly transported back to his youth and the stuttered excuses he threw to many an old noble who’s purse he had been caught with his fingers in. "I’m sorry!"

"Hmpf," the old man muttered. "Sorry..?"

He let the question hang in the air.

"Eh?" Marius squeaked.

The old codger straightened his pants – a motion reserved for fathers ready to undo their belts and get to work on the ‘discipline’ that all good fathers instinctively knew how to disperse.

"I’m sorry…who? Let’s see you show some of that respect we talked about."

Where the hell’s my persuasion options with this one? Marius thought angrily.

He contemplated just drawing his tooth-dagger and thrusting it into the guy’s neck. But then he looked at the rippling, veiny muscles on his arms, still bulging after the exercise of bashing the brains of the downed animal beneath them. He tried to sigh away his embarrassment.

It didn’t work.

"Sorry…Daddy."

He felt no less like a moron.

-50 dignity to me.

"Hmpf, that’s more like it, boy," Marius’ new daddy said. "Now, come here and let’s get a good look at ye."

"Listen," Marius said as the old, withered face crept closer to him. "I don’t know if I like where this is go–"

"Oi!" the old guy practically screamed in Marius’ face. "Ye’ve got yerself covered in wolf’s blood! Whit in the name of Amarata were ye doing out there!"

He fanned his torch in front of him like it would coax out an answer. Marius stared blankly, knowing the guy was insane, sure, but wondering too if there was any way he could benefit from it. He was this guy’s son in his eyes, right? Dads could be charitable to their dumbass kids. Especially their boys playing at being heroes.

Marius concentrated as he had done before during his conversation with mistress Raava. But try as he might, no little ‘Persuasion attempt’ nonsense flashed before his eyes. Surely this was the time to use such a skill, no? What was more persuasive/deceptive than impersonating this guy’s young whippersnapper?

Then he thought that there may have been some logic to this. As the frowning face got more and more agitated, Marius instead paid more attention to his ragged clothes: prisoner’s garb not too dissimilar from what he’d been thrown in here wearing. Though they were even more flea-bitten and wretched than his own threads had been – the fabric barely holding itself together - a testament to how long this guy must have been down here.

That’s when he realized: this guy was like him – he was no denizen of the Everloft. A real, living human being. He was no plant with preordained thoughts or speeches that Marius could mess with. This guy (though admittedly quite crazy by now) had his own will and thoughts. And right now, he was truly living in a little pocket his mind must have created for him.

Somehow, such a coping mechanism seemed to be working. Here he was, victorious over a vicious little Crocarachnid in combat, pretty much with a room in this place all to himself. That was more than Marius had achieved.

So, looks like it’s up to my natural charm to work my way out of this one, Marius thought. No predetermined rules to this game. In the realm of madness, I’m in control.

He caught himself in that thought. He was beginning to sound like some damned evil wizard. And that was no way to approach this. That face – the one practically sniffing at his dripping leathers – begged for an answer from an obedient son.

Okay, Marius thought with an internalized gulp.

Let’s roleplay.