-Layer I-
-Duskwood Cave-
Marius
"Tunnel craaaawlin’! Tunnel crawlin’ down a looooong dark path! Tunnel crawlin’ like a looooong lost boy, tunnel crawlin’, darlin’, right into your heaaaaaart!"
After a while, even your shittiest singing voice provided you with some much-needed company.
Marius reflected on this fact as he belted out every bum note and fumbled over every treble cleft in the spume-filled depths of Duskwood Cave.
His company, however, didn’t seem entertained. The Crocarachnids he met on his travels through this slime covered network only scattered as they saw him pass through their domain, immediately seizing up at the flickering red flower he held in his hand. They knew the power of the flame, knew what it could do to their domain, and scuttled away to let the bearer of the death-bud be on his merry way.
"Blazes," Marius chuckled as he watched yet another pair of them scurry off into their holes. "I know, I know: I can’t sing."
The further he traveled through the tunnels, the thicker the mucus became. It had gotten to the point that it felt like treading through treacle – treacle mixed with molasses and earwax – a vile concoction that swam around his legs and stung the soles of his feet. What was it? That was anyone’s guess.
It was at this point of relative ease that Marius decided it was time to start asking some questions. For one thing, he knew he was faster, nimbler than he’d ever been before. He knew also that if he was going to have a chance at taking down this ‘Matriarch’, he’d need to get better acquainted with his skillset.
So he slowed his pace to a leisurely stroll through the slime and barked out an order – the one thing that came to his mind.
"Everloft!" He called out in the dark. "Show me my – eh – abilities? Skills? Tell me I look pretty?"
For a minute, nothing happened at all, and he was content enough to just get back to pissing off every little creature within a twenty feet radius.
Then a spike was driven into his skull, and he clutched his head to try and contain the beating sensation of war drums smashing against the inside of his brain.
And in a blazing fire of neon, a series of words appeared behind his eyes:
Profession Thief Level 1 (EXP: 10/100) Sub-Class NULL Points to Distribute 0
Profession Skillset
Dirty Trick I/V Uncanny Danger Sense I/V Coup-de-Grace NULL Stealth I/V Sneak Attack I/V Hasty Retreat I/V Tumblersmithy I/V
Martial Skillset
Short blades I/VII Long Blades NULL Blunt Weapons NULL Archery NULL Shields NULL Unarmed NULL
Social Skillset
Persuasion I/VII Intimidation NULL Bartering NULL Performance NULL Appraisal I/VII
Glance Skillset
NULL
"Ooooookay then," Marius spat, almost tumbling over into the mucus he was still wading through.
Sure, he’d gotten what he’d asked for. The only problem now was figuring out what the hell it all meant.
He could understand the words, sure (well, most of them), but just squinting at them didn’t help decipher their meanings. He stopped suddenly in his tracks and read over them again, one by one, committing them to memory.
Level I, he thought. The label stuck out to him as a marker of obscurity. Could other people see that he was a lowly thief with a measly 10 ‘EXP’? He’d certainly never been able to elicit the level of the old guy he’d left crying in the dark back there. But then, he was insane. Maybe the nutjobs didn’t get a level.
"10 EXP" – he could understand what that denoted. 100 must get him to the next level. Ok, then what? He must get stronger, somehow, maybe some of these skills increased? If so, what determined which ones leveled up? And if it was true that he’d learned this ‘Dirty Trick’ thing just by experimenting, what else could he learn by just dicking around down here?
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Somewhere in his mind, the thought bulged – a chamber of his brain where new ideas were waiting, ready to be unlocked. Things he wasn’t being shown now. Opportunities. Advances. There was more he could learn – he just had to find the right keys.
He fixed his eyes on the ‘Dirty Trick’ skill as he rounded another bend and walked down yet another spume-filled corridor. This one was oddly devoid of any Crocarachnid presence, but he put that down to the fact that, by this point, they must know he was coming.
As his eyes focused, the words began to blur in his vision, twisting and congealing into something else – another screen on lambent red that burned behind his retinas:
Dirty Trick (Level I/V) You perform an unsportsman-like strike at the target. This attack deals no damage, but has the potential to stun the target for five seconds (Does not affect Dominion/Layer Lords) Level I Stun Chance: 10%
Alright, he’d take that. It was admittedly useful in getting him through his first encounter on the sandy plains above. Actually, now looking into some of these details, Marius felt his curiosity suddenly awakened. He was like a scholar in a library full of strange tomes that (coincidentally) all happened to be written about himself – his favorite subject.
He stopped for a moment to peruse some of the other skills he’d picked up, not noticing the subtle signs of movement just above his head.
Hasty Retreat (Level I) Your natural reflexes coupled with your keen sense for danger carry you out of harm’s way in an instant. For thirty seconds you gain a bonus to your speed attribute in the event you initiate a successful flee action. Level I Speed Buff: +10
"Hmm, alright," he said aloud, tapping his right foot against the gelatinous ooze beneath him. "But I don’t know about the word ‘retreat’. It carries such an outwardly negative connotation. Everloft, might I suggest ‘Tactical Withdrawal’? I hear the military types use that one these days. In fact I –"
As he was about to complete his sarcastic quip, he became acutely aware of the liquid dribbling down his hair and neck – green and slimy, with the kind of consistency that seeped into your very bones and sent shivers up your spinal cord. A single glance told him all he needed to know: that was no mucas slipping down from above.
It was saliva.
He turned in time to see the thing for what it was: an opened maw that was arcing down towards him. Inside he saw no teeth or feelers like those attached to his Crocodilian adversaries, no, in this being's mouth there was nothing but an empty, scuttling void.
Before he could react a lime-green tentacle had snaked its way down from the ceiling and snatched the torch from his hand. It snuffed out the flame with little more than a flick of the finger-like appendage that dangled from its tip.
And now, bathed once more in darkness, he could hear the thing breathing above as it bore down on him.
He dropped into a forward roll – only realizing the futility of his action as he became stuck in the very spume he’d so confidently been treading through only moment ago. He felt the tentacle wrap itself around him – apparently undaunted by the liquid – and let out a scream of terror as it clenched down, hard on his ribcage. He kicked out and managed to hit the thing’s mouth before it clamped down on his boot and he heard a crunch.
Fuck!
He wriggled in pain, his eyes bulging as he heard the thing bite down again, edging up his leg now. He focused on the path ahead, trying, pleading his body to will itself out of this grasp.
Hasty Retreat: Failed.
Current Status: Grappled.
Flee action disabled
He would have hurled all the curses he knew out into the darkness if he didn’t feel his lungs give way, being crushed like grapes by the tentacle’s tightening grip. Only the sheer determination to not die like a moron forced him to draw the tooth-shiv from his pocket and pierce the underside of the tentacle binding him.
He heard an alien cry – or a yelp – that could have been a response to pain. The tentacle retracted, oozing viscous green blood across the tunnel floor from the perforation he’d made in its skin.
He wasn’t sticking around to taunt it – for he saw what the thing was now: a gelatinous bulb with three tentacles coiled around its bulging body – amber petals and thorns decorating its surface. He saw the bulb open then like a flower – three flaps of green skin peeling away to reveal its blackened innards.
He ran. He didn’t look back. He activated this Hasty Retreat nonsense and bolted down the tunnel as quickly as he could. Yet, even with his speed, he could hear the three-pronged tentacles chasing after him not far behind, tearing through the mucus-covered floor like carving through jelly. And before he knew it, all three of them were clinging to a different limb, ready to draw and quarter him if he didn’t act like a good insect.
His only unbound appendage was his right hand, which was presently engaged in chipping away at the fleshy green stalks that were crushing him. Every stab drew more of the same vile blood that spurted and leaped from the plant-monster’s innards, coating his face and stinging his eyes. He sputtered as he took in a mouthful of the stuff.
Then, with the flourish of a professional duelist, one striking tendril slapped his hand with force and sent the puny dagger flying through the air – becoming embedded in the ooze-filled floor. He tried to grasp at it, knowing it was pointless, feeling the tentacles drag him down the tunnel back towards the open mouth that waited for him.
He cried out as he was lifted off the ground and suspended just below the flower-like maw of the beast, feeling again its saliva dribbling down his back as it shivered with anticipation of its feast. One tentacle covered his throat, cutting off his air. He felt the world dim.
But he also felt something else in his hand. Something he’d drawn involuntarily which the creature had not even bothered to take from him.
You’re a hungry bastard, aren’t you? He thought, looking into the quivering void that awaited him above. That’s your weakness.
He closed his eyes and visualized as he’d done before, recalling the information he needed just as he felt his feet enter the creature’s mouth.
HP: 15/15
And my weakness is that I’m a moron.
Without another thought he struck the unlit torch against a tentacle and a shimmering flame blazed instantly into life. He felt the creature recoil as its appendages reacted to the sudden burst of light. Their grip on him loosened, then tightened again as he looked at the spume that covered the ceiling the creature was attached to.
Fuck it.
He threw the torch above him, and the next seconds of his conscious life were filled with burning, searing pain, and the alien cry of a creature that would be going without its lunch.
----------------------------------------
HP: 2/15
His eyes opened to a world wreathed in dwindling embers that played across stone. He rose painfully to his feet and only made it to his knees with tremendous effort.
He double blinked, feeling his heartbeat, gradually realizing that the ringing in his ears was not natural. It seemed that, in his moment of desperation, the resulting explosion had catapulted him to another chamber of the cave. Looking into the tunnel he came from he saw no more ooze coating the ground – just a trail of darkness and still burning flames providing sparse illumination of the infinite nothing within.
But then his eyes strained themselves. He felt that there was something within, knew by instinct that he could focus his vision on his assailant.
Appraisal: Success
And there it was, still gyrating there in the darkness – a few tentacles short now: his dinner date.
Morphology: Cave Mangler
LVL: 2
HP: 5/35
RES: POIS, ERTH, NRML WEAP
WK: PYRO
His eyes flew open. The thing had taken far more damage than he had – he’d hurt it plenty, but he doubted that those little pokes at its arms had done more than scratch the thing. Thinking about it more, this ‘WK’ must have denoted an inherent weakness: fire. Obviously – the thing was a plant, after all. An aggressive, persistent little bugger, and a little more alive than the ones upstairs, but still a leafy denizen of this cave.
It was a pyrrhic triumph at best. He didn’t even have a sarcastic quip to taunt the thing. He’d felt all the heat, and pain, and terror as the explosion had thrown him out the tunnel. But he was alive. He just dropped to his knees and kissed the dry, barren ground of the cave floor.
Then he stopped himself. Knowing this place, the floor could be poisonous.
Behind him he saw another tunnel stretching down into the throat of the cave – and at the end, a beam of light streaming through. This welcome sight was what his mind latched onto even as he felt his whole body ache.
He checked his belongings. One torch left. No weapon. A foot that stung like hell. And – there they were – a plethora of partially singed weeds he’d bundled together as his healing balms.
He had no time to waste here. Sure, he could maybe stay and finish the thing off. More likely, it would probably fight him like any cornered beast would – with all its might. He was in no mood for it. He’d take his life and keep moving forward.
#1 rule of Everloft etiquette, he thought as he munched on a handful of weeds, watching the ‘+1s’ on his HP indicator increase with every swallow.
Never stand still.