-Layer I-
-Duskwood Cave-
Marius
"Listen, son," he said. "Do you really want to do this?"
For a brief moment, Marius thought he saw the boy’s grip on his bow waver.
Like most things in The Everloft so far, this was probably just a hallucination born of wishful thinking.
Because in the next second the loosed arrow from the lad’s bow struck Marius squarely in the shoulder, and he cried out in pain, falling backwards and tasting the dirt of the stone ground.
When he’d returned to his sitting position, his breathing rapid, feeling blood trickle down his shoulder from its new wound, the lad had drawn another arrow from his quiver.
"Don’t make me ask again," he snarled.
Marius grunted and heaved, trying to ignore the stinging. He gingerly produced the ball of medicinal grasses from his pocket and rolled them towards the boy, then undressed and placed his leather armor before him.
The lad crept forward, sweeping the items towards him with his foot. He slowly pocketed the grass but just as he was about to don the armor, his eyes then swept over Marius body.
They lingered on the tattoo in the center of his chest.
"Holy shit," he whispered. "You sick fuck."
"Yeah," Marius murmured. "You’re right."
He rushed backwards at the same time as the thought itself formed in his mind – that’s all it was that was necessary. He took the gambit as soon as he saw the eyes of the lad were off his feet, and just as soon as he’d pushed off from the ground, he’d felt the lightning strike his mind.
Hasty Retreat: Activated
He scrambled up the side of the wall with the extra wind at his back, and only barely registered the lad’s screaming of fury as he loosed another arrow. Marius felt it ricochet mere centimeters from his reaching hand as he grabbed one loose stone after another and only when he made it to the top did he feel the sting of yet another projectile pierce his back. He doubled forward, screaming in pain, and this time the wound was enough to force him to prospect it:
HP: 10/15
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The bellowing of the sharpshooter carried up through the whole arena as he climbed after Marius, and the latter quickly scanned between the mouths of darkness in front of him. His thoughts were jumbled messes of ideas that were only half concocted, and as part of one of these he quickly grabbed a palm sized stone from the cave. But what he needed most now was the right exit.
Which one was it?
He heard the scrabbling advance of his assailant from behind and picked his path, slipping through the crack in the wall as another arrow cut through the air towards him, missing his neck by an inch. His Hasty Retreat still in effect, he sprinted down the hall that he hoped, he prayed, was the same he’d come through.
Behind him, unperturbed, the Sharpshooter ran after him, readying his next arrow but faltering against Marius’ constant zig zagging from wall to wall.
"You’re fucking dead, you hear me!" he shouted. "Dead!"
Marius again felt the all-consuming embrace of pure darkness around him, remembering the same feeling when he’d lost his torch. The archer surely didn’t have a chance at finding him here.
As quickly as the thought formed, another arrow past by his ear and slammed into the black wall beside him. In return, Marius spun round in the air and registered the thought – just a thought – as he hurled the stone in his hand backwards into the darkness.
Dirty Trick: Activated
He didn’t need to see anything to know his gambit had paid off. A scream of ‘Mother-FUCK!’ echoed down the tunnel.
Good effect on target.
The bowman knelt down in the darkness and grimaced as pain radiated up his crotch. He dropped his bow and heaved, like he was about to vomit.
"Where are you!" he bellowed. "You fucking piece of shit, where are you! You’re fucked! You hear me! You and that fucking mushroom!"
Marius slowly backed away, swallowing as his eyes made out the shadowed form descending from the ceiling.
"Sorry, son," he called back. "But you’ve just broken the #1 rule of The Everloft."
The archer double blinked as he looked up to see the glowing bulb of amber open its jaws above him.
"Never stand still."
The lad’s scream was unlike anything Marius had ever heard. He thought that as the carnivorous plant’s jaws clamped down on his head the screaming would’ve been cut off, but instead it sucked him up into its writhing pod-belly and he opened his mouth in an animalistic wail of pure terror that was only amplified by the thin film covering the plant’s translucent body. Marius watched as the Mangler secreted its digestive fluids and began to burn away the boy’s skin – his pallid color drained and sheets of his flesh curled and tore away from his muscle. Blood bubbled and leaked from his every orifice – his eyes sizzling and then popping to reveal a haze of crimson that seeped into the fluid that was eating away at him, slowly tearing through muscle and bone like they were twigs being dissolved by an invisible inferno.
All the while, the scream didn’t stop. The boy could feel every part of himself burn away, till agony became his only remaining sense.
Just smile, Marius.
The lad’s fingers curled inwards like cigar butts, then the rest of his arms simply rolled away into nothingness.
You’re not killing him.
The boy’s innards spilled out – intestines uncoiling and swimming away from the gaping hole that was once his torso and then sizzling in the Mangler’s juices.
You’re not killing him.
His open mouth stretched back in his head and his teeth melted from their sockets, turning to dust. Then the rest of his head rolled back and finally liquefied.
Only then did Marius bend forward and vomit, not even bothering to wipe his mouth. He knew there was more where that came from.
He was just a boy.
Just a stupid fucking boy.
He barely even felt the stab of information touch his brain when what remained of the boy was nothing more than a few specks of dust in the Mangler’s belly:
EXP: +40 (Shared combat victory – environmental kill)
EXP Total: 50/100
Marius felt nothing as he looked at the number. He just rose, picked up the boy’s fallen bow and quiver, and made his way back passed the preoccupied Mangler to the arena of the dead.