“Lance Thrush!” Crust exclaimed stabbing the carrot Ent between its black beady eyes with her silver lance.

Around her lay dozens of corpses of carrots with arms and legs.

“Why are there walking carrots here?!” she demanded.

Curstl was heading away from the big field of red grass, droplets of red-stained water tripped down from the surface dyeing the grass a crimson hue.

“OUT OF THE WAY!” cried the voice of man quickly approaching Curstl, he looked to the source of the sound only to be struck with a massive machine, it looked like a metal cart with a fuel-tank double its size.

“SHIT!” the man exclaimed looking down and seeing Curstl still alive and visibly upset with her spear stabbed into the front of the vehicle.

“DON’T STAB IT! YOU’LL ONLY MAKE IT WORSE!” the man cried as smoke began to come up from several previously unnoticed pipes on the machine.

“Eh?” Curstl processed the stranger’s words as the big tank of liquid began to tremble.

With a loud explosion, the tank burst open raining orange sludge down on the surrounding area.

Curstl opened her eyes seeing a pile of scrap-metal before her, she wiped the yellow liquid from her face and recognised it as carrot juice.

“Hey, are you alright?” asked the man looking visibly uninjured.

In an instant Curstl reached for her lance, pointing it at the man’s throat.

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!” she demanded.

The man raised his hands up in defeat.

“Relax, I didn’t expect anybody around here!” he replied.

He breathed a sigh.

“Well, you look uninjured anyway…” he shrugged.

The man wore a brown jumped under a black vest.

He wore light blue shorts and wooden sandals.

His skin was a dark olive colour.

On his face was a pair of goggles with yellow-tinted glass.

After a few idle moments, the man reached a gloved hand towards Curstl.

“My name’s Icarus, what about you?” he asked.

Curstl reluctantly took his hand and stood up.

“I can’t remember, I think I might have hit my head while going into this cave…” she remarked.

Icarus’ face lit up.

“Into?!”

Curstl shrugged.

“I assume so… Though I can’t be sure…”

Excitement evident on his face, Icarus leaned in closer.

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“What’s it up like up there!?”

“I bet it’s awesome!”

Curstl pushed the man back.

“I told you, I don’t remember…” she replied.

Icarus stood back up, pulling his goggles up over his messy black hair and revealing his lime-green eyes.

“Ah, right!”

Curstl looked around seeing no more carrot creatures.

“What the hell was that thing anyway? Some sort of monster?” she questioned looking at the torn-up bits of metal.

Icarus grinned.

“That was no monster!”

“It was my invention!” he exclaimed smugly.

“Don’t act so smug about a glorified bomb…” Curstl sighed.

Curstl checked her pocket.

“Let’s see…” she thought.

“Money… a health potion…”

“So, ehh, if you don’t mind me asking…” Icarus began.

Curstl looked with a raised eyebrow.

“Do you have like… a plan on what to do?” he asked.

Curstl shrugged.

“Get out, obviously…” she replied.

“I can’t stay in a cave where carrots try to eat me…”

“That’s just… unnatural…” she remarked.

Icarus nodded.

“Of course!”

“In that case! Why don’t you come with me!” he offered.

Curstl crossed her arms.

“I’ll pass…”

“Great, my workshop is this w-” he began only to realise she rejected his offer.

“What?! Why?!”

She raised one finger.

“First of all, you came closer to killing me a minute ago than anything else in this cave…” she began.

She raised another finger.

“Secondly I don’t know you!”

Icarus moved his goggles back down over his eyes.

And another.

“And you seem shady… why are you developing bombs?”

“You’re way too happy for someone who almost killed me,”

“I don’t like your outfit,”

Curstl continued to list of reasons not to go anywhere with Icarus.

“…”

“I- I see…” Icarus said.

“T-that make sense…” he sniffles.

“…”

“Are you crying?” she asked.

“No…” Icarus lifted his goggles a little bit causing a small stream of water to trickle out for a few seconds before putting them back on.

Curstl suddenly felt something odd, something she couldn’t help but feel was a rare emotion for her to feel, pity.

“I guess I might have gone overboard, sorry…” she begrudgingly apologised.

Icarus folded his arms, still keeping a forced smile.

“N-no… those were some… valid complaints… all eighty-three of them…” he replied.

The man lumbered over to the remains of his cart, the bottom half was still intact, as such he piled the remaining scrap into the crater-like tank and began pulling the cart away.

“Mmm…” with no sign of civilization in any direction, following Icarus might be her ticket to getting out of the cave.

Curstl eventually decided to catch up to the stranger, it wasn’t difficult since he was barely managing to pull the wreck of an invention.

She walked up to him at a leisurely pace.

“Hey, Icarus, was it?” she asked.

“Yeah…” Icarus replied.

“After some further thought, I decided to tag along, since technically I did stab your machine…” she explained.

“Seriously? That’s awesome!” he replied.

He gestured to the back.

“Feel free to hop on the back, we’ll be in the town any moment now!” he replied.

Curstl didn’t want to hurt Icarus’ pride by offering to push the cart, but her strength stat was considerably higher.

And so, they moved at about one kilometre per hour.

Curstl looked at the scrap-metal, it was coated in orange liquid.

“Say, what is this orange stuff?” she asked.

“Fuel…” he replied sounding out of breath.

“Fuel? What kind of fuel smells like carrots?” Curstl questioned.

“Well, I have a few pet slimes, I feed them carrot Ents and they produce this slime, it’s quite useful!”

“…”

“…”

Curstl looked down at her slime-covered self.

“Are… are you telling me we’re covered in slime shit…?” she asked coldly.

“Well, technically slimes don’t have intestines or a stomach, so it’s just the waste from a single cell!” the man explained.

“…”

“So, it is slime shit…” she remarked.

“Well, my workshop has a working bathroom, you’re free to wash up when we get there,” he explained slowly pushing the cart over a rickety wooden bridge.

Much to everyone’s surprise, they made it across safely.

Eventually, Icarus’ workshop came into view, it was a two-story building shaped like the letter ‘L’, it was fenced off with wire and had more of the red grass growing outside.

A massive barrel-like water tower stood outside his home, it was linked with several piped down to the roof of the house.

“There it is!” he exclaimed sounding relieved and exhausted.

“Just one house? Let’s hope he’s not actually a serial killer…” Curstl thought.

“The town is just around that hill, though I’m sorry to say you won’t find a way up…” he explained with a hint of sadness.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Isn’t there an exit from this cave?”

“No…” Icarus replied.

“Though it’s not like there haven’t been cases of people falling inside!” he explained.

“The faction in charge of the underground is stopping anybody for getting out…”

“They killed off anybody that could use portal magic,”

“It’s like they don’t want us to get out…”

Curstl crossed her arms.

“They’re afraid a faction on the surface will take their land from them…” she speculated.

“…”

“That’s probably it…” Icarus replied.

“Well, I’m not going to stand for this!” Icarus exclaimed catching Curstl off guard, the conversation up until now was pretty sombre.

He pointed to the roof of the cave.

“I’m going to create a machine that’ll shatter the rock above and bring everyone to the surface!” he exclaimed with a grin.

Curstl looked at him uncertainly.

“Is that even possible?”

“I dunno,” he shrugged.

Curstl sighed.

“And there you go making everything anti-climactic…” she remarked.

“I’m just keeping your expectations realistic!” he replied jokingly,

“Well, as long as your plan isn’t to suicide-bomb the cave, I’d like to help,” Curstl replied.

“After all, from the way it sounds, you’re my only ticket out of this carrot-filled hell-hole…” she added.