"Going down swinging” acutely meant rummaging around in poor lightning for the next six to ten hours trying to find his way through the cave. He had nothing in the way of food or water as Fleon’s group had clearly ransacked his pack and left him for dead. This left him extremely hungry in addition to lost and confused. It also meant he had no light. He unfortunately had to stick relatively close to the walls or it quickly risked getting dark enough he couldn't see more than a few feet in front of his face. This limited his movement pretty severely, but he couldn't very well risk walking around in the pitch black. Not only were there plenty of things to eat him, but if he was being honest, it was just plain scary.
Eventually he found what he assumed was the primary road. Fortunately, it had signs pointing towards the nearest settlement. He mentally noted the general direction in case the road changed. Even better, the road was partially lit, which was a blessing, but also presented an entirely new danger, enemy Combatants. He didn't know how long he'd been out, but clearly multiple groups had caught up to Fleon's Foray.
The first time he'd had to jump off the main road and hide is when he heard a series of noises in the distance that ended up being a party of crab-like creatures that skittered past him without noticing. Each creature held the remains of something in one of its four claws, and all of them looked intensely carnivorous. He had been too scared to scan them, but it wasn't a stretch to assume they would gladly eat him. He realized quickly the main roads were probably more dangerous than the edges and decided to split the difference when possible. When he got the courage back up, he started back towards the settlement he had marked.
Man-eating crabs or not, he was going to get to this town and at least have a moment to figure his shit out before he gave this whole thing up and jumped into the deepest, darkest pit he could find. Boyd stepped briskly into the cave and with his next step, landed in what he believed to be quicksand. He vigorously shook his shoe over and over again only to find that this led to that leg going lower and lower into the dirt. Almost simultaneously, his leg suddenly began to hurt.
Life 109/111. You were bit by a Dirt Weevil. You are incubating Dirt Weevils.
Life 108/111. You were bit by a Dirt Weevil. You are incubating (2) Dirt Weevils.
Life 107/111. You were bit by a Dirt Weevil. You are incubating (3) Dirt Weevils.
Boyd had no idea what “incubating Dirt Weevils” was but it sounded bad. The sinking into the ground was rapidly becoming the bigger issue though as it was stretching his body in extremely uncomfortable ways. He wiggled and shook but it only led to him sinking lower. He grabbed a nearby rock formation protruding from the ground and started to pull himself out, but it was like pulling against barbed wire. He winced through the pain as he pulled his leg out of the mixture of Weevils and sand, only to find that while the sand was gone, the Weevils were stuck.
Life 90/111. Dirt Weevils have exploded from your leg.
Life 82/111. Dirt Weevils have exploded from your leg.
Life 71/111. Dirt Weevils have exploded from your leg.
Life 66/111. You were bit by a Dirt Weevil. You are incubating (1) Dirt Weevils.
Life 64/111. You were bit by a Dirt Weevil. You are incubating (2) Dirt Weevils.
He began slapping Dirt Weevils off his leg with his hands. The Dirt Weevils exploded into gorey bits of bug goo as he slapped them. Boyd hit his Manatap ability and vaulted back to full life when all the bugs were gone.
SYSTEM: Extensive use of the Manatap ability has given you an additional Rank in Manatap. You can assign this in your Monk (Unassigned) character sheet.
Boyd scanned the swirling sand of the cavern hoping to get a bead on what made the Dirt Weevils tick.
SYSTEM: Ground Dirt Weevil Coagulate: Rank 30. The most common mistake made when people see the words Ground Dirt Weevil is the assumption that “Ground” refers to the dirt from which the Ground Dirt Weevil Coagulate larvae erupt. This is not the case and is based on a poor translation of the highly intelligent Dirt Weevil’s language to other forms of communication. A Ground Dirt Weevil Coagulate is exactly what it sounds like, a coagulate of ground up Dirt Weevils. The Dirt Weevils undergoes intense spawning sessions wherein they will literally fuck themselves to dust. The resulting pulp of Dirt Weevil blood, guts, semen, eggs, and brains incases itself in a harder shell until it forms a Coagulate. The Coagulate spits off smaller Weevil larvae which return with food and become part of the whole. It’s part Hivemind, part gross bug-gut-blood-orgy. For the average entomologist it would be neat to better understand how it works, but you are better off stabbing one than studying this one.
This all registered in Boyd’s brain in an instant but it didn’t put him any closer to determining what to do next. In fact, it mostly led to a state of outright panic wherein he started frantically smashing Weevils as fast as he could. Faster than he could slap them one would bite him and a few seconds later, a new one would pop out. It was like the world’s most rapidly developing case of some sort of Pox. His Life pool was plummeting so he slammed Manatap again, but despite his incredible Mana regeneration, this barely moved his life pool. He continued frantically slapping Dirt Weevils as he could, but the hole in the ground kept spitting them out.
Life 36/111. You were bit by a Dirt Weevil. You are incubating (7) Dirt Weevils.
Boyd was rapidly running out of ideas and options. Slapping Weevils wasn’t going to solve this for him, so he went to his next best move, running away. He sprinted back towards the main road, desperately hoping to find some sort of help. The swirling sandy hole in the ground followed, but it moved surprisingly fast for what appeared to be a pile of shifting sands. He quickly realized that both Dirt Weevils and a Ground Dirt Weevil Coagulate are faster than a human male with poor attributes who never made the Track team to begin with. He turned and spun, ready to face his fate.
A voice shouted, “Cascading Inferno!”
Pillars of bubbling liquid appeared around the swirling sand. They quickly turned from liquid to steam before erupting into ceiling height pillars of fire that fell back to the ground splashing the nearby areas in puddles of flaming liquid.
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Boyd was singed by some of the liquid. He swatted it off his skin as it burned through his clothes.
Life 22/111. You are lightly burning. You take 4 damage per minute until you are Quenched.
He tried to Manatap.
Mana 0/68.
Oh well he thought. Exploding into a pillar of flame was faster than being eaten by bugs. He turned to face the new assailant only to find he couldn’t make out any substantial threat.
SYSTEM: Rockrot hits you for 5 damage. Rockrot cannot be cured without Essence of Earth.
Great he thought, Rockrot on top of all this.
Boyd was burnt and bleeding from his legs. He could barely stand as he legs were all but destroyed from the Dirt Weevils. “Hello? Look I ain’t here for a fight. You let me go, I’ll let you go.” The false bravado was obvious, but he thought it was better than just rolling over to die.
A bubbling voice called out, “I am afraid we cannot do that.”
From the shadows appeared five differently colored steaming shapes that Boyd finally related most closely to partially cooled Jell-O. They steamed and smoked yet clearly had some sort of substance. Pools of liquid followed them wherever they walked. They were modestly human in shape, although far too lithe, and far too tall. Boyd placed himself in a combat stance, desperate to portray some sort of competency. He scanned his opposition.
SYSTEM: Fermentation Elemental [Rank 186]. This is a non-friendly non-party Combatant and cannot be Scanned.
The largest figure, maroon and with a beard made of bubbling steam, laughed heartily as he came forward. “We simply cannot leave a fellow adventurer this close to life-ending peril. At least allow my colleague Rosey to heal your wounds good sir.”
Boyd was going to protest but a smaller pink glowing ball of liquid steam and vanilla custard looking material had already flittered over and began healing his wounds.
“Allow me to introduce us, I am Merlot, the leader of…” The other steamy custard creatures all started a drum roll, “Merlot’s Merrymen! Allow us to introduce the rest of my merry cadre. First, we have my brother, Sir Pinot.”
The slightly smaller purple steamy custard thing doffed what appeared to be a removable cap and bowed deeply. Not knowing what to do, Boyd stuck his hand out to shake. The creature laughed and placed its moist hand in Boyd’s and gave a heart pump. Boyd’s hand was wet on return.
"Next we have my dear friends, the twins Rosey and Sarah!”
The twins both had wings, and looked like Merlot himself, but were smaller, pinker balls of steamy custard with arms and legs and more feminine faces. The smaller of the two pink balls of glowing liquid danced a merry jig with a nearly identical but slightly bluer version of herself before they both bowed before Boyd. He smiled and bowed in return.
“And finally, my dear friend Sir Donaray the Chartreuse, although we typically just refer to him as Chard.”
The yellow ball of custard-like material whipped out a makeshift piccolo and played a merry little tune while the rest of the crew danced a jig. Yellows sparks shot out the top of his head as he played. The tune was almost like listening to butter melt. It was magical, and filled Boyd with energy and hope.
Merlot continued, “We are adventurers! Merry-makers! Lovers of discourse and food and fellowship! We are wizards and bards and warrior!. We are musicians and poets and actor! And, our new dear friend Boyd, we are at your service.”
Boyd started clapping instinctively. He wasn’t sure what else to do. It had been quite the performance.
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They made camp after a short walk. Merlot started a fire with a snap of a finger. Somehow it kept burning despite the fact it didn’t have any fuel. Boyd didn’t care. He needed rest and he was happy to have someone to rely on while he slept. More importantly, he had someone to lead him to town. His brief experience with Ground Dirt Weevil Conglomerates led him to believe he needn’t be prepared for a long life if he was on his own.
Merlot’s Merrymen prepared a small feast that Boyd thought was amongst the most delicious things he had ever eaten. They also had mead and wine and he ended up quite drunk and very full. It was probably the most fun he’d had since being space-kidnapped and nearly killed several times. This was a very low bar, but it was still nice to pass all the same. Realistically, it was the only fun he’d had during this period, and the first time he felt like someone wasn’t actively trying to do him harm.
Merlot’s Merrymen asked him about this story and he gave the simplest version of things after they found every other version hard to follow. He did remember to leave out the whole Inherent Abilities thing as Fleon had told him. He left out Fleon’s name entirely as he wasn’t really ready to talk about his recent ouster to begin with. He just said the group had decided they didn’t want him and had avoided any questions after that.
Chard poured a large glass of mead into his form where it sort of stuck, “So you never meant to come here, you have no idea where you are, your Foray abandoned you, your Swordbond is broken, and you have no idea where you are. My dear boy, I have no idea how you’ve even made it this far.”
“You poor, poor thing!” Rosey and Sarah said while rubbing his back. They left small circular piles of goop on his favorite t-shirt which he didn’t appreciate.
Boyd hiccuped, “Yea, so I guess I am just gonna sort of meander about until I figure out what the hell I need to do to get back to Oklahoma. Ya’ll got any ideas?”
Pinot stopped playing his custard lute ending the dulcet tones that had filled the camp. “Transposition is amongst the complicated magics. Our culture only recently learned it. While we are capable of Transposing our own kind, we would struggle to work with your form. My suggestion is that you find other Humans and consult with them.”
“Earth don’t have any magic man. We don’t do Transposition.”
Chard interjected, “Then I would find a way to spend the next thirty years happily on Zenith. Then be prepared to be the first person in history to be present during the 30 year switch.”
Boyd looked down. He hadn’t thought about that. What if he never got back?
Merlot’s Merrymen began playing their instruments again. Merlot smiled at Boyd, “Sir Boyd, for tonight, your only concern is enjoying food, drink and music. You are our guest.”
Boyd belched and the group laughed. He was quite drunk, and quite happy with the music. They didn’t know any Skynyrd covers, but he did enjoy what they had to play.
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Before he went to sleep, Boyd investigated the change in Manatap. He had been using it frequently as incidental damage occurred frequently in Zenith. He didn’t know what a new Mark did, but he thought it could only help. Manatap was a lifesaver and was also the only use he had found for his considerable Mana reserves and Mana regeneration. Boyd clicked on the initial message in his character sheet.
SYSTEM: Extensive use of the Manatap ability has given you an additional Mark in Manatap. You can assign this in your Monk (Unassigned) character sheet.
Manatap Mark II Acquired! 10% increased life regained per Mana spent.
Manatap Mark II Acquired: You may select one of two upgrades.
Regeneration: Whenever you use Manatap, you heal for an additional amount equal to the total amount of health gained through Manatap over the next thirty seconds.
Triage: Life gained through Manatap can Triage dangerous wounds at 50% higher cost. This includes wounds that would not heal naturally through Manatap such as broken bones or mortal wounds.
Boyd thought about it for a minute. He frequently had to use all of his Mana to heal himself. He had almost no armour and routinely took large amounts of damage. Having Regeneration would be nice in that he wouldn’t be so dependent on hitting Manatap reflexively. On the other hand, having a broken bone sounded pretty bad, and without any healer around to help him now, he probably needed a way to fix things like this. Triage seemed like the best choice in this light.
He mentally clicked Triage but had immediate buyer’s remorse. He tried to switch his pick, but quickly realized it wasn’t going to be possible after it was confirmed. He fell asleep with the thought it wouldn’t likely matter as he would probably die in the next twenty four hours regardless.