Greenborne- Into Doom
After patching up the wounds he inadvertently caused on Z'lupe, as well as the wounds she advertly caused on him for the inadvertent wounds, she and Greenborne continued on their aimless adventure.
"The way I look at it," Bimblesnaff tried to ration, holding his hands over his face like a coward, expecting her "rebuttal", "if the bodily harm part is already outta the way, then all we have left to look forward to is the treasure." Kelly was swift to respond. It was less verbal, however, and more fist. Luckily, the Fiend still had a drumstick left from a pheasant. For reasons not entirely understood by man, the consumption of food could swiftly and fully seal wounds and restore wellness as an entirely separate function from providing nutritional subsistence. This was not the case at all times and certain foods would cure wounds more than others, following a patternless dictation. From his personal experiences, the lunatic had learned that the most reconstructive of all foodstuffs was peanut butter. Unfortunately, it would be some time before it was invented, casting suspicious doubt on the scientific process he used to reach his conclusion.
"Huzzah!" cried out the maniac. "We have made it at long last."
"Made it? Since when where we going somewhere?" questioned Z'lupe, more frustrated than she was previously.
"Why, to the gaping Mouth o' Doom, ya silly girl," he chuckled playfully, as though she should have known the name he just made up for the location. Looking forward, she saw nothing. It was only dunes to her left and dunes to her right. Looking ahead once more, she stared into an endless abyss of black surrounded by jagged stalagmites and other rocky formations that bore a resemblance to a foreboding maw.
"Nothing about that title or look sound inviting," she cringed. "With what we've seen outside, I can't imagine what infernal beings are in it..."
"Oh, stop bein' such a sissy. Why, from what I hear, which largely dinna come from m' head," the one in green inspired little confidence, "that most o' what lies in there is just cute gerbils."
"These, by any change, wouldn't happen to be the, oh, I don't know," his female companion falsely searched for words, "the Devil Gerbil's of Doom who possess laser vision?"
"Oh, now, that's just crazy talk," dismissed Greenborne. "Those things are just outrageous rumors made up to scare people. Laser-eyed rodents ain't real. Purely myth."
"Not real, huh?" she challenged. "Not real like headless giants and desert lobsters who pop out of the ground and try to kill you, or not real as in your chances with someone who is breathing?"
"Exactly, 'tis complete madness that someone would think such thin's," he agreed without further clarification to his choice. "Now then, ya go ahead o' me for... safety reasons. Somethin' could try and get ya from behind."
"And this 'something' is named 'you'?" Z'lupe dryly put. Reaching into his pocket, Bimblesnaff pulled out a small vial.
"Oh, look, a bottle o' antidote," he said cheerfully. "And 'tis addressed to yer mum. Gee, why is that, ya think, Kelly?" With a roll of her eyes and a heavy sigh, she trudged into the cavern entrance.
"I checked that bottle last night, by the way," she told while walking in front of him, "and I know it's empty."
"I can't help it," he mumbled as she walked away. "Antidote is just too tasty."
Upon entering the domain, after the girl's lead, he was disappointed not only to the fact that there were no cuddly critters to bombard him with heat beams or any stockade of antidotes to quench his rampant thirst. The exterior told lies to the inside, holding a shape that looked more sculpted than formed naturally, likely forged from the tireless effort of countless deadly yet adorable gazes of enslaved gerbils. Beyond the course entryway, the corridor narrowed and refined to a slim walkway. With no light from outside reaching that far in, glyphs engraved into the middle of the walls glowed an eerie green, providing enough luminescence to see shapes in the dark surroundings.
"We should prolly hold each other's hands," Greenborne suggested, "elsewise we might get separated, and who knows by what."
"Do you honestly think that parting from you is on my list of bad things?" she prodded with an unseen smirk. Awaiting any type of response from her fellow adventurer, there was nothing, no snappy comeback or physical retaliation against her posterior. Turning back, she did not see his scrawny form outlined in the eerie glow as the markings continued uninterrupted down the hallway. Calling out his name, it only echoed back at her, bringing with it a low rumble. "Aw, that is never a good sign," Kelly groaned. "It's never a rumble then followed by mysterious cake." The "mysterious cake" line was a phrase she borrowed from Bimblesnaff, which he fabricated as overcompensation in order to keep the unexplained baked good from her knowledge. The continued lie and upkeep of the story was worth every delectable bite. Sweets related expressions aside, Z'lupe was in a predicament.
As the walls trembled, she could not see anything that could be the source until the glyphs began to move. Peeling from their surface, they wrapped around the frame of some invisible being. The new skin tightened around a stout form, square and blocky. What it exactly was remained to be seen, which was not possible under the present conditions. Not wishing to risk any chance to whether it could be friendly, she fumbled for her crossbow and filled the air with bolts. Each of the howling arrows whizzed past the phantom figure before it charged, stooping to all four appendages.
The guardian was undoubtably spectral in nature, meaning her chances of physically harming it were out of question. Unfortunately, the abrupt nature of her recruitment by Greenborne, or, as the law tended to call it, abduction, did not allow her time to properly prepare all types of gear. In her defense, her arrows make short work of her foes on most occasions. The denizens of this location seemed to have something against them, however, quite unlike the poppable Bladder Beings of Belgoch Lagoon. Those guys had a third eye that, if punctured, would cause instant death.
Quickly pulling back her arsenal, she cowered behind her shield with a splitting shriek as the dungeon apparition drew nearer. With a heavy thud and a sharp cry, she found herself still alive and the attacker recovering from a daze, best she could figure, on the floor. She then recalled that her shield was enchanted against magicks, and, proof that she had spent too much time around Bimblesnaff, fooled herself into thinking that she remembered such all along. With a makeshift weapon against the assailant in hand, both to be exact, she slammed the square shield overhead onto the stunned phantasm. The bright letters did not suffer the abuse long and were quick to scatter in a swirling display. Too experienced to think that was the end, Kelly kept watch on the lights as they congregated to another spot, reshaping a new form.
When they grew to settle, they had become a sharp winged creature with giant talons, perched high in the way. Quick as silver, it dived at Z'lupe, striking her protection at an angle that freed her hands of it. Looping around for another swoop, the girl responded swiftly and rolled to her back. As the flying guardian came closer, she tossed up her legs, which had the enchanted shield leaning against them, which hurtled the square of metal into its path. It collided with an explosion of fragmented markings. The broken pieces faded away, and what was left regrouped for another attempt. Swarming to the ground, a less than impressive quadruped was constructed. With a lack of glyphs to complete the skin, the glowing beast was left lame, an unforeseen happening. With a single, boastful laugh, she caught and smashed her shield against the floor, braced to her arm, and touched her forehead with her other hand. The field on her family crest began to glow, not too different than the markings, but blue rather than green.
"You call that a hound? Vivet meus genus!" Drawing power from her past, her ancestry, and her blood, the heraldic beast from the shield sprung to life. The ghostly image of the Enfield raced forward, shattering the remainder of the intact glyphs. The projection of the Enfield was an invocation of the Kelly family's ancestral spirits that shook the very ether of those who opposed a living one. With a carnal host, this effect was normally less dramatic than those against raw essence. She also claimed to have remembered this one all along.
"See why we shunna get separated, Z?" Z'lupe jumped with a girlish scream, which was befitting since she was a girl, before smacking Greenborne across the face. "Hey, calm down, 'tis only I." Pulling out a shining dagger, Daybreak, he illuminated the lightless corridor. He claimed that he remembered having a torch-like blade since they entered the darkness, of course.
"I know that, you jerk," she informed. "How long have you been there? Making me fend for myself. That's just wrong!" He shrugged.
"Now ya dun want us to split up, do ya?" His teeth flashed in a sinister grin. Following a low blow and a shot to the back of his neck, she waited for her light source to keep up with her deeper progression. "I knew ya'd see it m' way," Bimblesnaff wheezed. Thankfully, he still had a wing of that pheasant left over.
