This
story is a result of @TheTheronShan’s absentmindedly thrown “you
must write a 1000-word essay” somewhere in the guild chat when we
failing to take the Eyeless down.
All
named characters used with written (in the chat) permission of their
owners.
Cast:
Trîbbles
— @TheTheronShan
Ungolia
— @JLSigman
Ayy
Amersu — @ethuiliel
Aenyssa
— @celyntheraven
Sanne
Amare — @Sanne_leetz
Mike
Quinn — @ruminspector
and
others.
The stench was vomit-inducing.
“Someone please remind me why we agreed to do this?” Nayel
growled.
Aeny giggled behind him, simultaneously generously placing everyone
in purple bubbles.
“Because no one else can,” Trîbbles answered.
The unmistakeable rasp clicking of rakghouls surrounded them. They
were everywhere. Little disgusting creatures that could easily turn
you into one of their own with one small scratch you’d barely
notice.
Belatedly, Nayel realised he hadn’t any vaccines on his person.
“Healer, heal thyself,” he muttered under his breath.
Someone coughed behind him.
The monstrosity was in the middle of the cave, pacing slowly back and
forth. For a moment Nayel wondered what kind of senses this animal
had not to walk into walls, and then why it didn’t have eyes. After
all, the cave was not pitch black, so there was no reason for—
Never mind. There was no reason in all this at all. Not evolutionary,
anyway.
Glowy, fluorescent plants growing all around the place gave enough
light to see clearly. It could be even considered pretty with
luminescent flora, lamp-like mushrooms, if it only didn’t stink
here so badly. A few dark corners undoubtedly hid more yukky, and
Nayel was certain sooner or later — sooner most likely — they’d
have a stinky pleasure of meeting yukky face to face, claws to claws.
Someone charged the Eyeless. Nayel missed who, but he was certain it
was Trîbbles. That hothead was always the first one, and required
more work to keep her alive. Not that Sanne wanted to give up on
grabbing the title “Sith that is the Sorcerer’s greatest PITA”,
as became obvious very quickly.
For the first few seconds everything seemed to go smoothly, but soon
after that went down the road straight to a disaster. The Eyeless
started spitting all over the place, often placing his foul green goo
right on his targets. No bubbles in the galaxy would help anyone with
that.
As if pools of slippery snot wasn’t bad enough, hordes of loud
rakghouls dug their way up from the ground, and attacked everyone at
random. Nayel tried to ignore them, having faith in his team mates to
take them down before he would succumb to their attacks. A kolto
probe hovered around him. Mike bravely spread his attention between
killing and healing.
Nayel felt his heals help little to none, as everyone’s was under
constant attack. Mike passed by him again, leaving another kolto
probe behind before proceeding to stab the big foot where it hurt
most.
Not that the creature seemed to be bothered by any of this.
Ungolia’s furious growl drew his attention to the Eyeless. “Oh,
blast,” he muttered. The creature seemed like be ready to
just...yup! Jump!
Everyone spread not to be crushed by the massive weight of the
mutant.
“Why do they always grow so huge?” Ayy Amersu asked no one in
particular.
“What? You don’t appreciate your face in their butts?” Nayel
laughed, drawing dark force to heal her wounds.
“Not my favourite thing to look at, no.”
“Sorry, don’t have a heal for that.”
“Stop hitting on her, and get back to work!” Aeny shouted toward
them.
‘Twi’leks,’ he thought, ‘jealous of one another.’
“I can do both!” he protested, eyeing them both.
Sanne fell unconscious before he finished his sentence. Aeny’s look
told him better than any words could what she thought.
Embarrassed, he concentrated on his work.
However, concentration wasn’t enough. Between constant attacks of
underground rakghouls, and glue-like spittle, Nayel spent as much
time running around avoiding pools of disease, fending off little
stinky nuances, and trying to stay in one piece, as attempting to
keep the remaining standing team on their legs. Not that many of them
still were.
A sudden attack of cough paralysed him completely. Unable to breathe,
he felt like his lungs were just about to be coughed out of his
chest. He barely registered Ungolia falling next to him not to stand
back up. Aeny was down too. Looking around to check who was still up,
he noticed foul, green, pulsing warts or growths on his shoulder. He
barely regained his balance, when another attack of vicious cough
immobilised him. ‘I’m useless in this condition,’
he thought.
The Eyeless suddenly lost interest in the team. They were all down,
so maybe the monstrosity was unable to detect them any longer. Did it
find its way — and pray — by sensing movement?
Helping each other, then managed to drag their bums to a safe place
in the cave far from any rakghouls.
“Ugh,” Nayel blurted, looking at his shoulder. “I need to get
some vaccines.”
“Want mine? I have a spare,” Sanne offered, trying to clean mud
off her outfit.
“Thanks, but you’ll need it later. I’ll just —” A cough
attack interrupted him. “ — get some myself at the medical post
at the entrance to the tunnels.”
He headed toward the brighter exit, but stopped again, as another
wave of spit-out-lungs cough enveloped him. He fell to the ground,
supporting himself with on hand, holding the other to his mouth.
Somehow he managed to drag himself to the medic. The vaccine
immediately removed the annoying effects of infection. He bought a
few more for others.
He pressed his communicator. “I’m all set, returning.”
“We’ll do it another day,” Trîbbles replied.
“What? Why?”
“We need to prepare better,” Aeny added.
He felt like tearing his ear piece out of his ear, throwing it on the
ground, and smashing with his heel. He didn’t like giving up.
However, he swallowed his disappointment.
The end
