#118 – AND STAY DOWN!

JamieWasTaken3:NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Jeofffff:dooonttttt I froze, my knuckles clenched on the door handle, eyes staring at the red door in front of me. What the fuck. I’d almost failed the limit break right then and there if all the voices in my head hadn’t stopped me. Even now, it was so so so tempting to just open the door and be done with it. But I couldn’t. If I left now, then all of this nightmare would have been for nothing and that... Fuck that. I wouldn’t be that one shitty streamer who had drunk giant centipede’s stomach acid for nothing! And so I grit my teeth, ripped my hand away from that door, pointed at it, and with a hoarse voice screamed, “Fuck you, door! Nobody likes you anyway!” And then had a coughing fit because my throat still hurt. In response to my insults, my surroundings shifted a bit and acid began dripping from the walls, slowly filling the room. I stared at it with a sneer. “And fuck you too, you ugly piece of shit!” Cough “I’ve seen rotting compost piles prettier than you!” Another coughing fit. But it was worth it. JamieWasTaken3:YEAH YOU TELL HIM Jeofffff:whoa whoa whoa KaiEbikoOfficial:nana ;_; KaiEbikoOfficial:I dont want you to break I took a deep breath, still shaking. “It’s fine. I’m meant to break. It’s fine!” I murmured, careful to not strain my throat as much this time. With that, I turned around and headed deeper into the thing’s stomach, still careful to keep the acid away from me with my hydrokinesis. My head still pounded, my body felt weak, and I probably looked like a complete mess, but I kept going. I sent John out ahead to scout for more dangers and idly took out my flask to take a swig. The effects were instant. My throat tingled from the ether-filled liquid and the pain slowly abated. Too bad I had no time to safely use the pillow. I could physically heal myself and restore my Ether with the flask, but that didn’t help with the headaches... Well, I would just have to deal with the headache. It didn’t take long for me to find the green Excalibur knockoff in the distance. It was already half submerged in the acid and tiny bugs were crawling all over it... in fact, those bugs were in the acid as well. Wait. I glanced to the side at the acid I was keeping at bay and... yes. There were tiny bugs floating inside it, moving around, clearly alive and well. How the fuck– Never mind. I should stop questioning how all this worked. It was probably all designed to most optimally unnerve and freak me out. Regardless, I slowly made my way to the green key sword thing as the acid levels kept rising and it was getting more annoying to keep it all away from me. I really hoped getting that sword was going to help me get out of here, because otherwise, I might have to swim through acid. Finally, I made it to the sword and pushed the acid away from it. Unfortunately, pushing the acid away didn’t push away all the bugs crawling all over the sword. I swapped Rend for Fire Breath and spat on them to clear them away. It didn’t do anything. After the fire washed over the sword, the creepy crawlies were still there, creeping and crawling. How freaking resilient were those things? Apparently very resilient, considering their natural habitat was a giant monster’s stomach acid. I grimaced, brought out my Dragon Blaster, pointed it at the sword, and then shot out a glob of liquid plasma at it. The plasma enveloped the sword in its entirety for a moment before it slowly dripped down and onto the ‘ground’. There were less of these bugs than before, but they were still there. How the fu– Eclipsoon:I think you have to grab it with the bugs still on it John wasn’t out, so nobody in chat saw my utterly revolted expression. AotoNana: I hate this place so much. I nudged away the plasma pooling around the sword with my hydrokinesis. Then Ilifted my arm and slowly reached toward the sword... before stopping. The creepies kept on crawling. I so did not want to touch that. But the more I waited the more of them seemed to return from somewhere. Standing there in indecision also gave me the perfect opportunity to study them from up close. It was actually hard to say what kind of bug they were, since they were just a small black bean with six legs coming out of it – almost like a very simplified drawing of a generic bug. JamieWasTaken3:dude the acid My head snapped around and sure enough, the acid was basically towering over me at this point. I could also begin to feel the strain of keeping it at bay with my hydrokinesis. I probably wouldn’t be able to do it for much longer. So I took a deep breath, repeatedly murmured, “Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this, fuck this...” under my breath, and then finally grabbed the handle of the key sword– A chill went down my spine as the tiny bugs immediately decided migrate from the sword to my hand and then to my arm and then– “Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this, fuck this–!” I continued to chant, louder and louder as I grit my teeth and tried really hard not to think about all those crawlies on my body right now. I tried pulling the key sword out, but it just didn’t budge. I grabbed it with my other hand as well and pulled even harder. It. Did. Not. Budge. “COME ON, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!” I screamed, despite my still injured throat. There was too much acid around me now, I had no choice but to give way and shrink the bubble of air around me that was keeping the acid away. “COME OOON!” I swapped Fire Breath for Analysis and Appraised the key sword. Trial Key An imaginary object, only usable by those who truly want to use it. “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN?!” I wanted to use it, damn it! Let me use it! Why couldn’t I pull it out?! Something crawled into my ear. I reflexively swapped to Flameguard and engulfed it in fire. It didn’t do anything. It just kept crawling in my ear. My grip on the Trial Key tightened, and in my head I swore to the Fate Weaver that I would fucking find him and stab this shitty ass Trial Key up his dick before– My focus broke and the acid came rushing at me. “FUCK YOU!” I screamed but didn’t let go of the Trial Key. Just as the acid was about to drown me, the stupid key finally came loose. My grip on it was iron, so it didn’t go flying out of my hands. Instead, just as I inadvertently slashed with the thing upwards due to it coming out so suddenly, it emitted a bright green light that seemed to slash through the top of the Millenipede’s innards while simultaneously push away the acid with a shockwave it created. Then came the very loud roar of pain as everything around me shuddered. I still didn’t let go of the stupid key though. Instead, I fought against the nausea, the discomfort, and my urge to scream, and swung the thing sideways, hoping it would release another burst of light. It did. The entire length of the Millenipede’s insides popped like a grape before violently ejecting everything inside it – the tiny bugs, the charred flesh, the acid, me. I screamed as the droplets of acid showered me but forced myself to keep my eyes open, just long enough to spot the lake of millenipede saliva right below me. Too late did I remember that I could slow down my fall with Featherfall and ended up drunking straight into it. It was absolutely disgusting and got into my eyes and nose and– I activated Self-destruct to clear my immediate surroundings, uncaring about the damage it would cause me. Flames exploded all around me, burning away the mucus, letting me fall deeper into the hole that had held all the gunk. A moment later, I landed on my side with a crunch and a squelch and immediately tried to blink away the bright spots and the charred bits of the disgusting substance. Then I saw it. A green trapdoor. I instantly just knew that it opened to the green staircase. It had to. There was no decision to be made. I forced my screaming body to get the hell up and to get into that damn staircase. On the periphery of my vision, I saw some globs of mucus rushing back down into the hole as well as the Millenipede with two giant holes in it clambering its way over as well. I did not care. I made it to the trapdoor and slammed the Trial Key into the lock. The lock instantly reacted by swallowing the key in its entirety before it and the trapdoor flashed and promptly disappeared, revealing a staircase down. I had been right. It had been under this fucking mucus lake this whole time. I threw myself down the stairs, uncaring about any injuries I might sustain doing so. I bounced off of the first stair I’d landed on with a crunch, fell further down with a roll, bounced again, and then stopped. I immediately scrambled to get back up and look behind me and– There was a wall. Just like when I’d come down into that cave, the stairs had been blocked off when I hadn’t been looking. I stared at it in absolute disbelief for a few moments before closing my eyes and letting out a breath. Then I remembered the tiny bugs crawling over me and... found out that they weren’t there anymore. Were they ever even there? Were they some kind of hallucination? Or had the Trial Key somehow gotten rid of them? I had no idea. I did not care. All I cared about was that I was finally out of that fucking place. With that thought, I slumped on the stairs and promptly blacked out. I must have lost and regained consciousness a dozen times as I lay there on the stairs, feeling both absolutely miserable and incredibly relieved. I had no idea how long I spent in that position, but eventually, I forced myself to sit up on one of the stairs – ow, fuck, my arm had to be broken – and then proceeded to summon John and had him look at me. I looked like shit. Red eyes, ugly burns covering my face and arms, tattered clothes, my hair looking like I had a tsunami and a typhoon take turns brushing it– I dismissed John, not wanting chat to see me like this anymore and stared down the stairs with dread. Because... the text had very clearly said ‘Trials’. Plural. This had just been the first one. There would be more to come. And I had no idea just how many it was supposed to be. It could be two, or it could be hundreds. No wonder becoming tier three was apparently rare if you had to go through something like this. My breath hitched and tears began to gather in my eyes. I didn’t know what waited for me at the end of this stairwell but I did not want to go down there. At the same time though, I couldn’t quit after all of this. Then it would have been all for nothing. Yeah, sunk cost fallacy yada yada– “Nooo... Whyyyy...” I let out a whine against my will, interrupting my own thoughts. I ended up sitting on the stairs, sobbing to myself, for hours.