Fortunately for me, Stinky broke my fall. Less fortunately: we were on an incline.

I landed right on top of the brute as he struck the hard ground in the dark. He let out a sharp, wheezing “oof” as he connected and my weight slammed on top of him. It was still jarring and knocked the wind out of me--but I was largely unharmed. Especially considering that level of jostling had uncorked the cloud of smoke I’d inhaled, allowing me to finally breathe. I sucked in a lungful of tasty, delicious air and heaved a little.

No, no, no. Don’t puke again!

I didn’t, but it was dicey for a split second. However, we were on the descent of whatever plateau we’d crash-landed in the dark onto, as I mentioned.

That meant that just as my Dark Vision turned on, I began to roll. The two of us tumbled again, only this time I could very clearly see everything that was happening in muted detail. It looked as though we were in some sort of mine shaft. The walls were roughly hewn rock and dirt. Still, it was hard to get a precise gander because I was super busy screaming and spinning end over end like a terrified slinky.

The butt-faced spit-dribbler I called Stinky was also crying out and somersaulting. I had to believe it was even scarier for him because, as far as I could tell, he didn’t have the same ability to see in the dark that I did.

The two of us made quite the pair as we plummeted further down, the incline becoming a steep drop once more, and we suddenly freefell into the dim. This time when I landed, I’d approached a slope to the ground, and I was sent cartwheeling wildly onto the stone floor. I crashed nipples up, flat on my back while still shouting.

Stinky landed right behind me but on his stomach. He was screaming too. We both just lay there for a moment, yelling for our lives in the chill dark of this nameless tunnel, our cries reverberating in the void. Then I finally got control of myself and stopped hollering. Stinky kept going for another handful of seconds--until I slapped him. I am sure it would have been considered a fuckhead move to pop his gob like that had he not been trying to kill me a moment ago--especially since I could see and he couldn’t. The mangy bastard didn’t have any idea it was coming, so he just got the full unabridged blast with no preamble. It shut him up, though.

For a blessed second, anyway.

“Where are you, ya little whoreson!?” Stinky demanded, swiping at the air with a dagger from his position on his chest. “Face me like an orc!”

Man, we’d just fallen a long way and he was still trying to kick my ass. It was impressive that he’d been able to hold on to his weapon during our very dignified barrel rolling. I had to hand it to him: he was tenacious if a bit stupid. And coming from me, that’s saying a lot.

I let him wiggle in place for a moment, keeping a safe distance and trying not to laugh to alert him to my exact location. Then I noticed something sprouting from behind the fool. My jaw dropped. Stinky still had my paring knife sticking out of him. It had been driven through the thin slats between the plates of his hide armor and into the meat of his right shoulder blade where it had pinned the cloak I’d thrown over him to his flesh. The fabric was bunched around the hilt like a skirt, leaving the rest of the accessory trailing behind him like a squirrel’s tail.

I quickly stood and then very quietly snuck forward and wrapped my fingers around the handle and yanked the knife out of him.

“I’ll take that!” I said as Stinky erupted into a furious yowl of pain and fear. I left the cloak.

“I’ll fucking kill you, orc!” Stinky shouted uselessly, trying to stand, but I shoved him back down with my foot and tossed the cloak over his head again. His muffled oaths were full of rage, but I didn’t care. I could have easily ended his life right there in the dark, but the thought of it seemed… unwholesome. The idea held a wrongness that I just couldn’t move beyond. Like stepping on a robin’s egg you'd found in a sewer.

In my mind, there was nothing badass about murdering a blubbering loser in a pitch-black mine shaft when he was blind and curled up in a fetal position. So I would let him live.

I’m a merciful god.

I was going to take his coin purse, though.

I quickly sliced the strings, and as he struggled to stand, I gave him one more swift kick to the back of the knee. He went down wobbling, his arms windmilling as he hit the floor another time. Then I scampered off silently down the impossibly-dark tunnel as Stinky cried for me to come back and fight.

The tunnel was crooked, the unevenly carved passage hooking to the right not far up ahead and then sloping downward slightly to the left. Beyond that was unknown to me because my Dark Vision wasn’t developed enough to reach that distance. It was really, truly dark down here to the point that even my gray gradient spectrum was fuzzy and a little difficult to intimate finer detail.

However, as I continued on, I spotted a wall sconce with an unlit torch in it.

Aha! So this place isn’t a natural formation. Just as I suspected!

I hadn’t actually suspected that, but pretending I did seems cooler, right?

I’d only made it about fifty yards down the path from Stinky, so it was easy to hear the echoes of his bellow bouncing along the tunnel after me. As I reached for the torch, those sounds began to break and turned into sobs.

Christ in a banana hammock, that’s depressing.

It was unsettling to hear a creature of Stinky’s menacing stature suddenly devolve into tears, wailing like a lost kitten.

“Don’t leave me down here!” He called through gasps of breath. “I can’t see nothing! I don’t want to die alone in the dark. Please!”

I held the torch. It was cold and chalky, a tattered wrapping of oily cloth clinging to the end of the shaft like a pathetic and withered pube. I couldn’t help but compare this tool to the one floundering around sightless in the passageway, tearfully begging for help. But I couldn’t blame him, not really. I’d likely be doing something courageously similar if I didn’t have the benefit of Dark Vision. I sighed.

Son of a poop, I thought. I’m going to go back for this lint licker, aren’t I?

I groaned and turned around, marching back the way I’d come. Stinky came into view after a moment. He was standing now, his hands out and legs quivering as he inched his way down the wrong direction, back toward the hole we’d spilled out of.

“Hey, Ass-butt,” I said, startling him. He whipped around toward me and lost his balance, but I caught his arm and jerked him upright. I was surprised that he was so docile now and hadn’t tried to hit or stab me.

Progress, I suppose.

“Here,” I said and shoved the torch into his left hand, careful to avoid his right as that was the one wielding the blade. Stinky paused and began groping the torch, probably trying to figure out whether or not I’d just handed him a stick of dynamite.

“A torch?” He asked. I could see snot dribbling down from his smashed nose, and that unlocked an additional level of pity in my conscience for the dude.

“Yeah,” I said. “You light. Make big flame. For see.” Man, my caveman impression was spot on.

“Alright, then,” Stinky hissed, holding it up where he must’ve thought I was at. “Go ahead and light it.”

“Uh…” I mumbled, confused. “Don’t you have some way of doing that?”

“Sure, let me just cast a nice bonfire spell,” Stinky returned smugly. I could have hit him again. But I didn’t. I’d decided I was now much more mature than I was a few moments ago.

“Listen, you’re taking an awfully sarcastic tone for someone who was ugly crying on his tummy less than thirty seconds ago. Don’t act like you’re all put together now.”

I watched Stinky clench his jaw, his four mouth slits tight in frustration. He seemed to be considering something.

“You’re an orc,” he sighed.

“Damn, nothing gets past you, huh, Basil of Baker Street?” I said.

“Vosket’s dick!” He exclaimed, scowling deep. “Let me finish, you fucking petulant wanking cloth. Since you’re one of the savage, pilfering breeds of monstrosity that thrives in the dark, you’re going to have to use an item for me.”

I chuckled.

“Boy, you really know how to switch gears,” I said. “Where is it?”

“My satchel,” Stinky grumbled.

“Sure, hand over your fanny pack, and I’ll dig your precious out of there.”

“I’m not letting you get your filthy paws in there,” Stinky barked. “I’ll hand it to you.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty.”

Stinky shifted, reaching to his side, and tensed up with a hiss.

“Gods damn, orc. You stabbed the bloody shit out of me!”

“Yeah, and I still owe you another for your cute maneuver during our two-man luge,” I said. I waited for him to recover and then watched as he very carefully slipped the strap of a small leather carrier from beneath his left arm. He opened it up and blindly felt around the inside before withdrawing two small, flat stones. Then he placed them in his palm and gestured toward my general direction. I activated my Analysis, but whatever they were, I wasn’t able to tell.

???

Rarity: ???

Item Type: ???

Durability: ???

Weight: ???

???

“What are these, then?” I asked. “Part of your button collection?”

“They’re starters, I said,” Stinky growled. “Take them--carefully! Knock 'em together over the end of the torch. Only once! It’s got shit-all for charges left.”

I shrugged and picked up the flat stones, surprised to find they were warm to the touch. I held them in front of the gauzy fabric of the torch and clicked them against one another cautiously.

FWOOF!

A gout of flame leaped from the stones and arced onto the edge of the torch head, igniting the fabric, and the torch was suddenly blazing. I squinted as my Dark Vision reeled back and dissipated, the color returning to my sight. Now that I’d used the items, it seemed my Analysis was working a little better. The display activated unbidden, and I could see more information about the rocks.

Troyal’s Fire Starter

Rarity: Uncommon

Item Type: Enchanted Tool

Durability: 4/100

Weight: .12 lbs

???

Then I was hit with a separate prompt.

Congratulations! You’ve raised an Ability!

Analysis has advanced to F-Rank Level 2!

Interesting.

I peered back at Stinky seriously, closing my fist around the fire starter as he made to reach for them.

“Who’s Troyal?” I asked. “Is that you?”

Stinky scowled deeply, shaking his head.

“No,” he said sharply. “And that’s the end of it.”

“Guess I’ll just keep calling you Stinky, then,” I said.

“You call me Stinky?! To who?”

I chuckled.

“Ah, shit. Was that only in my head? Sorry, Stinkers, I do that sometimes.”

Stinky gave me a look I recognized well: like he’d like to punch my dick into my throat. But instead, he just turned and spit onto the tunnel floor with a harsh noise.

There was something about the man’s personality that just seemed a little incongruent with the figure he presented. He looked like a calculatingly vicious, murdering son of a bitch, capable of cleaving through a whole horde of monsters to eat their hearts. But, everything I’d seen from the way he acted seemed a lot more… well, lame.

He’d been terrified sliding down the hill, and his bravado during our fiery fisticuffs had been shaky, at best. His general manner was leading me to believe he was not the tough guy giga-Chad his exterior indicated.

Congratulations! You’ve raised a Skill!

Insight has advanced to F-Rank Level 6!

So, apparently, I was on to something. That gave me an idea, at least, as to how to approach the next phase of our self-inflicted imprisonment.

“Can we call a truce, for the moment?” I asked.

“A truce?” Stinky asked, looking baffled.

“Yeah, a cease-fire. A stand down? Whatever it’s called where we don’t attack each other temporarily. As much as I adore pummeling you with my entire arsenal of masterful ass beating, we appear to be stuck down here. It might make sense to hold off on making each other die until we figure out what the fuck is going on.”

Stinky groaned but didn’t disagree.

Good.

“Did you know this place was down here?” I ventured.

“No,” Stinky said. “Our unit hadn’t even been to the fucking camp before. Commander Fuck-up was several days ahead of us. ‘Was looking forward to resting before heading out again in the morning. We’d only just arrived in this damned area when all the explosions started.”

“Yeah, what was up with that?” I said. “Was that some sort of welcome party that got wildly out of control?”

Stinky scowled up at me.

“I was going to ask you that very question, orc,” he said. “Seems suspicious that you arrived just as everything went to fucking shit.”

He bristled then, pointing down the tunnel.

“Can we walk at least while you jabber on? The less time we spend in one fucking spot, the better. If anyone is alive, they’ll be rallying back at the blasted camp, and the sooner we get out of here, the sooner I can drag a rusty blade across your fat neck.”

“You’re not selling it very well,” I said. “But, yeah. Sure.”

We started our trudge down the path with me in the lead. I had a sneaking suspicion that Stinky was too frightened of the big scary underground trail to knife me in the back, so I wasn’t very concerned with being in front. Our long shadows danced against the irregular shape of the tunnel as we moved.

Man, whoever made this thing must have had two different lengths of legs.

The ground was bafflingly uneven, and I had to do a sort of hobble-hop as we went along, taking care not to trip and fall and lose all semblance of what little intimidation factor I had left. I could hear Stinky plodding along behind me, several large paces between us.

Somebody is nervous I’m going to get a foolish murder-y idea, I guess.

We traveled in silence for a few minutes, both of us battered, bloody and bruised, but refusing to yield to weakness in front of the other. My groin and thigh still burned from smashing the potion into the crook of my sack, and I could see Stinky’s shadow wince ahead any time he had to make a sudden movement.

What a couple of bozos. I thought.

I considered the nickname he’d used for Fawn: Commander Fuck-up. So, life in Redmarktown wasn’t as harmonious as it seemed. I wondered about who might have caused everything to blow up, but I had no way of knowing. The timing did seem incredibly serendipitous, though. Maybe whoever it was had been waiting for a diversion? I was starting to feel like I was a big fat distraction in an orc costume, so it could be reasoned that whoever had done it saw an opportunity and acted.

I still couldn’t believe the shift Fawn had gone through after our conversation. I was lucky to be alive right now, especially considering the Levels I’d seen on the troops I’d managed to sneak past. One of them had been Level Fifty. That meant Fawn had to at least be in the neighborhood of that because I assumed it would be challenging to manage a group as rotten as theirs if there were people much more powerful that could easily usurp the throne.

Lucky may not have even covered it, actually. That brush with death was practically divine intervention…

I remembered the humorously brief conversation with Zeol. He had mentioned he was, in fact, a god. If that were true...

I felt my anger building. Did that motherfucker play a part in that? It took me a second to calm down, but eventually, I got it under control.

I wasn’t mad about surviving. No, that was the good part. If that doofy fucking mask had been the one to start fiddling with my lifeline, then that meant there were probably other aspects he was able to fuck around with to different degrees. That was assuming he was even capable of a feat like that. I mean, he did give me that--what was it called? Aegis? That seemed like something someone who liked to mess with people would gift someone.

This fucking place, man.

Boy, I couldn’t tell if things were becoming complex or I was just letting my imagination run away with me. One thing was for sure, though: I couldn’t tell anyone about the Espers. Whatever purpose they served must have been pretty fucking cool if it meant other people would be willing to turn me into Swiss cheese over them.

I gave a sidelong look at Stinky. Would even he try to kill me over them? Even with the ultimate end of being trapped in the darkness alone? Maybe. I was clueless to their function, and maybe it was worth it to those in the know. For all I knew, they could open an immediate portal to Blowjob Beach.

Let’s not find out. For now.

“What were you guys doing that kept you from getting back to camp earlier?” I asked, breaking the silence and startling the other man. I didn’t turn, but I could see Stinky’s shadow jolt at my words.

Easy there, Captain Confidence.

“None of your fucking business, orc,” he said sullenly. “Redmark matters.”

I thought about telling him that I was technically a pledge into their mighty ranks after my conversation with Fawn. I mean, she hadn't actually rescinded my membership offer during the entire ordeal where she was trying to hack my bones apart. I guess I hadn’t actually officially accepted yet, either. Either way, that would just lead to an uncomfortable conversation that I didn’t think I could navigate well enough to explain why I’d been trying to escape.

“Where were you all heading to in the morning?” I tried instead.

Apparently, this was an even worse inquiry because Stinky spit on the ground in disgust.

“You a fucking spy, orc? Why the hell do you want to know what we’re up to? I said it doesn’t concern you!”

“Fuck you, trash boy,” I said, anger returning. “I’m just trying to pass the time with pleasant conversation, so untangle your balls from your thong, you miserable asshole.” I was getting sick of Stinky’s eternally lousy attitude. The irony of it was lost on me at the time.

Stinky barked out a laugh.

“Keep it up, tusk tooth,” he said venomously. “I’ll break this idiotic truce and slice your belly open. Let the dark creatures take you, then.”

I snorted.

“Oh, okay,” I replied. Then, because I’m a bit of a dick, I began to increase my pace down the rocky corridor. I gradually moved faster until the halo of light from Stinky’s torch began to get smaller behind me. I heard a quick shuffle as the soldier realized he was being left behind.

“Where are you going?” He demanded, but I detected a hint of fear in his tone. I smirked.

“Keep up,” I said simply and started to jog.

“What--er--stop!” He bellowed. “I’m injured!”

“We’re both injured, you turd burglar,” I called back. “Let’s get to stepping!”

I kept picking up speed, my thigh and crotch on fire with the effort, but it was worth it. I looked back to see how far away he was, and I could see him struggling to hobble along on the uneven terrain, his panicked face illuminated by torchlight.

However, that turned out to be a mistake because as I turned to look ahead again, I found myself running right off the edge of the tunnel and into a large crevasse that I’d not seen.

“Fuuuuuuck!” I screamed.

---

The fall stopped.

It was nothing but darkness for a moment, and then I was blasted by bright lights and the loud screech of noisemakers. I heard booming crackles and pops as something colorful shot at me.

I screamed, throwing my arms up to shield myself from whatever unhinged murder destiny this happened to be, and clenched my fists. A moment passed, and the clamor died down, but I kept myself barricaded in my wall of arms. Another moment and soon it was silent. I peeked out to see what had happened, and instantly another chorus of party horns and snaps and vibrant streamers and confetti blasted around me in a chaotic maelstrom of celebration.

A huge banner dropped from above with a single message:

WELCOME BACK!

“What the…?”

I looked around. I was in a brightly lit room that stretched for hundreds of feet in any direction. It was largely empty, save for a podium that looked to be affixed dead center, shrouded in mist. There was something familiar about this space, but I couldn’t quite put a finger on it. The dimensions, I knew, were different somehow, but the vibe it was giving off resonated with me in a way that I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about.

Then, I noticed suddenly that I was standing in about two inches of water. Annoyance entered me as I realized where I was.

Well, shit.