Jackie came strolling through the door with her bow drawn, aiming right at Nick.

“Oh! Nick, get out of here. Go hide or something.”

That was all she said before turning around and heading back out of the room. Nick shrugged his shoulders and kept heading in the direction he originally intended. He found himself in a kitchen, though it certainly was a little dated for his liking. No fridge or microwave, just a large fireplace and a pantry. Nick decided to see if the house was stocked with any food, when he checked the pantry he was blasted by a foul odour. Nick gagged and was sent running from the room, the pantry had been stacked with rotting cuts of meat.

“That’s just cruel.” He muttered to himself.

Nick then realised that the anxiety and excitement that surrounded the event had left him. No longer was he interested in trying his best or even taking part. He knew that the Hogs were just going to systematically hunt each of the other members down, there was no competition taking place. Nick couldn’t even bring himself to be excited by the prospect of getting the class gems, he wasn’t earning them. Nick was just going to be given them, he was playing no meaningful part in the process of getting them and it left him feeling empty. He wouldn’t even have been able to make it to this event room without the Hogs. He’d gotten ambushed by a Trickster and would have died if it weren’t for them.

Nick sat down with his back against the wall, deciding to just wait the rest of the event out. He was rather bummed out and felt like his motivation had been sapped from him. That was until he heard heavy footsteps stomping towards the room he was in. Nick was suddenly flooded with panic; while he wasn’t feeling motivated to take part in the event, he certainly didn’t want to get caught by the lord. Nick edged his way back towards the door that led to the lobby, trying to not make any loud sounds. He had his hand on the doorknob when the other door leading into the room slammed open.

A massive figure squeezed their way through the door, the appearance stunning Nick. They were dressed in a pressed velvet suit, but dressed wasn’t quite the right word for it. The fabric was stretched over their body, buttons desperately trying to hold everything together. Rolls of fat spilled out of every available seam, trying to escape its material confines. The flesh of the figure was grotesque, sores weeping puss that oozed down skin and velvet. Then there was the figure's face. The eyes and mouth had been completely hidden in rolls of fat, though a sharp nose barely managed to poke its way out of the fleshy mounds.

“I. Found. Youuuuuu.” The lord bellowed.

Nick bolted like he never had before. He ran through the lobby and crashed his way through the doors. He didn’t stop to look behind him but he could hear perfectly well. The lord was somehow closing distance on him, their heavy footsteps drawing closer and closer. Nick had no idea how the damn thing was so fast, it barely looked like it could support its own weight. Nick didn’t have the opportunity to really question it though.

He tried to change his route up, instead of running in a straight line, he took doors that led to sharp turns or ran halfway down long hallways and picked a random door to head through. It didn’t matter, the lord somehow kept closing the distance on him. He could hear the ragged breaths of the lord, he could feel the heat radiating from their body. Nick realised he was about to get caught. That’s when he had a lucky break.

Nick threw himself through a doorway and found a very welcome sight, two people trying to hide themselves. They were squatting behind a sofa, barely hidden. Their armour poked out and clearly gave them away, though Nick wasn’t about to point out their mistake. Nick just counted his lucky stars and ran right through the room. He made eye contact with one of the people as he passed by them and had to shake his head. That’s when the lord came crashing through behind him. The lord must have noticed the duo as well, cause they jumped towards the sofa. The duo let out a yelp and tried to run but it was far too late for that.

Nick turned back and watched as the lord grabbed each of the roamers in a meaty hand and held them up. Then it ate them. The lord opened up their mouth impossibly wide and threw the pair straight down its gullet. Nick didn’t stop to watch the aftermath and continued running. He no longer crashed through each room and slammed doors, instead trying to minimise the amount of noise he was making. Thankfully it seemed like the lord had lost his trail, though Nick didn’t sit around to find out. He kept moving through room after room, doing his best to put as much space between the foul creature and himself.

Nick decided that the lord definitely was a monster of some sort. When it had opened its mouth he had seen row after row of rotting teeth held together by diseased gum. If its impractical proportions hadn’t given it away, its impossible mouth did. No human would be able to support such a monstrous maw. After running for at least another five minutes, Nick decided to stop to finally catch his breath. His mind replayed the sight of the lord devouring the two people over and over. Nick knew that the lord would be a bad fate to face, but he hadn’t realised it was that bad.

Being eaten wasn’t high on Nick’s to-do list so he got moving again, just as he grabbed the doorknob to enter the next room over he was stopped.

“Heyo Nick.” Jackie slammed her hand into the door, closing it.

Nick turned around and found Kim and Leif standing in the room as well. Suddenly Leif tried to swing his axe into Kim. Kim took a minute step backwards, just avoiding the blow and pulled out his bow. Kim let loose an arrow that pinned the other man to a wall on the other side of the room.

“Ya years too soon for tha dickhead!” Kim laughed.

Before Nick could properly process what was going on he saw Jackie shoot three arrows of her own at Kim. Kim dove out of the way and took cover behind some furniture in the room.

“Ya cheeky brat!” Kim yelled.

Jackie didn’t respond and instead flanked around the room, trying to find a new angle to attack Kim from. As she cleared the angle with an arrow drawn, ready to shoot, she was surprised. Kim was no longer behind the chair. Suddenly an arrow fired from one of the corners of the room, catching Jackie in the shoulder, the force of the arrow sending her ragdolling into a wall.

“Stealth archer, can’t beat it laddy.” Kim chuckled.

Suddenly an arrow was shot towards Nick. He watched on in horror as the arrow tore right through him, leaving a clean hole where his chest should have been. Nick looked back up at Kim in shock.

“Nothing personally laddy, just can’t accept second place.”

Nick’s vision went dark and his body fell to the floor. Suddenly his eyes snapped back open and he was standing in the manor’s lobby amongst a crowd of people. He brought a hand to his chest in bewilderment. What had just happened? He was dragged from his confusion by a rough pair of hands grabbing his collar and hoisting him into the air.

“Why did you lead the lord to us huh?” A gruff voice shouted at him.

Nick saw that it was one of the two people that he’d seen get devoured by the lord. The other person was standing next to him, with an equally angry expression on their face. Nick was very confused and stumbled over his words.

“I, uh, I didn’t, I mean.”

“You punk! We were so close to making the top five!” The man looked like he was ready to beat the daylights out of him.

“Well, well, got some sore losers over here do we?” Leif called out as he walked over.

The large man placed a hand on the angry man’s shoulder and Nick was dropped to the floor. The angry man then crumpled to the floor, clutching his shoulder. His friend didn’t look like they were about to step in to help though. They were cautiously watching Leif.

“C’mon Nick, got loot to distribute.” Leif said, turning and walking back towards the centre of the room.

Nick followed along behind him, still a little confused by everything that had just taken place. He’d seen Lief die, he’d seen that duo get eaten, he himself had died. At least it felt like he had, that wound in his chest had felt rather real. He was then surprised as he saw Kim and Jackie joking around with each other in the centre of the room. They were carrying on like Kim hadn’t just brutally slain the three of them. Nick was once again confused, he felt pretty mad that Kim had just murdered him and he felt like that was pretty damn justified.

“What the hell just happened?” Nick asked.

“Can’t actually die in event rooms.” Leif said, patting him on the back. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Huh? Can’t die? How the hell are you saying that so casually? That seems like a pretty big deal to me! Why didn’t you tell me this before you killed me?”

“Chill out kid, no harm no foul, yeah?” Jackie said, shrugging her shoulders.

Nick shook his head and took a deep breath. He needed to calm down. Dying might have been a casual experience to these people but it was rather new ground for him. He’d felt the pain of the wound, he’d felt his mind go black, he’d felt himself die. How was he supposed to just accept that? Dying was a pretty serious business to have suddenly dropped on him.

“Did you really have to kill me?” He asked.

“Nah.” Kim replied. “Any sort of attack would do. No fun in tha tho is there?” He grinned.

“Not like you’d even be able to survive an attack.” Jackie scoffed.

Great. So Nick had just been killed for absolutely no reason. Here he was having an existential crisis over the fact that he’d just felt himself die, and the three jokers around him just got back to laughing about whatever inane topics they could think up. Thankfully Nick was offered a quick distraction from his crisis.

Hiding Time!

Kimaris 15:35 Nick Jones 15:34 Jackie Hog 15:30 Leif Hog 15:21 - - -

- - - -

“Kimaris? And what kind of last name is Hog? What’s with your goofy names?” Nick asked.

“I’ll ‘ave you know, Kimaris is an awesome name.” Kim frowned.

“All the Hogs change their last name, except for Kimmy cause he’s an asshole.” Jackie laughed.

“All the council members just have the one name, it’s not really Kim’s fault.” Leif defended.

That’s when the rewards appeared in an explosion of confetti. The Hogs rewards all disappeared as quickly as they appeared. Those rings were very handy, Nick certainly wanted one of his own. Nick looked at his own reward, it was a gem with a white marking on it. It looked like a chunkier version of the class gem he’d gotten from the loot goblin. Suddenly he reacted without thinking and caught two objects being thrown at him. Both Jackie and Kim had thrown a crystal at him. Jackie’s was the same as his own, which he could assume was a level three gem. The gem that Kim threw was a little different though.

This gem had a green strip on it. Nick instinctively knew that this was the level four class gem. Nick looked at the three gems he held in his hands, he was sure that Tony would be positively coughing blood if he knew that Nick had just gotten these so easily. The thought brought a smile to his lips. Nick then looked up and realised that he wasn’t the only person eyeing up the gems he was holding. More than half of the room was openly coveting them. Nick then realised that the level four gem was likely why most of these people were here and he was just holding it out in front of them all. If the Hogs weren’t standing around him, he was sure the crowd would be jumping on him like a pack of hyenas.

“Hey, guys.” He interrupted the Hogs. “How about we get out of here?”

That’s when his vision flashed and he found himself back in the hotel lobby with everyone. The coveting gazes only grew and he noticed more than a few teams start edging towards him.

“Aye tha sounds good.” Kim agreed. “Either of ya remember where tha nearest button is round ‘ere?”

Both Jackie and Leif just shrugged their shoulders at him.