--- Kat ---
Lily didn’t end up helping with the potion. The ti limit wasn’t reasonable and it seems like Lily had been the only one expecting to have a useable ingredient by the ti it ca to that. Appoline had just glanced over and seen Lily hadn’t managed anything yet and kept brewing. Lily was so fixated on trying to get this to work she didn’t even notice Appoline checking up on her. Nor did she notice when Appoline started on another potion afterwards. That’s basically how the whole rest of the afternoon went and they missed out on lunch completely.
What shook everyone out of that stupor was Thy’s announcent. "THREE ELIMINATIONS! That’s right THREE PEOPLE ARE OUT!"
Kat froze and quickly listened out for Hedera who seed to still be sleeping. Kat glanced at Lily to see she was equally worried. Having one person eliminated a while back was a slight worry. Having three all go down at the sa ti? That was sothing much more serious... and it ant that one of her team mbers was almost certainly gone from that match. Well, her or Hedera’s. "What the heck happened?"
--- Green ---
"THREE ELIMINATIONS! That’s right THREE PEOPLE ARE OUT!"
Green imdiately woke at the announcent, weapons ready to attack... only to glance around once more and rember where she was. "Oh right. Still stuck in this fucking pocket dinsion. I really hope that everyone else is ok. I doubt Nixilei got caught out... right?"
--- Nixilei ---
Nixilei glanced over at her temporary partner when the announcent rang out. He didn’t seem particularly concerned over it, so Nixilei decided she wasn’t either. She trusted that at most one of her team mbers were caught in this. If Kat was working with anyone they were safe, Green and Gareth working together would be too much for basically anyone to take down with the level of coordination they had... *Well, unless they took out mbers of a group and that was enough for so people, including those two, to be out of orbs. Hmm... would Green be so lazy as to hang around Gareth for protection... maybe?*
"So, you don’t seem to worried about your team," Nixilei pondered.
"You don’t worried either, so I hardly see the difference," Ugalaz stated.
"Hey, I have every confidence they’re still alive but you... don’t seem to be worried at all. So, what’s the story there? Feel like telling ?" asked Nixilei.
Ugalaz sighed as he placed another at skewer over the fire. "I’m being paid to put in real effort but I don’t particularly fancy fighting Kat. I’m also not being paid to win and I’m sowhat sick of my team mbers. They aren’t the worst people to work with, but I wouldn’t call them friends. So I’m going to try my best, and then if they fuck it up? That’s there problem not mine. They seem to think they could win even without my help so," Ugalaz shrugged.
"Wait, why did they pay you to participate properly if they think they can do this without you?" asked Nixilei.
"Eh, it was more of a thing their parents arranged but I don’t interact with their parents, I interact with the kids. Perhaps if this was a more normal bodyguard duty or Thy wasn’t as careful with everything, I’d feel differently about it but, eh, it’s not like I get a better reward for winning," explained Ugalaz.
"Wait you don’t?" asked Nixilei. "Kat has been getting paid to show up... mostly using the rewards from winning. I an, we paid her properly the first ti but the other tis she was able to accept the stuff Thy handed out as paynt."
"That... hmmm... not sure if that’s allowed but did she leave you a beacon?" mumbled Ugalaz. Nixilei nodded at the question. "Alright that’s... certainly weird but probably legal? Use the beacon to defer paynt, then do the job and accept Thy’s reward as the paynt. Not sure I’d do the sa but... yeah I guess it makes sense that she’s trying and more of a friend if she was willing to go that far. Just reinforces the idea I shouldn’t fight her over that."
"Fair enough. What’s the plan for tomorrow? I feel like the orbs have been drying up in the area and we haven’t found anyone else to kill. Not that I think we eliminated the first guy..." asked Nixilei.
Ugalaz shrugged, "Could head for the desert..."
--- Gareth --- (Earlier that day)
Gareth was trailing behind Gardor when everything went sideways. Sothing exploded, and Gareth instinctively defended himself and those around him summoning stone walls to try and protect from whatever it was that had ’attacked’ them but the shockwave continued through them, feeling like a punch to the gut.
Even with the protection, Fluffles was completely stunned and Gardor seed to be much worse off then Gareth himself. When he threw away the surrounding rocks that had collapsed on him, it revealed open sky and a moderately sized crater. It also revealed sothing else flying towards them and Gareth was already moving.
Gareth threw out a gloved hand and a giant first of stone exploded from it colliding with the object midair, causing it to explode early. Gareth simply weathered the explosions with his body and armour, but his two companions fared much worse. This was especially true for Fluffles who seed to be completely paralysed by the attack. Fluffles didn’t seem to be in pain, but he might just be good at supressing that.
Gareth moved forward to stand at the front as he tried to spot where the next attack was coming from, and was almost disappointed when a third explosive showed up. Gareth sent a rock to activate it earlier, except this ti, his assumption that it was the sa bomb as earlier proved wrong. The enchanted object exploded sure, but instead of a powerful shockwave it released a thick cloud of gas into the air.
Gareth used his boots to shove the dirt below the away and pushed his teammates back into the tunnel they’d co from. "Hurry move," hissed Gareth before he sucked in one last breath and brought up the rear, sealing the tunnel, hopefully fully and before the gas arrived inside.
Fluffles was stumbling along, clearly not in the best shape but the poor molebear was moving. Gardor was moving as well. Based on the way he was holding the side of his head Gareth was guessing that his eardrums might have burst. He was leaning heavily on Snuffles for support, but the fact that he wasn’t simply riding on the molebear’s back was probably a good sign.
Of course, the gas from behind them was another bait. Or at least, that was the complaint that ran through Gareth’s mind as another explosion was set off behind them, this ti accompanied by a major burst of fire that was following them down the tunnel. Gareth slamd his shield into the ground, summoning another wall of earth to defend them. Fire licked at the front of the stone wall and Gareth could feel the heat radiating through it.
When he saw that the other two had stopped to look at them, Gareth hissed, "Dammit keep moving." He was tempted to call for Timmy to carry Gardor if he stopped... but that might cause the dwarf to freak out and he hadn’t had a proper chance to see how Timmy operated in a combat situation. There was also the fact that the little guy was a lot weaker when you weren’t asking him to gather water or firewood. That limitation was... probably for the best but it was annoying.
Sadly, the few extra steps didn’t matter as another explosion rocked the tunnels around them. The impact rattled Gareth’s bones and even if it didn’t hurt it wasn’t pleasant. The tunnel seed to be holding up for now but there were extra cracks in the walls that weren’t there before. *Dammit. We need to get out of these tunnels or dive deeper. The problem is that I don’t know if Fluffles is in proper condition to dig fast enough. I don’t know how naturally he reinforces the tunnels...*
Another explosion went through them, though this one didn’t seem to be as close to them, it was set off sowhere on the left. The impact was still felt but the cracks in the tunnel didn’t seem to get any larger at first glance. Gareth didn’t like the fact that they were trapped in a small tunnel with no way to escape. On the other side of things, it wasn’t like they knew where the bombs were coming from. The one in the distance seed like it was too far away to be thrown.
*Seems like they were guessing where the tunnel went but guessed wrong? Perhaps there’s another tunnel or so sort of landmark over there? Fluffles’ paths can be a bit winding but I am thanking him for it now. That sharp turn we basically imdiately hit helped us avoid that explosion... but I still don’t know what the best play is. Can we risk going up to the surface?*
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