Chapter Two – The Cellar
~CELLAR (BASEMENT II)~
"Ow. Ow. Owww…" The mercs groaned, reviewing the level of damage done to themselves after that spectacular fall. Isaac landed on top of them a moment later. "OW!"
Isaac shrugged a somewhat disinterested apology as he hopped to the floor, looking around. This place was even further worn down than the basement, the floorboards all but rotted away and thick cobwebs shrouding the majority of the space. At least they still had a little light to see all this crap by.
The mercs clambered upright to check out the room as well, finding an option of three doors to mosey through. Spy glanced distastefully around;
"So it isn't over. Splendid." He paused to see if anyone had anything to say in regards to that. When they didn't, he let out an excessively exasperated sigh, "I'm picking the door then. How do you like that? HUH!?"
"… I think he's lost it," Sniper commented, following the aggressively-walking Frenchman to the back door alongside the others. They reached the next room to find a couple of… well, what were – they were kind of – they were squishy things. Fairly yucky squishy things called mulligoons. Anyway they ran off the second the mercs appeared, jamming themselves into the far corners. Medic for one had no quarrel with taking them out regardless, although he didn't appreciate the little bomb appearing on their deaths and launching him into the nearest wall. Thus he felt the Schadenfreude.
Oh my God I just spelled that correctly first time can I get a Hell yeah.
Eventually the mercs helped their teammate up and continued along, only to find the other door locked. The main reason this sucked being it was one of the shiny golden doors. The main reason this was okay was that they still had that key, aw yes.
The progression proceeded progressively into the item room, and found a wicked knife in the centre. Naturally, Spy called it;
"Stab, stab, stab," he mimicked Sniper's accent, jabbing the thing at the others like some kind of insensitive prank. Honestly.
They headed back through to the start room, stumbling over the uneven floor, and surveyed their remaining options; left or right? Medic came up with the marvellous solution of spinning around without looking and picking the door he ended up facing when he stopped. So fourteen attempts later (he basically only ever saw walls) they headed right.
Isaac led them through the door and regretted it instantly – a whole bunch of spiderish things (trites) were waiting for them, springing about the room like hoppers.
"Hunter!" Sniper yelled, then remembered, "Oh wait, wrong game." Abruptly he had to awkwardly dodge to the side when a trite flew at him, four legs all up in his face. Wait four that's not how spiders work.
The battle strategy for this particular skirmish bore down to aimlessly running around and, in Sniper's case, removing monsters trying to act like hats from his noggin. Spy on the other hand had quite a fun time, as it turned out he was in possession of a throwing knife, which was worth losing that pistol for.
Contentedly enough he sauntered about and lobbed the blade every-which-way, humming some kind of cheery song now he could freely murder stuff. Medic and Isaac unanimously decided to hang around him for the time being, daintily leaping around these infuriating cobwebs all over the place.
Finally (with only trace amounts of excruciating pain inflicted upon them here and there) the group dealt with the trites and tiredly trailed their way to the next and only door. They'd probably feel a tad better if they knew what the heck was going on down here.
When the REDs asked Isaac he didn't really give a substantial reply (a mumbled response of 'dunno' akin to Pyro's was provided), Medic bluntly asking;
"You don't say much, do you?"
Perhaps fittingly Isaac didn't say anything in reply, only nodded a little. Then he wondered if he had just indicted 'yes, in fact he does say much actually' or 'no, he agrees that he doesn't say much', which got distracting, confusing, and altogether an unnecessary train of thought to be riding.
What it did do was provide the needed diversion from the entering-of-the-room event taking place. Therefore they marched right into a crowd of gapers, again. The lot of them swarmed after the mercs and Isaac like doves to a surgery table with a Heavy on it, wee arms flailing excitedly.
Now understandably the guys were fairly pooped by this late stage in the day. Or night. Whatever. So they maybe didn't keep the ideal distance from the monsters as they would have preferred to and ended up in the sticky situation of 'stuck in a corner - which smelled pretty bad and creaked a lot, already splintered and otherwise beat up – because of some zombie things'.
Aaaand, the pummelling commenced.
Within a few moments the mercs were down to one HP (had they known what HP was, ahem) and Isaac to two, due to the blue heart from earlier absorbing a couple of hits for him. A rapid stream of frantic shooting and knife-throwing took down the gapers and subsequently their headless states before too long. The four of them sat where they were for a bit.
"Zhat could've gone better," Medic eventually offered in the uncomfortable silence, leaning back to stare at the murky, distant ceiling. "Maybe you could tell me if zhis is any use?" He removed the yum heart from his pocket and gave it to Isaac. Having forgotten about the item, Isaac blinked in surprise for a moment, then using charade-like techniques explained it could be eaten to restore a little health.
The kid didn't fail to notice everyone looking at him expectantly.
"Well, go on then," Sniper said after a while, "We're 'ardly gonna use it when a kid could."
"We're allowed the occasional nice moment in these stories," Spy proclaimed. "Occasionally. We're no good at them."
He was quite right because no one knew what to do next, hence the following time lapse.
The group had only two doors to pick from, and one was locked, so really that narrowed down the selection significantly. The newly-healed Isaac led the way into the next room, cautiously passing under the worn, dusty doorframe. Ah, splendid. A roomful of nifty wee spiders splayed out before them, the (for some reason) four-legged pint-sized monsters dashing here and there.
Surely, this would prove no problem.
"Stay. Still. Wankas!" Sniper raged mere moments later, giving up on using the scope and randomly letting the rifle off around the room. Even without the actual intent of dodging, the spiders made a pretty good job of it. The mercs and Isaac ultimately resorted to chasing them haphazardly back and forth, shooting aimlessly and running into the walls.
"Wait - WAIT, I have it," Spy suddenly announced, halting dead in the middle of the room. Everyone else paused to witness whatever he planned on doing. "We use live bait."
"Oh, okay," Medic intercepted casually, striding over and promptly chucking the Spy into a corner. "Ach, poor defenceless Spy! Easy prey for spiders, ja?"
Sniper snickered to himself and Isaac stared on in confusion as the spiders went ahead and scuttled toward the Spy. Reasonably objective to this, the Frenchman flailed around with the knife as they approached and finally took one of them out, leaving the others to charge over and shoot the crap out of the remainder.
For their troubles they received a couple of those cartoonish bombs, which they left with Isaac seeing as they weren't Demo or Soldier. Granted neither of those two should really be trusted with explosives themselves…
Anyhow. The team collected themselves and checked out their potential paths. Couple of doors as usual, neither particularly distinctive from the other; just the same, dusty brown wooden structures. On a whim they moved for the south-most one, trudging across the battered floorboards and sidling around yet more webs scattered about. At least, they reckoned, they wouldn't be encountering some kind of boss figure.
"So this's gotta be a boss," Sniper commented not much later, fleeing after the others. "Typical."
The monster in question had nothing on the size of Monstro – in fact it appeared to be exactly Isaac's height. In actuality it somewhat resembled him too, though pink and quite sickly-looking, and it insistently chased them at a speedy pace. Isaac's mother had told him often enough to avoid the deadly sins; he just hadn't been aware they would have such a violent personified form. C'mon, who would anticipate that sort of thing? Jeez.
Lust, as the mini boss was, didn't do much else besides run after the team, a lot like the gapers. However they were significantly more creeped out by this one and doubled the run-away effort, somehow remembering to run and gun amidst the panic.
"I'm starting to think," Spy began lethargically, "that this may not even be happening. Maybe I'm the one in the year-long dream sequence…" (See Shopping Trip, clueless friends), "Which would mean a unicorn is bound to turn up soon."
"I vouldn't be surprised," Medic replied absently, shooting Lust repeatedly in the face to no visual effect. "Although, zhat suggests zhe whole team are sharing one elongated dream…"
Realising this wouldn't get them anywhere or anything but a headache, Isaac sighed a little sigh and set one of the bombs to snap them out of it. In a feat of accidental success he also blew the pursuing monster to high Hell, leaving the mercs to turn around blankly and stop where they were, confuddled.
Hey, confuddled is adorable.
With a collective 'meh' the four of them set off for their next door, only to find it to be another 'gateway to Hell' looking thing. Adopting very, very forced smiles the mercs stared at it unwaveringly, thinking how if they were lesser men they'd be crying right about now.
The thing was, they kinda really wanted to escape this place. Whether that would only happen if they died or did something equally as unpleasant, they knew not, but they couldn't just go on and head to respawn without Isaac having the option. That would just be mean, and the three trigger-happy mercs were surely never mean. Ha.
"On we go then," Sniper mustered up a semi-positive tone and strode in slow motion toward the door, leaving the others to awkwardly overtake him at regular speed. The Australian pouted and jogged after them into;
~THE BOSS ROOM~
Damn, this place was a wreck. Darkness smudged over everything within a few feet, like the team were part of a painting and someone had spilled ink all around them. Carefully they treaded over the rough grey-brown floorboards, mindful of the gaps that would easily lead to a great downward fall. The progression crept further into the room, scanning for a sign of life to no avail.
"Cue disaster in three, two, one," Spy said monotonously, waiting for the inevitable sneak attack. None came, but right at the end of the countdown a little fly buzzed their way, hovering around at head height and generally being a nuisance. Eventually Isaac just went and shot the thing down, though a second later another one took its place. Then another, and yet more until the team suddenly found themselves facing a storm cloud of flies.
And then, as if they weren't already fed up of these guys, the 'big cheese' appeared before them, looming through the darkness, cruising along like a massive grey hot air balloon with a slightly disturbing expression.
The Duke of Flies, as those informed would know, can prove no trouble if taken down instantly. Give the guy half a chance and he'll have a full army of attack flies acting as a living shield and an oddly tough force to be reckoned with.
Regrettably, the team had given it that chance.
"Ooh, zhis isn't good." Medic summarised curtly, though not so helpfully. The others mumbled agreement, nodding for good measure, then made a peculiar 'rargh' noise and opened fire. A bunch of red flies zoomed toward them, requiring a few shots each to go down, while the smaller black flies really only got in the way.
"Now would be a nice time for a flame thrower," Spy observed, taking out a line of flies with a well-aimed knife throw. "Or a minigun, even. I'm not fussed either way."
"Jarate is my best offer," Sniper shrugged, clearing a small gap just long enough to score a hit or two on the Duke. Spy's disgusted expression told him that wouldn't be appreciated. Isaac wondered if he wanted to know what jarate was, but instead occupied himself with the fly situation. There sure were a lot of them. Where were they comingfrom?
"Ha, zhat's most interesting," Medic said, having figured that part out. "Zhe big fellow seems to be making zhe flies. Can ve stay here for a bit? So strange."
His teammates simultaneously yelled 'no', marking the first time they agreed on anything. The team figured out that killing the 'shield' would get them nowhere now; it regenerated too quickly. They would have to go for the Duke himself by any means possible. The only things they could think of though proved fairly risky. To a deadly extent. What with only having the one HP, this could go pear-shaped fairly easily.
That's actually a shame for pears. Apologies.
"Isaac, stay back here," Medic turned briefly to address the kid, "Ve'll go in and see vhat ve can do."
"Worst case, w' die by flies, to make an obscure reference," Sniper added, "We'll respawn anyhow. I reckon you won't, so…" He shrugged awkwardly. "Um. Stay safe?"
"… You're an embarrassment," Spy stated flatly, leading the way into direct battle with the Duke. Sniper frowned a little but hurried after him, Medic pausing to shoot Isaac a 'see what I have to put up with' look before following. Isaac felt a tad uneasy as he watched them go; for mercenaries they seemed kinda nice. Meh, he could distract himself by picking off some flies.
Spy and Medic went for epic battle cries in their mother languages, so Sniper of course didn't feel like using English and made owl noises. The three of them all but jump-kicked into the Duke's halo of flies which, in hindsight, wasn't the best plan, but it was the one they were going with. 'Desperate times' and whatnot. Somehow they did in fact break through the mass of irritating buzzing wings (leaving them on the precarious position of half a hit point left) and encountered the boss.
It looked a smidge like the moon if they squinted, under the assumption the moon could go ahead and drift around the sky whenever it thought no one was there to see it. Maybe the balloon simile from earlier was better.
"Jarate dispensed," Sniper informed the others uncomfortably as they stared up at the monster with 'Holy crap why did we do this' expressions. Spy didn't want to think about that and awkwardly extended his knife arm, giving the Duke a wee stab. Promptly the boss lost his cool and belched out a whole bunch of his minions, which was considered both disgusting and fascinating by different members of the party.
Isaac, on the outskirts of this chaos, hadn't much idea what was going on. He continued to fend off the nearest little monsters but couldn't even see the mercs, never mind get through to them. He'd have quite the problem if those three died, actually, he thought. At least that would probably never happen.
"Spook's dead," Sniper notified Medic maybe a split-second later, wondering how bad that was for the current fight. "Hm."
Evidently 'hm' was his wondering sound.
"Certainly is a problem," Medic mused, realising they'd really messed it up this time. Still, they were mercenaries, so they fought on in a very manly fashion – screaming and running around the Duke in circleish ovals without paying much attention to where they were aiming. Through the powers of video game logic and plot protection they survived long enough to deal highly significant damage, leaving the boss on a sliver of HP, when Medic noticed he hadn't seen Sniper in a while.
He really would've killed for his Über projectile shield right about now.
It wouldn't bode well on anybody's mind - should they happen to be reading a transcript of the events of this day - Medic thought, if he left a wee kid to fight for his life in a basement with a monster, but he was blindsided by an attack fly and sent back to respawn for the purpose of giving Isaac a Moment of Badass.
Go on and grab some epic music because it won't actually be that epic by itself.
Isaac didn't care for having his new best buddies killed dead by a fly-thingy, even if they were going to 'respawn', whatever that was. At that point he remembered he still had the second little cartoonish bomb they had found earlier. Aw yes. Spinning once for a bit of momentum, Isaac lobbed the thing into the approaching mass of flies, the explosion detonating in the dead centre and scattering the bugs like they were Coca Cola and the bomb was Mentos.
Ooh boy, that worked better than he dared hope; now he had a straight shot through to the Duke of Flies. In the end, thanks to the mercs, it only took the one clear shot to finish off the boss, which fell alongside his flies. Isaac blinked. He was a freakin' hero.
Even better, he actually managed to grab his victory loot this time – breakfast! (Which somehow boosted his max HP. Don't even ask how.) That left him little else to do. His team was gone, but there wasn't any way he could fix that now, so…
Trapdoor it was.
Current stats;
Isaac – base, 4 HP
Medic – base, yum heart, 0 HP (Dead)
Sniper – range up, 0 HP (Dead)
Spy – base, Mom's knife, 0 HP (Dead)
Y'know the game actually says 'Stab, stab, stab' when you pick up the knife? Fun fact :p
And the Duke of Flies is actually such an easy boss XD
Thanks for reading!
