ARC 1 doneee boissss yeeee
okay next chapter is a summary. This chapter took so long. I hope it lives up to expectations... yall knew this was coming eh?
anyways, thanks for sticking around.
Armour:
Victide (Ranger)
Weapon: Mandible Bow (Jester Arrows); Arkhalis
Acc(11/11): Band of Regeneration, Amidas Spark, Sailfish Boots, Luxor's Gift, Ocean Crest, Amidas Pendant, Crown Jewel, Tsunami in a Bottle, Frog Leg, Aero Stone, Shield of the Ocean
Health: (200/400)
"Ah, Guide. Fine evening sir."
The Merchant put on a strained smile and beamed at the exhausted man who had just stumbled down the stairs and into the kitchen. The Guide was barefoot, dressed in pajamas and a bathrobe, and had very clearly been getting a cup of tea before heading to bed. Obviously he didn't expect uninvited guests in his drawing room at this hour and looked at The Merchant with a rather depressed question mark painting his face.
"...uh... Hello, Merchant. Can I... help you?"
"..."
"..."
The Old Man simply continued to smile as he watched the younger man put a kettle on boil. The Guide was watching him suspiciously. It was only a matter of time before he began to investigate and peeked his head outside to see the giant explosive rigged around The Monster Knight's spawn point. If he saw that... would there be any consequence? could he somehow alert The Monster Knight? If so - then the entire operation would fail, and failure surely meant swift execution.
Damn, if only The Dealer wasn't so concerned about The Guide.
The Merchant internally cursed his companion. The Arms Dealer had somehow gotten it into his head that The Guide was an innocent bystander suffering Stockholm's syndrome. He, always the de-facto big brother, had decided somebody needed to guard The Guide so he didn't run out of his house and get caught in Big Betty's blast radius. The Merchant had little combat experience compared to The Demolitionist and The Arms Dealer, so he had volunteered to housesit, not out of any love for the man, mind you, but simply to free up the other two to keep the operation running smoothly. After all, if, by some miracle, The Monster Knight wasn't killed by the initial blast, those two were responsible for finishing it off.
None of us even considered The Guide would arrive first. Where is the Monster Knight?!
Was it possible The Monster Knight wasn't going to recall at all? Perhaps it was late in returning because it had decided to walk instead of teleporting? Impossible, all of them had done their utmost to keep this operation under wraps. Neither The Monster Knight nor The Guide should know that the spawn point was rigged, nor should they have any qualms about using it. After all, The Guide had himself 'recalled', and The Sea King had assured them the duo had gone a long way off to accomplish their errand.
The Knight… if it doesn't trigger the bomb, what will happen to us? Are The Demolitionist and The Arms Dealer enough to face it in combat?
The Merchant nervously fingered his throwing knives from beneath his tanned leather cloak. He knew he best not speak, but his anxiety was getting the better of him. He quickly wove a probing lie.
"Guide, my friend, I had something to ask The Slayer. You wouldn't happen to know where it is?"
The Guide blinked and raised both eyebrows as if he'd just been asked something extremely offensive. After a moment, he narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips.
"Him, not 'it'… what did you need to ask him?"
"It's a private matter."
The Guide began to glare.
"A private matter, huh?"
"Yes, and I'd like to speak to him. Please tell me where I can find him."
A long silence as The Guide observed him beneath a scorching gaze. He wasn't taken by The Merchant's hasty lie and scoffed, his voice falling low and threatening.
"What's this? What a strange turn of events! The Merchant, who has been avoiding me like the plague for the past week, suddenly appears uninvited in my home after The Slayer and I have been gone for several hours. He doesn't knock, neither is he in any hurry to introduce himself until I come downstairs. What do you think, sir. Why are you really here?"
"..."
The Merchant grimaced and held his tongue for fear of disclosing even more information. It was frightful how quickly The Guide was putting the puzzle pieces together. The younger man was beginning to get agitated. He left his tea kettle whining on the stove as he strode into the living room.
"And you won't tell me. That makes me think you're here to conduct surveillance. To make sure I don't leave my home, perhaps? And, to suddenly ask about My Slayer… what is this, an ambush you don't want me interfering with?"
The Guide fixed him with a look of grim humor. There was a proud yet vicious glint in his eye.
"Best of luck with that ambush, Merchant. Have you spoken to The Nurse? My Slayer cannot be killed. I just watched him slaughter the Moon Lord's roaming eye. You don't stand a chan-"
*click. fsssssh-*
"..."
"..."
A noise...the distinctive sound of a pressure plate being triggered and the hiss of gas escaping a mechanism. In that short moment, The Guide must have realized what sort of 'ambush' they had set, because every ounce of bravado drained from his expression, leaving nothing but craven horror and shocked desperation. He turned toward the living room window and opened his mouth to cry aloud,
"What the f-"
*BOOOOOOOOMMMMM*
"..."
The Terrarian sighed to himself as he felt reality warp around him. That strange and mysterious power which disintegrated him just moments earlier was now beginning to re-materialize him at the location he 'subconsciously called home'... Well, that's how The Guide had explained things anyways, not that The Terrarian really understood - or cared. All he knew was that when he stared keenly into that strange mirror they had looted off The original Merchant's corpse, he disappeared from wherever he was and reappeared on his patio, always exactly between his cooking pot and furnace.
…
Easy enough, but it wasn't a pleasant process. He exhaled hard and braced himself. There was always moment where his vision went blank and his ears stopped as a tremendous pressure hemmed him in on all sides. A split second would elapse where he was very conscious of his heart stopping, his breathing shuddering to a halt, and his mind completely dissolving - as if he had died just then and was being yanked violently back into reality.
...Haaah!
It was always like this, no matter how often he reassured himself everything would be alright, that brief moment of deadness caused everything within him to involuntarily scream out in hysteria. As he was revived and ejected from that strange suffocating pressure, his heart hammered against his ribcage, his lungs sucked air as if he had just emerged from deep underwater, his veins flowed with liquid adrenaline. He was aware of all of his muscles and nerves firing, as if to reassure themselves they were, indeed, alive. The fact his 'spawn point' was several inches above the ground did nothing to help, as the short drop always succeeded in absolutely panicking him.
*click*
Much to his annoyance, his brain was still spinning when he landed in his patio. It took a short moment for his senses to return, and when they did he heard a gentle click when his foot hit the ground. What was that... a pressure plate? Why would there be a pressure plate here... And what were all of these brightly coloured packages and wires strung about the floor, they all stank of gunpowd-
*BOOOOOOOOMMMMM*
"Huaaa-!?"
The impact was tremendous. The light was blinding. The sound was deafening. He felt his flesh leap from his bones as if it were trying to crawl off him. He felt his bones being stretched and crushed against each other in a viciously concussive wave. Like a burrowing creature, the blast tore through him. Shattering through his feet, tearing through his knees, his hips, and up his spine until it rattled his skull. His vision went white. His mouth was filled with the taste of pooling copper. He tried to shout, but found his tongue would not move. It stuck fat and dumb against the roof of his mouth - and only when he coughed the blood from his throat and felt it fall from between his lips to rest sticky and warm in the crook of his neck, did he realize he had bitten his tongue clean off.
!
There was no time to think. Before he could even process it, he was already rocketing helplessly through the air; the ground beneath him had heaved upward to toss him like a ragdoll high above the treeline. For a moment, he saw earth and whirling sky, then, with a dreadful cold in his gut, he came crashing down to the ground with a sickening crunch. His helmet rang like a bell as it cracked sharply against the patio bricks, his shoulder armour split lengthwise under the impact and fell away. He glanced over to look, and to his utter terror found his arm had… simply gone missing.
…?!
Where… Where had it gone? Why was his arm no longer attached to his body! Had it been rent off by the explosion? All that remained of the limb was a shard of bone poking from a bloody stump. Bright red blood pumped fast and thick from the wound, bubbling and boiling in the fire before seeping down between the bricks to water the ground beneath.
(Slayer! Oh my god!)
He faintly heard his name being called, but the high whine in his ears blotted out anything understandable. Yet even if he could hear, he was far too terrified for anything more than instinctual flight or flight. With eyes wild and breath coming fast, he dragged himself up on his remaining elbow and attempted to stand to his feet to flee… only to look down and find his right leg had been snipped off just below the knee.
… ah! Ah!
His vision doubled. He felt his throat constrict suffocatingly. His nostrils burned with the smell of charred flesh and gunpower residue. Water welled up behind his eyes and began to seep down his cheeks. As he collapsed back down into the rapidly growing pool of boiling blood, it splashed his helmet and burnt whatever exposed flesh it touched. His vision was dimmed and blurred, but he could clearly see something moving towards him. That tall olive skinned man was approaching aggressively. He walked with the stride of a predator, and he had come to finish off his weakened prey.
(Tough fucker, aren't you?)
The gunman's voice was low and garbled, but The Terrarian could hear the hate seeping through. Hate? For whom, for me? Why? His brain reeled, his mind spun. He couldn't even imagine why any of these people would hate him, much less wish to kill him. Hadn't he built each of them houses? Each night, didn't they shelter behind the gates he had erected? He had decided to kill them because they were uselessly draining his resources. What complaint did they have of him?
(Stop! Dealer, what are you doing!)
But as the rifle barrel was swiveled and pointed at him, The Terrarian was keenly aware that right now, none of his speculations or questionings mattered. Although he had never seen a rifle before (his brain supplied the contraption's name upon first sight), he instinctively knew he was in grave, grave danger. His chest constricted in utter dread as he stared down that barrel. Never had he felt fear like this before, fear undampened by those wild, murderous impulses. Even his adrenaline was beginning to peter out, and the sting of pain was growing to the point of overwhelming him.
What… what now!
He couldn't run. He couldn't fight. He was helpless and injured, ambushed in his own home. Could he beg? Dare he? He opened his mouth to say something, anything to defend himself, but with his tongue wedged between his collarbone and his helm's gorget, all he could manage was a wet cough. Terror and despair, until now these had only been words. Now, he had experienced them firsthand.
"Slayer! You idiot! What are you doing!"
The Guide?
Hope! He blinked and twisted his neck to look. Although his nostrils were filled with the smell of his own blood, he knew The Guide's stench all too well. There he was, dressed in his night-clothes and streaked with dirt, glass and blood. There was a gash above his eyebrow, and blood trickled down his face. He was shouting as he vaulted out of his shattered living room window to bolt across the lawn, making a beeline toward the gunman. The Terrarian felt a strange sense of relief wash over him as he saw his companion. The Guide was here, and if The Guide was here, things would surely work out. That man always knew what to do. Perhaps this was another one of his strange tests… surely everything was under control...
Surely...
The Guide hollered at him. There was panic in his voice. Panic and desperation. It put the fear right back into The Terrarian's heart.
"This isn't your home anymore, Slayer! Do you hear me? Recall! Now!"
The Terrarian blinked. 'Not my home?' What a strange thing to say in the middle of a crisis. What did The Compound not being his 'home' have anything to do with anything. Sure, the fact he had just had two of his limbs blown off probably meant he wouldn't call this place home anymore, but... was The Guide in his right mind?
"Slayer! Recall! Do it now you piece of shit!"
No, The Guide was always in his right mind. He was lunging at the gunman with a determined and purposeful steps. Clearly he knew what he was doing. The Terrarian wasn't in his right mind, he had no right to judge the mind of his intellectual superior - especially considering his current state. He was bleeding out and hysterical, and it was probably the best for him to just follow directions. He summoned his magic mirror to his hand and-
"Dealer! Stop! mrnph!"
"Ack! Guide you damn-"
*Ka-chik, BANG*
An earshattering noise split the night as The Arms Dealer's gun discharged. Buckshot whistled through the air, most of it flying wide, but a few pellets bore through his armour and into his already thoroughly scrambled insides. He felt the sudden urge to vomit, but suppressed it. The Guide had purchased him a few precious seconds, because he knew he couldn't survive another shot from that weapon. He gritted his teeth and stared keenly into the mirror. Behind him, there was a brief squabble before the The Arms Dealer once again took aim.
*Ka-chik, BANG*
...
A sudden pressure.
His vision went blank.
His heart froze and stopped short, going still as death.
His breathing halted… and his mind dissolved.
(MultiSkits courtesy of reviewers!)
Guide: "My son was just blown tf up. Can I get an F in the chat?"
The congregation: ... ... ... *cough*
Nurse: "F"
Slayer: ... *sputters and groans*
N: "Lmao just kidding, fuckers, he's getting back up."
Amidas: Wait, so you want to blow up the Slayer? You know he's a week old right?
Demo: Heh.
A: What, what is it?
D: A baby boomer
Nurse:Aight which one of you dipshits decided to try and kill my patient?
ArmsDealer: Hey I just want to get us all out of this prison, the Merchant even told m-
N:Oh, so that fucking geezer actually believes his own bewildering story is going to actually manage to kill that damn test s- patient.
AD: …Right
Lmao Rip T, he didn't even get to make a tendon bow before getting blasted to kingdom come.
Soooo... Where do you think he teleported to after he removed his 'spawn point'. If you play the games, you'll know... given he survived lol.
Also the Guide bit the Arms Dealer in the arm and got punched lmao.
Aight. summary time! 50 chapters bruh. so long.