Xephos scrambled up the side of a tall building, skillfully leaping from one clump of leaves to the other, clinging to sprawling vines when necessary. As he held on tight to the tangles of shrubbery, he glanced about cautiously from his high vantage point. From the building he could see the area he and his partner had come from; the central spawn point, with a pile of chests (which may or may not have been looted) that looked particularly inviting to this particular tribute, who had only been granted some torches and a pumpkin, and the latter had already slipped from his grasp. Thankfully, though, there were no actual players in the spawn area or on the road down below Xephos, which the Spaceman was thankful for, though he doubted anyone could seriously wound him – it would be extremely difficult to snipe him when he was this high up, if they were lucky enough to have both a bow and at least one arrow.
It had been a chaotic start to the Games, even by the usual standards – two deaths already, one of them only…what, ten seconds in? The tributes seemed to be baying for blood even more than usual today. Xephos tried not to let this bother him as he caught sight of his dwarven friend Honeydew waving up at him from the half collapsed stone floor down below. A huge black spider also gazed longingly up at him, its scarlet eyes hungry for spaceman blood.
"Hello, friend!" Xephos called to Honeydew, waving back enthusiastically, and beginning to clamber down to rejoin his friend. As he touched down, the spider leapt hungrily at him, but only managed to scratch the Spaceman's skin as Xephos took a less than desirable route down to the next floor. Xephos tumbled down, and picked himself up, as Honeydew barely managed to stifle a laugh. Xephos picked himself up and brushed bits of dust and stone off his new outfit – a brown coat over a crisp white shirt. It was this outfit's first outing, but it might be Xephos' last, which was a thought he quickly pushed to the back of his mind.
"Let's make our way out of here." Xephos said, venturing into the dark centre of the floor, searching for some stairs. Descending on the outside of the building, he had already discovered, was a far more perilous and risky alternative, even if the indoor structures were overgrown and mostly collapsed – they were still safer, especially since the thick stone walls held steady, and would protect the duo from incoming fire, or from even being seen in the first place.
Honeydew began to follow his friend, branching off left into a small room almost completely overgrown with vines and leaves. The Dwarf had barely entered through the collapsed archway before he let out a cry of fear, backing away from the room urgently, as a well-known green menace stalked towards him. "Ah, ah, oh God…oh God, Xephos!" the Dwarf cried, knowing full well that neither he nor Xephos were particularly skilled at dealing with Creepers, even when they had top-tier items. He didn't have to remind the Spaceman that neither of them had any kind of weapon to hand. Xephos provided a fairly effective, if cowardly, alternative;
"Ah! Oh God, ah, oh God…run away, run away!"
As the Dwarf let out a few more shrieks, Xephos turned and began to sprint back towards the other side of the room, but a lumbering zombie blocked his path. The Spaceman skidded to a halt and darted in another direction, the sound of his friend's panicked cries ringing in his eyes as he crashed into another Creeper, sneaking out from a dark corner.
The blast sent him tumbling backwards, landing spread-eagled on the cold stone bricked floor, the loud thump catching the attention of many more mobs. Xephos desperately tried to heave himself back up, his vision blurring, his heart thumping loud and fast. He managed to roll onto his front, catching a final sight of Honeydew thundering towards him before a skeleton's arrow punctured the Spaceman's eyeball, killing him instantly and splattering his foreign blood over a small portion of the floor and wall.
Honeydew stopped dead in his tracks, watching completely frozen as Xephos collapsed to the floor, blood pooling out from his head and wetting his brown hair; but seeing the skeleton abandon Xephos' corpse and start aiming for Honeydew instead made him remember that this was the Survival Games, and surviving was not something he would be doing if he stayed here for much longer. He caught hold of a vine and swung onto a tree a few feet below him, as he saw Ridgedog disappear into the floor he had just left. Alone.
Honeydew crouched down out of sight of any incoming players, sitting down surrounded by leaves as he struggled to hold back his tears. Had that really just happened? Was Xephos, his oldest friend…gone? It had all happened so fast.
But then again, this was the Survival Games. The name really was deceiving when the vast majority of tributes would be doing anything but surviving.
An announcement made him snap to attention.
"Xephos was shot by Skeleton."
The Dwarf could not deceive himself into believing that surviving was something he had done without Xephos before.