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Chilchuck is a lot of things. A locksmith, an interpreter, a trap detector, a father, probably an alcoholic, arguably an anorexic, a fairly influential half-foot, and a pretty great lockpick, if he's describing himself. 'Long-distance runner' does not make the list. Neither does 'combatant.'
Nevertheless, he finds himself booking it through the alleyways of the fifth floor.
This isn't his job. He should have just stayed aboveground, found work with a different party like Namari did. That party didn't have a lockpick. He probably could have signed on with them.
He didn't do that, though. He stayed on with Laios and Marcille even though this isn't even covered by his contract, because despite himself, he likes these people.
He stayed on with Laios and Marcille and now he's running through a maze of bricks, chased by a fuckoff giant dragon that's going to blast him to smithereens any moment now.
"By the way, a red dragon's top speed is sixty miles an hour," Laios shouts, and how does he have the breath to shout while running like this?
Somehow, Chilchuck scrapes up the energy for a response. "Say that sooner!"
The plan works, somehow, and Chilchuck throws his body behind Senshi and prays that Namari was right about his pot. The dragon fire comes licking around the edges of the shield and blasts between them and Laios. It's hot. Unbearably hot. This is why he doesn't fight.
The dragon apparently realizes they're not getting burnt to a crisp, and stops.
Laios, like an idiot, touches the other side of the pot.
He shrieks in pain, sends it clattering across the cobbled stone floor.
Chilchuck is not normally inclined to run so much, so quickly, in such a short amount of time.
These are abnormal circustances.
Back when he thought they had a trustworthy plan (that is to say, fourteen seconds ago) Chilchuck was hopeful that Laios' knowledge of monsters, Marcille's magic, Senshi's equipment, and his hours of hard work mapping the fifth floor would keep them alive, and probably even allow them to kill the dragon.
Right now, Marcille's survival is the only thing he dares to hope for. She can revive them if she survives.
The plan is going terribly wrong, because really, it was foolish of him to expect it to work. You can't plan against a red dragon. Every idiot knows that.
Unfortunately, he's put his life in the hands of the most dangerous kind of idiot: Laios the monster enthusiast. Laios points them to a side alleyway, because if they don't turn, the dragon will fire again, and they'll die immediately instead of five seconds from now.
Chilchuck's hours of hard work mapping the fifth floor come back a moment too late. This is where Marcille is supposed to explode the building and trap the dragon. It's too early for them to be here. He looks up at where she stands ready with her staff and starts waving at her. No, no, stop, no.
Of course it was too much to expect a sheltered magic school elf like her to understand what he meant. No ability to improvise, to diverge from a plan.
Miraculously, the collapsed building doesn't crush him. It doesn't crush Senshi or Laios either. Even more miraculously, it seems to have crushed the dragon.
This is why he's always tried not to count his chickens before they hatch. The dragon sends a shower of bricks through the air when it wrestles free, and this time it hits him. It hits Senshi. It hits Laios.
Is anything going to go right today?
Laios hisses, "Don't move," at him, as if he's looking to move and draw the dragon's attention to him.
His party leader draws his sword.
Chilchuck follows his gaze upward, to the inverse scale at the base of the dragon's skull.
Please let this go right.
The sword throws itself out of Laios' hands, apparently fleeing the dragon.
Laios got that sword from the living armour, didn't he?
That bastard.
Of course it couldn't go right.
He has energy left, he discovers. And he devotes it all to being angry at Laios. What a fucking idiot. A fool, an asshole, a liar, a sacrament who thinks that it's a good idea to use monsters as weapons.
Senshi must not have noticed, because he hauls Chilchuck and Laios onto their feet, and doesn't even yell at Laios for his stupidity.
"Get under its belly!" Laios shouts.
"Laios, you slimy little—" Chilchuck begins. Common doesn't have enough fucking swear words. There's only ten or so before it devolves into slurs, and he's quite sure it would be an insult to orcs to compare them to Laios. He settles for "Esti de câlice de tabernak," which still isn't quite strong enough for the occasion, but it's better than anything the common tongue has to offer.
Laios sputters apologies, as if that'll make them any less dead when the dragon gets them.
At least the dragon isn't flexible enough to get them when they're under its legs. Or maybe it would be better to die now, rather than panicking for the next several hours before dying when the dragon decides to sit down or shit or some other such undignified death. Not that there's much dignity left anyway.
Senshi breaks his axe against the dragon's leg, as if that was going to do anything. He pulls out his kitchen knife, passes it to Laios.
"It's a mithril kitchen knife. Maybe the only one in the world."
Namari would have killed him if she found out he used mithril to chop vegetables.
Maybe something can go right today. All the gods above and below certainly know he's overdue for something to go right.
The kitchen knife does nothing, because of course it does nothing.
"If we keep backing up, we'll be in the plaza," Chilchuck pants. "Then the fire breath will burn us to cinders."
Honestly, being turned into cinders doesn't sound like the worst option right now. His entire body hurts. If they survive, he's going to need a serious massage.
It would seem that Chilchuck is the only sensible one, because Senshi flings himself into the path of the dragon as if he and Laios are going to be able to do any serious damage when they have no weapons.
The dragon's indescribably huge foot comes crashing down on Senshi, pinning him to the ground between talons that are as wide as Senshi's entire body.
Laios decides to reaffirm his status as 'worst idiot in all the land' and runs after him.
Chilchuck sticks out his foot and sends his party leader crashing face-first into the floor. What a blissful existence it must be, to have no common sense.
Laios may be an idiot, but he's at least a buff idiot. If anyone can kill the dragon, it's him.
Chilchuck vividly imagines punching him in the face.
He charges over the tall-man's prone body, prays his will is up to date, and yells at Laios to go find Marcille.
His life is in the hands of a stupid idiot tall-man and an elf who's even more stuck up than elves always are. Fucking fuck. Tabernak.
"You alive?" he shouts, and to his surprise, Senshi is. Stupid dwarf endurance.
If he was dead, Chilchuck could have focused on getting himself out alive. Now he's got to do the stupid maudit selfless thing and try and save Senshi.
"I'll get this off of you!" he shouts, even though he has no feasible way of doing that.
"Can you move?"
Senshi cannot move.
The dragon takes notice of him.
Chilchuck grips the kitchen knife still embedded in the dragon's foot.
He makes eye contact with the stupid fucking monster that looms above him.
It's not in his contract, but he does have a feasible way of getting this thing off of Senshi.
The dragon's head comes at Chilchuck, not even bothering to open its mouth.
He slides over the talon and lands on the floor, ass-first.
The dragon's eye shines above him, pupil like a bullseye.
He is going to stab this stupid fucking monster in the eye with possibly the only mithril kitchen knife in the world.
The knife spins through the air and lands true.
Thank fuck Laios isn't around to see it. He's not a combatant.
The dragon shrieks in pain and lifts its foot, giving Senshi time to escape.
Chilchuck dives for Kensuke where the sword clattered to the cobbles.
It's stuck to the fucking ground, because of course it is.
Truly, nothing is going right today.
Senshi pries the living sword up and throws it to Laios. Fucking dwarves. He collapses onto the ground. Probably from over-exertion.
Chilchuck should run. He should run, he should run, he should do what he always does and get the fuck out of the way and let the bigger races fight the monster.
"Senshi! Get up!"
Something hits him on the back of the head, and he collapses onto Senshi's body. Everything goes black, because of course he's knocked unconscious while in the middle of a fight with a fuckass huge monster. Nothing is going right today.