Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

To be fair to Senshi, Chilchuck should have known better than to place his trust in the dwarf’s instruction-following abilities.

I mean, really, how could the lockpick expect Senshis’ clumsy, frog-skin darned feet to stay away from the trap triggering tiles?

Now however, Chilchuck is pissed. Rightly so, as a misplaced dwarven boot on the wrong tile has just dropped him through a trapdoor ten feet below his party and into a damp, dark room.

A trapdoor that had now clamped closed above him, shutting out the cries of shock from his party right alongside his hopes of climbing out.

The Half-foot painfully levers himself into a sitting position, gauging his bruises and mentally cataloging the space around him. He spots an unlit torch holstered above him on the wall to his right, and sags with relief. ‘at least I won’t have to trip around in the dark for fuck knows how long’.

“uurgh…”

Chilchuck scrambles to stand, whipping toward the pained noise behind him, hand poised at his hip (the storage place for one of the few knives he keeps on his person), to see-

 oh… that lump of clothes looks a little too much like a certain elf’s.

Fuck.

He stares at the grumbling heap of his party’s mage, assessing her form for signs of injury, seeing nothing but scrapes and what he’s sure will develop into some nasty bruises.

 ‘I guess we won’t be needing the torch’.

 He hopes there’s no major wounds masked by the darkness, because he is not going to be carrying the 3-times-his-size woman out of this mess.

“Hey,” Chilchuck crouches down, impatiently slapping his palm on the magic user’s cheek, “Marcille, get up.”

“Nngh,” the fallen witch intelligently grumbles while pushing up off the ground, rubbing the back of her head, “’m up, I’m up, wha- happn’d?”

“You fell down a hole.” Chilchuck deadpanned, only to be met with a blank stare.

He clarified; “I also fell down a hole.”

“Oh…ok,” Marcille rises on unsteady legs and looks around the room they landed in, squinting (unsuccessfully) through the dark, “Where are we exactly?”

Chilchuck raises an eyebrow at her, “Same place we were before, just lower.”  

The elf glares, “No, I mean- How are we going to get out?”

Now content with his companions’ living status, Chilchuck stumbles to his feet before responding; “Well for starters,” Chilchuck states, “We could use your magic glow-y orbs to, y’know, see.”

Marcille grumbles under her breath before crouching down and searching the floor for Ambrosia, bumping her hand into the staff, and grasping it to her chest in a hug, “Oh thank god I didn’t lose you Ana!”

Chilchuck rolls his eyes, prompting Marcille to blush and hastily incant light bearing balls which settle, floating, above the two.

Now able to see their surroundings, the half-foot freezes through a spike of panic. Not because he doesn’t know where they are, but because he does.

Interpreting Chilchuck’s lack of movement as him not recognizing their environment, Marcille whines, “Ugh, great if you’re lost, then we’re out of hope,” she slumps against the nearest cavern wall, “Let’s just wait for Senshi and Liaos to open-” She cuts herself off, spotting the wide eyes of her partner.

“What? What’s wrong? Chilchuck?”

Chilchuck seems to shake himself from his anxiety, vision clearing, “We have to move,” He grabs Marcille’s arm and pulls her along towards a particularly crumbled wall of the room, marching through into a dingey stone hallway with the occasional off shooting room.

The elf digs her heels into the ground stopping Chilchuck in his tracks, “Wait, wait, what do you mean ‘we have to move’? Do you know where we are?”

“yes,” The smaller man whispers harshly, “And we aren’t safe here, so let’s go,” he pulls at Marcille to no avail.

“No.”

“NO?” Chilchuck narrows his eyes at her, agitated, “What do you mean NO?”

Marcille stands her ground, “I mean no. Not until you tell me what’s freaking you out so bad that we’re actively moving away from our friends.”

“Look, I-” The Half-foot huffs, rubbing the bridge of his nose and looking so weary that Marcille almost drops it. Almost. “There’s a party that stays around here who we do not want to cross paths with. Trust me.”

The elf stares at Chilchuck, eyebrow raised, “oh what, are they going to ask us about our personal lives?” She rolls her eyes.

Chilchuck scoffs and turns, walking away, “Listen, if you want to sit here and wait to get captured and thrown in a cage to be killed for entertainment, or used as bait,” He crosses his arms defensively “Then I won’t stop you, but you sure as hell won’t make it out of here without me.”

Marcille pales, “Chilchuck, did- have you…” Chilchuck stiffens, Marcille sighs deciding for once not to push, “ok… ok, lead the way.”

Still stiff but less visibly tense, Chilchuck continues forward, trusting his companion to follow.

They trek forward for what feels like hours, Chilchuck in the lead, walking as if he intimately knows the way out of these tunnels. Marcille tries not to think about what that could mean for the smallest party member.

At least they don’t have to worry about getting lost. Their journey would be quick if not for Chilchuck stopping frequently to ensure no traps or people were lurking around corners.

Marcille thinks Chilchuck’s being overly cautious, as their path looks completely abandoned.

After a good chunk of time has passed of seeing no people, Chilchuck begins to relax, shoulders slumping, turning corners with less hesitance.

Unfortunately for the duo, that’s exactly what leads to Marcilles staff catching on a hanging snare trigger hidden by a turn in their path.

Marcille shrieks as her insistent grasp on Ambrosia pulls her up along with it. Both mage and staff are tangled into the snare fully.

The elf is left swinging painfully by the weight of her arm, the thin wire biting into her flesh.

Chilchuck, who was frantically scrabbling at the wall next to the trap trying to find the mechanism to disarm his party member, comes to a complete stop in his movements.

He perks up and glances behind him, down the long hallway, before tensing up and resuming his attempts to free Marcille with new vigor, muttering frantically.

“Shitshitshitfuck- they need their bait alive so there has to be a release mechanism there has to unless- oh shit, unless this is a trap they use for food. Nope, no, they wouldn’t use a snare mechanism this small for any of the monsters around here this has to be meant for half-foots holyshit they’re going to get me again-.”

Marcille tries wriggling her arm out of the wire but succeeded in nothing but more stinging pain, felt strongly despite the growing numbness of her limb.

Marcille stops her struggling when she notices that below her Chilchuck seems to be working himself into a genuine panic, maybe she should’ve been listening harder to his rant so at the very least she could figure out what triggered his fear.

By now, the Half-foot has his arm shoved almost entirely into a loosened brick opening next to the hanging elf and her staff. By now all that’s making it out of his mouth is profanity, most of which Marcille doesn’t recognize as common speech.

Considering the last time Chilchuck swore in his native tongue was when Laios almost got half his party killed by the Red Dragon, they were fucked.

Chapter Text

Marcille is pulled out of her thoughts by a loud click, the resulting victorious call from Chilchuck, and the sudden re-appearance of gravity.

“Geez warn a gal next time,” Marcille grumps as she rubs the feeling back into her arm, firmly grasping her staff.

Instead of responding with the usual “you’re welcome” or “next time I’ll leave you”, Chilchuck quickly grasps her good arm, dragging the bigger party member with frantic strength, tracing their path right back into what she knows is a dead end.

She’s about to vocalize her concern when Chilchuck comes to a sudden stop, analyzing the dead-end wall begging for something to “please still be here, pleasepleaseplease”

Marcille stands dazed for a second before she hears it. Voices. It sounded like three or four masculine, loud members of a party. She realizes with renewed panic that these people are what caused Chilchuck to freak out, and therefore are most likely the very people they don’t want to be meeting.

Hence brings forth the question of why her party’s lock-pick, and only guide, is scrabbling at the walls of a deAD-END??

She’s about to walk over and berate Chilchuck, but when she turns to face him, the lockpick is nowhere in sight.

Where did he go? Despite his sneakiness she would’ve noticed if he passed by her, right?

Unless she was too panicked about the approaching voices and spaced out?

 Speaking of the voices, they were getting closer and oh my god Chilchuck left her. she was going to have to fight these guys alone. She does one last sweep of the short hallway just in case she missed the smaller man in the shadows, but no luck. She takes a deep breath and prepares to fight. She can hear the party coming closer.

They’re about to round the corner –holy shit she has to fight an entire party oh god – and shifts into a fighting stance. Maybe if she stuns them as they round the corner, she won’t have to fight them. Maybe they’re nice? And they won’t hurt her! She might be thinking a bit hysterically but cut her some slack.

Marcille grips her staff in both hands preparing to launch the biggest flashiest explosion she can manage—

 the team is about to round on her –

“What are you doing dumbass???”

A small hand forcefully grips her cloak pulling her swiftly into the wall behind her. Once she’s in the clear, Chilchuck immediately slams his arm on a protruding rock tile closing the opening in the stone and hiding the two out of reach from the other party.

Marcille whips around to face a shaky Chilchuck and, letting her emotions get the better of her, sweeps him into a tight hug,

“Oh thank god, I thought you left me I was so scared I thought I was going to have to fight them and I didn’t know where you were and I was so scared and—” She cuts herself off from her teary eyed ramble as she realizes how tense Chilchuck is.

The elf immediately backs off, releasing the man “Are you okay? I- I shouldn’t have done that I’m so sorry.”

But Chilchucks focus isn’t on her but the farthest corner from the entrance of the cramped room he shoved them in. Said corner of interest was splattered with some sort of dirt and… wait—

No, Marcille realizes as her eyes adjust to the darkness, taking in Chilchuck blank expression, it’s not dirt, but blood. Old, dried, and fading blood, but blood all the same.

There’s no bones or remains in the chamber with them, but with the way her party member is looking at the stains there might as well be.

Chilchuck snaps his gaze away from the corner when the voices start up again, this time close, yet still muffled from the stone separating them.

The first voice is gruff, reminding Marcille of Senshi’s but instead harsh and mean unlike the kind dwarfs'.

“There was someone here, I heard two voices.”

The response is nasally and high but equally as cruel, at this voice Chilchuck tenses,

“No shit, the trap was activated and disabled, there needed to be two people at least, and whoever deactivated the trap needed to be good… really good”.

There’s a pause,

“…boss?” Gruff speaks with audible hesitance.

“Shut up I’m thinking, something about this feels familiar…”

At this a third voice speaks, dense smooth and quiet; “Sir, this was the were we lost a Halfling,” They hum in thought, “I believe it was the lanky one that always lasted longest during bait runs?”

Boss, as Marcille has mentally tagged him, hums, “That’s right, he always had a mouth on him that one, though it’d be good to have such a good weasel back.”

The voices muffle as the trio  wander out of the dead-end to continue their search, until Marcille couldn’t make out their words anymore.

The lack of outside noise makes room for the elf girls’ ears to focus on the shaky breathing behind her. Shit.

Chilchuck does not look good.

 He’s hunched in on himself, visibly trembling, and looking slightly nauseous. Proven further by his hand tightly clamped over his mouth as he breathes harshly through his nose.

Marcille slowly leans closer to him, though his eyes have yet to follow her movement. “Chilchuck?” She lifts her arm, hand gently hovering over Chilchucks shoulder, “you awake in there?”. When she isn’t pushed away (or acknowledged, really) by the man, she lowers her palm.

The moment Marcille makes contact with the Half-foot, he flinches violently. He skids backwards, the wall behind him being the only thing saving his ass from tumbling to the ground. Chilchuck’s eyes bolt to Marcille, who looks shocked, her hand still held in front of her.

His eyes clear and he heaves a wobblily sigh, unsteadily straightening himself from the wall.

“sorr- sorry Marcille I didn’t- I thought you were— I-“

The mage flaps her hands, dismissing the half foots apology, “no, no that’s my fault I shouldn’t have tried to touch you while you were panicking about… those…”

She stills,

“WHAT THE FUCK??” Marcille begins to pace, “Who were those people?? They knew you. THEY KNEW YOU! BAIT RUNS!! what are bait runs!?” She rounds on him, “Chilchuck this is insane, how come you never told us about these guys? How are we going to get by them- “

“MARCILLE!”

It seems the elf’s rant has pulled Chilchuck back to himself.

Chilchuck drags her down to his level from the collar of her cloak, leaving them face to face, “I have to curb my panic attack until we get out of this, so you do too.”

He lets her go and clenches a fist around his muffler, something Marcille only sees him doing when antsy or trying to decipher traps.

He looks down, “Those ‘people’ are why us Half-Foots need the guild. They’ve caused a lot of shit for us, and I guess they didn’t stop as much as we thought they did.

Chapter Text

He looks down, “Those ‘people’ are why us Half-Foots need the guild. They’ve caused a lot of shit for us, and I guess they didn’t stop as much as we thought they did."

Marcille is about to interrogate Chilchuck on what that means but he held up a hand stopping her, mercifully, she listened.

“’Bait runs’”, he scrunches his face in disgust, “are what some tall folks think is the only use we half-foots can serve, it’s in the title, they catch us like rabbits and let us loose as bait for monsters too big for cowards like them to hunt. With us running around and getting maimed, they can go for the kill. If we’re useful enough, they revive us for more use”.
Marcille pales, looking a bit sick herself.

Chilchuck looks down, “I didn't tell you guys because I was hoping to never encounter these people again.” His speech is merging into frantic again, he starts to pace,
“I don’t know if you could tell Marcille, but they won’t exactly treat me to dinner if they get me again, and I can count on them to make it a whole lot harder to get out this time.” He pauses in his movements and turns to the mage,
“And god, I don’t even know what they’d do with you, maybe try to recruit you? Or kill you for entertainment? Or maybe—"

“OK! Ok,” Marcille is looking at Chilchuck with a mix of shock and fear, “don’t get caught by these guys, but how? We can’t exactly stay here…” she glances around the small room with unease.

Her companion huffs a deep breath, slumping, “I— I don’t know, we can try to keep going down the path we were already, but I doubt we’d avoid the crew… Besides,” He leans back against the stone looking down, “I don’t know if I can leave again without at least trying to save the half-foots still here, I- god I don’t even know if the people I was trapped with are still alive.”

Chilchuck avoids Marcilles eyes, feeling an oh-so familiar shame settle in his gut. He wouldn’t have made it out of the bait-snatchers grasp if had tried to save his fellow half-foots, but at the same time, he probably wouldn’t have even survived the two months of dehumanization and pain without them.

Marcille hums, “…you mentioned… they might try to recruit me?"

Chilchuck scoffs, head lifting from its downward position, “Why, looking for a new party?”

Marcille ignores Chilchucks jab, “Maybe we can work with that…”

Chilchuck looks at her with indignation, “how the fuck would that—” His eyes widen.

Marcille looks determined, “Lets get out of here.”

Chilchuck nods, solemn.

Chapter Text

Marcille struts confidently down the worn stone hallways, chin up, an unusually serious look plastered to her face.

Chilchuck follows a few feet behind her, head down and eyes darting.

His green muffler covering the bottom half of his face, his hair mussed and mixed with dust, appearing a shade or two greyer than his usual auburn.

They move onwards, Chilchuck subtly pointing Marcille in the right direction by tapping the wall, two taps for left, one tap for right.

The pair heard no one else nearby, but Chilchuck insisted they couldn’t be too careful.

As they round the umpteenth corner in a row, after about an hour of walking through the eroded stone pathways, Chilchuck quickly raps his fist against the wall three times.

There are people nearby.

Marcille glances at Chilchuck, he bobs his head just once, confirming.

The elf inhales, setting her shoulders and turning forwards. Chilchuck steels himself as the duo nears his past personal hell.

After just a few minutes of tense walking, Chilchuck can pick up the sound of muttering over the crackling of a torch.

He knows Marcille can hear it too when she clenches her fist in an iron grip on Ambrosia. The mage sees the dreaded party first, they round the corner a few hallways ahead, and she puts on her best “I’m in charge and not scared in the slightest” face.

Chilchuck tries to remember what breathing is supposed to feel like, eyes glued to the ground as they approach the party.

“Hey!” big and ugly #1 grunts, addressing Marcille “What’s an ant like you doing in our territory?”.

Marcille stands tall, “I-I heard you guys share the same opinions as me on runts.” Marcille bites the inside of her cheek to fight the grimace threatening to show at the slur.

The trio seems to notice Chilchuck now, he clenches his teeth at their attention.

The man Marcille proclaimed “Boss” steps to the front of his party, narrowing his eyes at the Half-Foot.

“well, well, well” He grins cruelly, stepping closer to Marcille, Chilchuck roots his feet to the floor to avoid ducking behind the mage.

“You’ve got yourself a tall one haven’t you,” Boss forces himself past Marcille into Chilchuck’s space.

Chilchuck has to stop himself from biting back, ‘Wow, who would’ve thought you’d be even uglier up close’, and instead hides a sneer under his muffler. If his hands shake where they’re clenched at his sides, then the Boss doesn’t need to know.

Lackey number two eyes Marcille suspiciously, “What d’you want?”. They stand at the same height as Marcille, but their broad build does a fair job of intimidating, the duo-axes at their hips don’t make for a friendly face either.

Marcille withers under their glare but regains her composure quickly, “I was hoping we could talk… business? Mind if we stay the night at your camp to rest and negotiate?”

Boss-man finally backs off Chilchuck, eyes lingering on the man for a second before meeting Marcilles, “Hmm, alright we’ll bite,” He tries at a smile that comes off more threatening than welcoming, “follow us back to camp, we can chat over dinner.” He then slinks towards his party again, already sauntering ahead, expecting the duo to follow.

Marcille peeks over her shoulder at Chilchuck as they roam a few feet behind the trappers, and oh man, he is not looking too good.

His shoulders are tense, steps faltering occasionally, and his eyes alarmingly blank as they lock onto the floor.

The elf wants desperately to help. Or to run as far as she can to get Chilchuck away from these monsters, but she cant be the reason this plan fails, she refuses to be.

Chilchuck is having a hard time keeping track of time and space. He knows logically that he is not a prisoner of the party in front of him anymore, but his brain must not have gotten the memo.

 When things got too much for him to handle as a captive, when the maiming got overwhelming, or the hunger was too painful, he would just. Stop. He would recede into his mind where the pain and the fear and the hopelessness could be ignored, if just for a while.

The moment he heard Boss’s voice, and felt him get too close—too close-tooCLOSE…

…He tapped out of his mind. Now Chilchuck is struggling to remember to breath, to walk, and to keep his head down or else. He hopes Marcille is doing a good job because for all intents and purposes, he is down for the count.

The band of dungeon dwellers walk for another mile or so, taking enough turns that Marcille gave up on memorizing the route. Finally, they find themselves in a dingey but lived in room, with a put out firepit and packs shoved messily in the corner. Marcille tries to ignore the dried up blood pools splayed across the ground.

Grumpy number one must notice her eyes lingering though, because they grin and point at one of the bigger stains, “That’s where one of the halfsies got put together, they barely even counted as a body after their run,” They speak as if almost reminiscing, sickening Marcille to her core, “we got ourselves a nice big Wurm from that.” Marcille subtly looks to Chilchuck in horror, but he remains unresponsive.

A third member standing guard rises from their seated position next to the fire. They definitely take the cake in the big and burly competition, they look like they could handle a griffin with just their hands.

They turn towards Marcille, hand beckoning her to take the previously occupied seat, before walking into an off shooting room without a word.

Boss speaks up, “that’s Cook, he doesn’t talk much, but he knows how to command a group of runts. Plus he makes some alright food.”

He settles down across the firepit from Marcille and rests his elbows on his knees, “So, you want to talk business do you?” Chilchuck zones in on their conversation, fighting through the static filling his brain. “I’ll take that fine looking specimen off of your hands for a fair price.”

 Chilchuck and Marcille both tense.

 Marcille is about to express that she just wanted to see his “stock” of Half-Foots, hopefully resulting in a mass chaotic prison break, but Boss keeps chattering.

“Of course, I’d want to see the boys’ skills… and simple trade, where’s the fun in that?”

Oh shit this is not going to plan.

The Boss pays no mind to his guest’s inner turmoil, continuing,

“How about this… we have a competition of sorts, I put my best against your little pet here, and whoever’s survives the run gets to keep both!”

Not waiting for a response from Marcille, Boss glances over to Chilchuck, “How about we put this one in the cage for the night while we dine, he can even meet his competitor!”

Marcille is losing control of the situation and fast, Chilchuck is back in his mind.

“She’s a rowdy one, reminds me of a small yappy dog in a way… She’s not allowed to room with the others, causes too much of a fuss, I bet she’ll do well with the company of the person she’ll watch die….”

The Boss laughs as if what he just said was funny, “All jokes of course! The run will be fair and square,” He re-directs his attention to ugly number 2, “Angel, take our pest to the weasels cage, tell Cook to hurry up for our guest.”

Angel grunts, marching over to where Chilchuck stood unmoving. Before Marcille can stop him, the trapper rips Chilchuck off his feet by the arm, eliciting a yelp of shock from the Half-Foot.

“Come on runt, bed-time.” He smiles cruelly, tightening his grip on the smaller man’s bicep until he hisses in pain at the surely bruising hold.

Marcille shifts to stand, eyes wide and horrified at how fast everything went off the rails, but is stopped by Chilchucks eyes meeting hers.

He is terrified, more than she’s ever seen, but there’s a spark of defiance slowly taking over his features. He subtly shakes his head, rooting Marcille to the ground. They can’t back out now. They have to keep playing the part, because if they get found out, they’ll have no hope.

Chilchucks gaze is ripped from hers as he’s non-so-gently yanked across the room into the same door Cook disappeared into, feet stumbling to catch up to his arm.

Marcille forces her face to be neutral as she turns back to the Boss, “Thanks for lodging us—m-me for the night, but I’m actually not feeling very hungry, where should I sleep?”

Boss laughs, “Bah! I’d give shelter to anyone who managed to escape those runts delusions, dirty thieves the lot of them.”

He grimaces before looking to her, “And please, I insist you eat! Cook is making food for us as we speak, lets feast for tomorrow’s entertainment! It’s not so often we get to have such trials.”

Well, Marcille is fucked… hopefully Chilchuck can hold out until she can get to him.

Chapter Text

Chilchuck can’t hear Marcille anymore, he’s been dragged through three different rooms now, but he’s still too out of it to keep track of his surroundings.

He’s honestly a little worried for the whole-ness of his arm bones with how they radiate pain in “Angels” grip. Thinking back, he heard a bit of a crack when he was kindly yanked off his feet.

Oh well, nothing Marcille can’t fix after this mess is over. Unfortunately, Chilchuck can’t imagine himself getting through with just a hurt arm. Hopefully his party’s mage has enough mana to revive him if need be…

Chilchuck is pulled from thoughts of his impending doom by a grunt from Angel, who had stopped walking during the Half-Foots time in his head.

They stood in front of a dark, rancid, stained cell. The bars set close together, putting out any ideas of escape. The lock on the front is melded together, supposedly using magic.

Chilchuck wrinkles his nose at the invading smell of blood and rot, knowing from his time here that he will become numb to it.

Angel gives Chilchuck’s arm a threatening squeeze, earning a flinch,

“Stay.” They grumble, before releasing him and ambling towards the offending lock, turning their back to him.

Part of Chilchuck aches to run, to go back to Marcille and sprint away until his legs give out or until he is far, far away from this place—

But he can’t.

Not only because he is frozen to the ground by the presence of his tormenters, but because he refuses to leave his fellow Half-Foot behind when he has even a chance to help them.

All he has to do is survive. If he wins this “competition” then Marcille can get him and his competitor away, back to Senshi and Laios.

If they have their full party, he’s sure they can find a way to give these bastards the death they deserve.

Chilchuck hates that the only way for this to work is by outliving the other Half-Foot, but getting her out of this place is surely worth it, right?

The lock melts open, Angel makes their way back to Chilchuck, grappling him into the cell, throwing him harshly on the ground before sneering and shutting him in with a slam.

Chilchuck grunts as he stumbles to his feet again, sending a hateful glare to Angel’s retreating form.

‘Ok, this is fine, I have to survive a run, I’ve done that before! It’ll be great, I can do this, worst case I’ll die and Marcille will be forced to leave me and I’ll be stuck again oh god—’

His frantic thoughts halt when a rustling is heard from the cell corner.

‘Oh, right, I should probably tell her about the plan, hopefully she’ll be on board and let me win—’

He turns to see a lump of rags and gangly limbs piled into the corner, his cellmate’s back facing him.

Something about her makes Chilchucks stomach drop, like he knows innately that she isn’t supposed to be here.

Then she turns to face him.

Chilchuck’s vision tunnels, he chokes on his breath and falls roughly to his knees.

No, nonono it can’t be, maybe he’s imagining her and this s a totally random Half-Foot that he doesn’t know and-

“Dad?”

FUCK

Chilchuck scrabbles over to his daughter, his loving, witty, and oh-so like him daughter, “M-Mei…?”

Mei observes him with shock, refusing to reach out for him just in case this is some form of cruel torture.

Chilchuck’s eyes are welling up with anguish. How could his daughter, his Mei be HERE. He wouldn’t wish this Hell on a mimic, and his daughter, his oldest, who he did everything he could to shield her from this part of living as a Half-Foot, is stuck in the very worst of it.

His hands shake as they reach to cup Meijack’s scuffed face, letting out a dry, heart-wrenching sob, “How…?”

This is his fault, if he just told his family what happened when he went missing, if he just persisted when Mei begged to go into the dungeon, if only he—

He can’t let Mei die.

MeiJack stares at her dad, before her face crumples, tears already leaking down her face, and she lunges for him, almost sending them both to their backs.

“Dad, I’m so sorry, I-I didn’t know how to g-get out I was trapped—”

Chilchuck holds his daughter fiercely, clutching her tighter to his chest and tangling his fingers in her messy, unbraided hair.

He feels empty. Like he’s a shell of a body, this is so much worse than before. This is his worst nightmare.

The Half-Foots stayed in each other’s arms long after they stopped crying.

Chapter Text

Meijack felt hope for the first time in the 6 fucking weeks she’s spent in this hellhole…

She was just trying to follow her dad’s legacy, as a headstrong, skilled, and stubborn lockpick.

She wasn’t even that far into the dungeon, only the second floor, when it happened. She guesses the trappers were running low on reliable bait and were risking a run to the upper levels to get some.

She honestly couldn’t give less of a shit why; she just wished it wasn’t her who got captured.

Now she had to find a way to get the other six Half-Foots out of this place.

At first it was easy to light a fire under her fellow prisoners’ feet, they were ready to get out. But ultimately, she wasn’t their leader, wasn’t who they looked to for guidance.

That would be Flantim Joelz. Flantim was the oldest Half-Foot among them. He had been trapped for 5 years, and strongly believed that escape would lead to nothing but death.

He would tell stories of the unofficial leader who came before him, how he had the spirit of Meijack, always trying to escape, snapping at their captors, and paying the price for it.

Flantim told what the others believed to be tall-tales of “the escape”. Of his closest friend, similar to Meijack, trying to run. The plan was for him to lead the men on a wild goose-chase and give space for the other Half-Foots to escape. He was the fastest, the tallest, and the bravest of them all, if anyone had a chance at escaping the cat and mouse chase, it was him.

It worked, at first. He ran, the trappers fell for it and abandoned the other Half-foots who managed to grind through their cell’s lock with rusty, stockpiled weapons. The Half-Foots ran, sticking together and following the map that their protector made of the tunnels.

But then it went wrong. The trappers came back, coated in blood but harboring no wounds, fuming. Flantim knew then and there that their mission had failed, their only hope had been killed.

Some, even most of the prisoners got away, were able to run just fast enough to get out of sight. Part of Flantim doesn’t believe it was worth it, because the remaining Half-Foots were left with no will to get out without the man who made them feel hope and power in such a place.

Flantim tells the sour fate of Chilchuck as a warning to the new Half-Foot prisoners who never knew him.

Even with Meijack’s determination reminding him so painfully of his long-gone friend, he can’t allow himself to feel hope, not again.

Meijack didn’t give up. She even got a few Half-Foots to side with her over Flantim, believing that death by escape is better than death by monster over, and over, and over again.

Unfortunately, the trappers could tell that Meijack was the catalyst for the newfound rowdiness of their prisoners, so they put her in isolation.

Their hope was that Meijack would lose her fire, that she could be used as an example for the other runts:

Fighting to leave their rightful place here as bait, equals solitary confinement and obedience.

She had been in her cell for a week and a half now, and despite her resilience, she could tell she was losing herself, and fast…

Then her dad shows up. Her secretly big-hearted, grumpy, loving dad is thrown into her cell as if he’s weak, as if he isn’t the sole reason Half-Foots get any respect, as if he hasn’t been deeper in these dungeons than these bastards could ever dream of.

… And he’s crying. Not because he’s been stolen by monsters to be used as bait, but because she’s here.

Chapter Text

It had been about half an hour since the father and daughter reunited, and they have since then calmed down a bit, Chilchuck is holding Mei to his side, keeping an eye and ear on the door. He's mindlessly humming a common Half-Foot lullaby from when she was still small.

The way Chilchuck was acting gave Mei the feeling that there was something she didn’t know…

He was on guard and wary, but it was as if he wasn’t surprised that trappers like these guys exist, like this wasn’t new.

Of course, Mei knew her dad ran the guild for a reason, but it felt so far away when she was little and Chilchuck would tell her stories of trolls who stole away incautious Half-Foots. She never considered her dad encountering racist fucks who were worse than the ignorant passerby.

What’s most unsettling, is not only was he not alarmed at the existence of this place, but he seemed familiar with it. He settled against the back wall of the cell, sitting in a way Mei new from her time here would keep his legs awake longest.

He kept her tucked into his side, but less so in a frantic, fearful way and more with a resolute, practiced ease.

Mei is sure there’s something she’s not getting, and she hates feeling unsure…

Meijack doesn’t want to do anything but sit here in her dad’s arms, forgetting where she is, but the longer she’s in her own head, the more she needs to know how they’re going to get out of this.

“What are we going to do?”

Chilchuck’s humming cuts off and he holds her a little tighter, “…Marcille should be able to sneak in here soon, we’ll figure out a plan then.”

Meijack cranes her neck up to look at him “Mar-seal? You have a party with you?”

Chilchuck huffs a laugh at Mei’s butchered pronunciation of the elf’s name, “Marcille, is my current party’s mage. She’s the only one with me right now, she’s strong, but not strong enough to take on these bastards without some sort of plan…”

Meijack hums in acknowledgement, “Who else is in your party?” she asks innocently.

She mostly wants a distraction from everything, but to be honest, she is curious about her dad’s work. He was always shielding her and her sisters from what his job was like, something about ‘keeping work and personal life separate’.

The situation at hand must be wearing down her dad’s resolve a bit, as he actually responds. He leans his head against the wall, a ghost of a smile creasing his eyes, and begins to talk,

 “There’s four of us right now, our leader’s a big dunce, Laios. He’s a fighter and a Tall-Man who’s a nuisance at best, but he’s skilled at anything monster-related. Our other fighter, Senshi, is a cook first and foremost. He’s a handsome dwarf, but he was positive I was a kid for the first few weeks...”

Chilchuck’s face scrunched, “He tried to teach me what sex was after a Dryad encounter…” He trails off at the horror of it.

Mei looks to her father, shock showing on her face “he did not!” She shakes with laughter at Chilchucks solemn nod.

Chilchuck takes a second to gather up his dignity before continuing, “Then there’s Marcille of course, she makes me feel like I’m raising Fler all over again, it’s a nightmare. She can be smart and powerful with her magic, but she brandishes a stubbornness to match my own.”

Meijack has a hard time believing that.

She’s about to say so when her dad tenses and whips his head to the doorway just outside of their cell.

Chilchuck gently lets Mei out of his hold, rising to his feet and making sure Meijack is tucked behind him, wincing at the pain the movement causes his bruised arm.

Meijack picks up the footsteps her dad is hearing, but they’re too far away to determine much about who’s approaching. She hopes its not Cook. Her ribs are still sore from the last time he decided the Half-Foot needed a good rough-up.

She strains her ears and quiets her breaths, tense and ready to fight if she has too. She will not let these fuckers hurt her dad.

Chilchuck sets his shoulders back and stands tall. Noting the lack of fear that had been choking him since he fell down that fucking trap.

He’s not scared for himself anymore; he doesn’t need to be. He knows that whoever and whatever’s to come, he will protect Mei. He has to.

The footsteps rise in volume as their owner approaches. They’re one room away now, Mei’s knuckles are white as she readies herself to fight.

She’s psyching herself up to protect dad mode, when her dad untenses in front of her, slumping and sighing in relief.

“Dad, what—?”

Mei’s interrupted by the door to their room inching open to reveal an anxious looking elf with blonde hair and blue robes.

Meijack can guess that this is Marcille, confirmed by her dad rushing to the bars and giving his party member a once over,

“Took you long enough Marcille… you ok?”

Marcille looks down at him, glancing guiltily at his hurt arm that he’s trying very hard to ignore. Anxiety and a healthy dose of fear is rolling off her in waves, “Yeah I- yeah, they wouldn’t let me leave until we ate,” Her gut churns just thinking of the hate-speech the trappers were spewing about the lockpick and his race,

 “I told them I needed to visit you before I went to sleep, it took some major negotiation just for me to be here alone, we don’t have a lot of time.”

Marcille wants desperately to ask if he’s ok. She wants to kick and scream at the horror he’s being forced to re-live and at the unfairness of it, but they’re running out of time, so instead she crouches across from Chilchuck, grasping the grimy bars keeping him caged,

“What’s the plan?”

Chapter Text

“What’s the plan?”

Chilchuck pushes out a shaky breath,

“I- I haven’t figured it out yet. But we can’t let the competition run happen.”

Marcille’s face scrunches in confusion, “But it’s our best chance! If you win, we can find Senshi and Laios and blow these fuckers up like they deserve!”

Chilchuck stares at her, “Wow, I didn’t know you could swear.”

Meijack snaps out of her shock at the mage’s presence and steps out from behind her dad, looking between the two adults,

“Wait what’s the competition run?”

Marcille acknowledges the new Half-Foot, opening her mouth as if to answer, Chilchuck doesn’t even spare Mei a glance,

“Nothing you have to worry about Mei, it’s not happening.”

Marcille focuses on Mei, “Those bastards are going to pit you against Chilchuck here in a… b-bait run. If Chilchuck survives for longer, then I get to ‘take’ both of you.”

Marcille doesn’t notice Chilchuck’s breathing pick up pace.

All she sees is Mei’s eyes hardening with determination.

“I’ll do it.”

Marcille turns to Chilchuck, ready to win the argument, but is cut off by how scared Chilchuck looks.

Mei notices too, reaching a hand for his heaving shoulder,

“Dad? Are you ok…?”

Marcille freezes. Staring between Mei and Chilchuck. Dad? Her eyebrows slowly rising in shock. It can’t be, the world wouldn’t be so cruel, Mei cannot be—

Chilchuck stares at Marcille, his eyes wide, filled with panic and desperation that can only be felt by a parent scared for their kid.

He inhales sharply, voice shaking as he brokenly whispers,

“I will not let her die. I can’t”

Marcille has never seen Chilchuck so desperate, so shaken.

In the face of the father and daughter, she cannot make herself push for the plan. She knows Chilchuck would die himself before Mei could get hurt, and she can’t force him to watch his child get mauled.

Marcille slumps, resigned to figure out a new plan.

Mei watches the adults’ stare down with tension.

She feels a flash of anger as Marcille backs down, and turns to her dad,

“This is best plan we have! It’s not like I haven’t died in this Hellhole before! I can handle one more fucking mauling if it means we have even a chance at escaping.”

She almost regrets her words when her dads face falls with anguish, but she plows on,

“What else can we do? there is no other way! We can’t overpower them without your party, and we sure as hell can’t kill whatever they’re putting us against, not without weapons.”

Chilchuck looks into her eyes, a degree steadier than before and standing a bit taller,

“What if they’re lying.” He challenges.

Mei tilts her head at him, eyebrows scrunching,

“What— what if they won’t hold up their end of the bargain?” Chilchuck looks down and begins to pace, voice growing louder ,

“Think about it,” he looks between the two women, “These guys have no reason to let both of us go, they could easily overpower Marcille with their numbers. They could kill her and take me no matter the outcome of the 'competition'.”

He pauses his pacing, “Hell, they could kill both of you! If they find out they can have their ‘favorite runt’ back, they won’t need the rebellious troublemaker anymore…”

He clenches his fists at his sides, and looks up at them, “If they kill both of you and leave you to rot, Senshi and Laios will have no way to find you, and chances are these guys will flee the area taking me with them.”

Mei stares at her feet, knowing that she can’t win this argument, her dad’s right, these bastards would rather die than play fair. She hopes that can be arranged.

Marcille looks to be spaced out in thought, her face pinched in concentration.

Mei straightens and sharply turns to face Chilchuck, “Wait. What do you mean ‘their favorite runt back’?”

Chilchuck tenses, Marcille and him share a glance, but neither speaks up.

Mei thinks back, when could her dad have possibly been in this place? He always came back from work looking relatively worse for wear, but she would’ve noticed if he survived this, wouldn’t she?

A memory surfaces of her teen years, her dad was missing. He was supposed to be gone for two weeks, it had been two and a half months. Her mom was refusing to give up on her husband, insisting he would find a way back to her.

Mei was trying to stay strong like her mom, but she was losing hope that she would ever see her dad again and was beginning to grieve. There was a set date for his funeral, Mei pushed it off for as long as she could, but she couldn’t wait any longer.

She was building up the courage to go through her dad’s stuff before her dad’s relatives would be informed of his presumed death, her mom sitting at the window as silent as she had been since the funeral was officially announced.         

 Mei heaves a deep breath, about to enter the stairs to her dad’s workshop, which hadn’t been touched since he left, when her mom yelps and jumps out of her chair so fast that it clatters to the ground.

Mei whips around to see her mom frozen, staring out the window with her hand over her mouth and tears falling freely from her eyes.

Mei rushes to her mom’s side,

“Mom what—”

Then she sees him.

Walking down the worn path to their house, is her dad. Her dad who she organized a funeral for, her dad, who she thought she would never get to say goodbye to, her dad, who looked dead on his feet, starved, and hollow inside, but despite everything alive.

He wouldn’t tell anyone what happened. not her mom, not her, not even the guild would reveal what he went through. But based on the nightmares she heard plaguing his sleep, it wasn’t anything good.

Her mom wouldn’t talk to Chilchuck for 3 days after he refused to open up to her, but she didn’t have the resolve to watch him struggle through nights and flashbacks without at least trying to comfort him, so the silent treatment didn’t last for long.

Mei knew her sisters never really understood that their dad wasn’t ok, he always hid it well from them, but Mei could hear the sobs, the strangled, cut off screams, and the whispered words of comfort during particularly bad nights.

Eventually her dad got better, it took two years, but he did. He went back into the dungeon for their income, the fear of whatever happened to him went away as the Guild got more effective. The family moved on, Mei stopped wondering what happened to her dad, and they were all back to normal as if nothing happened.

Then he came home late from a dive one too many times.

Chilchuck and his wife fought. They both stormed off, him to the bar, mom to her belongings to pack. Mei and her sisters were gathered up and they left without a goodbye, just a note scribbled hastily by their mom.

Mei never resented her dad. She was a lot like him, she looked up to him, she loved him. She followed in his footsteps, wanting to understand what kept him going back to the dungeon. And look where that landed her… right where her dad was trying to protect her from.

Snapping out of her thoughts, Mei stares into her dads’ eyes, his face mirroring that of any morning after a night filled with terrors back when he first came home. Five years ago.

Flantim always said she reminded him of his old friend…

Holy shit Flantim—

“Flantim thinks you’re dead!”

Mei says it numbly, shock clear on her face from the revelation that she’d been hearing stories of her dad going through this hell alongside the others this whole time.

Chilchuck did NOT expect that to come out of his daughter’s mouth. But he cant help the cautious hope that come with her declaration.

“Flantim’s alive?”

Chapter Text

Chilchuck feels like a ton has been lifted off his shoulders, he had been so sure that his failure as a distraction had led to his fellow prisoners’ deaths.

He mourned Flantim the most. When in captivity, Chilchuck found that Flantim reminded him of his younger siblings, not as small as his daughters, but still looking up to him for guidance. He promised that they would be ok, even when he was so scared he couldn’t believe his words.

Chilchuck, as the oldest and most experienced, made it his job to protect Flantim and the others; He provoked the trappers to they would hit him, so that they would treat him as a target rather than the others.

He held his fellow stolen when they came back from a particularly gory death, comforted them through nightmares and the following despair when waking up still trapped.

He made peace with the fact that he would die readily for just the chance at the others escape.

But he didn’t die.

Instead, he had to carry the guilt of not knowing whether the people he vowed to protect were alive, or if they suffered for his failure.

He didn’t think anybody got out, and he definitely didn’t think anybody survived their continued stay, but here his daughter is, apparently well acquainted with none other than Flantim, who thinks Chilchuck is dead.

Chilchuck is back to pacing, good hand covering his mouth and gaze distant as he muttered. The girls watched with slight concern, Marcille was looking between the two Half-Foots, not knowing the significance of their revelations.

Chilchuck, stops pacing abruptly, jumbling out “Oh my god. Flantim is going to kill me when he finds out I’m not dead… I’m going to kill him for making me think he was dead!”

He reaches up as if to grasp his hair in distress but cuts off the movement with a hiss as his hopefully not broken arm shifts.

Marcille jumps into action, having forgotten about her companion’s injury.

“Oh! Chilchuck I’m so sorry! I totally forgot about your arm; I knew when you were being all manhandled you were probably hurt. Come here! I’ll heal it.”

Chilchuck, all too aware of the *ahem* side effects of Marcilles healing, hesitantly shifts his arm through the gap between the cell bars and into her waiting hands, grimacing with anticipation.

Mei leans toward her dad, uncharacteristically anxious, she’d never really needed to interact with healing magic and didn’t know how much she trusted it.

She can’t help but watch in awe as her dad’s party member seems to glow a bit while softly reciting words she doesn’t understand. The glow travels to her dads bruised and beaten arm, and she notices how he tenses and clenches his teeth.

Meijack is ripped out of her wonder by a sharp snap as her dad yelps in pain, instinctually pulling his arm out of Marcilles grip and into his chest.

Meijack jolts in alarm, wasn’t Marcille supposed to help him?? Is she not on their side? Why else would she hurt Chilchuck? Does she need to protect her dad from the mage? That would be a shame because she’s really pretty and would have been their only hope to get out of here—

Meijack’s frantic thought cut off as her dad groans and untenses, grumbling a curse under his breath,

“Urgh, you couldn’t have done a countdown or something?”

Chilchuck has now moved on from cradling his arm to scratching at it aggressively.

Marcille gasps, offended,

“Yeah you’re welcome for healing your very much fractured arm out of the goodness of my heart—stop scratching it’ll make it worse—next time you can heal it all on your own!”

She humphs and turns her nose up.

Meijack looks at the adults in confusion, noting the Fler-ness of Marcilles mini-tantrum.

Chilchuck notices her lost look and explains,

“Marcille’s healing is a little more… gruesome? Painful? Cruel?—”

Marcille yelps in indignation,

“Its complex and effective!”

Chilchuck ignores her,

“—Then some other healing methods, she says the healing pain means it’s working.”

He grimaces and tries not to rake his nails down the itchiness coming from inside his arm.

Meijack’s hackles settle back down, sure her dad is ok.

Marcille, now having a moment to breath, seems to have switched on her ‘tragic backstory’ sensor, and turns to Meijack.

“So… you’re this grumps daughter?”

She would have come off as nonchalant if she wasn’t vibrating with excitement and looking as if she were about to explode.

Mei looks up at Marcille, eyes widening at her ‘I’m going to squeeze the backstory out of you if I have to’ face.

Luckily Chilchuck has sympathy for Mei’s predicament and cuts off Marcille’s digging for juicy details.

“Oldest daughter, Meijack, meet most insufferable party member, Marcille.”

Marcille looks miffed at Chilchucks brief answer, but has already begun to wonder aloud how much Meijack looks like her dad if he was “butch” causing Mei’s face to flush an alarming red.

Chilchuck watches the two girls with what could maybe, possibly be perceived as fondness.

His face sobers… he’s scared.

He’s scared of being caught and tortured again, he’s scared of losing Mei… again. Hell, he’s scared of losing his current party as dumb as they are.

Normally he wouldn’t have to deal with this fear, retreating into his mind, but either the pressure of keeping Mei safe, or the presence of the two women is keeping him firmly, unfortunately, tethered to his body.

Marcille had stopped teasing Marcille, and now both Elf and junior Half-Foot are looking at Chilchuck with mild concern.

He looks at them, reality of their situation setting in,

“We have to attack when they’ll be least focused on Marcille, she’s the only one with a chance of overpowering the trappers, and only if they’re caught by surprise…”

Marcille nods in determination, eyebrows scrunched.

Chilchuck’s face turns grim, “Mei… we’re going be the distractions.”

Soon the trio had the framework of a plan that might not go to shit immediately, when they’re interrupted by Chilchuck stilling, his face serious as he shushes Marcille.

He grapples Mei behind him, and backs away from Marcille a bit, looking at her sternly before commanding her,

“Talk about us like we’re animals, you probably won’t have to hit me but be ready to. you must convince them you’re on their side for us to make it out of here.”

That’s the only warning Marcille gets before the doors are being thrown open by Cook.

Mei tenses behind Chilchuck at the sight of Cook, and the father glares, vowing to make him suffer.

“Times up with the mousies” Cook grunts hauling Marcille up by her arm before glaring at the two Half-Foots,

“I hope ya enjoyed yer chat. I can’t wait to watch ye’ die.”

Chapter Text

Marcille’s world is reeling. The walls blur, passing by too fast as she follows Cook to where she’ll be sleeping.

Chilchuck is the foundation in Marcilles party, and he had just told her to look down on him, to act just like the monsters who see no harm in killing him.

She knows Chilchuck is relying on her to play her part, but she doesn’t know if she can stomach this.

As she settles down on a spare sleeping mat, staff close by and limbs pulled into a tight ball, her gut toils with dread. If she can’t pull her part of the plan off, there is a very real chance they won’t make it out of this alive.

She doesn’t sleep much that night.

Back in their cell, Meijack and Chilchuck are tense, looking at the doorway where Marcille and Cook were moments earlier.

They only relax once the duo’s footsteps fade.

Chilchuck lets out a long breath, slumping from his defensive position in front of Meijack.

He turns to face his daughter, gut clenching at the look of fierce determination donning her face.

“Mei… whatever you’re thinking, no.”

Meijack looks up offended, “You don’t even know what I was going to say!”

Chilchuck raises an eyebrow at her, incredulous, “I recognize that look, I see it in Laios’s face enough to know you’re about to say something dumb.”

Mei looks down at her feet, but steels herself, “If I… if I was the main  distraction for whatever monster they’re putting us against-“

“No.”

“But Dad-“

“I said no.”

Meijack glares at her father, “Dad, let me explain.”

Chilchuck will not allow Mei to go through with whatever crazy, self-sacrificial plan she has, but he can at least let her get it out of her system before he denies her outright.

He shuts his mouth and looks at the younger Half-foot expectantly.

Maijack huffs, “Thank you.”

She pauses, considering how she could bring up her plan in a way that Chilchuck would understand.

Her hand reaching up as if to fidget with her braids before grazing the loose strands and lowering.

She takes a deep breath, looking into Chilchuck’s eyes,

“You are the only person here who knows the layout of this floor. You are the person the other Half-foots would trust to lead them to escape. You are the leader of your party right now.

…If you die, this plan won’t work,”

Meijack’s tone grows in confidence when her dad doesn’t interrupt, as much as he looks like he wants to,

“We need you to track down the rest of your party, and if Marcille doesn’t have enough mana to revive you should you die, we’ll have no way out of here.”

She clenches her fists at her side,

“If I use myself as a primary distraction, put on a show for the trappers so Marcille has a better opening, and you have a better chance at surviving…”

Chilchuck opens his mouth, starting to interrupt, so Meijack pushes on faster,

“I’m light, I’m fast, and I’m smaller than you, reviving or carrying me would be easier. Listen, if we want to get out of this, we need to utilize everything we have because honestly, it’s not much.”

Chilchuck folds his arms, looking at her with finality,

“I am not going to let you willingly run towards your death just for a chance at a slightly better escape.”

Meijack mimics her dad’s position, arms folded in front of her, face defiant,

“Why not?”

Chilchuck looks down at her, as if she’s a child needing to be reprimanded for trying to climb a fence, and not an adult making logical decisions,

“…Because I said so.”

“I’ve lasted this long without you, and I’m not going to let you put our plan at risk because you can’t put aside your stupid mushy emotions!”

Meijack snaps, almost shouting now,

Chilchuck stands taller, face set equally angry and desperate,

“I’m NOT going to let you kill yourself for our escape!”

Meijack wants to scream and rip her hair out, arms splayed wide exasperated,

“YOU DID!”

…

Chilchuck reels back as if struck, silence blanketing the cell at his daughters’ words.

Meijack’s face twists in regret before snapping back to anger. She turns away from her dad, and stomps to the far end of the cell.

She settles down with her back facing away from Chilchuck, afraid to catch a glimpse of whatever his expression holds.

She hears him take a deep breath, let it out in one big whoosh, and shuffle to the other end of their enclosure.

He grunts as he levers himself down and into a curled position, resigning himself to a night of no sleep.

“…Mei?”

He speaks softly to the wall,

She doesn’t respond, so he keeps going,

“I don’t want you to be like me… I- I don’t want you go through what I did,” He huffs an empty laugh, “but, I guess you already have. I know you’re strong, I know you’ve survived worse than this stupid run… I just- I don’t want you to be one of the Half-Foots I watch die here.”

He's brought out of his head by a slightly too thin back pressing against his own.

Chilchuck flips over and gently holds his daughter to his chest, hoping her presence would chase away the fear rooted into his dreams.

Mei doesn’t say anything, just let’s herself be cradled in her dads’ arms, shielded from reality for a few short hours of sleep.

Marcille is woken up by the smell of food. She forgets for a second where she is, fully prepared to sit up and laugh at Chilchuck about his bedhead, or Laios about the drool still crusting his face.

She’d complain about whatever mysterious monster the “problem duo” found for breakfast, before finally giving in to her stomach and chowing down…

She is jerked back into reality when Boss chuckles from the doorway,

“Oh! The sleeping beauty has risen! Get up, Cook’s got food ready, and I want to get the runts up and moving for the walk to the arena.”

Marcille’s heart spasms in a brief panic, the reality of what’s about to happen settling like stones in her gut.

“Um— I’ll skip breakfast, last nights dinner was super filling… Um, you guys go ahead and eat without me, I need to get ready, and do… lady…? Stuff?”

Boss lifts his arms in surrender, eyebrows raising at Marcilles humiliating, yet effective, attempt at getting some space,

“Suit yourself, I’ll get you when we’re leaving, be ready. Cook will be watching over the littles during our trek, so you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Ha. Nothing to worry about, if only…

The boss turns on his heel leaving the grimy room. Marcille lets herself slump, setting her head in her hands and trying not to clench her fingers in her hair.

She’s strong, she can handle this. All she has to do is let loose an explosion and knock out some people… she knows how to do that! One could even say she enjoys it!

But… lives are rarely on the line like this, not really. Even with the dragon there were people who knew where they where should they fail.

If she can’t take out the trappers in one go, there is a very real chance her body will never be found, and Chilchuck will be taken.

And that might be what scares her most. If Chilchuck gets taken, even if Senshi and Laios find her, there will be very little hope in tracking him down. What he would go through with these monsters would be worse than dying.

She sighs, scrubbing her face harshly in a pathetic attempt at holding herself together,

“God… I wish Falin were here. She’d know how to fix this stupid mess; she’d have blown these fuckers to bits the second they put their hands on Chil…”

Boss slinks back into the main room, settling at the firepit and dishing up some of the mush Cook made,

“Princess didn’t want to join us for breakfast.”

He rolls his eyes at Cooks slightly disappointed expression and turns to his third henchman.

“Horik, be a dear and go ahead to the arena, start setting up the barrier and make sure that the mutts around, wouldn’t want this run to go to waste, would we?”

Horik grunts and dons a large backpack and a scuffed staff before leaving to the wide expanse of hallways.

Boss lazily slides his eyes over to Cook,

“After breakfast get the runts up. We should get going soon.”

Chilchuck jolts awake. He feels a foreign yet familiar weight in his arms, her shoulders rising and falling with steady breaths.

Maybe if he keeps his eyes closed, and doesn’t acknowledge the hard stone underneath him, he could pretend he’s back home.

Where Mei is still small, and his house is filled with sound and warmth.

Of course, he’d take his cold, empty, house over where he is now anytime.

Meijack startles from her cradled position, snapping her head up towards the door.

Chilchuck follows her gaze, only now noticing the approaching heavy stomping. Both Half-foots rise to their feet, Chilchuck again forcing his way in front of Mei.

The footsteps pause right outside the door, while whatever lackey Boss sent fumbles to unlatch the rusted lock.

The door swings open to reveal Cook, Meijack’s glare sharpens.

Cook, undeterred, lumbers to the cell door.

“Come on weaselies, it’s about time yeh got to play!”

Cook melts the metal lock using some butchered spell recitations that Marcille would probably understand.

He reaches his meaty arm through the bars, dragging out Chilchuck first, who knows better than to fight and lets himself be manhandled.

Mei cries out “Dad!” trying to grab his arm before he can get dragged too far. But Chilchuck jolts out of her grasp, giving her a tight-lipped look. Mei backs down, but the fear doesn’t leave her eyes as she watches her dad get roughly dropped to the ground just outside the cell.

Cook notices her attempt at grabbing her dad, and shoves the cell door shut,

“Nu uh, you halfsies‘re always forgetting to wait your turn! I’ll get to ya in a second.”

Cook grabs Chilchuck by his muffler, dragging him up to his feet, with no small amount of strength.

Chilchuck wheezes at the pressure on his throat, but only glares at Cook as he forces his hands together in front of him to tie a thick, scratchy rope around the man’s wrists.

Judging by Chilchucks wince covered up by a hateful sneer, the ropes are tied too tight.

The fact that he can barely move his fingers is further proof.

Cook shoves Chilchuck roughly to the wall, where he stumbles without the use of his hands to balance him out.

“Stay.”

Cook orders as if he’s instructing a dog, filling Mei with hot anger.

Chilchuck sends Meijack a determined look over Cooks shoulder as he shoves open the cell door again.

Mei gets the same treatment, she’s dragged and tied up with the other end of the same rope, tethering her to Chilchuck.

After Cook is satisfied with his prisoners security, he picks up the middle of the rope, and rips the Half-Foots from their places against the wall.

Meijack grunts as her arms get the brunt of the yank, Chilchuck wants to rip Cooks head off, but settles for imagining his disembowelment instead.

Before Cook steps out the door, he turns towards the two, and grins, his ugly mug making it look more like a snarl.

“Ye ready te die?”

And turns back around, leading Meijack and Chilchuck to the start of their escape.

Chapter Text

Marcille was gathered into the first room, her nose scrunching slightly in unease at the leftover slop cooling over the now put-out fire.

Who would’ve thought she’d ever miss Senshi’s monster-gut meals? Even the raw squid parasite looked better than what “Cook” threw together (though she’s sure it would ravage her stomach much the same as Laios’s own little parasite from that endeavor).

She’s trying to avoid Boss and Angel’s glances, tensing and untensing her grasp on her staff. Angel looks like they’re about to walk over to Marcille’s space in the corner of the room, when the lumbering steps of Cook are heard from the hallway leading to them. Two sets of faster, lighter footsteps follow behind.

Cook grunts an acknowledgement to Boss as he enters the room. He tugs the rope, which he has double-wrapped around his meaty fist, and his prisoners are yanked in front of him. Chilchuck and Mei stumble, the only thing keeping them upright at the last second is their binding cable being pulled taut, tugging harshly at their bruising wrists.

Chilchuck, after regaining his balance, sends a poisonous look to Boss who smirks in response. Boss’s gaze slides over to Meijack, he sneers,

“What? No witty quips? If I knew isolation would put out your tantrums so fast, I would’ve put you in that cage ages ago!” He looks at Chilchuck in consideration, “Unless you made the feisty one shut up...?”.

Boss is trying to rile Chilchuck up, he knows this, and it’s working.

The reality that Meijack has been trapped here because of Boss, and because people like him are still around, hits Chilchuck along with a fresh wave of simmering anger towards the monster in front of him.

Meijack, who’s shoulder is pressed firmly against her dads, feels much the same and looks seconds away from honest to God growling.

Boss turns away, satisfied with the barely concealed rage radiating off the duo. He looks at the two present members of his party, “Lets trek ladies, we’ll want to catch the big guy while he’s awake and active, it’ll make for a better show. Horik should be ready by now.”

He turns to Marcille, “You. Walk with me, Cook can handle your little pet.”

Marcille gulps and nods. Chilchuck hopes her visible anxiety is read as nervousness of losing the competition.

The gaggle of six is making their way down the umpteenth hallway when the hair on the back of Marcille’s neck rises, the atmosphere suddenly shifting to something thick and sorrowful.

The source of her trepidation is an off-shooting room that the party walks slowly past, Chilchuck and Meijack tense at the smothering aura, Boss grins.

The lanky man doesn’t stop walking, but slows and turns to Marcille at his side, “That’s where we keep the other rats… they tend to stink up the place, so we made sure they’re not near the base.” He sends a glance to the rotting doorway, muttering to himself now, “That and one gets sick of the noise.”

Marcille blanches, her face shifting to horror at the admission. She’s lucky Boss doesn’t look to her for her reaction, she doesn’t think she could’ve schooled her expression in time.

Meijack and Chilchuck are trailing behind Angel, who in turn follows Boss and Marcille. Cook brings up the rear to keep an eye on the Half-Foots, he makes sure to occasionally tug their rope taught, chuckling when the father and daughter stumble.

Chilchuck’s eyes trail to the door separating him from the other trapped Half-Foots. He can’t see them, but he knows they’re there, he can feel the anguish emanating from inside.

It’s not the same room where he was kept during his time here. He didn’t expect it to be with how often the trappers moved, but he was still partially glad that he didn’t have to confront his past so starkly.

For all his talk, Boss wasn’t that smart, having the tendency to deplete an area of monsters until his party is forced to transfer to a new area. The Half-Foots imprisoned would only really get a break from bait runs when moving to a new camp, but the relief tended to be short lived as Boss went pretty monster crazy the moment they arrived.

 Chilchuck comes back to himself when Cook decides it’s about time for another laugh, ripping Meijack off her feet, leaving Chilchuck to scrambling to keep her upright. He shoots out his bound hands to grab her by the shoulder just as she’s about to topple. After Meijack is steady, Chilchuck sends Cook a glare that would make anyone with common sense shudder, unfortunately Cook is lacking in that department.

Marcille glances back at the commotion, catching Chilchuck’s eyes as he turns away from Cook, she holds back a wince at her companions inflamed wrists, Chilchucks gloves having been ripped off by Cook at some point during their travels as a precaution against him weaseling out of the ropes.

Boss stops walking. Marcille, still looking back, faceplants right into a wall. Wait. No, there’s nothing in front of her… what did she run into? She takes a moment to tune into the room they ended up in.

It’s big, with large pillars lining the walls, not unlike the living armor room. This room is wider though, and it lacks the red carpeted path through the middle. The party stands in the middle under a decrepit and dusty chandelier.

Now that Marcille is looking closer, she can see a slight shimmering line going up the wall to her right and crossing the ceiling before coming back down to her left. If she weren’t a mage she might have missed it, but there is clearly an invisible barrier in front of her.

Huh. So that’s what she ran into…

There’s a mocking laugh coming from the wall, she turns to see the trapper she hadn’t met yet leaning against the stone, a pathetic, drooping staff in their hands. She flushes, slightly embarrassed that she, the top student of her days in magic school, ran into a simple barrier.

Boss doesn’t laugh along with them, but does smirk condescendingly at her, he looks to his party, instructing them.

“Ok!” He claps is hands together once, the sound reverberating loudly, “Lets get this party started…”

The Half-Foots tense, glancing at each other and then Marcille, who meets their gaze with determination. The three steel themselves for what’s to come.

Boss continues, turning to Horik, “The mutt around?”

Horik grins “Yeah, I heard ‘im nearby.”

Boss nods his head, “Good. Get the runts through the barricade. Cook, untie them, if they try to run, knock them out and we can see who the dog eats first.” Cook nods and roughly drags Chilchuck and Meijack to the barrier, while Horik works on creating a small hole for the Hal-Foots to be shoved through.

Cook unties Chilchuck first, trusting he wont try to run after Boss’s threat. Chilchuck grumbles and rubs his wrists as Meijack glares at Cook’s approaching figure. She hisses and spits out “Watch it!” when Cook gets extra careless and pinches the rope impossibly tighter.

Cook just smirks at her glare, rumbling, “I ‘ope you win, I’d like to see ye’ go slowly.”. If Meijack wasn’t actively part of an unstable escape plan, she would’ve bit another chuck out of his nose (long story).

The Half-Foots are roughly jammed through the opening Horik made in the invisible wall, landing painfully on top of each other. They rush to stand as the wall closes back up behind them. Marcille looks nauseous with anxiety, while the trappers look morbidly elated for the show that’s about to begin. Chilchuck hopes they’ll be able to knock the look off their faces.

As Boss signals for Angel to grab something out of his pack, Marcille subtly moves to stand behind the trappers. Her goal is to incapacitate as many of them as she can with a surprise attack while they’re distracted with watching Chilchuck and Mei.

The difficult part is that she must have enough time to build up an explosion strong enough to give her a fighting chance, and have it go unnoticed by the trappers. Meaning Meijack and Chilchuck have to put on a show.

Marcille doesn’t doubt that the Half-Foots can manage surviving for enough stalling time, but she doesn’t even know what they’re up against, and whatever “the mutt” is, doesn’t sound friendly.

What if she doesn’t have enough Mana to revive her friends if they die? Now that she thinks about it, how is she supposed to get Chilchuck and Meijack out of the barrier and away from the “Mutt”?? Oh man she’s fucked…

Chilchuck and Mei are resigned, having survived being bait enough to know what to expect. They hadn’t really talked about Mei’s “main distraction” plan since last night, Chilchuck assumed that his quiet admission of fear to his daughter before they slept meant they agreed they weren’t going through with it.

Meijack assumed that his resignation meant they would use her plan.

Both Half-Foots look towards the dark hallway at the end of their side of the room, determined to: a.) work together as equal distractions or b.) be used as the main distraction, the answer changing depending on which Half-Foot you asked.

Marcille is subtly beginning the first marks of her spell, none of her sigils being complete enough to look like anything resembling the final in case one of the trappers looks back before the competition, when Angel finally tugs free whatever they were looking for in their bag. They hand the small metal-doohickey to Boss’s expecting hand.

The object looks like a whistle, about the length and width of one of Chilchucks tools, this thought proved further when Boss starts to lift the object to his mouth.

Marcille recognizes that whistle from somewhere… she swears she’s studied the sleek design back in Magic School when she spent time analyzing dungeon monsters that could potentially be trained. She knew whistles like the one Boss has are designed to aggravate and lure out certain monsters, typically used by hunters and whatnot.

But what monster does this whistle summon? She knows this, it’s something like a… a-Dire Wolf? No, maybe a Minotaur, or… holy shit it’s a—

The Boss has now put the whistle to his lips, huffing in a deep breath before letting it out, his cheeks puffing with the effort.

—Warg.

The high-pitched screech is almost undetectable to Marcille’s ears, but it still manages to border pain with its volume. She whips her head to the two Half-Foots, this must be torture to them.

Meijack has collapsed to her knees with her forehead pressed into the ground, her hands are gripping her ears, trying unsuccessfully to block out the piercing noise. Chilchuck is crouched in front of her, his eyes screwed shut and mouth open in a silent scream. His shoulders are hunched to his ears in a feeble attempt to stop the pain, with his hands pressing down over his daughter’s ears and layering her own.

Marcille watches her friends with horror, desperate for a way to help. She’s considering blasting the whistle out of Boss’s mouth, plan be damned, when the noise finally stops.

Chilchuck collapses, off kilter, the absence of noise leaving his ears ringing painfully. Meijack lurches forward with her hands catching his shoulders before he can hit the ground. She helps her dad shakily stand alongside her.

Marcille watches the two as they struggle to their feet, hoping Chilchuck’s hearing hasn’t completely gone. Boss and his lackey’s laugh, taking joy in the suffering they’re causing, and the Elven mage has to stop herself from prematurely blasting them all to bits.

The Half-Foots whip around to face the looming hallway they’ve been enclosed with, just seconds before echoes of thump-thump, thump, thump-thump, resonate into the trapper’s and Marcille’s ears.

Marcille’s grip on her staff tightens, her fingers going white with the strength of it. If there was any doubt about Boss’s whistle targeting a Warg before, it’s gone now. The beast’s claws can be heard scraping against the stone floor as it speeds up, charging towards their room.

Chilchuck barely has a chance to steady himself before the beast has entered the chamber, clipping the entryway as it blindly darts forward. The stone dislodged by the Warg has been sent flying across the room. Directly towards where the two Half-foots stand, frozen.

Chilchuck shouts “MOVE,” and pushes Meijack with all his weight away from him. Both father and daughter fall back to the ground, the offending chunk of stone landing with a crack directly between them.

Chilchuck exhales heavily, his relief is short lived as Meijack shrieks and dives forward, tackling him and sending them both sprawling backwards. The Warg’s jaws clamp right where Chilchuck sat seconds before.

Marcille’s shriek of horror is smothered by the Trappers jeers and shouts.

They aren’t going to survive this, there’s no way. She knows that Chilchuck is tough, and this isn’t his first rodeo, but she can’t compartmentalize it when watching the Warg tower over its two prey.

Marcille is shocked out of her fear when Chilchuck jumps to his feet, pulling Mei along with him, and darts around the Warg. He evades the canine’s lunge and continues to sprint, leading the Warg to the invisible barrier separating them from her.

Chilchucks face is set in a mix between desperation and pure resolve. He approaches the barrier with unflinching determination, Meijack running next to him. The Half-Foots exchange a look, almost lost to Marcille in their mad dash, before facing the magic wall with new vigor. The Warg is catching up to them.

Just when Marcille is sure her friends will either lose a limb to their pursuer or crash into the barrier, they skid to a stop and launch themselves out of the way of the Wargs path, leaving them to watch on opposing sides as it SLAMS face-first into the divider.

The Warg whines sharply as it rebounds and catches itself, attempting to shake the pain away. A tooth has been knocked out of the beast’s mouth, spreading a trail of blood out of its already plenty scary jaws. Now that it’s not running, the occupants of the dungeon can spot a deep slash running across the Wargs side, beginning at its upper arm, and trailing off at its thigh.

Chilchuck and Mei definitely didn’t do that, so who did?

Unfortunately, the Warg doesn’t allow them much time to ponder, as it seems to have doubled its aggression towards its targets, now seeing them as competition as well as a snack.

The Warg whips its head back and forth, eyeing the Half-Foots as if considering who to kill first.

Apparently, it chooses Chilchuck. Sauntering almost lazily towards the frozen father, with breaths heavy and hot, it nears close enough to choke Chilchuck with its metallic stench.

Chilchuck can’t get himself to move, even as his mind screams at him to do something. It’s been too long since he’s had to run from monsters to survive, been long enough for fear to overtake adrenaline when faced with beasts.

 What if Marcille can’t revive him? What if he’s too mangled to put back together? What if he never gets to scold Senshi for treating him like a kid again, or Laios for putting the party in danger with his weird monster fantasies, or—

The Warg’s teeth (sans the one abandoned on the stone floor behind it) are crooked. They look less sharp up close, Chilchuck wonders if that’s almost worse.

Hopefully he’ll be able to give Marcille enough time to blast the trappers to oblivion. Chilchuck thinks of Mei, she better get out of this ok, or she’s grounded ‘till she’s 50.

Speaking of, he meets her gaze from behind the snarling beast, sees her eyes shift from terror to determination. He only has a second to process that, before Meijack sticks her fingers into her mouth and blows.

Chilchuck screams, “NO!”, reaching out as if he can protect his little girl.

It doesn’t stop the Warg from turning away from him, and towards his daughter’s shrill whistle.

Meijack crouches, preparing to sprint. Her eyes flit to someone across the barrier, Chilchuck doesn’t look back, eyes glued to Meijack.

The fear running through his veins must be slowing down the world around him, because he can’t move fast enough, and is forced to watch the Warg’s muscles tense as it prepares to jump. Forced to see its claws dig into the floor as it kicks off, the cut spanning its side stretching gruesomely as it soars, gaping mouth ready to latch onto his daughter.

Chilchuck is forced to watch as the other side of the barrier floods with light, explosions ringing, only slightly muffled by the divider.

He watches in his delayed sense of time as Boss turns, face furious, a hastily procured shield protecting him from Marcilles onslaught of flame. His sword is already halfway out of its sheath, his stance prepared to dash for the Elf.

Chilchuck watches Horik fly into the wall, before slumping to the ground unmoving. He sees the barriers connection to the wall go fuzzy and lose their almost invisible shine.

Chilchuck sees Cook burn, he can’t bring himself to care.

He witnesses the moment that the barrier is completely dissipated, and the final eruptions are released into the rest of the chamber.

He hears the Warg yelp in pain, accompanied by Meijack’s shout of surprise.

The Warg’s coarse fur donning its hip has caught fire, not enough to be deadly, but the burning heat slowly cauterizing its previous wound is enough to drive the Warg into a pain induced haze. The Warg stumbles and lands a few feet in front of Meijack, writhing on the ground and desperate to put out the fire.

It works, the fire smothering against the cold stone. The monster is now enraged and recovered enough to stand.

Unfortunately for the Half-Foot in front of it, the Warg decides that the best plan of action would be to bring its meal to the only corner of the room that is free of flames, AKA, the one a few meters behind Marcille. The corner farthest from Chilchuck.

All the chaos and movement around Chilchuck fades into the background as his vision tunnels, focus only on Meijack. Even the dull throbbing still filling his head from the earlier assault on his ears fades in the face of his panic. Which means he sees with full clarity the moment Mei tries to shoot out from under the Wargs gaze, just for its jaws to clamp down on her hair, barely missing her scalp.

Still, it’s enough to rip her off her feet. A screech leaves her lips before she can process what happened, shooting pain spreads through her head.

Chilchuck screams for her, stumbling forward as Meijack is dragged like some sort of morbid chew-toy across the room.

The Warg is blinded by pain and hunger, plowing over Angel as they crouch at Cooks corpse. Their only mercy is quick death from the concussive limbs trampling them.

Chilchuck is sprinting before he can even process that he moved. He jumps over the lifeless forms of Angel and Cook, feeling no remorse for their fate; they hurt his daughter.

He glides past Marcille and Boss, who are caught in a fierce standstill, right as the Warg stops in its corner. It has dropped Mei but keeps a clawed foot on her chest, her frantic kicking and moving doing nothing to dislodge it, instead causing the claws pinning her to dig into her vest.

The Warg’s beady black eyes seem to almost mock Chilchuck as it rears back, mouth spilling red-tainted spittle, and goes for the kill. Its jaws aimed for Mei’s neck. Chilchuck can’t stop the scream that rips itself from his throat.

He dives for her, a desperate attempt at doing something—

Mei screams, the tearing of flesh resonates in both Half-Foots ears.

Marcille looks up from her almost finished spell-runes, knowing that if she targets Horik specifically then the barrier will dissipate at his death.

She can’t suppress her gasp when she sees the Warg drooling over Chilchuck, seconds away from going for the kill. She looks quickly to Mei, who’s frozen in horror behind the beast.

Mei looks around frantically before she spots Marcille, her eyes spark with an idea, trying to communicate her plan to the mage through her eyes. Luckily Marcille understands, gearing up to light off her first round of blasts.

She watches in tense anticipation as Meijack looks to her dad and puts two fingers in her mouth, blowing hard and making the Warg turn away from him.

As the monster tenses, ready to launch towards the Half-Foot. Mei glances at Marcille, urging her to ignite the spell circle she’d drawn, while tensing, ready to run just in case.

The explosions of heat and light are overwhelming, leaving Marcille blinded for a few seconds. A few seconds is apparently all Boss needed to begin charging her with his very pointy sword, eyes radiating rage.

Well, fuck.

Marcille whips her staff in front of her, aiming for the man and trying to blast him off his feet at the very least. Maiming would be a better outcome though,

“aslam!”

The blast hits.

Boss skids across the ground, but quickly regains his vigor and continues his charge towards her, his chest now sporting a steaming burn that apparently does nothing to slow his assault.

Marcille can’t charge up another explosion in time and is forced to block Boss’s sword with her staff, which splinters but doesn’t snap.

She shrieks at the force of his swing, but quickly twists around, sending Boss flailing to the ground, where he just barely manages to keep his sword in his grasp, though his shield has long since skidded away.

The elf has half the mind to attempt a concussive hit at his head with the end of her staff, but before she can decide to act on that thought, the Warg is sprinting past her, just barely avoiding trampling her and Boss.

She realizes with horror that Meijack is being dragged along with it, flailing and shouting, but unable to slow the beast down.

Marcille is brought out of her icy terror with a sharp sting resonating through her hand, the one holding her staff. On instinct she drops her only weapon and curls her now bleeding appendage to her chest with a gasp.

She whips around, spotting Boss, with his sword still outstretched from his attack, bloody grin plastered to his face.

As Boss crouches, ready to kill, Marcille is left with no time to figure out how bad the slice on her hand is, and instead is forced to duck out of the way of his wide swing. She barely manages to avoid the slash to her neck.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t avoid the rubble strewn on the ground behind her, and crashes onto her back with a yelp.

Too caught up with trying to get her lungs to cooperate with her again, she doesn’t see Boss stumble to stand over her gasping form.

She doesn’t remain oblivious for long though, his sword’s tip is pressed lightly against her chest, freezing her newly working lungs in their tracks.

Marcilles eyes follow the length of the sword up to Boss’s face, his grin is gone, replaced by a sadistic glimmer in his eyes. Fuck, she’s going to die.

Boss laughs humorlessly, “Well, well, well… those disgusting rats burrowed their charm into your mind after all.”.

He sighs, devoid of any real sorrow, “And here I thought I found someone else with sense. Don’t worry, I’ll make your death less painful than theirs,” His grin is back, “Though I guess that’s not really saying much.”

Marcilles eyes widen as the sword begins to lower, spilling a small trail of blood down her front. In a panic, she frantically grasps the sword above here, ignoring the sharp sting in her hands and the added blood dripping onto her cloak.

Her grasp on the sword manages to slow its descent into her chest, but not by much, and she feels with a numb buzz as it fully breaks through the first layer of skin.

She grasps the sword tighter despite the sticky warmth pooling from her already mangled palms. Boss is speaking, probably mocking her attempt at stopping his skewering, but she can’t decipher the words, all the sound around her becoming muddled with her fear.

A scream breaks through Marcilles fuzzy senses, shocking her enough the let the sword slip a centimeter lower, she holds in her grunt of pain and looks to the source of Chilchucks panic. Her vision is blurry, and she can’t make out the scene to the side of her, just that there’s red.

If she doesn’t survive this, then both Half-Foots will die. She won’t be there to heal them, they won’t find Senshi and Laios.

Her gaze whips to Boss again, her eyebrows scrunching and hands clamping that much tighter around the sword that is now embedded half an inch inside of her. She has to live; she wants to live.

Boss’s face contorts in clear anger, he slams a foot on Marcilles shoulder, she screams through her clenched teeth as his renewed force shifts the blade, now scraping her ribs with the point.

Boss and Marcille are at a standstill for a short pause.

Then Boss smiles cruelly, before ripping the metal out of Marcille, eliciting another scream, and holds it above the already made hole in her flesh. He tenses to thrust it down, with enough force time that Marcille won’t be able to stop it.

There’s a gurgled shout of pain, the sound of sword entering flesh.

The anguish layered by Meijacks own raw scream from meters away.

Chapter Text

Senshi was trying to follow the precarious steps of the Half-Foot leading the party— No really, he was! He trusted Chilchuck in his expertise, and after the first trap room debacle he’s not trying to make the Half-Foot mad again.

…But his big feet weren’t built for all this complicated mumbo jumbo, and really, what’s the worst that could happen if he lands a little outside of a tile or two?

The dwarf feels a give under his foot, slightly alarmed at the loud click that follows. Okay, maybe that step was more than a little off.

Senshi and Chilchuck freeze, the larger of the two feeling a bit like a toddler caught in the act of breaking a house rule. Chilchuck whips around, armed with a sharp glare, and looks past Marcille directly into Senshi’s very soul.

Senshi can almost feel the rage building up in the Half-Foots small frame, alarmingly vicious for his size. Chilchuck’s almost-freakout is cut off –before he can even start admonishing Senshi– by the scrape of stone, grinding loudly, from below the party’s feet.

Laios straightens from the back of the group, looking to Chilchuck, “What was th—"

But Chilchuck is busy launching himself towards Senshi. For a second, Laios thinks that the cook had finally crossed the line and was going to face the wrath of Chilchuck Tims, but the look on the Half-Foots face isn’t anger (aside from the constant grumpiness etched into his features), but determination.

Faster than Laios can process, Chilchuck is shoving Senshi as hard as he can, which is admittedly not very hard, forcing the dwarf to stumble slightly and fall heavily to his backside.

Chilchuck, now standing where the dwarf did moments before, can only watch as a seam in the stone floor surrounding him opens with a two-block radius on all sides.

Laios’s eyes widen, and he launches forward, hoping to grab the Half-Foot out of the trapdoors’ opening zone before he can fall to the depths beneath.

Chilchuck attempts to kick off the now moving stone underneath him, intending to jump to Laios’s outstretched arm, but his feet slip on the angling floor, sending him to the ground.

With nothing to grab onto against the smooth rock, Chilchuck slides down the dark opening, letting out an angry yelp as he disappears behind the now closing stone slabs.

Man, he hopes this isn’t a spike trap.

Laios can only watch as his lockpick is lost beneath the ground. Still moving on the momentum of his mad dash, he rips Kensuke out of its sheath and attempts to pierce the weapon into one of the cracks that previously acted as an opening, but there’s no give, and the rock stays frustratingly put.

Senshi, dazed from the speed at which the trap’s events played out and still sitting on the cold stone, watches as Laios continues his unsuccessful attempts at unlodging the trap door.

Marcille is franticly shouting for Chilchuck, hoping he can hear her from down below. With no luck, she turns to Senshi and hurries over to him.

“Oh! Senshi! Are you okay? You didn’t get caught in any of that trap, did you? I’m sure glad Chilchuck got you out of the—”

Click

Oh yeah, the tiles.

Marcille drops through the floor with a shriek, barely halfway to Senshi. It happens so fast that neither fighter gets the chance to think about grabbing her, much less actually do so.

So that’s what leads Senshi and Laios to where they are now, trudging through dark, stale hallways after failing at prying open the floor where half their party vanished.

While breaking through the floor wasn’t successful, the hollow twang of Senshi’s axe wherever he tried to fracture the stone proved that there was a fully cleared out area beneath the trap room. With some more testing in nearby hallways, it was clear that there was an entire floor beneath them, not just a small cove for the trapdoors.

With no audible signs of Marcille and Chilchuck, and no way to break through to them, the monster enthusiasts agreed that the best course of action would be to find another way down to their possibly skewered teammates. Hopefully if they walked long enough, they’d come across a staircase or a cracked opening in the stone floor.

The only mercy of the situation is that Laios was carrying both fallen members packs (Chilchuck’s so he could navigate the trap room without setting anything off, and Marcille’s because she complained about her “staff holding arm getting sore from the weight”). This, of course, wasn’t good news for Chilchuck and Marcille, but it did leave Chilchuck’s annotated map of the area in Laios’s hands.

Hopefully with a map, Senshi and Laios could manage without Chilchuck and his skilled navigation, though they’d have to be weary of traps.

The only problem is that Chilchucks annotations didn’t say much about a secret underground of this floor, in fact, he seemed to actively ignore the existence of it, leaving the elevated members of the Touden party to hope there was a way down other than the trapdoors.

After walking somewhat aimlessly for about an hour, avoiding anywhere on Chillchucks map that had a skull messily scribbled (usually dead ends or off shooting rooms that Senshi assumed housed mimics or something of the sort), Laios speaks up.

“Hey Senshi! Why do you think Chil didn’t know about the lower floor?”

Senshi hums, looking over Laios’s shoulder at the map,

“I wonder if the lad did know about it, and just elected to not bring it up… With ears like his I doubt he’d have missed the extra resonance.”

Laios scrunches his eyebrows, contemplating, “Huh, Half-foot hearing is three to four times more advanced than Tall-Men, and Chilchuck has mentioned being able to single out monsters, even when they’re rooms away, through thicker stone than this…”  Laios trails off into muttering, “but why would he purposely hide information when we could utilize the floor below us for food or shortcuts?”

Senshi ponders for a moment, speaking his thoughts aloud, “He could have known that it wouldn’t be useful to us, or he knew this way is faster and didn’t feel the need to bring up any alternatives…” Senshi reaches up to stroke his beard in thought, “The kid tends to be mighty prepared though, it’s odd that there’s no map for the whole floor.”

Silence falls between the two, both trying to logic out Chilchucks reasoning for the absent record of the floor below.

The quiet stays blanketed over them, not uncomfortably, as their thoughts stray away from their current conundrum and into their default settings of monsters. More specifically, what monsters they could potentially eat where they’re headed.

Laios is in the throes of daydreaming about the Wurms and Scorpions that could be found in these sorts of deep, dark dungeon areas, when his thoughts are interrupted by a vicious growl, almost frog-like in nature.

The sound is alarmingly loud, coming from right next to the Tall-Man.

Senshi, unashamed by the grumbling, looks taken aback, “Oh dear, has it really been so long since we ate?”

His stomach answers for him, letting out yet another croak.

Laios’s body responds as well with a slightly less threatening growl.

“The last thing we ate was your stored Kelpie jerky, and that was this morning. It’s no wonder we’re hungry!”

It had been hours with no sign of the level below them, so the two men agree to take a rest break, after all, they’d be of no use to their lost party members if they were exhausted from hunger.

Once the fighters settle down in the first room with a waterspout they come across, Laios sets out to find a small monster to slay and bring back.

Senshi has left over bread (though stale enough to count as crackers), dried seaweed and dryad, as well as a handful of small fruits that he snatched from the garden-esque sanctuary the party paused at before heading into these twisting halls.

Despite the rations he held, the dwarf insisted that “a meal without fresh protein is almost as bad as nothing at all!”, so Laios happily volunteered to try to find some meat while Senshi used his fruits to boil together a jam-like spread to slather the “bread” with.

If he were to be ignoring the hollowness of his stomach, Laios was quite frankly, having a blast. He rarely ever gets to test his solo hunting skills, his party being so efficient, and although he would never admit it, he sometimes wished he could examine monsters in their natural habitat before killing them.

With a trigger happy Marcille, and a stressed out Chilchuck, Laios barely gets time to just watch.

So, when he spots a nest belonging to a Beastly Rat, he gives himself a moment to observe. Laios sprinkles crumbled bread (that he snatched earlier before setting out) in front of the cracked stone entry to the Rat nest, topping the crumb-pile off with a small drop of blood with a prick from his sword.

While the everyday farm rat enjoys the rare fish or small gerbil for dinner along with their fruits and seeds, Beastly Rats are particularly bloodthirsty, both because of their non-fruit bearing location and their extra feral build. They can smell even the smallest drop of blood from rooms away.

Beastly Rats aren’t the most interesting monster to Laios, they’re just really big, sharp toothed rats, but that doesn’t stop the giddiness he feels as he sneaks, settling in the hallway to observe.

The slightly fresh droppings and stray rat fur near the entrance of the nest tells Laios that this is a currently occupied burrow, so he peers around the doorway with full confidence that he’ll successfully draw out the monster.

And he’s right, after just about five minutes of quieting his breaths and waiting, Laios spots a grubby pink nose the size of a Tall-Man child’s fist snuffling through the entrance of its nest. The beast cautiously crawls out into the open, heading for the pile of goods in the center of the room.

Now that it’s fully exposed, Laios can admire the magnitude of the monster, its size being about the same as the body of a full-grown mimic!

Laios crouches, ready to pounce on the rat while it’s distracted.

He shifts his feet slightly. The sound of his armor moving is enough to trigger the monster’s attention. The rat freezes into a defensive position, spittle frothing, and eyes beadily trained on the doorway, on Laios.

Unfortunately for the rat, it isn’t much of a fair matchup. Laios jumps into the room and skids past the rat until he is placed between it and the nest, this way, there’s no chance of the rodent escaping to safety.

The Beastly Rat, understanding its dire situation, switches to offense. Screeching and growling, it scrambles for Laios, attempting to knock him down. Right as the rat is launching towards Laios’s torso, the man ducks to the side and out of the foes trajectory.

While still in the air, there’s nothing the rat can do to avoid Laios’s tackle.

Straddling the writhing beast, Laios swiftly brings his sword around to the creature’s neck and slashes across its throat.

While trying to avoid the blood spray, Laios dismounts, content to wait out the aftershocks and jolting limbs from afar.

He rounds up the crumbs, setting them just inside the rat nest, making it easier for any other occupants of the nest to grab. Speaking of, he should get back to Senshi. Laios may be able to easily take down one Beast-Rat, but he wouldn’t want to get swamped in such a narrow area and with the amount of blood leaking out of his soon-to-be meal, there’s bound to be more coming.

So, he lugs the rat’s corpse onto his shoulders and begins his trek back to the cook.

Feeling perhaps a bit of nostalgia for the basilisk, Senshi roasts the rat, the finished meal resembling a charcuterie spread.

Laios has just finished wiping his sword clean of blood, when Senshi declares the food ready to eat. The Tall-Man is basically drooling at the mere presence of the meat, well cooked and glistening with spices and glaze.

The two men settle in opposite sides of the platter, neither mentioning the absence of complaining from their two missing members. Eating without them felt empty, the only thing stopping the atmosphere from becoming awkward being Laios’s lack of ability to even process awkwardness.

Senshi slathered a thin bread-crack with jam while Laios eagerly ripped a thigh chunk off the rat.

They simultaneously raise their portions to their mouths, stomachs aching in anticipation.

The cooked meat is inches away from Laios’s mouth when he hears it.

The nearly undetectable scuffle of claws in the hallway outside their room. Big claws, larger than the rat’s for sure…

Laios motions to Senshi and rises from his seat, still clutching the meat, and reaches for his sword with his free hand. The tap and scrape of claws halts right outside the doorway, replaced by a deep sniffing, easily heard over the quieted breaths of the fighters.

Senshi and Laios are pressed against the back wall, giving themselves an optimal amount of room to fell whatever beast has come after them. Axe and sword at the ready, they wait for the monster to make the first move.

There’s only one split second to admire the Beast’s impressive build as it reveals itself, before it’s lunging full force into the room. Eyes sharp, and teeth bared.

Laios recognizes the monster as a Warg, angling his sword to intercept its jaws should they clamp towards his face. A maneuver deemed unnecessary when the Warg ignores the two men entirely, and instead dives for their meal.

The cooked meat is snatched up before they can blink, and the Warg scampers out and down the hall.

Senshi and Laios stare after it, before turning to look at each other, wrathful eyes meet fanatical ones.

“That was a Warg! They’re known for their coarse fur, which maintains shape and is surprisingly bendable, making it perfect for paintbrushes! I heard that Warg meat is tough, and only eaten in some cultural gatherings for celebrations—”

“—Without a source of protein, we can’t have a full healthy meal! Protein is extremely important for growth and development, especially for a youngin’ like you! That beast just took away the most important part of our meal! We—”

“—We have to go after it!”

Chapter Text

Neither man acknowledges the other’s comments, both equally set on catching the thief.

They launch out of the room, barely spotting the tail of the Warg disappearing as it dashes right at the end the corridor. Pure rage/thrill fuel the men as they hurtle full speed after it, they skid around the corner that the Warg disappeared behind, and find the monster crouched at the end of the hallway chomping on their rat meat.

When the Warg spots them, it tenses and lets out a deep growl, nose scrunching and teeth bared around its prized meal. As Senshi starts forward, ready to avenge his nutritional morals, the Warg bolts to the side, vanishing through a hard-to-spot crumbled opening in the wall.

Laios desperately launches the meat thigh he has managed to hold onto through the commotion, right for the Warg, hoping to stop it in its escape.

The meat hits home with a splat against the Warg’s flank. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, it’s not nearly enough to stop the Warg in its bolt, and Senshi and Laios are left to continue the chase.

They waste no time in rushing after the beast, their devotion to catching up clouding their awareness of any surroundings, hence the two entirely missing the crumbling hole that makes up the floor after the crack in the wall.

The fighter and cook duck after the Warg, and find themselves falling straight to the ground a floor below them, Laios slamming onto his back, and Senshi following with a crash, directly on top of the Tall-Man.

If the two were in any state of mind to process where they were, they would have been relieved at the step towards finding their friends, but currently they were a bit preoccupied by catching the Warg, either for nutrition fueled revenge, or a potential monster-meal.

With that in mind, Senshi and Laios recover quickly, and as soon as Laios can breathe again, they rush after the distant sound of claws scraping and teeth gnawing on stolen protein.

Pausing just short distance away from the Warg-occupied room, Laios motions for them to slow to a crawl, creeping up as quiet as two armor covered lumbering fools can manage. They’d have the best chance at apprehending their foe if they were able to get the jump on it, hopefully the room only has one entrance.

Sharing one last determined look, both Tall-Man and Dwarf round the doorway, widening their stances to block the doorway as much as they can. The Warg’s growl rumbles through the room, its eyes flitting back and forth between its pursuers.

With eyes tracking every twitch and strained muscle on Wargs cowering form, the men inch forward. Each step causing the canine beast to tense up further, jaws tightening around its meal and lips pulling back to reveal gums.

The growling seems to reach a crescendo, the Warg meeting its limit as Senshi and Laios approach.

The two men are close enough to brush the beast with the tip of Senshi’s axe, Laios’s gaze flits to his companions, meeting the dwarf’s resolute nod. They crouch, dodging the occasional swipe of a beastly clawed arm. There’s one dungeoneer closing in on each side of the Warg, ready to strike now that the monster is cornered.

The beast’s coarse fur stands on end, ready to battle for its dinner and it’s life; Senshi and Laios’s weapons are arced above them, ready to drop.

The beast freezes, letting out a piercing whine. Laios looks to Senshi, had the cook hit the Warg with his axe? No, Senshi looks just as surprised at the change in behavior.

Before the two can turn back to their foe, the beast is launching for them, no- between them, towards the door!

Laios faces the brunt of the Wargs force, getting body-slammed to the dusty ground, the air leaving his lungs briefly for the second time in the past five minutes. Senshi on the other hand, is focused solely on the beast hurdling, almost out of the room.

Mimicking Laios’s earlier attempt at stopping the Warg, Senshi slings his axe with all his force, aiming for its spine. Rather than hitting the beast’s flank head-on, the weapon tears a gash through its side and embeds itself in the doorway, right as the Warg disappears through it.

The contact of the axe’s blade doesn’t deter the Wargs mad dash, almost as if hypnotized, there’s very little reaction to the wound. Senshi shouts after it “You nasty bugger!! Get back here with our—!”

“Senshi! Look!”

Laios is breathless from his tumble, but otherwise fine as he points to the now unoccupied corner.

There, slobbery and torn, lay their dinner. Abandoned by the meat-thief in its tunnel vision. Senshi is confused, why would the Warg leave its prized possession behind?

Laios voices this out loud, sharing his confusion.

Now that he thinks about it, the Warg was acting off before it left, what was with its crazed eyes and sharp whining? Wargs are built to defend, rarely choosing flight over fight, yet this one ran without a second thought. Laios vows to figure out what’s happening…

Senshi vows to gain vengeance for the clearly inedible meat.

Once Senshi dislodges his axe from the stone, and Laios has straightened his armor and buried the ruined meat in dust and dirt to mask the smell, they set off.

Senshi’s inflicted wound on the Warg leaves a trail of the occasional blood drop, giving the small party enough of a trail to follow.  

After around 20 minutes of chasing, with only the occasional pause to ensure they were still following the red trail, the two pause as they hear a distant yet deep rumble.

 It sounds like an explosion, though unlike any bomb, echoing with the sharp crack of a mage at work.

Wait… They know a mage who’s prone to magic explosions.

With renewed vigor, Senshi and Laios continue forward. Noticing as they run that the Wargs path seems to lead directly to the origin of the stone-shaking boom, Laios worries for Chilchuck and Marcille.

If it really was Marcille who ignited an explosion, she’s probably all alone in fighting the Warg. Chilchuck, while being extremely accurate with his weapons, doesn’t have the force to meaningfully hurt the beast. He hopes they can hold off until the two fighters can get to them.

Maybe they can all eat the Warg after! Senshi would jump at the opportunity for vengeful protein, and maybe Chilchuck and Marcille would be too tired and hungry to stop him! Man, he can’t wait to eat.

Unknown to Laios, Senshi is actively visualizing the cooked and prepared form of the Warg, desperate to feed the youngins’ who surely are running on fumes after walking all this way.

Both men stop abruptly when they distantly heard a panicked scream, and Chilchuck’s responding shout. It’s too far to discern what the Half-foot is saying, but he sounds scared. Was the first scream Marcille? Is she ok?

Senshi and Laios dash, turning corners, following the sounds of conflict. Another explosion, smaller this time, a shout from Chilchuck again, they’re almost there. A scream of pain, was that Marcille again? The two push themselves to go faster.

As they get closer, the men can hear a nasty, droning voice, it sounds manic. That isn’t Chilchuck, so who are they with? Is another party helping fight the Warg?

Another wail, Marcille, followed by a mocking laughter from the unknown speaker.

No, something’s not right, that doesn’t sound like the voice of someone who’s helping. The talking is louder now, Laios can hear Chilchuck shout a name he doesn’t recognize the Half-foot’s panic echoing through their approaching corridor. Both men push themselves to go faster at a pained scream, more desperate than the others. That was definitely Marcille.

Senshi draws his axe, Laios his sword, ready to turn the corner to face whatever is happening to their party members.

They weren’t ready to face this.

Marcille clenches her eyes shut, she doesn’t want to see the sword skewer her flesh, she doesn’t want to see Boss and his manic grin as he prepares to run her through, nor give him the satisfaction of seeing the primal fear rooted in her eyes.

She doesn’t want to see what’s happening to Meijack or Chilchuck, doesn’t want proof of how she failed them…

Because her eyes are fastened tight, she misses the familiar sword entering through Boss’s chest from behind. Misses the blur of silver catching Boss before he can fall on top of her.

She doesn’t, however, miss his gurgled shout of pain, almost buried under the sound of Meijacks accompanying scream. Rawer than any she’d heard from her yet.

Terrified for the Half-foot, Marcille’s eyes shoot open of their own command, only half registering that she had not been pinned to the ground by ways of sword.

Frantically, despite the radiating pain in her hands, the elf attempts to lever herself up. A rough hand on her upper arm forces her back to the ground, not pinning her completely but keeping her in place.

Marcille flails desperately, releasing a wild shriek and refusing to stay down as Boss pins her more fully. She will not let Boss keep her down after failing to kill her once… Wait, Boss didn’t impale her, he—

-he fell over. Or, no- he was brought down…? but who would…?

She’s snapped back to awareness.

Laios didn’t know what to do, he had taken the man who was trying to kill Marcille down, but she hasn’t stopped fighting against his grasp.

After he made sure the man wasn’t at any risk of surviving, and wasn’t going to land on the Elf, he turned to see her trying to sit up. Her eyes were glazed with pure adrenaline and panic, she probably didn’t even realize how bad she was hurt and was likely to hurt herself if she managed to get up.

So Laios did the first thing he could think of and grappled her back to the ground. Her instant reaction of devastated panic, accompanied by her hoarse shriek was almost enough for him to let go and back off, but glancing back down at her bloody chest and hands kept him in place.

Adjusting both hands to push down on her shoulders and swiftly straddling her, limiting as much movement he can on his own, he tries to break through to her.

Talking isn’t working, Laios is borderline shouting now, ordering her to stop moving and reassuring her that she’s not being attacked, but it’s obviously she isn’t hearing him.

Marcille is losing energy, but she’s still moving too much to be let go…

Laios has to do something, he can’t just keep pinning her, not when he has to check on Chilchuck who has stilled under the Warg, he was shielding what seems to be another Half-foot.

Laios glances over to where Senshi has just lobbed of the Wargs head, and knows he has to calm Marcille down fast if whoever was hurt by the Warg is going to survive based on the pooling blood.

Looking down at Marcille’s scrunched and frantic face, Laios has an idea.

He adjusts his weight, keeping Marcille pinned as he leans closer to her, his face hovering directly over hers.

He takes a deep breath…

And releases the air from his lungs, blowing a strong gust of air directly onto her face, just like he would to get Falin breathing again when she had breath-holding spells as an infant.

Miraculously, it works.

Marcille, while still frantic, recognizes Laios and stops scrabbling to get away. Sighing in relief, Laios loosens his pin on her. This gives her the leeway to shove him to the side and attempt to run over to Senshi, the Warg corpse, and the two Half-foots (hopefully not corpses).

She only makes it two steps before she stumbles face first, only avoiding breaking her nose on the stone by the metal-clad arms catching her by the shoulders. Laios helps her limp the rest of the way over.

Meijack can’t even begin to imagine the headache she’s going to get from being dragged across the room by her hair. Then she can’t imagine how much worse the headache is going to get after her dad gives her a “Major Lecture-attack” for purposely making herself a target.

But the Warg was going to kill him, it was going to lock its jaws around her dad. She couldn’t have- can’t let that happen, she— she’s ok with this. Ok with dying, if she doesn’t have to watch her dad die.

She knows he’ll stop at nothing to get her back anyways, so it’s not even a big deal, right?

The Warg drops her, claws digging painfully into her vest and pinning her down. No struggling can get her out from under the beast’s gaze. She hears her dad scream for her from off to the side, and feels sorry that he has to see this, even if she doesn’t regret it.

The Wargs maw opens, as if gauging how wide it has to stay in order to snap her neck. Marcille is shouting in pain. She can hear her dad sprinting to her, but the Warg is already reeling back, there’s nothing he can do, she’s glad.

Mei closes her eyes and clenches her fists, feeling the Warg tense above her, ready to lunge downwards.

Then her dad screams, much closer than before, and she feels a weight slam on top of her. She feels the spray of blood before her eyes open. When they do, her face pales in horror.

Above Meijack, just within her line of sight, Chilchuck’s face is contorted in badly hidden anguish, but more than that is the overwhelming sense of relief flooding from him as he covers Meijacks neck and torso, perpendicular, with his chest.

The Wargs teeth clench tighter, relentless in their hold on Chilchuck, enveloping his upper arm and shoulder completely. Teeth grind against bone, and Chilchuck wills himself to keep his shout of pain burrowed in his throat.

Meijack’s horror materializes in a scream as her dad jolts above her then becomes a dead weight against her chest.

The beast has Chilchuck in his maws, Senshi can see that clearly from the second he entered the room. Laios has Marcille and the bastard man handled, so he sprints directly to the youngin hoping for his survival.

At his approach, he finds that there are two Half-foots under the Warg! The second looking even younger than Chilchuck himself!

Senshi sees the beast adjust its grip on the lockpick, and watches as the boy goes limp in its grasp, followed by a gut clenching scream from the Half-foot under him.

Senshi runs faster.

As he reaches the Warg, he doesn’t give it a moment to act, swiftly slashing the beasts neck with his axe. The hit, while not decapitating the Warg, does shock it into releasing Chilchuck, who remains unmoving.

Senshi raises his weapon once more, cracking down again before the Warg can react.

That, decapitates the Warg.

Fucking ouch, Mei is so grounded for this shit.

Chilchuck loses consciousness, fading away to Mei’s scream.

Chapter Text

Throwing his axe to the side, Senshi plants his hands on the Wargs ribcage and pushes, slowly revealing the squashed Half-Foots. Underneath the Warg-pile he can hear that the younger of the two’s scream had tapered off into breathless gasps, the weight and panic teaming up against her.

Senshi can’t help but feel relief, a hyperventilating Half foot is better than a dead one.

Marcille’s body is barely working with her, making Laios bear both of their weight. Fortunately, the Tall-man is built like a man who lives off of eating dragons and fights goblins on the regular, so he can manage the additional person easily.

Or it would have been easy if the elf didn’t scrabble out of his supporting grasp the second she saw the Wargs body roll off Chilchucks very concerning looking top half. Laios’ hand just misses catching Marcille, and she hits the ground roughly on her knees, scrambling to reach the elder lockpick.

Marcille prepared to routinely check over her party member, professionality betrayed by the trembling of her hands.

“Oh god, we’re going to have to set the shoulder back in place before we move anywhere, but he’s losing so much blood. I should seal the wounds with what mana I can spare, stop the bleeding, but...”

Marcilles self-ramblings continues while Meijack grasps at her dad in hysterics, shaking him by the shoulders, jostling becoming rougher when he doesn’t react to the movement, even when his gored shoulder shifts and smacks against stone.

Senshi wraps a gentle arm around the Half-Foots waist, pulling her away before more damage can be caused. Once she realizes she’s being separated from her dad, Meijack starts writhing. When scratching and hitting the dwarf with all her pained strength doesn’t work, Meijack finally goes limp, burying gasping sobs into the arms holding her up.

Laios feels a dull pain build in his chest, he very rarely sees his smallest party-member this hurt, and almost never with a mage so low on mana. Chilchuck is tough. That’s a fact of the world, right alongside Falin gives the best hugs, Monsters are the coolest, and people are way harder to read than monsters.

Laios has seen Chilchuck take hits that are detrimental for his small form and keep running. He’s seen him challenge assholes who are four times his size in bars that think he or any other Half-Foots would make for a good scam or beat down (While small, a kick to the shin from Chilchuck could fell any man).

Sure, Chilchuck has been hurt before, everyone has in the dungeon business, but something about this time feels different, intentional.

Needing something to distract himself, and trusting that he would only get in Marcilles way, the Tall-Man goes about gathering the corpses of the other party, preparing to line them up and potentially drag them somewhere that corpse-retrievers can find them. He’s interrupted from carrying the first person, some type of mage, across the room as the Half-foot still cradled by Senshi speaks,

“Don’t.” She rasps, previously hollow eyes giving way to a spark of hot anger.

“Leave them. They deserve to rot.”

Laios hesitates only for a moment before setting down the body he had been carrying. He usually has a hard time reading people, but he can tell from the brief encounter with this mysterious Half-Foot that she cares deeply for Chilchuck, and if these corpses are worthy of her anger, then he can trust her judgement.

Content that Laios had heard her, the Half-foot sags, unconscious, finally succumbing to the stress of whatever had happened here.

Marcille shifts, straightening from her slouch over Chilchuck, who still looks like death but is no longer actively adding to the puddle of blood beneath him. She turns to Laios, face grim and skin pale,

“You have to get us somewhere safe. Find a place to settle, but don’t move out of this floor. Do you understand?”

Laios’s resolute nod gives way to choked shock as Marcille keels to the side, sprawling next to the other previously lost party member.

Senshi and Laios look at each other from across the downed pair, neither any more pacified of the horror that shot through them since they entered this grim chamber.

-----------

Senshi has Marcille draped across his back, her arms hanging limply in front of his face, sliced hands now hastily bandaged. In his arms he cradles the still unconscious mystery Half-foot, trying not to rock either of his passengers as he walks for fear of jostling any internal wounds.

By his side, Laios keeps pace with Chilchuck gathered in his arms, the lockpicks shoulder is bound tightly, forcing his arm to his side. Most of the gauze the two fighters had on hand went to wrapping up Chilchucks shoulder and back, hopefully making the process of moving him as safe as possible.

Laios lets Senshi take the lead, and he directs his focus onto the smaller man in his arms, Chilchucks breaths come out crackly and shallow, and he looks like he’s aged a decade. From pain, stress, or lack of food Laios can’t tell.

The Tall-man stays hyper focused on every hitch in Chilchucks breathing, every flutter of his eyelids, and every pained scrunch of his eyebrows, growing increasingly worried as the slight movements and reactions to the jostle of steps slow to nonexistent.

By the time Senshi has found an acceptable place to rest, far enough to be unheard from the room they found their team in, but close enough to go back and search the bodies there for supplies, Chilchucks state has regressed to unresponsive, the only sign of life being the fast and shallow rising of his chest to every painful breath.  

Senshi leaves after arranging the two girls onto Marcille and his own sleeping matts. He went to search the dead for potential materials and is planning on lugging the Warg over for a hearty meal. For once, Laios can’t muster up excitement about the prospect of eating a monster.

Chapter Text

The first thing Marcille notices as she rouses from sleep is pain. Her whole body, a dull, throbbing thing. Her chest and hands itch, and the feeling is only slightly overwhelmed by stinging. She shifts, she’s slept off worse pain before, so what woke her?

Brain still warbled by her aching sleep, Marcille almost misses the sound that caused her to stir in the first place. Breathing, uneven and shallow, and every once in a while, pitching off into a pained groan.

She scrunches her eyebrows and breathes through the biting hurt in her hands. What happened to her? How did she get injured?

Did the party run into a monster? She can’t remember what the party was doing last…

A distressed whine pulls her out of her musings, its muffled, almost too quiet to catch her attention. Her gut lurches at the sound, who else in her party is hurt?

Marcille sits up, breath catching in her chest at the increase in pain, and glances around the room. The environment twinges something in her memory, but she doesn’t remember settling here.

Across the room she can see Senshi leaned up against the wall dozing, probably supposed to be on watch. Physically he seems fine, if worn down. Laios is sprawled on the ground deep in sleep, looking nauseous but unharmed.

That leaves Chilchuck, he must have gotten caught in the crossfire of whatever they fought.

Marcille looks down to the Half-foot on bed roll next to her, already thinking through the pain relief spells she should cast on him, when she freezes. That’s not Chilchuck (though they do bare some resemblance).

Looking at Mei sends the events of the past days rushing back to her. Sudden enough that she’s left reeling for a few seconds before her heart drops.

Chilchuck. Blood. The Warg catching his upper body in its jaws.

Blind with panic, Marcille haphazardly kicks her blanket off and whips around frantically looking for the man. She spots him, sleeping fitfully in darkest corner of the room. The knot of dread in Marcilles chest loosens a notch when she sees that he’s been bandaged thoroughly and isn’t lying bloody and lifeless in that horrible makeshift arena.

That knot tightens tenfold however, when she scrambles closer to see Chilchucks forehead swathed in a cold sweat and his pained expression. Whatever sleep he’s getting now is anything but restful.

Marcille drags her sore limbs across the floor until she can hover over the Half-foot, examining.

His whole face is tense, teeth clenched and pupils darting beneath their lids. Worse though is the choked down sounds of distress barely escaping Chilchucks throat along with his harsh breaths.

A nightmare, she’s sure, though it’s hardly a difficult deduction after what the Half-foot has been through. Not for the first time Marcille wonders how her companion could have been through so much. How had he kept his past enslavement from them, how can he continue going back into dungeons, will he even be able to stay in the party after this?

God, Marcille hasn’t had the space to process everything she’d learned and experienced yet, and she’ll be damned is she lets herself think about it now.

The elf doesn’t know if she should wake him, maybe being conscious through his wounds would be worse that whatever nightmare he’s trapped in. Hell, maybe he’s being effected by Nightmares and it would be dangerous to try to get him up, she rationalizes.

Then Marcille hears him strangle on an inhale, and it only takes a few seconds to see that Chilchuck isn’t breathing. All her justifications to let the man sleep dissipate as she jolts, grasping the man by his shoulders, her only thought to get his lungs working.

In hindsight, this was a bad idea.

The second she realizes her mistake, she wrenches her sore hands back to her chest, releasing the tight hold on Chilchuck as if burned.

Her quick retreat does nothing to take back the white-hot burn that Chilchuck lurches awake to.

The hurt radiates from his shoulder, it’s overwhelming, heating his whole body and gnawing at every nerve ending.

The initial shock of waking sends him lurching upwards before he can process how bad of an idea moving is. He gags, retching from the shooting pangs or fire down every limb, it’s unbearable, Chilchuck can’t even force a scream up the static in his throat.

Instead, his body gives out beneath him as he falls back onto his not-exactly-soft bedroll, writhing.

Through the waves of hurt Chilchuck feels he should be worried about something, long past desperation pinging in the back of his mind. He’s tugged from this thought by a soft light peeking through his eyelids, after a few moments his pain dulls.

Now that he can think over the agony, his mind immediately goes to his daughter and he stupidly tries to sit up again, eyes squinting through the soft light to search for Mei. He grits his teeth against the strain.

The man jolts when a pair of gentle hands help settle a pack behind him, keeping his weight off, what he assumes to be a mangled at best, shoulder. He looks to their source and sees a slightly blurry but frankly quite pathetic-looking Marcille.

The overwhelming look of guilt and worry on her face being the main factor. Ah, so that’s what woke him. At least he has her magic to thank for the slight dulling of his fiery pain.

With about all the strength he can muster, he clenches a handful of her sleeve in his fist, stopping whatever apologetic rambling she had going on.

“Is Mei ok.”

He doesn’t ask it as a question, he won’t accept any answer that claims otherwise.

Marcille meets his eyes, looking more serious than he thought possible for the young elf,

“She’s alive.”

Chilchuck doesn’t let go yet.

“How. Bad.” He trusts Marcille to tell him the truth, especially after all this.

Her eyes flit away from his face, and he tenses.

“She’s not as bad as you…”

A glare from the smaller man is enough to convince her to elaborate.

She pauses for a breath, “Her head and neck are intact, but she’s going to wake up with some nasty whiplash. She’ll be sore… Probably have a hard time focusing for a little while,” She takes a breath, seemingly lost in the memory of it, “And… the Wargs claws pierced the skin on her chest, nothing fatal, her vest took most of the damage for her. She’s Ok”

Chilchuck finally allows himself to relax, releasing his hold on the Elf and putting all his weight onto the pack behind him. He wants to fall back into blissful unconsciousness, especially now that Marcille has taken the edge off his pain, but he can’t get himself to relax again.

Marcille watches Chilchuck glance around the room, taking note of Senshi and Laios with mild confusion, but moving his gaze over to his daughter.

He watches Mei breath, the tension in his heart loosening a bit with every rise and fall of her chest. Now that he doesn’t need to worry about Mei being in imminent danger, his mind drifts back to the events of the past two days.

Had it only been two days? God, it feels like he’s aged a decade. He had never wanted to see his tormentors again, had never wanted to confront that he’d failed his fellow prisoners, he’d abandoned them years ago and still he was too weak to protect even his own daughter from the worst parts of his job by far.

If he hadn’t fallen through that trapdoor like a rookie, he might not have found her.

She would’ve been stuck in that hell, being torn to shreds repeatedly, until she was no longer “useful”.

And he never would have known what happened to her, to his kid.

He didn’t notice his breathing had picked up until a gentle hand stilled his trembling shoulder. His good shoulder, thank god.

Marcille looked rough, he didn’t know what happened after he tunnel visioned for Mei, but she didn’t get out of this unscathed. Her hand barely shaking where it rested, bandages wrapped around her chest just peeking out of her scuffed dress, and her eyes looked haunted under all that worry.

She could have died. Died for real.

She’s so young. He didn’t know how long-lived races worked entirely, but mentally she acted like Fler. And that thought on top of all others, must have finally cracked something inside of him, as before he can will them away tears are building in his waterline and threatening to spill.

Marcille abruptly stops in her worried rambling when she sees Chilchucks eyes gloss over, he looks haunted. Of course he does! Marcille manically reminds herself, he just reunited with his torturers, he almost watched his daughter die!

Hell, she herself almost watched Chilchuck die! She thought she had when she heard Mei scream, and the next thing she knew, Chilchuck was being revealed in a bloody mess underneath the Warg.

And she’d seen Chilchuck die before, plenty of times, but this was different, this was intentional, and there was a high chance they wouldn’t have come back.

A shaky exhale snares her attention, and she blanks.

Chilchucks expression would be neutral if not for the tears marking his cheeks.

Chilchuck is supposed to be untouchable, always knowing how to fix whatever mess Laios put them into this time. He’s not supposed to be hurt like this, in such a deeply personal and targeted way.

He’s supposed to be the guide, always unaffected by the end of a journey, ready to dive right back into work, whether above or below ground.

But he’s crying. He’s not ok.

It’s a contrast to everything she knew about him, and it hits her harder than any maniac with a sword ever could as her tears flow over to mirror Chilchucks.

She’s always been a crier, if an emotion got too strong it would overflow and leak out her eyes, but this feels different. It’s like there’s no feelings inside of her, she’s too tired to muster up any of them.
So instead of trying to, she takes Chilchucks good hand in hers and doesn’t startle when he bumps his head against her sternum and grasps her hand back.