Chapter Text
If anyone told Fang “it could always be worse!” Right now, he’d probably shoot them in the head and swipe their wallet. He already planned to do that to most people he met, a good 60% percent in fact, but that person in particular for sure, 100%, would get shot and robbed. Fang steadied himself after having almost unintentionally marched off the third sheer drop of this cave, and sighed to the rock formations “Can’t ever come easy, can it?” He complained to no one, wishing most of his previous hires (all 3 of them) just worked for “exposure” or other things that kept money in his wallet. If not for them to check these drops for him, then to talk to someone who could respond; talking to stalactites wasn’t half as engaging as he pretended it was. Fang sat down on the edge of the drop and took inventory, looking into his custom-made (commissioned, then stolen) poncho for equipment. “No more jerky, one 12ft rope left, and five empty bottles. Should’ve got the hint it was bad business when that drongo tour guide sped off…” Fang should’ve expected this treasure hunt to be a nightmare, the local cave explorer, a blue dog with an unimportant name and thick glasses, looked at him like he was growing an eye in his mouth when he asked about this cave, and when he asked to explore it, the dog turned bedsheet white! Fang fondly remembered how the guide looked like he was about to shake out of his cheap boots when he’d pulled the jeep up to the mouth of this supposed treasure trove known locally as the “Nefarious Ruins” or something meant to scare off men of business like him. If he got out of this alive, which he was having doubts on right now, he’d rob that coward’s house and leave nothing but the floor for him to cry on. “Let’s finish the job then, gotta fix up my beaut’ before the next work week starts…” Fang announced to no one but dripping water, and sent down the last of his rope into darkness. Fang tossed a bottle down into the darkness, and counted before it smashed against the stone in three seconds. “If I’d someone to go down first, this’d be a lot bloody easier huh…” Fang was not a coward, at least that’s what he told people, but even now after all these years he still felt gnawing fear in moments like these. Taking a second to find motivation after tying the rope to a sturdy looking rock, Fang stepped off the edge of and rappelled down into what he was sure was gold plated, jewel-encrusted. Fang waited for his feet to hit the ground, yet the three seconds he’d counted aloud to himself stretched into six seconds, then nine, then 20. The rappel was more than 12 ft of rope. That couldn’t be right, Fang had measured the bloody thing, he’d thrown a bottle down there too, he heard it shatter, yet still he slid further and further into darkness. Fang slammed his heels together against the rope to slow his fall, and his boots slid against what was distinctly too slimy and mushy to be a rope. Fang looked down and saw nothing, he looked up and saw nothing, and when he looked down again, did he see a grey eye with a slit pupil staring back at him. “O-OI! If you don’t get outta my way, I’ll blow you to pieces, I’ll miss rent twice before I let some cheap tricks run me outta a payday!” Fang aimed his gun at the eye, a mean six shooter he had spent more than a few week’s pay on tinkering and upgrading instead of buying groceries. “Last warning mate! Back off! Fang gritted his teeth so hard he thought they'd crack as he cocked the hammer back, staring down at the eye observing his fall; always remaining the same distance away despite his now rapid descent. Suddenly, the eye expanded greatly in size, its slit pupil easily eclipsing the Bounty Hunter, blocking out the world around Fang besides his observer, a loud, satisfied laugh rumbled through as Fang fired in a blind panic before it finally receded into the darkness. Fang’s boots hit the ground as he looked up at a ledge that couldn’t have been more than a 6 ft drop. “Bloody mindscrew…” Fang stared at where the bottle should’ve shattered, the bottle was missing without a shard left behind. For a moment, Fang really did consider calling it a day. Just as Fang’s self-preservation instincts were telling him to return to town and rob people for this week’s expenses, he looked ahead and saw - “oooooh! That’s a nice payday right there!” An unnatural grey glow, about 20 feet out from his current position, illuminating the purple crystal passage towards his next paycheck. Fang swiftly reloaded his gun, dumping six fresh corks into the cylinder, before snapping it shut as he hurried down the tunnel, the glow increasing in intensity as he rushed forth towards treasure and glory.
Far too deep into Fang’s headlong rush, about 3 minutes of running, did Fang hear a sound. Fang stopped for a moment, his left hand hovering over his holster as he looked around to a noise he shouldn’t have heard so far deep(?) into his dive. Fang tensed and let out a hissing sigh, and in tandem with a sigh was a low and otherworldly growl. Fang snapped into firing position and looked around for this noise. With every exhale, the growl grew louder and louder, Fang’s sneer turned into a scowl. He wasn’t running from this one, not when he was so close to a payday! “You got a lot of nerve to pretend anything in this dump has value to you! Just let me take my cut, and I’ll leave you to your rocks before the Arvo’s over!” Fang, desperately trying to put his stalker down before his nerves gave out, scouted for a target. Fang’s head snapped wildly around the pulsating, sickly purple and now light blue walls. Seemingly behind him no matter where he faced, deciding he was getting paid no matter what, Fang now sprinted further into the grey glow, the growl only worsened as Fang sprinted closer to profit. The walls had become restless, the ambient temperature of the cave, previously chilly, rose to a miasmic heat to coincide with the veins that covered the pulsating walls, Fang’s heartbeat increasing as he persisted downward into what may be his last treasure hunt. Fang had noted 2 hours in that the cave’s path had only gone down, but as the growl grew louder, and Fang could swear he was being observed, did an irrational part of him realize he might have been looting hell itself. The bounty hunter looked up, inhaling a shaky breath to calm himself down, and saw an eye, a grey slit piercing his soul with it’s gaze. The same eye from the rappel. He hissed, shot it in a practiced quickdraw not even his current fear could ruin, the eye disappearing before the cork could shatter it alongside 3ft of stone. “G’Day to you too,” muttered Fang, who had never been more scared in his life. Continuing like a rat under a heat lamp, Fang sprinted everforward toward the now blinding grey blur glow, shooting blindly at where he now thought might be an eye looking at him as the growl reverberated throughout his body; Fang couldn’t tell whether it was to encourage or discourage his adventure, but he had to make a choice now! . In a surge of uncompromising greed, Fang decided this bloody mess was a test! Only blokes like him could get the treasure at the end, so clearly he had to show this thing he wasn’t some bludger who needed a crew! Coiling his tail, Fang launched forward into the grey light. “Got some bloody nerve, forcing a bloke like me to rob ya, but if you wanna pay rent this week, I won’t hold it against ya mate!” As Fang hurtled down the hallway, rebounding off the various eyes like a rubber bullet, rebounding off rapidly shrinking patches of concrete left behind by each eye’s dissapearence. the growl reached its fever pitch, and from the walls of pulsating mass came tentacles to snatch Fang out of his flight, Fang focusing more than he had in a long ehile to weave through the hellscape before him. “Doesn’t matter how many ankle-bitters you sick on me mate, I’ll keep shooting and running until I'm paid!” Fang yelled in a voice dripping with false bravado. Scared out of his wits, but not his greed, Fang forced himself forward with a final spring, tentacles almost grasping his ankles to pull him into the dredge, his weathered form flying clean through the glow with a grunt. Landing on solid ground, Fang gazed at the vast expanse of the sign of a successful treasure hunt: ruins of a dead civilization for him to pick clean.