Maximillian Juliand's Story

Maximillian lights an actual lantern, hanging off the bridge... the bridge is missing some of the parts, it's not accessible. The details of the scene come into greater focus. There's a wooden cart, which has been half burned. Above that is a lever, but it looks as if whoever burned the cart fused it to the wall. The cave itself now has limitless boundaries. The ceiling, the bottom of the pit, and the opposite wall cannot be seen, even with the proper lighting. The scratch-marks near the cliffside suggest that somebody was pushed off, as the scratches can be made out as fingers trying to grip the ground, and boots sliding.

Maximillian: ... Somebody go salvage that cart, by gods, what happened here...?

Max's question, however, was not rhetorical. He looked around, and saw what looked like a bad scrape, and as if somebody had fallen off. Max saw Grinya salvaging the cart for parts.

Maximillian: Get the wood, we need it to repair the bridge!

Maximillian reached into his coat pocket, grabbed a flare, and threw it down the gorge. The red flaming tip was drowned in darkness after a matter of seconds, and the sound of it hitting the ground was heard later. But the sound the flare made wasn't that of one hitting rock. It was the sound of it hitting something soft-ish...

Maximillian rolled his eyes, "That is one deep hole". Max walked over and took a plank from Grinya, and stared at it skeptically. He was about to put it down, when his vision shot back up at the charred plank. Max noticed something... but shrugged it off. "No, it's... probably nothing" he muttered to himself. Max took it to the bridge, and began formulating how he would fix the bridge with this.

It slithered around the upper walls, stalking the 3 unfortunate souls... it could already taste their rubbery flesh in it's salivating mouth. They could never hear it, for it had legs, yet moved along the ceiling as if it were a serpent...

Maximillian still stared cluelessly at the plank, when he heard a violent growl, which echoed off the walls of the cave. He whipped out his revolver and aimed at the ceiling. Max thought he saw something shift... but relaxed as he saw a bat fly down from the ceiling. He turned to see Hasa, uneasy, and smirked. "Calm down girl, just a bat, it won't bite you." he said, his smirk turning into a smile. "The only one you have to worry about biting you is me".

It tore the bat's head off before it could unintentionally signal the group of it's presence. It chewed and swallowed the flesh, and dropped the body. One of the humans made a remark... it couldn't quite understand it, but knew it had something to do with biting the female... humans are weird creatures.

"No, but seriously, what was that growl, are you hungry or something?"

Max went over to Hasa and aimed his pistol at the opposing wall, so that the two had both directions covered. He shot a grin over at Grinya, trying not to giggle at that brilliant unintentional pun. "Love can turn you into an idiot, m'dear!" he said.

There was no way it was going to attack them while the two of them had the ceiling covered. It looked over at the gaunt boy... they had a dagger, but if they attacked first then it knew they wouldn't be able to overpower it. It slowly crawled across the ceiling, the slimy sound of it moving echoed across the cavern.

Maximillian's eyebrow twitched at the sound of the slithering, which had no discernible source... it came from all around them.

It positioned itself just barely in the shadows over the boy, and eyed down on him and his dog. The last dog it had consumed was a wolf which wondered in. It looked forward to the taste of canine once more. It's heart beat slowed down, and it took in the scents of the room... then, finally, pores on it's back opened up... and spat out something.

Maximillian had his eye on Grinya. Main reason being because Hasa had the other half covered and he had no reason to move, the other being that he felt a sense of impending doom...

The sound of something slithering sounded once more, but this time, it wasn't echoing, and didn't produce the illusion that it was omnipresent. It had a discernible source, and it was definitley singular. It sounded on the wall opposite to Grinya. Max's eyes shot up.

Max heard that, his whole body said so with a powerful, yet contained twitch. His eyebrows followed the movement of his eyes, trailing over to the right side of his body, without moving his head. Something slithered down the stalactite where the sound came from... Max gripped the handle on his revolver. He was waiting for the right moment.

It grew impatient, and was near ready to strike. But it contained itself, and turned it's skin black to blend in with the shadows. It looked down at the cart the boy and his dog sat near. He remembered back...

The elf.
The human.
The dwarf.
The flames.
The explosion.

It would not make that mistake this time around. It slowly creeped down, silently, without blowing it's cover. It's tongue licked around in it's mouth.

Drip.

Maximillian swung up and fired a solid round into the source of the sound, downing the stalactite. But he didn't finish, he just kept reloading and firing into the dark.

Grinya felt a wet meat-tentacle drop down and then retract with incredible force. He felt this because as it dropped, it wrapped around his neck and pulled up. Somehow he survived what should have broken his neck. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was the angle he was pulled up at. Maybe there were some higher powers at work here... regardless, he survived, but that didn't mean he was safe just yet. The tongue pulled him up and strangled him, forcing the air out of his body, and making him lose more as he struggled for it.

Max shot around, alarmed, and began firing at wherever the source of the tongue was. However, it appeared to come out of the shadows, there was no certain area where it began and end. Maximillian aimed for the tongue, but it was thrashing around too much trying to break Grinya's neck to be hit by any of his bullets.

The arrow struck the tongue, and a spurt of blood was released. The thing struggled to retract it's tongue and get the job over with, but just tore it's tongue even more on the arrow before releasing Grinya and jumping to the ground (unintentionally near Belle), pulling it's tongue off the arrow.

Maximillian shot around and planted a slug in the lizard-like creature's spin. Bullseye. It wasn't down, but it was crippled, and fell to the ground, struggling to get away.

The arrow landed right into it's side, and pierced it. The creature knew now the battle was lost, it would flee to fight another day, and limped off into the darkness, attempting to get away. It got to the cliffside before Max shot another slug in it, slowing it down.

The creature went limp and fell off the side of the cliff... or at least, that's what it looked like. Max holstered his gun back into it's container, and took a deep sigh of releif, and collapsed into a sit.

Maximillian ignored Hasa, still processing what happened. He then looked over at Grinya to check if he was okay. However, a million thoughts ran through his head. If those creatures were down here, there could be more. Many more. Yet there was no way to keep going... Max's devilish little mind went to work, and he formulated the prospect of just leaving the cave, taking the rewards, acting as if they had gotten chased out, going back home, and buying another cheetah skin banner to hang over his mantlepiece. He smiled at the thought. But Maximillian Juliand was nobody to back down from a challenge, but he knew when a battle was lost. Max reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette, and lit it with a spark from his fingertips, a spell Max learned a long time ago. Max took a puff of the tobacco, and tensed down. The option to leave was always there, but it would take more than monsters to send him running home. Max noticed Hasa laying down next to him, and raised an eyebrow. He hesitantly reached into his pocket and pulled out his pack of cigarettes. "Want one?" he said, taking another glance back at Grinya.