The Sprite & the Fairyhunter: Quality Time
Room 10 (The Otyugh)
Tentacles, he thought, binding his arm.
Why does it always have to be TENTACLES…?
Adrian tried
to think back to exactly when this encounter had gone wrong, and near as he
could tell, he’d just been…well, unlucky. Neena had opened the door without a
problem and he, remembering rooms past, had stood to the side of the door
instead of at a distance where the beast might see him. The moment the door had
opened, he’d immediately been assailed with a smell all too familiar for him
and he’d leapt backward to apparent safety behind the wall to wait for the
beast. After all, he knew how these things played the game; attack
The first
time he’d fought one of these creatures, he’d barely survived by climbing up and
fighting on top of a 10 foot boulder. He’d actually succeeded in slaying the
monster, only to nearly break his own neck when he fell from the rock after
flopping backward in relief.
The second
time he’d been standing in an adjacent room inspecting what looked like an
emerald in a pile of garbage when a tentacle had snaked out and pulled him
under the refuse. It had taken his own blade and three others to hack him out.
And barely a
month ago, he’d actually come upon not one, but TWO of them, one of whom was
playing what he would have (in polite company) called “hide the tentacle”…and
the tentacle hider had NOT been pleased with what it would have called “Adrianus interruptus”. It made
this abundantly clear when it snagged him around the waist and slammed him into
a nearby wall.
So, when this
one that he was actually prepared for had snaked an extra long tentacle out past
the normal 10 foot reach from the other room, then around the corner to grab
him instead of the much closer Neena, it was obvious that their fears were confirmed.
Adrian Quicksilver,
Mr. Wrong-Place-Wrong-Time-But-Right-Deity, had officially run out of deity.
“What the
hell’s an otyugh supposed to BE, anyway?” he
demanded, deliberately steering his mind away from his own subconscious screams
of panic. “Seriously, I demand to know what environmental role this thing
fulfills!”
“Are you
okay?” Neena asked, truly worried as she inspected him. “That thing just came
out of nowhere!”
“Yeah…I
think I’m alright. Just a gash on this arm that…”
“Then in
that case, the answer is to torment you in the most hilarious ways,” Neena
grinned. “Sure you don’t want me to just heal it?”
“No, I don’t
want you to just heal it!” he echoed, with a withering look. He tightened the
bandage with a vicious yank and a barely concealed wince before adding, “Ow…just check the next
door, wouldja?”
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