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Laios was keeping his mouth shut.
After Shuro left, with his harsh words and meaningless forgiving words, Laios had spoken barely more than a word or two, and was desperately keeping any mention of his beloved monsters to himself.
As they walked, he ignored the large green scales that Chilchuck was inspecting to see if they were worth anything - basilisk scales , his brain unhelpfully provided, from a younger specimen considering the gradient of the greens and the texture on the back - clamped down on his tongue when Senshi pulled out from his backpack a jar of blue goo - a blue crystal slime; they specialise in growing and ejecting pointed crystal shards from their gelatinous bodies when threatened, shut up brain - and started humming about what to make for lunch.
He especially held his breath when Marcille longingly petted the long white feather that had shed from Falin’s new body - How was that even possible? A human mixing with a monster? Are her cells conjoined, does she breathe fire, does she eat raw meat? Is his sister even still in there? He’d heard her speak - heard her whisper his name, heard her beg for help - and he had drawn his sword like a coward? What is wrong with him? - and instead repeated the clinking motion of running his thumbs across his fingers soothingly.
Shuro had told him his fun facts weren’t fun at all - that he was impossible to be around. Laios had thought they were friends, had thought Shuro had liked him, but apparently his first - at the time, his only - friend wasn’t his friend at all. Shuro had hated him. Shuro had despised him and Laios had no idea and why was he so stupid ?
His thumbs started to move faster, the dull clang of his finger guards repetitive as he tried to calm down. His palms were sweaty and his face stung with bruises.
He looked up from his hands to his party. They’re his friends, aren’t they?
They are: he knows they are. They smiled and laughed and joked with him, they liked him. They wouldn’t have stayed with him so long if they hated him, would they?
But, Shuro had stayed.
Laios’s fingers flexed, in and out twice, before he ran the pads of his thumbs over his fingernails again.
Shuro had stayed for so long ; Shuro had kept his true feelings of hatred away from Laois’s understanding for so long.
Or… He hadn’t, had he? Shuro had apparently been letting him know the entire time - telling him about his awkwardness, how irritating and annoying he was - and Laios’s complete lack of social cues had led him to not pick up on any of it.
Looking back on it, the disgusted faces he made whenever Laois had tried to follow him and Falin were clear. The needlessly irritated tone and the back-handed comments… It must have been so obvious to everyone else, yet Laois hadn’t even had the thought that Shuro felt anything but kindness towards him.
He clenched his hands into fists and dug his fingernails into his palms in despair.
But… These people actually do like him, don’t they?
He looked up to the group, who seemed to be absorbed in conversation that he had apparently been ignoring - be serious for once Laios and focus - and looked at their faces, biting his lip.
Senshi was sticking his finger in the jar from earlier and smelling the liquid, “This will be good for another fortnight or so, if my nose is correct - which it is.”
Senshi likes him. He’s always excited to try new monsters that Laios finds and sits, absent-mindedly nodding along, while Laios rants about specifics of the monster. He sometimes even asks Laios about certain things to aid his cooking. They’ve known each other for only a few weeks, though, which is more than enough time to screw things up with him. And he does yell at him sometimes for taking food when it wasn’t ready.
Marcille’s nose wrinkles in disgust, “Oh great, I’m so glad the random monster goo-” - That’s actually a blue crystal slime , he irritatingly wants to correct, they can jump up to twenty feet without a running start - “-will be good for two more weeks; I one-hundred percent trust your freaking nose !”
“I’ve already told you, my nose is hardly ever incorrect.” Senshi said, calmly, sucking the goo from his finger with a pop.
While not poisonous to eat raw, crystal slimes have many backup defensive stones stored in its body that should be removed before drying or pickling.
His brain is good at that. At supplying him with specifics on monsters even without actively seeking out the facts. He usually tells his party all about it as soon as he’s provided with it. He has no god-forsaken filter: him and his big mouth always interrupting actually captivating conversation.
Maybe Senshi and the others actually hate that about him. They should.
“Could use some dried dryad flowers on top…” Senshi comments as Marcelle turns a basilisk scale green.
“For the sake of my stomach, I hope your nose is right.” She grumbles, gripping her staff tighter, “After all this trouble, I don’t want ‘died via out of date goo’ on my tombstone.”
Marcille likes him, right? He’s sure she does. She’s even spending the time to teach him healing, and other magic. She laughs at jokes he says and smiles when they talk. But, she also shies away from him whenever he gets stuck into another ramble about the confusing differences between alive people and the undead, and the fascinating anatomy of barometz. She outwardly dislikes his interests in monsters and is horrified by his intrigue in eating different types, different ways.
His fingernails dig deeper into his palms and he swallows harshly.
Chilchuck laughs at the interaction, “Because you haven’t eaten worse? If you don’t think about it, that’s just thick water. That’s way better than when we ate literal parasites. Some goo-” - It’s a crystal slime for god sake, his brain urges his to say something, but Laios bites down on his tongue, hard, and stays quiet, they attack by infusing nearby stones with chemicals and heat turning them into precious metals and flinging them at high speeds at their enemies, Shut up Laios! - “-is the better option by heaps.”
Does Chilchuck like him? They’ve known each other a very long time, and Laios enjoys his company. He was confident that Chilchuck enjoyed talking to him, but now he’s not so sure. Is the half-foot’s irritable attitude only that way because Laios is there? Is he happier when Laios isn’t there? Everytime they sat, cross-legged by the stream, washing up dishes and chatting about everything and nothing at the same time, did the half-foot suffer through? Was every small laugh and playful tap on the arm full of malice?
Marcille’s face sours, “But at least the parasite was meat? And it was well cooked and seasoned.”
Did they all secretly hate him? Are they as uncomfortable with him as Shuro was? Are they just playing nice to trick and rob him, like his gold-stripping party did when he was new to the dungeon?
Is there resentment in their glares, genuine annoyance in every eye-roll and harsh comment, and a dull boredom in their faces when he speaks of things that excite him?
He’s not like other people. He knows this. He knows he’s not what other people would call ‘normal’; he knows other people don’t get so fixated on specific topics, he knows other people aren’t so socially dense, but at least he’s realised that.
Falin realised that he was not like other people too.
However, she wasn’t sharp and hostile about it; she understood and she adapted. She gave him space when he needed it, and contact when he craved it. She let him talk and talk for hours on end, often getting just as excited as he was, and she smiled when he pointed out signs of different monsters when they were fresh and new to the dungeon. When they were even younger, they took turns telling each other tales about monsters. Afterwards Laios always drew to the best of his ability their made-up creatures while Falin copied all the fun-facts that he spoke too fast for anyone other than her to note down.
She liked him. She was like him.
And now Falin was gone and Laios was left with all these big feelings he couldn’t possibly begin to express to anyone but her, but she’s not here so they bubble and burn in his throat like he just drank boiling hot soup without blowing on it first.
He had just thought the others had understood this too. That they had understood him - even just a little bit. That they accepted his quirks and enjoyed his company just the way he was. That they didn’t mind his hours of facts and, maybe, could adapt just like his sister had. That they cared enough to try.
Laios understands that the skin on his palms has broken from the dull stinging and the damp feeling under his nails, but he can’t feel it.
Do they not actually-?
“-worse; right, Laios?”
He’s pulled from his head by the sound of Chilchuk’s voice, and the pain from his palms alights. He awkwardly stops his robotic walk to avoid bumping into Marcille and blinks, once, twice.
They’re all looking at him.
“Uh, what?” Laios bumbles with his words. The air’s moving in the slow contant it has been for this entire floor but he’s suddenly overly aware of it. It’s cold and smells damp. His skin is sweaty and his hands are damp with his own blood.
“We were just talking about the parasite on the kraken-” - Krakens can breathe both water and air, his brain tells him, they ignore difficult terrain, and magical effects can't reduce their speed or restrain them - “-remember?” Marcille says, and she’s got that worried look on her face that she always aimed at Falin. He doesn’t like it.
“Yes.” It hurts to speak, like his throat is closing up and not letting any air in. His armour’s too tight, it’s like it’s closing in on him. The muscle surrounding his left leg burns like it’s been bitten off again. The blood from his palms begins to seep through the gaps in his fingers.
“I was just asking if eating raw parasite was worse than raw slime. It is, right?” Chilchuck says. He’s frowning and it feels like Laios’s whole life is falling apart.
“Uh.” He remembers the feeling of the parasite; the gnawing stabbing sensation under his skin where couldn’t think of anything but pain. Like death. His leg itches worse than before, his armour tightens and blood begins to collect on his knuckles. “Yeah.”
“Got any fun facts about slimes, Laios?” Senshi asks. His eyes are inquisitive and slightly confused. Laios feels the sudden urge to punch him in the face.
Slimes can reproduce asexually, that’s why their numbers grow so quickly, however when it happens, they split, halving their size and consequently halving their power making them easier to kill before they regrow to their intended size. Some slimes don’t reproduce, however, allowing them to grow to massive sizes- Shut. Up.
“No.” He says, too quickly. He subconsciously digs his fingers back into his palms and the barely-formed scabs break again. His fingers grow damper and a drip of blood falls from his knuckles and silently splats against the floor.
Chilchuck gives him an odd look and the spot between Marcille’s eyebrows tightens. Senshi’s eyes gain a worried tint and Laios can’t look at any of them any longer. He focuses his eyes down at his shaking, bleeding fists.
“We- we should keep going.” He forces out, “We don’t want any monsters catching up to us.”
“Alright, who are you and what have you done with Laios?” Chilchuck jokes, distressed.
No-one laughs and the silence is awkward.
Laios’s stomach curdles at the sight; he wasn’t even ranting and they’re still uncomfortable? Is it- is it just him?
He bites his tongue.
“Are you feeling ok?” Marcille asks and she gently lays a hand on his shoulder.
The slight change in pressure has him cringing away from her touch. He looks up, meeting her eye, and she looks hurt at the space created, “Laios?”
“I’m fine.” He bites out. His armour is too close to his skin, the wind’s too cold, his leg itches, and the spot where Marcille touched is buzzing. His blood is hot between his fingers and the dripping becomes more frequent.
“You’re bleeding.” Senshi says, getting closer to him. Laios takes a step back.
“What?” Chilchuck asks loudly, “How?”
“Where?” Marcille’s worried voice overlaps the half-foot’s questions, holding her staff tight, “I can heal it.”
Senshi points to his fingers, and the small pool under his hands.
“I’m fine!” Laios blurts out, bringing his fists to his chest with a dull clang, taking another step back. He tries to smile, but it feels wrong on his face, “Don’t worry.”
“Laios, don’t be stupid and let her help.” Chilchuck says, uneasy.
“I’m not stupid .” Laios wants to yell back.
He wants to scream the sentence at them - wants to shout so loud that he can’t hear his thoughts anymore - but the shortness in his breath (when did that happen?) and the feeling of tightness around his throat prevents the words from being more than a forceful wail.
The emotion is there, though - the anger at himself, the pain and betrayal at Shuro - and Laios thinks the ground can’t swallow him up fast enough.
He looks at their stunned faces, full of shock - full of hatred , his brain provides - and takes another step back, “I didn’t mean to-”
“Laios, it’s ok.” Senshi says, hands out palm forward like he’s soothing an animal, or a monster, “Just calm down.”
“I am calm.” He mumbles, squeezing his fists tighter as he struggles to smile. His vision begins to blur. “I’m so calm.”
“You’re not.” Chilchuck says bluntly, “What calms you down?”
“I’m already calm…” He forces through hurried breaths.
“He’s not.” Chilchuck repeats, turning away from him to face the others, “What calms him down?”
“I- I don’t know? Monster trivia?” Marcille squeals, eyes wildly looking between Laios’s hands and his rapidly scrunching face as golden magic begins to unconsciously build around her staff.
“No.” Laios mumbles at the mention of monsters, “Not- not that .”
“Why not, Laios?” Senshi asks and it’s like his eyes can see right through him.
“I…” Laios swallows and it hurts. The tears gathering in his eyes grow heavy and one escapes and traces down his chin, “It’s… You guys like me, don’t you?”
They blink at him, confused.
“What?” Marcille asks, pausing in her movement towards him, “Of course we do?"
“Yeah, what she said.” Chilchuck rubbed his fingers together anxiously, “Why would you think otherwise?”
Laios grinds his teeth together and shifts his weight from one foot to another, “Well, uh- No reason, really; that was stupid, I don’t know why I said that.”
“It was your argument with the other tallman, wasn’t it?” Senshi asks with his big knowing eyes, “Shuro, was it?”
Laios looks down again, watching how his fingers twitch at the warmth of blood running down each digit. “Maybe.”
“Laios, you can’t really believe those things he said; Shuro was acting horribly to you!” Marcille says, “Just because he didn’t like you, doesn’t mean we don’t.”
“But, you guys are annoyed whenever I talk about monsters; you must hate it as much as Shuro does.” Laios prompts, rubbing his thumb across the fisted side of his pointer finger, “And I thought about it, and it is annoying.”
“It’s not annoying.” Chilchuck reassures, looking entirely out of his depth.
“But it is!” Laios says, and the overbearing, pitying eyes on him make him want to hide in a corner somewhere and eat moss for the rest of his life.
His fingers flex, in and out, and more blood drips onto the floor. It’s a repetitive motion that usually calms him, but all he can think about is how far away ghouls can smell fresh blood from.
“I talk too much about monsters, and I don’t pick up on the fact that you don’t care and that I really need to stop forcing you to listen to things you don’t care about.”
“But, It’s really important to you, isn’t it?” Chilchuck replies, awkwardly fiddling with the rough edges of his gloves, “And if it’s important to you, it should be important to us too.”
“Yeah!” Marcille agrees, nodding furiously, “Even if I don’t like monsters nearly as much as you, I still like to hear how excited you are about them.”
Senshi makes a noise of thought, “Is this why you’ve been so quiet recently?
Laios looks up and is once again hit with Senshi’s knowledgeable eyes. He swallows harshly, he can feel his ears flushing and when he finally gets the lump dislodged from his throat his voice is a mumble at best, “I know I’m not normal about this stuff. I know I’m not normal about anything. I just thought… if I stopped my rants that you guys would… hate me less, I guess. That I could at least pretend to be normal.”
“Oh Laios…” Marcille mumbles, and the pity in her voice makes him want to curl up into a ball. “We don’t hate you.”
Laios sniffs and messily wipes his face with the back of his hand, attempting a smile, “It sounds dumb now I say it out loud.”
“It’s not dumb.” Chilchuck says sincerely before he completely knows what he’s saying, then continues with a little more thought, “Well, it is a little dumb that you think that we hate you, but-”
“What Chilchuck means to say is-” Marcille rapidly intervenes with the half-foot receiving a subtle smack in the ribs from Senshi, “We think it’s brave that you decided to share something like that with people you trust.”
“And I’m sorry if we made you feel like we hated you.” Senshi adds, looking sombre, “We would never want you to feel that way. We enjoy your company Laios.”
Blood rushes to his cheeks at their words and Laios tries to ignore the light-headedness from the feeling. Another tear escapes from his eyes and this time he lets it. It’s warm and soft and, inexplicitly, reminds him of Falin. More follow and he can taste salt and his eyes begin to burn along with his face.
Marcille stands there and looks at him like he’s a kicked puppy. Her finger twitches like she wants to wipe the tears away, but she stops herself, “Even if I can’t keep up with monster facts as well as you can, I still find them interesting.”
“And they’re useful!” Chilchuck adds, “We wouldn’t have gotten out of so many situations if it weren’t for your knowledge about monsters. The basilisk, the kelpie; hell, even the living armour. We would have died so many times because we don’t understand monsters, not like you. Your knowledge has saved our lives so many times. We would be dead if you were ‘normal’.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Laios mumbles in a voice so small it doesn’t feel like his own. He looks from his rapidly bending fingers to the group and there’s a hint of relief in their faces that he can’t explain.
“I like hearing you talk.” Marcille admits, motivated by the small win, “You get so excited over things that I don’t know a single thing about and seeing you, in this depressing dungeon, just.. so happy over things that seem so trivial to me? I guess it makes me a little happy too.”
“I want you to be happy.” Laios agrees slowly. His hands move down, back to his sides, and blood flows down his palms and drips from his fingertips. The air is cold and uncomfortable, but the hugging wetness running down his face and fingers is warm.
“And we want you to be happy too.” Senshi agrees, nodding. The dwarf’s eyes search his face for something and Laios bites at his cheek at the attention.
“And if monster facts make you happy, we’ll listen to you talk about slime mating patterns your hours on end.” Chilchuck nods along with him, a small smile pulling at his lips.
Laios shuffles awkwardly. He stares, and blinks, at Chilchuck for a moment before looking down at the floor. He swallows back the lump in his throat and corrects, under his breath, “Slimes actually don’t have mating patterns.”
There’s a silence, heavy and suffocating, where no-one says anything, and where Laos’s cheeks flush heavier than before. He scuffs his boot into the uneven stone bricks of the floor as the tears blur his vision further.
He should have trusted his gut and known that they didn’t care - that they never had - and that he was stuck being the irritating one that no-one liked-
“Really?” Chilchuck asks, a perplexed tone in his voice, “So they just do it all the time? Is that why there’s so many of them?”
Laios tries to keep the wobble from his voice as he warily continues, “No. That’s actually a common misconception, so I don’t blame you for thinking that, but slimes usually don’t have mating patterns because most slimes don’t mate.”
“What?” Marcille wonders and, as Laios chances a glance at her face there’s something akin to relief and genuine intrigue on her face, “So how are there so many of them?”
Laios shifts his weight to his other foot, but he looks up at them when he speaks again, “Well slimes reproduce asexually, meaning that their bodies actually split into two separate organisms. Before they do, they eat more to have the energy to create two sets of organs, and to repair the outer membrane.”
“What about the really big ones?” Senshi says, “Do they split into two huge ones?”
Laios can feel the smallest of smiles grow on his face at the question. “Some slime species don’t split, but instead eat as much as they can and grow into huge slimes. They’re usually found when still relatively small, but left unchecked, like in one of the lower levels, I’m sure they could grow to the size of entire rooms, or bigger!”
The others seem to notice the small upturn of his lips, and they begin to smile alongside him.
“And the slime you had in the jar, Senshi?” Senshi perks up, looking at the pickling jar, “That’s a blue crystal slime. When they feel threatened they infuse nearby stones with chemicals and body heat turning them into precious metals and throw them at the intruder at high speeds. They can even turn the bones of their prey to projectiles because of the high acid content in their membranes.”
Marcille shoots an I-told-you-so kind of look at Senshi at the acid comment.
“In fact, if there are no stones around, they can jump up to 20 feet without a running start, propelling themselves at the attacker and melting their tissue to use their bones! How the slime’s organs don’t disintegrate alongside the opponent is just so fascinating!”
Marcille pales. “Oh yeah?”
“Do you think you would let Marcille heal your hands if you kept talking?” Chilchuck hedges, looking a little green but still smiling at him, “You can talk about another species of monster if you want.”
Laios looked down at his hands, that he had practically forgotten were bleeding, then to the elf’s hesitant face, and nodded. “What monster do you want to hear about?”
Chilchuck pauses, stumped, so Senshi interrupts, “How about dragons?”
“Good choice!” Laios grins, holding out his hands as Marcille gently holds them in her own, inspecting the oozing skin and the blood under his fingernails, “Dragons are known for their powerful elemental breaths and huge size, but did you know that the tiny nightmares are a subclass of dragon?”
“What are nightmares?” Chilchuck asks, “Do you mean the dreams?”
“No, they look like shellfish, about as big as your hand. They sneak into your pillowcase and cause you to have bad dreams. Remember when Falin slept on our old party’s stomachs when they had nightmares? That’s so she could enter their dreams and get them out of the bad dream so they could sleep peacefully.”
Marcille frowns at his injury before closing her eyes and a soft glowing light is summoned, alongside the surprisingly low level of pain. His skin tingles and most of the blood running down his fingers is absorbed back into his skin as he holds back excited stims to not halt the healing process.
“They feed off of bad emotions so when the person they’re feeding off has pleasant dreams they leave.” Laios smiles at the memory of Falin’s happy smile when Shuro had woken refreshed.
“I… didn’t remember that.” Chilchuck comments, smirking, “I do remember Falin sleeping near Marcille a bunch, though?”
Marcille blushes to her ears, “I couldn’t get to sleep!”
“Of course.” Chilchuck agrees, nodding.
Laios smiles, a little confused, but then a prickling sensation runs down his back like beads of sweat. The temperature drops, barely noticeable but his skin still bumps and his hairs stand on end.
“I genuinely couldn’t sleep!” Marcille insists, red in the face, “Or I must have had a nightmare or something!”
“Yes yes, I believe you!” Chilchuck continues to do his over the top nod.
Laios almost keeps his mouth shut, but he remembers the group’s reassuring words, “A ghoul.”
The pair pause their senseless argument and turn to look at him - Senshi also paying attention. “What?”
“The temperature dropped and there’s a faint smell of rot in the air. If you listen carefully you can hear uneven, limping footsteps. There’s a ghoul coming.” He repeats, listening, “Maybe more than one.”
“A ghoul? Like a ghost?” Marcille asks nervously, still flushed around her eyes.
Laios shakes his head, “More like an undead. A zombie if we’re being simple. They’re drawn to the smell of blood.” He looks down at his hands, soft and tingly from being freshly healed. There’s still blood on the floor. Whoops. “They eat people.”
“Oh.” Chilchuck crosses his arms across his chest, “Lovely.”
“Should we fight them?” Senshi asks, eyeing Laios’s sword.
“One second.” Laios holds out his hand, listening, “There’s at least six. Maybe seven. Their claws are covered with paralysing poison and their bites can pierce through skin. Six is already too many for a four person party. Plus they wouldn’t be any good to cook, considering it’s just rotting flesh…” He murmurs, fingers rubbing his chin.
“So… run?” Marcille asks, awkwardly beginning to step back.
“If you think I’m staying around to fight zombies, you’re incredibly wrong.” Chilchuck whisper-yells from his place already across the room.
“We can just walk, as long as we’re relatively quick.” Laios agrees, “Be careful not to make much noise, they have good hearing.”
Senshi’s eyes crinkle in a smile, “It’s lucky we have Laios’s monster knowledge so we can avoid this, right?”
Marcille nods quickly, grabbing Senshi by the arm, “Yes yes, we can thank him when we’re not about to be eaten.”
“That would be smart, considering they might have started to run at the sounds of our voices.” Laios grins, “Echo-location is such a cool monster power. It’s too bad we won’t be able to see them up close.”
“What?” Marcille yells, pauses with a look of fear, then repeats in a whisper, “What?”
“You should definitely start running now.” Chilchuck comments, struggling with a door, “So much for a leisurely walk.”
The sounds of undead groans become louder, and the group begins to sprint over to Chilchuck’s door.
“Open it!”
“What do you think I’m trying to do?” He squeaks as a picking tool snaps, “Crap!”
“Maybe we could bash it in with my pan?” Senshi offers.
“This is a delicate mechanism, you can’t just-” Chilchuck berates, pulling out another pick.
There’s a dull clang as Senshi smacks the pan into the wood, the door slams open, smashing into the wall on the other side.
“Yay Senshi!” Marcille grins, running through the door.
“Wha- No-” Chilchuck stumbles through his words as Senshi pats him on the head with a smile in his eyes, following Marcille.
“Time to go, Chil!” Laios says with an excited grin, “The ghouls are in the other room now! Maybe we’ll get to see them after all!”
That seems to snap him out of his shock, the half-foot grabbing Laios by the belt and pulling him with his noodle arms through the door, “Nope! No, we are leaving!”
“Aw man.” Laios says, but as he speaks there’s a smile on his face that he can’t shake.
And, as they continue to run through the dungeon's corridors, the sound of the undead echoing of the walls, Laios can't help but continue to grin.
"Any ideas for how to kill these things as they don't seem to be stopping any time soon?" Marcille yells, tripping over her feet but somehow still running.
"Ask dungeon boy, not me!" Chilchuck's voice is breathy under his heaving gasps as he keeps up with people twice his size.
"Well, they're immune to poison." Laios hums, "They also can't get tired or be charmed."
"Oh man, there goes my plan of sitting them down for a poisoned tea party: darn!" Chilchuck spits sarcastically, "Guess running in circles is also out the window! Oh and, silly me for forgetting, flirting with the dead corpses!"
"I would never serve poisoned food!" Senshi adds, slightly offended.
"I meant magically charmed." Laios explains.
"Well, do they have any weaknesses?" Marcille adds, a touch hysterical, turning her head for a moment to look behind them, "Because I can see them and they're not exactly slowing down!"
"You can?" Laios's face brightens and he looks over his shoulder.
There was a pack of six grey-skinned ghouls of mixed races with mottled flesh barely covering their visible bones. Their blood-red eyes were sunken into each skull and the bodies were almost completely hairless. A dwalf ghoul reached out a clawed hand and he could see the poison shining on its claws as a kobold frothed at the mouth, snapping yellowed teeth. And Marcille was right, they were gaining on them. So cool.
"Whoa, I've never seen so many different types of ghouls in one place. They usually travel in packs, but they tend to stick with similar races." Laios laughs under his breath, "Did you know their eyes glow red because they can actually see up to sixty feet in the dark - even the ones that were originally tall-men! Isn't that cool?"
"Laios!" Marcille squeals, "Weaknesses?"
"Oh right." Laios thinks for a moment, Kensuke buzzing in his sheath beside him, "I don't think that they have any obvious weaknesses."
"None?" Chilchuck wheezes, "None at all?"
"Uh... No?" Laios grins sheepishly, "They're pretty resistant to most stuff."
"Could you tell us facts about them?" Senshi asks, "Maybe we could guess weaknesses if we had more knowledge."
"Sure." Laios says, "They're bodies of humans and demi-humans, reanimated into undead monsters that seem to have nothing but the urge to eat alive people; no-one really knows why, but my guess is that they went to far from their souls and the bodies are corrupted, desperate to find their souls again, so they eat others to compensate for it."
"Isn't that wonderful." Chilchuck comments, "So glad we're stuck on a floor with them."
"They're kinda just normal humans and demi-humans, right?" Marcille asks Laios.
He hums, "Technically, I guess."
"So they shouldn't be that hard to damage." Senshi continues the thought, "Are they as smart as humans?"
Laios frown at the idea, "No. But they're intelligent in their own right - kind of the same way wolves hunt in packs because it's safer."
Chilchuck sighs, "They're kind of like mindless animals in a feeding frenzy, then."
"Mindless monsters." Laios corrects.
"Yeah, whatever." Chilchuck pats him on the arm as they skid around a corner, "So they should suck at hand to hand combat?"
"I mean-" Laios bites his lip, "They'll just have instincts. But they're still cool!"
"Definitely." Senshi reassures.
"They'll be cooler when we kill them!" Marcille yells, "Because we're running out of corridor!"
She was right; the way they turned was rather quickly leading to a dead end. The sound and smell of flesh was becoming louder and, when they looked over their shoulders, the ghouls were far too close for comfort.
"Let's surprise them!" Laios suggests, palming Kensuke, "Turn around before the end of the path!"
They look at him, somewhat hesitantly, and nod in agreement.
"Ready? Now!" The tall-man yells, pulling his sword from his sheath and spinning on his heel, impaling a shocked dwarven ghoul through its skull with a wet thunk.
The other ghouls seemed to skid on their feet, caught off-guard at their prey making the first move and crying out in a low moan at their fallen pack member.
Before they could get their bearings, Senshi, gripping his axe, cleaved the kobolt's chest horizontally, drawing a wet gurgling whine before it joined the dwarf on the floor.
The four remaining ghouls growled, reaching out with claws and frothing teeth.
A tall-man reached out, gripping the metal arm-piece on Laios's sword-wielding arm in its sharp claws, and they began tussling, Laios fighting for control of his weapon. The surprisingly strong ghoul backed him against a wall, opening its salivating mouth to take a chunk from his face, but was easily stopped from a knife through the back of the throat, thrown by Chilchuck.
"Thanks Chilchuck!" Laios smiled, pushing the body off him and checking for scrapes.
"I honestly thought I was going to hit you with that, but sure - no problem." The half-foot replied.
The remaining three ghouls screamed in rage, sprinting animalistically towards Chilchuck, who looked less than pleased, before a loud boom along with an explosion of light from Marcille blew chunks of ghoul across the room, a skull landing at Chilchuck's feet. He screamed - a very manly scream - and kicked it away, running to stand beside Laios.
Their heavy breathing was all that was heard as the dust began to settle and everyone could see the splattered remains of the ghouls over the walls. Marcille looked green as she glared disbelievingly at an eyeball from her hair.
"Well. That just happened." She whispered, watching it drip and splat against the floor.
"I know!" Laios said, smiling ear to ear, "Did you see how pissed the rest of them got when we killed the others? They really must have some sort of familiarity with their pack! How fascinating that seemingly mindless monsters understand something so human as trust! And, did you see the tall-man try and disarm me? It's like the human body unconsciously remembered the move - muscle memory! These are all such new and incredible facts, I can't wait to share with Falin when we get her back!"
"Laios. I am literally covered in human flesh." Marcille swallows uncomfortably, "Can this discussion wait until we remove said flesh? It smells really bad."
Senshi pokes at it with his axe, "It's definitely rotten."
"It is!" Laios nods, grinning at the other's groans, "I wonder how the bodies could still operate despite the flesh itself rotting?"
"This is just what I want to hear right now, don't stop." Chilchuck grumbles, wiping blood off his hands and onto Laios's shirt.
"It is? Great, because I have lots of theories!" Laios pauses, "Wait, do you actually want to hear or are you pulling a Shuro?"
Chilchuck took one look at the desperate tint in Laios's eyes and sighed, "No. I do want to hear it. Go ahead."
Laios smiled, wiping liquid off the front of his chest plate, "Thanks Chilchuck."
And, as they walked back through endless corridors, squeezing blood from their clothes and hair, Laios talked. He rambled and filled the cold dungeon air with excited quick sentences and theories, occasionally broken up by his party asking hesitant questions, and the longer he ranted, the more comfortable he felt.
This group wasn't like his outcasting townsfolk. They weren't like the bullies at the army, or the thieves in the gold-stripping job. They weren't Shuro, and they weren't Falin.
But they cared none the less. They smiled and interacted and liked to to talk to him, liked to listen.
They liked him. And he liked them for it