Maze Caves (3)

Sly looked down at the deceptive stream. In the small amount of light formed by his headlamp it seemed to be flowing in all directions at once. No wonder they started calling this game zone merged with reality the Maze Caves.

Ahead Sly watched Hardcore pause at a rock. He pulled something from his pocket that looked like a large stick and dragged it across the rock. A moment later a glow in the dark arrow appeared. Sly examined it closer as he passed it, glow in the dark paint.

Sly paused and looked up seeing a sea of small eyes meet his. He gulped and started to drag his light upward before Hardcore turned his light back to the ground.

"They won't bother us unless provoked, so no lights above the ground." Hardcore muttered.

"They are?" Sly asked.

"Bats, well the vampiric game ones."

"Ah."

Just great, could they leave yet? Sly eyed the bats warily. He didn't trust them. Then again anyone sane wouldn't.

They continued walking. The caves already seemed to stretch on forever. Sly glanced at his watch, it had only been 15 minutes. Why couldn't Deck go be scared of the dark and run into his arms or something?

Up ahead Chase caught a stone with his foot and stumbled before catching himself. He let out a slight hiss as a small pebble shot away to the left. Then there was a shriek as a bat shot out from the corner straight at Deck.

Deck yelped tripping backward right into Sly's arms. A hint of warm satisfaction shot through Sly as he smacked the bat away and it flew back to its buddies. Then he cuddled Deck under the pretense of checking him for bites. Although honestly Deck only needed to be worried about bites from a certain someone behind him. Wait nah, Sly be good for now, he chided himself, but restraint was so difficult sometimes.

Deck shuddered in his arms...…..Ah rip, forget this.

Sly slipped a hand forward mumbling "Gotta check for bites everywhere would hate to miss any." As he checked out Deck's pants for a quick second before nibbling his ear and releasing him.

So sad really, it was dark and a great place for tormenting Deck, well any place was good for that, Deck should blame himself really, he was way too easy to torment.

"You guys okay?" Chase's voice carried toward them and Sly saw the light moving toward them.

Rip. Sly dragged Deck to a normal standing position before the light could fall on them.

"Yep all good." he replied walking ahead a few steps. "Are we almost there?"

Where even was there? They had been traveling for ...….. let's call it hours and not look at the watch. Sly grinned to himself.

"Well if he's in here, and I'm not sure how far in he went....." Hardcore's voice trailed off. "I only know up to the next three caves. If we go further there is a high chance we will hit a trap zone."

"Then we will turn around there." Stated Chase while at the same time…

Sly stated "What are chances that Royal went further?" and…

Deck said "We have to go until we find him!"

Hardcore paused. "Most people don't know this, in fact I cannot even fact check it, but I've seen RoyalBlue enter this place many times when it first popped up. People called me crazy for trying to chart it but I think RoyalBlue might be the person with the largest map of it."

"So in other words if he's in here we will never find him." Muttered Chase, "just great."

Hardcore paused at the next bend in the tunnels. "This is as far as I know, so what you guys want to do?"

"Go back."

"Maybe…."

"Keep going."

Sly glanced helplessly between reason and his boyfriend. Rip.

"I'm not leaving him!" yelped Deck.

"He's a stupid traitor!" Chase growled back. "The only reason to find him is to kill him!"

Sly groaned as he looked between the two. "Maybe it's better to go back, we don't know for sure that he's even in here."

"Oh the traitor is here." Chase muttered while Deck said,

"He's here I can feel it."

Sly wanted to slap his face, why was he in here with an illogical boyfriend and a logical gut feeling person. Why was he the only voice of sane logical reason!

"We can turn around and come back another…." Sly's voice trailed off as Deck took off into the darkness heading right. "Deck!" Sly yelped as he took off after him.

Behind him he heard Chase running after them along with Hardcore. Deck sprinted for a little bit before he broke down and started crying.

"I can't just leave him in a place like this just because he feels like the world hates him!" Deck cried.

"He deserves it." Muttered Chase coming up behind him.

Sly wanted to glare at Chase with a 'not helping' vibe but it was too dark.

"We don't know anything for certain." Sly replied, then he looked at Hardcore "Can you still get us back out of here?"

"Yeah but my time table for the flooding is now off. It follows a really weird pattern that I can't track." Hardcore examined the cave they were in.

"What do you mean the flooding?" Asked Sly when he heard a rumbling.

"Ah that. Run." Hardcore started racing back the way they came and Sly grabbed Deck before heading after him.

Something about running in the dark with the sounds of a flood behind you...… not fun. They continued running until Hardcore finally stopped.

"Okay this cave doesn't flood." He replied.

Sly glanced behind them where the cave they had come up from was now chest deep in water. Well they wouldn't be going that way again.

"Was that what you meant by trap?" asked Chase and Hardcore nodded.

"Okay then let's try this one next!" Deck started down another path while Sly gave a yelp of alarm.

Just as he was about to enter a large gush of water filled that cave as well sweeping Deck off his feet. He disappeared below the dark water and Sly felt like his heart stopped for a moment before Chase reached over into the water and dragged him back out.

"Chill out idiot." Chase muttered "You are going to get yourself killed that way."

Sly felt himself relax again as he checked over his boyfriend. This time with actual worry and no other motives.

Sly couldn't help thinking that Deck really wasn't the brightest and therefore needed all the more protection.

Hardcore looked at another opening. "This way." He muttered.

Sly pulled off his coat and put it over Deck who had started shivering. That's what he got for swimming in cold water though. Maybe he could talk him into a shared bath upon their return...

At the next cave Hardcore paused again before Chase suddenly perked up.

"This way" he muttered heading to the left.

"How?" Sly started.

"I can sense his energy now that I'm closer to him. it's a tracker subclass skill." Chase replied.

Sly followed him down another three caves while Hardcore took a few notes and left more arrows.

The last cave opened into a 20ft cavern with a small pool at one side. Laying on the floor in a corner was a small form with light blue hair that had gotten dark blue highlights with the game merging.

"Royal!" Yelped Deck as he ran over.

Sly followed a bit more cautiously as he looked around for potential flooding issues. Chase on the other hand was glaring at Royal's body as if he wanted to burn it. and that was saying something considering the low lighting.

After a few more seconds Sly realized something was definitely wrong. Royal hadn't moved at all and then Deck started wailing again.

Sly hurried over wrapping one arm around Deck while he started examining Royal with the other. Somehow his brain even managed to remember to put on a gloves both because of Royal's problem and his own medical training.

"Oh interesting." Sly muttered surprised.

"What?" Chase looked at him.

"Deck might be right, Royal he, he's showing the same poison effects as Blank." Sly examined him again to be sure.

Then he glanced at Chase "They are the same, two unknown poisons, one with a general stat effect and one.....well" he gestured to Royal's lower end which even against his pants he could tell plenty.

"I'd still say he's guilty, maybe he gave himself some of it because a dark market dealer said to." Chase muttered looking just a slight bit unsure.

"Can you heal him?" Asked Deck looking at Sly.

Rip there was no way he could refuse those eyes.

"Maybe, it's not exactly like a normal effect though….." Sly's voice trailed off as he remembered the research he had done on Blank and the way to get rid of it.

"Nonsense, just kill him." Chase replied.

Deck shot him a glare which was easy to see since they were clustered together.

"Okay both of you stop, I'm trying to think" growled Sly as he slowly started to undo Royal's pants. "Deck I'll fix him, and Chase we can use a tracking chip on him. Satisfied you two?"

Sly didn't give them an actual chance to respond before muttering "good" and starting to rub Royal's lower parts gently.

Sly glanced up for a second to see Deck's wide eyes and Chase giving him a weird look.

Ugh now he was going to be stuck explaining a bunch of medical stuff to them. Sly wondered if they would just except 'Royal in bad shape, this fix the bad shape' as an explanation.

He sent a quick glare at Royal, 'you better appreciate all my hard work to save you' he thought.