#「 v. through dungeons deep ( marcille ; dungeon meshi ) 」

[xamassed]

"Shhh! Don't move, just — trust me. I'm not going to hurt you." Which was an odd thing to say considering she had her thin, trembling hand pressed to Mari's mouth. She left the girl's nose free, of course. This wasn't a poorly executed assassination attempt. It was the opposite, in fact, though her concern laid more in the massive ( and probably highly protective ) creature that Marcille had spotted.

She thought she heard hints of a threat coming from the beast, low and rightfully given, but she was quick to pry herself away. Both hands up, sweat beading on her skin under where her fringe framed her face. Green eyes, wide and doe-like, flick from the strange girl to the corner of the wall they had collided around.

"I don't know who you are or what that thing is, but if you don't want it put on the menu, then don't go around that corner." Voice low and hissing from behind her teeth. A single finger was pressed to her lips, a warning to keep her voice down.

[xamassed]

⟬ @cauterisen / s.c ⟭

"It doesn't look like it needs healing. Good thing too, I'm not the most skilled when it comes to that." Yet she was able to drag her thumb against the soft, flexible adhesive used to keep a fat wad of clean cotton pressed to the small gash on the forehead of the stranger Marcille and her party had encountered. "There. How does that feel?"

[xamassed]

⟬ @unionized-shopkeep ⟭

“Did you really write ‘REDRUM’ on the mirror? You almost gave me a heart attack!”

She was hardly awake, green eyes heavily lidded and bleary. Her hair was a mess, fair strands sticking out at odd angles even as she combed her long fingers through them. After a moment of sleepy sighing ensued, she grumbled irritably. "What are you talking about? I just woke up. . ."

Marcille dragged out a long yawn as she got to her feet. Little shuffles carried her over to the mirror, where streaks of red had been violently scrawled across the reflective surface.

Normally, this would have have terrified her and sent her into a superstitious tizzy, but being freshly awake and knowing Chilchuck was the one to discover it made her suspicious. "Are you trying to mess with me?"

[xamassed]

⟬ meme / @magiicxs ⟭

" Are you trying to set the house on fire?” | From izutsumi to marcille

"Why would I try to do that?!" She had exhausted her every effort, strained her mind and taxed her body, and still she couldn't prevent the sudden, scorching rise in the cooking fire. Even as she stood there, sweating and panicked, the flames gave a violent pop and rose a few inches higher. "I did everything Senshi told me to, why is this happening?"

The mage let out a helpless whine and backed away from the raging inferno, only to bump into Izutsumi. "What — What do we do? I tried to put it out with water, tried to snuff it out with wind, and nothing worked!"

[xamassed]

⟬ meme / anonymous ⟭

They're a ten but they're so sensitive about their past,they won't eat certain foods.

"It's not that I won't eat certain foods," grumbled the mage as she perched her lips along the edge of a steaming bowl. "It's just hard to imagine some of it tasting good or digesting well!"

She was particular about the food she ate, but she wouldn't admit it. Marcille had grown to some extent — the expressions she made when certain dishes were presented to her weren't as severe as they once were, and that felt like plenty of progress in her eyes.

"Hey, wait... Did you compliment me just to immediately point out a flaw? Did Chilchuck put you up to this?"

[xamassed]

"That's strange. It sounds like you aren't afraid of them." That much had been proven when she drew her weapon and fearlessly stared down the critters that had attacked them. She and her Ratha ( as they all now knew him to be ) were braver than Marcille might have assumed with a single glance, but it did make her feel safer knowing the beast wouldn't attack allies — or, at the least, passive beings.

The elf's eyes followed Mari's. The stew had grown darker the longer it cooked, the stock thickening into something rich and warm. It looked delicious and filling, and the sight of it did made her stomach grumble, but she knew the contents and her stomach wanted to rebel the next second.

"Most don't." Senshi focused on finishing the stew, but kept his ears open. "It's a mistake most make and few are keen to fix. There's a whole lot that your body needs, and there's a lot out there that can offer it if you're willing to try something new."

Marcille shuddered, but had the reasonable excuse of introductions to distract herself. A smaller, more pleasant smile pulled at her lips when she turned her attention to the girl beside her. "Nice to actually meet you, Mari. I'm Marcille."

She pointed towards the rest. "The one cooking is Senshi, the grumpy-looking one is Chilchuck, and the blond tallman is Laios."

"THAT'S A LOT DIFFERENT FROM HOW THINGS ARE, where ahm' from . . ." Mari hums in thought as her gaze trails down to her lap. "Monsters are just part of everyday life. Honestly, I couldn't imagine life without em." And that could be better said than most of the locals outside of Hakolo Island. There were a few riders' villages in the mainland, but most of the outside world she had seen viewed monsters as pests and threats.

"Oh, him—?" The teen visibly perks up at the question directed to her monstie. "My friends named him Ratha. I named him Red. Most people go with the former though." And as they might be able to tell from her casual tone, Mari didn't mind that so much. It made her own personal name for him all the more special, showcasing the close bond that could only be forged between a monstie and its rider.

Before she'd answer Marcille's question, however, she would turn her attention to the stew pot. The dwarven man handled these ingredients with skill that could probably convince even the pickiest of eaters to try his cooking. It reminded her of the Headmaster Chef, Calico, who had mentored her in her own cooking skills. "You seem pretty confident in the art. I'm all for repurposing my kills, but I never would have the guts to go that far."

Then, she finally addresses the question. "Mm' Mari."

[xamassed]

"Mmmn, for the most part. They can appear aboveground, but the majority of them liked to stay down here and pick of parties that aren't well-prepared." Marcille propped her elbows on her knees, chin resting between her hands as she watched the bubbling pot of stew set atop of the fire. Her upper lip was set into a distasteful sneer, the sight of bug meat floating in the stew making her stomach churn.

Her tolerance had evolved over time, but there were some creatures she would always loathe eating, bugs being the highest on the list. It smelled acceptable and digestible, but the knowledge that what she would have to eat later had tried to eat her made her shudder.

"If you raised him, does he have a name?" The dwarf that tended to the stew asked, wide and attentive gaze peeking at the young woman through the opening in his helmet.

Marcille raised her head. "Oh, yeah! I never asked for your names!"

OH, SWEET SAPPHIRE STAR. She could already see the hunger in his eyes. A hunter might drool at the sight of a freshly cut aptonoth steak but she's never seen someone whose ravenous appetite clamored for something such as rathalos, especially live. Normally this would be regarded as a blatant, disrespectful insult to a girl of her heritage, where such beasts were revered as holy animals, but she didn't expect any of them to know that.

It doesn't soften the vitriolic words that shoot from her mouth in protective fury of her beast, however. "Leave one scratch on him and I'll will turn you inside from out!" Mari warns.

The sharp and sudden threat is met with a pair of raised, placative arms from the presumed straight-man of the group, that being the shortest among them with the large ears and leather vest. What followed was a brief discussion in regards to alliances, peppered with frequent affirmations that the heavily armored knight was not going to sink his teeth into Ratha anytime soon (as well as reminders from his party to keep him from considering it.)

Reluctant though she was at first, Mari eventually accepted the verbose apologies. At the very least, they had indeed procured dinner . . . if not a little odd and unsettling. There are worse delicacies in her homeland, however; she recalls the villagers in Kuan who enjoyed popo tongues, and a wyverian man in Nua Te who had a particular craving for altaroth stomachs.

Meals were cleverly being prepared, and despite her initial disgust, she had to admit that it would start to smell divine eventually. While Mari sat across from the rest of Marcille's party, she actively kept herself between them and Ratha, with only the magic-user being spared the distrust. The razewing hardly minded this; he was comfortable enough to lay himself down and rest at his rider's side, implying that these folk were safe enough for him to do so.

He was always a good judge of character. "Dungeon? No, I raised him." Mari answers, slightly confused. "We're all from outside this place. Why we're here's another matter, but . . . are you saying the monsters around here only show up in dungeons?"

[xamassed]

Her nose was filled with the pungent aroma of scorched stone and charred carapace. Neither smelled pleasant, but they were smells she would happily accept over shed blood.

"Human? I'm not sure what that is. Uh — it's not always literal. Tall-man children aren't tall, but when they grow up. . ." She leaned her staff into the crook of her elbow and molded the air in front of her with her hands, gestures vaguely painting a picture of a child growing up into an adult. "But you definitely don't look like a half-foot or an elf. Can't be a dwarf either."

She grasped her staff again and used it to lean forward, bright eyes scanning across Mari's face. She eventually found round ears tucked behind her blue hair, evidence that she hadn't a lick of elven blood in her.

Marcille became painfully curious then. Such a strange word, human. She wanted to ask where this girl hailed from exactly, but the sound of her name and pounding footfalls. She whipped around, found her three companions peeling around the corner with weapons drawn and sweat already beading on their brows. The tallest and fairest of them appeared the most concerned, until he found the brightly colored, powerfully build monster and the girl that stood defensively in front of it.

That alone was cause for curiosity, but what surprised him more was the fact that Marcille had positioned herself in nearly the same way, only both of her arms had spread side, catching Mari and her beast.

"Wait, don't! Laios, I know that look!" He had begun to drool, but she wouldn't and couldn't let him eat something that had helped keep the ravenous teeth of a carrion crawler off her. "We are NOT eating it!"

But that did mean their only source of food were the creatures Mari and her monster had taken care of. The few corpses there were had been gathered up and assessed by the helmed dwarf, all the while Marcille sat beside the party's newest acquaintance with a look of nausea and disgust written across her face as their impromptu dinner was prepped and prepared.

"So. . . your friend there. It isn't from a dungeon?"

KILLING ANIMALS FOR ANYTHING OTHER THAN FOOD—even if otherwise for self-defense—was never something Mari took pleasure in, so she's glad that the brief engagement with the unlucky monsters was more than enough to frighten off the rest of their kin. Mari waited until the beasts had scattered before deciding to sheathe her weapon, whilst placing her free hand on the side of Ratha's face to soothe his fretful nerves.

Smoke rose in small plumes from the monster's jaws; exhaust from the savage fireball he had shot moments before.

As Mari returns her weapon to its scabbard, she finally turns toward the pointy-eared stranger behind her, and releases a small, relieved 'phew!' of her own.

As expected of someone not from this locale, Mari was obviously confused by the questions asked. ". . . You mean human? 'Cause mm' not tall, and I'm certainly not a man, so—"

She cuts herself off, quicker to acknowledge the new voices chanting the name of the staff wielder. Ratha steps back, and Mari, recalling Marcille's earlier warning, outstretches a protective arm to shield him . . . though it would do little to hide him from sight.

[xamassed]

"Get back?!" She was, in fact, shocked. Impressed too, deep down. "What's the point, they're gonna eat u——!"

She was sent tumbling backwards, bottom striking the hard, stone floor. A soft 'omph' left the mage, but there was no time to complain the way she normally would have ( high and whining and 'ow, what was that for?' ) because the sight in front of her was a courageous one.

She knew from experience that being young meant unbridled confidence. The thought that you were perishable meant nothing. You were strong, willing and able. This girl and her beast, they were formidable and swift, razing and dismembering three crawlers in the time it took for Marcille to trip over her own feet.

She was wide-eyed with awe, until she heard a wet smack behind her. The legless body of a crawler squirmed and rolled, attempting to make the best of its situation. Its mandibles tapped together, and its little, razor-sharp teeth gnashed. Marcille's stomach lurched, and she let out a horrific scream when it began to wriggle towards her.

"No, no, no!" She shuffled away, hit the wall with her back, then took her staff into hand. A quick incantation, and the crawler burst into flames, its bright yellow shell now charred and black and unmoving.

The rest of the crawlers that remained clinging to the darker end of the corridor inched backwards, their long and fat bodies shuddering. Then, if nothing prevented them, they fled. Marcille heard their dozens of tiny legs as they scattered, a soft sigh of relief helping her to drop her tense shoulders.

"That was close. I was sure we'd end up their food instead of the other way around." She stood, dusted herself off and rounded on the blue-haired girl. "You were amazing! The way you and your dragon handled yourself was. . . was. . . flawless!"

She excitement dwindled, and her eyes became darker with concern. "But you're a tall-man, aren't you? You don't look like an adult yet, so how are you already so talented?"

She didn't fail to notice that several new voices were shouting her name, but her attention was focused on her savior.

IN THAT MOMENT, any attempt to be stealthy had been thrown out the window. Mari's gaze hardened with intensity the second those sickly yellow carapaces illuminated in the darkness, her suspicions having been confirmed. Her breath hitched moment. So did her heart go still—some feeble attempt to keep quiet in hopes these beasts wouldn't notice them. Of course, when she feels the sensation of their hunger against the wall of her mind, sending a chill down her spine—so too, does the option of peace go out the window.

Suddenly, Mari's brain switches gears.

"GET BACK!" The mage's instruction fell on deaf ears, and to Marcille's likely shock, Mari would shove the older behind her with one arm and reach for her greatsword with the other. She was prepared to swing the blade at the nearest of the strange creatures, but Ratha takes a quicker initiative, letting out a roar as he swings around.

The rathalos' spiked tail and venomous barb slams into one of the crawlers mid-lunge, sending it squealing and flying back. Ratha finishes his attack with a fireball flourish, spitting on cinders and chars in a single blaze onto the next crawler proceeding his previous victim.

A third manages to evade both of Ratha's attacks and lunges for Mari, but the rider counters, finally whipping out her blade and ducking so that she could run it clean through some of its legs. It squeals as it sails over hers and Marcille's heads, and it writhes on the ground as it lands.

[xamassed]

The feeling was mutual. Unbridled joy sparked in her eyes, and her whole body leaned forward with interest. It had been too long since she had last spoken to someone that was as interested in magic as she was. She wouldn't think on that for long, however — if she did, the already aching pain she felt while missing Falin would only grow worse.

A rapid shake of her head ought to be enough to dismiss the woman's worries, but she piped in just to be sure. "No, not at all! The rest of my party don't appreciate the art as much as I do, so it's nice to finally have someone that will understand everything I say!"

She lessened her own enthusiasm for a second, lower lip jutting out. "Or look at me funny when I ask if I can practice a spell on them."

'I do! I haven't always been a mage, but I've been really into studying the arcane for the last few years especially.' When she'd left her home and then the temple, she'd made a pact to herself to make something of herself. To live life as freely as possible, but in a way that helped and made things better for the people around her as well. 'I love magic, I always have. It's one thing to read about it and cast it though.'

She's happy to have met someone who seems to have a passion and love for studying magic as she does, but she doesn't want to overwhelm the other woman with her gushing... At least, not yet. 'Fire magic can definitely be handy. Lots of different practical uses. It's nice to have some other spells like levitating to keep you with chores too. You must have a lot of experience and different spells under your belt.' She pauses. 'Potions can be expensive, of course, but they're not so bad if you can find the ingredients... Not that ingredients aren't also expensive sometimes if you're not harvesting them yourself...' She rubs the back of her neck, chuckling. 'I'm not boring you am I? I can get in my own head sometimes.'

[xamassed]

"A poacher? Uh, well..." The hands wrapped around her staff squeezed tighter, the vine-like roots that had twisted together groaning under the pressure. Her voice, once strong and certain, became softer and wobbled with uncertainty. "No, not exactly. He's not heartless like that! It's just that he really likes to eat the monsters in this dungeon, and your friend..."

She didn't feel the need to elaborate, nor did she have time to.

"W—What, from where?" A shudder raced up the half-elf's spine, leaving her arms and the back of her neck covered in goosebumps. "You're not saying that just to fool me, are you? As soon as I look, you'll run?"

But she did hear it, a high and skittering tap that seemed to come from all around. Above and blow, to either side. She couldn't tell where the sound came from exactly, except that its source was behind her. Without much of a choice, she turned. Down the hallway, she caught sight of something yellow and shimmering in the light.

"Hang on, step back." She knew she might regret summoning the little balls of light that danced in the air around them, but what she would really regret was sending those lights into the darkness, where once thick shadows fled deeper into the corridor.

There, clinging to the walls, were dog-sized insects, their carapaces a glimmering and pestilent yellow. Large, black eyes narrowed at the intrusion of light, the shock of being momentarily blinded doing nothing to dislodge their legs from the wall. But when they saw three perfectly fleshy beings within sight, they pounced, quickly and without prejudice.

"Carrion crawlers! Run! Quick, around the corner. Go, go!"

HER EYES WIDEN, CLEARLY FILLED WITH BEWILDERMENT at the other's warning. Now that they had stepped back, Mari can get a clearer look of their features; she looked wyverian, or at least, half-wyverian, given that she had long ears but five fingered hands and plainly plantigrade legs. That staff must have been something of status, right? It wasn't like Mari was very familiar with magic.

"I won't let that happen." Though she'd certainly heed the warning, the tone Mari carried was awfully determined, for she'd immediately registered this 'Laios' as a threat. "What, is he a poacher?" She stands on her toes, barely able to peer over Marcille's shoulder to get a glance.

She hears shuffling nearby, and Mari instinctively outstretches an arm to shield Ratha, who steps back warily at the sudden gesture. "Do you hear that . . . ?"

It sounded like there were more monsters than just Ratha here . . .

[xamassed]

"Mhmm. It's not something I had an immediate talent for, so. . . it's tiring." And she had been told time and time again that she ought to save her mana for the skills she had mastered. It wasn't meant to be a slight towards her, but knowing she couldn't master a useful spell made her feel painfully inadequate despite the reassurance from her party.

Marcille sat back, giving the bandage one more glance before she turned her attention to the woman in front of her. "Potions are useful. I just wish they weren't so expensive. Well, they used to be. Now that we aren't buying rations as often as we used to, I suppose we could buy a few more the next time we surface."

Both hands grasp at her staff, eyes bright with pride. "I'm partial to fire magic, but I've been practicing water-walking and a few other helpful spells! The way you talk about mana, do you use it too?"

'That's good.' She finds herself relaxing under the stranger's touch (an elf? She seems friendly, she hopes that this assumption is right.) 'I know firsthand how much healing magic can drain mana.' Kimiko laughs somewhat awkwardly. 'I try to use other methods like first aid kits and potions to heal my friends, when I can. Mana isn't a infinite resource, after all.' Her forehead feels a little bit better, thank goodness. 'What kind of magic do you usually do?'

[xamassed]

"ShhHHHH!!" Her hissing was twice as loud as before, eyes squeezed shut so tightly that she had begun to see spots against the inside of her eyelids. "Be quiet! Seriously, this is for your own good!"

Her long and pointed ears drooped downward, and both of her hands wrung nervously at the twisted, wooden staff in her hands. "Where I came from doesn't matter. What does matter is the fact that you've got that with you."

She nodded towards the stranger's beast, only to wince and take a cautious step back. The dragon-like creature was far too large for its own good, and considering her encounters with dragons, she wasn't the least bit pleased to see it. Whether or not it was part of the dungeon didn't matter. It was massive and looked to be packed with muscle, and both were traits that her tall-man companion would notice in a heartbeat.

"Like I told you, if you don't want it to end up in a weird soup, turn around and get out as soon as you can. If Laios sees it..."

"MMPHMM!" THE STARTLED SHRIEK that nearly left her ends up being muffled by the trembling hand suddenly clamped over her mouth. Mari's eyes glaze with visible confusion, and then anger, at first misunderstanding the sudden stranger's intentions.

If anyone really wanted to hut Mari, then they wouldn't, in their right mind, try to do it while Ratha was around. The monster parted his mouth open, revealing two rows of large, sharp teeth as the softest of dismayed, guttural rumbles left the back of his throat.

Ripping herself away from the stranger, Mari backs up into her monstie, displeased. "What the heck—" Her voice cracks. She'd follow instructions and keep her voice down, but that doesn't mean she was going to keep quiet.

"Where the heck did you come from?!"

[xamassed]

He was quick to deny it, but that didn't change her mind. She was convinced ( with no evidence at all ) that he was aiming to scare her. For what reason was still beyond her, but she wouldn't put it past him to want to put a chill in her bones so soon after waking.

"You're unbelievable, you——?" His head moved, and she was startled by the swift change in mood. With her back to the door, she didn't witness what he did. The swell of darkness behind her was just as sudden for her, but she didn't know the cause. Instead, she felt a shiver race up her spine, skin rising with a thousand unwanted goosebumps.

Surely, this was still part of his impish little plan.

"Chilchuck!" Her tone was scolding at first, but the fact that he bolted for the window and began to make an escape attempt gave her reason to wonder. Sweat broke out across her forehead, and she narrowed her eyes. "What are you doing?"

" No-!" Red lipstick was fun to draw with. When he was a younger scamp, it was the best of his escapades against authority, most specifically, his siblings and those who were trying to look too old before they were grown. It'd made a good joke for frightening his mother into thinking he'd bloodied his teeth badly after biting a rock.

He was well past that kind of pranking for his age. All of that energy went into his daughters, though more loving. Glaring at the mirror's reflection produces no evidence, just their mixed confusion.

His ear twitches, to the sound of something skittering, like a spider with only one pair of boots, light, frantic, and fumbling. Chilchuck's head turns swiftly, and nothing else in the room seems disturbed but his twitching ear, barely making movement, not a scuff of his boot to disturb the floor.

Two peering, purple dots are divided by the flickering candle on a stand in the hall. A sharp breath snuffs out the light, and the corridor is impenetrably and unnaturally dark, spreading as far as the threshold of the door.

Chilchuck makes the most logical and brisk movement to the window, fussing with the lock.