Krow turns in a slow circle, examining its surroundings. Twists of vines were creeping up some of the walls and crawling out of cracks in the stonework. The occasional pocket of lava dots the area it's in and every once in a while, it can see the liquid fire trickling down the walls. In front of it, a conglomeration of signs, crafting tables, and crates, barley stands. A campsite of sorts. The tents are made out of a deep gray fabric, frayed at the edges, and stained with something red. The red substance has also been tracked along the floor in some places, leaving suspicious-looking footprints that indicate a frequently traveled path.
To its right is some kind of door-like opening leading into a lush, green jungle. From what it can see, some leaves and branches have been torn away to make it easier to navigate.
Good. There are people here. It didn't know what it was going to do if it was dropped in a world with no one to help.
To its left is another trickle of lava and a simple stone corridor leading into something Krow couldn't quite see from where it was standing, and behind it were two levers. Both with wooden arms and stone handles, connected to a coppery piece of machinery at the base. Moss was creeping upon them and they were coated in a considerable amount of dust as if they hadn't been touched in ages. Both were already pulled into the down position. As it got closer its gaze flickered to the sign above.
A sturdy simple wood sign, bolted to the wall, just as dust-covered as the levers. The text was less written, and more scrawled out in black ink as if hastily made. It had gotten closer with the intent of messing with the levers, out of curiosity mostly, but the sign, simple as it was, made it freeze.
One for Mercy
One for Death
It hears a soft, high-pitched clicking and realizes without even looking the Lav is a bat again. He makes himself comfortable in Krow's two-toned hair.
"Lav?" It says, mesmerized by the levers and only halfway through processing the silent threat in the words of the sign.
"Yeah?" Lav responds shifting slightly on top of Krow's head.
"Do you think we should pull it?"
"Yeah." Lav deadpans.
Krow stoops down next to the lever on the right, brushing the layer of dust off before wrapping one hand around the top of the lever and yanking it upward. When it lets go the lever simply falls back into place with the hollow cleaning of machinery turning that's not connected to anything.
"It didn't do anything." Lav states, sounding almost sad that the world didn't erupt into chaos.
"Did you want it to?" Krow questions, carefully standing up to not knock Lav off of its head.
"Maybe"
They spend the rest of the day thoroughly searching the campsite. Most of the barrels and chests are picked clean, and anything that isn't gone is unusable. Still, they salvage what they can, intently searching for anything remotely useful. All the while coming up with theories about the world they jumped to, and coming up with questions to ask when they find Mabel again.
"What's with the walls?"
"What are the levers?"
"Why is there no return portal?"
Most of those questions they probably wouldn't be able to answer, or wouldn't want to answer but-
Oh [redacted]-
A return portal...
"There's no return portal..." Krow feels stupid at the realization.
Lav does the bat equivalent of a shrug, "Yeah, there isn't" He says like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"Which means no way back to either Nourk. No way back, to the dark place to save Draxy..." It wants to punch itself for not thinking about Draxy sooner.
"Yeah," Lav says in monotony.
"And you're okay with this?" Krow responds incredulously.
"At least I don't have to go back to the dark place..." there's an edge of sadness in Lav's voice as he says that.
Now Krow feels even worse for not thinking about Lav. All it wants to do is help people.
Why can't it even do that right?
Wallowing in self-pity, it doesn't even realize when the brightness of the day turns into the dark of the night.
𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕔𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕚𝕤 𝕟𝕚𝕔𝕖, 𝕒𝕝𝕞𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕡𝕖𝕒𝕔𝕖𝕗𝕦𝕝 𝕒𝕤 𝕚𝕥 𝕤𝕝𝕚𝕡𝕤 𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕠 𝕥𝕨𝕚𝕝𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥. 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕡𝕖𝕠𝕡𝕝𝕖 𝕨𝕙𝕠 𝕒𝕣𝕖𝕟'𝕥 𝕚𝕟 𝕙𝕚𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕠𝕣 𝕚𝕟 𝕒 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕒 𝕖𝕚𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣 𝕗𝕝𝕠𝕔𝕜 𝕥𝕠 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕓𝕚𝕘 𝕓𝕠𝕟𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖 𝕚𝕟 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥'𝕤 𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕪 𝕓𝕖𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕔𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕔𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕠𝕣 𝕣𝕖𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝕥𝕠 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕚𝕣 𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕤𝕖𝕤 𝕥𝕠 "𝕤𝕝𝕖𝕖𝕡". 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕠𝕟𝕖𝕤 𝕨𝕙𝕠 𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕪 𝕒𝕨𝕒𝕜𝕖 𝕔𝕒𝕟 𝕛𝕦𝕤𝕥 𝕓𝕖 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕒 𝕨𝕙𝕚𝕝𝕖. 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕔𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕚𝕤 𝕓𝕖𝕒𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕗𝕦𝕝, 𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤 𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕕, 𝕚𝕗 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕚𝕘𝕟𝕠𝕣𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕕𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕝𝕚𝕖 𝕓𝕖𝕪𝕠𝕟𝕕.
𝕋𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕡𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕚𝕤 𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕪 𝕒𝕥 𝕥𝕚𝕞𝕖𝕤 𝕝𝕚𝕜𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕤𝕖 𝕨𝕙𝕖𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕔𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕚𝕤 𝕤𝕚𝕝𝕖𝕟𝕥. 𝕎𝕙𝕖𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕔𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕛𝕦𝕤𝕥 𝕚𝕤...
Krow is running.
When it first heard the mechanical clicking it thought it might be Lav messing around; wouldn't have been the first time. Plus Lav had meandered off as a cat earlier to wreak havoc on a colony of bugs that had made their homes in the campsite's abandoned sleeping bags.
Then it hears an unearthly screech and knows there's no way that's Lav. The sound permeates the air. It might be delirium, but it can almost hear words in the series of hisses and pops that come after.
You are going to die
All too suddenly, the air tastes like iron, like blood. It starts sprinting through the dark, with no idea where it's going, and with no time to stop and figure that out.
Dark? When did it get dark?
"LAV RUN!" It calls into the night. Turning around to see if it can spot him.
Lav spots it first and a mass of fur wizzes past its leg. A smokey grey cat with amethyst purple eyes that are a little too vibrant. Lav. Krow sighs with relief and is now more than two steps behind him. It makes the mistake of looking back to see what's chasing them and immediately regrets it.
The thing-the monster resembles something like a giant spider or scorpion, but it's just wrong in so many ways. An amalgamation of science and nature that whirred like a machine, but roared like an animal. Its legs and something that might've been teeth are stained deep red with blood, A lot of blood, that's not the creature's blood, if it has any. A scorpion-like tail drips with green poison so that if you didn't bleed out, the poison would kill you anyway. This thing was a hunter, made evident by the piercing violet eyes, staring into Krow's soul somehow, even though it didn't have one.
The panicked dash somehow becomes even more panicked as
Krow follows Lav down some random corridor. The creature is faster than expected and barrels down the hallway after them. Vines and moss and indistinguishable stone fly by as they stumble, climb, and fall through the maze at speed. They can't be sure exactly where the creature is now, but they know it's not gone because they can still hear the horrible sounds it makes and the clicking of metal on stone.
Krows lungs are screaming and its legs are aching, but despite its body's protests it keeps running, partly because it wants to live, partly because it can't lose Lav.
Though it doesn't stop, it does slow, and at that moment the creature speeds up. Krow almost instantly realizes that that was a big mistake. Almost instantly a bloodied claw pierces its left shoulder and throws it to the ground. Its head is swimming as it hits the floor. Black dots start to cloud its vision but it blinks them away because it has to get up.
The claws come down again, but this time it's able to roll out of the way and into a wall. The effect of blood loss from the gushing wound is catching up with it a bit too quickly for its liking. It starts grasping for any sort of purchase in a failed attempt to pick itself off the ground when it hears a terrible roaring that would make it want to cover its ears if its left arm hadn't been rendered completely useless.
It braces itself for impact before realizing that the roaring what not the creatures but Lav. it's too dark and Krow is too close to passing out to make out what Lav is, but it is unmistakably Lav.
He's fighting the monster.
𝕃𝕒𝕧 𝕚𝕤 𝕗𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕞𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣
Krow would be terrified if it had the energy to be because it's seen Lav kill things before, but has never seen Lav so genuinely enraged.
And the craziest thing of all...𝕃𝔸𝕍 𝕀𝕊 𝕎𝕀ℕℕ𝕀ℕ𝔾
That's the last thing Krow sees before it slips into unconsciousness.
When it wakes up Lav is a cat again; curled up on Krow's shoulder wound; matting his fur with blood in the hopes of staunching Krow's bleeding. The first thing it hears when the world comes back into focus is the "awww" ing and cooing of the voices. It had almost forgotten about them too.
The room that its in is less of a room and more of a small alcove in the wall. Stone. A torch. A chest. A sleeping bag. A man wearing a red sock and sunglasses on his face.
Wait, what?!