SSP/Douglasthedog Habitica August-2-2020

August 2

I woke up on the floor to a terrible headache. Slowly, I sat up and looked around, trying to recall the events that led me to my current predicament. More specifically, I was trying to figure out how long I was unconscious, what the unmoving creature laying across the floor was and why are were runes covering the walls and ceiling around me. Just then through a thin cascade of dust and sand back lit by sun rays, stepped Vi. And I remembered.

I was only out for a minute, probably only a moment. The dust hadn't even settled from where the floor above had given way. The room was a half dome. We'd fallen into it from the top, maybe twenty feet. Finely hand-chiseled symbols a foot tall and wide, spaced an even foot apart covered the stone walls. She was right. The hard little dime was right.

"They're coming!" Vi yelled, pointing her big Glock 19 at the creature next to me.

I hurried to my feet. The beast was nothing of this natural world. It best resembled a hairy mutant hog but twice as large. The back of it's skull was all exit wound.

She motioned to a dark open corridor on the side of the chamber and ran toward it. I followed. If she was five foot five, she was standing on something. One hundred pounds of pure muscle. Her pony tail bounced in time with the pouches on her tactical belt. I barely kept up.

We made it to the corridor and she popped a flare and we kept on running. The walls and ceiling were built taller and wider than what a human would require and decorated with the same symbols as the dome chamber. Clearly, the design of the underground complex hadn't had humans solely in mind. We knew that already. That's why we were there.

We ran on and on. My legs were on fire. My back hurt and my lungs burned but I was still able to keep up with her. Vi was the picture of health and strength and courage and I would follow her anywhere. Even down this god-forsaken hole, through this dark corridor that ran completely straight and completely level for what seemed like a mile.

And then it stopped.

A plain stone wall. A dead end.

From behind came the feint echo of an oink.

She reached up waving the flare over the wall. Then dropped it to the ground.

"It's not a wall." She shoved her pistol, the big one, at me and I took it. "It's a door. Keep the piggy-wiggys off us."

The oinks had become a roaring chorus now. The sound of hoof on stone added rhythm. A symphony of horror charging toward us.

I looked at her and swallowed.

"It's just a little pork chop. There's no reason to be afraid." She nodded at the pistols I held. "Just point and click. Use both hands."

She lit another flare and tossed it down the corridor. She pulled her picks from her belt, bent to one knee and went to work on a small hole in the center of the wall.

I turned to the swine stampede approaching from behind. I checked the clip in each Glock. Satisfied, I let the heavy metal hang at my sides.

Over my shoulder I said, "It's all going to be worth it, right Vi?"

"Beyond your wildest dreams, sugar. Beyond your wildest dreams."