Lance rolled around in the dirt, the burlap sack nearly adhering to his face slowly slithering to envelope it. He could feel the knot of rough weave swirl in his mouth and stretch thin around his cheeks and down his throat. He grabbed for his knife and tried slashing and cutting at the fabric to no avail, with each slice the weaving would just reattach. After what felt like a long hard battle, that was no more than 20 seconds, Lance felt the threads begin to sew into his scalp and around his neck. He could feel them stitch into his vocal cords causing him to cough and wheeze. After what felt like someone grabbed the fabrics lead string and pulled it taught to tie it off, the darkness was lifted. The holes for the sac's eyes and mouth finally aligned with his own and Lance's held breath and tight airway released with a deep gasp for air. He coughed and then tried to scream for help yanking and pulling on the sac only to feel as if he yanked on his own hair, and for no voice to leave his mouth. It was then Lance received a notification.

  " Curse - Avatar of Terror acquired"

  " What?! What the hell is this??! Goddamnit get this off of me! A curse?!! No fucking way this happens to me!" Lance yanked and pulled, eventually the fabric tore and holding it in his hands it merely wisped into a puff of smoke. He approached the water and looked down on himself. He winced.. in pure dread.

  As Lance looked down on himself and his now burlap sack head, he contoured his jawline, pressing upon the fabric. The sac was like that you would find on a scarecrow, loose and ruffled. The square shape of the sac only visible when pulled outward. Two small holes seemingly ripped out, darkness and two red glowing pupils lie behind. A thin line, like it had been cut with a dull knife, was where his mouth was. Lance could feel the sac as if it were tight on his face but looking at it in the reflection of the water it was obvious that it wasn't true to his head's shape. He examined the frilled end of it on his neck where he felt the strings weave into his skin. Trying to dig his fingers underneath to no avail he simply outlined it knowing it was truly sewn to him. The tight braided stitch was perfect, as if a machine had done so. Lance looked at himself once more and then turned away. He stood up, he tried to yell but again nothing came out. " Damnit, What do I do.. If they see me like this..."

  Lance heard Reilly call out for him a few times, he then saw her move around the side of the skull of the Troll in disgust. He was simply bent over in a ball next to it. He looked up at her as she gasped.

  " Lance?? That's you right? What's that? Another gotcha reward? No offense but it looks.." Reilly paused. She didn't know why but as she spoke she could feel Lance's simple look at her as a form of sorrow. Something about the strange new look scared her, by filling her with sadness. Lance stood up slowly and Reilly took a step back. Part of her body moved of her own volition. A second later Courage and Valora stepped around the skull of the troll. Looking at it in disgust.

  Courage noticed Lance and was about to speak until he noticed the sac on his head. He choked up but then spoke anyway. " Hey uh, what'd ya do to the troll looks kinda.. gross. And your mask? Kinda spooky, looks wicked cool, but spooky."

  Lance took a step forward and tried to speak, Slowly he could feel the threading on his vocal cords loosen just barely. And a small whisper came out, his voice sounded like that of someone who had screamed the voice out. " We should go." Lance tried speaking whilst Reilly spoke to him, he tried to explain. But nothing came out. When he tried to speak this time his voice came through but just barely, and it pained him to do so. He understood then, that this curse wouldn't let itself be known. He hung his head, handed the rope over to Courage and patted Reilly on the shoulder. " We’ll go backwards.. Shortcut, then we finish." Lance's short and blunt sentence sent a shiver down her spine. As he looked at Reilly now closer, nearly shouldered to each other, She saw into his eye holes into the deep sockets with seemingly no end, only a floating red glow, the corners of the mouth also dark and stitched as if the burlap were his lips.

  Valora had been opening up to the group and finally had the courage to prove herself. A moment before Lance dug into the troll for its experience gem and got covered in blood and grime, she and Lance had almost finally bonded. She wasn't alone in feeling the new sense of dread come from him, but she finally spoke as if to firm her resolve. " Lance, Courage, Reilly. I'm going to step things up I promise!" She spoke like a child. She removed her shield from her back, now having to bear it, and shook her weapon while tightening her grip. " Courage protect Reilly, Lance and I will guard you both."

  Reilly stepped closer to Courage. Lance and Valora took their positions as well. Reilly had shown the Slime Prince's crown to the siblings as they loaded up the wood and food, they had already seen Lance remove a spear from her breast, it was an easier way to answer their thoughts before they devolved into something else. Lance now held the spear opting to put the hatchet into the "wardrobe". But before he did so Reilly gave him the experience gem from the troll. Lance simply chopped it in half, as if declaring to give one piece to the siblings and the other to Reilly. Everyone nodded, and they got up and began their journey back to the entrance.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Lance walked in silence pondering his situation. Reilly, Valora and Courage all had brief conversation amongst themselves every so often but the general consensus was silent observation of their surroundings.

  Lance divided his attention with thought and the consistent scouring for more spiders. " Thinking about this as an 'easy' difficulty compared to our previous entrance of level one would be a falsehood. If levels were meant to be different, and the difficulty variables were based on the party's members mode difficulty, normal to hard, then what else was there? The Troll was one thing, none of them had seen nor expected. Although we have only been here once before something about this time has been... far more terrible. The curse, the honor tier 'mini boss', larger packs of bats.. Perhaps.. Is it because Reilly and I are of a higher level? Did it throw more and more difficult things at us because of character level? And from what Courage said, he was the last of his group to continue. Perhaps the game sees our capabilities, and weighs it against our foes?... And even now it throws something like a curse at me with zero context and zero explanation, all it did was keep my lips shut about it! Which.. I guess is what I have to do anyway. The idea of such a thing may ruin this for me anyway. Damnit I can't get over the fact that this is still level one! Fuck this! Fuck it! I'm pissed I'm gonna.. "

  " Lance? Are you alright?" Reilly spoke out to him. Lance looked back at her puzzled and then let go of his train of thought.

  " You okay? You stopped walking for a little while, did you notice something? "

  Lance pointed his finger up and at a breast high ridge of stalagmites. Beyond them was a thin narrow path that winded down into the cave a bit of a distance. " There, we'll kill some goblins at the end of that path." Lance cleared his voice as he finished talking, with disdain for his coarse voice he simply gripped the spear. He then stepped forward and broke down the small wall and then proceeded with the group in tow.

  Eventually the group came to a crack in the wall that continued the path in a passageway. Lance turned to the team.

  " When we enter this way, stay quiet. Stay quiet all the way til I say so, or we die." He looked on at them Valora gulped deeply and they all nodded. They proceeded until the end of the path. Once again Lance met a sheer cliff with a wide and dark cavern before them. He braced the rest of them backwards and gave them a shh finger signal on his mouth. After looking around the platform he noticed that instead to the right it was now his left that showed him the path forward. He slowly crept over the edge where another small wall of stone hid the entrance to this path. Valora activated her ring and shined a light on him, he then pointed down at the path before them and gave her a cut sign as if telling her to turn off the light.

  Everyone stepped over to the small path and clung against the wall and continued along it for a bit until it widened again. Eventually the group made it to the low tunnel entrance and continued on for a while until Lance spoke again. " Okay we are good to speak. But only briefly, goblins should be close."

  Courage leaned forward and tapped Lance on the shoulder. " How did you... nevermind, What's the plan for the goblins? "

  Lance looked at him with a wide brimmed mouth of burlap. " We use the Darkness... And the filth. Quickly we only have just under an hour."

  The group followed the path in this small tunnel in a brisk step. It wasn't long before they made their way to the more cavernous section of the cave Lance wanted to be in. He knew he was close to goblins, he could hear the distant murmurs and see the far off flicker of torchlight. He dipped low and with a bit of charades showed the group to cling to the small walls of stalagmites or the wide speleothem spires. Lance followed the small paths and eventually found his way over to the place he wanted to be. The bathroom alcove. It was here, Lance thought to himself. " Randomly generated my ass. Fundamentally the same, just not in acute detail."

  Lance looked at the group, they all had their faces scrunched in an attempt to thwart the smell's, the girls even pinched their noses. Lance pulled their hands away from their noses and whispered " Get used to it. We ambush, here, and there" Lance pointed at the walls where he could see a small crack between the two, and then above at the stone. The group once again noticed the cave's large fang like death looming over them and nodded. Two of them stepped over the wall, Reilly now wielding her dagger, and Courage with his blade drawn ready to stab through the gaps at the goblins. Lance then put his hands to his knee boosting Valora above where she wedged herself up on a column of stone. Lance then stepped a few steps over and jumped and climbed up.

  They all waited for quite some time, eventually until the timer only had around 20 minutes left. The only person growing restless was Lance. After another moment he jumped down and then whispered to the group to wait a moment. He followed the path the other direction into the corridor where he knew their encampment would be. He wanted to whistle but found it a bit.. difficult. Instead he looked back at the group and sighed.

  " Looks like I'm bait" he thought. He ran in place with heavy steps and clanged his spear against the stone a few times. He then feigned a few painful sounds. After a moment he saw that further into the bend of the corridor it began to light up. He hurried back to his position.

  A few moments later the group saw a small party of goblins exit the hallway each with their own lit torch.

  " Seven... Eight?! Shit why so many! Oh.. whoops." Lance looked at the rest of the group, Everyone grew tense.