Chapter Text
Avery had been in this world for maybe three days—four if you counted the one he spent half stuck in a tree because he had decided that bark tasted “interesting” and he’d gotten distracted tasting it for a good six hours before realizing he was basically glued to the thing. That was fine though. He was built different. Specifically, he was built out of at least thirtynine percent gelatinous chaos, twentyfive percent gamer instinct, about seventeen percent of the inability to do math, and fiftyfive percent “what’s that shiny thing over there.” So when he wasn’t grinding Skywars matches to assert dominance (and also to cope with the creeping feeling that he was alone in the world), he was exploring.
That’s how he’d found the ravine—the kind that looks like it’s whispering “come die here, idiot,” and naturally, he’d gone “yeah, sure.” He’d brought a torch, two bread, and the absolute wrong pickaxe for the job, but enthusiasm counted for something, right?
He’d been humming as he went, bouncing down the ledges with that slight squelch that came from his slime half reacting to gravity. Every so often, he’d stop to scoop up some glowing moss stuff or swing his sword at a suspicious bat. He was doing fine. Having a great time. Living his best exploratory life.
Until the mine.
It wasn’t his. Avery knew this because, one, he’d never dug in this direction—he had a mental map of all his extremely questionable tunnels—and two, he had taste. This place didn’t. It was almost too perfect, like someone has actually wanted it to look nice and smooth instead of just mining wherever. He’d been staring at it for a full minute, chewing on a piece of bread, when he realized it smelled wrong too—metal and rust and something that felt too heavy for a place this quiet.
“Alright,” he said aloud, because talking to himself was the only thing keeping him company besides the dripping water. “That’s suspicious. Which means I should absolutely go down there.”
He took two confident steps forward before the floor vibrated. Just a little. Enough that his core rippled, which was usually his cue to stop being brave and start being sensible. But Avery was nothing if not dedicated to bad decisions. He squinted down the tunnel, torch raised.
“Hello?”
Something moved.
There was a sound—metal dragging against stone, slow and painful. Then a shape lurched out of the darkness, and Avery nearly dropped his torch because what in the actual hell was that?
They were huge, for one thing. Easily six and a half feet tall, maybe more, and dressed like a blood-soaked gladiator that had just crawled out of a nightmare. Their armor gleamed gold beneath the grime, but the shine was broken with deep gouges and splatters of something dark. A tattered red cape—half burned, half torn—dragged across the floor.
The figure stumbled, leaned on the wall, breathing hard. Every exhale sounded like someone trying to pull air through gravel. Avery froze. His brain did the math: this person was hurt, possibly cursed, definitely scary, and there was no way this wasn’t about to get weird.
The gladiator turned their head slightly, helmet catching the light. Avery couldn’t see a face, but he could feel the panic rolling off them. They didn’t move to attack, didn’t draw the sword slung across their back. They just stared. Or maybe glared. Hard to tell through a helmet.
“Uh,” Avery started, raising a green somewhat transparent hand in the universal sign of please don’t murder me, I’m nice. “Hey, you good? You look like you just walked out of a boss fight with God.”
The gladiator swayed. Then dropped.
Like a tree. Just—clank, thud, gone.
Avery stared. For a solid ten seconds, he stood there in complete silence, torch flickering, the sound of dripping water suddenly feeling too loud.
“Okay,” he muttered finally. “So that’s happening.”
He crouched cautiously, poking the armored figure with the end of his stick. Nothing. He poked again, a little harder this time. Still nothing.
“Buddy, if you’re gonna come out of the wall like a dramatic cryptid, you can’t just pass out immediately after. That’s bad form.”
He nudged the helmet with the stick, squinting to see if there was any movement inside. “You alive? Blink twice if you’re dead.”
Nothing. Just the slow, heavy sound of breathing—shallow, but there.
Avery sat back on his heels, exhaling. “Okay, so you’re not dead. Probably. Cool. Great. Okay cool, love that for me,” he sighed, fully sitting down now. “So I’ve either just witnessed a respawn gone wrong, or this dude just came out of a hole in reality. Awesome. Totally normal day.”
He gave the stick one last prod for good measure. The armor clinked faintly, but no reaction. Up close, he could see more details—the strange symbols etched into the gold plates, the way the cape shimmered oddly where the light hit it, as if it wasn’t fully… there.
“Dude, your drip’s cursed,” Avery said with mock sympathy. “I can feel it from here. You got lore written all over you. And I’m absolutely not emotionally prepared for that.”
He nudged the shoulder again. “Alright, big guy. Let’s get you somewhere less murdery, yeah?”
The armor didn’t move. Avery grunted, rolled his shoulders, then grabbed one arm and tried to pull. The man was absurdly heavy, like dragging a golden refrigerator. His hands slipped against the metal, leaving faint streaks of green where his skin met the grime.
“Why—” he puffed, tugging harder—“are you made of—dense sadness?”
After a few moments of useless effort, Avery flopped backward onto the stone, panting. “Okay, that’s a no-go. I’m not built for heavy lifting. I’m built for parkour and poor choices.”
He looked at the motionless gladiator again. Leaving him here felt wrong. Too quiet. Too… unfinished. The mine itself seemed to hum faintly, like something was still watching.
The black hole in the wall where the figure had come from pulsed slightly with a dull light. Avery squinted at it. “If that’s treasure, I swear—”
The tunnel shifted. Just barely, but enough to send cold air crawling up his back. He flinched. “Nope. Not treasure. Definitely evil. That’s evil light. I know that glow.”
He looked back down at the fallen man, his grin fading into something more serious. “Alright, bud. Change of plans. You’re coming with me.”
Avery shoved his torch into a crack in the wall for light and crouched again, hooking his arms under the gladiator’s. “You’re heavy as sin, dude, but I’m not leaving you here to get eaten by whatever that hole’s about to spit out.”
He heaved, his soft body straining with the effort, feet slipping a little against the stone. Inch by inch, he managed to get the warrior upright enough to drag. The armor clanked and scraped, but Avery kept going, grunting and muttering curses the whole way.
“Okay, new rule,” he huffed. “No more caves. No more weird noises. No more saving mysterious dudes with cursed fashion sense. Just me, the sun, and maybe a snack.”
The mine’s cold air followed him as he dragged the armored stranger toward the exit, every echo of metal sounding like a warning. By the time he reached the ledge overlooking the ravine, sweat (or something like it) clung to his green skin. He took a moment to catch his breath, then tightened his grip.
“Almost there, big guy. Don’t make me regret this.”
He managed to haul the gladiator up the incline and into the fading daylight. The warmth of the sun hit his face, and he sighed in relief. The world outside smelled like grass and dirt and normalcy, things that didn’t hum with cursed energy. He dropped the man onto softer ground, collapsing beside him with a groan.
“Okay,” Avery said between breaths, “you’re officially my problem now. Congrats.”
He lay there a moment longer, staring at the sky, then turned his head toward the unconscious gladiator. “You know, if you wake up and try to stab me, I’m gonna be real annoyed. Just saying.”
No answer, obviously.
Avery propped himself up on one elbow and looked back toward the ravine entrance. It seemed smaller now, quieter—but not in a peaceful way. More like it was sulking that he’d stolen something from it.
He looked back at the gladiator. “Yeah, definitely not leaving you down there. Bad vibes for days.”
With another sigh, he pushed himself to his feet, brushed off his hands, and started the slow process of dragging the man the rest of the way toward his base. The armor scraped against the dirt, leaving a trail behind them, and every few steps Avery muttered some complaint under his breath—about the weight, about the situation, about how this better at least come with some cool backstory later.
By the time he reached the edge of his little camp—half shelter, half chaos—he was exhausted. He eased the man down by the firepit, rolled his shoulders, and looked at the scene with a faint grin.
“Well,” he said, leaning on his knees, “welcome home, mystery guy. Try not to bleed on the good grass.”
He took a deep breath, wiped sweat from his forehead, and then chuckled to himself. “What’s the worst that could happen, right?”
The wind rustled the trees, and somewhere in the distance, the ravine groaned like it disagreed. But Avery ignored it. He sat down beside the unconscious gladiator, poked the campfire to life, and muttered, “Yeah, you’re safer here. Probably.”
And despite the exhaustion, despite the weirdness of it all, he couldn’t help the small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. For better or worse, he’d made a decision.
+---+---+
Avery crouched beside the fallen gladiator, glancing between the unmoving armor and his storage chest like a man about to perform emergency surgery with duct tape and hope. His translucent green fingers drummed anxiously against his thigh, the faint jiggle in his arm betraying just how wound up he was. The sun had started to slip behind the treeline, casting a soft, orange haze through the camp, and it made the streaks of dried blood on the gladiator’s armor shimmer like old rust. Avery didn’t like that. Blood meant danger, and danger meant—well, possibly him losing parts of himself he’d rather not have to reattach tonight.
“Okay, okay, think,” he muttered, pacing a short circle around his bedroll. “You’ve got, what—bandages? No, those are for you Potions? Maybe. Food? Bread doesn’t fix everything. Unless you’re me.”
He dropped to his knees by the first chest and started rummaging. Inside was the usual disaster: half-stacks of cobblestone, suspiciously unlabeled potions, one cursed fish, a leather tunic that smelled like regret, and a single, cracked healing bottle wedged behind a stack of glow berries. He held it up to the light. The liquid shimmered faintly pink, still good enough to burn like sugar water if you licked it—but it’d work. Probably.
Avery’s core pulsed faintly in his chest, a nervous flicker that rippled through his semi-transparent torso. “Alright, buddy,” he said, glancing back at the armored heap by the fire. “You better appreciate this because this stuff tastes like battery acid and regret, and I’m about to waste it on your shiny ass.”
He shuffled closer, careful not to touch anything sharp. The gladiator had slumped half onto his side, cape trailing like a wound itself. Avery swallowed hard. His fingers hovered near the edge of a gauntlet. “Right. So… you’re covered in metal, and I’m not touching that helmet. You look like the type to reflexively decapitate people when startled, and I like my head where it is. So let’s find some, uh, skin. Normal skin. Not the haunted kind.”
He hesitated, peering closer at the cracks in the armor. There—at the join between a bracer and the handplate, just enough bare skin to see the faintest shimmer of life. Pale, streaked with grime and dried blood, but alive. He exhaled in relief, uncorked the potion with his teeth, and immediately gagged at the smell. “Oh, that’s rancid. I’m gonna die by fumes before the potion even helps you.”
Still, he tipped a bit onto his fingers, the thick liquid glowing faintly as it slid between the faintly gelatinous edges of his palm. When it met the air, it hissed faintly. Avery leaned over, careful—so careful—and brushed it across the exposed skin. The moment the potion made contact, a faint shimmer of warmth pulsed beneath it. The skin twitched, muscle flexing weakly.
“Oh good, you’re not a corpse,” Avery said, voice climbing an octave with nervous relief. “Would’ve been awkward explaining why I’m sitting next to a medieval shell full of blood.”
He dabbed more of the potion where he could reach, following the small seams in the armor, murmuring as he worked. “Okay, okay, that’s looking better. Sort of. I mean, you’re not leaking as much, so that’s a win. Probably.”
The gladiator groaned faintly, a sound that sent Avery flinching backward so fast his knees almost came off his legs. He had to pause and stick one hand into his thigh to reattach the translucent knee-cap of slime that had splashed loose. “Oh my Void! Don’t do that! You can’t just groan like a horror movie ghost—give me a sign first, wave a hand or something!”
The sound came again, softer this time, and Avery forced himself to inch back closer. His voice dropped to a nervous whisper. “Hey, hey, easy, don’t—don’t do anything heroic, alright? I’m helping. You’re fine. You’re fine, big guy.”
He reached out again, fingertips trembling, and poured the last of the potion along the side of the gladiator’s neck where the armor split slightly. The glow sank in like it was being drunk by the skin, faint steam rising as wounds knit themselves shut beneath the metal. Avery leaned back on his heels, exhaling shakily. His body rippled faintly with the motion, the surface of his translucent arms quivering before settling again.
“Okay,” he said softly. “Okay, that should help. You’re alive, you’re healing, you’re still scary as hell, but you’re not bleeding out anymore.”
He rubbed his forehead, fingers half sinking into the soft jelly of his own temple before pulling away with a wet sound. “I swear, if you wake up swinging that sword, I’m melting your shoes.”
The fire crackled beside them, the flickering light dancing through Avery’s semi-transparent form like candlelight through green glass. He sat there for a long moment, just listening—to the faint rasp of the gladiator’s breathing, to the whisper of the wind through leaves, to the steady pulse of his own shifting core. Everything in him was jittery, but his instincts were quiet for once. No alarm bells, no tug to run. Just the strange, heavy peace of knowing he’d done something right, even if it was for someone who looked like a walking executioner.
He looked at the faint shimmer beneath the armor again. “You’ve got weird energy, man. Cursed, probably. But… you didn’t attack me. So that’s something.”
He yawned, stretching until one arm audibly squelched as it popped back into place. “Alright. You rest. I’ll keep watch. If something crawls out of that ravine, I’m chucking both of us into the river.”
The gladiator didn’t answer, of course, but Avery still talked as he stoked the campfire higher. He talked because silence made the woods feel too big, too empty, too aware. He talked because he was half convinced that if he stopped, the world would start whispering again. So he rambled—about how he’d gotten stuck in that tree, about the moss he’d found that glowed in funny ways, about how he thought maybe he’d try building a roof tomorrow, if he didn’t melt through it first.
Every now and then, he glanced at the gladiator, waiting for another sound, another sign of life. When he finally saw the faintest twitch of fingers near the sword hilt, he froze mid-sentence.
But he kept talking after the gladiator's hand fell away, reflex twitching or something. All Avery cared about was that he wasn't getting swung at.
He reached for his own bottle of murky water and took a long sip, grimacing at the taste. The firelight shimmered through his semi-transparent form, painting his green skin in hues of orange and gold. It made him look almost solid for a moment, almost human.
“Guess we’re both half a mess, huh?” he murmured, eyes half-lidded as he leaned back beside the fire. The warmth sank through his slime and into his core, the tension easing out of him inch by inch. “Don’t worry. I got you. Just… don’t stab me, or whatever it is you gladiator types do.”
He stayed there, keeping one lazy eye on the shadows at the edge of the camp, waiting for either the gladiator to wake—or for the ravine to come calling again.