Why you? [kazuscara]

Cave System

What I see is Scaramouche, sitting on a table fidgeting his fingers while his hat is on a counter to the side. When he looks up at the door I can see his eyes widen. "Hello, Scara. We have a lot to talk about. I'll sit down with you." He doesn't even reply to me. All he does is stare at me as if I were a ghost. I sit down in front of him and start to talk. "Why did you betray me? Why did you leave me behind? Did you just want to leave me there to suffer in that depressing city as you sailed to your wanted areas completely forgetting about me? I thought we were friends... friends don't leave each other behind, Scaramouche." Still, he just stares. After a bit, I can see his mouth start to open. "That, wasn't my intention, Kaedheara..."

"Then what were your intentions? Why would you leave me instead of wake me up and take me with you?!" I can feel my cheeks start to turn red. I don't like betrayals, and I can tell Scaramouche doesn't like them either, so why would he betray me? "CAN YOU LET ME EXPLAIN!" He raises his voice and slams his hands on the table angrily, causing the whole room to shake. It's the first time I've seen him do that. I don't know why, but I feel guilty, even though he should be the one feeling guilty here. I'm the victim, aren't I? Scaramouche then takes a deep breath, I assume it's to calm down. "Look, I wasn't planning on leaving you. I needed to go to Tatarasuna for something... important. Let's just say I have a lot of unfinished business here. I didn't want to take you with me because I know it's dangerous, and I don't want you to die at the consequences... I was going to leave you a note but the guy wanted me to arrive soon so I didn't have time to go and buy paper and a pen."

Scaramouche takes another deep breath before he continues talking. "I found the cloak laying on the hotel floor in the bathroom, when I took a sniff I threw it on the floor and gagged since it smelled like shit and piss. Once I saw all the rain and soldiers out though, I decided it would be best to use it, even if it was one of the worst things I've smelled in my life." I gag a bit too. The idea of someone even wearing a shit and piss smelling coat grosses me out. The rain must have blocked the smell of it when I saw it hanging on that tree. "... I understand now, sorry for misunderstanding you Scaramouche. I do have a question though, why did you not just wake me up and tell me? If you were that demanding of that I didn't go, I probably would have just not gone." I can't say for sure if that would be true. If he told me that, I admit, I most likely would have gone either way whether he knew it or not.

"I had a feeling you would probably just secretly follow me either way, I guess that's what ended up happening," Scaramouche says. He pulls his arms back to his body, probably realizing how uncomfortable it looked. "Why was your cloak on a tree beach torn and one of your hat bells on the floor in front of the cave? You had me worried, I thought that you were mauled by a bear, or beaten by a samurai." "The cloak I threw out because it was becoming a bit useless and smelled awful. The bell just came off on its own from the wind." He stands up and walks over to his hat, he then puts it over his head. "Since you're here, I guess you can help me do my task." I nod my head. "I'll be happy to help, you underestimate me." He chuckles. "We'll see about that, Kaedheara."

"Shouldn't you tell me what we're doing?"

"I was gonna get to that, Kaedheara. There is an heirloom down in this cave system. It's the old heirloom of a certain clan... you don't need to know about the clan but just know that I need to get it to fulfill a... promise..." I want to ask him about the clan and heirloom, but even I know it's probably better to not bother him right now. "Alright, seems easy enough." "It's not easy, Kaedheara. This cave system is like a labyrinth, every corner is a dead end, I've heated lots of people have died trying to get the heirloom."  Interesting, whatever clan this is must be honorable. Scaramouche opens the door to the cave system. "Do you want to go now, or do you want more backstory? I... don't mind." I can tell he does mind. I'll let him off, I don't need to know everything anyway. I have my secrets, he should be allowed to have his. It's only fair after all. "We can go now if you feel like it."

"Of course, I feel like it, Kaedheara. If I didn't I wouldn't ask you." He rolls his eyes at me and I giggle at him. I walk through the door and then he closes it. I start to sweat from the heat. The torches in this tight non-air condition area make it hot. I've been in Liyue for a while though, so I know I can handle it. I'm not too sure about Scaramouche though, especially with all that cloth he has on him. He should take it off if he doesn't want to overheat. Wait... never mind, if he took it off, he would be naked. I don't think that's any better in a dirty cave, though... never mind... "Follow me, a little bird told me that coward should be the first way we go," Scaramouche says. I nod and follow him forward. These two paths are in front of us now. One leading left, and one leading right. "Which should he choose, Scaramouche?" I ask. Scaramouche groans "Uhm... how would I know?"

"Did the bird not tell you which way to go here?"

"Shut up Kaedheara."

"If I shut up I won't be able to tell you which way to go."

"Then don't shut up."

"I gladly won't."

I point to the right. "Right is always right," I say. He rolls his eyes. "Please don't say that again..." Scaramouche groans. We both walk right and shutter as about 9 pathways are on the wall. "Do you think we fell into a trap?" I ask. "Maybe, maybe we just walked into an heirloom," Scaramouche replies. I roll my eyes at him. "Yeah, I'm sure it would be here," I say sarcastically. We both check all of the corridors and see that they're all dead ends. One of them even had "sucks to suck!" Written on the wall. Scaramouche got mad at that. "This is your fault, Kaedheara. You should have just shut up when I told you to." I don't even respond. I just groan and walk left. It's starting to get hot in here. I can feel the sweat dripping down my forehead to my shoe. It's awful, I just want to rip off all my clothes to cool off, but I know better than that, do I?

Scaramouche and I walk through endless hallways and corridors, sometimes we get tricked, and sometimes we just waste our time walking through long hallways for it to just be a dead end. It's painful, really painful, I should have just let Scaramouche underestimate me, he wasn't wrong anyway. It's all the same thing, over and over again. It feels like we're running in circles, but we're not, we know this because, at the end of it, they all have different messages written by the same cheeky person. I want to punch whoever makes these messages so hard it's not even funny. If that's how I feel, imagine how Scaramouche feels, he would probably kill them on sight, no, he would do worse.

"Scaramouche, I think we should just give up..." I say tiredly. "Let's just check this hallway... maybe this hard work will... pay... off..." he's also tired. I feel like I'm gonna pass out any moment now. From the heat, and exhaustion. Once we pass the corridor, we both gasp in shock. There's a big black box, with a giant green jade in it. "That's... it!" Scaramouche yells. Before I can even reply Scaramouche rushes over and picks it up. I can hear kissing noises coming from there, he is happy to see it. "Do you think... we have enough envergadura to go back?" Scaramouche slowly turns to look at me. "Are you blind? There's a door right in front of me." I look higher and see it. I walk over to Scaramouche and gesture for him to get up. He picks up the box with the Jade and walks in, I follow. On the wall of this second safe room. The same cheeky guy wrote a final message. "I guess I'm not that bad, eh!" I sigh. I can't hate him now, well, I can still semi-hate him. It doesn't seem Scaramouche cares anymore. He just falls on the table with the jade and falls asleep. I sit down and lay my head down. Slowly, I relax and fall asleep. Finally, some sleep.