Work Text:
The trip had been intended as a vacation for Judge Magister Gabranth, finally a chance to get Basch out of the city with Fran and Balthier. A short expedition, treasure hunting in the Tchita Uplands. For once the ruins there had been free of wandering malboro, and it had seemed the perfect opportunity to investigate deeper. To see if anything saleable had been abandoned.
Balthier and Basch had made the first advance, Basch with his axe, Balthier with a sword, anticipating the low lighting and close quarters. Fran played rearguard with her bow, but though a serpent winded its way across the grass at their approach, once inside the circle of the rocks the fiends seemed to vanish. Beyond the wall a stair led down to a lower floor, any handrail long since rotted away.
It wasn't until Balthier and Basch had progressed nearly to the far edge of the collapsing wall that the reason for the malboros continued absence aboveground became apparent. Nothing, not Nalbina's mimics, not Garamscythe's rats, not the baknamy of Nabudis, nothing else in the world made such a sound. Even on dry stone, their movements produced a horrible squelching slither... and that noise was all around them.
Fran moved back up the staircase to a higher vantage point, but the shadows behind a fallen column concealed an opening deeper into the ruins, and there were already tentacles boiling upwards between the humes and escape. Balthier set both hands around the grip of his sword, and he and Basch dropped into a ready stance, and all the fiends surged forward at once.
The malboros were under the power of some altered status, pulsing strangely, tentacles overextended. It wasn't berserk but its effects appeared similar - loss of limb was failing to drive them back, for each tentacle severed another simply crept closer and closer again, separating both men from Fran, then driving a writhing wedge between Balthier and Basch. Even as Fran's arrows began to clear them an icy path vines snaked around Balthier's ankle, pulling him off his feet and beneath the crush of pulsing, poisonous vegetation.
Foliate fangs gnawed at the leather of his vest but failed to penetrate it. Balthier tensed, bracing for the expected miasma, but instead the malboro wrapped further tentacles around his limbs, until his nerveless hand could no longer hold its grip on his sword. Fran was calling his name, and then closer Basch's voice was yelling something else. Balthier struggled to reply, but his cry was immediately stifled by the application of half a poisonous vine down his throat.
The next moments became a blur of struggling to breathe, to escape, to get away. Tentacles circled his thighs, his waist, sought purchase between his belts, leaving slime in their wake. The fitted leather of his pants and vest protected his body, but he began to wonder if he would strangle first from within or without. Then the tendril constricting his neck released its hold, leaving him at the mercy of its kin down his throat, which pulsed grotesquely and released a viscous fluid that threatened to drown his last trickle of air. Black spots blotted his vision, obscuring far too many teeth, and over the squelching sussurations of the malboros he heard Basch cry out in pain.
Ice crystals spread across his chest, a thousand little pricks of cold against his neck, his shoulder, his jaw, and then he could breathe again, choking on the foul air as he sucked in as much of it as his lungs would hold. His sword was still within reach, his arm strong enough to keep the other malboros back and gain his feet again.
Basch had gone to his knees, half fallen, protecting his head with his arms, and Balthier snarled, raw-throated, and swung his blade two-handed between the malboro's gaping jaws. It fell, still twitching, and its tentacles slid nauseatingly slow from inside the wide legs of Basch's shorts.
Balthier pulled him up by the wrist, and both men ran for the staircase.
The three of them stumbled out into the daylight and Balthier shielded his eyes against the sun, coughing and staggering. He couldn't clear the taste from his mouth, couldn't smell anything but the fetid malboro stench of rotting plantlife and carrion. Basch was limping, almost bowlegged, and slime was seeping down to drip over the top of his sandals. Fran moved to cast cure, but Balthier interrupted her - "Cleanse, Fran, cast cleanse!"
Basch was holding himself awkwardly, one arm wrapped low around his middle, and excused himself with all haste behind a crumbling wall. The single piece of masonry did nothing to block sound and the wet, flatulent noises that followed set Balthier hunching over, hands braced on knees, unable to stop gagging. He fumbled in his right-hand pannier, eyes closed, and held out a brace of handkerchiefs to Fran. "Give this - to him. He doesn't carry-" There was a long and liquid noise, and Balthier flourished the handkerchiefs harder, finally felt her take them and move away as saliva flooded his mouth.
*****
The emergency shower in the Strahl was enough for the three of them to make it back to their temporary Archades apartments with only dirty looks, and not outright public disturbance. Fran walked near, but not close, preferring to keep what breezes there were between herself and the humes. Balthier walked at Basch's side, arm steady at Basch’s elbow when the street tipped up beneath his feet, though he knew Balthier still felt the effects of the malboro’s poison even as Basch did.
A curl of sick heat low in his gut twisted and threatened to crest and break over him, wavelike. He failed bite back a groan, and Balthier voiced a low enquiry. Basch shook his head. There was no way to say 'I'm trying desperately not to soil myself'. A soon as they reached the haven of the apartment, Basch escaped to the guarderobe. The evacuations that followed were unpleasant, not to say painful. When he emerged, Fran was collecting the last of their loot from the aborted expedition, staying as far away from Balthier as the room would allow.
“I do not like leaving you.” Her eyes flickered from Balthier to Basch and back again.
“We’ll be fine. Better two of us out of commission than three. Get some fresh air.” Balthier’s voice is hoarse. “When you’ve fenced things, would you mind sourcing us something a bit more on the medicinal side than our basic field supplies?”
Basch felt both their eyes on him and realized he had been leaning over, braced on the table in his effort to ease the ache in his gut. “I will be well, Fran. We both will.” He straightened. “We will clean up before you return.” Balthier nodded, and with a last look between them, Fran slipped out the door.
Balthier sagged even as Basch did, and Basch couldn't help laughing, though it hurt. Balthier grinned along with him, rueful, and extended a ringed hand. “Let’s see if we can manage more thorough ablutions before one of us falls over. I’m not sure I’ll ever be clean again.”
The shower required a bit of maneuvering. After climbing two flights to the bathroom at the top of the terraced house, Basch couldn’t trust his balance on the wet tile, and in the end Balthier knelt over him to finish rinsing his hair. Basch didn’t miss the way Balthier caught himself on the wall, standing up. But if the hot water had sapped the last of their strength, it also eased the other symptoms of their adventure. Basch’s cramps had nearly abated, and Balthier was less pale, though he gargled the water several times, still trying to spit the taste of slime from his mouth.
It was strange to have Balthier so quiet, but his throat must be scraped raw, between the tentacles and the vomiting afterward. Basch was grateful for Balthier’s tight leather trousers- when he’d seen the other man go down…
Selfishly, Basch was glad to be the less capable one right now, to let Balthier find them towels, finish disposing of their clothes- in an old metal toolbox with a lid that would seal tight- and lead him down to the bedroom. The mattress pulled him down like a graviga spell, and from Balthier’s groan and the weight at his side, he was not alone.
More than treasure or adventure or risk, it was that camaraderie, that simple state of not being alone that made it worth the cost.