It really, really isn't.

You wouldn't say you're particularly close to Gekko, but with enough time spent in the same pit, it's practically impossible to not be familiar with your companions. She's always been a loner, never too talkative, preferring to wait in her corner and watch the rest of you do whatever you were doing rather than partaking herself. As a result, Gekko's the usual lookout for when some of you are trying a scheme; it was no surprise she was with the other three.

The yowling, flaming girl in front of you is about as far from that quiet watcher as you've ever seen. You and Ratty are practically stunned speechless by her arrival, but Jitter thinks quickly and grabs some of the wetter blankets from the corners of the cave, and uses them to smother the flames crawling on her fur. Shortly, Gekko is extinguished—and before you can say anything, she stares wildly at the three of you and practically spits out "What the fuck di' you do?!"

You're taken aback at her question. "Us? What did you do? Where are the others?"

"We were raidin' the Arbury kitchens, wasn' supposed to be anythin' big! It was just fuckin' bread, Milky! We didn't even get inna the wine! The whole... the whole plan was t' see if we coulda avoided the quest if we kept low-key, jus' getting enough to sleep. And then we were comin' back and she showed up an'—she had Jingo's head,_ _Milky! She fuckin' threw it at us!"

Your eyes look frantically to Ratty and Jitter, and they're every bit as terrified as you. Heart sinking in your scrawny chest, you get the feeling that you know exactly who "she" is. Not only that, but it underlined that you really were doomed to provoke the quest once a week—even when the rest of them were trying to avoid it, the three of you had gone ahead and waltzed straight into it.

Ratty speaks up. "Wait, but Jingo was in the stocks—doesn't that mean he's not supposed to be part of the quest?"

"Well she sure didn' give a damn about it!" Gekko spits out. She's clutching the damp blanket to herself, and you can see that not only are her already-shabby clothes ruined, but there are ugly-looking burns and wounds all over her. A closer look provokes a perception check, and you see that in addition to the standard stats, she has the wound flags [Moderate Injury: Burns] and [Severe Injury: Broken Arm] under her name. With just the three of you plus a heavily-wounded Gekko and Scars, who you're honestly not sure by this point will wake up even if you try, it's clear that whatever fight is coming your way will be a slaughter.

Your ears pick up noise farther down the sewers, and you cautiously move to the doorway, making sure as little of you is possible as you peer down the tunnels. You can hear them long before you can see them, however. The familiarly-bitchy voice of the paladin is easy to make out, and your worst fears are confirmed.

"Ugh, baaaaaabe! I thought the whole point was like, we get me XP so I can get out of this city and we can get to the cool shit! Can your character even like get XP from this quest anymore?"

"Chill, Val baby. There's plenty of places you can get XP here, we can go grind cellar rats again and you'll be Level 3 in an hour. You said you were bored with these fuckers anyways, so it's not that big a deal; I'm not doing this quest for the XP, I'm doing it for fun."

With that, they round the distant corner and come fully into your view. The paladin is immediately recognizable, and looks pretty much the same as she did last night, but the massive figure coated in furs and heavy, rusted armor is completely unfamiliar to you. You squint to get a better look...

Shooby Valaarien, Level 43 Wildwoods Berserker
Hero, Half-Orc [Half-Elf], Active, Explicit

You were fucked. The perception check wasn't good enough to see how long they had existed for, but to have that high a level in a specialty class like that meant it had to be a_ _significant amount of time. You weren't just going to be killed by her—even a Level 2 would be able to do that—you were going to be fucking obliterated. It would be a miracle if any of you could do even 5 points of damage to her before you were killed. Turning to the others, you don't even need to say anything; the despair in your good eye makes the point clear.

Jitter makes a break for the door, but Gekko lunges for him, grabbing him with her good arm. "Don' try it—she's got throwin' axes, and that's how she got Barber."

And that meant you were cut off, trapped like rats in a hole. Squabbling breaks out immediately, with plans being created, proposed, and dying within a handful of rushed sentences. Ratty wants to fight, to create some sort of ambush in a last stand. Jitter still wants to try and make a break for it. Gekko is contemplating group suicide. And you're scanning the room for somewhere, anywhere you might be able to hide what you took from them. To not only die, but lose the first bit of genuine hope you've had in gods-only-know how long, it's more than you can bear.

As you look around the cave, though, your eye crosses the grate in the ceiling, and a sudden burst of hope fills you. You might, just might, be able to escape after all! You grab the others' attention and quickly form a plan. Standing on Ratty's shoulders, you push against the grate with as much might as you can muster in your feeble body. With a scrape, it pops off and you climb into the alleyway above. Taking the blanket you wrapped around your neck beforehand, you lower it into the cavern and pull up Jitter; the both of you are just barely strong enough to pull Ratty up, and then it's Gekko's turn. As she's climbing through the hole, though, you hear a yell from the berserker.

"Oh no the fuck you DON'T!"

You hear the sickening thunk of a throwing axe hitting its mark. Gekko's eyes shoot wide open and she looks directly at you, making a pained whimper before falling from your arms back into the cave. You hear the ding of a despawned body. Another cry, startled and half-choked this time, followed by another ding marking Scar's demise; he never even woke up from his drunken stupor.

There's no time to mourn them right now. You have to run.