Welcome to Gaia! ::

The golem was now in terrible disarray, though the defensive walls were actually standing against the shadowlings relatively well.

Chance reached out and patted Otto's shoulder consolingly.

"Don't worry," he said cheerfully. "After this we can go do something else to get your mind off of it so we don't have horrible princess Harrison golem nightmares."

"Nothing will bleach that golem from my head." Otto grumbled, wondering if he'd feel better by adding more scary scarecrows around Harrison; just to block him fro view. He left the safe point to go add bricks to the walls.

Coming back, he grimaced at Harrisson, reaching up to pull the veil over it's face.

Otto looked at Chance curiously. "Better be pretty good to wipe this clean from my head." Harrison Hughes in a tattered princess dress whining and pouting would stain like wine on a white shirt. Unless Chance planned on making Otto down a shot of bleach, that one was staying a while.

He watched the aftermath with Chance from safety, and counted how many waves they had gone through on his hand. "Was that five?" He asked, uncertain. "I think five is the minimum.." He wondered if this would clear him to use more runic tech. He'd only ever gotten cleared to use the torch, which had come in handy all of once. However, that one time saved a lot of asses on the field. He'd thought himself fairly clever.

"Ohya. If you ever wanna get rid of famine bugs in a flash? Use a runic torch. Lights them ******** up good."

"I ain't explored the caves here before." Otto murmured, but then seemed to blanche at the idea. Caves were dark, right? Pitch black, perhaps. He had his artifact though. With that, he'd see any danger before it came. Still... "Or um... just the beaches... They got stuff in the sand sometimes." Yeah, definitely better than caves. He felt himself tremble just thinking about it.

"You're welcome. They're nasty, and really dangerous." He spoke gravely, the scar covered by a tattoo on his neck suddenly itching and burning at the memory. That feeling never numbed or dulled. It followed him every time the memory surfaced. And that had only been one of the times he'd had close encounters with the bugs. He remembered the slow healing of his ankles after swarms of them ate away at his flesh when he'd tried to find an artifact to save Nevada.

Otto began to move with Chance, leaving the training centre; the wails of Princess Harrison long behind him.

"To think.. we only survive so long here cause of the weapon bond. Normal humans'd never handle one tenth of what we suffer."

The joke fell on deaf ears, as Otto fell quiet about it. His mouth in a thin line, and his gaze keeping just ahead. He didn't make a sound again until Chance spoke last. He shook his head lightly, pulling his hood up once they got outside.

"Weren't you." He murmured honestly. "You didn't do nuthin'."

"I like the beach. That'll be fine."

"Either or.." He murmured, more self conscience and embarrassed to be worried about the dark in a cave then anything. It was so childish. Yet any time he told himself he needed to be brave, and strong, and just go for it; he'd tremble. Back off. Walk away. Run. As always he'd run. But it was just so hard not to. Running away was what he did. He specialized in it for Christ's sake.

Otto breathed in, steeling his will.

"No. Let's go to the cave." He said with wavering bravery. He ran from everything because he never fought it. He went with it, and let himself be ashamed of it. He let it be.

"I'ma let you in on somethin' I prefer to keep to myself." He said as they got closer to the beach. "There's a fear I'm never able to get over, and that's one of the reasons I didn't wanna go to the cave."

Otto nodded.

"Caves are bad for two reasons. One of which is.. they're usually pitch dark." He stuffed a hand into his hunter's coat pocket and pulled out a pair of blue, glowing sunglasses. "I got an artifact that can give me night vision. But I still get frozen just thinkin' about goin' someplace I can't see."

As for the other reason..

"Dungeons and caves remind me of a few places were things went wrong. Remember I talked about Horsemen?" He murmured, shifting his shoulder in discomfort. "I got locked away in one of their dungeons for over a month, once."

Otto shook his head slowly. "It's okay. It's why I decided to tell you." Lest they run into more awkward moments like this. His steps slowed with Chance's, and then stopped entirely. He didn't want to go in there. Not at all.

"I don't wanna go in." He said honestly, his eyes wide. "But I run from everything."

This was dumb. I should run.

Run, run, just walk away.