July 21, 2020

  Waldo and Mara both inspect the hole that has been uncovered by the trapdoor. Mara finds a small pebble right next to her and picks it up. She puts it over the hole and drops the pebble. After waiting for a few seconds, she can just faintly hear the pebble, signifying just how deep the hole is underground. She looks at the metal ladder on the side, but it’s been badly rusted. She doesn’t trust that ladder with her life. It’s definitely going to crumble with her and Waldo on it. Suddenly, as she thinks about what to do, Waldo uses his foot to push Mara down into the hole. She gasps for a little bit, confused by what is happening, before quickly falling down the hole. She screams for a couple of seconds, but gets her composure together. Mara activates her cursed technique and uses the air around her to slow her fall. Her descent gradually slows down but the ground is coming into her sight. Thankfully, when Mara lands, she does not take any damage. She moves out of the way just before Waldo jumps down into the hole and lands perfectly fine.

  “You didn’t have to push me down, you know.”

  “Well, it seemed that you weren’t able to make a decision fast enough. If you are not able to make a decision, be prepared to have it done for you. You’ll find that to be a rather useful skill in the feature. After all, humans are unpredictable creatures. You never know when they might drag you along into hell.”

  “You… have a point. I’ll keep that in mind, Waldo.”

  Waldo and Mara look ahead. What lies in front of them is a large, wide, and dark hallway. The roof is high and there are no lights around. Waldo looks around for anything suspicious but there is nothing to see. Mara has a bit of difficulty seeing far up ahead. Her senses are definitely not as great as Waldo’s, which is a given. Waldo just begins to walk forward. The cursed energy presence that they both feel is in that direction, so why stop moving? Mara follows Waldo, walking behind him. She may not be able to see as well as he can, but she trusts him enough to know his way. As they continue to walk across the large hallway, the walls and ground open up to reveal booby traps. However, before they can even proceed to attack Waldo and Mara, Waldo quickly destroys them with a single flick of his finger. Shockwaves are fired that disable all of the traps. Waldo just huffs in ‘that was dumb’ and keeps walking. Mara steps over the traps carefully and continues following Waldo. Eventually, Waldo sees a very faint light at the end of the hallway.

  (It must be the person that is controlling all of this. What an annoying little location they chose to be a recluse.)

  Waldo and Mara walk towards the end of the hallway. When they take another step further, more traps appear from the walls and floor. Lasers are aimed at Waldo, who pretty much looks as unamused as he can get. Mara hides behind him, not wanting to get caught by the lasers. Waldo just sighs and fires shockwaves at the traps. They are quickly destroyed and turn off without any trouble.

  “This is stupid. Why does a human think that small traps like these will be of any use? It would make even less sense if this person were to be a curse. How idiotic.”

  Mara continues listening to Waldo as she walks. He speaks random curses and swears that she’s never heard of before, but she decides not to question what they mean. The two of them reach the end of the hallway, therefore the light, and it’s revealed to be an iron door. Waldo grabs the edge of the iron door and rips it right off the wall. After having to go through those tedious and unnecessary traps, he’s ready for some action. However, when they both enter the room, Mara is surprised to see that there is only an old lady in the room. She’s sitting with her back facing towards them. She stares at a small pot of gold in her hands. Mara stares at the pot of gold for a few moments. It’s incredibly shiny, and it’s such an intricate piece of work. Waldo starts walking forward and curling his hand into a fist.

  “So, you must be the human that was controlling all of the others above. Who would have thought that you were just a shriveled up old plant.”

  Waldo takes a look around the room. There's gold everywhere you look. To his left, to his right, there was gold in every direction. This old human must have some kind of obsession with gold to have this much of it to herself. Oh well, she’s going to die very soon anyway. There’s no point in dwelling on what she likes. Waldo appears right before the old lady. He can hear the old lady mumbling something to the pot of gold in her hands. Is she that obsessed with gold that she’s talking to it now?

  (Whatever. It’s time to end this tedious little ride.)

  Waldo lifts up his fist and pulls it in for a punch. However, in the corner of his eye, he sees something speed towards him. He turns around and quickly blocks it. When he sees what he just blocked, his eye widens. Mara has attacked Waldo just now, and her eyes are golden just like the pot of gold.

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  Waldo steps back and his expression begins to twist up with confusion and anger. Mara looks up at Waldo and stares at him. Her eyes are no longer their original color, but are now gold. Now that he recalls, the other humans that were on the surface also had some kind of golden eyes. However, they weren’t entirely golden like Mara’s eyes are, they had more of a brownish-yellow hue to them. He doesn’t have a clue if the color of the eye means anything, but he knows that the color of the eye changing definitely has something to do with it. He stares at the old lady holding the pot of gold. She’s now sitting with her face towards the two of them. Her eyes are also the same golden color as Mara’s.

  (The golden eyes are a part of her cursed technique! But how did she activate it? Mara didn’t come in contact with her at all. Could it be a separate condition that is hard to distinguish? Ah, forget it! I won’t have to worry about the details if I take out the old hag first!)

  Waldo dashes towards the old lady and begins to reel in a punch. Mara spots him charging towards her and tries to intervene, but her speed is not enough to catch up with Waldo. And so, Waldo throws a powerful and quick punch at the old lady. Suddenly, just before his fist comes in contact with her, the old lady’s body turns into solid gold that is incredibly hard. Waldo hits the gold but deals hardly any damage. His eye flares with anger at this and turns around. Mara is heading right at him and goes into the air for a drop kick. Waldo catches Mara’s leg midair and slams her onto the ground. Surprisingly, Mara recovers incredibly quickly and actually manages to land a strike on Waldo. This strike that she lands has much more cursed energy packed into it than anything she has been able to produce before. She shouldn’t have this much cursed energy. What’s happening?

  Waldo takes a jump back but then spins on the ball of his foot and spins around for a kick at Mara. Mara is narrowly able to dodge it, only having her cheek grazed by the ends of Waldo’s foot. Waldo scoffs and appears right in front of her. He grabs Mara’s face and continues to run forward. They eventually collide with the wall with full force and Mara’s blood scatters. Waldo lets go of Mara's head, thinking that collision was enough to knock her out of it. However, his guard has gone down and Mara grabs his chest. Before Waldo is able to remove her hand from him, his body suddenly becomes engulfed in a devastating fire. Mara’s golden eyes continue to become more and more golden with each passing moment. They shine in the light of the flames surrounding Waldo. However, they also witness a cerulean hue from within the inferno.

  Waldo’s blue eye gradually gets brighter and brighter within the fire. Mara’s face begins to shrink in fear. Her eyes widen as they watch Waldo come out of the fire nonchalantly. Waldo’s body suddenly flashes blue and shockwaves are fired at all directions. The fire is neutralized from the power of the shockwaves and Waldo stands there in front of Mara, staring down at her. Mara grits her teeth and jumps up at Waldo. Waldo stands there, awaiting her strike. Mara channels all of her cursed energy towards her fist. When she throws her punch, Waldo sees something unexpected. In the blink of an eye, sparks of black and red scatter everywhere and Mara’s punch suddenly distorts. Her fist comes in contact with Waldo’s face.

  Black Flash!

  Mara’s face fully swings. Waldo’s body gets sent flying from the amount of power and he crashes into the wall. The room shakes just a bit as Waldo hits the wall. All of the golden decorations in the room rumble with the shaking. Waldo sits there on the floor with his back against the wall. The old lady continues to behold her pot of gold. Her cursed technique is called Golden Possession. Any human that puts their eyes on the golden artifacts she has made are put into a trance that allows her to take full control over their body and mind. Depending on other factors, she may even be able to lend them cursed energy and/or boost their cursed energy output. The old lady has used binding vows in order to make her possession of Mara even more effective. She will only be able to possess Mara with the range of her cursed technique, but she will be given considerable power. Also, she will not be able to move during the time that she is possessing Mara, but her body will become golden once she is in danger just like what happened when Waldo was about to attack her.

  Mara quickly runs over to where Waldo is sitting. She stares down at him with a golden glint. Her face grows a smirk and she chuckles a little bit. Her hands begin to glow, signifying the activation of Mara’s cursed technique. Her hand draws closer to Waldo’s body, but Mara is suddenly kicked across the chin. In that instant, she is also hit once more on the jaw. Both her jaw and chin are broken by the power of the strikes, and she falls on the floor on her back. When she looks up, she sees Waldo holding a golden knife.

  “There’s a chance that your senses are shared with Mara as well. If you can feel what she feels, there is no possible way that a human like you will be able to endure pain like this.”

  Waldo suddenly plunges the golden knife straight into Mara’s body. Mara screams out loud in terror and blood begins gushing out from the wound. Waldo starts to smile a little bit, thinking that his plan will work. He looks up at the old lady and sees that her hands are trembling. Her face has a slight shadow of fear to it. She is definitely able to feel what is happening. In a last act of desperation, however, the golden eyes of the old lady shine bright. Waldo suddenly feels the knife inside of Mara being tugged. Mara quickly gathers up more and more strength to pull the knife out. Cursed energy is imbued into the golden knife and she kicks Waldo away. Waldo manages to block the kick, but when he looks back at Mara his eye is suddenly stabbed by the golden knife.