“Carl, how did you do that?” Donut demanded.
My boxers and kneepads were now on the outside of the costume. My jacket remained on the inside, but my cloak was around my neck and flapping in the wind.
I could feel it there against my junk. It felt and smelled like my naked skin was pressed up against the body of a wet farm animal. The whole costume quivered as if it were alive.
What the hell?
Warning: Your boxer effects have been negated by your costume.
Warning: Your pedicure effects have been negated by your costume.
I pulled a banger sphere from my inventory, praying it would appear outside the costume and not in my hand, under thecovering of the skin. Thankfully, the sphere appeared in the paw, though it immediately rolled away.
The boss was trying to get up. Donut hit it with another magic missile.
Even prone like this, the boss continued to heal itself. It seemed to have a never-ending supply of dead joeys to consume. It had one of the gremlins in its grip, but he squeezed too tight, and the poor monster exploded.
“Baby!” Prison Pocket called forlornly. It grasped for the scattered NPCs. One of the original gremlins dragged himself across the hail-covered grass, trailing blood. I’d missed how he’d been injured.
“I’m ready,” I called as I adjusted the costume. The wide head of the dead joey sat awkwardly atop my own head.
Okay, here we go.
I turned to run at the boss.
I promptly fell on my face.
Warning: Oh, I’m sorry. Let’s see you do this when you can’t walk. You want to be a kangaroo so bad? Then I guess you gotta act like one.
“This was your goddamned setup!” I called.
The other giant kangaroo demon exploded into mist. Dwight the unicorn, still at the top of the hill, was cheering so loudly, I could hear it from here. His bundle of vines burst off the hill and rocketed away along their track. He was followed closely by the dog, chasing after his lost riders.
I pulled my bandanna up. I prepared the two hobgoblin big boom satchels in my inventory. I looked down at my feet. At my large, sagging kangaroo feet.
I hopped.
“Yes, yes, little joey!” the boss shouted as he spied me. He remained on his back. “Come to papa’s pouch! It’s warm and safe and oh so moist!”
I leaped one more time, flying higher and farther than I’d anticipated. I landed with a splatch directly on the outside of his pouch. I tried to stand, but I couldn’t get my balance. It was like trying to walk on a waterbed.
I needed to get to the lip of the pouch, and then I had to get all the way to the bottom of the pocket, where I would drop the two satchels.
“Here, here, little one, let me help you,” Prison Pocket roared as he grabbed me.
“Gah!” I said as I was snatched up and smushed face-first into the gooey interior of the pouch.
I choked, and my face started to burn. I couldn’t see anything. Luckily, the costume came with claws, and I started to pull myself downward.
Donut: CARL, CARL, ARE YOU OKAY?
It was like trying to pull myself through warm jelly. I was in the suit, burning.
It smelled. Oh god, it smelled so bad. Like rotten meat mixed with the sharp vinegar tang of fruit juice left out too long.
I grasped, and I pulled, and pulled, and pulled, going ever deeper into the kangaroo’s pouch.
There were things in here, getting in my way, bouncing off my face. Bones. More corpses of joeys. A toolbox. I pulled, and I grasped, dragging myself down.