Labyrinth (2)
It had been 3 hours since Ether’s party started following Hex’s Foresight trait.
“I want to go left, but my gut tells me this way.”
After what felt like an eternity, Silvia finally woke up.
*yawn*
“Morning, Silvia had a good sleep.”
Ether spoke in a gentle tone. Silvia nodded in response.
“That's great. Do you mind getting off…”
Before he could continue speaking, Silvia’s claw moved to and hovered over his neck, stopping his sentence.
“Say that again and I’ll make your head roll.”
Silvia didn't want to get off. Why? Ether does not know.
“Okay, never mind then.”
“Shhhhh”
Hex urged them to stay quiet and then pointed around the corner. Ether, looking around the corner, saw the Minotaur.
Name: Minotaur Height: 9,0
Age: 23 Race: Human/Bull
It had the head of a bull but the full body of a man.
Eye of Ra
(You are not ready to face him. Avoid conflict if possible.)
Almost immediately after I looked at him, it turned to face us.
We both put our backs to the wall, holding our breath in hopes it didn't spot us.
Silvia, of course, was not pleased with being pinned to the wall, so she opened her maw and attempted to bite Ether.
Ether knowing the danger covered his mouth and offered his other arm as a sacrifice to keep her quiet. With a few tears in the corner of his eyes, he endured the pain from Silvia’s bite until the Minotaur walked past them.
Once they stopped hearing his footsteps, he finally relaxed and started to breathe.
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Somehow manages to get Silvia off him and gets her to open her jaws, revealing his chew toy of an arm covered in blood and saliva.
Ether didn't need an explanation from her; he knew why she did it, but that didn't help the pain.
“Sorry, but you didn't let me breathe.”
For the first time since Ether knew her, Silvia had a genuine look of remorse on her face, or as close a werewolf could make.
And of course, Silvia explains anyway there is no way she could read Ether's mind.
“It's fine.”
As Ether responded, he took out a roll of bandages and wrapped them around his chewed-up arm.
`This isn't the first time I've had to bandage my mangled arm’
Ether was reminded of something, but quickly he stopped, wanting to forget those times.
“You sure you’re okay?”
Hex asked in a concerned tone.
“Yes, let’s keep moving, we want to avoid that thing if we can.”
“I would, but my gut is telling me to go the same way the Minotaur”
Hex proclaimed his intentions while Ether finished wrapping his blood-soaked arm.
“So you want to follow the thing we're meant to avoid?”
“Yes”
*inhale*
*exhale*
Ether took a deep breath, though of how to best approach this.
Currently, only two options are reasonable to him, but he isn't alone. Looking at the party, Hex is relatively weak, himself being focused on magic rather than physical combat, and Silvia is the only one who can fight the thing head-on.
He would need to work with them if he had a chance of beating the thing.
“So what do you think we should do? We could follow it like a shadow or try to kill it.”
“Let's kill it.”
Without Pause, Silvia responded almost immediately. Her wolf-like snout grinned at the thought of killing.
Hex, on the other hand, was in deep thought about his response, or at least that’s what it looked like.
“My gut says to kill it, but how could we do that?”
Ether thought of the question proposed. How would they kill it? It outmatches them if the monsters running away from the labyrinth were anything to go off of.
`Ambushing the thing would give them an advantage, but it wouldn't be enough on its own? The only thing left would be to set up traps, but they didn't have the materials for that.’
“I'm stumped. I can't think of a way to do it right now. Maybe I’m just tired and can’t think straight.”
Hex responded
“Now that I think about it, what was the Minotaur looking at?”
Turning the corner once more to see a crack in the wall, it was narrow enough that the Minotaur couldn't enter, but wide enough for humanoids to squeeze through.
“Should we look inside?”
Hex asked, unsure of what to do. Ether responded to his uncertainty.
“Why shouldn't we? If it finds it interesting, it could be something that could help.”
Looking inside the crack was the small light of a torch. It's light reflecting off a decomposing corpse, too rotten to decipher what the creature was during its life.
“Oh god.”
Hex exclaimed in shock.
“He he”
Silvia just laughed, presumably at the smell of the corpse.
“…”
Ether was not surprised or pleased with the corpse, but he was interested in what it had.
Mining equipment doesn't sound like much, but more specifically, the large amount of rope it carried was perfect for making traps, and the pickaxe was perfect for acquiring the rest of the materials.
“This seems like the best place to set up camp.”
However, his lack of stamina was catching up with him and stopping him from thinking strategically and thinking about rest.
Hex responded to this comment.
“How could you even think of that? There’s a fucking corpse right there.”
“Then we just remove it; I don’t see the issue here.”
As they argued, Ether noticed that Silvia entered before them. Somewhat panicking, he stopped conversing and followed the Vorstag into the narrow passage. As he did so, Ether asked Hex.
“Do you have a better idea? Can you even think straight with how tired you are?”
Hex had no response and followed the two into their temporary camp.
___________________________________
“Finally done.”
Chaos finally finished his anomaly alterations; details are fuzzy at best, but the effect of his changes to this anomaly would allow for a greater chance of success.
Only in anomalies would they be able to intervene in any way, but due to the scale of this dungeon, he believed it would be fine to go as far as he had.
“With safe zones spread throughout the dungeon, it should lessen the number of deaths that are occurring if I did it right.”
`Wait, don’t I have to make a reason for their existence? Eh, I’m sure it will sort itself out.’
