[Dungeon] The endless Maze

[Lucy van Allen]

The walls of the maze are ethereal, passable but draining to the soul when crossed. If one decides to follow the set path, then they will find their fears manifest before them. These apparitions cannot be killed, and must instead be avoided at all costs. The closer a spirit gets to the exit, the more the walls drain and the more powerful and horrifying the apparitions become.

If one succumbs to the maze by having their entire soul drained or consumed by their fears, then they suffer true death, and can no longer return to Entherium. Those who make it out may feel weakened by the experience, but will recover over time... unless they are sent back, and find their soul no better than when they left

[Sheyr]

Danbi, spends a precious moment looking around herself, taking in the surroundings, before bending down and picking up the clapper for Ranna, and placing it into the bell. Moving Nehima to her right hand, and the bell into her left, she begins to walk down, further into the maze.

[Lucy van Allen]

As Danbi enters the maze, a mechanism as old as time itself  activates. In only a matter of seconds, the maze knows everything it needs to know...

"Hihi. This'll be interesting." Death enters the maze behind Danbi and follows her. "I hope you have nothing against company little soul." She puts her scythe on the back and walks besides the kitsune.

[Sheyr]

"Of course not Death, you are always brilliant company, the conversation alone is to die for. . ."

Danbi suddenly stops, eyes narrowed and glancing around, the maze having changed, the ethereal passages replaced, the floor becoming softer, and more yielding. To all intents and purposes it is now a twisted version of the Feywild, dark trees lining the walls limbs seemingly ready to lash out at any who try to pass, eyes set into the bark, staring vehemently out, always following me. The cavernous roof is gone, changed to a canopy of branches alone, forming a facsimile of bars, through it, the sky is a featureless blood red. Though all of this is in itself a fear, it is not a great one, and is in fact one she thinks of often, her focus turns inwards, thinking is this is what her home will be when she returns, does she dare return?

She is shook out of her reverie by a sound, the maze was always supposed to be silent, but now there is a chant, being whispered on the winds themselves.

"This is your fault, why did you have to leave us?"

A question she hears echo in her own mind, and begins to panic walking hurridly along the corridors, towards the next clapper, beginning to doubt her own resolve. After all, she is not supposed to be here, perhaps oblivion would be an easier burden to bear? Then, the apparition appears, out of the leafy ground ahead of her, a hand rises just in time to lightly touch her ankle, and then grip tight. Hauling itself out of the ground, the flesh across its face stretched and pallid, the torso covered in horrific burns. It pulls itself up, out of the ground, forming from the inky blackness, and whispers to Danbi in a haunted voice.

"This is your fault, why did you have to leave us?"

I jump, Ranna is allowed to peal once, a lonely sound, needing to be joined by more, as the wave of tiredness spreads across me, I almost allow it to pass, but the voice again, saves me, even as it tries to doom me, the bell is stilled. And the knife flashes, cutting the hand off at the wrist, and as it reforms, as the creature finally climbs out of the ground, I run, after all, what else could I do? Blindly sprinting down the path, towards the golden glow in the distance that signals the clapper of Mosrael, telling myself that I am running towards my goal. But deep down, I know I'm running from that horrific, voice, that may yet be telling the truth. The last thing that I hear, are those same words, this time, screamed from behind, as I do all I can to block it out.

"Why did you leave us?”

[Lucy van Allen]

"Yeah, why did you leave them Danbi? They seemed really nice. How did you say it before? Oh right! To die for." Death snickers sadistically and grins at the soul. "It was quiet entertaining, tho. Your next fear will definitely be even more of an entertainment..." She snips her fingers and an Electric guitar appears in her hands. "Time for a bit music." With that, she begins to play an ominous melody with the guitar, despite the lack of electricity...

[Sheyr]

Danbi stops running, shortly after the maze changes once more, to the Feywild, though this time to what she remembers it as being, complete with people moving, birds, and other wildlife, though there is still an eerie lack of sound, that is other than the Riff Death is playing on the guitar. After a few moments of catching her breath, Danbi glances around, and realizes what is going to happen next, a mad glint appearing in her eyes.

"Ah hahahaha, I saw this one coming!
Death, do you know what the one thing worse than the aftermath is, because I'm sure you'll find out?"

She screams this at the maze as she turns, slowly going round a half circle. Before going into a dead sprint back the way she came, the orange glow in the distance now revealed for what it truly is, an inferno, burning brightly as it races towards her, sound returns to the illusions, the crackling of the fire, the people screaming for help, but the necromancer does not spare them even a glance, sprinting back, away from all of this. For a moment it is as if she escaped the apparitions entirely, but then the fires form ahead of her, barely managing to stop in time, and turning, running back to a rough halfway point, as others run towards her, burning as they go, reaching out for help only for Danbi to recoil, so they fall short, feet away from salvation.

Danbi collapses to the floor, tears streaming down her face, doing nothing more than sobbing as the fires close in, and the blackened, charred corpses of her friends pile up around her. She glances up as the fires reach in, and makes her choice. No matter the cost, she will continue.

Standing on shaky legs, forcing herself up, the tears dry in seconds from the heat emanated from the fires, looking up, she has left it too late, there is no way she can run through the fire, almost collapsing again, she recalls a passage from the book of the dead. 'The walls of Ertral Vernai are ethereal, passable, but draining to the soul when done.'

With this new revelation, she dashes forwards, into the trees lining the path, weaving through them, but not feeling any drain on herself. Beginning to doubt that the walls truly are passable, even doubting that there are walls, that is, until she walking into one, a row of trees, so close to one another that it is a solid wall. Seeing it, she slows down, and gently hits it, with a loud 'Thunk' Danbi is forced back. Glancing over her shoulder, the fire is hot on her heels, literally seconds away from devouring her. Closing her eyes Danbi focuses, forcing herself to believe that the wall is not there, and that it is a mere mist bank, and she takes a step forwards.

As she does so there is a feeling, a sudden drain on her sense of self, looking down at herself she is, more ethereal and noticeably less solid, still these feelings vanish as she notices the clapper for Mosrael lying on the floor, just in front of her. After attaching it to the bell she takes a moment to look around, and wait once more, for that inevitable comment from Death.

[Lucy van Allen]

"And she fell into a burning ring of fire... and it burnt burnt burnt, the ring of fire! The ring of fire..." With a slight chuckle , the Grim Reaper qoutes this part of a certain song. "What's the problem Danbi? Lacking the soul to go on or what are you waiting for? I could've sworn you were a bit more solid earlier." She winks at the Kitsune and waits for her to move on. "Shush. There's another one waiting for you, soul."

[Sheyr]

"Death you just don't appre . . . Wait, do you hear that? Its like hoof-beats, and . . . oh god."

In the distance a hunting bugle can be heard, and now clearly the baying of foxhounds. In this moment the maze seizes the opportunity, and reforms, back to the burned out, husk of the Feywild it first showed Danbi. Though this time there are no walls, just decimated forest as far as the eye can see.

Naturally, Danbi panics shifting over to a fox in the blink of an eye, and simply bolting away from the noise, for a few short minutes it seems like it worked, but of course she wouldn't be that lucky, as it turns out the hunting party had just been ahead of her, and she had ran from the beaters, falling straight into there trap.

Glancing back and forth, she spies a bolt hole, and runs into it before having time to question the maze's motive, after she gets in, and calms down after a few  seconds, the realization hits, as soon as the dogs get to the entrance, she is trapped, that is until they dig there way in and rend her limb from limb. She could shift, but that would only mean she is crushed instead of being ripped apart, though to some that might be preferable.

The noise of the dogs digging in stops, to be replaced by a worse sound, that of shovels, cutting through the earth, it is now that the inevitability of the situation sinks in, running about the warren she cant find another exit, well, she dosent find one she can use.

Though she does see a soft yellow glow in the distance, and dashes towards it, knowing that if it is the bell she is saved, approaching it, only meters out, a shovel blade slices in through the roof of the tunnel, almost cleaving her in twain, though there is a larger issue at hand, one of the dogs got in, and stands in her way.

There is only one choice, which she takes, leaping at the undead hound, not bothering to fight it, simply trying to get past, and she does, but it follows, and as she reached the glow, now confirmed to be the clapper for Kibeth, it bites down on her rear leg, eliciting a sharp yowl of pain. Fortuitously, the room containing the clapper is large enough for a person, and she shifts back as it bites down.

Grabbing the clapper, and the bell, as the beast is in the air diving at her neck, after all, it recognises the bell and sees what the stakes are. As it tries to bite down, she touches the clapper to the bell, and it rings, but it isn't a single note, it's a series of them, the one ring somehow changing to a jaunty tune, that compels those who hear it to move, the hound simply freezes in mid air, and the maze returns to the old, grey passages that it was near the entrance, and a slight breeze comes from a white light that lies in the distance.

Still ringing the newly forged Kibeth, she forces the undead hunting party ahead of her, to march into one of the walls of the maze, and then out, and then back in, for as long as it takes for whatever passes for there soul to be snuffed out. The task at hand completed, she allows herself a moments respite, and checks the injury to her left leg.

[Lucy van Allen]

"You know, if you'd have stayed in a human shape, they wouldn't have hunt you..." Death grins and waves with the right hand, creating a cup of tea out of nowhere. "Tea time! One of the best inventions one could imagine..." The Reaper takes a sip and looks at Danbi. "You know what Silvertounge? If you manage to survive the maze twice, this time included, I'll invite you to a tea at my place! And maybe a game of chess..." Death looks around and sighs. "Wonder what the next'll be..."

[Sheyr]

"Ahh, Death always the generous host, I shall return again to claim the remainder of my tools and I shall remember the offer, till then adieu."

Danbi turns to leave, walking towards the bright light in the distance, and as she gets closer the colour of the walls change, almost becoming unbearably bright, and the maze seems to slop upwards, then she is gone, vanishing back into the world above.

A shimmer passes through the maze, and it almost seems to, cough, the air twisting as it does so, and Danbi is back, standing next to Death again.

"Ahh, Death always the generous host, I shall return again to claim the remainder of my tools and I shall remember the offer, till then adieu."

Before turning to leave, much as the one before her.

[Lucy van Allen]

"...Okay. That was a bit unusual. But not surprising. So two souls. Hm. I'll talk with her about that the next time. For now... Dinner." Death turns around to the two new souls, one stabbed in the back by Corvus Silver, the other one felled by his own sword...

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