A number of things drive Lavinia’s heart to race and pound. The stench following her is one; suffused through every scrape and crack, staining even the skeletal remains of the many humans sprawled about the maze. Another is the maze itself, its fifteen feet walls and unseen ceiling prey on her nerves. She stalks corners mossed with glittering greens and the fireflies dancing and light labyrinthian paths pulsing crystal veins.
The walls, boundaries really, grew far above her head, twice or thrice the height of what she remembers Lucy to be and thus it towers at least four times Lavinia’s height. Yet, upon winding around corner after corner, a breakage larger and wider than the walls themselves, as though something ploughed through in stampede distresses Lavinia. Whatever it is, it never failed to leave bodies in its wake, broken, shattered and grounded bones. Lavinia could smell fear lingering from its long decayed victims in each path or perhaps that was hers.
There has been so little to infuse her with fear in the days she’s lived. She recalls vaguely the first time she felt her heart clutch in her chest— the balding bird that blasted off her foot and sent her scrambling for safety in a crevasse. Its beak shuffled deep after her, snapping and squawking for a taste before leaving to devour the foot it tore off. And then there was Ken and right after, Henry— he had Ken dead with a word. The same Ken that had brought her to submit with but a stern word and crushing embrace, festering a fear that still lingers, even in these moments.
It doesn’t help that she encountered both within this dungeon and both called themselves Chosen. Lavinia inhales. The stench of the beast hunting her grows stronger in each passing moment— It’s getting close.
Reaffirming her grip on her dagger she exhales the fear with the vile stench, summoning a surge of Essence to flow through her pathways and remind her of the wealth of power she hordes now. She’s different than she was. Stronger, smarter and daring as she’s always been. This place may be a graveyard for humans, their Casters, Chosen and whatever else they title themselves but she is no human. Lavinia won’t die here.
She takes down another corner, finding it extends in an uninterrupted, long and corpse littered corridor. No more corners. Narrowing her eyes, she keeps close to the ground as she prowls forth, scanning the human remains. These bore no clothes and some barely had their weapons and only the strongest steel survived. The first charred skeletal corpse tells her that much.
Blackened till they blend with the ashes along the corridor, every one of the victims were burnt to a crisp. Some Lavinia could still make out and even interact with their bones, but the further along she prowls, the less there is to make of them. Until all that’s left is a vague, person-shaped smoulder staining the ground.
The monster’s growl haunts through the maze. She hears it snorting and stalking as she approaches the end of the corridor where the crashing of waters attempts to drown out the monsters posturing roars. The water forms a dirty lake at her feet but like the stream at the entrance, volumes of it surge upwards, rushing to the meet the unseen ceiling.
The lake it forms or the lake that forms it— Lavinia couldn’t be sure anymore— drowned several skeletal remains within its body, these ones retained their clothes and weapons although broken and bent in places.
The victors. Lavinia muses, respecting them for making it this far even as to her right the maze continues in another long corridor, narrow and struggling for space with the swelling and upward pouring lake. She squints at it, the pulsating light of crystal veins cast a flickering shadow against the waters and along the corridor. It stretches long and wide as the source of the shadow marches forth. Lavinia pushes Essence through her dagger, narrows her eyes and revises her strategies to combat the emerging creature.
A four fingered hand crushes the corridors towering wall as it creeps into view. Stepping out on hooved feet, dragging a long thin and puffed tail behind it. A hulk of a man with fur covered calves, muscled obsidian torso and broad chest peeks out at Lavinia. His, no, its head is that of a beast, one Lavinia’s never seen. It puffs a steamed breath through gritted teeth and flared nostrils. Its head, full of two horns as long as Lavinia’s entire arm; her eyes go wide as its fixes a red-eyed, maddened glare at her and scratches the ground with its hooves.
Lavinia mutters under her breath, keeping still as the skeletal remains beside her, “Inspect.”
[Prince the Minotaur]
Prince rages. Charging with an unhinged madness glinting in its eyes Lavinia’s never seen. It smashes, thrashing at the narrow space and bounding through the distance between them in but a few thunderous steps. Its horn set to skewer through Lavinia and failing that, its hooves to trample her to a squelching mess.
“Crimson Blink!” Lavinia materializes atop a trembling corridor wall and watches the beast charge by. It plough down the walls ahead, splashing through the lake of skeletons, trampling them to nothingness as it continues without looking to stop.
Eyes wide and heart beating paces faster than ever, Lavinia looks out at the thing, the Minotaur, as it comes to a stop and turns in her direction. It towers over all the walls and spots Lavinia atop the one she stands as clearly as she spots it. Gritting her teeth Lavinia prepares for an exhausting tussle and drowns her dagger in Essence, coating it so a shimmer of her manifested power sharpens the edge as well as activates the smog enchantments— one she rarely ever thinks to use. Observing the Minotaur bow into another charge ready pose, its body completely unharmed from the uncountables of crystals and walls it ploughed through. She’s certain every edge in her arsenal will be put to use.
Manifesting a tremendous amount of Essence into her free palm, Lavinia prepares to meet the Minotaur as it begins barrelling back the way it came, pouring puffs of fire and sparks out of its nostrils and mouth and it crashes through more walls as if blind. She commands the Essence to swirl, keeping her position atop the wall as she compresses it into a ball. Into a shot of power waiting to be released.
And then, the moment the Minotaur’s hooves ripple through the lake she lobs the ball of compressed and concentrated Essence, feeling the drain as she roars for it to halt or even slice the beast in half, “Wave Shot!”
Even after pouring three times the normal amount of Essence she required for the perk, Lavinia grits her teeth against the drain and readies herself. Her gut still feels very wrong about this.
The Minotaur charges right at the spiralling ball of Essence, not caring what it might be, only that its horns will pierce and its hooves will crush. Lavinia’s [Wave Shot] slams into the Minotaur, escaping its horns and exploding outward against its human-like chest. The blast knocks the Prince off its feet, sending it back a paces away as it reels.
Capitalizing on the opening, Lavinia materializes above it in a shroud of Essence and blood, “Crimson Blink!” Descending with her Essence drowned dagger, she stabs the Minotaur’s skull, feeling her dagger sink and scratch against its skull. It shrieks an unnatural cry. Quickly, Lavinia commands the smog to take route and seep into it's fracturing skull while she floods Essence into her free arm.
Dangling off the Prince's skull as it thrashes, she commands Essence to strengthen her claws and she dares to punch and claw behind its chest, seeking its heart, “Reais Smite!”
Her claw smites the Minotaur’s impossibly thick hide dispersing Essence that blows its a slice of its flesh apart. Her eyes go wide in surprise and dread as only a trickle of blood and a slice of flesh seep out of the rapidly regenerating muscle. She smites again, summoning even more Essence from her Crystal in frantic smashing. She carves out enough to see its flesh raw and pulsing with dark veins. She readies another smite, seeking to dig through the Minotaur when it grasps her wrists holding onto the dagger.
In a single motion the Minotaur swings Lavinia forward, smashing her into the crystal rich ground like it would a club. Hearing several parts of her body shatter, Lavinia’s eyes go red as blood seeps into them. She blinks, nearly falling unconscious there and then before the scent of blood awakens her to fight once more.
[{Blood Rush} Active!]
