Tomb of the Lost

[Sharei]

[OOC: Draggo agonizes over Hau's death and then sees the giant sword-wielding set of armor. He stops being able to function and just stares at it, pale and afraid, as he is shoved into the room with it. He has a panic attack.]

[MP]

Almost everyone:
Sara's items: human effigy (2), general's sword
Kira's items: carved fragment
Draggo's items: broken flint necklace, sturdy rope, scholar's notes (1, 2), hideous cake (3), runed heart, simple knife, seeing stone

The scarred man looks to Sara. Then to the opposite hallway. He says nothing. Judging from the old scars and the more recent patches of rot still scarring his neck, perhaps he can't. Instead, he kneels beside the fallen knight, running a hand over the ruined plate - over the gaping cavity, where a runed lump at the center of the chest has been split down the middle. There's no apprehension in his face. He shakes his head, looking almost sad. Then he retrieves a shard of rubble from his feet. 

The man looks up at them. Strikes the hand of the dead knight with the shard. The stone splits on the impact, not leaving so much as a scratch. Then he points at Sara - points at the blade in her hand. Mimes stabbing it downward on the hand. He raises his head, staring pointedly across at the remaining knight.  

Outside, the wall of grey slithers closer, cresting the first tier. Then the second. Stairs vanish one by one beneath a thousand crusted arms, and a serpentine, mutated grey can be seen merging in and out of the body of it. Parts of a single whole. The entity masses higher. Crests above them, the many mouths yawning and closing as if in anticipation. It's reached the top of the stairs now. Crawls to the very edge of their platform. And there it stops.

The crusted edges seethe over stone. Testing. Withering back. The entity seems unable to approach the sun door. It encircles the highest tier, concave at the center, lingering closer along the edges of the walls. Through the constant agony in his head, Ari can feel that it's still gaining ground. One flake, one pustule time. But its progress is so incremental that its progress is all but unnoticeable. The group doesn't appear to be in immediate danger. The sense of hunger - of frustration - is a palpable taste in the air. The boy watches it all from his place by the sun door, as still and unseeing as a corpse.

In the new hallway, the silence has broken. The burbat and dragon have crossed the threshold. Their noises hang in the empty air. And with a groan of ancient joints, the knight answers.

The great notched sword lifts from its resting place, the flames licking silently along its edge. The knight steps forward into a ready stance. Then, with a crash of plated boots, it begins moving toward them. Slow. Heavy. Gaining speed. The sound of its footsteps echo eerily in the enclosed space. 

The longer she holds the scarred effigy, the more Sara's burns have gradually improved. By now, the wounds no more painful than a minor kitchen burn. But the same may not be true for the others in a moment. The living knight is cumbersome, clearly reliant on size and momentum and the cramped confines of its hallway. But there's a deadly weight behind its movements. If it reaches her small companions, if it lands a blow, no amount of healing in the world is likely to save them.



Edge:
Items: broken knife (2), silver chain, grey vial

The first thing Edge hears as the door opens is the garbled baying of hounds. Two blackened shapes are snarling at him, rasping breaths through withered gums and yellow teeth. The hounds are submerged to the neck in the residue, gestured toward him by the half buried mummy behind them. Helpless to reach him. The residue has buried unknown mounds on the righthand side of the room, and it piles almost two feet high at the lowest points on the floor. The crust is simply too thick for the hounds to make proper headway. Too crowded.

All around the room, there are towering shapes pulling from the residue, parts of a single distorted whole. One crusted grey. Then another. And another still, until there are five in all. From what he can gauge from their featureless heads and shapeless bodies, the entities seem to have been moving toward the door in the lefthand wall - the only other exit. Now, however, they're turning after him. Moving toward him with the same brainless quality of a creeper growing toward sunlight. Some are too far to reach him yet. But others seem to have entered the room not moments before and are standing by Edge's door. The nearest, the largest, is a massive growth. Raised to its full height, it piles across the entire left side of the room, half engulfing its smaller brethren. This and one of the smaller entities reach out as Edge enters the room. The two greys - one with a distorted human hand, the other with an amoebic wave of sludge - close around each of Edge's legs.

The corruption is an agony in Edge's head. The corrosive touch of the entities sears deep into his legs, through the skin, eating steadily into muscle. And the entities are pulling at him with a horrific strength, threatening to drag him down. Should they succeed, should Edge fall and be submerged within the residue, it will surely mean his death. Even if he keeps his feet, failing to escape the entities' grip will soon leave him unable to run - easy prey for the residue or the hounds still struggling toward him.

The overgrown piles just to his right may offer some kind of tool if he's willing to risk time and flesh to dig through the corrosive crust. On the other hand, he may be able to fight through the door and escape, provided he can fight free of the dual grip.

[jarahamee]

[Cassius stares back at the others, and then, after a strange moment, relaxes and hails them, stepping away from the hole in the wall behind him to give him some space. He also searches for something to wield as a weapon against them.]

The Beast surged out of the tunnel, turning about quickly after it exited, as if to ensure that nothing came out behind it, surging upright in a burst of pain. When it was satisfied nothing followed it out of the tunnel, it stepped away and into the center of this strange room, searching briefly for a weapon and something to bind its wounds. Its legs were bleeding, and it would need to apply pressure... But there was no cloth to do so. Well, some cloth, but it was hardly clean anymore.
Briefly, that is, until before it noticed the two persons staring at it. A scarred man, like itself, followed by a sad-looking boy.

Cassius recognized a fellow warrior in that moment, and the Beast reluctantly retreated back to the corners of his mind. The Beast disliked speaking to strangers, and these were strangers who needed to be spoken to. Its nonexistent hackles rose, and the expression that greeted the two newcomers was blank and bestial for a moment, and then softened. When he spoke, his voice was gruff, almost rusty-sounding.

"What's chasing you? There's a monster in the tunnel behind me."

He was as straightforward as he could be. He spent no time dwelling on what had happened before. He could think about the nightmares he witnessed later.

As far as he could tell, people were running here, there and everywhere, and were possibly running away from something pursuing them. This was a familiar room, and he knew how to navigate his way out, but did he want to? And then...he saw the woman in the far hall, Aaron's lover... Someone he recognized, moving with purpose. But that was far from him, and this was now. He focused on the present.

Then, the group convened. There was no time to answer questions, they had to move, and from what the scarred man showed them, they had to break the knight open and take out the crystal heart. 

"We have to pry open the chest piece and take out the heart to get the key-sword. Your sword might accomplish this task."

He makes a half-grimace face, and looks past them. 

"I can help distract it...So you can land your blows." 

He was already moving with purpose. 

[tsukikoko]

[OOC: Sara tries to call Ari back, especially when it’s clear how upset he is and that they’re relatively safe from the goo creatures near the sun door. Is glad of Cassius' offer to help but realises Draggo and Kira are in with the big sword-wielder. Screams at them to get back and runs for the hallway with Draggo/Kira in it. Tries to put herself between them and the sword-wielder before it reaches them, smacks Draggo back with her tail since he seems frozen by panic and tries to stab it like the scarred man indicated.]

[NightshadeVII]

[OOC: Edge screams, trying to muffle the sound, and struggles to get away from the goo monsters (rolls 17). If he gets away he will sprint for the door at the other end of the hallway. He will use his tail and wing to boost himself and spare his legs as much as possible.]

Regret was instant the moment Edge entered the hallway. Residue was everywhere, pressing against him from all around, forcing back mental barriers, or whatever remained of them at least. Distantly, yet not so far off, Edge could hear dogs barking, and yet, they couldn’t reach him because if the residue. Not yet at least.
What worried him most, however, were the massive figures in the room, moving slowly and mindlessly. An uncontrollable chill ran down his spine as he noticed how they had begun moving towards him now. He had to get out of here, and he had to get out of here now.

However, the Darai didn’t get a chance to exit the room, before the greys’ “hands” closed around his legs. The agony was instant, like a burning wave, an acidic fever in his veins, it felt like it split muscles, corroding them through simple touch. Carrion invading living flesh. An unwelcome guest. And the agony was unbearable.
Edge screamed, but quickly shut his mouth and grit his teeth, incase there were other creatures here that might hear him. He didn’t want to be heard. And yet, he still screamed his throat raw, behind lips pressed into a thin line. His world began to blur, eyes wetting with salty tears streaming down his face. His mind ablaze, he couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. What was he even supposed to do about this? What could he do?

He could barely see through eyes full of tears, but quickly blinked that away, as raw survival instincts kicked in. Eyes darting around, he looked for something to help him, to pull himself away with. There was a pile, but it was under the residue, and would only cause more injury. He didn’t have time for this.
So he began to struggle, violently, like a caged animal. All he knew was that he needed to get out. He had to get out, otherwise he was dead. And that death wouldn’t be quick and painless, that much was certain. He tried to pull his legs out of the greys’ grips, tried smacking them away with his tail, anything he could think of.

If he managed to get himself out of it, he would waste no tim sprinting towards the door at the end of the hallway. Using his wings and tail to boost himself forward where he could, a singleminded focus on getting out of this horrible room, and away from the terrible creatures in it.

[Pearl Dragon]

[Kira is scared by all the things
and tries to get Sara and company to not attack the armor dude.]


Kira watched with widening eyes as the knight shifted and then began to lumber towards them. Each of its footfalls felt and sounded heavy, and Kira immediately started to back up the way she'd come. The woman screamed behind her, to which Kira spun suddenly in shock and fear. She ducked to the side as the woman pushed her way through and then nailed the newest young man with her tail in a forceful push backwards. Kira pressed herself to the wall and edged towards the doorway before yet another individual, a taller scarred man, strode past. His sudden appearance earned another terrified cry from Kira. Everything was a rush of activity; the heavily armored thing stomping down the hall, the shadowy mass now forming all around them that she could see forming in the gallery, and the newcomers who had congregated into the current group.



Kira crumpled, trembling, as the enormity of everything finally began to crack inside of her like a dam losing its fight with a river. She struggled with her maddening thoughts, eyes darting all around in a desperate search for a way out. She was so certain that the key would have been their escape, but once again it had only led them into more mysterious and possibly dangerous areas. Kira's eyes swept across towards door, watching as the shadows swelled into undulating masses of mouths just outside in the gallery.


As the man and woman moved towards the armored creature in an aggressive manner, Kira's heart sank. She rushed forward, grasping desperately at the woman, bleating and pulling at the woman's hip and tail in urgency. "No! No!" She begged, tears streaming once more from her eyes.  She was uncertain if it was the right thing to do, but was also still worried that the armored thing might be there to help them. Nothing changed the fact that she was still terrified of it, but she couldn't just stand idly by while the others attacked it.

[kilnarak]

[ Ari continues to be useless. He cries in the corner. Eventually he manages to get up and tries to examine the fallen construct for anything that might help. ]

There wasn't anything he could do. They disappeared when he left this room, he would be no help to them against the giant construct. Worse, there was nowhere left to run. The serpentine thing blocked the way he had come from, likely blocked the tunnel in the wall in this room. While something seemed to have stopped it here, it was still moving forward, a hair's-breadth at a time, flake by flake. There was no escaping it, not unless they got the door open.

The others in the room rushed out into the hall to confront the towering construct-knight, but Ari remained crouched in the corner by the fallen one. His heart still hammered in his chest, his head pounding, his breath choking in his throat. He made himself small in the corner, wrapping arms around himself, hugging his knees to his chest and trying his best to disappear against the side of the fallen construct. What could he do? There was nothing. All he could do was die.

Ari's arms tightened around himself and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will himself to wake up, to be anywhere but here. It was of little use. Finally, after the others had left the narrow room, he forced himself to let go, to get up. He gripped at the fallen armored thing beside him, pulling himself up. Then he turned to regard it through teary eyes, to examine the corpse, to search for anything that could help them, could help him. Was there anything in the gaping hole of it's chest? Or perhaps some sign of weakness in it's armor?

[jarahamee]

[Cassius picks up a handful of rubble and junk from the 'dead' knight and goes to help distract the Key Sword knight with it to give Sara an opening. He is then stopped by Kira and attempts to drag her to safety and stop her from impeding Sara. ]

"Hey, over here!"

He threw a piece of rubble at the thing to draw its attention, hoping to allow the little creature escape, and to allow Sara an opening. His legs hurt, but he admitted that he rather relished the feeling. It was the feeling of being alive. No time to bind his wounds. He would endure. It would not kill him, it would merely hurt him, which was something he could endure. He ignored the sticky, unpleasant feeling of the blood on his legs. It was nothing, and he had to focus.

This knight might kill him, but it was more likely it would reach the others first. He could not allow that. This was a narrow hallway, but he had to be able to get it to pay attention to him.

And then he noted the small bat-like creature running towards Sara, aiming to stop or slow her... This was a delay that might be the end of them. They had no time. Cassius paused, reconsidered his mission, and attempted to pry her away from Sara, and drag her to safety.

"...This way is safe...That thing is deadly. We need to kill it to get the key."

Cassius did not know if his words would fall on deaf ears, but if he did nothing, Sara might be killed by a swing of the huge sword. They could not lose another now. He attempted to drag it away from Sara, his scarred body battered but strong.

[Sharei]

[OOC: Draggo shouts in shock and fear as the knight moves toward them. He begins to retreat, pushed forward by Sara, and scrambles away from it back toward the safety of the rest of the group.]

[MP]

Almost everyone:
Sara's items: human effigy (2), general's sword
Kira's items: carved fragment
Draggo's items: broken flint necklace, sturdy rope, scholar's notes (1, 2), hideous cake (3), runed heart, simple knife, seeing stone

Cassius' piece of thrown rubble bounces off the armor to little effect. The knight doesn't even seem to notice as it bears down on the two intruders. Large as it is, the weight of the sword is evident as it draws back its arm. The blade ends in an odd flat tip, meant for sweeping movements rather than piercing. Given the narrow hallway and the sheer size of the creature, a single hit would surely be crippling, if not lethal, once it builds momentum. Thankfully, the would-be victims are saved by Sara's timely intervention.

Faster and and more agile, Sara's strike punches into the armored chest before the sword can come down. The knight diverts its sweep to a sideways bash, threatening to knock an attacker sideways as it retreats several steps. A black gash has been seared into the stone where the notched sword grazed the wall. The blue fire highlights a long crack across the breastplate. Sara's strike has fractured the armor, but it apparently lacks the weight to crack it in a single strike.

The knight doesn't so much as glance after the retreating dragon or at Kira as Cassius drags her to safety. The moment they're over the gallery threshold, its focus turns on Sara. It braces on the backstep, and the sword comes sweeping around, air whistling over the blade with a weighty sound as it aims to cut her in half.

In the opposite hallway, Ari's examination of the fallen knight gives him a better idea of the armor's texture. The material is a deep inky color, eerily sheened across the surface and incredibly hard. Even the shards of broken armor refuse to give under pressure. Beneath the initial shell, however, the armor has a softer, stone-like texture. Hard, but not impervious once an initial flaw has been made. The chestplate has been cracked open by a series of blows, judging from the number of gashes marring the chestplate. The gashes across the walls and the bones scattered around the room indicate that the attempt cost a number of lives.

The chest cavity is filled with odd lumps and nodes, covered with a network of runes that trail down the edges and along the black casing of the interior. Many of these runic circuits have been disrupted by the damage. The largest node, a runed lump set in the center of the chest, has been cracked almost in two by the blow that split the armor. As Ari examines the interior, this central node clicks loose in his hand. There's enough of it left to note its uncomfortable resemblance to a human heart. Save for the crack down its center, it's identical to the object the dragon currently holds in his hand. The same runed pattern. The same set of plugs at the top where the node slots into the chest.



Edge:
Items: broken knife (2), silver chain, grey vial

Edge's foot pulls free of the goo with a wet sucking sound, leaving behind crusted strands and blackened flesh. His legs are raw and weeping rotten blood, but he's free to escape back through the door and into the previous room. His last sight of the buried room shows three of the five greys still following him.

The residue is thicker than ever, flakes forming on the ceiling and drifting down like rain. Although he's escaped from the living ooze, the pain doesn't fully leave his legs. Even the normal residue is beginning to burn - a faint, creeping sensation for the moment, but getting stronger. It's almost up to his hip now, thick and soupy, exhausting to wade through.

The stuff is mostly concentrated around the centers of the rooms, and thins near the walls. But if it continues accumulating at this rate, Edge will soon be unable to open the doors. If he's to avoid the increasingly corrosive residue, his only hope is to find somewhere clear of the corruption or to get to higher ground. Assuming he can outrun the entities, whose touch has begun to bleed through the door as a thick crust.

[tsukikoko]

[OOC: Sara continues trying to fight sword man. Roll: 15]

With Kira and the young dragon clear from immediate danger, Sara felt a strange sense of calm settle over her. Not that she was any less terrified, ducking and weaving past the giant trying to cleave her in half, but at least the other two were safe from it. She was exhausted, quivering with the effort of trying to wield a sword when she wasn't used to such a task, but that was okay. She would fight for them to her last, make up for where she had failed. While there were others in the group likely more proficient with a blade, she was practically uninjured and her own death, should it occur, might at least pave the way for another to finish the job.

The creature's reach was long, but slow. If the blade hit her, or should the large body send her flying, she was dead. She knew this, and the knowledge sent a shockwave of terrified adrenaline through her, narrowing her vision, focusing her mind and body to the singular threat in front of her. Even as she moved for it a fearful cry rose in her throat. She tried to keep close, slip past the behemoth's guard where it couldn't swing a proper strike at her. She aimed to strike at, or close to, the first hit she had landed, trying to crack open the chestplate further.

But she knew she couldn't stay still. She struck out quickly, trusting the blade's balance and seeming guidance from before, then darted around it again, trying to keep a step ahead of any retaliation strikes.

[Pearl Dragon]

[Kira is carried by Cassius.  If he continues to hold her, she will go where he goes.  If he sets her down, she will go to the wall and then eventually to the door to at least get out of the way.}

Kira grasped at the woman, pulling weakly from behind when suddenly she felt hands come down on her in a grab, scooping her up and away.  There was a barking cry of surprise from her, and a momentary struggle fueled by pure panic as images of the many-armed beast suddenly flashed before her eyes, so real that she could almost swear it was already covering her body in its ruthless grip to pry once more at her fur and jaw.  She twisted in Cassius' grip and then met his eyes with her own terrified gaze.  It wasn't the monster, but she was still dismayed to be where she was.  Her struggles lessened, relenting to his superior hold and she resorted instead to whimpering pleas of mercy and balling herself into a curled posture within his hold.

As the man hurried her away, she glanced back and saw the armored creature swing the massive sword at the lady.  She wasn't surprised to see that the armored figure was now attacking them, but a cry of hopelessness escaped her nonetheless.  It was then that she relented completely and threw her arms around the man holding her in a desperate embrace.

"Please is no more!  No more!  Please!"  She rambled senselessly over Cassius' shoulder.  Her injured wing stung madly at her side, and she winced between sobs at the painful commotion of her senses.  If she was set down, Kira would hold stubbornly for a moment longer before letting go in favor of pressing herself to the wall before stumbling towards the door.  Once outside, she wouldn't be clear on what to do or where to go, but she needed to get out.  If Cassius chose to hold onto her, she would resume clinging to him, rambling her panicked thoughts as quickly as they came to her.

[jarahamee]

[Cassius carries Kira to relative safety, briefly reassures her, and then runs back to the fray to help support Sara if she needs it.]

Cassius did not let go of the wriggling bat-creature, moving quickly towards the relative safety of the strange sun-doorway as he shifted her weight to his shoulder. The bat creature was small but strong and quite hysterical at the moment. He supposed he could not blame it. This was a traumatic event, and he imagined, it would become even worse by the end. Perhaps, they would all die. He didn't like dwelling on the thought. 

He ran to the sun door, carrying the small creature with him, before depositing her where he assumed it was relatively safe. They did not have much time. He looked down at her somberly. She was a sad sight, wailing, asking him to stop, telling him no. It was not the first time, and it would not be the last time. 

Cassius paused for only a moment, as if contemplating staying with her and reassuring her, before moving back towards Sara and the knight. He had no weapon, but he could at least provide back-up if she needed it, and perhaps, attack the creature if it was needed. He had no skills or powers in his repertoire, only his luck and good reflexes, and he intended to make use of them if he could. 

Sara was doing a good job so far, perhaps she had a fighting chance. 

[NightshadeVII]

[OOC: Edge tries to stay close to the walls and look for any possible high ground. He will move towards the other ungooped door, the one in the middle of the room, check what lies behind it. If there is no immediate signs of danger, he will move through.]

[Sharei]

[OOC: Draggo cowers just outside the threshold of where Sara is fighting the knight.]

[kilnarak]

[ Ari takes a shard of broken armor for a weapon, then calls to the others to tell them his findings. He wonders if they fixed the broken one's heart, if it would fight for them. He's doubtful but... he's also doubtful that any of them will be able to take down the other golem. ]

Ari wasn't sure what to make of his search - the armor was thick and he couldn't break it by hand, but then he hadn't really expected to be able to. He picked up a sharp-looking piece that had broken off - it wasn't much of a weapon, would likely cut his hands before it cut anything else. Still, it was probably better than nothing - shifting would only bring the wrath of the gray-thing down on him faster.

Clutching his makeshift dagger, Ari turned his attention to the shattered interior of the golem, noting the runes though they were unlike anything he had seen before. Noting the shattered remains of the creature's heart. Sniffling a little, he poked at the heart with his armor-shard, turning it over, testing whether it would give under pressure. Then he reached down to pick it up, examining it more closely.

"It-It... There's a heart inside it, if-if you break it maybe it will stop? Or... m-maybe if you break the armor, you can just... just take it out?" The heart-chunk had come out pretty easily. He called back his findings to the others, but made no other move to join them out there. It was safer here, and... if his brief foray out before was anything to go off of, it might be more dangerous for them if he left. If they were invisible when he went out then... perhaps he was like Marche and Edge had been, that suffocating blackness.

Better not to test it. "D-Do you think, if we fixed this-this one, that it would fight for us?" He called again after a moment, doubtful.

[MP]

Almost everyone: 
Sara's items: human effigy (2)
Kira's items: carved fragment
Draggo's items: broken flint necklace, sturdy rope, scholar's notes (1, 2), hideous cake (3), runed heart, simple knife, seeing stone

The notched sword carves another gash into the wall, a blackened warning. But Sara's agility gets her beneath its guard. The inlaid sword lends her arm an instinct all its own, and she scores another hit on the cracked section of plate. The point sticks no more than a few inches deep, but deep cracks spiderweb from the spot. 

The knight responds with a heavy backhand - not with its sword arm, which is still recovering from the swing - but with its empty fist. The massive gauntlet strikes Sara's blade with a shivering clang, sending painful vibrations up her arm. She feels a line of pain across her cheek. Sees cold firelight glint off the sword as it spins out of her grip and off to one side of the hall. The knight is moving after her before it even hits the floor, shifting its weight in preparation for another swing. With so much force behind its blows, whether from sword or fist, the shifter can't endure a hit. Worse, the instinctive grace and fighting knowledge has drained from her muscles, leaving her with only her wits and the narrowing seconds before the blade comes down.

Meanwhile, in the gallery, Kira's movement along the wall brings her before the sun door and the boy's line of sight. Only for a moment. But in that brief period of interrupted vision, the looming entity gains ground. It crests the upper tier, engulfing entire feet at a time. The many mouths gape and reach, the sick hunger and malice but palpable. Then Kira's path takes her past him, and the spread halts. 

A withered shape seems to move through the residue. Then a serpentine figure, headless but many-armed, can be seen through the mass of grey, cresting and submerging among other crusted shapes. Sometimes they seem to be separate figures. Sometimes one seething mass. It - they - open their pitted mouths, and a wail fills the gallery. To each listener, the voice sounds different. 

Sara hears an almost animal scream, a gut-wrenching mix of pain and fear and defiance, near identical to her memory. It gutters and fades, as if the speaker lacks the strength for breath. To the dragon, however, it's a feeble, anguished moan. A watery sound - his father's final attempts to rise. Kira and Cassius hear the anguished voices of their own comrades and loved ones, desperate screams or sobs of the dying. Regardless of variation, each one seems to come from somewhere beyond the residue. Just within reach. Just out of sight. 



Edge:
Items: broken knife (2), silver chain, grey vial

Edge's search for high ground turns up little beside the broken table, the small cabinet, and the bookcase, which stands at about five feet, leaving a mere two feet of space from the ceiling. Every piece of furniture is dusted with residue, and the bookcase is closest to the hound room and the pursuing entities. In the current room, however, it's the only shelter he can see - tall, but with no visible escape from there. 

The center door opens with difficulty, residue crunching and compressing around it. In the end, Edge is only able to open it halfway. The next door he attempts to open will likely be his last.

Edge is looking in on a familiar four-way intersection, now buried to hip height in residue. Edge can see the same empty alcoves in the left and right branches - can see the opposite door leading to the room where Marchelute was fatally burned. The alcoves, perhaps a foot above the residue, provide the only shelter. But at the rate the residue is falling, these may not be clear for long. 

He must make his choice between the three remaining hallway doors, and soon. Alternatively, the lefthand door in the room behind him is still unexplored. If he's lucky, he may find better shelter there.

[tsukikoko]

[OOC: Sara launches the floor upwards beneath the giant's foot, in an attempt to throw it off balance, as she tries to duck out of the way of it's sword and scramble for her own one. Roll: 20]

Pain ricocheted down Sara's arm, fear lanced straight up her spine as she watched the sword, and her only means of defeating the giant, spiral out of her grip and across the hallway. A howling cry filled her world, a sound familiar but not her own. One that haunted her worst nightmares, fueled her greatest anger and most distressed panic. She saw a pair of emerald eyes, smelled burnt flesh and fresh blood, recalled the horrific, animal fear in her agent's eyes when he'd looked through her.

Sara screamed in response; a sound of effort and terror and sheer, unfiltered rage, as she threw her arm out towards the knight.

The floor responded in an instinctive instant, lurching up beneath the giant's foot in an effort to knock it off balance. Really, the shifter wanted to hurt it, destroy this whole damn place for daring to use her worst memories. But she was too mentally exhausted for anything aside from that brief explosion. Instead, Sara lurched away from the creature, dove for the sword she'd come to trust.

She aimed to grab it and then keep moving a few more paces before trying to turn around. She hadn't the energy, time or skill to attack the giant and she knew it, even with anger still pulsing a red haze behind her eyes. She needed to get clear, in case it swung for her again. But with her nostrils flaring and body quivering with a maelstrom of emotion, the shifter was more ready to fight than moments prior.

[NightshadeVII]

[OOC: Edge will go into the four way intersection turn right (towards the chariot room) crawls into the alcove to avoid the residue and opens the door to the chariot room.]

Time was running out, there was no doubt in Edge’s mind about that. If he stayed here, this residue would kill him. He needed to find somewhere that was clear of this, free from it. And he didn’t even have a weapon on him with which to clear a path. But would that even work at this point? Still he didn’t have time to consider all the things he might have been able to do, if he had what he needed. He had to move, had to get out of here, sooner rather than later, because he feared that soon all options would be taken from him.
If he went to the intersection, he could perhaps use the alcoves to move along, out of reach of the residue and find a way out then? It seemed like the best bet at the moment. He didn’t trust the door covered in residue, worried that the damage he’d do to his hands trying to get it open might screw him over more than he already was.

So did he really have a choice? On one side yes, and on the other no, there was a choice, but he had no indication of what either option entailed. It was like shooting in the dark, and he risked dying if he made the wrong choice. But then again, everything could be the wrong choice and perhaps the only real choice he had was between how quickly he wanted to die.
With nothing to go on, he had to hope that what Ari had said earlier was true and not just some metaphor, that this was an actual nightmare, despite how real it felt. The pain, the fear, the exhaustion. Much too real for his liking.

But he made his decision, entering the hallway through the center door and moving quickly through the residue, towards the four way intersection. He moved as quickly as he could through the mass, gritting his teeth and glenching his hands as he moved. Fuck, this hurt.

As soon as he made it to the intersection, he turned right and climbed into the alcove, barely able to notice the lack of residue around him. And once again, he moved quickly towards the door he could see at the end of the hallway, body aching and tired. Once he made it to the door, his hands were shaking again, from pain, exhaustion and every other emotion he felt in this place, which, at this point had become an almost indistinguishable mass of negative space in his mind and body.

Hoping that he had made the right choice, he pushed open the door.
He didn’t know what to do with himself if he hadn’t.

“Eda, please...”

[jarahamee]

(Cassius asks Draggo for his knife to use against the knight. He prepared to intervene if Sara fails.)

Cassius saw Sara lose the sword, then scramble after it madly. 

He saw no use in trying to wedge himself between her and the blade. If nothing else, he should find a weapon to use in case she could not. The only thing that was left that appeared to be weapon-like was the knife that the dragon-child was holding. The rest of the figures in this area were unarmed besides the monsters, and of course, the door, where he should never have left the notched sword. There were no others in the nearby space.

He closed the space between them as fast as he could, doing his best not to move too quickly. It might be frightening, considering the circumstances, especially those he left in. He took a moment to focus, and as gently as he could, he asked; 

"Young man, can I make use of your knife?"