07-09-2018, 10:24 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-10-2018, 08:58 AM by Thaal Sinestro.)
Thick metal manacles rattled around the boy’s wrists, his short legs shuffling furiously to keep up with the gang of recruits he had been so contemptuously strapped to the back of. The Uruk Hai in front of him jerked the chain and grunted angrily. “Move it, human!” it roared. “Why is this child here? Did it survive so far by hiding in a a hole?!” The young boy sniveled and scrunched his tiny eyebrows together, casting an angry look up at the creature. “I have fought by my blood and valor, and I am tied to likeness of a pathe-”
The crackle of bones halted the line, and everyone turned in time to see the orc collapse onto his chest. His dead eyes stared up into the cloudless sky, neck twisted completely around.
A few gasps and murmurs ran through the line of recruits, glancing between the deceased creature and the boy, who’s hands were still completely bound. He sniffed hard, sucking back up a trail of snot, tears streaming down his face.
“Quiet your blithering mouths!” Taeket commanded as she strode past the ranks and to the rear of the formation. She glanced down her long, hooked nose and squinted at the child. “At least you’re trimming the fat,” she spat, kicking the convulsing corpse. She pointed the tip of one of her scimitars at the youngling and tilted her chin up with a disdainful frown. “But you will drag him the rest of the way.” He began to simper, but she sucked her teeth and edged forward. “I will not hear any excuses! Your trickery does not work on those that know your game. Try something like that again and I’ll put you back in the vase!”
The facade of emotion was wiped from the child’s face and he grumbled as he knelt down and grabbed the creature by the ankle. “Very well,” he said in clear irritation.
Taeket smiled and nodded, allowing her blade to fall to her side. “Excellent choice.” She turned back to the lead and barked, “Now move! We will arrive before nightfall, or I’ll let you all die of thirst!”
The chain gang slowly limped forward, and the child strained as he hauled the massive body behind, leaving a deep trench in the sand below. The gerudo squinted and swung her finger in his direction. “I will be keeping an eye on you.”
The shattered skull of the ruined Gerudo Valley castle glared down at them just as the sun kissed the lower edge of the sky. The abandoned huts lay barren, burnt out by trials come and gone, wooden supports splintered from dry rot and neglect. It was another graveyard of broken dreams, one of the hundreds of forgotten ruins that lay scattered like pages torn from the journals of once-great Lords amid the vast and unforgiving arid waste. The four recruits that remained hauled the bodies of the fallen behind them, chains still tangled around their red, sun-swollen limbs. The heat had just barely began to relent, and the motley crew of hopefuls were drenched in their own sweat and filth, barely having stopped to rest when their comrades had succumb to the desert’s caress.
Taeket strolled in front of the squad, her twin swords resting comfortably on her shoulders. “Welcome to my home,” she said, a solemn smile on her lips. “This is Gerudo Valley. It was once the stronghold of Ganondorf, our leader’s greatest ally in his early days here in the Omniverse. Now, it is nothing more than what you see before you: a smoldering ruin. This is the consequence of disorder. This is the penance we all pay for the sins of the few. This, my children, is why we must cull from you the weak. The foolish. The unworthy.” She turned, and mournfully gazed at the old castle, its lava floes black, hard and still. “The consequences for failure are far to high.”
She took a breath and turned back to the hodge podge of broken, half-mad recruits. “But you do not need to worry about this for now. For now, you may fall back upon the same worry you have had for the past two days.” Her deep yellow eyes glinted with sadistic sharpness. “Survival.”
The gathering visibly stiffened at the news, though they had learned better than to argue against the woman by now. “You will enter the labyrinth our savior has constructed under my humble advisement. It moves through this cursed place, below the sands, and ends in the court of the once-great Guardian of the Desert.” She shrugged the massive gourd from her back and set it upon the ground. “Then, and only then, may you drink.” She beamed and slapped the side of the container, a hastily painted Corps symbol on its face. “A gift to those successful from the mighty Sinestro.”
The sun-parched recruits greedily eyed the container, licking their chapped lips with dry tongues. “It is the only water for miles,” she added, “so even if you choose to take this test as an opportunity to escape and somehow,” she glared at the boy, “manage to evade my notice, then you will still die in the sands alone.”
With nothing more to say, the gerudo pulled a drawstring on a pouch attached to her hip and withdrew an oversized silver key, seemingly with only two teeth. She crept up to a tall stone outcropping near the exterior wall of the Valley and pulled free a small chunk of it, revealing a narrow hole. She pushed the key in and slowly turned it, a loud clink ringing out when it met its terminal position.
The ground began to shake violently, and slowly a a shape began to displace the sand underneath their feet. The recruits scrambled as an organically shaped stone structure pressed up from the earth, its surface covered in a series of lines with glowing red circles winding about it in a complex pattern not unlike constellations. When it finally set itself into place, it was apparent that it was a doorway. It was perched atop a broad, circular platform, a glowing panel on the right side. A series of long, thin, engraved, stone panels swung open horizontally, revealing a glowing pad within the mouth of the portal.
Taeket sneered and waved her scimitar at them, ushering them towards the opening. “Now get inside.”
“You’re not even going to take off our bindings?” a lean, powerful cat woman protested. “You are just leading us like gazelle into the maw of the lion!”
Taeket’s eyes narrowed and she stalked over to the creature, who had already begun backing away in terror. She held her hands up in defense, but her chains went taught and she could retreat no further. “Then I shall free you,” she hissed, and with a swipe of her blade, both of the creature’s hands fell into the sand. The furry woman yowled in agony and fell to her knees, the Corpsman looming over her with unrelenting contempt.
The rest of the group gawked for only a moment before she barked, “Go! Now!”
They did not require any more demonstrations. The group ran towards the shrine, piling into the cramped space, what remained of the dead still dragging along after them. The gerudo liberated the corpses, too, of their wrists, in the first act of mercy she had offered them since their introduction. Kicking aside the arms of the bodies, she allowed the recruits to gather up to loose links of chain so that they were clear of the pad they now stood upon, and waited with hushed breaths for whatever came next.
Taeket stood in front of the panel, and held her hand over it. “Use your wits, children. Or you will not escape.”
With that, her finger fell, the and the elevator jolted to life, carrying them into the abyss below.
As the lift slowly sunk into depths below the broken village, the scale of the structure became apparent. The edges of the perfectly cubed cavern were nearly seventy feet high. The ornate stone walls of the maze easily fifty. The recruits were offered a momentary glance at the grand complexity of it all, peering down from high in the air at the harsh turns, twists and maddening corridors that they would soon wander. Only dim torch light illuminated the vast, horrible space, glowing up in wavering orange and red, the stillness of the subterranean air the only thing keeping them from snuffing out before the recruits had a chance to even attempt navigation. In the center, a massive cylinder of yellow lights shot upwards and through the ceiling, signifying the terminus of their trial.
The dais they were all precariously perched upon locked into place, and they all stood there for a moment, simply staring at the task that spanned before them. It was the Kel Dor that stepped forward first, his rebreather huffing as he took his first deep breath below the surface.
“While we’re stuck together like this, it’s everyone or no one,” he said gruffly. “So we’ve gotta work together on this. By this time tomorrow I expect most of us won’t have a drop of liquid left in our bodies, so we need to get through this thing, and fast.” He gestured to the massive superstructure behind him. “This trial was clearly designed to not test our smarts. Labyrinths are more random chance than clever work, so it’s about teamwork.”
“And you want to be lead us?” a yuan-ti abomination hissed dismissively. “I can survive for another week before I dry up, unlike the rest of you insignificant humanoids.”
“But can you get out of here with the dead weight of three bodies?” he countered. He looked to the child, “Well, two and a half.”
The snake person’s tail whipped around in frustration, but remained silent.
“That’s what I thought.” He turned to the hulking, blue-skinned Kree. “Do you understand?”
He grumbled, the massive scar that covered the left half of his face wrinkling into a sneer. “Fine.”
“Good,” the Kel Dor affirmed and set out towards the first long corridor, the retinue in tow. The child jerked along after them, skipping a few steps as he came down from the elevator.
The near-incomprehensible size of the tomb was all the more apparent when they were inside of it. The walls seemed to huge, too close, and the peak of each wall seemed to stretch into eternity. The carved faces were hung with shadow, the light of each torch having to spread a few hundred feet before the next.
About fifty feet into the first leg they came to a crossroads, marked by the half-rotten corpses of some previous group, all still linked together by a length of chain similar to their own. Gruesome injuries marked most, while one lay leaning against the wall, one of its teammate's gnawed legs in its hand.
“The fools must have turned on each other,” the yuan-ti hissed, wringing its hands together.
The Kree knelt down, submerging himself in a wave of stench and flies. Grabbing the manacles from the group, he lifted them and shared a meaningful look with the others. “Looks like at least one managed to get free.” Upon closer inspection, the alien was right. The cuffs in the middle of the group had been opened, and seemingly not by force. “There must be some way to open them, hidden in this place.”
Nodding, the Kel Dor snatched a torch from the wall. “Then let us set about finding them.” He looked between the paths on every side of him. “Three new directions. Which way do we go?”
“The stink of death lies to the right,” the yuan-ti spat. “Left! We must go left!”
The Kree snarled and pointed his thick finger forward. “The exit is in that direction.”
The small boy sniffled softly and all three suddenly remembered he existed, glaring poisonous barbs in his direction. He murmured pathetically and pointed to the right.
“Ignore this hatchling!” the snakelike abomination roared. “It is the most deadly path!”
The Kel Dor hummed and glanced in that direction. “It would make sense that they would put an obstacle along the correct path to deter us at the onset. If I was wanting somebody to go the opposite way, I’d lay down a danger.”
“The most well defended direction is likely the path to victory,” the Kree agreed.
Without another word, the “leader” of their little group began stalking through the chosen pathway, flames blazing atop The torch in hand. Reluctantly, the each followed suit. The darkened passage immediately banked to the left, and it was beyond this vile turn, this twist into the unknown blackness, that they were confronted with their first true challenge.
A collection of failures were scattered around the horrific device, underneath it, caught in bits on the edges, even splattered against the walls surrounding it. It seemed simple enough: a single, massive guillotine, swinging back and forth like a gargantuan pendulum, its mount jutting out perpendicular to the hall, about twenty feet up. There was some clearance near the bottom, but the walls on either side of it wore ground-in groves where it had once brushed up against them at the furthest edges of its lazy swaying.
“It appears a simple task,” the Kree grunted, beginning to walk towards it. “It is slow. We can easily pass through it.”
The abomination hissed and slithered in front of the man, halting him with a firm shove. “You fool! If you pass through before the rest of us do, our chains will be caught by it and we will be pulled into its path!”
“Then we all stand in a line and step across the threshold at once,” the Kel Dor said with all the confidence in the world.
The yuan-ti snapped, its massive fangs flaring out in discontent. “The hallway is too narrow! I will slide past it it on the ground, and our chains will be too low for it to catch. You shall lay down, and I will drag you across.”
Huffing, the Kel Dor found no appropriate contradictions to the plan that tore leadership from his capable hands. He consigned himself to a momentary defeat, balled his shackled fists, and nodded. “Let it be done.”
The group huddled up, daring to be dangerously close to the sweeping movement of the contraption, close enough to feel the gentle breeze it created in its wake. The monstrous creature gestured, and each clambered to their hands and knees, gathering at the far edge of the hallway where the arc of the blade was the highest.
Following its word, the abomination slid swiftly to the other side and halted, grabbing hold of the links that were closest to the next member’s manacles. Its slit pupils locked with those of the Kree’s, and as the guillotine swept up to the opposite peak, it yanked as hard as its bulging, corded muscles could muster. The blue-skinned man slid across the floor, clearing the gap just as the blade sliced in the opposite direction, his ankles saved by millimeters.
Next, the Kel Dor pressed against the corridor and made himself as tiny as possible, and the other two grasped his steel tether. They watched the damnable machine tick-tock through a few cycles until they were sure of their timing, and then looked to the man on the ground. “Ready?” the Kree urged, unable to read the masked creature’s expression.
“Ye-” he stammered. His shielded eyes watched it sway, back and forth, its edge dirtied with the gore of those unable to complete their task. He saw each knick along its use-worn blade, perhaps a bone or a shard of metal forming each. “Yes.”
It swung forward, towards him, and he caught a glimpse of hair as it slowed to a stop, hanging in the air as a silent warning. His fellow potentials tensed, ready to make their move. Sweat poured over his face as it began to droop back down. “Wait!” he shouted, but they had already begun to pull. He threw his legs out in an effort to stop himself, which worked. A moment too late.
The blade sunk into his torso, a gurgling scream echoing out as purple blood shot out from beneath his rebreather. He convulsed for a moment, staring down at the bisected lower half of his body, hands jerking for a moment before they went still. The yuan-ti and Kree reeled in the rest of his still wriggling torso, a look of shock on their faces.
“The idiot,” the abomination hissed in a hushed tone. “He allowed his fear to confuse him.”
Using the pendulum to slice away the man’s hands, freeing them of the burden of another body to carry, they turned to gather the child. However, when they looked, he was nowhere to be seen. He and the chain that had bound the boy to them were simply gone. It was not until they heard his tiny whimpering behind them that they whipped about to find him standing there, meekly kicking his foot in the dirt. Rather than further questioning the apparent miracle, they made their way to their feet, took up the torch, and forged onward.
At the opposite end of the corridor, once concealed by the guillotine that had taken the life of their fearful leader, was a large chest. It was rather sizeable, about three feet at its widest face, and seemingly constructed of the same stone that made up everything in the doom-cloaked cavern. A large metal ring was set into its face, serving as the handle. Curiosity overtook the crew, and they could not help but find their hands ever so cautiously lifting the lid.
Despite its size, the container held only one, small item: a key.
Withdrawing it, the yuan-ti held it to the torchlight, making note of its simple construction. It did not take long for it to come to a conclusion about its use. “It must be to unlock the restraints,” it hissed with a pleased shiver of its neck frills.
“Which one of us will use it?” the Kree stated aggressively, more as a reminder that there was an option at all.
A serpentine smile grew over the abomination’s lips, and he looked down to the child that stood between them. “You know, there is a way that we might both be freed.”
The Kree’s eyes bore down into the child for a moment before the cogs shifted into place in his mind. “Ah, yes,” he growled, “I see. If we were absent only one more member, neither of us would be burdened if one was unlocked."
With long, exasperated sigh, the boy slipped the cuffs from his wrists and they clattered to the ground. The two reeled back in surprise, but before another word was spoken or gesture made, the child’s arms dissolved into an undulating, amber goo and snapped out. The tendrils wrapped around each of their throats, and the recruits sputtered and gagged as they were slowly lifted from the ground. Gradually what was left of the boy’s body faded into a similar substance, and the oozing, indistinct form stretched up to carefully inspect them. A roughly head-shaped mound swiveled back and forth, its featureless contours still somehow displaying a look of cold disinterest and exhaustion.
Their necks snapped in unison, and they fell to the ground as gruesome warnings to whichever group was to come next.
The nearly liquid shape shrank back down before folding itself into a Tarkalean hawk, complete with ruddy red feathers and white underbelly. The bird took off, easily scaling the heights of the labyrinth walls, soaring over its myriad obstacles and death traps, and swooping into the golden light that struck upwards through the center.
Taeket started when the bird fluttered through the exit of the labyrinth without the sound or fanfare of the elevator to announce its arrival. When the creature metamorphosed back into something vaguely humanoid, she smirked. “So, did you leave them behind?”
When the formless mass finally decided on a human, she shook her head. “No. They planned on killing me, so I struck first. They are dead now.”
The warrior laughed heartily and grabbed the oversized jug of water. “Well, you have earned your drink nonetheless.”
The changeling accepted the jug, but did not open or drink from it. “I do not require food or water,”
Taeket’s eyebrows furrowed. “Then why come back here?”
“For the same reason I have tolerated captivity: it was the purpose of the test. You hold me chains to instill a sense of powerlessness. You tethered me to those solids to test our thinking and teamwork. As soon as it became clear that they were incapable of cooperation, I took it upon myself to survive your challenge alone. This water was the end point of my test, regardless of my actual need for it.” The creature uncorked the jug, emptying its contents onto the floor. “Though it will serve as a wonderful place for my daily regeneration.”
The crackle of bones halted the line, and everyone turned in time to see the orc collapse onto his chest. His dead eyes stared up into the cloudless sky, neck twisted completely around.
A few gasps and murmurs ran through the line of recruits, glancing between the deceased creature and the boy, who’s hands were still completely bound. He sniffed hard, sucking back up a trail of snot, tears streaming down his face.
“Quiet your blithering mouths!” Taeket commanded as she strode past the ranks and to the rear of the formation. She glanced down her long, hooked nose and squinted at the child. “At least you’re trimming the fat,” she spat, kicking the convulsing corpse. She pointed the tip of one of her scimitars at the youngling and tilted her chin up with a disdainful frown. “But you will drag him the rest of the way.” He began to simper, but she sucked her teeth and edged forward. “I will not hear any excuses! Your trickery does not work on those that know your game. Try something like that again and I’ll put you back in the vase!”
The facade of emotion was wiped from the child’s face and he grumbled as he knelt down and grabbed the creature by the ankle. “Very well,” he said in clear irritation.
Taeket smiled and nodded, allowing her blade to fall to her side. “Excellent choice.” She turned back to the lead and barked, “Now move! We will arrive before nightfall, or I’ll let you all die of thirst!”
The chain gang slowly limped forward, and the child strained as he hauled the massive body behind, leaving a deep trench in the sand below. The gerudo squinted and swung her finger in his direction. “I will be keeping an eye on you.”
---
The shattered skull of the ruined Gerudo Valley castle glared down at them just as the sun kissed the lower edge of the sky. The abandoned huts lay barren, burnt out by trials come and gone, wooden supports splintered from dry rot and neglect. It was another graveyard of broken dreams, one of the hundreds of forgotten ruins that lay scattered like pages torn from the journals of once-great Lords amid the vast and unforgiving arid waste. The four recruits that remained hauled the bodies of the fallen behind them, chains still tangled around their red, sun-swollen limbs. The heat had just barely began to relent, and the motley crew of hopefuls were drenched in their own sweat and filth, barely having stopped to rest when their comrades had succumb to the desert’s caress.
Taeket strolled in front of the squad, her twin swords resting comfortably on her shoulders. “Welcome to my home,” she said, a solemn smile on her lips. “This is Gerudo Valley. It was once the stronghold of Ganondorf, our leader’s greatest ally in his early days here in the Omniverse. Now, it is nothing more than what you see before you: a smoldering ruin. This is the consequence of disorder. This is the penance we all pay for the sins of the few. This, my children, is why we must cull from you the weak. The foolish. The unworthy.” She turned, and mournfully gazed at the old castle, its lava floes black, hard and still. “The consequences for failure are far to high.”
She took a breath and turned back to the hodge podge of broken, half-mad recruits. “But you do not need to worry about this for now. For now, you may fall back upon the same worry you have had for the past two days.” Her deep yellow eyes glinted with sadistic sharpness. “Survival.”
The gathering visibly stiffened at the news, though they had learned better than to argue against the woman by now. “You will enter the labyrinth our savior has constructed under my humble advisement. It moves through this cursed place, below the sands, and ends in the court of the once-great Guardian of the Desert.” She shrugged the massive gourd from her back and set it upon the ground. “Then, and only then, may you drink.” She beamed and slapped the side of the container, a hastily painted Corps symbol on its face. “A gift to those successful from the mighty Sinestro.”
The sun-parched recruits greedily eyed the container, licking their chapped lips with dry tongues. “It is the only water for miles,” she added, “so even if you choose to take this test as an opportunity to escape and somehow,” she glared at the boy, “manage to evade my notice, then you will still die in the sands alone.”
With nothing more to say, the gerudo pulled a drawstring on a pouch attached to her hip and withdrew an oversized silver key, seemingly with only two teeth. She crept up to a tall stone outcropping near the exterior wall of the Valley and pulled free a small chunk of it, revealing a narrow hole. She pushed the key in and slowly turned it, a loud clink ringing out when it met its terminal position.
The ground began to shake violently, and slowly a a shape began to displace the sand underneath their feet. The recruits scrambled as an organically shaped stone structure pressed up from the earth, its surface covered in a series of lines with glowing red circles winding about it in a complex pattern not unlike constellations. When it finally set itself into place, it was apparent that it was a doorway. It was perched atop a broad, circular platform, a glowing panel on the right side. A series of long, thin, engraved, stone panels swung open horizontally, revealing a glowing pad within the mouth of the portal.
Taeket sneered and waved her scimitar at them, ushering them towards the opening. “Now get inside.”
“You’re not even going to take off our bindings?” a lean, powerful cat woman protested. “You are just leading us like gazelle into the maw of the lion!”
Taeket’s eyes narrowed and she stalked over to the creature, who had already begun backing away in terror. She held her hands up in defense, but her chains went taught and she could retreat no further. “Then I shall free you,” she hissed, and with a swipe of her blade, both of the creature’s hands fell into the sand. The furry woman yowled in agony and fell to her knees, the Corpsman looming over her with unrelenting contempt.
The rest of the group gawked for only a moment before she barked, “Go! Now!”
They did not require any more demonstrations. The group ran towards the shrine, piling into the cramped space, what remained of the dead still dragging along after them. The gerudo liberated the corpses, too, of their wrists, in the first act of mercy she had offered them since their introduction. Kicking aside the arms of the bodies, she allowed the recruits to gather up to loose links of chain so that they were clear of the pad they now stood upon, and waited with hushed breaths for whatever came next.
Taeket stood in front of the panel, and held her hand over it. “Use your wits, children. Or you will not escape.”
With that, her finger fell, the and the elevator jolted to life, carrying them into the abyss below.
---
As the lift slowly sunk into depths below the broken village, the scale of the structure became apparent. The edges of the perfectly cubed cavern were nearly seventy feet high. The ornate stone walls of the maze easily fifty. The recruits were offered a momentary glance at the grand complexity of it all, peering down from high in the air at the harsh turns, twists and maddening corridors that they would soon wander. Only dim torch light illuminated the vast, horrible space, glowing up in wavering orange and red, the stillness of the subterranean air the only thing keeping them from snuffing out before the recruits had a chance to even attempt navigation. In the center, a massive cylinder of yellow lights shot upwards and through the ceiling, signifying the terminus of their trial.
The dais they were all precariously perched upon locked into place, and they all stood there for a moment, simply staring at the task that spanned before them. It was the Kel Dor that stepped forward first, his rebreather huffing as he took his first deep breath below the surface.
“While we’re stuck together like this, it’s everyone or no one,” he said gruffly. “So we’ve gotta work together on this. By this time tomorrow I expect most of us won’t have a drop of liquid left in our bodies, so we need to get through this thing, and fast.” He gestured to the massive superstructure behind him. “This trial was clearly designed to not test our smarts. Labyrinths are more random chance than clever work, so it’s about teamwork.”
“And you want to be lead us?” a yuan-ti abomination hissed dismissively. “I can survive for another week before I dry up, unlike the rest of you insignificant humanoids.”
“But can you get out of here with the dead weight of three bodies?” he countered. He looked to the child, “Well, two and a half.”
The snake person’s tail whipped around in frustration, but remained silent.
“That’s what I thought.” He turned to the hulking, blue-skinned Kree. “Do you understand?”
He grumbled, the massive scar that covered the left half of his face wrinkling into a sneer. “Fine.”
“Good,” the Kel Dor affirmed and set out towards the first long corridor, the retinue in tow. The child jerked along after them, skipping a few steps as he came down from the elevator.
The near-incomprehensible size of the tomb was all the more apparent when they were inside of it. The walls seemed to huge, too close, and the peak of each wall seemed to stretch into eternity. The carved faces were hung with shadow, the light of each torch having to spread a few hundred feet before the next.
About fifty feet into the first leg they came to a crossroads, marked by the half-rotten corpses of some previous group, all still linked together by a length of chain similar to their own. Gruesome injuries marked most, while one lay leaning against the wall, one of its teammate's gnawed legs in its hand.
“The fools must have turned on each other,” the yuan-ti hissed, wringing its hands together.
The Kree knelt down, submerging himself in a wave of stench and flies. Grabbing the manacles from the group, he lifted them and shared a meaningful look with the others. “Looks like at least one managed to get free.” Upon closer inspection, the alien was right. The cuffs in the middle of the group had been opened, and seemingly not by force. “There must be some way to open them, hidden in this place.”
Nodding, the Kel Dor snatched a torch from the wall. “Then let us set about finding them.” He looked between the paths on every side of him. “Three new directions. Which way do we go?”
“The stink of death lies to the right,” the yuan-ti spat. “Left! We must go left!”
The Kree snarled and pointed his thick finger forward. “The exit is in that direction.”
The small boy sniffled softly and all three suddenly remembered he existed, glaring poisonous barbs in his direction. He murmured pathetically and pointed to the right.
“Ignore this hatchling!” the snakelike abomination roared. “It is the most deadly path!”
The Kel Dor hummed and glanced in that direction. “It would make sense that they would put an obstacle along the correct path to deter us at the onset. If I was wanting somebody to go the opposite way, I’d lay down a danger.”
“The most well defended direction is likely the path to victory,” the Kree agreed.
Without another word, the “leader” of their little group began stalking through the chosen pathway, flames blazing atop The torch in hand. Reluctantly, the each followed suit. The darkened passage immediately banked to the left, and it was beyond this vile turn, this twist into the unknown blackness, that they were confronted with their first true challenge.
A collection of failures were scattered around the horrific device, underneath it, caught in bits on the edges, even splattered against the walls surrounding it. It seemed simple enough: a single, massive guillotine, swinging back and forth like a gargantuan pendulum, its mount jutting out perpendicular to the hall, about twenty feet up. There was some clearance near the bottom, but the walls on either side of it wore ground-in groves where it had once brushed up against them at the furthest edges of its lazy swaying.
“It appears a simple task,” the Kree grunted, beginning to walk towards it. “It is slow. We can easily pass through it.”
The abomination hissed and slithered in front of the man, halting him with a firm shove. “You fool! If you pass through before the rest of us do, our chains will be caught by it and we will be pulled into its path!”
“Then we all stand in a line and step across the threshold at once,” the Kel Dor said with all the confidence in the world.
The yuan-ti snapped, its massive fangs flaring out in discontent. “The hallway is too narrow! I will slide past it it on the ground, and our chains will be too low for it to catch. You shall lay down, and I will drag you across.”
Huffing, the Kel Dor found no appropriate contradictions to the plan that tore leadership from his capable hands. He consigned himself to a momentary defeat, balled his shackled fists, and nodded. “Let it be done.”
The group huddled up, daring to be dangerously close to the sweeping movement of the contraption, close enough to feel the gentle breeze it created in its wake. The monstrous creature gestured, and each clambered to their hands and knees, gathering at the far edge of the hallway where the arc of the blade was the highest.
Following its word, the abomination slid swiftly to the other side and halted, grabbing hold of the links that were closest to the next member’s manacles. Its slit pupils locked with those of the Kree’s, and as the guillotine swept up to the opposite peak, it yanked as hard as its bulging, corded muscles could muster. The blue-skinned man slid across the floor, clearing the gap just as the blade sliced in the opposite direction, his ankles saved by millimeters.
Next, the Kel Dor pressed against the corridor and made himself as tiny as possible, and the other two grasped his steel tether. They watched the damnable machine tick-tock through a few cycles until they were sure of their timing, and then looked to the man on the ground. “Ready?” the Kree urged, unable to read the masked creature’s expression.
“Ye-” he stammered. His shielded eyes watched it sway, back and forth, its edge dirtied with the gore of those unable to complete their task. He saw each knick along its use-worn blade, perhaps a bone or a shard of metal forming each. “Yes.”
It swung forward, towards him, and he caught a glimpse of hair as it slowed to a stop, hanging in the air as a silent warning. His fellow potentials tensed, ready to make their move. Sweat poured over his face as it began to droop back down. “Wait!” he shouted, but they had already begun to pull. He threw his legs out in an effort to stop himself, which worked. A moment too late.
The blade sunk into his torso, a gurgling scream echoing out as purple blood shot out from beneath his rebreather. He convulsed for a moment, staring down at the bisected lower half of his body, hands jerking for a moment before they went still. The yuan-ti and Kree reeled in the rest of his still wriggling torso, a look of shock on their faces.
“The idiot,” the abomination hissed in a hushed tone. “He allowed his fear to confuse him.”
Using the pendulum to slice away the man’s hands, freeing them of the burden of another body to carry, they turned to gather the child. However, when they looked, he was nowhere to be seen. He and the chain that had bound the boy to them were simply gone. It was not until they heard his tiny whimpering behind them that they whipped about to find him standing there, meekly kicking his foot in the dirt. Rather than further questioning the apparent miracle, they made their way to their feet, took up the torch, and forged onward.
At the opposite end of the corridor, once concealed by the guillotine that had taken the life of their fearful leader, was a large chest. It was rather sizeable, about three feet at its widest face, and seemingly constructed of the same stone that made up everything in the doom-cloaked cavern. A large metal ring was set into its face, serving as the handle. Curiosity overtook the crew, and they could not help but find their hands ever so cautiously lifting the lid.
Despite its size, the container held only one, small item: a key.
Withdrawing it, the yuan-ti held it to the torchlight, making note of its simple construction. It did not take long for it to come to a conclusion about its use. “It must be to unlock the restraints,” it hissed with a pleased shiver of its neck frills.
“Which one of us will use it?” the Kree stated aggressively, more as a reminder that there was an option at all.
A serpentine smile grew over the abomination’s lips, and he looked down to the child that stood between them. “You know, there is a way that we might both be freed.”
The Kree’s eyes bore down into the child for a moment before the cogs shifted into place in his mind. “Ah, yes,” he growled, “I see. If we were absent only one more member, neither of us would be burdened if one was unlocked."
With long, exasperated sigh, the boy slipped the cuffs from his wrists and they clattered to the ground. The two reeled back in surprise, but before another word was spoken or gesture made, the child’s arms dissolved into an undulating, amber goo and snapped out. The tendrils wrapped around each of their throats, and the recruits sputtered and gagged as they were slowly lifted from the ground. Gradually what was left of the boy’s body faded into a similar substance, and the oozing, indistinct form stretched up to carefully inspect them. A roughly head-shaped mound swiveled back and forth, its featureless contours still somehow displaying a look of cold disinterest and exhaustion.
Their necks snapped in unison, and they fell to the ground as gruesome warnings to whichever group was to come next.
The nearly liquid shape shrank back down before folding itself into a Tarkalean hawk, complete with ruddy red feathers and white underbelly. The bird took off, easily scaling the heights of the labyrinth walls, soaring over its myriad obstacles and death traps, and swooping into the golden light that struck upwards through the center.
Taeket started when the bird fluttered through the exit of the labyrinth without the sound or fanfare of the elevator to announce its arrival. When the creature metamorphosed back into something vaguely humanoid, she smirked. “So, did you leave them behind?”
When the formless mass finally decided on a human, she shook her head. “No. They planned on killing me, so I struck first. They are dead now.”
The warrior laughed heartily and grabbed the oversized jug of water. “Well, you have earned your drink nonetheless.”
The changeling accepted the jug, but did not open or drink from it. “I do not require food or water,”
Taeket’s eyebrows furrowed. “Then why come back here?”
“For the same reason I have tolerated captivity: it was the purpose of the test. You hold me chains to instill a sense of powerlessness. You tethered me to those solids to test our thinking and teamwork. As soon as it became clear that they were incapable of cooperation, I took it upon myself to survive your challenge alone. This water was the end point of my test, regardless of my actual need for it.” The creature uncorked the jug, emptying its contents onto the floor. “Though it will serve as a wonderful place for my daily regeneration.”