You always killed your enemies and this? This was
ridiculous.
⚠
--
Day four in this place and Rory was over it, something that was clearly visible from the scowl on her face and the way she carried herself. She didn’t trust a third of their party, and the other third she was still trying to figure out how her life intertwined with. Family was a complicated thing, and Rory had a human lifetime of issues to deal with when it came to it.
Every day was the same so far. Safe room, other not safe room, back to the safe room. Assuming it even was actually safe. Today wasn’t proving to be much different. The room had a busted old-ass weapon, which she knew was actually called a ballista thanks to Maze, but that needed repair if it was ever going to work.
None of that mattered in the current situation, unless someone was looking to haul that ballista around for future use. The real issue was that the three of them weren’t the only ones in the area, and they still needed to go forward to get out.
“We’ve got company.” she muttered as the thing- what even was that?- turned its attention to the three of them.
Sabrina was beyond done with whatever the latest Vallo bullshit was. She was tired, hungry and wanted a shower. Going from one vaguely safe room to one that was a danger-zone and back again had gotten old after the first day. Part of her wanted a change in the routine but she also logically knew that would only lead to even more insanity and danger.
She didn’t trust the fae that was still with them and while she trusted Rory, Sabrina was figuring out that she didn’t really know how to act around her at all. Not that it mattered right then when they were about to be dealing with something new being thrown at them.
“Do you have any clue what it is?” Sabrina looked over at the fae. She hadn’t seen depictions of it anywhere in Vallo before.
Selenia herself had no reason to trust either of the creatures she was with. She didn’t assume they were humans, but she didn’t know exactly what they were and she wasn’t going to worry herself with figuring it out either. Staying alive was more important and she’d deal with whatever she had to to find the princess and get out of here. Preferably with both princes. The Unseelie were of little consequence to her, but she would bring them as well if it would keep the princess out of trouble.
She glanced over at the creature for a moment, readying herself for what likely would be a fight at some point. She just had to be alert enough for when it happened. “I have not seen it before, no.” But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t find the way to kill it and then kill it. “Let's find our way out,” she said after a moment. “We’ll keep an eye on whatever that is and kill it if it comes close enough.”
Right, well, with no one knowing what the thing was, there was no point in playing a guessing game. Rory scanned the area, looking for anything else of interest. Other than the broken weapon, there was only the second door, which had to be their way out. There was something on it though.
She moved toward it, aware that either her own movements, or just their general presence was causing the monster to move toward them at the same time. It was a puzzle, some kind of maze. While Rory didn’t spend a lot of time on puzzles these days, she did go through an entire phase of solving puzzles and mysteries, a side effect of being a cop's daughter. And immortal.
“It’s some kind of puzzle. You two keep that thing busy and I’ll work on this. Unless one of you wants to solve it.” Though she didn’t wait for an answer for either of them before she began to move the piece carefully through the door on the maze.
“We’ll cover you.” Or well, at least, she’d cover her. Sabrina wasn’t so sure the fae with them would or not.
The last time Sabrina had figured out a puzzle she’d let out Batibat, so she was happy to leave it to Rory to handle. Her focus was on the creature that was hurrying toward them. It was definitely hostile but she was going to need to do a lot of guesswork on what its weaknesses were.
She threw up a barrier of Hellfire around them, trying to cut off its access to them before reaching out with her other hand to utilize magic to lift the ballista into the air and fling it at the creature.
Selenia was more confident with fighting than she was a puzzle. Keeping the Outlanders alive was worth a lack of annoyance outside of here. The princess, if she wasn’t here, was most likely dealing with things on the outside and anyone that didn’t come back would likely be problematic for her. “You will be better for that.” She knew he strengths.
The fire was surprising in a way, but it added information to her roster. The power she had was strong. She kept to her blades, the military training and additional training to look after the princess was enough to make fighting like breathing. She pulled her blades free, twirling them in her hands before moving forward.
She ignored the comment from the fae, and paid no attention to the heat radiating from the Hellfire. Her job was to solve the maze, and if she got distracted and messed something up, Rory had no idea what would happen. She didn’t care to find out.
It was a complicated thing, but probably not the most complicated she had ever spent time figuring out. She willed herself to block out what was happening around her, trusting at least Sabrina to keep the thing back until she could figure it out.
Rory had no idea how much time had passed. She assumed it was only a few minutes, but hopefully it wasn’t much longer. Eventually she was able to guide the marker free of the maze. As she did, she heard the door unlock, and when she tried the handle, it turned under her hand.
“Got it.” she announced, turning her attention back to the other two to see if the fight was over.
Selenia moved gracefully but intentionally, working to fight the creature, carefully avoiding the attacks from magic. It was made of metal and stone, so knives were, inevitably, not going to be the best weapon she had, but she had strength and cunning enough to believe in herself. Enough heat and even something metal could make it weaker, so she did her best to keep it close to the fire to try to weaken and destroy it. She didn’t particularly care if it came with injuries because she could deal with it later. “If you hit it with something strong enough, it should be easy to destroy.”
Sabrina didn’t want to destroy the golem. Sure, it was attacking them, but that was clearly all it knew how to do. It was trapped in the room just like they were. She had various animals back in Vallo that others would want to kill if they came upon them in the wild. Hellhounds were supposed to be bloodthirsty monsters dragging their victims to Hell. Kelpies were supposed to drown humans for fun. Even her baby hydra that was still learning how to walk on land better was something people would want dead.
They were in the golem’s territory. It might not have been their fault that they were there but they’d kept it off of them and now could leave. There was no reason to hurt it any further.
“Rory has the door open. Let’s just go.”
She was able to catch a small sample of the fight, Sabrina with magic, Selenia looking like she could probably go toe to toe with Maze. It wasn’t long enough to study her skills though. The thing was still alive, but the door was open so they might as well bail. Her wings could cut through the creature, but if the door was open, there was no point. This wasn’t a fight she felt compelled to finish.
“Sabrina’s right, let’s split. There’s no rules saying we have to kill it.” If they had to come through here again, they’d worry about it then. The sooner they got out of here, the sooner they could get back to being annoyed while trying to think of a new way out in their room where nothing seemed to happen.
Selenia let out a frustrated noise, muttering to herself as she stopped in the middle of what she felt was an unfinished fight. You always killed your enemies and this? This was ridiculous. She wished another Fae from Night was here. They could have killed the creature together. She moved quickly to get to the door. “Fine Let’s go.”