Into the Shadows (Vest)

[Maya Frostfawn]

Timestamp: Fall 39, 523 AV Maya could hear them long before she could see them. The sound of of a group of people shouting. Deep, gruff voices. Another higher, crying out for help. The sound of their footsteps thundering against the earth. A bit of metal scraping against metal. She tried to step into the shadows, but there were none to be found with the way the sun's light fell to the earth and glimmered on her shoulders. Although the sun's rays warmed her cool skin, she struggled beneath their weight, looked frantically for a pool of darkness in a world strangely lacking. And, barring that, a way to escape the sounds that were coming closer, although a part of her wanted to be of assistance, she doubt she could be any in the situation that seemed to be headed her way. Without her truly realizing, her feet began moving of their own accord, guiding her through the city and what she hoped, was away. Only to discover that they had somehow circled around and were barreling right toward her. There was no way out now, no way to keep herself out of the dangerous situation, which was barreling toward her. She could hear their ragged breathing now, see their faces reddened with exertion, a group of thugs whose armor was clanking, armed to the teeth. Chasing a woman with pale skin and red hair. Maya's eyes widened as the stampede edged closer, and she finally, turned tail and ran. As they begin to close in on her, Maya noticed a door in a wall that hadn't been there before. It was a simple wooden door, which looked sturdy enough. It had a crescent moon painted on its center in black by what appeared to be a shaky hand for a streak of paint was trickling down the length of the door from the edge of the moon. "Hurry," Maya shouted as she wrenched the door open, "in here," she added as she waited for the pursued to run in behind her before shutting the door and quickly dropping the thick board that rested behind it into place, barring the door as she plunged them into darkness. "What on earth did you do?" Maya inquired, her tone oddly level considering their current predicament; she could hear the thugs banging on the door, trying to beat their way inside. Maya squinted in the darkness, hoping her eyes would adjust, while also feeling along the walls with her hands. Eventually, she located a torch and a bit of flint and steel to light it, nearby. Maya quickly grabbed each, and began to frantically strike the steel against the flint, hoping it would catch. She could hear them clicking together in the darkness, but with her hands shaking not from fear but from sheer exertion, it was not enough to make them catch. To so much as spark. Even so, she kept at it, forcing her hands to stop trembling so much. But it was no use. "Come light this," she instructed, telling the stranger what she had found, hoping that she would have far more luck than she with her fire-making skills. She could hear shouts coming from outside the door, more banging. And when the room was finally illuminated by the torch's light, she'd find that they were trapped in an empty stone room, which was perhaps 5x8. The torch they had lit was its only adornment, and it cast long shadows throughout the room. Although, there was a metal grate, roughly 2x2 against the opposite wall, and when Maya looked up at the ceiling, which was perhaps ten feet away, she noticed another grate, not much larger than the first. "I imagine those are our only way out," the nuit said as she gestured toward each of the grates. "We should try to investigate," she commented as she approached the one on the opposite wall, and noticed there was a faint, flickering light emanating from its depths. "For we're severely outnumbered and I'm not much in a fight, although I could patch you up just fine if they don't kill us both first." A pause. "Which I imagine is rather unlikely given their disposition and sheer determination to get into this room." A pause. "Come, there is a light over there, perhaps we could wrench the grate from the wall and make our way toward it?" she had her doubts, but they had so few options. Word Count: 741 Words OOC: I am hoping you can make a cleaner opening than me in terms of the prompt. :/

[Vest]

Fall 39, 523AV

Vest wasn’t the curious type at all in Sunberth, that's how you would get killed. So when she heard the sound of someone calling for help, she didn’t investigate immediately. She waited at the end of a long stretch of alleyway and listened again, hand slowly reaching up for her bow. She would tilt her head in the direction of the sound before she heard it again. It sounded even more desperate than the first, and she narrowed her eyes as she took one cautious step towards it. She had notched an arrow in her bow, already not trusting the situation, and continued forward into the alley. It didn't take long for the people to get impatient though, as they started to creep out from every crack there was when Vest was close enough.

They were armed to their teeth with swords and protected heavily in metal armor. Vest found it odd that common thugs were armed so heavily here in Sunberth, so her mind thought they were some corrupted guards who saw her as a threat. She didn't know why or how, but it was the only thing that made sense to her in this situation. Therefore, she straightened herself into a changing position, put away her bow and arrow, and smiled mockingly at the group.

“I see, so the little bitch screams I heard came from you lot of sorry ass men. Well, unfortunately, I don't have time to play with you right now, so bye!”

Vest gave a mocking salute before taking off back from where she came, causing the men to give chase. From what she could tell, her remarks only made the men even angrier as they cursed at her during the chase, swearing it would be the last thing she did. Vest only laughed as she ran away, weaving through the streets until she came across another who seemed to want to help. The Inarta girl wasn't about to pass up the opportunity for help and nearly dove into the empty room with the other woman and her pet bird. Once the door was closed and the heavy bar was dropped in front of it, Vest was plunged into darkness with a strange woman.

It didn't take long for the thugs to start beating on the door when she was called over to help light a torch. It was not something she was any good at, but she gave it a shot and was lucky enough to get some minor spark to land on the torch. With the assistance of the other woman, the torch took off and the room was filled with light. It was a small sized room with a tall ceiling and two grates. Was this a storage room? She didn't know, but the woman suggested so come over and help try pulling the grate off of the wall across from the door. She walked over and, with the dim light, examined the grate a bit. It wasn't secured to the wall with fasteners or the likes, but it wasn't loose enough for an animal to casually push it down. With their combined power, they would be able to yank the grate off the wall and crawl through.

“Okay, put the torch to the side and grab hold. We will yank on the count of three.”

WC: 555



.

[Maya Frostfawn]

Maya nodded as the sound of the thugs banging on the door intensified. She set the torch aside before proceeding. "On three then," she commented. "I'll give the count," she continued, before rapidly firing through each number. "One, two, three!" As soon as the last syllable had left her lips, she grit her teeth, and begun tugging on the grates, which she had already dug her fingers into with all of her might. She thought she could hear something crack, something else grating, a sort of strain as metal slid against rock. Slowly but surely, loosening. Another few moment's effort, and together, the women managed to pull the grate away. "Let's set it down on the floor," Maya commented as they eased the grate down and she retrieved the torch. She brought it in front of the opening they had created, and realized that it illuminated little more than the narrow nature of the passage they had freed. It cast long shadows as its light flickered and danced against the darkness. "Here, take this, I'll go first. Throw it at them if you must, or use your bow if you think that'd be better, but from what I recall they're pretty heavily armed and you're unlikely to hit an open spot. The heat of the fire should deter them though, especially if it catches on the wood... hopefully that won't smoke us out, though," she said as she jumped a little and pulled herself into the opening the absence of the grate had created. The surface beneath her hands was cold and uneven, but not particularly rough and she was thankful, for it shouldn't shred her hands and spill her precious ichor if she was careful. "I wouldn't wait long to come after me," she called as she began to make her way down the passage. "I doubt that door will hold much longer. I'm surprised it's held this long," she added under her breath as a large splinter came flying across the room. She could hear it slam into the floor, spin across its surface as she picked up the pace so it would be easier for the woman to follow her. "Come on," she added as she crawled through the passage as quickly as she could, following it in a straight path that led toward the light. Upon coming to the end of the passage, she found the source of the light. It was a small room, perhaps half the size of the one they had just left behind. And half as tall. She had to duck so she wouldn't hit her head. And as she began to look around, she realized it was as strange as the room they had just left behind. At its heart was a collection of shells that looked as though they might have once belonged to a clam or oyster. They fanned around a small, faintly glowing candle, whose light flickered at every moment. And at this construction's feet was sand. Beige. Course. Rough. Maya wondered for a moment, where it had come from, for there was no beach here that she knew of. No beach nearby. She approached the candle, curious, and found that she could barely feel its heat. Began to wonder if it was truly heat she felt, or just her expectation of its existence. She frowned. "How strange," she whispered, the sounds emanating from behind her momentary lost in her drifting thoughts. "This place... this candle... nothing is as it should be." Unsure as to why, she knelt beside the candle and its holder, began to brush away the sand that surrounded it. Her hands tickled by the touch of their grains. The way they flowed over her skin. Several moments later she found something she had not expected. A keyhole filled with beige sand. A key, and a knob. And when she looked up again, she realized there were doors all around her, but only the single, small, heart-shaped key. Word Count: 663 Words

[Vest]

It was difficult at first, as Vest pulled with all her might against the grate along with the other woman. But after just a few short seconds, the grate seemed to come loose and pop off faster than she expected. Vest was honestly surprised, she expected the grate to have more resistance than what it had put up. However, now wasnt the time to think about that as the other woman handed her the torch and told her to use it defensively. She also said that she could use her bow as an alternative solution, but Vest would have to risk standing wide open in the room to get any shots off. And her evasion skills were not nearly as refined, so her being able to jump into the hole right when they bust down the door would result in her being caught.

Instead, following the insistent pleas of the other woman, Vest followed in after the woman but backwards. She was going to use the torch as a defensive weapon to keep away any pursuing hands that would follow. And right as she was getting down and scooting into the hole, the door began to let loose large splinters. Her eyes widened and Vest picked up the pace, making it inside right as the door burst open and pieces of it skittered across the ground. The men shouted that they had escaped through the grate and some proceeded to try and follow as Vest had guessed. In response, she shoved a hot torch into their hands or faces, burning them and listening to their screams.

She smirked at the sounds before Vest’s backwards shuffle started to feel strange. The once hard, stone floor turned into grains of some beige looking substance. Backing out of the hole and turning to sit against the wall, she furrowed her brow and sifted her hand through the material, pleasantly surprised by how it felt. She ignored the rest of the room set up and happily played with the sand.

“Hey, lady, what is this stuff? It feels soft but rough and it is fun to play with.”

Vest grinned up at the woman as she buried her hands deeper, then her smile faded. She felt something under the sand, roughly two inches below, and brushed it away to find a hinge to a door. When she went to tell the woman about it, she too had noticed that the room was filled with an unsettling amount of doors. From top to bottom, wall to wall, there were doors of different sizes and shapes and it all made Vest very confused.

WC: 437



.

[Maya Frostfawn]

"It's called 'sand," Maya replied absently as she studied all of the doors that surrounded them. Some would be easier to go through than others, as some were smaller than the others, and some were so narrow that she doubt that even a slender snake could fit inside. "It tends to be found in more tropical areas, so I'm not quite sure why it's here, but it could pose a problem considering it seems to have made its way into each of the keyholes, and there's only one key." A pause. "I'm not sure if it's a skeleton key that will open any door we try, or if we have to find one before those men can get in here and slaughter us." She doubt they'd stand a chance against them, since she was useless in a fight and they severely outnumbered them. Even if the men could only trickle into the room and might struggle because of its size on top of that, they were far better armed, and at least better trained than she was. "I wonder..." she whispered as she crept toward the door in front of her, inched her lips toward the keyhole, and began to blow, easing some of the sandy grains out of the keyhole with her breath. Another moment, and she had plunged the key she quickly retrieved from the ground into the keyhole and hoped for the best. She could hear the metal grating against the sand as she twisted the key in the hole. It resisted, but she could hear the grains slowly grinding beneath the pressure, giving way to her efforts. Another moment passed before she heard a click, punctuated by a shout. "Hurry," Maya shouted as she pushed the door open, wrenched the key out of the hole, and made her way inside the narrow passage behind the door on her hands and knees; there wasn't enough room to do anything other than crawl. "This way." As soon as the inarta had made her way inside the door and shut it behind them, the door would evaporate into thin air, as though it had never been, plunging them into darkness. The walls would prove to be strangely thin, to the point where the women could hear their pursuers banging on the remaining doors and the space where theres had once been. For each other door remained, as did the sand and the strange candle. "That was close," Maya commented, her tone oddly calm as she began to feel around in the darkness. "I hope there isn't another key back there; I hadn't the time to look. And that if they do find one, those doors don't lead to wherever it is we are now." A pause. "Since there doesn't appear to be any way back, we can only go forward and hope we can escape this place without running into them again," she continued as she began to make her way through the darkness. Her hands aching as they moved over the cool, uneven earth beneath them, struggling to support her weight. "What's your name?" Maya inquired as they began to make their way through the passage; she supposed it was safe enough to talk since the men knew they were inside, if not precisely where. "And what did you do to piss them off and make them come after you?" she asked again, since she hadn't received an answer to the question before. Maya would keep crawling as they talked, or, if the woman didn't wish to speak. Didn't. She couldn't see anything up ahead, but she could smell something. Something faintly damp and earthy in nature. Although she could not discern precisely what it was, she supposed she would find out when they happened upon it. Word Count: 629 Words

[Vest]

Sand, that is what it was called, a very pleasant thing to feel. She smiled and wiggled her fingers in the grains as Tsikwa hopped around the room. She then got serious as she peered down the passage that they had just come from. Lucky for them, it didn’t look like any of the men could fit through the hole, and judging by the chirps of Tsikwa, he didn’t think so either. Vest could hear them bickering, though it was far off into the distance, and proceeded to conclude that they were trying to figure out how to get to where they were. She was amused that it took this much time for some group of thugs to figure out how to crawl through a hole. Maybe they wasn't wanting to strip off that shiny armor and shimmy their way over. A wise decision since she would then attack with an arrow if they got close.

But then again, why was a bunch of things so intent on getting after her? She was just some common woman who had escaped their grasp, common thugs would have given up by now. Who were they to be so persistent? Vest didn’t get a chance to ponder that idea much as she heard grunting coming from the hole. She peered down it again and she was surprised to see a skinny fellow making their way down the tunnel, obviously struggling since they didn't remove all of their armor. Vest was about to mention something, but right then the woman announced that she had opened a door and was signaling for her to follow. Vest didn't hesitate, and followed the woman into the hole on her hands and knees once more with her pet bird perched on her shoulder. She took a peek behind her and watched the fellow wiggle out of the tunnel while shouting for Vest to stop, or were they saying wait? She didn't know, as the door they came into faded away and the pair was plunged into darkness.

This was one wild trip she was going on, and the added effect of the vanishing door only made her feel like she was going crazy. If it wasn't for the fact that she had one other person here with her, then she probably would have gone crazy. She shuffled her hands along the surface, pouting at not being able to play in the sand anymore, and perked up when the woman introduced herself as Maya.

“Ah, my name is Vest, and my pet here is Tsikwa. I am unsure of what it is that I had done to these men, but I figure it is just because of the kind of work I do.”

It didn;t dawn on her that they could just be a group of thugs associated with her work. It would be the very first time that something like this would have happened. So while she thought it was a possibility, it may very well be something else. At that, she kind of chuckled and continued her answer with something additional.

“Then again, they could have just been trying to rob me, and me calling them sorry ass men could have hurt their pride.”

WC: 538



.

[Maya Frostfawn]

"Lovely to meet both you and your companion, Vest. Although I wish it were under an entirely different set of circumstances." Maya smiled as she shuffled along the passage ahead of the Inarta. "What do you do for work?" she inquired, unsure of what vocation would provoke such a strong negative response from such a large number of people. "I imagine that didn't help, if they were only intent on robbing you to begin with." She paused. "It wouldn't be surprising either, given the city we now find ourselves in and your sex. Men have always liked to pick on those they presume weak, no matter what portion of the world one finds themselves in." Her hands continued to slide over the cool floor of the passage. She could hear shouting echoing over their voices in the distance. The men, she imagined, trying to find a key. A way into one of the doors, to them. As she continued crawling, the damp earthy scent deepened. Grew stronger. Another few moments and it had overcome her nostrils; she wrinkled them in disdain as a light appeared at the end of the tunnel, and it gradually widened into an opening, which deposited the women in a room filled with mud. Grass had been sprinkled over its surface, like an afterthought. All of their roots torn from the earth and strewn about the mud unevenly. Its churned surface marked by large footsteps, which made Maya wonder if the men that pursued them had passed this way, or if there was yet another group somewhere in the building. The grass rose and fell over the indentations in the earth, and as Maya continued to blink around in the newfound light, her eyes stinging from the torches that hung all around the room in brackets, she whispered, "we should be careful; I know not who made these prints, if it was the men from before or someone or something else entirely." A pause. "And it's impossible to say whether or not they will be prove to be our friends or a foe." With that, Maya moved toward one of the nearby torches, her feet sinking into the earth with each of her steps. She could feel the mud sucking at her shoes, her steps squelching in the earth as the mud tried to draw her feet into their depths. She could feel her shoes growing heavier with each clump of mud that clung to their surface, the ends of her dress. Slowing her as she stumbled the last few steps toward the torch, and removed it from its bracket so they would have a source of light if they were ever plunged into a room lacking illumination again. As soon as she had lifted the torch from its bracket, the wall shook, raining a mixture of dust and grime into the mud at her feet. She took a single step back as the wall continued to grumble, the rock of the wall groaned and then pulled back as though it were a curtain being parted, revealing a room lit by candles on the other side of a thick, dusty glass. Inside, she could see two armored men moving about. Had she still been alive, she might have been alarmed at the sight of them, but she felt nothing. Took a moment too long to respond; they had already turned and noticed them. "Quick, we must do something," Maya commented as she turned, her torch's light making an angry, fiery sound as it trailed smoke through the air. "This torch opened the wall, if I put it back, I imagine it would close the wall back up, but I wonder..." Her voice trailed off momentarily as the men began beating on the glass. "What would happen if we manipulated another torch?" she asked aloud as she pulled the nearest torch out of its holder, causing the stone floor beneath the men's feet to slide back, plunging them into a pit of spears upon which their bodies were broken. Maya carefully set the torch back into place. "On second thought," she began as the floor began to slide back into place, grating and groaning with each minute movement, "perhaps we should be careful with what we touch; we never know what it might do." The floor closed back over the bodies of the dead men, shielding the unpleasant sight of their broken and bloodied bodies. Their scent. Plunging them into darkness and shadow for eternity. "While manipulating that particular torch proved useful in this instance, adjusting another could prove to be a problem if it did something like that to our floor." She set the first torch she had grabbed back into its original place and watched the wall knit itself back together with a series of grates and groans. "I don't want any of their friends to see us," she said as she turned to her companion, studied the room. Other than the torches, there was no light. Other than the place they had just exited, she could see no way out. And the floor was covered in mud. The ceiling high over their heads. "But I do not know where we go from here." She paused. "I imagine there are still men trailing us, and even if I managed to kill a pair, if only by mistake, we are still severely outnumbered. And we do not know what made those," she said, as she gestured toward the prints that lined the floor. "I don't suppose you have any experience tracking and could discern what made these prints?" she inquired them as she moved closer to a nearby print to study it. It was large, larger than an adult human's print. Messy, as though the mud had eaten a portion of it. For her, it was impossible to tell if it was made from a humanoid or a beast, but another more skilled than she should be able to discern as much. And how old the prints looked. To her, they seemed fresh enough since the mud was dark and moist, but that could have been in part the work of shadow. So in this, she did not trust her own judgment and quickly returned to pacing the room. "If this room is anything like the one we left before, the room that held all the sand, then it's possible there's a key somewhere that'll open a door. But given what we just experienced with the torches, I imagine one of them will lead to a way out. But also, given what we've just seen, I still don't know if it's worth the risk, especially with our pursuers being out of sight, if only temporarily." The nuit absently ran her hand through her hair as she considered their experience, the possibilities this strange place held, and everything they both knew and didn't know. As her fingers snagged on a knot, she realized that running her hand through her hair was one of the most human acts she had performed in quite some time, and instantly, returned her hand to her side for a reason she could not quite put words to. "What do you think we should do?" she asked her companion, if only to make it feel as though she weren't doing everything herself, to not leave the other out. Word Count: 1,225 Words

[Vest]

Vest shuffled along and gave thought about how to answer Maya’s question. I was a harmless question, but if these men were after her because of her job, what would happen if she were to learn of it. After a bit of toiling on the idea, she answered with the most bleak answer she could think of.

“I help take care of birds for someone. Which puzzles me as to why these guys are so intent to come after us.” She shuffled forward and felt Tiskwa hopp around on her back and to her other shoulder. “But you make a point, given that I am a woman and that we are in one of the most unlawful and unethical places in the lands, their actions do make sense.”

The pair grew silent now as they ventured forward and soon Vest was having her nose tickled by the smell of earth and grass. More specifically, she smelt mud or maybe even the calling of dried earth finally getting a drink of water after a long drought. She felt her lips turn up into a smile and relized she felt herself relax from the familiar scent. It was even better when she felt her hands sink into the soft texture of churned up mud. Her eyes looked up to examine the new room they were put in after Maya whispered and she couldn’t help but notice the strange footprints in the mud as well.

As the woman struggled her way through the mud and to a torch, Vest took her time to take off her shoes and go to examine the prints in the mud. She didnt get to really look at them when her attention was snapped up to a now moving wall that slowly opened with the loudest grinding noise there could be. Her brow furrowed and she immediately got up, drawing her bow and notching an arrow right as the sight of two men came into view. While the other woman took too much time to react, she had begun to aim her bow at the men as they took notice of the two and charged toward them. It wasn't until the two began beating on the barrier between the rooms when Vest took notice of some thick glass blocking the off from the men.

“They seem unable to get through the wall of thick glass. But what do you have in mind?”

She watched the trail off in thought before she started talking to herself again. Vest watched and lowered her bow, taking her eyes off Maya and turning back to the men. Taking careful steps through the soft mud, she came inches away from the glass and peered into the other room. The men were seething as they tried to get to her, pacing the rooms like a couple of dogs wanting a piece of meat. They seemed to be in a standard stone room with no other entrance to be seen. That was, until the floor opened up beneath them and the men screamed in terror before being impaled. Their gurgled noises trailed off and Vest just stared at the scene she had just witnessed, eyes wide as she took it all in.

“What the fuck was that!” She shouted and whipped around to see the other replace a torch they moved back on the wall. Behind her, Vest heard the sounds of the floor grinding shut and a loud thud as it closed, but she dared not look back. It was bad enough the scent of blood was now mingling with the once relaxing smell of mud. Now, Vest curled her nose up at the combination as all it did was remind her of a bloody battlefield and that wasnt something she wanted to deal with. Now she resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the comment that the Nuit woman nade and sighed.

“I figured being careful was the first thing on your mind when the first torch moved the wall.” She was watching the woman replace the first torch and sighed again. “Forget their buddies seeing us, they could probably hear that noise for miles away.”

Even though her mood had soured due to the ruined smell of the room, Vest had to admit that the stroke of luck was a good thing. Two less men made their chances of survival increase and she was willing to bet on those odds. Now, putting away her bow and arrow, she focused her attention back to the room and took her time to examine it. In that time, Tsikwa took flight and began exploring themselves. She paid no mind to her companion and went over to the footsteps once more, pleased at how recent they actually looked. This meant that they were able to come and go within the room and this was a promising sight regardless of if they were friend or foe.

“Well, whether or not these prints belong to a friend or foe, they come in and exit the room. This is a benefit for us since we are trying to get out, or well get away. The option is if we follow the prints or head away from them, both are valid choices.” She pondered some pros and cons of each choice before presenting them. “Pros of following is that we could run into a friendly thing who could help us out. Con is that it could be one of the men or some beast wandering around. On the contrary though is that if we go away from the prints we could be walking into something similar.”

WC: 937



.

[Maya Frostfawn]

Maya said nothing in response to the vast majority of what the woman had said. She was like that sometimes, but she spoke on other things. "In sum, it would appear as though we are lacking a good option, let alone an ideal one." She paused as she studied the prints again. "The only problem with following the prints, is that they lead to a wall... which appears to have no way through." She gestured with her hand. "Since there are no claw marks in the mud, I don't think the entity who made the prints burrowed their way beneath. Therefore, I'd imagine that one of these torches opens the passageway that leads out of this room." A pause. "Or, the entrance into the land that stretches beyond that wall is cleverly hidden. Something we cannot discern from where we are standing currently." She struggled through the mud at that, approaching the wall where she could see the prints had clearly led. She extended both her hands, feeling around the stone for a switch, or a crevice, or something she could not name that might indicate there was a hidden door there. She worked in silence for a few moments before announcing. "I can neither see nor feel anything, but I don't suppose that means anything. It's possible the entryway isn't obvious or lies in another part of the room. Perhaps even the passage that led us to this strange place." A pause. "It's impossible to say given we have so little to go on." Her nails flicked away some of the dirt that had become embedded in the cool, stone surface beneath her fingers. "Do the tracks lead anywhere else that might provide a clue?" she asked, without bothering to look herself. "Or is this the only direction they tread?" she inquired as she kept on working at the wall, her fingers digging, searching, gradually widening their neck when she turned up with nothing. She probably looked like an inept spider, who had had four of its arms torn off, struggling to scramble up the side of the stone wall her movements were so awkward. At least, there was only a woman and her animal companion to bear witness. "Widening my search hasn't proven fruitful, which is leading me to believe one of these torches must open the way," she commented absently, an unexpected edge of wariness making its way into her voice. "Do you think we might be going about this the wrong way? Missing something?" The nuit nibbled on her lower lip, delicately, so as not to split the skin. She couldn't figure out what she might be missing; it hadn't occurred to her that the floor might have shifted when the next passage opened, or something similar. Despite what she had already seen in this strange place, she hadn't yet considered that not everything was as it seemed. Word Count: 482 Words

[Vest]

Vest listened to the other and started her search around the room in hopes to find a door. She did the same that the woman did and was looking along the wall for a trigger, hoping that the torches wasnt part of the clue to open a door. The last thing she wanted was for the floor to suddenly start falling out from under her feet. As she searched and slid her hands along the cold stones of the wall, she started to feel like something was off. The walls were too perfect to be sitting like things, and there was mud on areas where mud wouldn't be able to be if it was all on the floor.

Vest took a step back and started looking higher up on the walls, her brow furrowing and even more confusion growing on her face. The other woman was still talking when she tapped her on the shoulder and gestured for her to hush and listen.

“While you picked the mud off the walls, have you noticed that there is mud in areas where mud shouldn't be?” She pointed up the walls and made note that there were muddy shapes near the ceiling that looked like older tracks. “This is only a wild guess, but I think those are tracks lining the walls.”

Vest narrowed her eyes to try and see further on the ceiling, but the light of the torches didnt reach that high so it was too dark to see. She then scanned the room again and looked at the floor to try and find clues as to how that was possible, only to come up empty handed. She hated to admit it, but maybe they had to test out the torches to figure out if one of them triggered a door. Or, as wild as it sounded, maybe the room would rotate and they would be tossed around unexpectedly like a toy in a box tumbling down a hill.

“Okay, lets mark the torches that we have already used. There are, what, like six other torches in here or something? We have already used these two.” Vest squished over and tore a bit of her shirt to tie around the holder of the torch that moved the wall. She then shuffled over to the other torch to tie a piece of cloth around it. She then turned to the other and crossed her arms. “Ill let you decide what we should do, as my brain hurts from thinking that this entire room could rotate like some die being jostled around.”

WC: 430



.