The Bloodforged Kin

Chapter 258 250: Luna - No Luck for the Weary

Air whipped around Luna as she reached blindly into the darkness. She felt gravity take hold and her heart jumped into her throat. She knew there was no hope, no other alternative - this had to work or, or… well, there was no 'or.' She'd catch the rope or she'd splat.

She flailed wildly and her heart beat like a madman's drum until she felt the rough rope slap against her palm. She grabbed it with tired arms, her forearms burning immediately from the strain. She caught it with the other and swung precariously in the empty space for a moment to catch her breath. Kicking out with her legs she swung upwards, wrapping her ankles around the rope and relieving some of the stress from her arms.

Her laugh felt wrong in this place, but she didn't care. "I did it! I freaking did it! I knew you'd come through for me!"

Her triumph was short-lived when she felt the rope vibrate, then dip. She tilted her head back and saw that one of the zombies had managed to grab the rope and was starting to inch its way towards her. The rope dipped even further when another joined it, then a skeleton, then another.

"No! That's not fair! You guys aren't supposed to be able to do that!" She looked past her feet but only saw the rope disappear into blackness. "No, no, no, no!"

She began to inch her way down the rope, her movements awkward and jerky as she fought to crawl feet-first.

"Stupid zombies!" Move feet forward.

"Stupid skeletons!" Move hands forward carefully.

"Stupid god damned rope-climbing zombies and skeletons! They're not supposed to do that!" She knew she sounded childish but she didn't care. The only things that could hear her were the zombies and The System, and she wanted them to know how ridiculous this whole thing was.

She inched and she crawled, sweat pouring off of her and stinging her eyes. Her palms were raw but she was grateful for it, even as the sweat stung the abrasions - if it hadn't been rough she would have fallen off long ago. Despite telling herself not to, she tilted her head back and saw the zombies still coming. They hadn't gotten closer, thankfully, but they weren't stopping. They never stopped.

She pushed down a sob she felt was coming and focused. No time for that! Cry later, survive now!

She didn't know how long she'd inched her way along before she felt stone hitting her butt, coming just in time. Fingers tired beyond reckoning slipped off of the rope and she fell with a hard thump, head falling backwards over the lip of the pit.

She scrambled away and pulled herself to her feet, pulling the sword out of her belt. Clumsy swings cut at the rope and her swings became more frantic and desperate as she saw them getting closer. Another few seconds and they would be on her! With a cry of defiance and a final swing the rope parted and they all fell silently to the depths below. Luna listened for it, but never heard them hit the bottom.

She spun in place, looking around her for any new threats. When none showed themselves she walked quietly to the far wall where another identical hallway to the one she'd come from was present. She stepped back and moved as far along the wall as she could, making herself as small and invisible as she could, hoping that if she tucked her knees into her sweatshirt and breathed as shallowly as possibly that she'd be hidden in the small shadow that was this corner.

She closed her eyes and went to her Well, the spiritual space her only refuge from the horror. Time moved faster in her Well and she knew she would be safe for the moment, although even that had its limits. While in here she couldn't see what was happening unless she was actively holding her current timeline thread in her hand. She rushed past the Echo of The Crimson Scythe, so beautiful and terrifying, but completely useless right now. She couldn't use her for another level and so it stood, an unloaded gun sitting on a shelf.

She reached her Well in moments and looked for her thread. It was painfully easy to see. Her well showed her all of the realities that led from her past decisions, and all the potential realities of her future. Normally there were dozens - or even hundreds - of realities to look through, each formed from a decision she'd made at different points.

What she saw now terrified her. There was only a single thread from the time she'd entered her trial - all the others long since dead and gone. There were only a precious few leading forward, all of them too short for her to see what came next. She ran her hand across each of them, feeling the impressions they'd give her. She checked them all, then checked them again. After checking them a third time, just to be sure, she breathed a sigh of relief and closed her eyes again, coming back to her present reality. She'd be safe here. Nothing would come for her as long as she stayed on this ledge. They all went gray and murky as soon as she stepped into the hallway, but for now, at least, she was safe.

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She closed her eyes and slept, praying that she hadn't missed a thread.

She awoke with a start, adrenaline prickling her skin and bringing her fully awake in an instant. How long was I asleep? In this ever-dark place there was no way to know, but at least her muscles weren't burning anymore and her hands didn't feel quite so raw. She downed a healing pill, eliminating the last of her sore muscles before standing up to approach the hallway.

She squinted into the darkness that was lit by regular torches. There was nothing to see - no clues as to what lay ahead. A deep part of her knew that the instant she stepped past the threshold this place would no longer be safe for her, and she balked at that first step. Turning away she surveyed the area, looking for anything she might have missed. Her search turned up nothing - no ropes, no ladders, no hidden doors - it was forward or not at all.

"Okay, okay. Enough procrastinating. Nothing left to do but to do the damned thing," she muttered to herself before steeling her resolve and stepping into the hallway.

This side of the pit was every bit as claustrophobic and panic-inducing as the last, even more so since nothing came for her. She jumped when her footsteps echoed, and cringed every time her breath sounded too loudly in her ears. As she walked the tunnels turns upon turns greeted her, each one a choice of directions with no clear instructions on which to choose.

In this, at least, Luna was comfortable. She eased into her Luck and let it guide her, her mind wandering after what felt like hours of endless turns. It was all the same and all unknowable - until it wasn't.

"Well what are you?"

This part of the labyrinth looked different - the stone a slightly different color than the ones before it. On the wall next to her was a well-worn carving in bass relief. "Are you an ear?" She ran her hand along it. "Yep, definitely an ear. Why are you an ear?" The ear didn't answer and Luna could only shrug. For the first time the darkness ahead was unbroken, without a single torch for guidance. Torches lined the wall of the room she was in, although their light couldn't penetrate the hallway beyond. She walked up to one and saw that it wasn't actually attached to the wall - it was sitting in a sconce and could be removed. She reached up and pulled it gently out of the iron ring. "Am I supposed to take you with me? I think I am." It popped lightly in her hand when she moved it through the air, a small spark landing on her wrist.

"Ow! Stop that!" It stopped, although she suspected it was more because she'd stopped moving it than because she told it to. With a sigh of resignation she turned and walked back to the Ear Zone, as she now thought of it, and stepped inside.

The labyrinth had been eerily silent when she wasn't being chased by zombies and skeletons, but only now was she realizing that it hadn't been truly, deeply silent. The instant she crossed into the Ear Zone the silence fell on her like a weight - purposeful and deadly. She felt like a rabbit in a burrow hearing the slithering of scales just outside and knew - knew - that silence was the law in this space. She moved the torch to her buckler hand and held the sword in front of her, the tip only barely quivering. Her pool of light was small, just touching the walls on either side of her and only reaching to just past the tip of her sword. With the lightest steps possible, she took a step forward.

She walked the lonely hallways, eyes inexorably drawn to the carvings of ears at each junction. They never moved - they were only stone, after all - but they took on a life all their own in her mind. She didn't know why, didn't know how, but she knew they were waiting on her to do something. Something wrong. It was too much. She'd been walking for too long and the silence felt painful. Her ears began to ring with it and even the sound of her own breath felt like a roar. It was when she began to hear her own heartbeat that it became too much.

The crush of silence made her walk faster, then even faster. Soon she was at a light jog, mouth clenched tight but her breath still coming heavy through her nostrils. In her need to just get out she didn't notice that the torch was burning low, or that she was moving quickly enough to throw off sparks.

Most of the sparks were falling across her buckler, drifting lazily down it and behind her. But it only took one, and that one found its way behind the shield and onto her wrist.

"Ow! I told you to stop it!"

She realized her mistake an instant too late. She was standing next to an ear and she saw it begin to vibrate at the sound of her voice.

Then it screamed.

The piercing sound shattered the silence and cut into her eardrums like a sonic attack. She screamed at the pain, which only caused the ear to scream even louder. She clamped her hands over her ears, forgetting that she was holding the torch. The embers lit her face ablaze with pain and she threw it with another scream, the sound of it falling to the ground lost to the sound of the screaming.

With supreme effort she clenched her teeth and forced her lips together, holding the scream in with her hands. After a few seconds of silence the ear's screaming died away and there was blessed, crushing silence once again.

And then she heard the roar.