Kahli ran through the tunnels, clutching Froufrou for dear life as Sch'laong's words echoed in the hallway of her mind. A tauman matching Sahdi's description was caught by a fellow plant construct of Sch'laong’s, his cousin, Tess'ickle. Sch'along warned Kahli that Tess'ickle was very powerful, at least as powerful as Sch'laong if not even stronger, and indeed that Tess'ickle had quite a murderous streak due to their status as a giant, carnivorous plant know as a Cenus Tauman Trap.
Kahli had actually heard of Cenus Tauman Traps before. It had been back when she'd been in post-post-operational school in the Upper West side of East Gifflenberg, she'd gotten invited to an arthouse showing of a holographic clam projection called The Tauman Eating Terror about a musical Cenus Tauman Trap that came from outer space and sung about roasting taumans alive and eating them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was a terrible work of art, if it could even be considered that, and it had imbued in Kahli a feeling that Cenus Tauman Traps were not scary, mainly because they did not use actual Cenus Tauman Traps in the production for the obvious reason that the acting taumans were not interested in being eaten alive and digested by a large plant construct. It had just been quite hard for Kahli to be scared of a couple of plant elementals in a stuffed suit covered in ill-watered ferns.
But she was feeling quite stressed about all of this in the present moment. Kahli was genuinely all sorts of concerned about Sahdi, indeed, she was almost a little surprised at how concerned she was. Why was she so worried? It was strange, Sahdi was more of an annoyance than anything else. Then again, annoying company was better than no company. Kahli thought about Froufrou and her foul odors that Kahli had quite quickly grown to... love?
Yes, Kahli admitted to herself, love. She found Froufrou was a calming presence more than she was anything else. And she'd almost gone noseblind to the putresence of her [paired] companion. Not to the squelches, of course, as they were not constant - but indeed to the regular putrid odor that emanated from the tendril-clad creature that inhabited Kahli's purse. So, maybe there was something to be said for Sahdi's company as well at this point that Kahli didn't totally mind her presence and was loathe at the idea of her being eaten alive.
Kahli was rapidly approaching a fork in the ruinous tunnels. Sch'laong had told her to go to the right here, she was certain of it.
"KAHLI! KAAAAHLI!"
It was Sahdi's voice calling out for her! Which Kahli was impressed she recognized considering how generally quiet Sahdi was as a person. Still, shit was going down, and Kahli needed to stop it. Only, Sahdi's voice seemed to be coming from the left tunnel, not the right.
"KAAAAHLI!"
Yes, definitely from the left tunnel. Sch'laong must've been trying to deceive her, she realized. After all, the plant construct only stopped trying to attack her out of fear upon learning that she was a [Time Manipulator], and an envoy of the Supreme Time Protector.
"What do you think, Froufrou? Am I making the right call here?"
"KAAAAHLI! OH MY GODS, KAHLI, PLEEEEEASE?"
"Froufrou? Hello? Can I get some input, please?" Kahli prompted again.
Froufrou squelched in a hesitant affirmative. After all, she didn't want to catch the flack for this if Kahli was wrong, even though she did agree that it seemed to be that Sahdi's screaming was coming from the left tunnel.
"Great, thanks!" With renewed confidence, Kahli dashed forth towards the sound of Sahdi's voice. Further and further down the tunnel she ran, but soon enough she noted that Sahdi's voice was growing faint instead of louder. "Ugh! Were we wrong?"
Froufrou said nothing - she, once again, did not want responsibility for decision making in this moment. Any squelching Froufrou wanted to do could wait until she was off the hook for all this mess.
With that, Kahli sighed and turned around. She ran back up the tunnel.
"AAAAAGH! KAHLI!!! AAAAAAAGH!!"
"Thank Theseosus she's still alive to scream in terror. But it won't be for long, unless we do something about it," said Kahli with determination.
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Froufrou squelched to that. It was a nice, non-comittal thing to agree to, which was perfect for stick situations such as this.
Kahli was ready to run a fast as she could down that next tunnel - but then she realized something.
"KAHLI! KAAAAHLI!"
She had never ran down either of the forked tunnels. Barely any time had passed at all.
"Froufrou, did you experience what I just did? It was like... waking up from a dream that you were having while you were awake, except everything all happened in a split second." Kahli wondered if this had anything to do with her new time-centric [attributes].
Froufrou squelched in affirmative. She, too, had a similar experience. If this had been an [attribute]'s effect, it had worked and traveled over to affect Froufrou as well.
[Clarification: Yes, you just experienced the ability of your clairvoyance (CLA) in full effect. You can indeed somewhat share these experiences with your paired companion. With that noted, it is an ideal situation for you both wherein you have different time-based attributes to level up, as you both have access to either attribute. That being said, as you gain XP using your CLA and become more familiar with it, it will be more obvious to you when you are seeing something that may happen versus something that is happening. It is a skill in and of itself to interpret and control these kind of features, in a way.]
Well, that was certainly educational, and Kahli was thrilled to learn that she could share this with Froufrou. It would've been hard to explain to the strange little creature what had just happened, otherwise. Regardless, there was only so much time before something bad happened to Sahdi, she could ust feel it. Understanding that, Kahli dashed down the right tunnel, prepared to leap into action.
And sure enough, although at first Sahdi's screams faded, soon enough they got louder and louder in a crescendoing effect until Kahli was face to face with a round door sealed shut. However, in the cracks surrounding the door Kahli could see a light, and when she peeked through these small gaps she saw that indeed there was Sahdi, locked in chains and slowly being inched towards the open jaws of a Cenus Tauman Trap.
The Cenus Tauman Trap was about a billion times more terrifying to see for real versus the silly mockery Kahli had viewed years ago. Indeed, this thing - and Kahli hated to admit this to herself - filled her with a sort of visceral fear that could only really happen from seeing a plant construct promptly created to devour a specific organism. It was... disturbing. Kahli couldn't let Sahdi die like this, bound and prepared to become this awful thing's dinner. Even if they parted ways after the fact, which of course was the most likely situation, Sahdi had healed Kahli during countless battles. At least three countless battles, it seemed to Kahli on remembrance. Regardless, it was decidedly in bad taste to let someone so helpful perish without so much as a thought of compassion.
"KAAAAAAAAAHLIIIIIIII!"
"Don't worry, Sahdi, I'll get you out soon as I can!" cried Kahli genuinely as she started kicking the stone door. "This is useless! What do I have to do to open this awful thing?!" She summoned up a big rock and set it flying at the door. "Nothing? Are you kidding me?!?!
With that, Froufrou started squelching so stinkily that it arrested Kahli's attention.
"Wow, Froufrou, that was quite a squelch indeed. What's going on?" asked Kahli.
Froufrou squelched and pointed some tendrils down at-
"KAAAAAAHLIIII! AAAAH!!!"
Froufrou point-
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Froufrou squelched angrily and hopped right on out of the purse, landing on the stone floor in a satisfying splat.
And then all became clear, for what Froufrou landed on was the third pressure plate in a series of carved pressure plates near the front of the doorway. It was much like the three pressure plates in front of the gate to the ruins had been - and this made an awful lot of sense when Kahli saw and considered it, especially seeing as the door blocking her off from Sahdi and the Cenus Tauman Trap was shaped exactly like a minitaurized version of the main ruin entrace door.
With that, the door rolled away and Kahli saw Sahdi being dragged by vine after terrible vine into the wide, ever-revolving jaws of the Cenus Tauman Trap.
"Hey! Let her go, you awful piece of-"
Before Kahli could continue, a vine shot out quickly and wrapped its terrible anatomy around Froufrou! Before much else could happen, Kahli immediately brought her big left foot down on the vine and, in one fell kick, severed it from the Cenus Tauman Trap's main form.
"Don't you dare take Froufrou!" said Kahli as she picked up her pet and put her back in her purse. Then, she summoned up a big rock and immediately sent out a huge globule of gree goo using Froufrou's [Putrefy] [skill] that exploded all the over the plant monster.
The Cenus Tauman Trap growled and shrieked like a banshee, but then it responded by foricbly pulling Sahdi in closer.
"AAAAGH!" she cried. "Please save me, Kahli!"
Kahli kicked her big rock away from the plant construct, watching it sore down the tunnel. Now, she just had to bide her time.
Her time?
Didn't she have control of that now? Thanks to her new [attribute], [SPEE]?
It was time to find out. Kahli focused her mental energy to see if she could speed up the time for her big rock to zoom back. And indeed, it worked. The big rock, aflame with red embers, soared right back at a breakneck pace. Kahli stepped out of its way and watched as it slammed into the terrible mouth of the Cenus Tauman Trap. In a fiery explosion of rubble and pain, the beast shuddered and juddered and soon enough looked notably weakened.
[Critical hit]
Nice. Kahli had gotten a crit. But the battle wasn't over - indeed the beast still held Sahdi captive, and it was quickly regrowing its damaged limbs. Things were about to get interesting.