A rock skipped over the water, flames dancing in its wake. Another. Another. Another.
The last rock cracked over one of the invisible platforms that Caro had discovered covered the lake surrounding the heartcore because—surprise, surprise—the door to leave the labyrinth wouldn’t open. Neither of the labyrinths Emilia had previous been in had had that problem, and they’d been left to assume that the labyrinth wouldn’t let her leave without her touching it.
Hopefully, she was the only one who would need to touch it, although she hadn’t dared bring up the possibility that anyone else would need to touch it. The reality, however, was that they had no idea what the rules of the labyrinth were, and both she and V had touched the Library Heartcore, both she and Benny the Livery Heartcore.
Emilia wasn’t thinking about that right now. She had bigger things to think about, namely getting over the invisible platforms without falling in. On shore, Astra was digging up rocks to map the way, while Caro and Gale were throwing them. Emilia had a handful of rocks in her pocket as well, for marking the corners of each platform. Some of the platforms were big, spanning over a dozen square feet. Others were tiny, barely enough for her to step on, and there had been several moments where she had worried she would topple over as she balanced on just her toes.
What an end that would be! Burnt to death. Hopefully, if that happened, the labyrinth would let the kids out. They really didn’t deserve to die here.
Another rock skittered over the liquid, flames slashing through the world and suddenly snuffed out as the rock smacked into the edge of another platform. Emilia tossed a rock. Another. Another. Another. A general shape for the platform, several inches above the toxic—if also breathtakingly beautiful—liquid, appeared. It was far, and as much as Emilia wasn’t a fan of jumping over deadly waters, the alternative was the children throwing more rocks and hoping to find a closer platform.
There would be one closer, but as they had already discovered, sometimes those closer platforms led to much longer, winding routes. Personally, Emilia was rather done with this whole thing—they’d already been working at it for a few hours—and trusted herself to make the jump.
Her currently platform was a little small to take the bounding steps she’d need to jump, and she hopped back to the last one, which honestly seemed to have been designed for this task. It ran five feet long by barely a foot wide—enough for her to make the jump, with the aid of her {Blood Armour}.
“I’ll be fine!” Emilia signed at the children.
On shore, Caro screamed a combination of cheers and comments about how they were amazed she was attempting the jump. Gale just muttered about how she had better not die. Astra continued digging, as though she had not a single worry that Emilia might not make it. Maybe she didn’t; perhaps the girl just didn’t realize the danger of the situation. That was the thing with Astra: it was nearly impossible to tell what she was thinking, one moment to the next.
Emilia’s feet landed lightly over the platform, the ball of her foot catching the edge and propelling her forward, over the too small platform and the giant gap of deadly liquid. She landed perfectly on the newest platform, bare feet complaining about the heat that seeped into the platforms. Squatting, she felt her way around the platform, placing her stones until they made a map of it.
Unfortunately, she was almost out of stones, again. The first time, she’d backtracked, having not been too far into the maze of platforms. Now, she was so far and already not looking forward to some of the precarious jumps that awaited her on the return trip. Instead, after a series of confused signs between her and the children, they began hurling rocks at her—or trying to, at least.
Virtually all of the rocks fell short of making it to her, and it was only when Astra stepped up to try, energy and magic screaming so strongly through her little body that Emilia could feel it from nearly 200 feet away, that any made it to her. Rocks shot towards her, and Emilia’s hand ached from the force of catching them by the time she signalled to the girl to please stop.
⸂That was so cool!⸃ Caro was saying as she turned back towards the heartcore.
Realistically, she only needed to get twenty or thirty feet closer before she could make the jump, assuming the platform the labyrinth gave her was big enough. Shaking out her hand, Emilia tossed several of the stones across the liquid—the bonus part of Astra apparently being capable of sending her rocks was she could now map the way herself. Convenient, but given the way her hand ached, Emilia couldn’t be annoyed the girl hadn’t revealed her ability earlier.
⸂What else can you do?⸃ Caro asked a moment before the aether shuddered, Astra apparently showing off another magic or two.
⸂Wow!⸃ Caro cooed, their voice melting with genuine awe. ⸂So cool! Gale! Gale! Isn’t that just the coolest thing you’ve ever seen?⸃
Emilia’s feet landed on the next platform. Her legs bent, and immediately, she was jumping for the next.
⸂I guess it’s okay,⸃ Gale admitted, her voice tight with distaste that she had to accept something Astra was doing was worthy of praise and awe.
More rocks shot out of Emilia’s hands, searching for something closer to the heartcore. It was just so close, and she really, really wanted to be done with this place. It didn’t help that once she was there, she was going to have to figure out a way to avoid rolling into the lake once she passed out from touching it. Granted, rolling into the lake once she was unconscious would be infinitely better than falling in with a bad jump, and as time went on—as she grew closer—she was definitely taking bigger risks.
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It was just that she was so done! She wanted out of here! She wanted to never enter another labyrinth ever again— Actually! Fuck that. Emilia never wanted to enter another raid ever again. This was it, the single virtual raid she would ever enter— Well, she had entered a few before, mostly when Sil asked really, really nicely. It had been a while, though, and this was certainly the only raid she’d ever sought out herself. It was also the longest—she’d never spent more than 48 hours inside a virtual raid before, and she just wanted to go home!
Finally, a rock found a platform. It wasn’t as close to the heartcore as she would have liked, but she couldn’t stand here, hoping to find a better placed platform, forever. Several more rocks landed on the platform, marking it out just as she marked out each platform. One step back, two. This platform wasn’t big, but neither was the jump.
The moment Emilia’s foot left the platform, she knew the jump was wrong, her angle not quite right. She leaned forward, hoping to catch herself on the platform, even as she knew her legs were going to hit the liquid. Careless—she’d been increasingly careless with her jumps, she’d known that. Fucking stars, she should have shaken off her anxious energy! How often had she climbed The Strats and fallen off because of exactly this? The Strats weren’t somewhere you could die—not without multiple safety systems failing, anyways. This was a place of death, and she should have been paying more attention! Now, those poor kids were going to have to watch her burn and—
“Emilia!”
“Fuck!” Emilia cried as she hit the platform, one of her legs sliding into the liquid while the other collided painful with the platform, only her bare toes sliding into it.
It burned. Fucking stars did it burn, pain echoing through her entire being as she worked to pull her burning limbs out of the liquid. Thankfully, this was one of the larger platforms, and she didn’t have to worry about rolling off as she screamed and twisted onto her back. Her clothing burned, and she tugged out her {Blood Dagger}, brutally slicing away her burning clothing and tossing them away before the flames could reach her fingers.
Her skin sizzled, turning black and white as blisters formed and burst under the assault, but the flames didn’t spread—her {Blood Armour} wouldn’t allow them to. The crisscrossing bindings didn’t protect all of her, however, and what was visible was going to burn straight through at this rate—but Emilia had already planned for the possibility that she’d fuck up. She’d hoped she wouldn’t, of course, but planning was her friend and probably—hopefully—the only thing keeping her from losing the leg.
Biting back her screams, sucking in ragged breaths, Emilia tugged the {Blood Fabric} from her jacket pocket, hoping to the stars above that this would work. Blood items were so resilient, and despite Gale telling her she was stupid, she’d poked at the liquid with several of her items before taking off across the water.
They didn’t burn, and as Emilia shook out the {Blood Fabric} and pressed it over her burning foot and leg, she hoped her hunch wasn’t wrong—hoped her hunch that the fabric would repel the flames was correct.
Her legs continued to burn, but Emilia knew enough about burns from the injuries she had seen and treated on the front to know that was to be expected. When she pulled back the {Blood Fabric} and found her leg black but no longer actively on fire, she breathed out. It looked bad, and felt… she couldn’t decide if it felt better or worse than it looked.
What was clear, was the heat was still burning through her, which really sucked. Even more sucky? This wasn’t the sort of injury the system was liable to heal, and she didn’t have time to wait to see if it would.
Shaky hands brought the fabric to her mouth, her teeth clamping down around it so she wouldn’t scream as she sliced away the worst of the burns. Dead skin slipped off her, and she just hoped that what was left would be enough to walk on once the system healed it. She needed to bleed—she needed to activate the system’s healing protocols so it did something for her. Unfortunately, that protocol seemed random and unfair more often than not, and it wasn’t until her blood was pooling over the platform that the system finally decided to heal her, and Emilia was able to breathe again.
The dead skin that had fallen off her as she drew blood didn’t suddenly reattach itself, but what remained on her body did stretch and reform, the burning heat radiating through her leg slowly disappearing until all that remained was a terrible looking scar that patched over her leg. Part hot white, part scorched red, it looked equal parts cool and grotesque, the skin a patchwork of wrinkled and tight skin, every bit looking like it hadn’t been pulled into place quite right.
“Broken ass system,” Emilia muttered to herself as she turned to her other foot, making quick slices in her thankfully less injured toes. At least this side wouldn’t be losing any skin, just some blood.
Her eyes slid to the pile of herself still sitting on the platform as she waited for the system to heal this side as well. Oddly, the system hadn’t pulled her blood back into her, and it sat in an unmoving puddle over the platform, just like Caro’s splatters of clumsily lost blood still marred the obstacle course.
Strange.
Other things that were strange…
Emilia glared over at the children, the three of them huddled close and looking thoroughly distressed. That was probably more than fair. She raised a weak hand to them, his muscles shaking from the memory of pain racing through her—from the memories of Olivier burning on the front that were threatening to break her.
She couldn’t break. Not now—not over something that had happened over a decade ago. Later, when she was out of here. Not now.
The children visibly sagged in relief, visible even from so far away. As much as Emilia felt for each of them, she couldn’t just ignore the slip of information she had heard during the moment before she slid into the lake.
“Astra,” she called, squinting in an attempt to watch the girl as she realized her fuck up hadn’t gone unnoticed, “you have some explaining to do.”
The girl stared at her, probably blinking those big, beautiful black eyes at her, and for a moment, Emilia thought she would feign innocence—would try to deny the way she had vocally screamed her name before she fell. Then, the girl sagged, a foot scuffing over the ground, before she sighed, “Fine.”