Nikola looked into Nyla's eyes; pools of crimson, with tiny flecks of lighter and darker red to keep things interesting.

They were open wide, and quivering slightly. No doubt she hadn't expected to be on the floor right now. Up close, Nikola's brain went foggy and the atrocities they had committed fuzzed to obscurity. She only noticed how addictive the smell of her hair was mixed with the coppery smell of the blood coating her hands and wrists.

"You did well," Nikola stated softly, breaking the silence. She pulled herself off of the other heavily armoured girl before her body could do what it wanted to do to her. Now was not the time for paltry things like the pleasures of the flesh. There were still people climbing what was left of the stairs, and a sprinkling of adventurers had managed to ascend to the top before they had the chance.

Nyla laid there staring up at the ceiling for so long that Nikola started to wonder if she was dead. Had she been sniffing a dead girl's hair? Ugh, it wouldn't be too unlike her old self...

"You--" Started Nyla, straining to get through the sentence, "--did well enough, for somebody who I had to save from getting killed by a gaggle of gamer boys with a petty grudge."

There was a compliment buried in there somewhere.

Nyla sat up and neatened her hair.

"I do not think we are the first ones to have reached the top," Nikola observed as she scraped her cleaver up off the floor with a satisfying shhhing. As she rose to her feet, she felt the tingling warmth dissipating from her face.

"We'll catch up. They can't make it ten steps without fighting, so they shouldn't be far ahead. But the other one is a wildcard, so let's get moving."

The way she spoke made Nikola think she had been observing and counting the people that had passed them.

"So there are six of them? Why were they permitted to pass?"

"Someone's got to go ahead of us to set off all the traps," Nyla replied as she scooped up her foil. The 'wildcard' she hadn't meant to let slip by, but she wasn't about to openly admit it.

The two of them took off in a respectably zippy run for two people in head-to-toe armour, the fabric of their capes and butt-capes flapping behind them. As the fabric floated upward, Nikola noticed a symbol upon Nyla's back; something that drew her eye. Something she recognized.

She didn't feel like it was a symbol her eyes had ever seen, but when she looked at it, something within her resonated with it. It was like a part of her that had been sleeping, dormant, rolled over and opened up its eyes when she looked at it.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"What is the symbol on yo--"

Her question got cut off by the arrow that embedded itself in front of her foot with a harsh whistle.

The two of them skidded to a stop and hopped back into the protective shielding the tunnel provided. Two, three, four other bolts landed aggressively in the space they had just been standing, if only for a second.

Nikola turned her gaze forward. The walls in the room before her were covered top to tail in crossbows, loaded and tracking her every move. They hunted for motion of all kinds. The Butcher mushed herself against the room and surveyed the space further.

Two winding tunnels were waiting for them at the other side of the expanse that greeted them, and two bodies were pinned messily to the floor. The tunnels had thin, wispy cloth covering them in a mysterious set of curtains - but they would have to get there to see what was waiting behind them.

"See? Bait." Nyla pointed at the two bodies. One had a finger sticking comedically outward, as if they'd been arguing up 'til their final breath.

"Speaking of, do you wish to go first?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing," the pink-haired woman fired back, sticking out her equally pink tongue.

"This appears to be a challenge of speed. You must run faster than the arrows, if the trails leading up to the tunnels are to be believed." Nikola's eyes followed the lines of arrows that had stuck themselves into the floor in pursuit of the players that had gone before them.

"Yeah, no shit," replied the fencer. And then she was off, veering sharply toward the mouth of the tunnel on the right.

The crossbows turned after her with a hunger in their nonexistent eyes. Nikola wasn't keen on leaving the fencer to be the first to see what was behind the fabric, so she burst forth and overtook her new comrade with her superior speed. Half of the room's weapons craned to face her instead, their strings twanging as they began to fire with lightning speed.

But not lightning enough. Compared to her they were mere thunder, or molasses, or something. They pinged into the ground a foot behind her, not a single one even grazing her.

As Nikola crossed through the opening of the left tunnel, she gasped.

What she saw made her think this wasn't a challenge of speed, after all. A closed door sat in front of her, with a digital screen upon it that read 'AWAIT NYLA'S INSTRUCTIONS' in white, glowy lettering. The fabric that stood between her and the room with the arrows suddenly fluttered inward as a metallic hatch sealed the space behind her.

The room went silent, the whooshing of the arrows a mere memory, and it also fell pitch dark. Nikola's eyes took a few seconds to adjust.

The only thing illuminating the cramped space now was the collection of words sitting patiently on the door.

AWAIT NYLA'S INSTRUCTIONS.