As she opened her eyes after a few hours of sleep, Lyrhea paused for a bit before lurching up at a frantic pace. She looked around and checked herself. Her leg had indeed fixed itself, but her reserves of stored food were now much lower than they had been before all of this had begun.
At the very least she had not been forced to see that Snake in her dreams, though literally dreaming of nothing was also a welcome change as well. Picking up her knives from where they had been laid beforehand, Lyrhea walked towards the second set of doors and continued on the path she had originally been on before her ‘Patron’ had yeeted her back into this place.
…
Lyrhea cocked her head to one side as she beheld the sight before her right now. It was, well, rather annoying, but aside from that, she wondered if the person or entity in charge of the Dungeon had even seen her actions prior to getting to this point.
The tunnel full of spike pits, spike walls, flame traps, and dart launchers had barely slowed her down, and her time as a gymnast was only helping her in that regard, but this… this was just a slap in the face to not merely herself but to any who could claim to have even attempted to win any awards for gymnastics, be it professional or otherwise.
“I am insulted by this.” She said with a lack of emotion as she looked on at the obstacle course that lay before her. Below the places that she needed to bound off of and around and over and such was a pit full of whipping thin blades of razor-sharp wood and plant matter that churned like some unseemly mass of floral meat, but that was not what was insulting.
What was so insulting was the fact that all of that which lay before her was more along the lines of something from a tacky circus than a deadly way to keep unwanted guests out. Of course, it all had the décor one would associate with the Dungeon, with a clear mix of a farm theme combined with that of a forest biome.
The rings with fire around them, the trapeze lines with swinging pendulums made of heavy, thick wood, the seemingly random platforms that either hung by vines or were lifted aloft either by branches that stuck out from the churning deathtrap below or by levitation systems… It was all just a massive slap in the face for anyone in her shoes.
“You must be loving this.” She spat to no one in particular. Her audience would get the message regardless, of course, and it did, though it wasn’t mere only one person/ God that was a part of the crowd now.
[“Do a barrel roll!”] shouted a voice that Lyrhea had not heard before.
[“You fool. She can’t do that! She lacks wings, let alone any other means by which to fly! Just calm yourself, Arlvaion, and let your own Kin do the high flying.”] added another, who seemed to rebuking the first.
[“Yeah, what Korucinkd said! Hey, snake-girl, can I have those knives?”] interjected a third, whose voice seemed to be that of a sniveling, weaselly, and greedy nature.
[“Piss off, Groebeindau, she’s mine, and with that, all of her stuff is mine.”] insisted the Primordial Serpent.
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“Uh…” Lyrhea looked around. She couldn’t see her new viewers, but she assumed they would see her confusion. “What the fuck is going on?”
[“Don’t worry about it!”] The Primordial Serpent said dismissively. [“Just get on with it!”]
[“Yeah!”] added Groebeindau, whoever he was. [“And show me more shinies!”]
The number of voices only increased, and Lyrhea quickly found herself wishing that she could mute them all. Annoyed by the audience, she contemplated fucking them all over and just jumping to her death, but decided against it out of the concern that if she did die that maybe her new God would be none too happy and do terrible, unspeakable things to her immortal soul.
Begrudgingly, she walked to the edge of the platform she was currently on, backed up a few steps, and ran towards the ledge again before leaping off and putting on a show fit for a macabre circus. By the end, when she finally reached the place where the tunnels began again, she felt utterly annoyed and humiliated.
No, not because the whole skit that she had forced herself to put on was physically degrading or emotionally degrading in the normal sense, but because she had a crowd of Higher Powers gawking at her constantly while she was forced to lower herself to the level of a mere circus performer. Gymnastics were for so much more than that, and her body was as well.
She walked on from there, and after another series of would-be death traps that lines the tunnel, she made it to what she hoped was the Dungeon’s final destination. A door even more massive than the ones she had passed through before barred her way, and she wondered what the puzzle would be that she would need to solve to open them.
She looked around for a good few minutes as her audience snickered inside of her head, aware of her plight and the solution to it but refusing to share that information. Eventually, Lyrhea snapped and demanded to know what they thought was so damn funny.
Between the laughter, her Patron told her to ‘read the words on the door’. The problem they seemed not to notice was that the script written on that door was in a language that Lyrhea had not only never seen or heard before but also had not been able to identify as a word or series of words until being told that it/ they were/ was.
Lyrhea pointed at the door and screamed at the top of her lungs one final rebuke before the laughter increased, only to eventually trail off and end in dead silence from the watching deities.
“I CAN’T FUCKING READ WHAT IS WRITTEN! WHAT THE FUCK DOES IT SAY?!”
Silence reigned for a while before Lyrhea’s Patron tried to ease the tension.
[“Yes, yes. The joke is funny. Now just do what it says and get on with it. The joke has grown old.”]
Lyrhea, though remained static and furious, which led to more silence.
[“You… you really can’t read it?”] her God asked. [“Oh… well, now I feel rather bad about all of that…”]
“What. Does. It. Say?” Lyrhea growled, throwing all respect, real or faked, aside as she fumed inside of her head.
[“…..”] the Gods were silent for a time before the Primordial Serpent spoke, filled her Chosen with unimaginable fury, and nearly drove Lyrhea to backtrack and jump to her death. [“It says ‘Push to Open’.”]