Ade ran, she turned, called on the might of her legs and sprinted away as fast as she could from the Minatour. The fastest she could, however, was not much at all. The equal of a ten year-old perhaps. She’d seen olympic sprinters move slower than the creature on her heels now.
It didn’t take a genius to know her death would be a sure thing.
With her heart racing and her chest burning she heard the monster’s heavy footsteps bite into the ground each second. Each one was closer than the last, each one an omen of her impending doom.
It was fast, but it couldn’t run faster than she could think, so she put her brain to work.
Ade dashed straight for a thick jungle of volcanic-black outcroppings, if she could reach it before it got to her then the difference in their speed would be mitigated, after all the beast would have to make quick turns to catch up to her and one couldn’t build up as much momentum doing that as they would in a straight line.
The outcroppings were perhaps five steps away from her, but it might as well have been an eternity compared to how much closer she wanted it to be.
The wind roared past her ears as she dashed through them, it was cold against her skin, like the kiss of a corpse. Then she felt something brush the nape of her neck. She knew it was a finger, she knew the beast was right behind her, she didn't look back however, it would only slow her down, only bring her closer to death.
Her legs burned, begging to be given rest, it had been over a decade since they had been worked like this. Instead she urged them on, pleading with her muscles to lend her even a whisper of hidden strength. They were selfish things and granted her nothing she didn’t already have.
The Minotaur grasped her shoulder, lost its grip but sent her stumbling. She was almost there, one more second at most, one second meant the difference between life and ending up like Phillip.
It wouldn’t be enough, she could feel its breath against her skin already, hear its ragged exhalations. She had to think of something, so she did.
Ade gripped her blade and slashed it across flesh. The flesh on the back of her hand. Blood came next and she dared a look behind her so she coud flick her hand outward at the Minotaur’s face. She knew her blood had hit the thing’s eyes by the roar it let out, it wasn’t a thing of fury and impulse, it was one of pain, however mild.
It can feel pain.
That emboldened Ade, the sound of its footsteps slowing emboldened her even further. She reached the forest of outcroppings and made a sharp turn into them.
She heard her attacker crash straight into the rock behind. It didn’t surprise her, blood was notoriously hard to get out of the eyes and charging blindly forwards at that speed had to have its consequences.
Ha! Fucker!
She tried her best not to giggle and failed.
A quick glance behind her strangled the joy in its infancy. The Minotaur was still coming for her. It had a chipped horn and the fury in its eyes doubled, eyes that were now both open.
She didn’t swear, not because she wasn’t scared shitless but because it would mean emptying precious breath from already deflating lungs.
She made quick turns to hamper its speed, forcing it to decelerate with each one, either by slowing down on its own or by slamming into the wall with a satisfying crash ringing out behind her.
In an ideal world, in a fair one, such efforts would have been rewarded with the thing knocking itself out against the walls, or at the very least tiring itself from the run. But Ade’s was not a just world, and all she got for her troubles were weakening legs and exhausted lungs.
She had to think, had to come out with a way out of this, maybe do something with the walls, the stone, the- She made a turn and stepped out onto a cliff edge and all her thoughts died in her mind.
A hungry river of orange and black ran beneath her and she had no way of getting across it. This was it, there was no way around this.
It should have brought her peace to know she was in an impossible situation with impossible odds, a monster of myth and legends behind her and a world of magma beneath her, a dilemma to stomp the best of the best.
Like always, it only angered her, because Ade had gotten it in her head a long, long time ago, that nothing was impossible.
“Only… Implausible.” She heaved, got to the cliff edge and turned to face her enemy.
She tightened her grip around her blade and ran at the monster. Ade saw the confusion in its eyes as it slowed, clearly stunned by the fact that its prey had begun charging at it. Ade capitalised on that shock and roared as loud as her battered lungs would let her.
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The thing about predators was that hunting was a rather invariable affair for them, their target runs, they give chase. Both parties must perform and when one didn’t, such as a prey screaming bloody murder and sprinting head-first towards the dinner table, a lot of evolutionary wires got crossed, because either what they just antagonised wasn’t prey or it wasn’t the kind of prey they want to risk ingesting.
Ade was neither of those things, but she wasn’t going to tell the Minotaur that.
She swung her blade for its neck, aiming to slash the jugular, if she severed a nerve or even managed to cut in just deep enough then maybe… just maybe she’d achieve the implausible.
Her blade raced upward, her foot slipped against a loose patch of rock and she was slashing at the air while falling backwards. The only thing that caught her was the air and panic.
Ade’s back hit the ground hard and she bounced, rolling to the side and off the cliff. She scrambled with her hands and caught the edge just in time to keep herself above the glowing death below.
Her legs dangled helplessly beneath her and her grip had begun to slip. On her best days she couldn’t hold up her bodyweight for more than a few moments and this was without a doubt the worst fucking day of her life.
She looked up and felt her heart seize, the horned beast looked down at her with eyes that let her know she had been firmly placed in the category of prey once again.
She could let go.. Contrary to popular belief, it’d be an easy death. The magma below was so dense, so viscous, that landing on it from her height would be rather categorically similar to landing on gravel. Her brains would be smashed right back out of the skull that had only just reclaimed them, and her ruined nerves would be unable to register pain long before the thousand degree hellfire could torture them.
Instead, Ade tightened her grip. If it wanted to kill her, it’d have to work for it.
Ade looked up at the monster with eyes she knew were scared and hoped were defiant. “Do it.” She snarled, resolute. The beast raised its hoof to do just that and right as it raced down at her head she heard something hit the Minotaur from behind.
Ade saw the panic its eyes as it tittered forward, unbalanced on a single leg, and fell forwards off the cliff. Its deep roars, and screams followed it as gravity pulled it towards death.
Ade watched it hit the molten rock, cratering it more than splashing. The creature didn’t even sink, really. Just remained on the surface, held aloft by the fluid’s great tension, displayed clear as day while it cooked before her eyes.
The screen flashed in front of her.
[Basma Aboud has been marked exempt from Smiting.]
She breathed a sigh of relief, and then she was falling, grip loose and body plummeting. Something grabbed her and she looked up to see Suit’s hand wrapped around her arm. “Give me your other hand.” He demanded.
Certainly in no position to argue, Ade did so several moments later when her arm finally decided to obey her.
He pulled her onto the surface with little effort, it was less a testament of his strength and more a showing of how feather-light she was.
She breathed a long sigh of relief. “Fuck… Fuck.”
“Are you okay?” The man asked.
“Ah, yes, perfect , how could you tell.” She replied, slowly getting to her feet and trying not to break down into tears of joy.
“I’m an empath.” He replied, dryly.
Ade laughed far, far too hard. All her bottled fear and panic releasing itself as pure, distilled hysteria. She didn’t have much time to dwell on it before a screen appeared in front of her.
[You have slain an Actagonian, your reward is a baseball bat, do you accept?!]
She did and watched as the hilt of the baseball bat bled out of the screen as if emerging from water, and pulled it out. It was a cream coloured thing, weighty too and had the name ‘Dresel’ written across it in a stylised font, come to think of it, so did her blade, the blade which she just realised she’d lost in the fall.
Fuck!
She looked up to see Suit with a long wooden pole in his hands. He was testing its weight, getting a feel for the weapon like he did with his dagger.
“You got a reward too?” She asked.
“Yes,” He replied, calm, calmer than her of course, that was to be expected, he wasn’t nearly mauled to death by a Greek monster. But still, far too calm for someone in the situation that he was in. “It seems whatever’s causing this sees it as a joint effort.”
“Seems it does.” She replied.
“Best we get going, the other two are probably somewhere around.” Suit replied, turned and walked away.
“Thank you.” Ade told him a moment after. “For saving me that is, I know it didn’t quite look like it but I didn’t have the best handle of the situation back there.”
He turned to her and half laughed. “Chaghatai, that’s my name.”
“Well-” Ade groaned, feeling the parts of her body that smacked into the ground ache. “Nice to meet you Chaghatai.”
He gave her a court nod and carried on forwards. Ade followed behind, thoughts running over everything that had happened so far.
Her thoughts were dragged to the present as the screen popped up in front of her once again, this time she didn’t flinch. She braced herself for horror and instead found hope in what she saw.
[Welcome to Limbo!
This Game is sponsored by Dresel, Dresel, good for your teeth!
Goal: Survive 23 hours, 55 minutes, and 27 seconds.
Event A: All players are scheduled for smiting in the next 5 hours,55 minutes, 27 seconds. For each Actgonian or Player killed, a random member on your team will be marked exempt from smiting.
(New) Event B: Safe Zones have been activated across the map. Monsters cannot reach you in safe Zones. All players can access and use Safe Zones.]