It was the next day and they were ready to head up the flight of stairs towards the next floor. According to how each floor had progressed, they could guess that the next one would be more dangerous than the last. Hopefully there weren't too many more floors to go.
They slowly walked up the cold stone stairs and reached the open entrance. What lay before their eyes this time was even more different then last— and quite a bit creepier at that.
The mansion wasn't just empty, it was dark and worn down. The floorboards were rotted and had quite a few cracks and patches of moss covering them, the white wall paper was peeling and cobwebs filled the corners of the room.
As for the lighting situation— there was none.
Iris reached into one of her backpacks side pockets and pulled out a lighter. The lighter was a somewhat recent invention made after studying a wild artifact found on the Bridge.
It functions by using a flammable oil that comes from the Butane plant, a species found on the Bridge that's being grown en masse in Arcon. A tiny drop of the Butane plant's oil gets pushed out when you flick the trigger of the lighter, which then gets lit by a spark.
A convenient tool for starting a fire— and lighting a dark room when needed.
They were pretty cheap as well, which meant they all had one. Bo and Sera and even Zorn followed suit and lit their lighters to bring some more light to the dark room.
As they slowly walked through the desolate and ruined mansion, the floorboards creaked under their weight causing them to feel a little more nervous.
Sera suddenly stopped and pointed at the ground. A pool of dried blood covered that area of the floor and a bit of it had splattered on the walls surrounding it.
“This is the first time we've seen blood, every other floor was sparkly clean.” Iris analyzed. “Is this room special?”
The faintest creak came from behind Bo who was the furthest in the back out of the four of them, which made him whip around. There was nothing there.
“Anyone else freaked out?” Bo whispered and Iris and Sera nodded their heads. On the other hand Zorn looked like he was taking a stroll in the park though.
“This better be the last floor, I don't wanna deal with more of this.” Sera complained, rightfully so.
They turned the corner to the kitchen and froze in place. A human… well it at least looked human, stood a few feet away, hunched over and it had its front turned away from them.
The humanoid was naked and its body was a sickly pale white. It was deathly skinny, you could see its spine jutting out from its exposed back and its hips flaring out to the sides.
Not sure what to do they stood there and watched, except for Zorn who recklessly approached the humanoid. They wanted to yell out to him to stop but they didn't want to notify any potential threats lurking in the mansion that they were here, so they could only watch in anxiety.
Once Zorn was in arms length, the humanoid turned around. Its face was blank except for its large open mouth that had a droopy tongue hanging out and behind its tongue were razor sharp teeth. At its fingertips rested sharp claws that looked like they could slice through metal.
“Erhrueur!" The creature shrieked and jumped at Zorn with its jaw unhinged.
Zorn easily decapitated the creature with his ax but was surprised when the creature didn't die and instead its body continued moving. It used its arms and legs to search around itself in an attempt to find its lost head.
With another two slices, the creature's limbs were cut off by Zorn. It wiggled on the ground trying its best to move but to no avail. After a few seconds, the creature's body suddenly melted into a pool of white liquid and flowed towards the white wall. The liquid disappeared as it touched the wall and got absorbed into it.
Then the scariest part happened next, the creature's body crawled out from the white wallpaper, fresh and ready to attempt to eat them once again.
It didn't hesitate to shriek even louder this time and instead of jumping right at Zorn, it jumped onto the wall and clung to it like a spider. It hopped onto the ceiling then attacked Zorn again but the result was the same, it was butchered into pieces by him.
Suddenly, familiar shrieks faintly echoed from all corners of the mansion and a horde of pitter pattering feet closed in on their location. The creature's dead body once again melted and flowed into the wall.
“Fuck, are these things unkillable?!” Sera shouted. “What should we do?”
“Let's head back down before we get swarmed!” Iris suggested.
“Good idea, let's run!” Bo sprinted back to the main living room where the open entrance heading back to the floor below should be, but for some reason, it wasn't there.
“Where'd the entrance go?!” Bo cried out in confusion.
“It's gone!” Sera shouted.
One of the humanoid creatures ran down the stairs and got close to them before being butchered again by Zorn. Then the entire staircase overflowed with these creatures as they trampled over top of each other to try and get to them first.
“Run to the office!” Iris didn't have time to explain and ran to the office nearby. The rest followed after her, even Zorn didn't hesitate to run along with them.
Once they were all inside, Iris slammed the door shut and Sera put her body weight on it.
“Aren't we trapped in here!?” Sera questioned Iris’s decision.
“We're trapped in the whole mansion, we just need a few seconds to rationalize and come up with a plan.” Iris explained.
The creatures outside followed them to the door of the room and to their surprise, didn't try and burst down the door to get to them. Shadows of the creature's feet were seen under the door pacing back and forth but not getting any closer to the door.
“Why aren't they breaking in?” Bo furrowed his brow. “You think they aren't allowed to damage the mansion?”
“It could be but the golem from before didn't care about throwing bookshelves.” Iris countered.
“What else could it be? Those things had claws sharp enough to quickly tear the door down.”
“Hmm, I don't know. Your theory might be right then.” Iris contemplated the creatures and a possible plan to figure out how to escape this floor when she was interrupted by Zorn.
“Um, I think the creatures are still able to get inside.” They looked to see Zorn pointing to the other end of the room where a clawed arm was slowly coming out of the wall. Then another arm followed by a faceless head came out of the wall.
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“Shit!”
Bo charged at the thing before it could even fully get out of the wall and decapitated it with a swing.
“We need to get out of here fast! What's the plan Iris?” Bo shouted and watched the creature's melted body flow back into the wall.
“We don't know where the exit is so we're gonna have to go room to room trying to find it.” Iris said. “Unless anyone has a clue as to where it might be?”
More arms started to come out of the rooms walls and Bo could count at least ten separate arms jutting out. They were almost inside.
“No ideas? Okay we only have to check the library on this floor, then we head upstairs to search the bedrooms.” Iris said and got nods in return.
“Imma open the door in 5 seconds, then we rush through!” Sera prepared herself but then Bo suddenly chimed in.
“Wait, I have an idea, why don't you use your ember to break through the wall so that way we can avoid the large group sitting in front of the door.”
“You think we can break through the wall? What if neither us or the creatures can damage the mansion”
“Maybe not, we can at least try it.”
“I think it's possible.” Zorn said and they looked to see him with his ax lodged deep into the wall, destroying the wall paper and cutting into the rotted wood underneath.
“Let me try it then. Are you guys ready?” They all nodded at Sera.
She charged at the wall where the main living room was behind and with a loud crunch, the wall shattered into pieces. A Sera sized hole was left in the wall going straight into the main living room.
“Hurry!” Sera shouted and they all sprinted out of the empty office room.
The creatures heard the noise and chased after them.
A few were fast enough that they managed to reach the back of the group. Bo felt a claw coming for his back and it easily sliced through his backpack. Luckily Bo was the one who kept the tent inside his backpack so nothing spilled out, but the tent might have been cut as well— which still sucked.
Bo turned for a split second and slashed back at the creature before resuming running towards the library door. Sera got there first and opened the door to the library and held it open until they all managed to get in.
She slammed it shut at the last second, preventing the creatures from running in along with them.
“Okay we have a split second to think again.” Iris said while looking around the room to see if there was an exit to the next floor but alas, there was none here. It was empty like the other rooms.
“Not here, so it has to be in one of the bedrooms. Shit!” Iris swore.
“Alright how do we get there the fastest? Can we use the same trick and break through the wall?”
The creatures were faster this time and they were already beginning to crawl through the walls.
“No time to discuss, break through the wall again then we run upstairs. Up there we have plenty of rooms to lock ourselves in and instead of moving to a new room through the hallway we can break through the walls again.” Iris quickly stammered out.
“Now!” Sera screamed and broke through the wall once again.
The creatures were faster to respond and rushed them— that's when things got a little messy.
Sera and Zorn used their ax’s to block and kill the creatures rushing them, Bo had a little less range and worked together with Iris to keep them at bay with stabs and jabs. They fought and ran at the same time until they got to the stairs in which Sera stood on the first step and stopped.
“I'll hold them off for a bit!”
“Thanks!” Iris and Bo shouted and managed to rush up the stairs. Sera killed a few more before she got a chance to hurry after them.
They got into the first bedroom, out of the ten bedrooms in total. Four were in the left hallway, four in the right hallway, and two were in the middle hallway.
If they had to go through every room, they would only have to ever cross the hallway three times. Once going from one side of the left hallway to the other side, one side of the middle hallway to the other, and similarly the same thing in the right hallway.
One room in the left and right hallways should connect to the middle hallway if they broke through the walls meaning they didn't have to leave the rooms more than thrice.
(Maybe not a good explanation or a necessary one really.)
In the first room… there was nothing.
The creatures were adapting to their strategy and wasted no time in trying to come from the walls. Dozens of arms reached the walls and ceiling trying their hardest to grab onto them but the group didn't sit around for long.
Boom!
Sera bashed through the first wall and into the second room where there was no entrance once again. They hurriedly left the room, crossed the hallway and entered the room on the other side.
The shrieks from the creatures were getting louder as their prey was continuously out maneuvering them.
The second they stepped into the room they realized the problem, there were arms already coming out of the walls. The creatures seemed to be a fair bit intelligent and were cutting them off ahead of time.
“Hurry, we need to find wherever the entrance is fast!” Iris shouted and they moved on to the next room.
Four creatures were already out of the walls and they attacked them on sight. It took them for a bit of a surprise, they didn't think the creatures would be this quick.
One gave Sera a large gash on her arm but she shrugged off the pain and butchered the thing.
Zorn protected their flank, preventing the creatures from the last room from running through the hole they left behind.
Once again Sera bashed further in, breaking a hole to one of the rooms in the middle hallways this time. Immediate danger presented itself as more creatures were waiting there.
It was an onslaught of attacks coming from all sides. Luckily, while the creature's claws and fangs were dangerous, they were quite weak and were defeated quite easily. But if even one claw made its way past your defense, it would leave a large wound.
The creature's strong part wasn't even their claws though, it was their ability to keep coming back. The longer it took for them to reach the exit, the worse their odds of making it out without harm or death.
Sera opened the door and helped everyone get to the next room across the middle hallway, her arm still gushing blood.
The battle ensued. Bo swore he took out dozens of the things but more just kept coming, there was nowhere to hide or lay low anymore.
One more wall was broken and Bo saw hope for the first time. On one side of the room's wall, there was a giant staircase twice the size of the previous ones.
They found it! They found the exit!
“It's here guys!” Bo shouted in excitement. Everyone felt the same joy and slowly made their way over, keeping themselves safe from the surge of creatures.
Bo was the first to step onto the staircase and quickly Iris, then Sera and lastly Zorn joined him. Excitement caused them to sprint up as fast as they could, happy they escaped the mess of the floor below.
Halfway up the stairs, Bo stopped to rest, his heart was pumping and he wanted a little break. Similarly Iris and Sera both stopped with him, happy to take a breather.
“Erhrueur” A shriek nearby scared them and they were slightly too late to stop it from slashing Iris shoulder. It gouged out chunks of Iris’s flesh using its entire hand of claws, causing Iris’s blood to rocket forth from the open wound.
“Bastard!” Bo and Sera freaked out and kicked the thing down the stairs which knocked a few more creatures that were on their way up the stairs.
“Run run run these fuckers can climb the stairs.” Sera shouted, picked up Iris who had practically fainted, and ran as fast as she could.
They made a vital mistake in thinking the staircase was a safe area, no other creatures had climbed up with them— no creature survived before they climbed the stairs but they forgot that.
It was the smallest lapse of judgment but it led to a serious consequence for Iris.
This time they didn't stop and continued huffing and puffing up the long staircase, seemingly longer than the last ones. They couldn't see what was coming from ahead and could only hope for the best.
Sera jumped the last stair and made it to the other side of the staircase. There was no door frame as the exit was on ground level and when she landed, she felt soft grass underneath her feet.
They were outside, back in the foggy atmosphere of the Lost Maze.
‘Are we out?’ Bo thought.
They turned around ready to fight the creatures running up the stairs but they didn't continue past the last step. They stood their shrieking at them but didn't dare take a step forward.
After a minute, the creatures hissed one last time and left back down the stairs, unhappy their prey had escaped from them.
They made it past the mansion.