Minya

I stepped out of the door, looking around to try and see which way would be the easiest to traverse.

They all led to the same thing.

Death.

I gritted my teeth, not accepting no for an answer and looking more carefully, there had to be some path…

Right?

As I felt uncertainty creep upon me, I suddenly saw what I was looking for, there was an opening under one of the swinging logs.

Not taking any chances, I sprinted under it before it could swing back and close the brief window, but as I did, I realized something important.

If I stopped moving now, I would almost surely die.

I continued to run, diving through a gap in weapons and rolling over an inactive spike trap, hearing the spikes shoot up almost instantly after I got to the other side.

Not bothering to realize how close I had just come to dying, I continued to run forward as fast as I could, jumping up as a sword swung at my leg. As I got deeper into the room, I started to realize that everything was speeding up.

I smirked softly. Well, I would just have to speed up with it.

I ducked the swing of an ax only to come face to face with a spear aiming at my face. I hissed using Air Manipulation to shove myself out of the way, rolling into a crouch and springing forward, continuing to weave through all of the traps and weapons in my way.

I reached the halfway barrier, and there was a platform in the middle with empty air all around it. I jumped on it, looking around to make sure that I wouldn’t be attacked out of nowhere.

When I was sure I wouldn’t be blindsided by a random attack, I sat down and tried to find the next best path to take.

Through all of the chaos, I saw a straight path that led to the end, with less traps than the other paths. I narrowed my eyes, what was the trick, this was too good to be true.

After I scanned the path carefully I found what it was trying to hide.

There was a magic trap in the middle of the path.

It was hard to see but it was definitely there, a little glimmer in the middle of the path.

Well I wouldn’t be taking that path, it now seemed the most dangerous out of all of them.

I saw an opening in one of the side paths and decided to risk it, jumping forward with a boost from my skills and running under a couple of swords that tried to take my arms from my body.

I came to an open stretch and unhesitatingly used Thunder Step, teleporting through a sword that appeared out of nowhere at the last second. Brushing it off, I ran forward, leaping over a swinging log and spinning out of the way of a pillar that fell at me.

Pivoting on one leg, I jumped as high as I could, when I reached my peak I created a air platform under my foot, propelling myself further into the sporadic mix of traps that was this maze.

I touched back down on the ground, ducking down low and avoiding three blades that came from different directions. Springing back up, I smacked an arrow headed for my throat out of the way with a casual jerk of my wrist.

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Pausing, I looked around, waiting for the next trap to appear.

For the longest time, nothing happened.

As the silence started to creep into me, I suddenly jumped looking behind me. Directly behind me was a bear trap that had activated, slamming shut on where I had been just a second previously.

While in the air, I made a diagonal platform and jumped forward, running into the thick of it again. I seemed to be about ¼ away from the exit.

I had no clue how the rest of my team would get through.

I hopped over a thin wire, ducked under another swinging log, and pranced out of the way of a couple of swords, coming to a long hallway that led to a door.

The path seemed to have no traps.

I didn’t trust it for one second.

Glancing at the ways, I saw nothing that could possibly be a trap, but I still didn’t trust anything about this hallway at all. I reached out, touching the wall before quickly pulling my hand back.

Nothing happened.

Feeling dumb, but also not willing to risk it just yet. I took a couple steps forward, looking around cautiously. After a couple more steps, nothing more happened and I gained confidence, walking faster and paying less attention as I started to go to the door.

20 feet away. 15 feet. 10. 8. 6.

When I got about 5 feet away from the door I heard a Shing! And without thinking I dropped directly into the splits, hugging the ground and pressing myself into as small a surface as possible.

I heard a whoosh as arrows flew over me, thudding into the opposite wall.

When I was sure I wouldn’t trigger another trap, I stood up slowly, looking back and forth between the walls. After a few seconds as I waited with bated breath I walked to the door, exhaling as I placed my hand on the door, yanking it open.

As soon as I did, there was a loud whir of sound and I heard a ting! Not taking any chances, I dropped to the ground, pressing myself into it.

I looked behind me and saw all of the traps disengaging and sinking into the ground. Blushing furiously, I hurriedly stood up, watching as all of the others stepped on the now empty floor. After nothing more happened they ran over to me.

Layton was the first to talk. “How did you do that?!? You were a blur of motion and you almost never stopped moving.” She gushed, grabbing my shoulders and jumping up and down excitedly.

I smiled at her and bounced on my feet. “I just let myself react to things, I didn’t really have a plan. There were a couple of moments that were touch and go but it worked out in the end.” I said brightly, happy to have an actual conversation with Layton, she and we weren't that close, or at least compared to my connection with the others.

Brock came up next to me and clapped a hand to my back. “That was amazing.” He said, smiling and looking around the now spacious empty room. “To think that you were able to get through this room in such a short time even when it was packed to the brim with traps and weapons.

I just smirked at him, punching his shoulder. “You just can’t imagine it because there is no chance in heck that you would have been able to cross that by yourself. You're far too, how to say this in a nice way… Large. That's the word. You're too large and tall to have done that by yourself.

Brock just grunted at me, turning to face the door that was standing a few inches open. “So should we go through?” He asked everyone, looking at Drake specifically.

Drake shook his head. He was something of our leader among the group. It had never been said officially but we all knew he was the one in charge of the important decisions.

Drake stroked his stubby facial hair, it had been growing over the last few weeks without any way to shave it. “I say we wait for Minya to be ready before going to the next room. We have no idea what sort of challenge it could be and we need to have everyone at their best. While we're at it we might as well try to get some daos or in Kent's sake, upgrade his inner dragon. Any objections?” He asked, looking us all in the eyes one by one, making sure that we all agreed.

We all agreed unanimously and I sat down against the hallway wall, breathing out deeply and steadying my heartbeat. I was still sweating slightly from the exertion, but it was a lot less than it would have been pre apocalypse.

Kent walked to the middle of the room and sat in the standard lotus position. His spectral dragon appeared around him and he started breathing more heavily.

I watched as Kent strove to understand his inner dragon.