Not having time to react before Jiehong tackled him to safety, Zan scrambled to his feet in time to swing his blade and see what Jiehong saved him from: a tentacle with a wolf's rabid face and many disgusting little legs all squirming as one. Zan blanched as he fought against the puke attempting to work his way up from his terribly empty stomach. He resisted and swung again at the creature. Its snarl was not enough to stop his blade, though. While the first swing of his sword only gave the creature miniscule damage, the second swing came just as the beast bore its neck while it came up for a striking fang attack. Zan's blade met true and nearly decapitated the creature. Flop-drop.
Any gods-fearing creature would have taken their token to the afterlife once nearly having its head decapitated, but not this creature.
Dead on the floor wasn't good enough for this creature, it seemed, and to his disgust, Zan saw the tentacle-wolf's many off-putting legs move. Though the head only remained attached to the tentacle by means of a thin flap of skin and muscle, that was enough to keep it attached as the tentacle-body retreated, leaving behind a trail of blood in its wake.
Looking to his friends, Zan was breathless. "We need to get the feck out of here -- now!"
As if to emphasis, a massive roar split the sound barrier.
Terror fresh in their minds, Zan couldn't believe they had somehow encountered another monster. Running alongside as fast as their legs would take them, the trio bounded through the mismashed room fragments as they slid between and through the jagged walls. Giving caution to the shadows, the monster who had fought them returned with more tentacle-heads bearing snarling wolf heads ready for their tasty bones.
Bounding through the sharp room, Zan felt himself become detached from the situation. His life was in danger, again. He was not happy about it.
Yet he somehow stood strong. He did not succumb to the horror of running for your life; with the life-or-death excitement running through his veins, Zan's mind sharpened: he felt holy energy. Not very strongly, no; the magic remained too deep in the tower's walls for him to sense it as anything more than a wisp. Yet it was enough for Zan to home in on a pathway. Mentally catching a hundred tiny emanations of magic as he ran, Zan pierced together a route which would take them to an open space. What would be in that open space? Zan asked himself. Knowing their luck, another monster, but if they were to make a stand against a multi-limbed demon-of-a-beast, it ought to be in a space large enough to fully draw the creature out.
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"Now, we fight!" Zan screamed as they entered the large open space. No monster, thank the gods, Zan muttered.
Yet the room was sparse. Only a single heavy door leading to celestial-knows-where. The trio spun on their heels and posed for combat. Though everyone shook violently, with both physical exertions and mental slippage, they were ready to make one last stand for their lives.
Somewhere inside, Zan felt his Shining ability whir. Looking to Jiehong, he nodded. Jiehong is feeling it too, Zan thought.
Holding his blade and ready for a fight, no one could anticipate what came for them until it had fully reared itself out of the fragmented room and into the open space. A hairy, bulbous body supported by at least eight spindly, but muscley, legs thrashed its way into the open space. From the bulbous body emerged squelching tentacles bearing the familiar wolf face; as the tentacles emerged from the monster's body cavity, blood trickled down in gushing squirts. Horrified into memorization, Zan felt himself shake more as he attempted to wrestle with what kind of monster this could possibly be and if he had a chance in all of oblivion at conquering it.
Just as the beast was to rear and strike them, however, its limbs struck not them but a transparent wall which slid down from some unseen crack in the ceiling. With mighty roars audible even through the glass-like pane, the monster attempted to attack them again and again. And every time, the translucent wall held firm.
From the door behind a woman came out. She was much like the receptionist from the lobby except much more pissed off.
"Give me a feckin' reason why I shouldn't toss you little shits over to--" the woman said as the start to a much longer tirade. Zan won't lie. At the start of her rant, he was quivering in his boots. By the end, he was happy to hear her stop talking. All while verbally ripping Zan and Company a new twat, the monster behind slowed in its assault, clearly growing bored of its relentless yet futile attempts to claim food. With the minutes turned to seeming hours, the monster eventually grew tired and went to sleep. By the time the monster had entered its REM dreaming state, the Sunstar Industries lady finally stopped yelling.
"Oh," Zan said. "We're super sorry about all that." He was not being sarcastic, either. Zan was sorry for his actions, evidently, causing people a great deal of grief. He was, truthfully, sorry about the whole affair. Yet he was done. He was tired. Hungry. And the excitement hormones flooded his body? Yeah, those did not help, either. With those hormones now removed, boy, did Zan crash. Blase as it seemed on the outside, Zan considered his answer wholly appropriate despite his actions.
Staring at Zan as though he had said the most insulting, controversial thing imaginable, the woman restrained herself and did not resume her screaming. Even Zan could see how tuckered out she looked. She had been yelling for a long time, after all.
"Okay. Thank you," the clerk said, defeat in her voice. "Follow me."
Following the clerk, Zan leaned into Jiehong and asked, "Did we do something wrong?"