Signs pointing to the nearest exits will not be provided.

[poll_the_stars]

There is a room that's dark and cold. It's made of stone, with a doorway cut into each of the four walls. At the room's center is some type of circle, carved into a raised platform. The only light comes from a slightly sad looking light fixture set into the ceiling.

Then the circle glows, brightening until it could rival the sun, humming and shaking the room around it. There is a buildup of energy of some kind...

And then it stops, returning to as it was before.

Except, now it contains two women.

One of them has pointed ears and red hair. She looks around in quite a lot of alarm.

Comments

[poll_the_stars]

Snort.

After some more consideration, she carefully edges her way off of the platform. Absolutely nothing happens.

[purposeful_glory]

Loki follows, alert, still with her glaive in hand. One hand.

[poll_the_stars]

From the doorway to their left:

Stomp stomp stomp stomp growl.

[purposeful_glory]

"Are you any good at fighting monsters?" wonders Loki in an undertone, shifting her grip on her weapon.

[poll_the_stars]

"... Depends very highly on the monster. I would say no. I am consistently good at getting away from monsters and staying out of other people's way, though."

She can sense the... whatever it is. Sort of. Not very well, but enough to tell its general shape and where it is. It's big and moving quickly. She frowns a little, searches carefully for its route to them, and then disguises a doorway between it and them as a wall. It's sort of hard to do something like this with something she can't actually see, but she thinks it's better to just trick it into not coming after them. And Loki presumably can't see what she's doing at all.

[purposeful_glory]

Loki cannot see what she's doing without a line of sight. She stands ready.

"I am any good at fighting monsters," she says, "so stay out of the way, if we run into more than a growl of one."

[poll_the_stars]

"Happily."

The monster is fooled by the door that looks like a wall. It moves on to another door that looks like a door, and goes in a direction that is not towards the two of them.

Good, that's good. Stay far away from them, weird monster thing.

(And there's the sound of another door opening...)

"Is the plan to stay here and defend this place as long as possible, or go exploring for a way out of this," maze, no, wait, she shouldn't know that yet, "place?"

[purposeful_glory]

"We need to at least explore long enough to find water, and ideally something edible too, in case it's very large and we're stuck here for a very long time." Loki listens. "It's getting farther away; we can move on. But ambush is less pleasant still than assault and I'd rather not be hiking while attacked."

[poll_the_stars]

Nod.

"It sounds... loud and obvious," she muses. "I don't think we have to worry about an ambush from it. But there might be other less loud and obvious things here. Those are what I'm worried about."

(Also she can keep it busy. That's reasonably easy. For example: other doorway leading in their direction: be hidden.)

"I have some water on me, by the way. So we have a bit of added breathing room to find water."

[purposeful_glory]

"That's something, then."

The hilt end of the glaive sprouts a little spike, and Loki marks the floor, takes a few steps, marks it again, etcetera.

[poll_the_stars]

Oh, that's smart. Inavet says so.

(And there are the things the other door let out, smaller and faster and moving in a way that reminds her of spiders. They get to have their routes to Loki and Inavet look like walls, too. Take that, spider things.)

[purposeful_glory]

(Loki is of course ignorant of Inavet's behind-the-scenes interventions.)

"Thank you."

[poll_the_stars]

(Yes, that is the point of them being behind-the-scenes.)

She smiles a little.

Walking!

(The spider-things are not actually hampered by the doors that look like walls. They just... Pass through them, not even noticing the illusion at all.

... Sound based, maybe? Worth a shot. She makes the sound of footsteps, over on the other side of the spider-things, and masks the sound of their footsteps to anything outside of, oh, five feet.

Oh, good, that works fine. Spider-things go in a direction that is away from the duo. Success!)

[purposeful_glory]

"...What is on your mind? I recommend keeping your eyes open even if you aren't going to fight anything that finds us."

[poll_the_stars]

(Giant stompy monster gets more doors that look like walls. Spider-things get their footsteps in an away direction.)

... What does she say, exactly? 'I am busy distracting the things that are likely going to try to kill us?'

"Listening," she says, instead. "I think there are more things than just the big stompy thing in here. Sounds sort of like they skitter."

[purposeful_glory]

"Joy."

[poll_the_stars]

"Yes."

(She has a range limit, moreso on the footsteps than the illusions. But she can keep both the stompy monster and the spider-things away from them.

... Another door opens.

Damnation. What's this one got?

Medium sized quadrupedal things. How do they feel about doors that look like walls and the sound of footsteps going in another direction? Mm. That worked okay. But now she's juggling three separate sets of monsters.)

At some point, she's started frowning. A frown of concentration, to be specific.

[purposeful_glory]

"What do you hear?"

[poll_the_stars]

"Quadrupedal things. I think."

(She attempts to send the spider-things towards the stompy monster, in the hopes that they will kill each other and leave her less to deal with.

No dice. They ignore each other.

Wall, footsteps, wall wall footsteps...)

[purposeful_glory]

"I wonder why none of them have found us yet."

[poll_the_stars]

"This place seems pretty big. They uh. Might be lost. Or it might all be to freak us out."

(Wall, footsteps, wall, footsteps - augh, no, she was too slow for that quadruped, they move fast, damn it, now it's getting dangerously close -

Fuck you, quadruped, have a very centralized light that's as bright as the sun, you obviously use your eyes.)

There is an animal screech of pain, from over thataway.

[purposeful_glory]

Loki turns her head sharply. "Are they fighting each other? Or is the place trapped as well as infested?"

[poll_the_stars]

(... There's a thought.

She adds checking for traps on her to-do list. Wall, wall, footsteps, wall, footsteps, fuck you, spider-thing, get a sonic burst, footsteps...)

"That didn't sound like a fight," observes Inavet, a little distantly. Shit, she's getting to the point where she's just going to fess up that she has magic and has been giving these creatures hell at this rate, carrying on a conversation and also causing them trouble is sort of hard...

[purposeful_glory]

In addition to scratching the floor where they pass, Loki is now giving the floor ahead of them sharp thumps with her weapon every few steps.

[poll_the_stars]

Good, good.

(Another fucking door opens.

Wall, footsteps?

No dice.

Fuck you, get a sonic burst and a blast of light?

Also no dice.

Shit.)

"... Something is coming from that way," she says, pointing. "Slithery-ish."