maze2 freak me out

[apocalypticduality]

It had been three days since he'd woken up in this place.

Or at least, he assumed three days, as he'd slept three times and he was getting too hungry to move. Oh he'd found food here and there alright, but by now, he'd learned not to just march into rooms to retrieve the pre-packaged snack food that had been left in them. He'd arrived here and found four other people, three humans and another troll, and every one of them was in at least two pieces now. They'd been reasonably intelligent in that they'd found little ways to try and trigger traps early or else check that there wasn't anyone else where they stopped, figuring that if their group got too big, people would start turning against eachother.

None of them lived long enough for that to happen.

So now, it was Sollux, by himself, sitting at a junction between three hallways, an empty, unmarked bag in his lap that had once contained unsalted chips and a button off the collar of his shirt in his mouth, clicking gently against his teeth as he turned it over on his tongue. He was thinking over the layout of the place in which he'd found himself, tapping his fingers sluggishly against his knee. Marking the walls had proven useless, as he'd seen after trying to double back away from a trapped corridor to find himself at a dead end where there previously hadn't been one. He had seen... things, just in the edges of his periphery that were resolutely not showing themselves, no matter how long he waited, but he knew they were there, particularly after one had collided at high speed with someone he'd been speaking with, more or less liquifying them. He scrubbed a hand across his face at the memory of the blood splattering onto him and across his clothes then pushed himself up off the ground and put a hand against the nearest wall. He sent out a slow, pulsing wave of psionic energy, closing his eyes and focusing hard in spite of the dizziness, walking slowly in the direction the pulse seemed to go furthest, down a blank hall that seemed to go on forever. It was a trick he'd picked up for finding trick passages the day before, for all the good it had done him, as all it had really managed to do was land him in the middle of this forked passage, with nothing else to go on.

All he could really hope at this point was that either he died quickly in some missed trap, or that he stumbled across some way out.

Comments

[mapsincolor]

When one wakes up in the middle of a homicidal maze, it helps to be dead already. Or undead.

Kanaya had never been so glad to be a Rainbow Drinker. Oh, there were inconveniences - the glowing paired with a unique diet was guaranteed to discourage dinner invitations. Still, she preferred it to the alternative.

The latest 'alternative' would have been particularly unpleasant. She'd stepped on an incorrect floor panel, triggering a rush of dark liquid. Spewing in from all sides, the entire corridor flooded in seconds. She hung suspended, unable to push through the heavy stuff. Ichor seeped into her nostrils and ears. Tiny tendrils seeped between clenched fangs, seeking to choke out breath that wasn't there.

She closed her eyes. Waited. Fought back the instinctive panic I'm drowning drowning you can't YOU PHYSICALLY CANNOT DROWN. Then, gradually, it receded. The hallway stood empty again, stone walls, stone-tiled floor, with a few black puddles scattered throughout.

Spitting out the liquid, Kanaya began to wring out her skirt. Then she paused. There was a faint prickling at the back of her neck. A tingling, close to static, but not quite. She'd felt it a couple of times in the maze, but never this strong. It seemed... familiar.

[apocalypticduality]

When a dark spot in his haphazard scanning started to open up, Sollux stopped, amping up the energy to send it out more frequently. When the ichor receded from around Kanaya's feet, he was able to form an impression of a single person standing still in the middle of an open, clear space. He took his hand away from the wall and opened his eyes, using the very faint glow of them to be able to navigate until he hit a dead end again. He growled in frustration then slapped his hand back against he wall, sending out another psionic pulse, brow arching up when he realized he'd just found the doorway leading into that drowning room.

Shoving on the door to try and open it, Sollux spoke up finally, in the hopes that whoever it was could hear him through the stone. He shoved his shoulder into it and it finally gave, letting him poke his head in slowly through the opening. What he saw made his jaw drop.

"Kanaya?"

[mapsincolor]

The prickling built into waves. Red and blue sparks flickered for a moment. Then... a voice. After hours/ days/ ??? of no other words, only screams, it was her name. Kanaya spun around, staring at the skinny figure haloed in the door.

“Sollux!”

The relief crashed in as strong as the dark liquid. Someone whole, someone not in pieces on the wall or splattered across a ceiling. Not just “someone," a friend. It took all Kanaya’s control not to sprint over. Instead, she inhaled deeply. It was really just a habit, breathing, but still held a steadying effect. Looking down, she frowned - her foot rested a half-inch away from another of the “Liquid” tiles. Other symbols glowered from the floor. Their meaning was unknown, but no doubt just as malevolent.

You have to be careful.

“Wait... I’m coming.”

It took agonizing minutes to pick her way over. Finally reaching the other Troll, she seized both his hands, so warm and too thin but it was Sollux.

“Are you... are you... It is far too absurd to ask if you are okay, isn’t it.”

[apocalypticduality]

Sollux stood there in the doorway vibrating on the spot nearly, twitching every time she stepped down onto another sign until she was finally there in front of him. He held onto her hands and stepped back into the corridor to get her out of the room, then pulled her into a tight hug.

"Jethuth fucking chritht," he muttered as he held onto her, glaring back into the room and the puddles of black here and there on the floor. Kanaya was sticky and soaked through, and he grimaced as he let her go with his hands on her shoulders. "You're not hurt or anything are you? We have to move," he insisted, taking ahold of her hand again and starting back down the hall he'd just come through. There was nothing down that hall that they'd just met except for yet another dead end, and the room that anyone else would have drowned in. Whatever had put them in there obviously hadn't accounted for a rainbow drinker. There would likely be other things that could do much worse though. He could hear a grinding far off in the distance, signalling that walls were shifting again.

Once he'd managed to bring her back into the fork, he turned to face her again under the dim sulfur-yellow light that was protruding from the ceiling. He stripped his button-up overshirt off and offered it to her. "You might want to get out of the sticky shit," he explained. "Better that you can move freely." He would have offered her his pants as well, but he doubted that she would be able to fit into them. His boxers maybe, but why would she agree to wear his underwear? He hadn't been able to change his clothes since before he was put in here by...something.

"I'm ok," he finally answered her, leaning his shoulder against the wall and rubbing his hands over his face. He'd lost his glasses somewhere in the past couple of days, and it was giving him a bit of a headache walking around in the dull lighting. "But I'm really fucking hungry."

[mapsincolor]

Kanaya considered the shirt, then accepted with a wan smile. Sollux's clothes weren't much cleaner then hers, but at least they were dry. "Me too. Our hosts do not appear very considerate of special dietary needs - Oh!" A hand flew up, landing on a strap. "I do have this, though!"

She'd nearly forgotten about the backpack. A less fortunate player had been thoughtful enough to leave it behind (along with half of his rib cage.) Setting down Sollux's shirt, she shrugs the bag loose and begins digging. There had been no time to properly inventory its contents, but maybe...

"Let's see - Here!" Pulling a white packet free, Kanaya handed it to her companion.

[apocalypticduality]

Having that pack around would most certainly come in handy, for collecting what foodstuffs they could or other things that might end up being useful. It was starting to feel like some kind of demented game they'd been shoved into (Ha, how ironic.) Sollux frowned at the packet and turned it over, then settled down next to Kanaya on the floor with a quiet huff. He looked back at her softly glowing, giving his eyes some reprieve from the darkness and the headache-inducing yellow light. "How long have you been in here?" he asked quietly. If she was as hungry as he was, at least they could do something about hers. In silent offering, he held out his arm, wrist up.

[mapsincolor]

"It is hard to... to tell."

Kanaya swallowed. She'd told herself she could do it, didn't need help, could survive on the shallow, stale sips scavenged from the remains of other wanderers. It was a lie. Sollux's blood hummed, buzzing loud as his bees. Every atom in her screamed for that energy. Life, being offered -

Offered by a friend who'd always been too skinny. Now, in the dim light, Sollux looked practically skeletal. His arm shook visibly.

"Thank you." Gently she gripped his hand, then moved it back to the package. "I... I think I will have to take you up on that. Later. You should eat first."

Then she considered his question again. "I am not sure. I've slept twice. Each instance I woke up in a different place."

[apocalypticduality]

Sollux frowned more deeply at that. He'd woken up in other locations before as well, but given his hair-trigger response to being touched, he knew he would have woken up had he been moved by somebody else. The only conclusion he could come to was that the floor moved too. Everything was shifting and making it impossible to navigate. He glanced up at the wall in front of him, frowning at the large red X sitting there painted on the stone. That hadn't been there before.

Scrambling upright, Sollux went to inspect the new mark. From the smell of it, it was human blood, and it had barely had the chance to dry. He looked down the hallway that was closest to it, staring hard into the darkness then throwing himself to the ground with a muffled swear as something zipped by overhead with a whisper of wind that ruffled his hair as it went. He glared after it, then crept into the mouth of the corridor in a crouch. He came back several quiet moments later, holding a bloodstained skirt and what looked like a satchel that had been made out of other scrounged clothes.

"Well, we're not alone at leatht," he muttered as he sat back down at Kanaya's side, handing her the new pack to look through as he opened the little package she'd given him. He grimaced a little at the MRE and pulled the bread out of it, glancing into the pack he'd just picked up and pulling up a bottle of water. This wasn't the first time he'd have to completely improvise making a meal for himself, but it was better that he had energy to sustain his psionics and try to give Kanaya something to run on as well.

After managing to cook the peculiar rice mixture in its packet with the water using his psionics, Sollux ate slowly, picking at the ground with his nail. He wished he had a paper and pencil, something he could make some kind of map with. Even if things were moving around, he could at least try to keep track of it and see if there was some sort of pattern to it that he could time. If there was one thing he was good at, it was seeing patterns in information. He shivered a little, as if he were cold.

"Wish I thtill had my glatheth," he muttered. "At leatht with thothe I could tell if thomething wath there when I thart getting thethe fucking chillth..."

[mapsincolor]

As Sollux ducked, the briefest glimpse of metal flashed by. Kanaya started to cry out, but he’d already darted out of sight. When he returned in one piece with the new supplies, she bit back a reproach. What else was there to do? Sit and wait for the maze to kill them?

The second pack held three extra bottles of water, another white food packet, and a few more odds and ends. The water would do nothing to for her thirst, but it had other uses.

“We are not alone. That is true. And we are not without assets, either.”

As Sollux ate and complained of chills, Kanaya opened one of the bottles. Carefully she poured it over a spot in the center of her own skirt. The dark stains sluiced away, revealing beige cloth underneath and a fine, geometric pattern of tiny white stitches. Pulling a needle and a few colors of thread from her own backpack, the Troll quickly began adding to a line on the right side. Two stitches, three, then the black symbol from the Drowning Room. Next the line turned left, leading into a fork with a red “X.”

Finished, Kanaya looked up. She wondered if she should explain or if Sollux had figured it out already.

[apocalypticduality]

Sollux paused in the middle of taking a sip from his bottle of water, head tilting as he watched Kanaya fussing with her skirt. His brow arched up when he realized what she was doing.

"That'th fucking brilliant," he said quietly, turning in place and pouring a little bit of his water onto a larger patch of her skirt, wringing it out gingerly and looking over the portion of this map that she'd made for herself. He traced the tip of his finger along the hall she'd just marked, along the fork that she'd just labeled as unsafe, then back down in the direction he'd come from. The ichor room was a dead end, but they had no idea what was past the trapped hall that had sheered the poor girl in half. He already knew there was nothing from the direction he'd come, at least from the adjacent corridor that had led off from a massive room that had ended up being full of spun glass, Angel Hair that had managed to blind someone that he'd been walking with. He himself had sustained several painful, nasty little cuts, nearly invisible, especially under this light, but they still itched like mad. He traced along that direction off of the path that he'd come down, frowning a little at a dead end where that room would have been. Apparently one of the sliding walls had blocked that off when Kanaya had explored there. "Mark there. That's a no-go." He explained why, then lifted the sleeve of his tshirt to show the multitude of razor-thin cuts. His face had several as well, upon closer inspection.

[mapsincolor]

Kanaya nodded at the compliment. Whoever - whatever- put her here had forgotten to search her pockets. She’d nearly cried when she found the sewing supplies.

“Thank you. Really, uncertain death only holds entertainment value for so long. Though if I wake up in another location again, this might all be useless.” Kanaya supposed she would start over. At least the skirt was long. In the meantime, better make this map as correct as possible. She pulled some of the stitches out from where Sollux pointed. The dead end became a box, holding a few diagonal marks that matched his face slashes.

She tried not to think about how many slashes there were.

“I propose an experiment. Let us see if that room is open or closed now. I would be interested to see how far back we are allowed to trace steps, and if the traps remain the same.”

[apocalypticduality]

Sollux grimaced, but he nodded at that. It only made sense that they would have to double back every now and then when it came to trying to find a way past the moving layout of the place. He smoothed his short back down and finished off his mostly flavorless meal, already feeling a little better for having something in his stomach. He started to pack their little cache of supplies back up, before standing again and offering his hand to help Kanaya to her feet.

"I managed to turn motht of the thtrandth into dutht when I realithed what they were," he offered, "but that jutht meanth they won't be ath eathy to thee for the oneth that are thtill there, and breathing...well, we're gonna need a couple of mathkth." He shook his head. Had he known that he would have to try and go back through that room, he would have tried to melt the glass strands instead.

When he started down the hall back toward the angel hair, he glanced back over his shoulder, toward the body of the girl he'd pilfered the new pack from. But the body was no longer there, only a set of drag marks in its stead.

"We have to move," he hissed, his eyes widening. "Now."

[mapsincolor]

The first rule, "Keep your eyes on the bodies," had already been broken. Something was coming. Never mind "what," Kanaya could smell it. It crept in dank and rotting, clawing into her nose. Next rule, then - 'Don't wait for the bodies to catch you.' Gagging, Kanaya threw her backpack on and pounded after the other Troll.

Loping footsteps echoed behind them. A measured pace. Steady.

The Angel Hair room yawned open ahead. A pearly cloud shimmered within - The dust from Sollux's earlier passage, each mote razor sharp as the whole wire. Still, the trap could cut both ways, if the horror behind them needed to breathe. Which was a very tentative "If." After all, Kanaya didn't need to. Sollux, however...

Then Kanaya remembered the extra shirt. Somehow, she'd managed to grab it in the mad rush. Ripping a sleeve loose she thrust it over. "You said a mask? Here! Tie it over your mouth!" A split second before darting in, another thought occurred - He doesn't have his glasses, or the goggles! If the wire cut his skin that badly -

"Close your eyes!"

Screwing her own shut, she wrapped her arm through Sollux's as they entered. "Can you see the exit with your psionics?"

If not, they would have to chance the dust and peek.

[apocalypticduality]

At least with the glass as a fog around them, they couldn't be cut by it. It still itched though, in those wounds he already had. The first time he'd been through this room, he'd only made it maybe six feet inside before his first companion had been blinded and he himself had attempted to vaporize the strands so that the guy could get back out without doing more damage to himself. The act had been rendered moot though when he'd stumbled into the hall that had led down to a sloping passage that he'd ended up simply tripping and falling down until he'd come to rest at the bottom with a broken neck. The hall hadn't even been trapped, and it had still killed him. He doubted that the body was still there, if the other one's collection was anything to judge by.

At the question, he nodded, though it occurred to him just after he did it that that was just as pointless. He held the improvised mask against his mouth and nose with one hand, then crouched and laid his hand against the floor, murmuring, "Don't move for a thecond." He waited until he could no longer feel her moving before sending out that same static-like pulse from under his palm, intensifying it until the ripples of energy had reached the edges of the room. It had continued moving in one spot where the walls had stopped it everywhere else. Had their eyes been open, they still wouldn't have seen it without actually running their hands over the walls to find the slight impression of the edge. He half wished he'd thought to do just this sooner, after he'd first vaporized the glass, but then he took that back, as if he'd continued on ahead, he might never have found Kanaya, and been forced to wander this place all alone.

"Come on," he said quietly, wrapping his arm around hers in kind and urging her forward. He had no idea what was in the next hall, but maybe they would be able to advance in whatever fucked up test this was.

On the other side of the door, after it had slid shut behind him, they were suddenly dowsed with water, cold and chlorine-smelling, but it at least eliminated the hazard of the glass still clinging to them more or less. Sollux was shivering a little now, swearing mutinously under his breath. He looked down at the grate that they were standing on, flicking the water away from his face with a snarl. "Nithe. Real fucking nithe."

[mapsincolor]

"Indeed. How courteous."

Kanaya dragged claws through her hair, pulling loose the rest of the ichor. The deluge had taken care of the rest. The colors of her clothes emerged, beige skirt, black flats, and a long-sleeved, black shirt with her own symbol. It was oddly comforting to see the bright jade swirl in the halls of dreary brown and black.

Briefly she wondered at the point of their sudden shower. If the maze masters intended to ruin their supplies, her backpack was waterproof. Chlorine was not a dangerous element when diluted. Though now, everything reeked of it, and she could no longer smell the thing behind them.

Uneasily, Kanaya glanced back. The fog still glimmered in the Angel Hair room, but no other movement came.

[apocalypticduality]

Sollux' assumption about the water was along those same lines, and to act as an irritant in the cuts that would have been sustained by anyone normally walking through that room. He knew that his face and arms had certainly started to sting after it. He shoved the door shut and leaned on it until it had clicked back into place, then glared down the corridor in front of them. It was pitch black, which was more unnerving than simple darkness had any right to be. He looked back at Kanaya, glancing over her symbol for what little comfort he could gain from seeing something so familiar, then knelt to inspect her newly-cleaned skirt. He had to locate the room that she'd marked with yellow slashes, then orient them in this new hall before they headed off.

"If we can move thtraight for long enough we'll be in a completely new area," he murmured. He could see the branching halls, dead ends and rooms that Kanaya had encountered so far. Several of them seemed to be places that he'd already been through, if the implications of the little signs here and there were anything to judge by. He stood back up and took the other's hand, steeling himself then starting down the corridor. He couldn't hear anything; it was as if they'd been surrounded by sound-dampening material that turned the atmosphere into absolute, stifling silence. He had only the glow of his own eyes and Kanaya's rainbow drinker glow to see by, but that barely cut it here.

Sollux was holding his breath when something appeared in front of them. It was only a flash, but it brought with it the reek of fresh blood, and he couldn't even be sure that he'd seen it at all if the sudden shape hadn't been burned on the back of his eyes like a sudden camera flash. He shuddered hard, gripping down on Kanaya's hand, glancing over for confirmation of whether she'd seen it or not. Of course, when he stepped in a sticky puddle of something, that felt like confirmation enough.

[mapsincolor]

Oh yes. They had company. Kanaya found herself trembling, but not in fear. Whatever it was, it was alive. Hot. Full of blood. Slowly her head turned, tracking. With or without light, the Rainbow Drinker fixated sure as a compass needle. It had been too long. She felt her control cracking at last, leaving only hunger.

"Sollux," she whispered, with her last ounce of composure, "I must do something alarming." Then she wrenched her hand free and darted forward. The glow went out.

For a moment, quiet loomed, with only a faint flicker of movement in the dim red-blue. Then came a stuttering shriek which abruptly cut off in a gurgle. More noises came, scuffling, the unmistakable crack of bone. At last there were several long, deep sucks.

Fingers wove back around Sollux's, long, cool, and (thankfully) dry. Kanaya pulled him forward, and allowed her skin to illuminate again. Where before it was a soft glow, now the blaze lights the entire hallway.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry don't look at it. Please."

[apocalypticduality]

Sollux didn't look so much alarmed as he did mildly nonplussed. He squeezed down on Kanaya's hand in return, the other hand coming up against the side of her head and pulling it toward him briefly, his own laying against it gingerly. He would have pointed out that she could have taken from him before, but he doubted that she would hear a word of it no matter whether she'd just eaten or not. He kissed the top of her head in an attempt to be reassuring then started forward, keeping his head up rather than looking down at the heap of monstrosity that Kanaya had neatly disposed of.

"Y'know, I'm pretty damn sure whoever put uth in here made a terrible mithtake in letting you run around. They're gonna run out of monthterth if you keep doing that," he joked, giving her a smirk as they continued on.

[mapsincolor]

It wasn't that Kanaya would never drink from her friends. After all, she'd had to survive on something during that long meteor ride. But that was controlled, on a schedule (at Karkat's furious insistence.) No, she'd feared drinking from Sollux because it had been so long... look what she did to that thing No Don't Look Don't WhatDidIJustEat

The whirling thoughts cut short at Sollux's gesture. He did not spend his kisses lightly. It settled in as they started forward again, warm. At his quip, Kanaya flashed back a wolfish smile. "Yes. I rather believe they did."

Then it faltered. "Unless, of course, they intend to make me one of the monsters." Uneasily she wiped a hand across her mouth, noting the trace of bright purple. Another set of violet smears came to mind, and for a second

-The walls seep purple, dripping gore-

Then she blinked and no. Nothing. Stone surrounded them.

[apocalypticduality]

Sollux watched her from the corner of his eye, his smile fading off as quickly as it had come. He took the mask that he'd tucked into his pocket and shook it out, offering it to her wordlessly. Really, it was all too easy to imagine the other inhabitants of the maze simply being other people like themselves, driven mad by the place and warped beyond recognition. He pushed the thought out of his head though and slowed as they came to the end of the hall. It opened up into a pitch black pit of a room darker than the corridor in which they stood.

"Thmell anything?" he muttered as he laid his free hand against the wall, sending his pulse out and around the edges of the room. He couldn't detect anything anomalous in the walls and the floor...it felt loose. Like there were empty spaces here and there.

Adjusted room - add more light if you like?

[mapsincolor]

Kanaya wiped off the rest of her face, then folded the sleeve and mutilated shirt into her pack. Such A Well-Mannered Monster! she thought, absurdly, and bit back a giggle. She had Sollux. She had Sollux, and she wasn’t going to let this place turn her into something that would hunt him.

- Or Would We Hunt Each Other-

Catching the question, she shook herself. “I smell nothing alive. Not that it means much - ”

Then a door opens on the other side of the space, allowing in a dim wash of light. Tiles covered the floor. Unlike the Drowning Room, each square was identical, with no symbols.

Behind them, faint growling noises began to approach from either side.

Lighting's perfect.

[apocalypticduality]

At least he didn't have to squint into the darkness here, but Sollux was still wary. He could hear just the faintest susurrus beneath their feet, something akin to leaves brushing against eachother as they floated down a river. He didn't trust it any more than he trusted anything else in here, save for the rainbow drinker standing beside him. Behind them, the sound of the approaching monstrosity ceased entirely, making a brief moment of panic spur him onward.

When he stepped on the first tile, it rattled gently in whatever setting it was in. He stepped back off of it again, only to be stopped by the wall that had slid shut and sealed behind them. Now they had no choice but to move forward.

"Don't move," he murmured, glancing back at Kanaya, standing out brightly against the dark wall like a reversed silhouette. He then crouched and laid his hand on the floor, letting the psionic wave spread from his palm once more then taking count of the places that seemed to be blank patches. There were identical tiles everywhere, but at least he knew which ones he would be better off avoiding. Kanaya was lighter at least so she might be able to step where he couldn't; there seemed to be a very specific path for them to travel and it looked like at one point they would have to separate, but at least after that, it looked like there was a door. The lock mechanism seemed like something out of a certain horror movie franchise.

Putting that out of his mind, Sollux started out, guiding Kanaya along the path of the tiles that he knew couldn't have been safe.

[mapsincolor]

Though both doors shut, the faint light remained. Kanaya firmly stomped down on her panic. Just another room. Just one more impending death trap. She comforted herself by envisioning all the new sections she would be able to add to her skirt. Hooray.

She trod carefully behind Sollux. He hadn't explained the specifics, but anything that rattled was better left alone. The floor held. Then a sharp clatter shot through the room. Jerking around, Kanaya saw only a gaping hole in the floor where Sollux had first stepped. From it, a faint swwwsh swwwsh emerged. She swallowed.

"I am reminded of Troll Indiana Jones And The Religiously Significant Yet Unassuming Cup Of A Carpenter. Did Karkat ever make you watch that one?"

Maybe it wasn't the best time to reminisce, but she needed to talk about something, anything to drown out that sloshing.

[apocalypticduality]

"I refuthed to watch movieth with Karkat after he made me thit through A Retired Cavalreaper Turned To Thoporificth Ith Fathed With Reuniting With Hith Ex-Matethprit-Turned-Kithmethith and Protheedth To Dethtroy Theveral Thity Blockth During A Marital Thtrife. Not that it wath a bad movie, I liked it and all, but hith commentary made me want to thtrangle him with hith own thweater," Sollux replied, tensing up and sending a more intense wave of energy through the walls and floor. Another tile was rattled loose with the force of it, splashing into whatever disgusting mire waited below them. It smelled like rotting foliage, and even more like decayed human flesh. He had to wonder how many people had come before the two of them had arrived.

Finally, he decided that it would be better to try and forge ahead, stepping as lightly as he could manage. He would have simply levitated himself across using his psionics, but he would also have had to take time to rest afterward, and he had no idea what kind of horrors this room could hold besides simply dumping him into the imagined flow of gore. "Walk three tileth to your right then head thtraight ok? There'th a thafer path there that should hold you eathy." He looked back over his shoulder to be sure that she was able to make it there in the first place, then inched his way forward. He was tired, the constant psionic output giving him a throbbing headache and making his vision fuzzier. He could navigate by feel at least.

Except when his head gave a particularly nasty throb as he navigated Kanaya's way across the room for her, he had to stop, a beat too long with his foot in just the wrong spot. He felt the tile beneath him crack before he heard it, and by the time he heard the tile splashing into the stream below, he was hanging to the edge of the broken plane by his fingertips, legs pedaling uselessly in the air.

"Great jutht fucking great KANAYA DO YOU HAVE ROPE IN THERE IR THOMETHING JETHUT FUCK-" He yelled as he lifted his feet up just as something lurched up out of the mess, splattering the cuffs of his jeans with unnameable yuck.

[mapsincolor]

No rope. No time to think of it. Kanaya's feet were already moving by the time her brain caught up. She practically skimmed across the tiles. Each shattered, just a split second too slow. She landed behind Sollux's broken tile, on one he had stepped on earlier. It held. Sinking claws into the backpack, she tried to anchor her friend. A threatening rip came from one of the straps.

"Hold - Get off of him!" she hissed at the thing swiping at Sollux's legs, glowing brighter instinctively. Maybe the light would blind it? If not, a snarling Rainbow Drinker would give a lot of monsters pause.