Author: Shiloh Kyrie, Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2018 11:18 PM, Post Subject: The Penultimate Maze [SOLO][Event]

Three down, one more left to go. Death and desire stood before her as she entered the deadliest and most treacherous of the mazes yet. The hedges here were more like walls of coiled thorns, and the path was only a dirt road showing where the thorn vines weren't. She would have to pull out all the stops to survive this one. If Angela and Dalanesca were giving it their all, then so should she. Ebon vines with thorns best described as exaggerated needles jutted from each side, making contact damage a given. The growls and snarls of the terrible beasts thrown in sent the danger levels through the roof. Patches of lava radiating with molten rock, poisonous bogs, quicksand, and toxic fumes were all present. It would be a real pain, but Shiloh wasn't stopping. She wanted to get to the final maze. She wanted to know what the last one was like.

The intense desire to see the worst of what Life and Death had to offer trumped every other feeling she had and drove her on like a person possessed. But she was only this curious because it wasn't actively affecting the rest of the world, like the Warped Spire had. Gluttony for punishment, a mad compulsion, deadly curiosity–and whatever fancy names other people might draw up were just the tip of the iceberg. Ambition. Pure, unbridled ambition was what the newly ascended deity was riding on into a literal deathtrap. Dressed to the nines in all the armor and weapons she had at her disposal, she tore through the passages like a violent whirlwind of steel and shadow. The first thing to stop her furious advance was the deafening shriek of a chimera's cry. Something nearly hit her, only to be diverted to the side just in time. A large globule of acid fizzled on the hedges as the corrosive material lost it's sting. Standing before her in the clearing was a fusion of a basilisk and manticore, with the basilisk head being in front while the manticore's lower half had a stinger sharp and venomous like the infernal centipedes she had scavenged parts from before.

She could very well try to cut the horrid monstrosity down, but she chose the alternative–opening a portal behind its stinger tail and leaving it behind in the dust. Seconds later she heard the shrill cry and thundering of footsteps, but she kept running. Efficiency was key to her strategy, and she wasn't wasting time fighting everything that she could avoid. Eventually she'd trigger several enemies as she progressed, but this was all part of the plan too. The maze tunnels' space was limited, and eventually there'd be a bottleneck…

Speaking of bottlenecks, there was also another thing she had overlooked in her mad dash to breeze through the maze: dead ends. In hindsight this was a very, very suicidal idea even for a deity which she soon realized once she saw the path she was on ended abruptly twenty meters ahead with no other exit point. By now she had managed to amass a healthy following of rabid pursuers which included the basilisk-manticore, a pack of ghouls, three feral lycans, a hydra, a bone dragon, and two terror lizards from Bakulaw. All of which were making an unholy racket while they created one of the most ridiculous traffic blocks in the history of man. If it weren't for the fact that every single one of them wanted to liberate her innards from her body, watching the beasts fight among themselves to get to her first was somewhat amusing. Then the terror lizards bit the ghouls in half…and the lycans broke through.

This was a very appropriate time to insert one's choice of an expletive here. Teleportation was useless with no clear view of a 'safe' place to go to. And using safe passage was laughable, as that would probably send her out of the maze. Having to face the trainwreck of a mess that was now steadily approaching, Shiloh drew a sword in each hand and coated herself in armor. The dragon and hydra wouldn't do well fighting in small spaces, but the lycans were the main problem. Quickly swapping one blade out for her axe, she sent herself flying forward with a gust of wind, coming out swinging. The axe head found its way into the back of one lycan's neck, but it wasn't clean through so that did nothing. The searing flames from her phoenix blade just caused the area to stink of burning fur. She remembered that neither had a lacriamium coating, but it was far too late to apply that now. Seconds were ticking away, and soon the other larger monsters would be out of the jam. 

Charging herself up with as much electricity as she could, she leaped high and jabbed the two swords downward while locking the lycans' movement with stasis. Just a touch and it'd be enough to send them up a creek in wooden caskets. The plan went through flawlessly, and the amount of voltage sent into the lycanthorpes reduced them to charred skeletons, sending the smell of burning flesh into the air. "Curses, I overdid it. Well, at least they're off my back for now. Should've used something silver." With the smaller predators out of the way, it was time to tangle with the bigger beasts. The hydra and chimera were at each other's throats, while the terror lizards were ripping off the hydra heads–doing essentially nothing. It was a bloody stalemate for the three, and the only reason why the bone dragon wasn't in was due to its large size.  

The best course of action would be to wipe out the chimera and terror lizards first. The hydra's regeneration would make it more difficult to put down while the others were present. Throwing the axe, she had it lodge itself into the chimera's body while one terror lizard was tearing at its throat. Focusing, she channeled the power in the air–calling down a rain of lightning strikes. Bolts of electricity struck the surrounding area at random, most of them missing her targets. But then one of the beasts reared its ugly head, and one bolt connected. The lightning ran through the three beasts, frying whatever brains they had immediately. The axe head certainly made it easier for the electricity to jump in that direction. Falling to the ground, that left the hydra and the bone dragon. 

The hydra would require her phoenix blade. She wasn't ready to use another spell again, and even then she had been lucky to have it even work as it did. With another trick up her sleeve, she let the beast come to her instead of taking the initiative. When the heads swooped down to bite, she activated a ring on her finger which made her vanish. They tore into air, and a flicker of light appeared before she was back. It was a dangerous ploy, but now she was positioned right where she wanted–underneath it's belly. Ripping into it from below, a shower of blood and viscera came pouring down as she seared the insides of the hydra to well-done. It wasn't one of her favorite courses of action, as she had to endure the bloodcurdling screams of the hydra while it died. Disgusted and covered in filth, she was just about done with everything when the bone dragon finally came into view. Fed up and out of patience, she pointed her sword at it, causing the surrounding shadows to emerge as inky-black limbs which latched onto the dragon's body before forcibly tearing it asunder. With a shrieking roar, it clattered to the ground in a massive bone heap.

Finally, some peace and quiet. Exhausted, she slumped in a clean patch of dirt. The way was clear, but now she'd have to find her way to an open crossroads again. "Looks like I had it all wrong." Shiloh muttered, picking off the bloody bits from her axe. "This isn't a maze, it's a gauntlet." She wondered how many others had gotten this far, and hoped that she wouldn't be fighting them either. Taking a swig from her canteen, she rinsed herself off before continuing her run. More stealth and less reckless abandon–she reminded herself as she wandered through the fiendish maze.