Warrior of the Void Book 1, Chapter 27

Well, she was out now and not at any risk of falling. That was great. What wasn’t so great was the fact that it was only a matter of time before an Ahriman or some other twat did an encore of last time by bringing down a massive swarm on her head. She had to get back indoors, the quicker the better.

From where she stood, she saw a few places that she could try to get to. First being the plethora of windows on her floor. For a shadowy castle in a dimension of darkness, there was an almost absurd amount of the things. It came with the slight issue of not letting her escape the giant shark man, but at least she wouldn't risk her ankles on a jump.

The way the castle was constructed gave her options though. To her left, she could see what had once been a huge terrace, only a floor down from her, sure the tip of it looked as if it'd been cut off in a single slash, but that part was far enough that she (probably) didn't have to worry about the entire terrace falling away.

From there, she could get back into the castle, or drop down another floor by climbing on the slanted roof of an annex tucked into the corner of the two larger wings. The angle wasn't great, but she could see the edge of a hole in it, which would let her back inside.

Alternatively, on her right, she had two other possible escape routes. First was the ginormous tower that hung in the air, fragments of its foundations floating underneath it, crystals and shattered remnants of its basement floor clinging to the obsidian stone.

By her estimate, the only way she could get to it was by getting on the gothic bridge that connected it to the rest of the palace. Issue being that said bridge was a good three floors down. If she did make that jump, her ankles wouldn't be happy in the least. In all honesty, that was probably the worst option.

The last choice she had was marginally better. It was another tower, this one though was connected to the castle by some kind of flower tunnel. The tunnel was on the same level as the other tower's bridge, but much shorter, and the tower itself was three floors tall. Meaning that she could reasonably make that jump. And based on the windows cut into the tower's roof, she'd be able to get back in that way easily enough.

The sound of flapping wings told her pondering time was over, leaving her to skitter like a spider over to the terrace. Safest option of the lot. Shimmying along the edge, Muur tried to go as far as she could while staying quiet and keeping her ice magic steady. Unfortunately, she wasn’t fast enough to reach the terrace before the wings’ owners reached her position.

Two Ahrimans flew right above her, screeching and snarling in the air as they fought each other for the bigger bite of their unfortunate prey – which wasn't her. By a miracle of the Dusk Mother and the Twins, the roof kept her out of sight of their giant, bloodshot eyes. Neither of the Voidsents even noticed her as they bickered over the carcass of a large bat-creature riddled with silvery quills of metal.

Looked like Muur’s avian friend had been having fun. She felt herself involuntarily relaxing a tiny bit at the realisation that she’d both escaped notice, and that a friendly face (relatively speaking) was stalking these walls. Maybe she should make finding the murderous nightingale her goal for now? It wasn’t like she had much to go on for now…

Speaking of going, she’d reached the edge of the terrace and from her position she could tell that the place was a damn mess. Scratches, impact craters, cuts in the stone work – almost every single type of damage she could think of was on display here. She didn’t exactly sit down to drink in the scenery though, switching from ice to fire in an instinctual move that made her stomach do a backflip. Still, the jets of fire pouring from her ankles softened her fall enough that she didn’t stumble too badly upon hitting the ground, tail coming in for the clutch. Just as she was going to hurry back indoors, she noticed something standing tall in the middle of the terrace.

A scythe of some kind, blade driven deep into the floor, was just there. Its handle was wrapped in streamers of shredded cloth that danced in a non-existent wind. It had also not been there five seconds ago.

On one hand, suspicious as fuck on a less-than-friendly dimension. On the other hand, it was a weapon and something in her gut told her it was important.

Gingerly, she wrapped her tail around the shaft, gently feeling for how hard it was stuck into the stooooh no.

Snap.

The instant that she tried to tug on the scythe, the thing snapped in two. The sound was both quiet and deafeningly loud. The handle in Muur’s coils then began to disintegrate like it’d been made of sand, while the red ribbons flew away in the wind. All but one.

Rather than join its three brothers in floating away to whatever destination they’d end up at, the fourth wrapped around her tail and– ‘They know.’ –The thought came to Muur clear as could be. Absolute certainty that the castle’s denizens knew of her presence.

Then, there was no further thought. Only the rictus grin of adrenaline on her face and the snap of fire at her heels as she took off like a shot.

___________________________________________________________

“BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!” The roar of the shark on her heels almost made Muur regret being able to understand him now. She didn’t know why she could, but the monster just kept screeching about wanting to drink her like a can of coke, “I WILL FEAST ON YOUR AETHERBLOOD!”

“Not for free, you won’t! I’m not selling at cost!” She hollered with a maniacal laugh over her shoulder as she leapt onto a wall and springboarded off, starbursts of soot left in the wake of her flaming soles. Another screech for her blood was its only response as she rolled into a room, hitting the ground running.

Getting the hell out of dodge as soon as she’d felt things become aware of her had been the right move. It hadn’t taken two minutes for something massive to slam into the terrace with a murderous shriek, and ever since the fat fuck had been hounding her. It hadn’t managed to clap eyes on her even once so far, she was too fast for that, but it’d managed to stay only one room or two behind her.

Partly because she couldn’t help herself and kept taunting it and– CRUNCH – partly because it treated doors, walls and furniture as more of a suggestion than an obligation. For her part, she’d kept ahead by following her gut, that same feeling of knowing as before edging her forwards, making her choose one door above another until she reached— a surprisingly pristine bedroom?

A really nice one too! It had a dresser right by the door, a four poster bed, a desk… And beside a thin layer of dust, the place was perfectly preserved, not one tear in the heavy curtains draped around the fancy looking bed. Or a stain on the rug that covered the waxed wooden floor or– not the time. Looking around, Muur bit back a curse, the only door was the one that she’d just gone through. 

Looked like she’d be jumping through the window an– Something whipped out of the large dresser in the room, and wrapped itself around her wrist faster than she could react. Before she could see what had grabbed her, it yanked her into the confines of the furniture. The doors closed behind her, wreathing the world in darkness in an instant, “Quiet. Don’t make a sound,” A voice that borrowed her inner thoughts bade her to be silent, a request Muur was forced to follow when a finger was pressed against her lips, “Don’t move.”

“WHERE ARE YOU!?” The monster bellowed from right outside the room, “I WILL END YOU!” Shockingly, it didn’t destroy the door, instead opening it like a normal person going by the sound of the knob turning, “I can smell you…”

Muur heard it sniff at the air next to her hiding spot. In her mind’s eye, she could picture the lumbering beast peeking out of the door, leaning into the room and looking around with narrowed eyes, “No…,” It eventually growled after what had seemed to be an eternity, “Not here. Not in sister’s room…”

It let out something halfway between a gurgle and a grumble before closing the door and leaving. Its plodding footsteps bringing it away from the bedroom, “The tower can help.” The finger of Muur’s helper left her lips as it gave her advice.

Then something pushed her, and she tumbled out of the dresser and onto her ass. Looking up, she saw that the dresser was wide open… and completely empty.

Muur really needed to track down the Warden and ask about all this nonsense. Or failing that the Guildmasters. For now, though, she had to make her way to that spooky tower. No reason to disregard whatever entity had been helping her out so far.

___________________________________________________________

Finding her way to that damn tower became something of a problem. He mad dash through the castle had taken her to a section where she couldn’t see it from the windows– and she could swear that there was some sort of ‘bigger on the inside’ nonsense going on with this place as a whole.

But just as she was getting ready to start taking more drastic actions than just walking around aimlessly. Muur noticed human footsteps appearing in the dust. Since they were leading away from her, the mage decided to bank on them belonging to whatever entity had helped her before and followed.

While trailing it with steps both whisper-quiet and quick as she could make them, it didn’t take long for Muur to realise that whatever this was, they didn’t care much for doors. Wherever one was in its path, it just phased through it as if it wasn’t there. Furniture on the other hand? It maneuvered around it each and every time.

After a few rooms, Muur and her guide arrived at a place that the Thaumaturge actually recognised. She didn’t know where she was anymore than before, but the scorch marks and the way it looked as if a bomb had gone off in the room made it pretty obvious to her that this was one of the rooms she’d run through during the chase.

Whatever the ghost was, it stepped around the devastation and past the threshold of a destroyed door. Avoiding a small nest of broken glass from a chandelier, Muur allowed herself a sigh of relief when she finally caught sight of the tower through the windows of the next room. Looking around, she seemed to be above the annex next to the terrace. Which meant that reaching the tower wouldn’t be too difficult…

Yeah, she didn’t believe it either.