Flashes of blue energy lid up the room illuminating fractions of the horror that assaulted them. Kurai’s turret began firing bolts and spikes at the creature that had climbed in through the opening on the wall but it leapt up and climbed around on the walls so fast that the turret had a hard time keeping up with it.
Raven and Arcaea had already fired five out of their nine remaining shots at the fused monstrosity but it showed no sign of stopping. Janette cast a flaming arrow at it, seering its mangled flesh but it didn’t even react.
The heads screamed and shouted as the horrifying amalgamation reached out, grabbed Arcaea with five of its hands and pulled her towards it.
“No!” shouted Raven as she reached for her sword to attempt to cut off the creature’s hands.
As she gripped the handle she heard a thud behind her and realized the second assailant, who had scampered around the walls, had just dropped right behind her. She turned to unsheath and swung her sword at it with swift movement but didn’t realize that the turret was still tracking the creature. And she was now between the two.
Before her sword could land a killing blow she felt spikes and bolts tear open her back and shoulder.
“Raven!” Kurai shouted as she pointed her rifle at the wall climber.
She fired a couple of shots but only managed to hit with one of them. The creature jumped up again and she momentarily lost track of it.
Meanwhile the horrifying conglomerate was pulling Arcaea towards its gnashing maws as she continued to fire rounds at its chest area until her rifle was out of rounds. There was now a huge hole into its torso and multiple scorged organs began falling out of it. But the chimera kept going, kept pulling her closer.
Fire arrow after fire arrow was flung from Janette and all of them hit their target but for some reason it wasn’t catching fire or even reacting to the damage they were doing. She felt her stock of arcanum diminish with each casting and began to fear they didn’t have enough to win this battle.
Just then there was a flash of white as a sword caught the light of the bonfire. Arcaea fell back and felt the hands that grasped her fall limp. The fused monstrosity stumbled back as Raven, bloodied and torn up stood where they had been with her sword held up high, stained with blackened blood.
“We need to go, now!” she shouted as she pulled Arcaea up from the floor.
Arcaea dropped her empty rifle to the floor and pulled out her new cleaver instead. As the hulking monstrosity rushed towards her again she hacked one of its legs, only to realize they were three legs that had been fused together. She felt her cleaver cut through muscle and crunch through bone as the monster fell to its side.
Kurai’s turret ran out of juice and went quiet and just then the wall climber jumped down to attack Janette. Kurai fired another successful shot at the creature but it survived, moved around Janette and started pulling her towards the opening on the wall. They could hear the moonlet girl cry out as its claws and teeth tore into her.
Arcaea, in sheer desperation, reached out and grabbed her leg just as Kurai stepped forward and put another round into the creature's head. She now had six shots left. The wall climber flailed around on the floor and somehow managed to push itself out of the opening. The last time Kurai saw it it was free falling 250 meters down to the ground.
The fused horror was struggling to get back to its feet when Raven hacked into another one of its legs, giving them some much needed time to escape.
Kurai helped Janette up to her feet and just barely managed to grab her backpack before they ran out the door. She was the only one. Janette only had her tablet and the arcanum canisters attached to her belt while Raven had her rifle which had five shots left and her sword. Arcaea only had her cleaver.
They ran out the door and into the darkened hallway. Behind them they could hear the wails of the conglomerate chimera trying to pull itself after them. The girls ran down the stairs using Kurai’s illuminorb to light the way, their eyes darting around trying to catch glimpses of anything that might be hiding in the darkness or around corners. They kept running until Kurai stopped.
“What is it?” whispered Raven.
But they didn’t have to wait for an explanation. They could hear it now. Footfalls. Bare feet running up the stairs below them. The girls moved out of the stairwell and into the floor they were currently on.
It was a labyrinth of corridors, collapsed rooms and interconnecting doors. They quietly ran down a hallway, crossed the corner and knelt down there, listening. Janette made sure to turn off the orb so as to not give away their position.
They could hear multiple hushed voices and footsteps from the stairwell which then got quiet. Kurai, who currently had the best eyesight, was watching the opening into the stairwell. She half expected something to peek its head through to look for them but nothing did. She dared to hope that the other chimera simply ran up to the top where they had been camped.
“I think they’re gone.” she whispered, turning to look at her friends in the gloom.
“We need to get out of here, right now.” whispered Raven.
“I know but…”
Kurai suddenly felt a chill run through her spine as she spotted a darkened figure standing in one of the doorways behind them. The others, noticing her expression turned to look and saw something there as well. But in this darkness they couldn’t tell exactly what it was.
None of them dared to breathe.
Kurai heard a rustle somewhere in the direction of the stairwell and allowed herself to peek past the corner once more while the others had their eyes on the dark figure. What she saw only terrified her more. She could see a couple of dark figures lurking around the opening and, worse yet, she could see their eyes. They were looking right at her. But they didn’t move.
“They know we’re here.” she whispered as she slowly moved behind the corner again. “Run.”
The command was strangely casual but the feeling it induced was panicked. They all got to their feet and instinctively ran away from the stairwell and towards the figure in the doorway. Janette turned on the illuminorb once again and they now beheld the image of a naked dozku woman who was missing most of her skin and yet stood there, grasping the door frame and staring at them with a deranged look in her eyes and a sickening smile on her face. Her mouth was wide and filled with sharp teeth.
As they ran towards her, Raven pulled up her rifle and fired a shot at her. It missed as she darted into the room. She now had only four shots left.
Behind them they could hear the mad wails and cries of the chimera running at them from around the corner.
As they passed the room where the lurking chimera had been they were surprised to find it empty. As they continued to run down the hallway they passed another. And another. And another. All of them seemed empty save for some debris and trash. But a few doors down, as they passed yet another open doorway, the chimera jumped out at them, swinging its claws at them wildly. Raven fired another round instinctually and this time caught it in the shoulder. As it staggered back Aracea swung her heavy cleaver and lopped off its head. Frighteningly, the chimera continued to stand and swing its clawed arms around for a few more seconds before dropping to the floor, still swinging.
They could now hear the jittering howls and manic cries of their pursuers as they got closer and closer.
The girls kept running for their lives, following the corridor until it led into a room that might have once been a conference room of some kind. Not wasting any time they continued through the room and out the other side into another hallway. Following it to its end they found their way into another stairwell, which briefly made them feel like they just might make it.
Briskly they ran down the stairs a couple of floors and then stopped.
“Drim!” exclaimed Raven.
The stairs below their current floor had collapsed and there was now a 80 meter drop down to the ground floor.
“In here.” said Arcaea pulling them into the open doorway next to them.
As she was the last one to go through she felt something pull on the collar of her jacket and then felt sharp claws stick into her back. Luckily her jacket was armored and the claws didn’t get all the way through.
Arcaea spun around and smashed her cleaver into whatever was attacking her. All she saw was a spurt of black blood and a twisted, jagged smile before her attacker vanished into the darkness of the stairwell.
She kept on running, following her friends down yet another corridor. Behind her she could hear multiple chimera pouring out of the stairwell. Her heart was racing and her legs were already aching. But she just had to push herself a little further. There has to be another chamber we can lock ourselves in, she thought, not entirely sure if that was the best solution to this situation.
The girls ran down the hallway, turned into a kitchen of some kind, weaved their way through the old stoves and ovens but as they were about to exit out a door on the other side suddenly four more chimera emerged from around the corner in front of them.
They stopped and were about to turn around when suddenly they were all jumped by the chimera that were right behind them. Immediately it turned from a chase to a vicious fight for their lives.
Janette managed to fling one fire arrow into the mouth of one of the chimera and impaling the shoulder of another to the wall with a frost javelin before she got jumped and thrown to the floor.
Raven got swept off her feet and thrown across the room where she hit the wall right next to an open elevator shaft that had probably been used some hundreds of years ago to quickly dispense cooked meals between floors. She tumbled to the floor and was immediately beset by one of the chimera. She somehow managed to bring up her sword in time so the feral mutant bit down on it, with the sword's edges cutting into the corners of its mouth.
Arcaea got grabbed and had her head slammed into one of the stoves. Then she felt sharp teeth bite her in the shoulder where she wasn’t armored. She cried out in pain and tried to pry open the creature’s jaw but then felt another jaw clamp down on her thigh. She swung her cleaver down repeatedly, cutting through the back of the creature biting her leg but eventually cut through the creature and into her own leg as well.
Kurai managed to fire four shots, two of them were headshots, one of them hit a chimera in the shoulder and the final one missed completely. In a panic she tried to bring up the butt of her rifle to smash it into the face of one of her attackers but the creature grabbed it and yanked it out of her grasp. She then felt claws dig into her and push her back over one of the ovens. All she could see were gnashing teeth and the smell of rotting flesh.
Raven grabbed the creature's matted hair and pulled its head towards the sword, severing it from the jaw and neck. She then pulled on her connection to the Void and increased her strength and speed. She rose up, fast as lightning and then jumped over one row of ovens and stoves to attack the two chimera that were on top of Janette.
There was a whistling sound and gush of cold, black blood into Janette’s face and she felt one of the chimera go limp and the other one let go. Then she was pulled up and tossed over one row and up against a wall. Landing on her feet, somehow, she managed to wipe away the blood out of her eyes. She now saw Raven swinging her blade, cutting down monsters left and right. She was covered in black and red blood as her wounds were still open. Which was probably how they had been so easily tracked.
Without her tablet she could only remember the incantations of a couple of spells. Namely; Fire Arrow and Analyze. It was pretty obvious to her which one to use. She was about to trace a glyph in the air with her hands when she felt something grab her. She turned and saw a chimera lunging at her with a wide open jaw filled with teeth.
Instinctively she grabbed one of her canisters of arcanum and smashed it into the creature’s head. The canister broke and the refined magical liquid poured all over it. She could hear it recoil in pain as its skin boiled and burned.
Raven had just decapitated another chimera when she heard it. A low rhythm of heavy thuds that got louder and louder. No, not louder she realized. Closer.
Suddenly the doorway they had attempted to escape through broke open as the conglomerate monstrosity burst in, its multiple heads snarling and screaming. Some of its legs seemed to have healed enough for it to walk again but four of its arms remained severed.
“Drim!” was all that Raven managed to say before it charged her, grabbed a hold of her with its three remaining arms and threw her up into the ceiling. Her body smashed up against the ancient light fixtures and came crashing back down, hitting the corner of an oven in the process.
Arcaea tried to get back up but two more chimera came and swarmed her. The melting chimera swung and cut Janette in the shoulder which made her drop to the floor and crawl away from it. Kurai, still holding the gnashing mouth of the mutant that was trying to bite her at bay, reached into her utility belt and frantically tried to find something, anything, that could be of help. Her fingers found something and she pulled out a grenade. Tork it, she thought as she jammed it into the creature's mouth, activated it and pushed the chimera as far from her as possible.
The grenade beeped and then there was a blinding flash and a deafening boom. Kurai felt the force hit her in the face and then she was thrown back. She expected to hit the wall behind but didn’t and as she opened her eyes she realized she was falling down the elevator shaft.
“Drim.” was the only thing she was able to say before everything went dark.
Janette crawled on the floor. She could hear the chimera attacking her friends and Arcaea screaming “Run! Run! Run!” over and over again. She had seen Kurai get thrown into the elevator shaft but when she reached it and looked down she saw nothing but an abyss.
She looked back and saw the conglomerate thrashing Raven’s limp body around and all she could hear was Arcaea’s frantic screaming.
“Run!”
She was out of arcanum and had lost her tablets.
“Run!”
She had no weapons and no tools to help anyone.
“Torking Run!”
Tears streamed down Janette’s cheeks as she grabbed a hold of the elevator shaft’s edge and pulled herself inside. She was surprised at the liberating feeling she got from falling into the dark abyss and all she thought was; I’m sorry, before everything went dark.
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