Andor.cz - Dračí doupě online

It waited.

It was used to waiting. This time though, it was waiting for something exclusive. It was waiting for me. And I was just lying there, behind the corner, leaning my back against the wall, my arm bleeding. Damn I hate it when I bleed, it gives me this funny feeling running down my spine. I totally daze out sometimes, excited by the small trickle of red. Gods, I hate it when I bleed and can not let myself study the sensation. That is why I hate battlefields like this one.

It waited, I bled.

How long have I been here? I ask myself. The answer is unclear, the last time I had seen sunrise was like an age ago or it could have been a few hours. Time has no meaning in the Labyrinth, only ones sanity, fear and exhaustion. Oh and of course prowess. Right, I fell asleep quite a few times. Do not know how long I slept, but it could not have been long, because I had been feeling tired since I entered. So was she. Why did she have to go with me? I will never know. Perhaps she really had feelings for one such as myself. If she just stopped playing all big and bad ass, but that was not likely, that would not have been her.

It waited, I bled, she was dying.

I turned my head. The fascination of my injury had partly subsided. She was totally wrecked. I never knew you could really beat one of our kind that hard. She was lying there, naked, her body all twisted, part of the skin peeled, part burned, part still turned into metallic scales. Her eyes were staring right out of her face and her breath was surprisingly deep.
So that is how we die.
That is the time of passing.
She was not suffering at the moment, but very soon she was going to pass through the painful process of death and rebirth and then she would wait within the gate for another summoning. That is how things work in the Labyrinth, she would have to reach the next portal some other day, this time I was going alone. I stared at her for a couple more moments, before shutting out my consciousness. I awoke to the sound of the shriek she produced at the exact time of her death.
Good girl, she gave me a chance, bought me time.

She died, I awoke, it was waiting no more.

I got up. My mind was focused. I felt the enemy. It stirred. I risked a small blink at the remains of hers. They were already crystallizing. A light smile passed my face.
“Take heed from what happened to you today.”
I sent the thought towards her leaving soul and moved onward. The enemy was also moving.
Estimated contact? Few seconds.
I was never good at this counting and all. The bleeding was not stopping. Good. It was going to be an usable distraction.
You need every advantage you can get if your enemy has three pairs of legs, roughly sixty eyes, a poisonous bite, a venomous sting and a pair of wings to top it off. Its brain cluster is not really meant for thinking, but perfectly suited for controlling such a body and its nerve system has got about three times higher transfer speed than yours. These creatures were the perfect weapons, but so were we. For we had things they lacked. Things that made us more cunning and dangerous than these things could ever hope to be. We had our immortal souls, we had a goal and we had our will. Well some of us had.

We closed in on each other, we fought.

Finally I got the thing in my view. It was ugly, it lacked true warrior form, it was a thing, an ugly thing at that. I focused somewhat and transmuted my arm into a blade, the bleeding one it was. It was not too costly. Covering my body with scales and an exoskeletal armor took much more and the fun part came when that thing first hit me. It was not my fault. I just did not have the reflex speed to be changing and guarding at the same time. Thanks to my luck the process ended just before it landed the blow or I would have been dead in the next few seconds. This way I only felt something trying the integrity of my armor and then the sensation of flying, when the force of the blow hurled me some ten meters. The enemy followed. It could not count in the conditions, could not understand the transmutation process. For it, I was just a simple prey, not posing any danger.
While still in midair I regained my balance and fended of the biting fangs with my blade. The creature tasted the blood on my blade-arm and went into a hungry rage. It wanted to stab me and gulp me down. How simple. I grabbed the one sharp ended leg that went into my chest through the armor just as it pinched me down on the rocks back on the ground. Strangely I did not really feel any pain when I landed flat backed, but the unsuspected hit I suffered from the rocks to the back of my head made me a little dizzy. Still, I did not really have time to nap because that beasts limb quickly started to transfer me back through the air and into its biting jaws. I saw a serious injury coming out of this, thinking to myself about getting chopped to halves by those.
Twisting on the thing that is protruding from your back, coming in through your chest is not exactly comfortable, but I managed not to unnecessarily lose energy by crying or sighing. Somehow I pit my feet against the beast jaws ends. I had to act quickly so I grabbed one of its antennae before cutting clean the stabbing leg in my body. To pull myself onto the top of its head while the beast was dancing madly and with half of my chest muscles unusable, was probably the most amazing feat of that encounter. Holding on to it after I started stabbing its head was a childs play in comparison. It took quite a few blows before it started to slow down a little. If I had hit the nerve center in its back the outcome would have been much quicker. A sad thing I could not get there because of the wind push back force created by the wings. This way I had to continue holding on for another thirty minutes of rodeo riding before it bled almost dry.

It was dead, I tired.

I found myself lying in a puddle of icky blood that was still pouring out of that hideous body. This amount is going to feed me for the journey ahead. It is still going to take me about eighty kilometers of walking through the tunnel maze before reaching the fourth portal. Good that there were all sorts of light sources. That way, most of the parasites were kept at bay, but gods know how long it will last. I took a short nap, fed myself what I could out of the beasts body and set off. No time to stop and think, no time to feel, just the journey.
I think I will wait for that girl behind the portal though. I kinda like her all talk no game attitude.
Yep, I think I will.