What was that creature I thought.
I ducked to a broken pillar as the two creatures were about to stare in our direction. We were blocked, to go down we had to get past them.
Fighting was not an option.
The reason was simple, those zombie looking creatures were rock and we were scissors. We had no chance if we confronted them head on.
Although if we opted for the stealth option their could be a chance.
Unfortunately for us they started to approach the entrance where we were at.
I nudged Toby in the shoulder and since I was afraid that they had sensitive hearing I mimicked myself throwing a bomb.
I also emphasised with my hands no explosion by representing a cross sign.
Luckily Toby understood the assignment and took a smoke bomb out of his inventory. He then aimed it at an area between them.
Seconds later smoke arose blocking the creatures vision.
With that me and Toby snuck around to the sides of the walls. We were halfway their where I heard one of the creatures scream and charge to the entrance.
That was close I thought. They are intelligent. By being blinded by the smoke they assumed the source of the smoke came from the entrance.
I thought they would panic. Luckily we managed to reach the stairs and Toby celebrated by pointing the middle finger at them.
Hope they don't come back to bite us. Literally.
The stairs were a basic shade of navy blue. It spiralled down, on the way down I noticed that the bricks gradually lost their shine.
We landed on the sixth floor, our greeting a medium sized courtyard littered with corpses.
Toby patted me on the shoulder multiple times. when I looked at him his hand was in his face, he was forcing himself not to throw up in this situation.
Strange looking at those creatures made me much more terrified than corpses, perhaps it was because I knew that corpses wouldn't have a chance to jump scare me.
We noticed a large door on the front but we decided to split up and scout the area first.
Around fifteen minutes later, we came back empty.
This area was a literal dessert, their was nothing of value.
But not all hope was lost as one of the corpses had a messenger bag around them.
I first said sorry to it as I was about to take what was inside. The contents empty glass bottles.
No it looked more like vials, ones that you usually see by scientists.
After that encounter I decided to examine the door. Toby shortly came back and also turned out with nothing.
The door was peculiar, it was made out of rosewood.
On the middle it had a strange swirling pattern with a bright green circle in the middle.
Around it looked like vines wrapping around it. Protecting it. Safeguarding it.
It was almost adorable in a way as it reminded me of how a mother would protect it's child. A screen popped up asking us to give a code.
"Enough with the complicated stuff" complained Toby.
"Why do they exist?"
Toby is more of a work harder not smarter person just to let you know.
He will say anything on his mind when he's annoyed. A side that I don't mind, it shows his true nature, one that I have no qualms with.
But back to the situation, I recall that memory with the two ghostly figures talking.
They did mention a code to get past. Using that information I approached the screen and typed the code that they discovered.
1207
Confirmed
Code accepted Door opening
With that me and Toby entered the next part of the level. It is one of the shorter ones.
We had a choice to go left or right. The map indicated traps on the left so naturally I headed to the right where their were no traps whatsoever.
It was actually quite a breeze. Surprisingly their was nothing unusual. It was simply me and Toby discussing about our days together to lift the mood.
The mood was lifted but that didn't purge the unease I felt, the vibe here was just too quiet.
I say that but we manged to reach the staircase quite easily.
We turned a left and another left where we saw our ticket downstairs.
Again the staircase had that same similar design. It spiralled downwards. The only difference was that the smell nearly deleted my ability to smell at all.
It was horrific. But although the smell was awful it didn't stop us from arriving at the final destination.
The lowest floor, floor 7.
The smell was still abysmal but I did get over it.
For Toby he still had quite a journey, his sneezing being a sign of progress.
What greeted us at the lower floors was yet another corridor that led to a circular room.
This was the area with a cross intersection. In the centre of it lied a table with a sort of treasure chest. Around it were cardboard boxes.
Toby's eyes then lit up when noticing the chest. He didn't even need to speak to say what his mind was on.
His eyes gleamed at the chest and that told me that he was attempting to open it.
I proceeded to give him a head smack due to his sheer idiocy.
"You imbecile! Don't you know how suspicious that looks. What happens if that blows up, our existence will be erased". Toby grumbled.
I felt sorry but it was better to be cautious than being risky.
Besides we held the advantage of knowing the layout of the dungeon, in my view it was unnecessary to gain a further advantage.
We opened the cardboard boxes. Most of it was empty.
One box did contain a pack of cigarettes, that was useless considering we're underage and that I preferably want to live longer.
Our major find was that in one box we found three vials. Two of them had a reddish type of liquid whilst the other one was purple. A screen appeared with the following:
Consumable Item
Invisibility potion (X2) - Remain Unseen for 2 minutes (Rarity silver)
Speed potion - Increase your maximum speed by 25% for 45 seconds (Rarity silver)
I put all three in my inventory slot since Toby held the grenades. This find was lucky but I was dubious.
We found the vials next to a suspicious chest so who knows if what we find was truly good or truly bad.
Since we'll be staying here for a while I checked our map to see if their was anything interesting at the end of the cross sections.
Turns out at the end of each route is just a circular room with nothing inside, no traps, no treasure. It was the perfect place to lay low.
"Should we head for the upper right one?" Toby asked.
I nodded since it didn't really matter which order we went in, they had the same end outcome.
As me and Toby strolled our way over their I attempted to lift the mood by asking a question which he may not have been that pleased to hear.
"Is your nose managing to hold up against the smell" I asked mockingly.
"Don't rub it on my face please, I'm still recovering" groaned Toby.
If I had the power of future sight I should have sealed my lips after what occurred after I questioned him.
Suddenly the corridors started to smell really nice. It was as if I entered a perfume shop.
Upon realising that I mocked Toby about the smell I turned to apologise.
But he was already looking at me, smiling mischievously.
"Never mind I think my nose has recovered".
That felt like a jab to the gut, I just insulted him and it wasn't even a minute before I was retaliated.
We arrived at the room. The source of that heavenly smell being flowers.
Their were multiple vases with three different flowers. One was roses. One was lilies. One was a red spider lily.
I know these type of flowers since my mother was a florist and made me read a book about them.
I did notice some vases were broken whilst some were completely empty.
Looking around the room apart from the vases, the room was extremely plain.
The only source of light was a mini chandelier in the middle of the room. Despite that fact I did manage to stumble upon something interesting.
In one of the broken shards. Their was small writing.
A screen appeared with one sentence:
Clue #3
Another clue. Is this linked to a way for us to escape?
It's a possibility but that alone made my spirits high. With that I went back with Toby, though something felt different about him.
When he was walking a sound was emanating from him like he was carrying stone pebbles.
Hold on.
"Did you bring some broken shards in your pocket?" I asked.
Toby grinned "Yep think about it, we can't use our assigned weapons so we use these to defend ourselves".
I pulled a face which showed my absolute bewilderment and disgust.
At this point could I even blame him. He was doing something to increase our chances of survival.
What overcame my mind was a mixture of disgust and shame against myself. I reacted poorly when Toby tried to make our situation better.
With that on my mind I didn't realise that we arrived at the centre of the cross intersection.
Toby broke the silence by saying "We should go to the upper left section this time".
Not wanting to show my guilt by denying what he said or by the sound of my voice I gave a thumbs up with a nod of approval.
The smell of flowers lingered on our noses. The corridors didn't smell at all. As we approached the room at the end of the corridor a shiver ran up to my spine.
Was it the cold? Was my body warning me of danger?
Nonsense the map hinted nothing of any danger.
The room seemed to be empty but what we saw at the middle made my heart stop.
Both me and Toby froze still. Our feet stayed rooted to the ground.
The reason. A creature was sitting down.
The shocking feature was that it was around our height while remaining sat down. It's facial features were hideous.
It had that same purple skin as the creatures above.
The only notable difference was that it was tall, it had a wooden club with spikes and it had a different mask than the others.
This mask covered the bottom half of it's face. The only reason why I didn't faint immediately was that it appeared to be asleep.
Whilst sitting down.
Me and Toby slowly turned around to head back. But as we turned one of Toby's shards fell out of his pocket.
It fell to the floor and smashed in even more tiny pieces.
We froze for a second thinking that the creature might wake up and roar in anger.
No response. We escaped, nice.
We tiptoed quietly out of the room.
Suddenly we heard a sound coming from the room.
Escape. What a meaningless word it was.