Heart of Darkness 1

It wasn't too long before they ran into the the castle guard. As winding as the trails inside were, it was no wonder that the soldiery was taking so long to get into position. Even so, a quick slash or flash of lightning was enough to get through the single guards or small clusters they ran into. She had been noticing a lot of satyrs and various short creatures weighed down by fancy metal armor…of little use against her lightning but good at balking her scythe. For some reason, she had expected Asmodeus to employ larger beasts to protect his castle.

They had lost their sense of direction almost immediately in the labyrinth, and couldn't help but feel anxious as seconds dragged into minutes and with each passing breath the noise from the fighting outside grew louder. Fortunately, Kuta seemed to be getting a feel for the castle's layout, and soon he was leading the way, somehow intuiting which direction they should turn at each senseless fork and junction. She was fine with that until soldiers showed up, when she needed to run ahead and contend with them. Poor Kuta was still worthless in a fight.

His odd sense of orientation seemed to payoff though: they were definitely heading downward, and as they did the décor on the walls grew more vibrant. The two of them reached the end of the maze-like halls abruptly, and skidded on the soles of their shoes as they realized the sheer expanse of the room their corridor had emptied into. This new chamber was at least fifty feet wide, and stretched on for over a hundred feet in either direction. Taking in the dimensions of the room, there were two other things which stood out immediately.

The first was the set of double-doors looming above them, set within a high stone arch of exquisite craftsmanship. Each door presented a drake wrought in gold upon a field of fiery red, with hundreds of articulated scales winking in the flickering light of the torches that flanked the gate. The second thing the two of them noticed was the sizable band of castle guards entering the room from an entrance at the extreme end. The entire squad had already seen them and begun closing the distance, satyrian hooves clopping noisily on the castle stone as they brought their gleaming axes to bear.

Dawn's eyes switched to black and her left arm was immediately aglow with blue, coursing energy. She brandished the scythe in her hands, electric with power as she prepared for their charge. At the last minute, one in the middle of the group called a sudden halt, and the soldiers spearheading the charge skidded to a stop. They all turned to him—obviously a captain or some other leader—as he began barking out orders.

The group reconvened on the opposite side of the hall, and gave them a wide berth as they pressed onward, past the boy and girl and toward the ruckus where a dragon and Siene's machine were doing battle. Dawn and Kuta turned their gazes back to the door which they had seen first upon entering. It looked about as good a guess as any for how to get downstairs.
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First: You are here
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I have nothing to say except THOSE DOORS. and that this probably can be read without any firewind context, although it'll be very confusing.


Need context? [link]