Surveying her handiwork with some pride, Relt hopped off of the bulky, myriapodal monster corpse and looked around. The whole area was full of statues, like the one she had unsuccessfully consoled before using him as a perch. Statues that had been people. The girl only half-heard the thanks and inquiries of her supposed opponent, processing them a moment later as she left her reverie. Something was prodding at the back of her mind.
"Hm? Oh, right. Well, basically, some assholes have been, like, disappearing dudes who entered the tournament. That's who these guys are, I guess. That's why the whole bracket's been shuffled around and losers kept getting moved ahead, 'cause contestants were vanishing. Plus they killed a couple dudes, too," Relt turned towards the blonde girl, keeping herself limber. "Are we still supposed to fight?" Relt asked, keeping one eye on her opponent, "Only one of these statues told me earlier not to bleed anywhere, and then I didn't listen, and that's why the walls turned into a Hubble screensaver,"
Relt's eyes traveled down from the blonde's wound to a small puddle of blood, partially obscuring a glittering nebula. The dark-haired reprobate whistled through her teeth, "Shiiiiii-it. That probably ain't good,"
It was at this point that Relt was hit in the back of the head with an ax.
Fortunately for her, it was the handle part which made the actual collision, bouncing with a comical coconut sound and clanging into a corner. "MOTHERFUCKER," was Relt's only comment on the occasion, as she clutched her already much-abused head. Seriousl,y shem ight ave prain damge. Rel poblrms.
Blinking away tears, Relt scuttled back against one of the statues as the axe-wielding sociopath from earlier advanced on the wounded swordswoman. Eyes clearing, she looked up into a familiar face. A friendly face.
It was Dorian something, that guy who she had befriended on her first faltering steps in this new world. The guy who had been kind enough to keep her embarrassing ass from killing itself in a barnacle hole, rendered in star-filled ebony with perfect detail. His little dragon chum perched on his oddly armored shoulder, also sealed in translucent stone.
"D-ran, dawg," Relt murmured, "How'd you get your dumb ass into this mess? Fuck, dude, I don't even know if I can fix this,"
Relt looked away sharply, tears of a different origin crystallizing for a moment in her eye before she noticed what she was looking at.
The blonde's blood, spilled by a crazy-ass monster's raptorial appendage, seeped into the floor. "Oh, right," Relt said, "That problem,"
The labyrinth vibrated like a dollar store dildo hooked up to a car battery. Dimly, through the obscuring layers of maze walls, Relt could see the margin of the arena, the stone and timber where it was held in place, shuddering and cracking apart. The star-hewn, crackless substrate of twisting corridors shuddered violently, one last time, as if popping its moorings, and began to accelerate upwards.
- - -
Spectators scrambled to get out of the way, teeming out of the arena as the stands shattered in a maelstrom of splintering wood and tumbling bodies. The gargantuan maze was rising upwards, tearing through tiers of seating as it approached the venue roof, which it pushed aside with the inevitability of a juggernaut. It seemed to bask a moment under the open sky, buildings and streets collapsing around it, falling into the sinkhole it was leaving behind as it moved, with deceptive speed, skyward.
The arena was no working of Ai'bron magic or wizardly prowess. It was an ancient thing, built of unearthly materials and buried beneath Althanas long, long ago. He had been cast into the labyrinth so long ago that it was a hazy memory even to Him, but as has been stated before, He is not confined by physical entrapment. His mind exists at all points in space and time simultaneously, and he needed only extend a psychological pseudopod to recruit a weak and shallow cult, a cult which did not understand what it did, only in whose name they did it.
The labyrinth was ascending with some speed now, the air around it flaring briefly into friction fires as it grew thinner. The blueness of the sky had almost faded, and now the black void of space was showing through, resembling a paltry imitation of the labyrinth walls.
If He could be said to have emotions, which He couldn't, He could be described as happy. While His mind could be anywhere, at any time, his form was finally going home. He blinked His iron eyes, and ceased the endless caressing of his captive compatriots, the mitochondria of their petrified cells even now providing the energy which kept Him alive. His writhing ocean of tendrils flexed impossibly, then began creeping with distressing precision along the maze's corridors, coating the walls and floors in seething, glutinous pseudopods.
If the reader will forgive this inaccurate characterization of an immeasurably alien mind, it could be said that He wished to meet His guests in person. He let out another impossibly hateful, angry roar.
It could also be said that "meet" may be considered an imperfect translation. "Consume" may add something more to this understanding.
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