The attack struck true, but rather than be driven back into the looming darkness behind him, Lorenor twisted enough at the last second to ensure that the Snapping Turtle strike bounced him to one side. Without Lorenor’s mass to stop the momentum of his charge, William had little choice but to prepare himself as the darkness of the pit claimed him. From his previous experiences dropping floors within the maze, William knew that the next ledge down would only be a dozen or so feet beneath him. He braced himself for the shock of yet another hard stop. Luckily he’s become quite proficient at being slammed into the ground at break-neck speeds.
The glow of his molten core illuminated the rusted iron edge of the next floor only a moment before it crashed into William. He tucked in on himself as best as he could and dutifully bore the blow as he landed. William’s breath caught as he rebounded from the iron like a child’s doll and sailed half a dozen feet into the chamber below. He did his best to hope that this room, like the one above, held no traps. But the sound of ceramic cracking beneath his body told William that his luck had run out.
An acrid scent washed over William as he struggled to rise. Every movement felt like his body had been encased in solid stone and it took a moment for him to realize that the breath which had been knocked out of him was still gone. Mastering his animal panic, William pushed himself upright and calmed himself before taking a deep breath.
That proved to be almost as bad an idea as plunging down into the lower level had been. His bouncing descent had shattered the floor in several places where thin ceramic tiles had been disguised as the chamber’s normal rusted iron plates. A toxic liquid was seeping through the cracks in the ceramic plates and the liquid was steaming quite thickly into the air around William. He coughed, involuntarily as his first breath filled his lungs with acid rather than air, and then scrambled back to the central shaft as quickly as he could manage. He struggled to draw breath as he moved but inflating his chest felt as much like trying to swim through stone as trying to move his heavy limbs. William spied greenish-black droplets of the caustic liquid spattered across the bone carapace on his limbs and had no doubt about the reason why he was feeling the way he was.
Lorenor was snarling something at him from the chamber above and William forced himself to look up at the mutant. There was a delighted lack of sanity in the blazing eyes that stared down at him and even battered Lorenor maintained an imposing figure. A spasm wracked William’s body and he was forced to turn away from his opponent. He was unsurprised to see solid chunks of dark, wet meat spattered on the ground after the coughing fit subsided.
William chided himself for allowing the thrill of the fight to overtake him. True it was the ultimate pleasure for him, but in doing so had lost awareness of the maze’s dangers. He’d come a long way in mastering his feral nature since last facing Lorenor and yet he’d simply thrown that all to the wind when the first opportunity arose. He could feel his regenerative powers striving against the poisonous acid eating away at him, but he couldn’t be certain that it would be enough. And even if his regeneration was capable of restoring him there was no chance that it could do so before Lorenor attacked again. In a way, William felt like he deserved this fate.
He was close to finished, but he wasn’t completely out if it yet. Lorenor had stopped ranting for the moment and William forced himself to look up at the undead creature again. If he was going to die again at Lorenor’s hands it would be a death that the mutant would have to earn. Mustering what strength he could manage, William drew forth his power and concentrated it into a single point and then hurled that energy up at Lorenor in an explosive magma shot.
