The tortoise died, and Maea breathed a sigh of relief. A sigh that turned into a cough, and then another as the air began to fill with toxic gas. It choked her, burned like acid in her lungs and with every gasping breath it only got worse. When her hand came away bloody she knew it was just as bad as it felt. She couldn't stay here. She would die if she stayed. Die just like Kristopher, like her brother, like everyone else... without accomplishing a damned thing.
One regretful look at the puzzle, at the dead creature, at the dead man - may Ludo find you, Mort embrace you - and she fled. Turned and ran (staggered, in truth, as she kept coughing för every step of the way) out of the deadly room.
How she got up the stairs she would never quite recall. Once the darkness and the electric lights faded into the cool fresh night air it got easier to breathe, but she still nearly fell out of the door. Splattered with reanimation fluid. With blood. Bleeding from her mouth and nose and with a deathgrip around a sword that was not hers.
"Someone... help them. Below... Please! There's gas... poison."
Then she broke down in a new fit of coughs, rattling and wet and sounding for all the world like her lungs were dissolving in her chest.
____________________
Maea WITHDRAWS from the Key Quest! Calling in the Reserve team!
One regretful look at the puzzle, at the dead creature, at the dead man - may Ludo find you, Mort embrace you - and she fled. Turned and ran (staggered, in truth, as she kept coughing för every step of the way) out of the deadly room.
How she got up the stairs she would never quite recall. Once the darkness and the electric lights faded into the cool fresh night air it got easier to breathe, but she still nearly fell out of the door. Splattered with reanimation fluid. With blood. Bleeding from her mouth and nose and with a deathgrip around a sword that was not hers.
"Someone... help them. Below... Please! There's gas... poison."
Then she broke down in a new fit of coughs, rattling and wet and sounding for all the world like her lungs were dissolving in her chest.
____________________
Maea WITHDRAWS from the Key Quest! Calling in the Reserve team!
MAEA
just a glimpse of truth
