Behind the clouds of steam and dust hissing from the vault the sight before Kat began to make her question just how highly she had thought of the dagger. Inside the entire thing was filled wall to wall with weapons that just seemed to continue ever deeper into the structure.
The first few rows were made up of identical looking swords on the left and daggers on the right. Just standard steel and leather affairs. It wasn't the quality, but the sheer quantity that impressed Kat.
However as the vault extended further back the weapons became much more varied, not just in style but in type and shape. Whereas the start was almost entirely longswords and daggers, it quickly progressed to ornate longswords, great swords and claymores
Then progressing further, more and more weapons got added in. Spears and halberds, cutlasses and shields, whips and dual blade pairs. Each more intricate then the last.
As Kat was admiring the weapons though, Timmy found a cassette in the corner and placed it into the wall and started it. "Hello? Good this one's on" Thyme was interpreted by a loud crash in the background. Just an endless sound of tumbling down like a landslide of some kind. "Well… I guess that's what I get for stacking them so high. Anyway, ignore me, I'm like 50 tapes deep in these recordings and it's getting to me a little. Um hold on a minute actually" Kat could hear the rustling of paper and the sound of, what she presumed was cassettes being shuffled around
"Ok, so this recording is the one for the big vault? Well ah, good job finding that one, it's one of the better treasures. So how it works, is I've filled this thing with pretty much every spare weapon I have, within the correct power level of course. Wouldn't want to accidentally give you that one knife that can cut a hole in space…
"Anyway, so the further back you go the stronger and more unique the weapons are, and I do heavily emphasise the unique aspect... At the front you can probably see a lot of swords. For some reason, everyone makes increased sharpness, durability and self-repair swords. And I mean, I do understand, it's a great weapon but come on. I have thousands of the things, I'm always tempted too just throw them out
"Anyway, I'm getting side-tracked again. So, you are allowed to take any one weapon from here. If you go all the way to the back, you will find the four best weapons. Well, most powerful… They each have an extra cassette if you want to learn more"
And with that the tape cut-out and Kat thought it was done, but Timmy took out a second one and replaced the first starting another recording. "Hello seems you have entered the vault with three people. That-" The tape cut out as Timmy banged on the wall twice and the tape popped out.
Flipping it around to the other side before putting it back in Timmy gave a sheepish smile to Kat as the second Timmy wacked them on the back of the head. "Hello, Hello, seems like you have entered the vault with two people. That means you have to fight to the death…
"Sorry, I couldn't resist. How did you both react? Was it suitably fearful, looking each other in the face scared as to who will attack first? Wondering if this is the end of the teamwork and trust you've so carefully built up over the last, well probably few hours at least?"
Kat looked awkwardly at the still peacefully sleeping Grace in her arms before looking over to the Timmy's for an answer who just shrugged together as the tape continued
"Well, enough causing problems. You get one each, but you aren't both allowed to pick one of the back four. Anything else is fine… actually if you want to take some of these damned swords off of my hands go for it. Hell, if you both take a sword take like three extra each or something."
There was a pause and Kat heard a sigh from the tape "You know, I'm kinda annoyed I have to leave all these cassettes around, but the whole 'don't interfere at all with the final round' rule is pretty iron clad, so I had to record all these in advance. Do you know how much effort this has been? I have like five copies of myself all reading out lines.
"Anyway, ignore my minor rant I'm getting distracted. Go claim your prize and travel onwards to… Well I don't actually know where the vault is just yet so… onward?"
And with that the tape cut out. Kat looked towards the Timmy's to see if there were any more tapes, she needed to listen to. The Timmy's shook their heads.
*Now the question is should I wake up Grace?* Kat examined the sleeping elf's face. Already the bags had faded quite a lot, and she was breathing steadily. How important is a weapon though?
Kat looked around, at the near infinite choice of weapons of all varieties and sighed. *I guess I should wake the elf.*
Placing Grace down carefully in one of the gaps between the weapon racks Kat proceeded to poke her on the cheek trying to get her to wake up. The only thing this accomplished was a pair of amused Timmy's and not much else.
*Hmm, what next? I don't want to just freeze her with my fire that's rude… oh I know* Kat then proceeded to flick the ends of Grace's ears. They bounced up and down each time Kat pulled them a little before eventually settling back to their normal state.
*I guess I could shout? But I don't want to scare her… What about holding her nose? Hmm, that might be worse.* "Hey Timmy's, how would you recommend waking her up?" asked Kat
The first Timmy slapped the second in the face. After the second recovered from the shock they slapped the first back. This quickly devolved into a slapping fight, and then tumbled away in a pile of slapping and kicking legs.
*Right…* Kat gave a sidelong glance at the Timmy's who bounced past the door before realising the obvious solution. Stepping back outside a bit Kat grabbed a large handful of snow.
Careful not to drop any Kat walked over to Grace before looking at the Timmy's. "You guys want to do the honours?
Their eyes both lit up, and they had smiles on their faces as they instantly abandoned their fight to line up in front of Kat like troops ready for war. Hands out to receive their 'ammo' Kat carefully distributed the snow between the two and kept a little themselves.
Once the Timmy's received their snow, they nodded to each other and split up, one on the left and one on the right. The took a big wind up and pitched the snow like a baseball straight into the small of Grace's neck on either side.
To the threes great surprise Grace only shivered before settling back down to sleep, completely ignoring her now snow-covered shoulders. Kat decided to go for a more direct approach and through her remaining snow right in the middle of Grace's face.
To still relatively minor effects "Rakhor, go away I want to sleep" mumbled Grace.
Kat sighed *Extreme measures it is then.* Kat went back outside and gathered as much snow as she could, making use of her tail to scoop up extra snow onto her hands once they were full. Now with a pile of snow blocking her face, Kat slowly and carefully made her way back to Grace.
"Stand back Timmy" said Kat as she dropped all the snow straight onto Grace's head.
Covering the elf from head to toe, in snow this finally got her attention. Grace's eyes shot open and she looked around widely before getting a confused look seeing all the snow around her. After another moment Grace slowly worked her eyes up to meet Kat's
"Um, oops?" said Grace
"It's fine… I needed to wake you up because I found the thing, but I didn't want to scare you… though I had to escalate it to this point" said Kat gesturing at the pile of snow
"Ah, um, sorry about that" said Grace
Kat waved a hand in dismissal "You clearly needed it, and I'm glad you were comfortable enough around me to fall asleep in my arms"
Grace proceeded to bury her head in snow as the tips of her ears went bright red and mumbled something into the ice.
"What was that" said Kat?
Grace popped up just long enough to say "I was tired ok" before returning her face to the snow.
"Grace it's fine, I would have let you sleep except we are surrounded by hundreds of weapons and we get one each, so I thought you'd really like to choose one" said Kat
Grace lifted her head once again and finally noticed all the swords hanging around "Oh… yeah I guess so"