Kat grinned wide showing teeth, as Ryo scrambled backwards "I'm very very sorry"
Kat just laughed in response and lit up a little bit of fire on the end of her finger. Purple flames leapt into existence and gave the immediate area around Kat a strange glow in the white light of the room.
Ryo tilted her head in confusion before bringing her hands together and staring intently at them. Nothing happened. "Wait why can you still do magic?" asked Ryo
Kat glanced at Grace the with a silent question. Grace shrugged. "As a demon I don't use mana, I use something else, so this doesn't actually affect me"
Ryo slumped down as the tension drained out of her. "Oh, thank the forests. I thought you were going to kill me for that"
Kat and Grace burst into laughing at this, and Estelle let slip a small chuckle "Well, I doubt that. Kat's a rather hesitant fighter despite taking out pretty much all of Boring herself"
Ryo's eyes went wide. "What? What the heck are you talking about"
Grace shrugged "Well, it went something like this…
Grace proceeded to describe (in shockingly good detail for someone distracted with her own fights) the entire process to Ryo, and how Kat managed to take multiple fatal wounds as minor inconveniences.
At this point Ryo was slumped against the other side of the trapdoor so as not to spread even more flour onto the others. Stumbling over her words for a bit, she finally managed to ask Grace. "So, um, what are we doing then? Why are we just waiting for those two to fight? Are they forced to do that or something and are we waiting to all take on Kat" said Ryo
Turning to face Kat they continued "Um, no offence? I think?"
Kat shrugged "None taken. Also as far as we can tell those two are fighting entirely voluntarily"
"I didn't volunteer for this" said Green in between two somewhat slow slashes of Nixilei's sword.
Grace nodded "Well, she didn't but Nixilei signed her up for it anyway, and she doesn't seem to have much of a choice"
Ryo got a rather confused look on her face. "Are we supposed to help her then?"
Kat shook her head. "I somehow feel that if we were to do that it would be worse for Green in the long run" said Kat, who could have sworn she saw Nixilei's smile tick up just a slight amount.
So it was of course, at the exact moment everyone was once again focused on the fight, that a thump resounded from the trapdoor. After Ryo had come up in, it had been left open, and now a hand covered in dark red clawed its way up.
Everyone except Green and Nixilei stopped and stared, waiting for the rest of the arm. This one was covered in steel and made surprisingly little noise for what Kat had to assume was a suit of armour. *Seriously, how did I not hear this coming.*
With a grunt, and a pull, a figure started to arise, dripping blood from head to toe, a thick metal armour surrounded them while the excess blood dripped onto the floor spraying the area around the thing.
As it rose to its full height Green screamed, "GARETH"
Everyone else paused and looked between Green who was now back to fighting, and the figure coated in blood. Kat narrowed her eyes and enhanced them, looking closely at the 'blood' and realised it looked a little strange, it was clumping together and it wasn't actually in liquid form.
*Wait a minute.* Kat sniffed the air and the overpowering scent of hot jelly hit her like a freight train. *Ugh, ok, yup not blood.* Kat felt like she should need to gag, but the feeling never arose. Instead, opting to cover her mouth and nose with her sleeve was a reluctant compromise.
"Um, hi Green? What the heck is going on here?" asked Gareth(?)
At this point, Ryo was slowly backing away from the opening, leaving a trail of flour in her wake as she carefully shimmied along the floor.
Kat decided to speak up. "Not much really, just waiting for these two to finish"
"Gareth help, those mean guys won't stop Nix" said Green
Gareth, looked between the elves and Kat, and Green before looking at Nixilei "Are you sure you want me to help you? It'll only be worse later when she catches you next time"
Green's face fell, where she had previously gained a large smile from his presence, now it was only a pout. Despite this, she still expertly dodged Nixilei's attacks without fail but she wasn't attacking for a few moments.
*Ha, called it.* "So what happened to you Gareth?" asked Kat
Gareth first stopped and looked around at the scared Ryo then spoke. "Hey, um do you mind if I take a spot on the other side of you? I can see you're scared, but I don't want to spread out too much while Nixilei and Green are fighting"
Ryo looked up at the now, less scary figure whose face had lost most of it's "blood" and seeing as nobody else was reacting, reluctantly crawled back over to the edge of the trapdoor leaving plenty of room for Gareth, but an easy escape if needed.
Gareth nodded and took his seat just past the flour trail Ryo had left. "Right, well, I assume you know I split up with Ryo?" Gareth, got a series of nods "Well, after that I was really close to the end of the maze when I heard a click,
"Couldn't discern where it was from, I checked my footing for a loose tile, but everything seemed in order, checked that I hadn't activated a tripwire, and found no evidence of such a thing. Heck I even waited in place for a few moments shield ready for whatever was about to come my way.
"Sadly, it wasn't exactly coming my way as I was coming for it. So I took a big step forwarded, intending it for stepping over any tripwire I might have missed initially and as I put my foot down the floor gave way.
"I fell head first into this massive pool of jelly, which sounds great, except it was all hot, and rather gross. Luckily it was only about half a man deep. Unluckily, I was head first and panicking a bit so I activated my stone wall sigil
"However, clearly the jelly does something strange to magic, because instead of a stone wall appearing below and pushing up, I felt one slam on me from behind and push me deeper into the stuff.
"So there I was, pinned under a stone wall, still face first, but at least I knew where the bottom was now. I managed to patiently hold my breath just long enough for the wall to start cracking.
"As soon as it did, I flipped myself over and slammed my knee into it to finish the job before I brushed it off and stood up. Finally, head above the damned stuff I took in a deep breath, only for, you guessed it, jelly to come in instead.
"So, I spent a while coughing, clearing out my mouth, getting some air into me and then I stepped inside. I mean, the tower was pretty much right there at this point so I wasn't going to rest just yet"
Estelle nodded and spoke up for the first time in several minutes "I see, so we have flour that removes access to mana and jelly that changes the effects of a given spell. Truly I am surprised that we have not encountered a third or fourth type of effect. It is strange that the first two groups are unaffected"
*Hmm, you know, I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe it isn't.* "Is it possible the traps only arm themselves after say, two groups, or perhaps just four people, make it to the orb? That seems like something Thyme would do" said Kat
Estelle met Kat's gaze and nodded thoughtfully "Yes, I do suppose that's possible. Especially when you consider that the traps were both found close to the tower, it is possible they were designed to punish people who were rushing once the orb was found"
"Hmm, still then, that makes me wonder why Kat and I didn't find anything" said Grace
"Perhaps it is because you already fought and disabled a team's worth of people, or what I find more likely considering the timing, is how quickly you arrived following the activation of the orb. Thyme may have set it so teams already near to the tower wouldn't find trouble.
"Of course actually, now that I say that out loud, I think it might instead be to stagger contenders. The first two to start the fight over the orb, and then a series of traps to prevent the next set of teams from approaching until the fight is in full swing"