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Leofric's head hurt. It took her a couple of blinks to figure out where she was--which wasn't that helpful because she'd never been here before. That's when she noticed that her sisters were waking up all about her. Before she could ask if any of them were okay or what was happening, a voice spoke. Then there was ringing silence.
Before she could even look around, she heard Haigha cursing up a storm. "It's him, you know it's him. Why-"
"In case you didn't notice," Abriella's proper voice cut in. "It was a female voice. It certainly could not have been father." She tossed her hair lightly over her shoulder.
"Your father The Great Glasgow or our father Chessur?" Haigha bit back.
"They're the same," Zendaya said rolling her eyes.
"By which you mean, neither are your dad?" Haigha pratically shouted.
"Too far, Haigha," Leofric growled. "Hey may not be her father, but she is my sister."
"I thought we'd all voted, she was our sister blood or not?" Abriella snorted. "Besides, it's a female voice. Definately not him." She took a deeo breath, "None of this is going help us get out of here."
"Where's here anyways?" Zendaya asked as she spun around. "More importantly, isn't there a time limit?"
Haigha let out low angry snort before ignoring the previous argument and moving on with the discussion. "There's nothing really happening."
Leofric moved forward a few feet, "We probably need to trigger it or something. We aren't going to get anywhere just standing here."
Zendaya tried to keep her voice calm, "Abriella, your wings are bound."
Abriella jolted, the realization sinking in as she tried to flex them. Her heart started pounding in panic as Zendaya came toward her and pressed her forward to hers. "Breathe. It's okay. We'll get them off."
Try as they might thought, they couldn't get her wings unbound. Finally Haigha called it futile while Abriella tried to control her breathing to keep herself from hyperventillating.
"Let's move," Leofric said calmly hoping that she was right and something would trigger the "game".
As the group moved further into the woods, the trees arched overhead until there was little light. There was a kind of snapping sound that had all of them looking at each other. However, none of them figured it out before a long thick log the width of the trail came barreling their way and knocked them down like pins.
"Should have anticpated that," Zendaya groaned from the forest floor, right before another snap pinged through the silence. "Up!" She shrieked only having a few seconds to react before another log came rolling down the pathway. This time she had barely missed it, stumbling over the log as it neared her. Leofric and and Abriella had made it up in time too. On the other hand, the second log just seemed to roll over Haigha who was yelling expletives she hadn't even known existed.
"Up you get," Leofric tugged at Haigha ignoring her monoluqe of profanity right before another ping sounded.
After that, they were involved in an obstacle course of jumping over rolling logs and dodging swinging ones. When they were really not lucky, both of these happened at once. Their bodies were dripping with sweat. Mud and debris hang on to each of them as if they'd been intentionally rolling around in the muck. It seemed like hours that it went on, but it couldn't have been more than thirty minutes. The bruises bloomed fast on their skin and Leofric nursed a split lip.
They were closer to the area that seemed to be cause of the constant battery of rolling logs and swinging logs, but if they got any closer they'd have to dodge around one currently loaded up to drop or swing and dive right into a river filled with more deitrius.
Abriellla dodged the log first and threw herself to the first log floating in the water. For a moment, it seemed that everything was fine right until the log turned IT"S HEAD and chomped at her. Throwing herself backwards from what she could now see was a gator caused her to splash heavily in the water.
A strong tail laced around and helped tug her up onto solid, but slippery rock. Haigha grinned wickedly with laughter as Abriella tried to calm her breathing. "You're welcome," Haigha smirked at her.
Zendaya came next bouncing across a set of small rocks that barely broke the surface with Leofric close behind her.
The river was bloated and full of logs and other things. Zendaya pushed her wet braids back and tried to concentrate. It was hard to look ahead when the whole time during this challenge they'd been barely able to get by by just through it. She hopped another few boulders to bring her further upstream as she tried to study the other side.
At a glance, they seemed to be half way across before the river bank opened up wide and eerily clear of, well anything. There was something going on there.
"Leofric! Take a look at that!" She pointed to the bank.
Leforic had her tail wrapped around Abriella's middle while Haigha used her tail to do the same. Abriella had zero balancing skills. Up ahead Zendaya was using allt he skill they'd learned from living in the tree tops with their mother. Abriella was just hopeless at anything that didnt' involve rich hoity toity stuff. At least she was being a good sport though.
"It matters not, we have to go that way to get out of.....this," Abriella said with disdain. "If it's a trap, we can't actually avoid it." With the help of her sisters she approached the far side of the river. What had looked like still flat ground was actually a mire of mud. Abriella gave Zendaya and Leofric a look while Haigha wasn't paying them any mind. With a group effort, they forced Haigha to go first---right into the mud that went all the way up to her withers.
"YOU!" Haigha screamed, her voice livid and her body shaking with pent up anger. But before she could get more words out, she felt herself being landed on heavily and sinking another two inches. Why the idiots were using her as a safe place to land in the mud before jumping out the other side. The last one who jumped on her made her face plant in the mud before jumping off with a wiggle. Shaking the mud out of her eyes, she saw Leofric saucily waving her tail at her. "You have to sleep sometime!" She shouted right before Leofric tossed her tail back to her like a lifeline.
After a few grumbling moments and using the advantage to bite Leofric's tail, Haigha was out. Covered in mud but out. "Please let this be over."
Zendaya wrinkled her nose at her, "You're not having fun? I mean you smell horrible so that should mean you're having the best time."
Haigha glared at her as they kept on walking.
After awhile the came upon a large area made of stone with runes, riddles and pathways carved in to it. The runes were all in languaged that they didn't understand and the riddles seemed to be absolute nonsense. Upon closer inspection, it seemed that only the pathways had anything to do with, well anything. At the far end of the board there sat thirrteen doors, each with a pathway ending in front of it.
Zendaya followed th pathway as far as she could until she realized that each channel of a path was carved a varying depths. "I think we need to poor something in the beginning and follow it to the right door?" It was the only thing that made sense.
Grumbling, Haigha returned to the river and brought back some water in a water skin attached to her side. They all waited axcniously as she poured it into the beginning.
Nothing happend.
After experimenting several more tmies, Abriella took the skin to the center of the board where there was a deep basin. She worked with her sisters to fill the basin up to the brim and then waited.
Nothing happened.
It was Leofric that figured it out. Taking her tail where Haigha had bit it, she squeezed a little blood from the open wound into the water. The water swirled about and kept swirling as she prodded each of her sisters into offering up a drop of their blood.
The bowl continued to swirl, then emptied into one of the block of channels surrounding it. Abriella raced along the path following it back and forth across the whole board in an intricate puzzle before it seeped beneath the door on the far left. Something glowed, and tunnel slid open. Eager for this to end, she darted inside ahead of her sisters.
After five minutes walk in darkness toward a faint light, Abriella found herself in another clearing in the forest. "That's it?" She asked hesitantly as the others arrived.
Leofric started to speak when Abriella's wings came unbound and the voice interrupted.
*set up for the voice to make it's last comments via rolling*
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