Escape


She had to say, this escape was not going well. The monster was much faster than her and it turned well.

Rin slid around a corner of the corridor only a few moments ahead of her pursuer. As she began dancing again she called out.

"Silber, distract it."

When she got to a split in the corridor she went right while Silber materialized and went left. The beast paused for a minute as Rin ran on. She was entirely lost by now and so the direction she took mattered little. Her dancing was the only thing that could light her way and it was getting really distracting.

The beast began running again, still following her. Rin knew she had to go faster but there wasn't a way.

At no point had fighting this monster been possible. She knew with her animal instinct that to fight this beast would be fatal. It was like a charging wall of lethal weapons, to be caught was to be torn apart. She wondered if giving back the knife she now carried would pacify it, she doubted it. Besides it was a good looking knife.

Running in circles wouldn't save her, she had to change the situation somehow. She needed to get to the surface and escape on her Agate's back. While she would have liked to just punch her way through the walls that didn't seem possible. She should have learned more sorcery. Maybe something like that could have broken these walls but even with charm enhanced strength she wasn't going to be beating these walls down.

Her natural strength wasn't even enough to improvise a charm to break the wall. So what did she have then? Blutspucke might be able to punch through.

She called again as she turned "Blutspucke, go ahead of me and destroy the ceiling!"

The ape didn't question her and as she turned another corner she heard the sound of falling stone.

"Rubinrot, grab and lift me out through the hole."

Rubinrot materialized and shook her head "I can't my lady. The Erymanthoi caused a collapse. He blocked our path without even creating a route up."

Rin swore very loudly as her fiery form danced forward some more, revealing the rocks that now caged her in.

She was dead then? In this temple she had come to on a whim? Without ever seeing those she cared for again?

Rock was what blocked her escape, she had no way to break it with martial arts alone and her ability to push essence into her strength was limited. Her old Lunar master had told of how supernatural martial artists could split a river with a single strike. Her only technique of the sort only brought foes closer to her. Her strengths were her intelligence and her ability to speak to people and those had both worked out the plan to have Blutspucke open the roof.

"My lady?" Rubinrot asked softly as the monster grew closer.

She had no power left, no ace in the hole.

"My lady!" The Agatae was more insistent now.

Maybe she could order her demons to buy time while she ran on some more. If she lost them though she lost her only means of protecting herself and she would die anyway.

At this point Rubinrot appeared and struck at the floor next to her to make Rin jump. Her train of thought derailed.

"My lady, there is space below us. If we break through we can fall." Rubinrot gave her information quickly as the monster prowled closer.

"What's down there?" Rin asked only for Rubinrot to shake her head.

"I can't tell mistress, it was too dark. It does seem to be quite a large space down there though."

Rin took a breath before giving the order "Blutspucke, destroy the floor behind me."

The ape appeared and smashed down with both arms. A cracking followed as lines fragmented out from the place he struck.

When the floor fell away Rin saw the beast quickly retreat as if the world outside somehow burned it.

Nevertheless she continued to fall until she hit a 'Barrier' and felt weak, like all her strength was being pulled away.

"My lady, you need to become human again. I can't safely carry you as flames." Rubinrot called but Rin could barely hear her. It was quiet as she fell but it still sounded like Rubinrot was trying to yell over a gale. It was like she had been muffled somehow.

It was cold though, as she fell it bit at her. She let it and groggily shifted back into human form. Only a few moments later she was caught out of the air by her demon.

She climbed onto Rubinrot's back slowly before looking around into the darkness.

"Where are we?"

Rubinrot shook her head as she rose slowly. As she did so the cold faded slowly until there was only a slight chill.

"I figured it out as you fell." It took her a while to say it.

Slowly light began to shine. It was a pale light that made Rin think of an old bulb. The light seemed to be being blocked by something so she turned to look more closely. Under her Rubinrot turned slowly.

Rin watched the light slowly move up. The light spread across her vision as she realised something was very wrong.

It was the sunrise. But the sun was small and gave off much less light.

Finally Rubinrot explained "I have never been here myself but I know the stories, it would explain that hekatonkhire being there. We are in the underworld."

Rin breathed in but the air felt stale. She coughed before asking the important question "How did we get here?"


End of chapter.

Rin is in the underworld. Of course.

Right, I promised to exposit about the ruins, it's guardian and the like last chapter and so I shall.

So, there was once this group of Exalted studying the weirdness that connects creation and the underworld (As first age Exalts like to do) and so they created a manse. The Manse's purpose was to create an artifical shadowland that would pull the entire structure between the worlds. When in creation it sits in the deserts in the south while in the underworld it floats above the bottomless pit in the center of the underworld.

After the usurpation some groups, both sidereals and mortals, tried to raid it but it's guardian (A hekatonkhire called "Beast at the night's edge") had moved in and now lorded over the treasure of the place. It is powerless during the day but it slew all who stayed there past sundown. When a few managed to escape to tell the story to heaven the place was blacklisted.

The treasure in the hekatonkhire's room was a mix of trinkets the hekatonkhire gathered in saner moments and "Soul coins", experiments performed on the criminals of the first age when they investigated if different sorts of souls produced differing qualities of the black metal. It didn't. About seven thousand coins were made in all, scattered throughout the underworld. There were about two hundred in the stockpile of the ruins.

The ruins likely won't come up again though so there isn't much more to go into.

Also, next chapter will likely be chapter 100, I intend to show rough character sheets for the three main characters in the end of chapter section.