Author's Note: Ok, I'm starting to pump these chapters out, but I will still be slow; 1-2 chapters per week, I hope. Probably all summer, since I don't have many summer jobs or things to do. So, you're all in luck, at least those who've been keeping up. I'm glad the review list is increasing, and many thanks to those who haven't reviewed. I have to think of a way to make this thing more popular without using console characters.
Reviewers: ------: Actually, all characters WILL be involved, as I specified earlier. Look out for a very special one in the next chapter. This chapter introduces 2 new ones anyway. I've been focusing too much on male characters, gotta try some females. BTW, what turtle ships? I'm confused. Jade: I'm really sorry about the reading thing. I just can't fix it, though I've tried. I think I might have made this one a bit better as far as paragraphing goes, but I can't tell. You'd better keep reading! And, yes, Oda's a bit old, but…myrmidon: The secret villain is Oda Nobunaga, which is right there, but the point is his recognition. What did Oda Nobunaga do that makes him stand out?
Disclaimer: I don't own SC2. I'm fairly very actually totally really positive sure that Namco does.
Chapter XII – Dark Rise, Dark Set
It was far too hot; of this Isabella Valentine was absolutely sure. 'Damn the heat,' she said to herself, musing as she batted a withered fan at the air to encourage what cool air desired her to approach, 'Damn the heat and damn the day!' It had been hot, searing hot and sweltering, for more than a whole day and night now, and Countess Ivy Valentine was sick of it, both mentally and physically.
She sat now, reclining on a more makeshift bed, littered with fanciful designs in the plush outlay of it as she leaned over, grabbing a fresh, but heat-soaked date from a clay bowl on the sandy table beside her. Closing her slender, supple fingers around the fruit, letting its juices slid down the very few creases in her palm, she pulled back onto the bed, barely a bed but a weak wooden frame erected meagerly with cushions and sheets stacked on it. She looked up, her icy eyes staring blankly at the hanging, curved ceiling of the tent she lay in, dragging a smooth, noble hand across her sweaty brow. It was usually cold in England, and she didn't like the heat. She berated herself inwardly for being so easily downed. She would be out, supervising her many employed laborers, if she did not have a fuming fever that raged about her. Her pale skin was flushed red as she lay, embalmed in a regal purple waistcoat on the bed, breathing heavily to soak out the ill humor of the fiery disease. That was why she was in here, the damned heat. She had spent too much time outdoors, bathed in the blameful glow of a luminous sphere which the natives called Amun-Ra, but she knew perfectly well to be the sun.
Now, for three hours straight (which was very long for a woman of her vigor) the platinum-haired Briton had been abed, peeling the flesh off dates lazily and waiting for frequent progress reports from her chief laborer and archaeologist. Her laborer chief, Tepemkau, was a native of these sunny, sand swept lands. The archeologist was the more displeasing of the two, a grasping, wrenching old fool named Giuseppe Osirni, who hailed from some fine academy in Naples. Ivy didn't care at all for his disposition and was thankful that Tepemkau ran the working process on the site, since she didn't trust Osirni to be diligent about it in the least. Tepemkau could get the job done, and had taken over Ivy's role in her sick absence.
Right on cue, the tent flap fluttered open, letting in a wave of rippling sunlight which caused Ivy to wince, her eyes tightly closing. She saw a more muscular, large form lean down to squeeze beneath the low hanging roof of the pavilion and sighed. "What is it, Tepemkau?" The burly man, bald as a cue ball and tattooed with sweaty muscle walked over to the bed. "Someone, Countess, wants to see you." He said, his gruff voice somehow smooth with a preternatural wisdom evident in it, "She just arrived at the dig, and was watching us. Says her name is 'Cassandra.'" Ivy managed to push herself up until she was sitting on the edge of her reclining seat, breathing in great gusts. "I see. And she just barged in while you were working?"
"Yes, ma'am," nodded Tepemkau, "but she didn't do anything. Just asked to see who was in charge." Ivy contemplated quietly and turned, a sour look in her frosted eyes, to her chief laborer. "Send her to Osirni, I have not the patience to deal with nosy guests." Tepemkau shook his head swiftly, drawing nearer to Ivy as he spoke, very solemnly. "She wants to see you ma'am, and she has a sword to back her up." At that, Ivy couldn't help but let fly an incredulous laugh, which in turn made Tepemkau wince, as Ivy's arctic laughter always did. "You don't mean to tell me that you're afraid of that, do you?"
"No, ma'am, but so far she has been mightily persistent." Ivy, scowling very slightly as she took another deep breath, shooed Tepemkau outside. "Fine, send her in, but keep guard on the tent flap, alright?" Tepemkau, as he back out of the pavilion, bowed. "As you say, milady." He pulled aside the tent flap as it fluttered easily in wind speckled with particles of sand and spray. In walked a woman, not necessarily petite, but shorter than Ivy. She wore simple, amiable dress, but colorful all the same, and had a small, round shield bound to her back and a shield dangling wearily at her side.
"Miss Cassandra, I presume?" said Ivy politely, standing on wobbly legs. "Alexandra" replied the girl, her voice comparatively more gentle than that of Isabella Valentine, "…Cassandra Alexandra." Ivy smiled comfortably, beckoning the girl forward. "Why do you come here; another leech hoping for a share of the findings." She said, oozing pleasantness as the words formed on her lips, though her brow was trying to furrow. "No," Cassandra assured her swiftly as she walked towards Ivy, "quite the opposite. I'm here to make sure those findings are destroyed." At this, Ivy snorted visibly. "What? What do you mean by that?" Most women, or men, would've shrunken from the assertive power in Ivy's voice, but Cassandra did not. "I mean, you've excavated many things, as I've seen. Many things are valuable, but some not for the right reasons. You have unearthed fragments; those are what drew me here. I only wished to inform you that those must be destroyed. I originally planned to just destroy them right now, but I supposed you might agree to let me, so this didn't have to become violent."
Ivy's brow managed to furrow as her eyes narrowed, "Arrogant little…" she paused, quavering barely, and suddenly relaxed her look, "You…You've got a lot of spunk, Miss Alexandra." Cassandra, though confused by the nature of the platinum-haired Countess, smiled. "I'm glad you think so. Now, about the shards." Ivy nodded in understanding. "Sit down, Cassandra, You and I should talk." Cassandra, still puzzled, obeyed as dutifully as she could and sat in one of the chairs placed on the ruffled carpet in the room. "Where are you from, Miss Alexandra?" questioned Ivy as she too sat.
"Just Cassandra," confirmed the Greek, "and I'm from Athens." Ivy's smile seemed to fade, but not for a genuine reason. "I see…So you are an Ottoman than? You don't look Ottoman." Cassandra shook her head quickly. "No, I'm not Ottoman. I'm from an older family. We still follow the old ways, the old beliefs, and we have closer ties to the ancient Greeks of old. We are not Ottoman, but they don't bother us as long as we don't bother them." Ivy contemplated briefly, scooting forward on the bunched blanket of her bed. "And, Cassandra, why do you want the shards destroyed?"
Cassandra Alexandra didn't answer this query right away, puzzling over it before she spoke, calculating each word in a more youthful manner. "I have to, you understand, because I can't let my sister do it." Ivy looked at her dumbly, which was a strange sight in the cold, perfect orbs of such a noble figure. "You're sister was going to destroy the shards I found?" she said confusedly. "No, she was going to destroy the sword and all the fragments, but she can't do it anymore." Ivy wasn't entirely sure, but she got the feeling that the very minute gleam in Cassandra's eye was a tear. "It's tearing her apart, trying to destroy it. If she goes out again, she won't come back…So I had to get to it before she did, just so she didn't have to carry all the burden herself…It would kill her, I know it would, I've seen what those damned things do to people."
Ivy laid as comforting a hand as she could on the girl's shoulder. "I've known something…something like that." Before she could continue, the tent flap burst open again, flooding in more desecrating light. Tepemkau ran inside, breathing harder than usual. Ivy's hand pulled back from Cassandra's shoulder as a nervous, involuntary reaction as she spun to her chief laborer. "Tepemkau, what is it?"
"Milady," he gasped through heated breaths, "I think we've hit something…and it's big." Ivy pulled Cassandra to her feet, who managed to wipe the single tear unnoticeably. "What, what did you hit?" Tepemkau took a flurry of deep breaths, staggering back towards the tent opening and beckoning for both the women to follow him. "You'd better come see, milady." Ivy, sighing very barely as she went, hurried after Tepemkau, wincing in annoyance as a sudden surging jolt of heat surrounded and filled her when she stepped from her pavilion and into the sand.
Ivy's camped site, littered with multicolored pavilions with their cloth walls billowing in desert winds, was only a fraction of the site that she'd been delegated by Baron Senicci. The rest was much more impressive, primarily to Cassandra, who hadn't seen it before. For vast stretching regions of the dunes and plane were ruins, headless columns, upturned statues, stony, Corinthian platforms mounted in the dust, all the grounds of some ancient structure. Some areas had but single groves of columns or pillars, while others held whole temples in their own right. The young Grecian female marveled at the site, the grandiose things she saw, but her attention soon turned to the growing throng of people that seemed to be flocking past her and those she followed, heading towards a more massive throng. Her thought train was again interrupted by Tepemkau's quick voice.
"It was a sand dune before. We were excavating on it. One of the men hit something, and suddenly the whole dune sinks into the ground. It wasn't a sand dune, ma'am, it was sand that had gathered over something. Something we've been standing on this whole time."
Cassandra nodded in understanding, though Ivy swiftly beat her to it, moving with more abruptness as she dodged around the swelling mass. There were more workers, barebacked or clothed in simple rags, herding in gregarious hordes over a mild depression in the sand. The workers and laborers moved aside as promptly as they could to allow Valentine through their ranks, but their eyes remained fixed upon some unseen thing. Ivy emerged from the densest part, with Tepemkau and Cassandra close behind, and stood stock still as she hovered over a great depression, a chasm-like ditch in the sand, a sunken crater in the whole of the excavation. Ivy, leaning forward, descended with careful treads and small steps down the ramp of sand, towards the great thing that had attracted so much attention, fixed into the face of a sandy cliff opposite her.
It was a grand block or door to nothing, huge and majestic even if it was mostly submerged in a sloping, dip of a ditch. It was great in every respect, made of six rectangular slabs stacked on top of each other in rows of three, each covered in dulled etchings of pictures. The thing must've been a whopping three hundred feet or upwards of that in height, looming over the gathered crowds as Ivy, Cassandra, and Tepemkau descended down the wooden building and digging platforms erected around the structure. The door was part of a hall, whose actual road was mounted at an angle going deeper into the sand below like a set of stairs in a tunnel that the door cordoned off. The sandstone was rimmed with a desert-colored substance with the hardness and icy coolness of metal, and worn away by long centuries of whipping winds and eddy gusts of the desert. On the door itself, or wall, or whatever it was, just above the middle slab in the bottom row, where three broad lines of text in different letterings, each a language unknown and carefully inscribed into the stone.
"By the gods!" Cassandra gasped, trying not to look as utterly astonished by the sheer hugeness of the structure looming over her, casting a monumental shadow over the sand now. "It is magnificent, isn't it?" said a new, cocky, male voice out of nowhere. From the sloping depths, flanked by workers, strode the short, balding, thin old Neapolitan archaeologist in Ivy's employment, scratching sand off his tawdry sequined vest, "A wonder of ancient architecture, something for the history books." He said, glowing with inane pride.
"Yes, it is incredible," Ivy agreed, with some subtle reluctance, "but it's in the way too." Osirni shot her a grim look from beneath a furrowed brow, his cloudy eyes focusing. "Regardless of that, it is a fantastic find." He proclaimed solidly, "I must take time to examine the lettering on the slab." Ivy held up her hand to halt him as he turned, talking silently to himself like a madman. "No time for that." She said, "We need to keep digging." Horrified and inflamed, Osirni rounded on her, to the slight surprise of the gathered laborers. "Once I translate this and chronicle it, we'll both be filthy rich with the sale value, Ivy!" he said loudly, trying to impress his idea upon her. As he had neared her, her hand shot out and grabbed him by the neck, yanking him close to her. "Osirni," she whispered coldly, "I don't give a damn about riches and you know it. You'll be paid in full, but not out of what we find. This thing has to be taken down." He tried to protest, very softly. "But-" she cut him off before completion of the first word. "No buts. You wouldn't even have this job if not for Baron Senicci, so be happy I haven't sent you packing already."
Osirni dutifully backed off, shrinking from Ivy as both Cassandra and Tepemkau hid satisfied smirks (Cassandra didn't even know why she was smirking, but she suspected it was because she had never seen a man of such stature shrivel up in the face of a female back in Greece). Tepemkau, wiping his face like a clean slate, stepped forward, proclaiming. "It's a door…we think." murmured Tepemkau, confirming the fact that Ivy and Cassandra had been thinking, "There are obvious openings, but none big enough for a person to fit through. Now that we've unearthed it, we can start using tools to open it, but it shall still take some days, since the slab is firmly set in place."
"That may not be necessary, sir." Said Cassandra, suddenly noticing that every pair of eyes (and some single eyes and patches) had turned fully to her, centering and focusing like the beaming ray of a spotlight, "I can read it." Ivy and Tepemkau looked at her quizzically, while Osirni just looked skeptical and misogynist. "What do you mean?" inquired Isabella Valentine. "One of the languages on the door I know." Replied the Greek, eliciting a shocked gasp from everyone, expect Tepemkau, who seemed to be utterly in the dark. "It's an old Greek dialect, ancient, but I've learnt it. I can read it."
"Well, for God's sake, woman, translate." Roared Osirni, advancing, but Ivy thrust and arm in his way, stopping him. "Yes, Cassandra, he's right. If you can read it, translate it. It might tell us how to open the door." The brisk Athenian moved quickly over to the central slab and looked up, her pupils shrinking to inspect the minute but decorative lettering, more blocky than the other etched fonts on the head of the door. "'Upon the threshold of my door, set forth no light forevermore, for only one may me unlock, open sand and open rock. The palm of darkness, greed and sin, that is what shall go within. Sword-spawn: lay thy hand on me and I will reveal to thee secrets of a darker time, so told in this now ancient rhyme. Unlock my door, both foul and fair, but do not tarry in my lair. Death lives within, and doom, and fear. Abandon hope ye who enter here…'"
There was momentary silence, and she resolved her conclusion by speaking. "And that's where it ends." Tepemkau shook his head suspiciously, looking with constant nervous looks at the door and slabs. "I don't like the sound of that, milady." Ivy responded in agreement. "Neither do I, Tepemkau, neither do I." The two of them moved closer, examining the passage that Cassandra Alexandra had read. "Eh, it's all drivel and nonsense to scare us off." Osirni growled in bellicose frustration, not helping the situation, "But how do we open the door?"
"I think I know how." murmured Ivy, her mind seeming to wander in a daze as she spoke, stepping forward. "The poem gives the answer." Osirni looked at her with more writhing skepticism, but she didn't notice. The Englishwoman edged forward, sand building up in her shoes as she lifted each foot, and neared that same slab. She lifted up her hand, as the whole crowd suddenly reverted into a ghostly, cemetery silence as her palm flattened gracefully and she pressed her right hand against the center of the block, just below the three bars of writing inscriptions. Suddenly, a faint, vague glow welled up around the silhouette of her fingers, blazoned like a heraldic device on the door. The glow reverberated swiftly, its heartbeat quickening as, with a sudden windy gust, all the sand and debris that had gathered in the niches of the slabs was blown away. The brick-like chunk which Ivy's hand was touching suddenly descended, melting away into the sand below, which enveloped it willingly. Now, in the rock, a long dark tunnel sat waiting.
"How did you do that?" said Tepemkau, breaking the steady silence with his awestruck utterance. "It's not important," shot back Isabella Valentine abruptly, "really. What is important is what's in there." Osirni, grinning like a cunning madman stepped past her, his eyes ablaze with megalomaniacal excitement. "You're right about that, at least." He yelped gleefully, "Let's see what's in there for the taking."
Before he could be stopped, the man was dashing headlong into the mystic darkness of the caving tunnel. Ivy, thinking fast, tried to halt him, yelling after, "Wait!" but it was too late. Osirni was inside, engulfed in the shadows. Before a second had passed, a horrible grotesquery of a noise burst from the shade, which sounded more like monster than man, and a spray of blood peppered the sand before Ivy's feet. She heard a thump, followed by rapid gnashing sounds and then…silence…She grimaced after, honestly hoping that she was hearing things, but the crimson specks beneath her didn't lie.
There was a delayed reaction, formed into a horrified gasp from the crowd around. Ivy shook her head, more disappointed than sad, and, curling her delicate fingers around the smooth hilt of her snake-sword, took a step forward towards the darkness. "What are you doing?" managed Tepemkau weakly, "You'll get killed!" Ivy didn't respond until a moment later, as she dangerously neared the ominous threshold. "I have to go in there," she said, "This darkness contains what I came here for. I will not ask any of you to come with me; it is my burden to carry."
"No, it's my burden!" Cassandra protested surprisingly, turning more heads as she grasped the sword at her side and hurried to the spot in the grounded sand alongside Ivy, "I'm coming with you!" Ivy looked at her, obviously irked, but her look of frustration gave way to a sort of acceptance. "If you insist, Miss Alexandra, but you come at your own risk. I cannot look out for you in there." Cassandra didn't even bother to nod, stepping in front of and past Ivy. "I know that. I can look out for myself."
Before the gathered laborers had even figured out the entirety of what was happening, Ivy and Cassandra where gone…
…
It was dark inside, very. Darkness, in all its cold trickery, clung to every wall, engulfing the corners in a black waft of flame like clouds of soot that had gathered there, defying the laws that bound them to the ground where they should be.
"Be ready, Cassandra," murmured Ivy softly, annunciating each word aptly as she moved through the sand, sliding her blade with a fluid flourish from its sheath and swing it to her side with a pronounced flourish, "whatever got Osirni probably wants to get us too." The Englishwoman felt oddly protective of this newcomer, seemingly an intelligent young girl, but with that aspect of defiant, almost childish naiveté. She looked back at Cassandra, who had unfurled her own blade, looking at Ivy. "I'm ready. I can handle myself, you know." Ivy scowled. Perhaps allowing a young girl to accompany her had not been a good idea, but she'd been thinking quickly at the time and her decision might have been brash and tempered with the suddenness of the situation. "Fine, just stay out my way, alri-"
Ivy leapt backward before the word was complete as something jagged and glinting with a wicked sense of purpose buzzed over her head, sweeping away the sand around in a flowing wave. Her sword was whipped out an up in a second's span and went towards the glint in the darkness, but it was gone and replaced by a second, swinging about vertically from another direction. Cassandra lunged and rolled with almost involuntary speed, diving swiftly beneath one of the razor-edged blades pierced the dusty air above her, clipping a smooth hair or two from her head neatly. She leapt up, bouncing on her toes nimbly, and raised her shield as another object came. The spinning, buzzing gleam collided with her rounded shield, the force of the spinning impact sending the young Greek back into the dust. She rolled to one side in the murk of the sand as a piercing weapon slashed down from the hall ceiling. Another something came at her from above, but it moved so quickly that she couldn't roll aside. She braced for impact.
All of a sudden, the whirring of that blade stopped, some snaky thing curled around it holding it in place. Cassandra propelled herself around the object, which was protesting as the snake held it. What Cassandra saw, though, was not a snake. It was Ivy's whip-sword, wrapped fully around the pendulum pike which had tried to skewer her. She didn't have time for thanks, unfortunately, as more razors berated her from the wall and floor. She parried the weaker blades, and managed to dodge the faster, more lethal ones, picking up massive, wafting plumes of dusty smoke that curled with aimless resolve through the pitch blackness, which was only lighted by swift shimmers from flying weapons in the air. She parried and swiped, feeling sudden, vibrating pangs as her sword, graceful and lithe, bashed into the speedily moving traps. Each time she struck her mark, the spinning of the unseen, nonhuman enemy would send her into a sudden shock, often stumbling backward but avoiding more slashes and hacks from all sides.
Meanwhile, Ivy's segmented snake-weapon, each separate section glowing with a faint, pulsating inner light, was flying and twirling like whirlwind, batting away everything aimed for her. With a gnashing crack, one of the shooting weapons chipped and shattered as her device swung around and slammed into it head on. The useless razor, no longer spinning, clattered noisily into the sand. 'One down' though Ivy Valentine coolly (despite the heat) and wheeled around on her sharp, elevated heels, to slice right through another rotating disc that assaulted her. The snake-sword flailed with the strength of a mace as pikes stabbed down from high up, and Ivy cut each jagged tip from the pikes' staffs, making them no more than harmless sticks hanging down.
Cassandra continued fighting, trying to move forward as she kept half her gaze fixed on Ivy, who was dashing through the sand and sidestepping every weapon, trap, or device that tried to hinder her, cutting down a great many of them. In truth, Cassandra could barely see, listening to the incessant, irksome whir of the traps, the sound of crunching footsteps in soft sand, and the twinkle of anything before or behind. Taking more attacks with her shield, whose smooth, semispherical surface had been battered, dented, scraped, and scratched, Cassandra Alexandra lopped off the heads of more traps aimed at her and headed towards something that was vaguely reminiscent of light until…
She tumbled out of the slanted hall riddled with things that were designed solely to kill her and onto new, softer, lighter sand. Suddenly, there was light, blinding light, but only blinding because of its absence so shortly ago. Torches lined the walls, hung off of metal attachments that held them against the sandstone rock. Cassandra managed to push herself up from her knees, which she'd landed on, and looked around swiftly at warmer surroundings, breathing raggedly, panting, and sweating bullets. She pushed up with a wobbly leg and stood, shaking the sand from her tunic and hair. She caught sight of Ivy, standing erect and noble, more ceremonious as she smoothed her waistcoat and flicked her wrist, the snake in her hand becoming a sword again.
"How…how did you…do that?" said Cassandra weakly, her voice somewhat raspy after the run. Ivy's head cocked to see her follower; her eyes acutely narrow as the tails of her purple uniform blew in a nonexistent wind. She turned very slightly upon her heel, tapping her foot impatiently on the sand and beckoned Cassandra forward. "It is also unimportant. Come, there will doubtless be more things to hinder us." Cassandra looked indignant at being shrugged off so lightly, but nodded and dutifully followed the Englishwoman through the more lit hall.
Cassandra had already gotten a chance to contemplate the woman she'd sought, but never seen her prowess until this instant. She'd suspected that the female was simply a brat of nobility, a woman who had everything and did nothing. The swing of her blade and the promptness of her speech told the Greek otherwise as she followed, skipping along behind and looking out for more traps. She kept letting her focused eyes flit back to the platinum head of the woman, looking at the regal way she carried herself along and her resolute posture. As the two of them walked, they left the darkness far behind, Cassandra catching up to Ivy completely and scurrying in front of her, sword raised. They continued trudging along, winding through hallways, Cassandra inevitably looking back at Ivy nervously, and Ivy looking back with a poisonous glare that would turn Cassandra's head each time. The halls became narrower, and then wider, then narrower again, until they had shrunken into no more than tunnels. The impatient Greek, her eyes narrowing at the growing dimness, new and waiting, just up ahead, began to pick up the pace as the two of them suddenly emerged into a vast, stretching, broad room, whose opposite end could barely be seen. Its ceiling loomed high above, and the dim light of fiery torches that hung up and down along the walls, barely illuminated the murky corners of the cavernous chamber.
"Don't be hasty, kid," growled Ivy from behind, "this place isn't just going to let us through it."
"I know," Cassandra snapped again, still bothered by the female's bossy nature, "I said I could look out for myself. Besides, there's nothing here anyway, just a whole lot of sand, and more sand. The first trap was just to scare us off." Ivy clicked her tongue skeptically. "Somehow, I think that's not the only thing in here we'll have to watch out for. Keep your eyes to the front and be careful."
Cassandra did exactly what she'd just been told not to do. As she walked, she spun, a defiant look on her gentle features, and was about to speak, when she felt something that wasn't sand beneath her feet. It was mushy and much softer than the tanned particles of the desert. Cassandra instinctively pulled her foot up, but could not extract her boot from the mess. She stumbled as she pulled, and her other foot fell forward, with an unsatisfying sound as both feet fell into the muck, which was apparently pulling down upon her as she pulled up. The light in the hall flickered, suddenly drowning the room in some notion of darkness again, though the wall torches still shone calmly. "What the-"
Ivy cut her off, grabbing her hand quickly before she staggered and fell face first into the material. "It's quicksand." She remarked, with more of a glib attitude towards the matter than Cassandra appreciated. The Greek pushed back, thinking to leap from the dilapidated muck, but only felt is grappling hold becoming firmer, pulling her deeper into the material below. "How do I get out?" she shot back at Ivy. The Englishwoman, coldly releasing her arm, took a few steps back into the normal sand, feeling the ground beneath her contemplatively with the acute heel of her shoe.
"Well, usually you don't get out." She responded, her voice simmering like frost upon glass. Cassandra looked confused at first, trying to turn around to face the woman she accompanied. "What do you mean? There must be a way! It's only sand, after all!" she protested violently, pointing her sword at Ivy as if to illustrate a point. To her surprise and dismay, Ivy laughed.
"Little one," she murmured, "You were helpful getting that door open, but your uses have run out. If I'd known you longer, I might find some compassion for you somewhere within me, but I cannot, since I find that it never pays to get attacked to anyone. So, I bid you a fond farewell."
With that icy remark, Ivy plowed forward suddenly, bashing Cassandra's side. The Greek slid down, shooting out her arm to brace the fall, but that had been what Ivy planned on. Sinking, Cassandra found herself suddenly constricted by quicksand all around her. She looked up angrily at Ivy, still bewildered by the woman's sudden attitude change, and watched as the silently chuckling female swung out her snake sword. The lopping, twirling, serpentine blade dove towards the side of the room, lacing around one of the torch mounts. The blade firmly wrapped around the staff of the iron hand that held the flaming branch of wood and pulled, retracting. Ivy flew over Cassandra, dancing through the air as her weapon unwound and swung over, with the utmost ease, to the next torch mount. Her body parallel to the ground, Ivy pulled herself in a semicircle across the room, its whole grand length, and to the other side, where she alighted nonchalantly and dusted off her waistcoat, its noble purple caked with sandy tan.
"It was nice meeting you, Miss Alexandra, but parting is, at this point, inevitable. Au revoir." Seeming rather pleased with herself as she flexed her wrist and reformed her segmented blade, Ivy headed off down the deep, dank, and oddly luminescent hall. Cassandra tried to yell after her, but she was gone in an instant, leaving Cassandra in her predicament.
Cassandra again tried to look up, her gaze following Ivy's back until her visage faded. She struggled madly, still holding sword and shield, to extract herself, but could not. The hand that held her sword had been used to 'cushion her fall' so it was completely submerged and being drawn further in. She yanked, wrenching her arm and wrist up, but the sudden boat of unwieldy strength caused her to fall, the quicksand engulfing her side and grabbing like a groping hand onto her shield arm. And still it drew her in, wrapping around her feet until they were submerged too. She felt the lukewarm, gelatinous stuff seeping into her boots and outfits. She squirmed madly as her waist was pulled in, and she felt that there was no floor beneath the sand, only endless muck devouring her as a hungry animal would, its gargantuan maw lapping over her. Soon, it had drawn her in up to her shoulders, eating both arms and pulling her sword away from her as she tried to retrieve it from the quicksand obstruction. It pulled her deeper, at a faster rate, and she craned her head up to avoid it, but as she thrashed it continued pulling down, looming up over her head. She coughed and spluttered as the substance tried to fill her form, flooding into her mouth and nose and forcing her to shut her eyes tightly. Her sword was gone, her shield barely clutched beneath the surface, and still the quicksand forced her further into it. She searched around for something; anything that could get her out.
Though her eyes were closed, they lit up as her flailing hand, feeling only goo, felt that warm, smooth surface of something concealed in her tunic. It was the mysterious shard she had recovered not long ago, glowing soft crimson, a fragment of the dark blade Cassandra sought. She didn't know how it could help, but she was sure that, somehow, it could, since its light in the shady, green-tinted darkness was so oddly refreshing. She closed her fingers as best she could around the shard, feeling its energy suddenly pulsing through her veins, and immediately felt the relief of a great weight lifted. The quicksand seemed to ease up around her, becoming watered down and more murky than mucky. She was able to move more freely as she held the chipped but polished, gleaming stone and kicked with her legs, paddling and propelling herself to the surface. She hit that surface, and even the watery sand seemed to melt away, spitting out the remaining quicksand, and still thrashing meagerly, she made her way up, swimming through the residue. She didn't stop to search for her sword as she swam to the other end of the room and clawed her way onto dry sand.
On the harder earth, she shook herself off more boorishly, flapping her arms in an almost idiotic fashion to expedite the quicksand from their sleeves. She ran a hand across her face and through her stuck-together strands of blond hair. She panted for a minute, scratching the drying particles off of her dulled shield and letting it hang on her arm, which hung just as limp on her arm. Taking a last, full breath, Cassandra, still drying off, stalked with a murderous fire in her eyes down the narrowed hallway which Ivy had taken. She looked furious, her muddy face fixed in a scowl. That blasted woman would've left her for dead! Cassandra had, initially, been under the impression that this Isabella Valentine was at least somewhat amicable. This betrayal of trust so suddenly was more than Cassandra was used to, so it had taken her very aback. Now, she merely wanted to find out why it had been done.
Strangely, Cassandra Alexandra found that she was being steadily dried off by a heat that surrounded her. She figured it had come from the glowing torches, but it was now becoming more intense as she headed through the maze of slim hallways. The first slight beads of sweat had formed on her forehead. She wiped it again, kneading her brow mercilessly as her head throbbed without end, her legs wobbling in the tiring heat. The searing swell of high temperature that had flooded the hall was beginning to become unbearable as the girl staggered on, for many minutes, as the rooms became lighter and a red and gold hue filled the air and littered the walls. At long last, her drooping head turned down, Cassandra Alexandra staggered through the narrowest of the corridors she'd come to, sliding through its length, and hobbled out into a great room, her eyes turning up and widening in horror!
"By the gods…Tartarus."