Location : Devils nest / Cauldron of famine
The couple appeared back at where they were before fast traveling, still hyped from their pep talk.
At least they tried before being submitted to motion sickness again.
"Luckily my stomach is still empty. Ugh. You'll have to tell me how you do this." Astrid supported herself on the wall so as to not fall down.
Looking right next to them a glowing squid imprint slowly faded out. This made Matt remember that he should use his abilities efficiently from now on. So he activated his map function and saw what could only be described as a weird scribble drawing made by a four year old projected on a pixelated hologram in front of him.
From what he could make out on the map and from their surroundings he could deduce that they were currently located in a long slightly curved hallway connecting two rooms together.
If you compared both hallways you could understand that those rooms must be enormous, not that the scale could be trusted.
To access the innermost area that remained greyed out, they needed to either go through the machines guarding the only hexagon door that annoyed them so much or go back from where they had originally come and find a pipeline of some sort.
The vent seemed to just lead to the chimney in the first big room they had entered from.
{The gods are impressed that you were actually able to understand so much from the map.}
{The gods are impressed that you are so loyal to your betrothed.}
{You have received an upgrade, you can now place a checkpoint on a solid surface in movement.}
'You are pretty nice. Thank you.'
"I must say that it's really weird when you stare into emptiness Matt."
Looking towards his companion he lifted his lips to a shameless smile, "But aren't I so handsome when I stare with smoldering intensity?"
"You… yeah you are." She sighted with a slight red hue forming on her cheeks..
*Cough* "Alright, we should continue."
"Since we tried it your way, can we now do it my way?" Astrid asked with stars in her eyes.
Matt really wanted to let her do whatever she wanted but he knew that it would result in them being surrounded by an army of machines.
"Let's keep on doing things my way. Don't worry, once we're head to head with the one that calls himself wendigo you can do whatever you want. And if things go downhill you can start to smash."
She gave him a small nod with a huge grin before both of them descended to the ground below. Matt signaled her to follow him before crouch walking in the direction the flying crates were coming from.
'Watcher to the right and two scrappers to the left. Crouching behind crates to hide from the watcher as it walks by and throwing a pebble onto the barrel behind the other two.'
'The scrappers turned around alerted by the noise. Time to sprint towards that convenient ramp and jump up towards that platform… Done. Checking if Astrid follo- she's right next to me.'
'Shit there's a watcher up here, I have to stay hanging here until it looks the other way.'
'Good. Now tiptoe past it, jump back down, hide behind the boxes, dash to another cover, climb the crates, jump onto a ferris-wheel looking generator, wait to get transported to the other side, alright, two watchers up front and one on a platform above.'
'Walking forward three steps, hiding behind a shelf holding multiple metal barrels as one machine looks this way, doesn't look away, still not. Opening one of the barrels since the watcher is still staring in our direction and because I am curious. Weird orange jelly, robot pudding ?'
'It's finally turning around, rush to another cover, crawl through an opened plastic pipe, climb a fence like wall on the side, balance on a steel beam protruding above a huge hole and do a leap of faith into the swirling pool of water below.'
{Parkour! You have received a map quality upgrade! .}
Was all Matt heard before diving into the lukewarm water. He heard a splash shortly after his own and knew Astrid had faithfully followed him.
He could feel himself get dragged off by the currents. He swam against the currents until he could grab Astrid's arm and then stopped swimming. Letting fate bring them to their destination.
It didn't take long for them to encounter a rotor blade that's probably used like a turbine to produce energy… and cut swimming intruders into thin slices..
They only had a few seconds to react before reaching that state.
Astrid took the initiative and swam forward into the center of the spinning blades.
She transformed her arms into an animal's and hit forward with her right claws so as to keep them stuck in the metal sheet.
She then used her other paw to open a maintenance hatch and rip out all of its contents, while the turbine didn't stop, it still considerably slowed down making the currents less turbulent and deadly.
Both teens joined up together again and continued on their water slide.
Later they encountered a split in the giant pipe, since it just seemed that it was heading in the same direction they swam to the one on the left, not realizing how much this decision saved their lives.
Matt hadn't expected it to last this long and while he didn't feel much different from when he just jumped in, Astrid seemed to start lacking air.
He turned her to face him and directly supplied her with air through the mouth.
A beautiful scene deserving of an Oscar ensued with a lovely couple waltzing through the water while passionately sharing a kiss.
And as everyone knows, what follows the romantic scene is the accident scene where the main characters either conceive a child or almost die.
Light appeared at the end of the water pipe signaling them that their ride was about to end and both valhallans suddenly felt as if their bodies had become weightless.
Before falling down.
1070 words
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Please tell me if you liked the parkour part and if I should continue using this type of description for action scenes. Same question for dreams/flashbacks of the life in Valhalla.
Hope you like the chapter and see you next time :p