WARNING! BEAST INSIDE!
They had seen that sign as they were entering a new part of the island. They got distracted, and followed a winding river which led them to a fire-scarred forest. Blackened trees jutted up like skeletal remains against the warm autumn sky. Charred trunks, twisted and cracked by the heat, littered the ground, while the forest floor was coated in ash, making each step a quiet crunch beneath Ivy's boots.
"Well, that was a lie," Kaly said, referencing the sign. They had been walking through the forest for over an hour.
Ivy rubbed her finger against a massive gash on a nearby tree, "This is a fresh wound…Y'know, Kaly, maybe the monster is a metaphor."
"A metaphor for what?"
"Us. Humanity. Society!" An ominous shadow crossed over her face.
They kept walking for several yards reaching what looked like the remnants of what was once a mini-warzone. Trees were blown in half, and massive craters dented the ground. A large bloodstain, maybe a day old, stained the ashy dirt.
"Do you think that the other people came through and got the beast that was supposed to be living here?" Kaly asked.
"Geeze, that's probably what happened. I'm guessing it was probably guarding one of the artifacts we needed, huh?"
"Oh yeah, I forgot about those. I'm gonna be honest, I hate Sca, and I kind of tune most of what she says out whenever she opens her mouth."
The wall blotted out most of their vision, and they were in the dark, despite it barely being the afternoon, the sun was behind the wall.
It was green with massive carvings of faces either made of or completely surrounded by foliage littered the wall as far as the eyes could see.
Ivy placed her hand against one of the faces, "What do you think is on the other side of this?"
"I dunno." Kaly shrugged. "This thing looks very old, however it was made. I bet it was to keep someone or something away."
"How does Scathach expect us to get to the other side? We can't walk around…I guess it would be possible for us to climb it…" Ivy stared upward, trying to guage how tall the wall was.
"What the…"
Ivy, curious at Kaly's bewildered tone, followed her gaze, seeing a rusted freight elevator door in the wall.
"That wasn't always there was it?" Kaly asked.
"If so, I missed it."
Ivy and Kaly pulled open the door and stepped inside. Inside the Great Wall the room was mainly built from rammed earth, stones, and wood. However, bricks were heavily used in many areas of the wall, as were materials such as tiles, lime, and stone. It was brightly lit, almost obnoxiously so, by torches on sticks.
Boom!
The door slammed closed them.
Walking back over, Kaly attempted to open it, with no avail. "No, no, no, no." She shook her head. "I can't be locked in here." Attempting to open it again, it still didn't work. She hauled back, kicking it as hard as she could. The loud bang echoed through the room, but it stayed shut.
"Are you okay?" Ivy asked, giving her an odd stare.
"I can't be in locked rooms like this! This is real screwed up, man!"
Ivy looked around the wide room, there were a couple of wood posts, and a wooden table like one you would see in an old tavern somewhere. "There," On the opposite side of the room, hiding in the corner was another doorway, with a small arch around it.
Kaly swung open the door, and about stepped through it, as it swung outward.
A cold wind sliced through the room, and, Kaly, almost cat-like, jumped back, landing on all-fours. "I almost just walked off there!"
Ivy walked over, squinting in the cold breeze. She leaned out the doorway. Her hair was whipped into a frenzy. She looked down, seeing the cloud layer many yards below.
She pulled herself back, seeing Kaly had activated her energy to stay warm.
"Wow!" Ivy laughed. "We are really far up! Yeah, that was close."
"Ivy. We're stuck up here."
"Oh." Ivy blinked, realizing their predicament. "Bummer…" She paced around the room, "There's gotta be someway out. I mean, what are the chances that someone put this whole room together just to leave us up here?"
"Pretty likely. Elaborate traps like these are kinda common."
"Really? You come from a strange place…" Ivy activated her energy, "Alright, let's try…" She jumped high enough so that she could hit the ceiling, and springboard off of it, slamming as hard as she could into the floor, going right through it.
"Ivy! What are you-" Kaly ran over to the hole in the floor, looking down.
Below her was another room. All Kaly could see was the rubble from their floor atop a purple carpet. She looked around, 'none of the torches went out from all that wind?'
Carefully, Kaly lowered herself down. It was like she had dropped into a different world. The air was damp and thick with fog, the light from above like a stage light in the dim room. "Hey, Ivy!" Kaly hissed. She wasn't sure why she did, but it was as if the fog swallowed all sound, and apparently energy, as she couldn't sense Ivy anywhere. She couldn't see more than a few yards in front of her. Kaly took a quick breath and stepped out of the light.
After almost a minute of wandering, in the distance she noticed a pair of two glowing lights…and they were quickly moving toward her.
Kaly held her hands up offensively as the lights charged at her. She swung just as the light broke through the fog wall.
Ivy quickly ducked her punch, "Kaly!"
"Oh, I didn't know those lights were you." Kaly said.
Ivy's eyes glowed brightly with energy. "Well, I was looking around, and this room is a lot bigger than the other. I haven't seen a door or anything
"Do you think this wall that we're in is hollow? Oh! Ivy!" Kaly said, excited. "This place has gotta have at least one artifact in it, right? Why else would Scathach want us to cross this?"
Ivy looked up at the ceiling, "We need to get out of this room first, and the roof is too high for me to get up there."
They spent the next ten minutes searching for a doorway like they had seen on the floor above.
"I think I found it," Kaly called over Ivy, pointing at a locked metal hatch on the floor.
Kaly kicked at the lock, each blow bending it until it snapped off.
The hatch was heavy, and required both of them pulling to open it.
First Ivy hopped down, with Kaly following her.
The air was hot and dry.
They landed next to each other in a hill of sand. The first thing Kaly noticed was the sun beating down on them.
As Ivy gazed out at their surroundings, all she saw were waves and waves of sand. There was the occasional scraggly, but shady tree.
"We are outside now?" Ivy was flabbergasted.
"No," Kaly shook her head. "I don't know how it works exactly, but this is an energy trap."
Their conversation was cut short by the distant sound of a horrified scream.
Poking their heads above the sand hill, they saw someone half tripping, half sprinting down a dune. Behind him, a massive explosion of sand errupted, and another figure was flung into the air, falling out of sight in the distance.
Kaly squinted, blocking the sun from her eyes with her arm, "Is that…"
"Yeah, that's Pearson."