Staring at Aria, Elise steeled herself, fighting the urge to run. Despite the thing's injury, it was still fast, as she'd found out a few minutes earlier.
The hound eyed her, its head tilted slightly to the left to cover for its injury as it walked towards her. In her proper sarcastic fashion, Elise almost remarked on its slow pace, not the least bit threatening if it hadn't tried to take a bite out of her leg when she'd first been dumped here. As it was now, it could have been mistaken for docile.
Raising her scavenged dagger, its demeanor changed, and it growled; a wet sound, low and wary, echoed from somewhere deep in its throat. Pacing closer, it crouched slightly in a movement that Elise would have otherwise thought to be playful on a dog and leapt in an attempt to pin her.
Or disembowel her. It could have been either or both at the same time.
Rushing forward, Elise slid (tripped, who was she kidding) past the beast, raising her dagger in what could have been an incredibly cunning and cinematically heroic move had she not been drenched in disgustingly warm blood an been reduced to a sputtering mess as her blade raked across its underside as it jumped over her.
Yelping, Arla stumbled away from her, mirroring Elise's own movements as she tried in vain to wipe the blood from her face and lips.
Remembering the problem at hand, Elise turned back to Arla, steadying her hand once more around the hilt of her dagger. Across from her, Elise found Arla looking increasingly harmless as it staggered, its remaining legs collapsing under it.
Seeing this, Elise did what she did best.
She bolted.
Easy kill or not, Elise held no confidence whatsoever that the creature behind her was any sort of natural creature, and if the fantasy genre in general had thought her anything, it was that fire-breathing and venom-spitting weren't out of the realm of possibilities for monsters, and Elise was had no desire to find out if this particular scenario fell into the fantasy category.
Panting, Elise turned another corner, realizing that she had no idea where she was—at least not in relation to where she had begun. Considering she didn't even know how she'd gotten into the maze in the first place, she could have traveled miles from where she'd fallen from.
In truth, Elise wasn't sure of many things, and only one of those things was how she'd gotten here. There had been a sensation like falling, but the key word here was "like," because really, it had felt like flying and falling and being dumped into the ocean with no idea which way was up and which was down, so she couldn't really tell whether her sudden change in position had been due to moving upward or downward.
At this point, it didn't really matter much. Her wits were reserved solely for comebacks and insults, so she wasn't the person to go to to analyze these things and make a grand escape plan.
Slowing, Elise came to the next crossroads and chose to go left on a whim, turning the corner and nearly tripping as she backpedaled back around the corner to keep from face planting without falling.
Except the wall followed her.
And it wasn't a wall.
White letters were printed on a faintly glowing grey background, which appeared to float about a foot and a half from her face, the screen about the same size as a sheet of paper, if not a bit larger.
[Welcome to the Labyrinth]
A moment after Elise read the words, they disappeared, quickly replaced by new ones:
[Compiling User Data]
Despite her momentary confusion, Elise found herself irritated as she watched the revolving dot swirling below the words, the familiar loading screen irking her as much as it had when on her laptop screen. Unfortunately, she couldn't identify a reload button or any of the other admittedly useless functions she would use to try and make her applications load faster.
Before she could test whether or not the screen was tangible enough to shake, throw or smack, more lines began filling the screen, and it lengthened to properly display the new information.
[User Status Screen]
Name:
Title: None
Party: Non Affiliated
HP: 87/100
MP: 20/20
Affinity: None
Strength: 17
Speed: 35
Agility: 33
Intelligence: 20
Skills:
- Inventory (lv. 1)
Elise stared at the screen, her thoughts jumbling together as they fought over the limited space in her mind. The first one to emerge victorious was, as always, majorly unhelpful.
Well, she mused, doesn't this seem like something straight out of a fantasy.
Curiosity prickling at the edge of her mind, Elise reached forward, tapping the space that reading
[Would you like to add a name?]
Tapping yes, a keyboard like one would find on a cell phone appeared below the screen as it changed, presenting a blank bar.
Typing in her name, Elise hit the
A second later, the first screen reappeared, with the line that had previously read "Insert Name" now displaying the name "Elise." For a second, she considered the possibility that she should have made up a name, or perhaps used her full name, but it hadn't stopped her, so she'd go with it.
Finding the small collection of buttons in the top right corner of the screen, Elise hit the small "x" and closed the window, trying not to think about what she would do if an exit didn't appear in front of her soon. She started forward, walking this time, and turned around the corner she had retreated from, somewhat ready to continue her fruitless wandering.
Turning the corner, Elise found herself unable to backpedal in time this try, and slammed nose first into something that felt unmistakably alive.
"Huh?"