The second strike shattered the wall completely blowing sand everywhere. Zoe took advantage of it, running out, straight towards the imp first. Through the cloud of sand, the imp couldn't see anything and was shouting something in his indecipherable tongue.
Zoe had conjured a makeshift sand dagger in each of her hands and shot out one of them towards where the imp had been standing. A shriek coming from that area confirmed that she had indeed struck her target.
She rushed towards there with her other dagger, and found the imp writhing in pain with her dagger stuck in his throat. Grimly Zoe walked up to him and stabbed the other dagger in his forehead, ending his pain.
By that time though, the sand had completely cleared, leaving her exposed to the two Stone Guardians. They immediately twisted their swords and brought it slamming down on her. Zoe rolled away at the last moment, and the two swords clashed against each other, causing another thundering clang.
The impact of the clash also caused the two Guardians themselves to be pushed back onto the wall. As soon as Zoe got up from her roll, she raised two sand prisons from the walls each, trapping the Guardians inside before they could recover.
As she stood to catch her breath, she could hear the Guardians changing away at the wall of the sand prison from the inside, futilely. They were almost like machines, single-mindedly focused on their task without considering alternatives.
But there was another creature that was not a machine.
Zoe walked over to the corpse of the imp, looking at it with a mixture of horror and fascination. She never thought herself capable of killing another being, and today she had killed three. Of course in all cases, it was a matter of kill or be killed, but Zoe was still surprised at how easily she took three lives in a single day.
And maybe more, She thought grimly. She certainly didn't enjoy being an executioner, but she also didn't regret it too much. Logically thinking, the imp or Exi or even Ghira, the Temuril soldiers, would have either killed her or someone she cared about if she didn't kill them first.
With renewed determination, Zoe stood up. The Stone Guardians were still incessantly clanging away inside the sand prison. Zoe made a fist with her hand, and the sand prison collapsed on itself, crushing the Guardians into dust particles.
As Zoe released the sand magik, the swords fell down with a defeaning clang one last time to the ground. Zoe looked back once and then continued onwards the corridor.
This time, she was anticipating further attacks on her from dark corners, so instead of walking straight ahead, she sent out a small tendril of sand forward. If the sand tendril collided against something, it was an indication that there could be a threat ahead.
The progress forward was slow, sometimes excruciatingly so, but Zoe walked patiently forward. It was better for her to make slow progress than be caught unaware by an imp's dagger.
After half an hour of walking, the corridor finally ended. Contrary to her expectations, there were no more Stone Guardians or imps waiting to ambush her in the darkness. Instead the corridor ended almost abruptly in a cliff, overlooking another cavern.
This one however was not brightly, lit. It was lit by the same blue lanterns that were there in the corridor. Zoe crouched down instinctively and looked over the cliff.
Below at the cavern there were the final monsters Famina had warned about - goblins. They were small, green creatures with an ugly face similar to imps, but a more human body. They even wore clothes, albeit only a loincloth around their waists. There were two groups of goblins milling about on either side of the cavern. Zoe grimly counted a dozen of them altogether.
And behind them, at the center of the cavern was another goblin, this one seemingly different from the others. For one he was tall, almost as tall as Zoe herself. And secondly his clothing was much more intricate, with a cloak and makeshift armor over his loincloth. And he was also the only one carrying any sort of weapon - a staff.
I can't attack this group head-on, Zoe thought grimly. There was still the big boss of the cave left, and Zoe didn't want to expend all of her energy dealing with a bunch of goblins, especially when she didn't know if there would be another pool of rejuvenation further ahead.
She decided to test for their hostility first. Concentrating her magik, she created a formless sand clone of herself. She wasn't quite skilled at this, so the clone resembled a blob of sand more than a human being, but that was enough for her current purpose.
She sent the clone tentatively down the cliff, towards the horde of goblins to the right. As soon as the sand clone landed, there was an excited chattering among the horde of goblins who immediately leapt towards it. Zoe didn't see any weapons on them, but the little goblins used their hands to smash the clone. When they realized it was not an actual living creature, but rather just a sand clone, they lost interest in it completely and returned to what they were doing previously.
That's weird. They aren't suspicious where it came from?
It seemed the little goblins were quite underdeveloped in their brains. They understood only simple instructions. Any enemy that approached them would get attacked, but if it was destroyed then the goblins didn't check further to see what had caused the disturbance in the first place.
Zoe peeked over the edge once more to verify that the goblins were indeed not investigating further, when she suddenly realized that she could not longer see the tall goblin. She looked frantically all over the cavern but the tall goblin was nowhere to be seen.
"Hiiidingz herez arez we humaan womaaan?" A growling voice came from behind her. Zoe turned around to see the tall goblin she was looking for right in front of her, looking at her with a smile.
"You'llz makez a greatz breeding cow." He said and then before Zoe could make out what he was saying, he pushed on her chest, knocking her back.
Just like that she was thrown off the cliff, and felt a surreal sensation of nausea as she fell through the air. Thinking quickly, she called on her magik, using the sand in the cave walls to form a makeshift slide to her fall. With a great deal of effort the slide slowly materialized along the wall and Zoe threw herself on it. She felt a burning sensation where the sand skid on her clothes and skin and winced.
Better than being dead.
The sand slide slowed down her descent but she still couldn't quite control her fall, and landed face down on the ground. Wincing again, Zoe slowly stood up and dusted off the dirt on her clothes. There were a lot of minor cuts and bruises throughout her body, but the bigger problem was the horde of goblins now in front of her.
"Inito. [[Sand Queen]]"
Zoe had never intended to use her Inito before the final boss of the dungeon, but she had no choice. The goblins outnumbered her by a lot and she still didn't know what the tall goblin up above was capable of.
As the four sand pillars rose around her, she immediately attacked. The first few goblins didn't seem to understand what she was doing and were caught unawares by the sand pillars, which smashed them into the wall. Zoe increased the force and destroyed the skull of one goblin, and the leg of another.
The remaining goblins became more cautious after that. Unlike the one above, these ones didn't seem to be able to talk, making disturbing growling sounds instead. They stayed away from Zoe's sand, not approaching but making sure they were not caught by it.
They are waiting
They are waiting for the tall one to come down.
Zoe realized that she had had to be the one to go on the offensive. Raising her hands, she made two of the sand pillars shoot out towards the middle of the goblin horde. With a growl the goblins jumped to dodge it. Taking advantage of this, Zoe used the other two sand pillars to encircle two goblins. As soon as they were in, she crushed the pillars, with their bodies inside.
Six left....no sorry seven.
There were six smaller ones, and Zoe looked up to check on the tall one. She could no longer see it, which could only be bad sign.
Grunting, she faced forward. The horde of six goblins now stood quite a distance away from her. She had killed four of them, and understandably the rest were wary of her powers.
Yet not fleeing
Therefore the tall one must possess some magik too.
Grimly Zoe again raised the four pillars preparing to attack. Suddenly she felt a sting. It wasn't a particularly painful one, yet she felt the power somehow draining from her body.
Her raised arms flopped down. With supreme effort, she turned her head back.
The tall goblin was standing behind her with a smile. He was holding the staff pointed right at her back.
The sand pillars around her slowly collapsed to the ground. Zoe followed soon after, falling down on her knees. She didn't fall prone on the ground, but she felt herself unable to move at all, as if she had been paralyzed.The tall goblin came and stood right in front of her, baring his ugly brown teeth.
"Nowz you becomez ourz breeding cowz."