Post date: May 22, 2016 11:46:44 AM
Caradorynee: Feats & Wagers
#8
The Human girl was so close to Lark that he could almost reach out and touch her. Her ocean blue eyes even more prominent with her auburn hair and the smooth, sunburned skin of her face .
Lark quickly lowered his head as the girl’s eyes swept the crowd as she made her way across the platform and towards the ash brick stairway.
He didn’t want his presence known. It wasn’t time and besides he didn’t want to distract her. Seeing another human being, even as distorted as he was now, would surely cause the girl to experience some form of surprise if not outright shock.
The noise level as the girl passed Lark was ear shattering. Her 1st place standing had incited a massive run on the wagering booths. Lark had been fortunate to get his bet in early. For if he had waited much longer his payoff, when the girl emerged victorious, would have been far less than he’d had hoped to win.
Lark was excited. His profits for this challenge would be immense.
Star closed her eyes and tried to visualize the maze pattern she’d viewed from above. There had been three separate starting points. One to the north, one to the south, and one to the east. Why there hadn’t been one to the west, in a square shaped maze, Star had no idea.
Her first inclination was to follow the pathway that had the least amount of lava boils, which if her memory was correct should be to the right, or east. It did seem the most logical. Star’s gut, now that she was actually standing in the maze, advised her otherwise.
Opening her eyes she buttoned her tunic up to her neck and fastened the cuffs of her sleeves. Bending over she tucked her pant legs into her boots. She then wrapped her hand around her long braid and shoved the heavy mass down the back of her shirt. The woven weave irritated her newly burned Shegata markings, but Star didn’t have much choice. She couldn’t afford a droplet of lava catching in her hair.
Satisfied she'd protected herself as much as she could from any droplets that she may come into contact with, Star straightened, unsheathed her knife and focused on the maze walls.
Made of ash bricks, they were covered in a multitude of strange markings. No doubt she hadn’t been the first species to think of identifying the pathway with directional indicators.
Star scratched a cross into the softened brick and then drew two more diagonal lines from ten o’clock down to four and from two o’clock down to eight. Forming a star, then drew a circle encasing the star in the middle.
Nibbling at the corner of her bottom lip she took four paces forward and paused at the first partial crossroads. The wall to the right had hundreds of different carved etchings. Star looked straight ahead. The pathway stretched for quite a piece. So far that Star couldn’t see the end.
Star lifted her head and sniffed the air. The smell of heat and the strong scent of hot iron had her turning to her left. Scant few etchings on the wall met her eyes.
Star quickly carved another star into the ash brick wall and then placed the number 1 with a capital L beside it. She headed down the passageway, the smell becoming slightly stronger with each step she took.
The passageway curved right and then left and then left again. Star paused when she spotted the first of what she imagined would be many laval boils. It was approximately a foot to a foot and a half high and blocked most of the tunnel, leaving very little space for one to pass by. She noticed that the walls on either side were pockmarked, indicating that the lava droplets spewed outward approximately a foot.
Star neared it cautiously.
Although this challenge was not a time-sensitive one, it was important for her to get through the maze as quickly as she could. The final challenge: the cone climb needed to be completed before sundown. Otherwise she would risk the first stages of the Dormoan volcano eruptions, which was the expelling of the Dormoan gases.
She needed the third set of Shegata markings in order to withstand the corrosive nature of the gases on her lungs. And even then, she doubted that she would be capable of enduring the gases for any length of time.
Best to concentrate of how to get by the laval boils.
Star took another few steps closer. She flared her nostrils and took a deep breath.
The scent of iron ore was pungent but not much stronger than it had been before she started down the left hand turn at the beginning of the maze.
Star glanced along the floor of the maze searching for a small piece of ash brick. She located a few chunks that were all about the size of her fist. She gauged one of the chunk’s weight and then retreated backwards.
She tossed the chunk of ash brick toward the centre of the lava boil. The chunk fell short about four feet. Nothing.
Star took another chunk and tossed it with a little more force. The chunk fell within two feet of the centre. A puff of gas expelled from the centre.
Star aimed the next chunk at the side of the ash brick wall adjacent to the lava boil. The lava boil erupted into a plume of lava and gas.
Star instinctively jumped back.
The searing lava spewed four or five feet into the air but was short lived as the lava boil closed and the lava fell quickly to the maze floor.
“One one thousand, two one thousand…” Star whispered to the count of eleven before another tinier puff of gas was once more discharged.
Eleven seconds before the lava boil readied itself for another eruption.
Star threw the final chunk of ash brick directly over the top of the lava boil. Nothing happened. The lava boil stayed dormant.
Star took a deep breath and swallowed hard.
Her best guess was that the lava boil was triggered by pressure either to the ground or wall within a two foot radius.
So she basically only had one possible choice. To take a run at the lava boil and then time a jump so that she could make it over the top of the lava boil and land outside of the two foot range on the other side.
To further her challenge, the area surrounding the lava boil, which she’d activated, was still steaming with scalding lava that Star guessed would take far too long for her to wait to cool.
Star glanced once more along the floor and quickly established that there weren’t many other chunks of ash brick than she had already located. And unfortunately she’d lost the one that she’d tossed over the lava boil as well as the other two which had disintegrated once the lava had touched the soft surface.
Finally locating one she threw it into the centre of the lava boil and waited until the laval had dissipated once more. Then without further thought she sucked in a deep breath and charged forward.
Making sure she stayed clear of the circle of boiling lava she took one last step just shy of the laval’s edge and then launched herself forward in the same manner she had at the Pouriecolt earlier. Her arms windmilled as she propelled herself up and over the top on the boil and then downward onto the tunnel’s floor on the other side.
Star’s feet skid out from under her upon impact with the thick layer of ash covering the maze floor. Then her heels dug in and the action forced her to fly ass over tea kettle.
Air gushed out of Star’s lungs as she landed face first in the ash, her forehead whacking painfully onto the hard surface. A flash of bright light ricochetted behind her closed eyes and a torturous pain flared along her breasts and stomach where she felt the burning markings of the Shegata vibrate in what felt like a thousand pinpricks of sizzling fire.
©Human in Inhuman Worlds by Janet Merritt