Karma ran towards Rita as she fell towards the ground, barely managing to jump under her to soften her fall.
"Damn it.."
He quickly and gently laid her on the ground, before trying to wake her up.
"Rita..! Rita, wake up..!"
He tried to shake her awake for a good while, before giving up.
He checked for her pulse, expecting the worst.
She was still breathing.
He sighed in relief.
"Where the hell even are we?"
Karma then looked around, the room was empty.
There was nothing, nothing but two doors. One was a big, menacing wooden door, while the other was a smaller one, way less intimidating.
He quickly made his way to the smaller door, and after some hesitation, decided to open it… to no avail.
"What the-"
Despite his best efforts, he couldn't open it.
He finally gave up on the door and went back to Rita.
She looked troubled.
He quickly sat down, and placed her on his thighs.
"I should wait until she wakes up before doing anything.." Karma said to himself, eyeing the ominous wooden door.
Hours passed, Rita was still sound asleep and so was Karma, until a powerful and unbearably loud sound came to life, the whole room was shaking.
Until suddenly, Ren and Eric flew out the small door, something was hitting the wall from the other side, something big but he couldn't see it. Then it stopped.
"Holy shit.." the words escaped him.
————
The group was finally back together, Ren, Eric and Karma explained what each of them went through, and how they got here.
They sat in silence, each of them thinking about what information they could get from this.
And before anyone could speak up, Rita woke up.
It was sudden. She didn't say a word and quietly looked around.
"R-Rita!" Shouted Karma, "are you okay? What the hell was that?! Why did you just go and touch that thing?!"
Rita didn't answer, she just stood back up and said:
"We should keep going."
Ren froze. It was weird. Her tone and expressions and her sudden reckless decision right upon waking up was also out of character as far as he could tell.
Carefully, Ren asked:
"Is there something wrong..?"
Rita briefly looked at him, then turned towards the wooden door as she answered:
"I just want to get out of here as fast as possible."
Karma quickly objected:
"No way! You just woke up." He shouted. "Plus that doors gives me the creeps.."
Eric nodded.
"He's right Rita, plus me and Ren just got here we also need a break… we're exhausted."
Slowly, Rita sat back down. She sighed and apologized.
".. sorry, I just really wanna get out of here.."
The group sat in a circle, Eric was tired and decided to go to sleep, Karma was the liveliest somehow, trying to talk to Rita, asking her questions, and making some jokes to maybe annoy her.
Ren was scared.
He kept stealing glances towards Rita, who was answering Karma's question rather vaguely and staring at her Tablet.
He tried to look at it, only to see nothing but a clean and wordless piece of stone.
'Huh.'
Ren wondered whether this was normal, or something to worry about.
He then decided to look at his own, as he remembered the light that emitted from him as he was unlocking the small doors lock.
[Name: Ren Gray]
[Title:]
[Skill: Instinct Lv 2, Primitive Stab Lv 2, Awkward Lockpicking Lv 1]
[Level of growth: 0]
[Achievements: 1]
[Awkward Lockpicking: The ability to cheat locks by skillfully using miscellaneous tools to compensate a lack of key. This is a crude and clumsy version of this skill
Rarity: Common]
'So I did get a new skill… and those other two.. leveled up? Is it like in those games where you get EXP when you use the skills?' Ren made a few plausible theories before his mind brought him back to his worries about Rita.
After thinking about it for a while, he decided it was better for him to sleep and recover some strength.
——
Upon waking up, Eric and Ren quickly met up with Karma and Rita in front of the wooden door.
They examined it and it was just a wooden door with some beautiful, meaningless patterns carved within.
Circles, inside of circles, inside of circles…
Despite the normality of the door, the group couldn't help but feel a sense of dread.
"Are you sure we can't just.. go through the other door again..? Maybe you guys missed an exit when you were in the other room.."
Karma advised, as he quietly took a step back.
"To fight those giants? No thank you. I'd rather not." Ren quickly refused "And we didn't miss anything. It wasn't a very big and decorated room." He added, making Karma shut up.
"Are you scared..?" Eric asked innocently.
"M-me? Scared?! I would never be scared of a door! I'm not scared of anything..!" Karma said while awkwardly laughing, before finally shutting up as he realized his haughty mask was no longer convincing, if it ever was.
Rita quickly let out a quiet laugh, before calmly saying:
"There isn't any other way out, the exit is here."
"How do you know th-" Ren tried to say something, but was quickly shut up as Rita pushed the door open.
They walked inside, the room was dark.
They took a few steps forward, and the moment they were all fully in the room, multiple torches lit up all around them.
"Well… that's usually not a good sign.." Ren said to the others.
"Why, does it mean something?"
Ren looked at Eric, not expecting someone to actually ask him:
"Oh, um well usually in video games-"
But before Ren could finish, Rita immediately jumped back, and screamed as loud as she could:
"WATCH OUT!"
Ren looked at her confused:
"What-"
Just as Rita got away, the ground started to shake, the wooden door had disappeared, leaving nothing but a wall in its place.
Eric quickly grabbed Ren and threw him away.
"Gah-!"
Ren gasped as his back hit the wall. He looked up, and something crawled out of the breaking ground.
It looked similar to a snake, But way bigger than all of them. It was probably longer than a big apartment building.
It had obsidian black scales on its body, except its head where the scales were somewhat silver.
Its teeth were so big that it couldn't keep them in its mouth, it had horns on its chin, some sharp metallic thorns were all over the beast's body and saliva was falling out its mouth.
It screamed, and as it did bones flew right past them from the sheer power of the creatures breath.
And just like that, the fight started.
Rita called out to Eric and went in front running around the monstrosity to confuse it.
Karma summoned his Tablet, and used it as a shield as he ran towards the snake, luckily for him, it was too focused on Rita and Eric to pay any mind to him.
Ren, stared at Rita for a while before acting.
'How did she know..?'
He kept on thinking, over and over again, before finally making his move.
He took his screwdriver out of his pocket, ran towards the beast and jumped on karma's back to gain some height.
"Hey-"
Karma tried to speak to him but he was too focused holding on to dear life to the beasts spikes and making sure he didn't get skewered by them to listen.
Carefully, he climbed on step after an other. Sometimes getting stabbed in the legs or feet, but not deep enough to stun him just yet.
Eventually, he reached the back of the snake.
There was less spikes, but still an important amount of them.
He slowly and carefully walked towards the creatures head, and started climbing again.
As he reached the top, he immediately plunged his screwdriver deep into the snake's head as it was still chasing Rita and Eric.
Or at least he thought he did.
Just as the metal came in contact with the creatures scales it bounced right back off.
The snake paused.
He stopped chasing Rita and Eric, and moved its head at full force, throwing Ren at the nearest wall with all its might.
"SHI-"
Ren's body crashed into a wall. A loud cracking noise could be heard by everyone in the room.
His body fell onto the ground as the snake rushed to finish him.
He tried to move but no matter how hard he tried his body stayed immobile.
Ren managed to look up, as the snake's tail was about to crush him.