Quest 228

[primrosella]

The blonde girl sits silently at the foot of the bed, her defeated posture echoed in the hollow look that has consumed her eyes. The door has shut, the lock turned with a resounding click; she is trapped. What's more, she is defeated. Her quest ends here, in the tower room that belongs to her husband-to-be, and her failure will be sealed twofold at

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[horrible_penny]

Nightmare number... what number was it by now? Penny feels as if she's been through hundreds of nightmares by now. This one is cold and dark. At least there isn't any blood. Yet. Just stone walls and shadows, and--

And Rosella?

Even in the dark, Penny can make out the blond (did it become lighter, or is this one of those convenient nightmare happenings?). She's up the stairs, yards away from Penny, and in a doorway. What can only be a bow is in her hands. From her vantage point, Penny can't see farther into the room. She creeps up the stairs towards Rosella, careful not to make a sound.

[primrosella]

The screams of the witch are more than loud enough to echo down the tower to where Penny is, so there is no missing every curse and threat that is hurled in Rosella's direction as she stands petrified in the doorway, still reeling from the horror of the moment.

She'd meant to shoot the witch. She'd thought--and perhaps it was a foolish thought, hoping to control one as evil as that--but she'd truly thought the arrow would only cause Lolotte to love her as the unicorn had. She hadn't considered that love might be so utterly abhorrent to the witch's very being that it would be enough to slay her instead.

Her face is white as she stands there, bowstring still vibrating from her shot, absorbing every threat and waiting desperately for the witch's inevitable death.

[horrible_penny]

The screams and curses make Penny jump. She shrinks back into the shadows momentarily, afraid to go closer. No, that won't do. Rosella's just standing there. She needs help.

"Rosella?" Penny speaks loudly enough to be heard over the witch, but no louder. She approaches the girl and peers into the room. Her jaw drops. Had Rosella...?

[primrosella]

The sudden surprise of Penny at her side is enough to jar Rosella's attention--however momentarily--away from the dying witch and over to her friend. Even so, she doesn't look any less startled than she had before; if anything, Penny's presence here only inspires more panic in her as the spider's legs erupt from the bedsheets and the hands begin to reach from the walls.

"Run!" she cries, grasping Penny's arm and urging her toward the stairs, even as the witch's mandibles begin to snap and the groans of the undead start to fill the air. "Penny, run!"

[horrible_penny]

This is happening too fast. The woman Rosella shot is a spider? There are zombies in the castle? None of this even makes sense. Baffled, Penny stumbles more than runs. Not that she can run. Running never helps in nightmares, and it wouldn't do to leave Rosella, even if there's not much Penny can do.

"I'll run if you run!" But for now, Penny busies herself with a rotted hand that has attached to her shirtsleeve. For a hand without much in the way of muscle, it has a rather strong grip.

[primrosella]

Frantic but oddly motivated by Penny's presence, Rosella elbows away a reaching arm and brings her bow crashing down on another that has begun to reach for Penny, pushing her again toward the door--and making every move to follow after her, so long as she goes first. The witch-spider is beginning to advance, still howling her fury, and Rosella knows she is out of weapons. This is a losing battle if they stay, and there is nothing to be gained here.

For all that she hates stone stairs, Rosella makes quick work of these when she hits them, more leaping down them than actually stepping, her hair flying out in tangled curls behind her as she rushes them down into the tower.

[horrible_penny]

The hand lets go after being whacked with a bow and Penny is quick to follow Rosella down the stairs, magically--it has to be magic, because this is a dream--not falling. "How well do zombies take stairs?" she pants, hoping that the answer will be something along the lines of 'not very well.'

[primrosella]

"They come out of the--oh, rats," she answers in a rush, her free hand digging in the pockets of her skirt and finally producing a small black shape--a scarab, carved out of obsidian. She shoves it into Penny's hands, her eyes frantic with fear, and continues to hurry them both down the stairs. "Take this. Don't let go of it, it'll--it wards off the undead, don't let go of it, they can't grab you if you have it."

One might wonder, in a less panicked moment, how the amulet can truly be said to work if Rosella had it herself and yet still ended up grabbed, but nightmare or not, this is her dream, and the certainty with which she says it makes it clear that it will work for Penny, perhaps because it didn't work for Rosella herself.

"They'll be everywhere," she adds after a moment, which isn't really an answer, but more of a vague prediction--even as the shadows begin to creep at the edges of the stairs.

[horrible_penny]

"Out of the what?" But she doesn't question Rosella's logic or hesitate to take the stone scarab. Penny clutches it tightly, frantically searching the shadows for more threats. "...What about you? What'll protect you?"

[primrosella]

"She doesn't want you!" Rosella fairly shrieks, as the witch-spider finally skitters out the door of the tower chamber, heaving and squeezing to make her bulk fit through the space. "Go! Run!"

[horrible_penny]

"Which kind of makes me being protected kind of dumb! Come on, Rosella." Penny grabs Rosella's arm with every intention of hauling her away. The spider-person isn't that mobile. Surely they can outrun her or squeeze into a space she can't fit in to...

[primrosella]

"All the way down," she gasps out, letting Penny take her arm as they continue to go, and gesturing wildly with the hand that still holds her bow. The hallway that leads off of the landing is the way to the torture chambers, and oh, she remembers going there. It's not a place she ever wants to return to, much less when she knows she is being pursued by a vengeful witch. The ground floor won't be much better, she knows, but at least they'll stand a chance; it may not be safe, but it's better than this tower.

Anything is better than this tower.

[horrible_penny]

Penny just nods, out of breath in spite of the fact that she doesn't actually need to breathe. She bypasses the lit hallway and continues moving down as fast as she can, spurred on in no small part by the movements she thinks she sees in the shadows.

"Then where?"

[primrosella]

"Out," she answers, seeing the doorway at the bottom of the tower--and, with a wrench of her stomach, the flying monkey guarding it. "Into the throne room and out the front way--hurry!"

How can it be, that there is a spider-shaped shadow lurking over them when there is no light source to cast it? Dreams are strange that way, but so it is.

[horrible_penny]

Penny gets to the bottom of the stairs as quickly as she can, but comes to an abrupt halt when she sees the flying monkey. It looks considerably more menacing than the ones in The Wizard of Oz.

"Rosella..."

[primrosella]

"They don't want you!" she cries again, nearly crashing into Penny as she comes to a halt herself. More guards are pouring into the stairwell now, and the shadow is looming larger on the ceiling, and if Penny doesn't get out soon--

"Go! Just run! Go!"