Intruding Strangers
Fate paused in his steps, turning back to look down the corridor. After a few extra steps, Cait noticed and jogged back, following Fate's gaze.
"What?" she asked.
Fate's brows furrowed, the only visible sign of his frown with his mask on. "I think Garrett just died. I felt a rush of Divine Energy back that way."
Cait's face fell, followed by her setting her jaw as she turned away. "Let's make his sacrifice worth it then." She resumed her jog, not checking to see if Fate was following.
Fate stared down the hallway a little longer. He shook his head, heaving a light sigh as he turned to catch up with Cait.
"It seems I was wrong, Samnul," Ythmun said to his empty throne room. "They've managed to best all of my men…"
His handsome face split into a wicked grin as he reached out with his Divine Energy, funneling the lifeforce of his mortal servants within the palace into his pet, hundreds of feet below ground. It awakened with a stir, shaking the entire foundation of the palace as it roused itself.
"A shame for these fools that I have more than men under my command, isn't it, Samnul?"
The beast roared, the crust of the planet itself shaking from the might contained within.
Dust fell from the ceiling as the entire corridor vibrated. Cait and Fate steadied themselves against opposite walls, casting their auras out to try to find what had caused the commotion.
"Earthquake?" Fate asked.
"Considering who we're trying to kill… probably not." Cait dropped to a knee as the tremors kicked up in intensity, cracks spreading throughout the hallway. "We should probably get to someplace that can't fall down and crush us."
"Only place we know for certain fits that bill is all the way outside," Fate replied, helping her up.
"Then we should probably start running."
They nodded to each other, bracing themselves against each other for balance as they sprinted back the way they came. They jumped over dozens of cracks that had expanded to holes, ducked under and sidestepped fallen chunks of ceiling, and at one point even had to jump through the ceiling to avoid the chunk that had blocked their path.
They continued to run, taking several turns left and right as the new corridor demanded, eventually making it outside, bursting through a door to appear on top of the palace walls. They stood there, leaning on each other and catching their breath for a moment, before the trembling jumped another notch, reminding them that they still needed to flee.
Fate hurried to the parapets, looking down to find a miles-wide garden walled by the same tall structure as the rest of the palace, filled with all manner of flowers and other aesthetically pleasing plants.
"We're gonna have to jump," Fate yelled over the sound of breaking stone and shattering earth.
Cait nodded, dashing over and jumping clean over the wall. Fate vaulted over after her. They slowed their falls with their Divine Reach, Cait landing gracefully and Fate with a pop. He groaned, his leg giving out as he fell to his side. With a grimace, he grabbed his leg by the calf with both hands, one at the top and one at the bottom, and yanked, popping his bone back into place. Cait helped him to his feet.
"You good?" she asked. "Because I think you're a little heavy for me to carry."
Fate squinted at her grinning face. "You calling me fat?"
"I never used that word," she replied, avoiding his gaze. He pushed himself off of her, stretching as the ground continued to tremble.
"Fine, then watch this fat ass beat you to the center of the garden," he said, breaking into a sprint.
"Hey, you got a head start!" She yelled, rushing after him.
They made it to the center of the garden, the plants and soil upturned in their wake as lumps of earth fell into massive cracks in the ground. Cait jogged to a stop beside Fate, who was watching the carnage around them.
"No fair," she said with a slight gasp. "Even with my armor not weighing me down as much as your clunky metal plates, you got way too big of a head start."
"What's that?" Fate asked, ignoring her comment as he pointed at a particular hole in the garden.
"What's wha-…" she trailed off, finding the hole Fate was pointing at. "Oh."
Coming out of the hole was a section of a massive scaled serpent's body, its dark green scales glinting in the sunlight. That section was at least fifty feet in diameter, and around them, other parts of the serpent were sprouting out of the ground, surrounding the duo with large green arches covered in soil and flowers. They were trapped in a twisted version of the previous garden.
In front of them, the ground burst apart, the serpent's head springing out to tower above them, looking down from a height of twenty feet. It hissed, its slit eyes dilating as it smelled its prey. The spread-out pieces of its long body disappeared, only to reappear closer to Cait and Fate, forming a solid wall a hundred feet high around them as the snake coiled itself.
It left a space two hundred feet in diameter around them, the glint in its eye giving Fate the worrying thought that they were about to be apples in a game of Snake with a hungry Avatar.
The snake lowered its head to get a better look at its catches. Its eyes flicked back and forth between the two of them, presumably trying to determine who to eat first.
Fate cleared his throat. "Any chance you can let us pass?"
A hissing, throaty laugh emanated from the snake. "No," it said in a deep, gravelly voice, surprisingly devoid of the hissing stereotypical of talking snakes. "My master said I must kill you. Displeasing him would mean my death, and I am infinitely more important than two intruding strangers."