D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

--- Marigold --- (Just before Lily found the race biome)

Marigold had shrunk down after the candy had run it. It only took five minutes, but it was five minutes of annoyance. The candy didn't even have the decency to make her slightly too big for the room so that she could feel the pain of the rocks digging into her body everywhere or the feeling of her boobs being crushed from forcing herself to fold over to fit. No, it was just boring. Marigold was all but certain the candy had a limiter on it to make sure those sorts of mistakes didn't happen… but Marigold couldn't say she was a fan.

At least it was slightly more interesting then wondering the fucking tunnels though! Marigold was starting to sing as she walked, and as anyone who knew Marigold could tell you, that was probably a bad sign. "Down here in the dark! Daa, daa, daa daa, dum. I'm lost and alone. Daa, daa, doo, doo dum, I'm just looking for SOME WAY OOOOUT! Baaa, Da Da Da DOO. I'm going crazy. Down here in the dark! Daa daa daa, daa dum, do. Cause there's nothing here to see. Just the stone walls and me. Down here in the dark! Baaaa, Da, Daaaaa. I am on my own. (Down here in the dark) and I'm just looking for something. SOMETHING. Down here in the dark!"

Marigold was actually quite decent at singing. When you could regenerate perfectly it meant you could train your voice to do all sorts of things without risk of permanent damage. Granted, most of that training had been to mimic voices and play pranks on people but it did mean Marigold could see quite well when she bothered. It just wasn't her cup of tea. Of course, there's only so many stone walls a woman can take. Even if there was the occasional treasure. Most of them had no challenges to speak of, so it was a simple matter of walk up. Open chest. Collect item. Leave. Still very boring.

"I say… I'm just looking for something!" Marigold was singing until suddenly, she actually found something. "Wait what's this?" Marigold went quiet as she approached the large ornately carved door in the tunnels. The cavern around it had widened significantly just to fit the door and its rather imposing size. It was easily three times Marigold's height, and emblazoned in large letters across the door was 'SPEAK THE MAGIC WORD AND THE DOOR SHALL OPEN?'

"Open the fuck up!" shouted Marigold. "Please!" Now. Marigold wasn't actually expecting anything here. The door contained quite a few distinct illustrations that seemed to tell a story. She was expecting to need to puzzle out the word from the clues on the door. Perhaps make a few wrong guesses, and eventually just start spouting random nonsense until the door opened. Not like she had anything better to do while she was stuck down here.

So door starting to swing open was definitely a surprise. It was slow going, and Marigold almost wanted to make a complaint, but technically it was opening so she just waited for the moment. Unconcerned with the fact the door was opening outwards towards her. If she got hit by the giant door, that was fine. Well, fine as long as it didn't cause the door to activate a safety protocol or something and shut back up.

*Wait… so what word was the magic word? Was it actually 'PLEASE'? That's ridiculous but something I could totally see Thyme doing… of course it could just as likely be 'Open' or 'Fuck' because that's still pretty funny… but I have no real way to test it now the door is open. Unless I can shut it? Do I want to shut it? What's even beyond it?*

Marigold stepped forward and tried to peak through the door but it was just blackness. In a firm line right where the door would normally be if it was closed. Marigold frowned at the sight and tapped her helmet a few times but the light shining from it made no difference at all to the darkness. Actually no… the light almost seemed to be sucked in by the wall. Marigold instantly discarded any interest she had in messing with the door and moved onto the darkness.

She slipped through the crack in the door, that was still opening slowly. Marigold felt the helmet get caught as she was slipping through. Marigold let out a long sigh and grabbed the helmet and leaned backwards slightly. Once the door opened far enough Marigold dropped backwards. It wasn't hard to stop herself from falling. At least, not in a physical sense. Marigold was tempted to just let herself fall, but the darkness was right there and she wasn't certain it was entirely safe. At least, not safe enough to risk her entire head.

An arm was perfectly fine though. So once Marigold had the helmet securely back on her head she stuck her entire arm into the darkness, not really expecting anything. To her surprise, she quickly felt something trying to take a bite out of her arm. She reeled it in and revealed a sort of… mouth on legs.

A bit of a basic description. More accurately it was a small ball with tiny legs and no arms. It's mouth covered the entire diameter of its body, splitting its face across the front. It was hard to tell exactly how wide the jaws could open while it was trying to take a bite out of Marigold, but she was guessing quite wide. Marigold whipped around. Slamming the thing into the door behind her. There was a loud crunch as the thing's skull cracked… but notably it did not let go of her arm.

*Well that's not good. I can take the damage from dozens of these. Maybe up to a hundred or so… but if they just don't let go even after they die I might be forced to slow down… and if they bring me down to the ground they'll just dogpile me forever. I might be able to heal, even through all that if they aren't efficient about it… but it would definitely be the end of my chances at winning. Well, my reasonable chances. I can't see Blue or March getting taken out by obstacles like this one. I'd need to get lucky with them taking each other out.*

Marigold gave the darkness slightly more space, pressing her back up against the door. She certainly had more respect for the horrors inside of it now. Originally, Marigold had assumed it was just a dark corridor and that was the whole gimmick. No light allowed. Now… now it seemed much deadlier. It did nicely explain why the 'magic word' was so easy to guess. It wasn't the real challenge, so much as it was helping keep these menacing things inside.

Marigold moved her arm up to her face for a few moments to examine the thing biting into her arm closely before trying to wrench its jaws off. This proved to be a problem. Due to the fact it had bitten onto her arm she couldn't get a proper too handed grip and her fingers alone certainly weren't powerful enough to pry it open. There was the possibility of just accepting damage to her arm, but the point of this was to test how hard the damned things were to remove. If she just ripped it off along with a good chunk of her arm she'd be wasting mana. Though perhaps not time.contemporary romance

Marigold tried a few more positions, even trying to lever off the thing with her foot but alas, the only way forward seemed to be ripping the thing straight off her arm. It was going to hurt, though of course for Marigold that was no issue. Grabbing onto one of the legs and pulling her arm in close Marigold pulled. Hard. Marigold could feel the bone in her arm shattering as she ripped the teeth free through muscle and skin. It wasn't a pretty sight but soon after her arm was in good condition again.

*Quite a bit of damage there. At least I don't need to replace my clothes… but I'm once again, debating if it's worth trying to enter the darkness without knowing how many of the things await me there. I can live through it… but the chance that they take me down is very possible and a medical evac would follow soon. The other issue… is that I've been on this pathway for a while. There hasn't been a branch for a good twenty minutes. Backtracking now will cost me a lot of time… but I might have to.*

Marigold stuck her hand into the darkness a second time and waited for the bite. A few moments passed and there was no pain. No attacks. Just… nothing. Marigold wiggled her fingers just to ensure they were still there… but nothing. "Huh… seems they aren't a swarming creature… but I was so certain that something like this would act sort of like a piranha…"

Marigold shrugged and entered the darkness with a hand on the wall. Moving along by feel. Familiar territory. Even the slight cuts. It's just that now she had a useless helmet and a risk of being attacked by balls of teeth. Wonderful.

Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.

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