When in doubt, throw people into something like the Danger Room

[cutting_edgex23]

X stops in front of a vast, dark cave mouth, head tilting as she studies it for a second.

Then she turns to Brienne and Harry.

"This is where we go in."

Beat.

"You are ready?"

Comments

[harryhotspur]

Harry's sword is already drawn, and when a branch gets close enough that he can no longer pretend it's just coincidentally blowing in the wind, he takes a swing.

[cutting_edgex23]

These branches appear to either not know what swords are, or are willing to take the hits in order to let at least a few of them wrap around Brienne and Harry's legs.

At least that's what they're attempting.

X, meanwhile, appears to have leapt onto one of the striking branches and is trying to climb it toward the tree at the heart. There is a lot of shaking going on over by where she is, at least.

[maid_of_tarth]

Brienne jumps high over the branches reaching for her legs, slashing downwards at them.

They skitter back, as if afraid, but who knows how long that will last.

She looks at what X is doing. "Is there a weakness at the heart of the tree?" The question is directed at X, but also at Harry, if he happens to have a good guess.

[harryhotspur]

Harry doesn't seem to have any idea-- Harry doesn't seem to be particularly listening, as he is mostly occupied with trying to get enough leverage to somehow hack through a branch that has coiled itself around his sword.

[cutting_edgex23]

He and the tree are going to be playing tug-of-war with his blade in a moment.

Trees are very stubborn.

Meanwhile, X --

"I do not know. Most creatures guard their centers. It is not impossible."

She twists and drops to a different branch, neatly avoiding several that were attempting to entangle her and the rogue twig she was riding.

"I do not think there are teeth."

But the branches make that hard to be sure of, deep in the darkness off the path.

[maid_of_tarth]

Brienne jumps onto a branch, struggling to ride it as if it were a spirited horse.

Make that a rabid horse. She hangs on and somehow crawls to the center. It just looks like wood, nothing unusual. But she raises Oath keeper and plunges it into the heart of the tree.

[cutting_edgex23]

The tree screams, fountains of black ichor shooting into the air.

Then it melts.







Right.

Well.

X can roll with that.

[maid_of_tarth]

Brienne jumps, just before the tree melts. Ichor splashes on her torso and onto her skin, scalding her painfully, but she dodges the melting tree.

She looks around to see how X and Harry are doing, Oathkeeper still drawn. She's especially worried about Harry, who is but flesh and blood like herself, and not...whatever X is made of.

[harryhotspur]

Harry-- has been engaged in tug-of-war with a tree branch. But the screaming certainly draws his attention. The tree recoils from the spray of ichor as well, and he manages to reclaim his sword and mostly stumble out of its way.

"The center, then?" he calls brightly.

[cutting_edgex23]

"That would be sensible," X allows, darting down a tree branch in Brienne and Harry's direction.

"I will keep the branches off you. It will help you focus."

Plus she's got four limbs with adamantium blades on them.

It helps.

[maid_of_tarth]

Brienne jumps onto another tree branch and scrambles up ungracefully. She's not looking forward to the ichor, or the melting, but she grits her teeth and stabs the tree in the center.

She dodges the flying liquids, and leaps to kill another tree. And then another.

[harryhotspur]

Harry gleefully follows suit, dodging his scrambling his way to the heart of a tree and plunging in his blade before moving onto the next. He doesn't seem unduly troubled by the ichor, caught up as he is in the rhythm of the attack.

[cutting_edgex23]

X eventually stops defending them from branches, not least because there are fewer and fewer branches reaching out for them.

Also eventually --

"You can stop. Now."

Beat.

"They are retreating."

The trees, that is. It's interesting to watch, really, as the edge of the forest begins to recede very very slowly from the road.

[harryhotspur]

Harry, breathless and splattered with ichor, looks to X. "Ought we pursue?"

[maid_of_tarth]

Receding trees. Now there is a sight Brienne hasn't seen before.

"Yes, ought we? Else they may come back and attack again."

She doesn't want to, having quite enough ichor on her. But she's curious what X will say. She doesn't have a sense, yet, of how X's instincts are balanced between attack and restraint.

[cutting_edgex23]

X tilts her head, studying them both for a long, quiet moment.

The trees continue their slow retreat.

"You think they will?"

And do they think that is relevant?

[harryhotspur]

"I do not know," Harry says. Maybe they're gathering reinforcements. "We might continue forth, and see if they return to pursue."

[maid_of_tarth]

"Or we can simply leave, before they can do that," Brienne says, her mouth quirking. "This is their forest, after all...or at least, not ours. I suppose we can just retrace our steps."

...wherever their steps were. It's a little hard to tell how they came.

[cutting_edgex23]

X blinks.

Twice.

"This is the Labyrinth."

Beat.

"There is only forward."

[harryhotspur]

"Then we press forward!" Clearly! "And if they trouble us no more, we need not trouble them."

[maid_of_tarth]

There is only forward sounds ominous--like the place is made from witchcraft. But then, isn't all of Milliways made from such?

Brienne nods, and slides Oathkeeper back into its sheath. But she keeps her hand on the hilt as she walks forward.

[cutting_edgex23]

A snowstorm, a flooded river, a vast desert, another forest --

As they go they pass through many lands in brief snatches, and in each place there is someone who needs help, or someone who is choosing to harm, or occasionally both.

X lets Harry and Brienne take the lead, except where too much hesitation would be fatal for someone.

And eventually --

Milliways. Again. Though they certainly did not emerge from a cave mouth.

[harryhotspur]

Harry looks back over his shoulder as they find themselves back in Milliways once more. No, that's definitely not the cave they came in through, is it.

"So that is the Labyrinth. I had heard much of it." And here he is, out the other side, covered in ichor and dirt.

[maid_of_tarth]

Brienne's not happy about the ichor, but it's not as bad as blood. And the flooded river managed to get some of it off her, anyway.

"I'd heard very little. Other than it being...odd. Is it ruled by the Landlord, or by Bar, or...someone else?"

[cutting_edgex23]

"Not everything is ruled," X offers, after a moment of thought.

"It is safer not to assume."

Beat.

"And you will never see the Landlord. I do not think they are very relevant."