Kat glared angrily at the pond in front of her. She had taken a lengthy trip down the left paths, and even spent a while going only right. Nothing changed until she once again decided to backtrack, and of course, when backtracking you end up in the damned clearing instead of where you were supposed to be. Now Kat was debating once again, if the pond was evil or not.
Of course, instinctively Kat realised that a pond could not be evil in and of itself. Her mind had not left her, despite the likely, hours, perhaps longer, spent wandering the wheat maze. And yet, it seemed to be the heart of her problems.
It was the only thing in the maze that was different in the slightest. The round room with the pond. And so yes, it must be important… but trusting it to not be a trap was hard. *I mean, really how many dream ponds have I even met? Surely not that many? So how can I trust it.*
Despite her complaining though, it began to look more and more like her only option was to jump in. She slowly dipped her two in the water, with a frown on her face, as if she was expecting something to jump out and bite her foot off.
When in fact, nothing at all happened. Well, Kat wouldn't say she was disappointed of course, but her expectations certainly were not met. Frowning at the pool for another few seconds Kat sighed and steeled herself.
*I suppose this is what it comes to isn't it. There is only so many times you can take a left or right turn in an endless wheat field before you finally decide to just end it all by jumping into a pool of water with no bottom.*
*Man, I hope Minor will be ok…* Kat looked down at Minor, who was now for the most part healed. She hadn't woken up but almost all of the cracks had completely disappeared. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. Kat jumped forward
As soon as the water covered her head, Kat felt everything shift, then, the water covering her face disappeared. Opening her eyes Kat found herself in a dark area, where it was raining heavily. The details were hard to make out, but with the rush of air surrounding her she could tell she was falling.
Kat was about to stretch her wings out to their full length but stopped herself and instead threw some energy toward her mind to slow things. *That was close. I don't know how fragile Minor is at the moment. Stopping my fall so abruptly could be just as bad as hitting the ground. Now I just need to go about this slowly.*
Kat spread her wings out slightly, just enough to catch some more air and felt her descent slowing. Giving a few light flaps with wings half extended further slowed things down, until Kat felt comfortable spreading them out to full length and gliding the rest of the way.
Looking down, Kat saw a huge forest. It looked dark and ominous with the rain overhead… but also vaguely familiar. Kat was tempted to go back through her memories to pinpoint why but dismissed it as having more important things to do.
*Hmm, this could be a hard landing.* Kat bit her lip as she examined the trees. They were too close together for her to keep gliding. She required a bit of space and at least some horizontal movement if she was going to avoid flapping her wings and potentially jolting Minor too much.
Considering the fact that the trees were so close, she likely couldn't evens stretch her wings to full, let alone flap them or glide, Kat needed a different plan. *Is it good enough to just land on these trees somewhere? The issue is where. I can't really tell which branches are stable from above, there is simply too much leaf cover.*
*And I don't want to just crash through the canopy. I'd hate to bash Minor through a bunch of branches… but I probably can't risk falling fast enough to snap them all because then I'm back to the whole falling to fast problem… *
*What about raising Minor above me… the issue really then is her tails. They still stick out a bit because of how fluffy they are… but that might be for the best… wait what about my tail? Can I do anything useful with that.*
Kat chewed on her lip while looking down at the approaching canopy. *Hmm, not really? Maybe I should improve my eyes, look for a spot, then use my tail and a bit of demonic energy to cut through it all.*
Kat nodded to herself and followed through with her plan. Finding a thick branch beneath the leaves wasn't too hard, and just required her to make a slight left turn. Gliding over towards it, Kat empowered her tail, and got ready to slice through the branches
A swift flick of her tail was all it took to slash through the tree branches, causing them to crash to the ground. Gently drifting down past the now clear tree tops, Kat let herself drift to rest on a large branch, taking extra care with her arms to ensure that her legs and elbows took as much of the impact as she could managed
*Huh… new problem. Cutting away a few branches is nothing… but that mess looks like it might take some time.* Looking down, Kat saw a large number of trees and vines crisscrossing each other, all intertwining. Leaving nothing to stand on its own.
*Dam, if I want to try and make my way through that I nearly have to take the whole section of forest down. Half the branches are snaked around each other and the other half are tied together with vines. Heck, I'm lucky I managed to find a good spot to stand with just a few swipes.*
Kat bit her lip and tried to study the area closely. There really did seem to be nothing she could do to get around it. Even sticking close to the trunk, if it wasn't a branch from that tree, it was a competing branch from another.
*Hmm, would it be safe to perhaps wrap Minor up in some of these vines, tie her to the tree and then smash my way down? I'd be worried that I might bring too much down. Depending on what gives way when, the vines or the trees, I might be pulling on a good chunk of forest. That and I really don't like the thought of leaving Minor unattended. If this is anything like the wheat maze, leaving her behind might separate us permanently.*
Kat sighed. *This might be the first time I really wish my fire was the burning kind. I can only flash freeze things…* Kat slapped herself in the face with her tail. *Which I'm more than capable of doing. I'm worried about the trees rebounding and hitting Minor or something but if I freeze them, then shatter them I should be fine. Why didn't I just think of that the first time.*
Stretching out her tail, Kat summoned a bead of fire on the end. It seemed to almost understand her desire and easily slid onto the nearby vine. Once there Kat started to overcharge it feeding it more and more energy until she'd used up about a third of her reserves.
This was more than enough for the fire to spread greedily across perhaps 10m2 of land. Kat watched as the vines froze over and started to turn slightly blue, likely the water inside them coming to the surface and freezing them.
Once the fire head blazed for around a minute Kat took a step forward so that she was partly on the frozen surface and stretched out her wings, ready for the fall, before slamming her tail as close to the centre as she could manage.
With a crack, the support structure failed, and shattered, allowing Kat to start gliding down. As soon as she did so, though, Kat noticed that there was still a few layers of branches between her and the ground. She had taken out at least two maybe three, but there was another five or six left so she'd have to repeat the process a few more times.
*No rest for the wicked I guess.* Thought Kat as she set about removing the last of the obstacles in her way. It wasn't hard, simply a matter of repeating the idea. It did make Kat especially glad that she'd come up with it, as trying to bash her way through such an immense amount of foliage would have been a large inconvenience.
Finally, Kat managed to catch of glimpse of the ground below.. Kat's eyes sharpened as she searched the leaf covered floor for anything strange, looking for the slightest movement, or some disruption that would indicate a trap.