The platforms jerked into motion.
One foot hit the platform. The rest of Rin followed.
Then he began to slide back towards the lava as the entire platform began to rotate up.
Desperately, Rin grabbed for the chains holding the platform above the lava. His fingers instinctively closed around the metal links to keep his body up. Heat seared through mere flesh, and Rin could feel it melt. But there wasn’t any pain. Oh, that’s definitely not good!
A twist of his torso and a kick got Rin farther up the chain and clear of the platform as it flipped upside down. Hanging from the chains with his better protected legs, Rin shook out his fingers and took a quick, harried glance around.
The platforms were moving in formation around the lava lake. Several were in the process of flipping. Some were rising upwards. A few were dipping down into the lava. And perhaps most worryingly of all, the platforms were doing all this in turn.
Rin watched the platform ahead of his drop into the lava, then rise back up, glowing white, a few moments later.
His platform began to rotate again, and the chains creaked, announcing the imminent drop.
Rin used the underside of the platform as a spring board, kicking off it and leaping towards the next platform.
He landed on his feet, but the sheer heat of the metal had him clambering up the metal chains before the platform could even consider flipping.
With a lurch, the platform rose up, leaving Rin’s stomach somewhere far below. It began to flip again, as Rin tried to judge where the next platform was.
As his current platform began to drop back down, Rin jumped down to the next, rising, platform. He hit a lot harder than he had planned to, dropping to his knees, before scrambling back up.
The sudden whistle of something cutting through air had him dropping back to all fours before thought could actually process. The smell of burning cloth filled his nose.
A thick metal dart, filed to a fine, stiletto point at both ends, slammed into a matching bored hole on the other side of the wall.
As Rin watched with wide eyes, another, identical dart chunked into position and was shot back out. It flew over his head and back into the hole it had come from. Then it poked back out to do it all again.
Every hole had a dart.
And the platform was coming up to an area of the walls that was covered in neatly arranged rows of holes.
Blood and bone!
Rin scrambled for the chains, but the platform chose that moment to drop again. He smacked into the still warm, but strangely rapidly cooling platform, and could only hold on as it began to flip. Over the edge of the platform, Rin saw the next array of darts primed, right at head height.
A twist and several more grazes of skin on hot metal that he couldn’t actually feel, got Rin on the opposite side of the platform right as the multitude of darts fired. Rin shuddered at the sheer amount of thunks shattering against the metal underside of the platform.
He scrambled back to his feet and jerked his head about, searching out the next platform.
There wasn’t one.
The platform abruptly yanked sideways and threw Rin into one of the chains, searing his shirt and flesh alike. He struggled back to his feet, and his eyes locked onto his goal.
Solid ground!
Rin jumped and hit the nice, cool ground of solid stone floor.
And barely had time to react to the two gigantic swinging axes that chose that moment to release from the wall.
A desperate roll took him under one axe as it began its upswing again. A dodge got him clear of the second as it scraped over the floor where he’d been.
Rin reached the door and was through it before the fear actually hit him. Then his legs collapsed, and he fell into a gasping heap.
This is the continuation of Lava Room, V1 from last time.
I think I need to rework this entire idea. Lava’s important to the Pyramid, but I’m not convinced this whole room doesn’t come out of left field.
For those that celebrate, how were your winter festivities? Mine were pretty good! Nice and quiet, with a pretty backdrop of snow. :3
Word count: 677
Fluffy Mathematician 