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[b][u]The Tower: Third Floor: Group A[/u][/b]

Panic began to grip the Pride, despite their best efforts to resist. It didn’t seem to matter what they did, every action they took, every touch of the statues they made just resulted in a worse outcome. The pendulum swung back and forth, faster and faster. After the inadvertent destruction of the axe Trixie hoped to place in one of the statue’s hands after it was knocked away by the pendulum, the statue’s legs rose up and down, marching to a standstill. The rhythmic footfalls sounding uncannily alike taunting laughter over and over. As if twisting the knife in even deeper, the gas itself seemed to hiss and pour in at an even greater rate. Was there even a way out? In a nightmarish landscape such as this… who was to say there was ever an exit? Or that there was meant to be one?

They were taken aback by just how quickly the gas filled the room. It made it difficult to see, hard to breathe. None of them could risk taking a step forward, not the constant see-sawing of the bladed pendulum back and forth. As the gas seeped in, enveloping the room in a dense, sickly pale green gas, they could barely even see one another. Tears strained Estelle’s eyes amongst the laborious coughing. She fell to one knee. 

“Cough… hack… cough…! This… this can’t… be it…” Estelle groaned. One eye opened, glaring at the statue closest to her, its ominous glowing eyes mockingly looking down on her. This wasn’t right. Give her an enemy to fight. Someone she could swing her sword at, who she could actually hit. An actual chance to win! Not this!

Don was already lying on the ground, unable to move a single inch, his ears deaf to his friends’ agonising hacks and sputters.

Marcus meanwhile, was protected by a thin sliver of wind that raced and enveloped his whole body, keeping the gas at bay and blowing it away. But soon, eventually… there’d be nothing left in the room bar the gas, and his thin smatter of oxygen couldn’t last forever. There had to be a way out… there was no way he’d be defeated like this. No way he would allow his friends… allow Estelle, to be hurt like this. None. 

His eyes shone a bright emerald, his body’s robes following suit, bustling in the breeze. He extended both arms out, magical circles appearing from his hands, and forming across all four of the walls, the ceiling and floor. His magical reserves were running low… and he didn’t wish to particularly demonstrate the extent of his magic like this in front of his friends, for fear of too many questions… but there was no other option. 

If there was any way out… any weakness within this locked box… he would break it. 

The room shuddered and coiled. To the ears of those still barely conscious, they managed to hear something. Something close to… a scream. 

The walls, floor and ceiling all erupted outwards, shattering into a thousand pieces, as Marcus fell unconscious.