Floor 1: Mouse Girl

With few other choices, you step forward and decide to start on your endeavor. You walk out of the entranceway and into the twisted and winding corridors of what you assume is the first floor that you have to best. Unfortunately, that seems to be all that you do for a while. You find yourself twisting and turning through identical corridors and find yourself in small chambers that only lead to other parts of the rocky tunnel system. Finally, you reach what appears to be a room larger than the rest. It isn't quite as large as the Portal Room, but larger than the ones that you've encountered before. Ahead of you is a stairway up and out of sight.

"Well, that wasn't difficult."You mutter to yourself as you feel your body relax. Part of you is a little disappointed, but if the first "floor" of this nightmare decides to be this easy, then you'll take it. You walk to the stairway and collide with a cold and invisible barrier stopping you from reaching the first step.

Circe's amused chuckle fills your head and you hear her speak "Hmm, so you found the exist before encountering your first challenge? Unsurprising, I suppose considering she's an expert at moving around quietly. You can't progress until you've encountered some kind of trial on this floor and surpass or succumb to it."

"What? That's hardly fair! I found your exit!" You call after the disembodied voice futilely. You don't like being stuck in this demon's game, but it also seems like you don't have much choice in the matter at this stage. Perhaps finding a way to sneak out or cheat might come up later...With a sigh, you wander back out into the labyrinthine corridors and try to make a mental note of where these stairs are for when you complete Circe's challenge.

You're sure that it's been at least a few hours since you first entered the bland and identical corridors of this walkway. You haven't even heard another sound, but that all changes when you think that you hear faint footsteps ahead of you. You try to follow them and arrive at a split in the path and listen carefully for a few more seconds and hear more footsteps faintly echoing down the walkway and use those to guide your way.

A faint female voice sounds out ahead of you, "Ah...Blast. A dead end." Sure enough, you arrive in a small, dead-end chamber and see your quarry ahead of you. The sound of your footsteps catches her attention and she quickly turns around to face you. A small blade is lifted by both of her hands and pointed at you. "s-stay back! I'm not afraid to use this!"

To say the woman isn't very intimidating would be an understatement. You stand roughly head and shoulders over her and she is quite thin with little muscle on her body. You can tell this because she isn't wearing much in the way of clothing. A cloth cowl is draped over her shoulders and comes down over her chest just enough to cover her small breasts. A leather string ties the cowl together at her chest and you see no sign of her wearing a bra underneath. Her skirt is very short. Short enough that you can see most of her pale thighs and probably more if she bent over. A long, brown-furred tail waves cautiously from behind her, but her more defining non-human feature is a pair of rounded mouse ears on the top of her head and also covered in brown fur. Her brown hair was cut short and looked quite boyish with bangs that don't come anywhere close to her dark brown eyes that have a surprisingly fierce determination behind them. Her feet are bare...which probably explains why you haven't heard her until now.

You keep a hand on your blade cautiously in case she decides to rush you. "Look girl, I don't even know who you are. Let alone that you were stuck in the same maze as I was. Why would you think that I would have any intention of hurting you?"

The mouse girl scrunches her nose at you, "First off. I'm not 'girl'. I'm an adult! You can call me Rosie. Thank you very much! Second of all, I know you're after me because I heard your big, stupid feet stomping on after me for the last hour. The only reason I didn't manage to sneak around you this time was because of this dead end. So don't even try lying to me again or I'll...cut you!"

It seems like this "Rosie" girl is determined for a confrontation. The only question is how to go about it. She doesn't seem to have much skill with a weapon based on how she's holding that knife, but a sharp blade is a sharp blade. It's still dangerous.