Lux chooses to fight

Lux hesitates to say it, but she knows there’s only one choice. She can’t just turn and run, not after everything. She looks up at Sylvia, noticing that Minn has been hovering apprehensively nearby.

“We fight,” she says. “We get out of here together.”

Sylvia’s expression flickers with some unreadable emotion before she composes herself, and gives a nod. “Very well. Then now is the time.” She extends a hand toward Lux, and murmurs her words of power.

A warmth rushes into Lux – not arousal, but the glow of a comforting hearth, of a hot meal in her belly, of a crowd roaring her name. Strength – but not strength. Courage. The weapon in her hand feels nimbler, deadlier. Eldritch power crackles in her veins. She can do this. She could always do this, she knows that now. She only needed to believe.

There’s no need for delay. The Hamadryad has no possessions to gather – for her, the forest provides. Minn flits about, too nervous to speak but eager to lead the way. All three of them ready to leave this place far behind them.

Lux would feel two feet taller marching through the cold, dark archway back into the maze, if not for having Sylvia at her heel, still towering over her in her effortless grace. But who needs to be tall? Weapon in hand, allies backing her up, nothing is going to stand in her way.

…yet even empowered like this, the distant krick and crackle of breaking thorns still sends a shiver through her. The monster senses their approach. It’s coming.

They make it only a little distance down the passage, Minn leading the way, before the guardian bursts into view. Its oily form spills forcefully out of the cracks in the vine-structure, blocking their path with its oozing mass. Ponderously, it rises up, a silent, deliberate show of strength, glittering maliciously in the shadowy gloom of its twisted domain.

Minn shrieks a curse, and sends a brief cascade of dazzling light down at the thing – there’s no sign it even notices, blind as it is. Well, worth a shot.

As Sylvia said, it ignores Lux at first. Pseudopods erupt from its body to whip out around the Hamadryad, who makes little effort to evade it – she must know there’s no point. Only once it has a firm hold of her does it shift its posture, and although it has no eyes with which to look, Lux knows it’s aware of her.

Staring down the beast, Lux feels a prickling sensation, beads of sweat breaking out on her skin. A level of panic that she’s not sure she could control, without Sylvia’s magic to bolster her. This thing overpowered her so easily before – but not now. Not again.

At first, the guardian’s attack is almost leisurely. This, after all, is the opponent it so readily and so thoroughly defeated before. It lashes out –

– but Lux has a weapon that cuts now. And it cuts well. A swish, a slash – and the tendrils fall away, severed, useless. Before the creature can react, she moves in to jab at its body. It’s sluggish, more so now that half its attention is on holding Sylvia. It whips wildly to drive Lux back, fighting for distance – for time to refocus.

Lux’s eyes narrow, primal magic singing through her. This is her chance. This is the only chance she’ll get.