17- The Escape
The woman's soft voice, despite the words, were not friendly at all. The covenant was not the place for amiable coworkers. As if to reinforce Vixen's thought process the woman marched over and grabbed her right breasts then bent down, "You'll die here, unless you think you can escape from us," the woman whispered in her ear. Vixen squirmed and tried to alleviate the growing pleasure in her crotch by rubbing her knees together.
The woman laughed and Vixen heard a door close. Using her mana sense again she was able to determine that the strange woman actually left. Now that Vixen was alone she was going to try something she's never done before, she was going to try to use body modification on herself. The description had said "sexual partners", but she has fucked herself technically speaking and thought it was worth a shot.
Laying down on the stone bench she focused on her body, struggling in her concentration due to her ever building lust. Five minutes go by, ten minutes go by, and after fifteen minutes her concentration finally settles and her breast start shrinking. Elated, she shrank them down all the way leaving quite a bit of slack in the rope, red marks from the rope still appeared on her skin where her breasts used to be. Like a snake shedding skin, she wiggle and wormed out of her bindings.
Her hands were still tied, but at least she could put them in front of her. She undid her blindfold, and using her teeth, she untied her hands and she was free. She looked around the room for her armor and was not surprised that she hadn't seen it.
The room was dimly lit, it looked like a disaster and like a storage room, barrels and chests everywhere, junk strewn about, and spiderwebs hung from every corner of the ceiling. She quickly opened chests to see if she could find anything useful, the only thing she was able to find of use in the quick five minute search was a nightgown, a belted sheethed dagger, and a set of lockpicks.
She belted the lockpicks on one leg and the dagger on the other, she threw the nightgown over her and it came down to just above her knees. She opened the only door into the room, the hallway was pitch black except for the little sliver of light that escaped from the door she had opened.
'I might as well kept the blindfold on,' she thought as she used her mana detection ability again. There were four doors on each side along this hallway one of which was unlocked. She opened the door slowly and it creaked, she leapt back and used shroud, just as a man dressed like an executioner walked out looking around for who had disturbed him, light now flooding the hallway.
Vixen peered inside and wish she hadn't; bodies by the dozen laid beheaded, some eviscerated, and a few hanging on the ceiling by hooks implanted under their collarbones, they periodically twitched with pain.
She slowly backed away, she wasn't trying to fight the whole covenant, it wouldn't work out well for her. After a few minutes of not seeing or hearing anything the executioner went back in and slammed the door and she made a mental note of which door that was. Although Cadel had picked a few locks in his lifetime he was by no means an expert. Vixen would just have to make sure she didn't break any of them.
The lock rang out a loud click from the door closest to her starting point, she jumped back and used shroud again and waited, a couple minutes went by and no one entered into the hallway. She creaked the door open and entered, it was a completely empty stone hallway void of any light whatsoever. She spread out her mana as she took one step after another. Her foot depressed a stone a fwoop fwoop sound resounded in the quiet corridor and her mana detection projectiles coming her way. She dodged both narrowly, 'A booby trapped hallway, these assholes,' she thought a lot more cautious with her steps and forced herself to not touch any of the walls.
She had to make two left turns and both times she had managed to trigger traps. One she didn't dodge entirely, but wss quickly healed by regeneration. The other, she had heard part of the floor receed and, almost falling, jumped over the gap to reach the door. Whenever tried the handle the door unlocked and she entered. It was the same hallway she started in, she knew because the door she entered from to get to the booby trapped hallway was partially ajar.
She found two more similar hallways, each time either getting a mild injury or just having the gods scared out of her. She picked the last lock on the door, and went inside. It was another hallway, but this time the steps descended downwards. The hallway was lit, butnshe wasn't going to let the fact it was easy to see lull her into a false sense of safety either. It diligence was rewarded too, she had found several hard to see traps because of the light. She avoided them and continued descending down the stairs.
Once she was passed all the traps she stepped onto the floor which had finally leveled out. She was only able to see a few feet into the large dark room, her eyes struggling to adjust. She walked forward trying to make out way lay in the darkness. Once she had gotten to where she thought the center of the room was she felt herself get shackled, based on the weight she could tell the shackles were embedded into the floor.
Two spotlights illuminated her, squinting at the sudden brightness. She could barely make figures in the distance, none approached her. A voice rang out, she didn't recognize it.
"Escaping without a weapon within twenty minutes, Grade A."
Another voice pierced the silence.
"Completely exploring the area without getting caught. Grade A."
A voice different from the others spoke out.
"Evading all traps successfully without injury or light source, Grade A."
The original voice spoke again.
"Quickly finding an exit and escaping, Grade C."
'What is going on,' visible confusion on Vixen's face.
The second voice turned more aggravated.
"What do you mean grade C? While she took longer than the others, she has clothes, a dagger, and lock picks. Instead of spending time looking for her armor, gorgeous by the way, she made do with what she could quickly find and is the only contestant left alive that has a weapon. She could've carried out a job before leaving and even evaded Guillotine. C my ass."
"Um," Vixen asked, "What's going on here?"