The Trials (Part 5)

Iskandor, Hikari, Serena and Fenrir made it across the gap with relative ease, however Lar was a few inches off due to her leg injury, luckily Iskandor noticed this and pulled her forward at the last second.

"We aren't safe yet, keep running!" Iskandor shouted, supporting Lar while keeping pace with everyone else.

"The scent of blood is stronger ahead." Fenrir warns, Iskandor relays this while wondering how to allow everyone to understand him.

"Looks like the corridor narrows up ahead, should be enough to stop the boulder." Hikari says.

"It's probably trapped too, so be careful." Iskandor warns, quickly doing the math and realizing that by the time they make it through the boulder would impact their backs. The impact likely wouldn't be fatal but would hurt quite a bit. "Dive forward!" He yells, impacting the floor would hurt much less than a voulder to the back.

Thankfully no one was seriously hurt, the biggest injuries were the dart to Lar's leg and a rolled ankle on Serena's right foot.

"Once we get past this death trap I think we've earned a break..." Serena groans.

"I second that." Lar says.

"We aren't quite safe yet..." Hikari says, urgently. The sounds of heavy hoofsteps could be heard not too far ahead.

"I think I hear the dragging of a weapon too... Not smart as it could blunt an edge but it could be better for us..." Iskandor says. "Let's just hope we don't get stuck between a rock and a hard place."

"No time for humor, Lar, can you use your bow?" Hikari asks.

"Yeah, but I probably won't be doing much dodging." Lar responds.

"Neither would I." Serena adds.

"I'll take aggro, Lar you can shoot when you get a clean shot. Serena, when I give you the signal use your light magic to try and blind it. Hikari, while it's blinded try to sever the tendons in the legs, I'll do the same for the arms." Iskandor says, drawing his sword. "Now, who wants to kick some ass!"

The minotaur turns the corner, having the head and legs of a bull and torso of a man it stands 7 feet tall, dragging an abnormally large pollaxe. The blade of the axe is juse over a foot with a 6 inch spike coming from the opposite side, the shaft of the weapon nearing 8 feet.

"Damn... He has some major reach with that thing... Looks like I got a challenge on my hands." Ismandor mutters, starting a charge against the minotaur that seems to have a slow start. "Hey ugly! You sure your mama was a cow and not a brahma? Or was your Daddy uglier than a cockroach?" Iskandor taunts.

The minotaur roars in response and swings the pollaxe, Iskandor narrowly dodges but Lar takes the opportunity to fire an arrow, piercing it's shoulder. Unfortunately it didn't do nearly as much damage as it seemed like it should have. The minotaur started to turn but Iskandor landed a solid cut on it's arm.

"You gonna fight someone who can barely fire a bow? I thought you would prove to be a challenge and not a coward!" Iskandor taunts yet again, giving yet another slash before backstepping out of it's reach. "You can't be so BLIND not to realize what's happening can you?" Iskandor asks, shielding his eyes as Serena floods the room in a bright light.

"This was suprisingly easy!" Hikari cheers, only to realize her cuts, like Iskandor's, weren't deep enough to sever tendons. "Or maybe not..."

"If blades won't cut, maybe shadows will." Iskandor states, using shadow magic to try to cut into the minotaur's flesh to little effect.

"What do we do now?" Serena asks.

"Bludgening." Iskandor replies. He maneuvers his sword so he holds onto the blade and swings it down onto the minotaur's wrist much like how one would use a polearm. It suprisingly loosens the minotaur's grip just enough that Iskandor managed to take the pollaxe from it's hand, despite abandoning his sword. "Then we axe it a question." Iskandor jokes, swinging the pollaxe with all his might onto it's shoulder. By now the minotaur's vision is restored and is fuming in rage. Luckily the pollaxe dealt significant damage.

"Really? A bad joke?" Hikari mutters while recovering Iskandor's sword before it gets trampled.

"Where is the exit, or are you going to 'poll' our leg?" Iskandor asks, aware of Hikari's comment.

The minotaur, clearly not cooperative tries to grapple Iskandor but instead gets a fireball to the crotch. "I actually heard that somewhere on Earth, bull balls are considered a delicacy, anyone feeling adventurous?" Iskandor than asks.

"The fuck..." Lar mutters, simultaneously disgusted, confused and impressed.

The minotaur, angered and humiliated foregoes any form of defense and begins a mindless charge, trying to kill Iskandor. However, it was exactly what Iskandor was planning on. Iskandor ducks and slides beneath it's legs while heating the spike on the pollaxe to the point it's yellow hot and swings it, aiming for the minotaur's ass. "I'm sure this will be at least 1,000 years of pain!" He yells. The minotaur, humiliated even more than it thought possible collapses, it had lost all will to live. "Show us the way out or I won't be as gentle as I was just then." Iskandor commands, getting a soft giggle from Lar due to the poor choice of wording. The minotaur pulls a coin out of it's loin cloth and drags itself away.

"This can't be a normal coin can it?" Lar asks, looking at the coin.

"Kind of looks like a golden drachma, but a bit larger and if it had a subtle mechanical mechanism within. Mind if I take a close look?" Iskandor asks. After closer examination it seems to be a real-time map of the maze on one side with the face of someone on the other and some ancient looking text. "This is impressive, I never expected to find something so intricate here. At lease we should find our way out if we can figure out where we are."