You leap through the doorway of the old room, but instead of falling through the roof like you'd expect, since the door to the previous room was on the floor, you find the door coming out of a wall. And that gravity has suddenly switched, making you land on your back.
Standing with a groan, you look about. Before you, are fifteen holes. You guess it was made under the assumption that fifteen participents would still be alive. Above these holes, is a single note. Again, pinned to the wall by the feather of a raven. Someone reaches out and grabs it, and reads it aloud.
"Welcome, humble guests, to the maze. I applaud you for living up to this point, but don't think it over yet. Oh no, the fun is yet to begin.
Notice the holes, yes? They each lead to a button. A button which will open your personal escape from these tiny prisons. I do hope none of you are claustophobic, I wouldn't want to find your un-mangled corpse within these holes.
On a side note, a final warning. The last to exit will be the who exits not at all. Be forewarned, I will not take kindly to those who dawdle. If you take too long, these highly unstable holes just may collapse in on you. Who knows!
Good luck, my little rats, and hope you aren't the one to die."
You swallow and begin to shake, as you look at the hole. It's like a black hole, no light escapes it... You really have to crawl through that... and make sure you do it quickly... or else... You don't even want to think about it.
And before you can even think about it, you hear some garbling, before looking to your left. That female, what was her name... Cicso, you recall. She was on the ground, spittle and blood flying from her mouth as she convulsed on the ground. No one knew what to do, they just watched with a horrified look on their face. Finally she stopped, only a few twitches went throughout her body. Someone checked her pulse. None. She had been quite calm throughout this... the poison must have taken affect on her... You looked around, not knowing what you should do with her new corpse... You decide just to leave it, and go on forth into the hole.

(Teh rules: This round's more of a race than anything. To make sure people don't just go, "lol hit the button in first post", you must have posted at least five times before hitting the switch. BUT to also make sure people just don't post like, "you me you me" etc., there must be two posts in between your old one and your new one. Have fun~)

Dehgan looked back at the others who were making there way in. He shook his head and reminded himself that there was nothing he could do to help them at this point, short of giving up himself and dying. Dehgan cast a light spell and, in a careful hurry, he made his way into one of the holes, going into the darkness that lead to who knows where.

-Edge landed, rolling forward a little. He grabbed his leg and cursed, as blood trikled down it. Now both of his legs had a small cut on them. He gritted his teeth and ignored the pain, he had suffered worse. He just had to hope these small injuries wouldn't build up and be his undoing. As he got up, he looked at the note, then cursed to himself. He also looked to the woman. He wondered if he should check her body for any valiuables, then realised that this was going to be a race to the finish, and quickly climbed into a hole.

"I hope Link and Maddi don't take too long. It would suck if they were to be killed anti-climatically like this or somtehing." He muttered to himself as he made his way in. Edge couldn't see in the pitch-blackness, so he would have to use his sense of touch and 'somewhat touch, where you feel something even if it's not touching' to make his way through. He just hoped the hole wasn't lined with spikes or anything...

(And down, into the rabbit hole Edge goes.)

"Oh this is just lovley isnt it"
Sarkos tore up the note above one of the holes
"Well, I dont have any light inducing spe- wait-a-minute"
Sarkos made a small orb of lightning no more powerful than a battery, it floated just above his head as he started to crawl into the hole.

Davin landed hard on the floor, second one in. The first, Freak, had luckily landed in a different spot, or they might just have smashed heads. That would not have been pleasant, although she seemed like a nice enough gal.

The Sith Lord stood to his feet, brushing off his tabard and pants. He analyzed the situation, noting the fifteen holes, and girl dying slowly off to the side. Not the most pleasant thing to witness, but Davin was used to such sights, and so continued on with his analyzation of the fifth room. A note was the next thing that caught his sight. He read it intently, seeing what the cunning Raven had planned out this time.

"Welcome, humble guests..." He started out-loud, then proceeded to read the rest silently. Finally, he finished with the last sentence, smiling at the fact that the Raven had called them rats, after starting out by calling them his humble guests. Maybe he enjoys the company of rats.

Nevertheless, it was obvious that this maze was some sort of race, and Davin planned on living to reach the finish. The dark didn't bother him, as he was physically blind anyway. He simply hunched over, and crawled into the opening in the wall, keeping on his hands and knees as much as possible.

Dehgan continued down the path he'd chosen. He heard some of the others already heading down their own paths. Dehgan continued his careful but hurried pace through the tunnel. as he made his way down the tunnel he could only hope but htink *What will happen in the final room?*

Edge continued to make his way down his chosen tunnel. He thought he could hear more people entering their tunnels, but he wasn't sure. He wasn't focusing on hearing, but feeling.

In the darkness, he thought to himself. About alot of things. How he was going to get out of there, what he would do once he made it out, things like that. He also thought about his competition...and THE competition. How many of them would make it out in the end? Most likely one, but maybe several would live. Or, maybe no one. Maybe the Raven was just toying with them and was going to kill them all by the end.

Who knows. For now, Edge's goal was just to make it to the next room, and see what happened from there. He pressed onward.

Freak got back on her feet, still a bit dazed and disoriented from the gravity change. Seeing Edge and Davin going into their holes, She figured that she should follow suit in her own hole. Not wanting to leave Maddi or Link behind, but she also knew that there wasn't anything she could do to help them. Picking a hole that wasn't already occupied, she dove in and began to crawl along.

As Davin crawled through the tunnels, he sensed the feelings of the others who were in nearby tunnels. Fear, worry, anger... If these people were force sensitives, getting them to turn to the Dark Side would be a sinch. However, they weren't, and the Sith Lord had more pressing matters at hand.

He kept his calm, focusing on navigating his way through the small, cramped tunnel, as quickly as he could. The path turned off to the left, then straightened back again. Then an odd thought hit him. What if this maze doesn't end? He realized that a never ending maze was impossible to build, but he certainly didn't put it past this strange Raven to do so.

Edge continued through the hole maze. To keep himself from going insane in the small dark maze, he was thinking to himself, and wondering. What would happen if two people had gone into the same hole, he wondered. Was there something in place that would kill them both, or kill the second person in? Also, were all the holes the same, or did some of them lead to instant death? These were the things he thought about as he moved on, through the darkness.

He also hoped to himself that this wasn't like that one manga he had read. The Enigma of Animgara Fault, he belived was it's name. Where the people went into their holes, and came out the other end rather twisted, not even human anymore. Edge hoped that wouldn't happen. He didn't wanna wander around with tiny limbs that bent in odd directions.

Still going onward, he wondered some more. How would he know if he had made it to the end? Moreso, how would he know how far the others had progressed? For all he knew, the others were moving alot faster than he was, and he would be the last one out. Or rather, the dead one who DIDN'T make it out.

And what of his injuries? Surely, they weren't enough to do a whole lot to him, as he could be stabbed and keep on going, but he was worried that neglecting them would lead to something lame like death by infection or bloodloss.

Finally, Edge decided to stop wondering about the hole, the tunnels, the darkness, all of that. Instead, he thought about the other key piece in all of this- The Raven.

(I gotta leave some space between this and my next post. I feel like Edge is moving too fast or something.)

Sarkos heard shuffling beside him as he heard people clamber into their own holes.
His mind was completly blank, all he focused on was the repetitive tunnel of d00m heading forward.

Dehgan continued onward. His progress had been temporarily slowed by some unseen obstacle, but he hadn't bothered to find out what it was, and personally, he really didn't WANT to know what it was.

Dehgan began to wonder as he made his way down the tunnel *I've managed to conserve most of my energy, I have my book...if only I had Illumina, or the bells back!* Dehgan shook his head while walking down the path *No good wishing for things that won't come, and something tells me the raven wouldn't appreciate Dehgan summoning his weapons from wherever he had them stored.

Yet again, Davin came to a turn. He shuffled his body to the right, so as to get past as quickly as possible. This was getting a bit monotonous. Perhaps he was nearing the end? Or, perhaps he was nearing his demise. He considered both of these alternatives better than being stuck in this cursed hole.

As he crawled further and further down the dark tunnel, a song came into his head... And got stuck. He didn't even like the song, but yet here it was, wedged inside of his mind, nagging away at him until he finally gave in. He began humming the tune. Perhaps this would help the time pass a bit quicker, although he was sure that, were any of his soldiers to hear him humming such a tune, he would probably lose much of the reputation he had come to gain.

The Raven. The one who got them all into this mess. The one who probably created all of this. What was up with him?

Edge tried to think of how the Raven got him there. What was he doing before this...he was at the bar, drinking. He remembered drinking with someone who had a strange accent and way of speaking. The person also didn't really seem human...

Ah, damn. The Raven must have just been waiting there with Edge for him to get drunk off his ass before whisking him to this deathtrap series of rooms. At least Edge wasn't hungover when he got up at the start of the whole thing.

Now then. What was the Raven thinking in all of this? Maybe he had some messed up thought process where he though all humans are worthless and they're just his playthings or something. Maybe he was really bored. Maybe they all committed a crime worthy of their deaths? Edge figured it may have been the last one, considering the other people in the competition with him.

He then realized, if it was the last one, no one would make it out alive. Hell, either way, with the way things have been going, none of them would make it out alive. However, there was a small chance of that not being the case...and Edge wasn't going to give up until he was dead.

Edge continued onward. In his mind, he played out a scene where he punched the Raven in the face. It kept him from thinking too much, and from freaking out or anything.

Dehgan sighed as he continued his way down this neverending tunnel. He continued on his way, thinking about various ends to this little game he'd managed to get himself into. In all honesty, none of them sounded all that good to him, since they involved everyone or ALMOST everyone dying. He shook his head and wondered just how long he'd been making his way down this blasted tunnel, and just when he'd find whatever would let him out. Determined not to die just yet, Dehgan continued forward.

"Ugh..." The Sith Lord groaned. "This crawling is kinda starting to hurt."


By this time, Davin stopped his humming, and focused completely on the task at hand. Getting through this tunnel. A turn, then Davin straightened back out. Yet another turn, and Davin straightened out again. He couldn't help but feel the pattern he was falling into, and it seemed as if it wasn't letting up. Still, he pressed on, using the force to boost his energy when needed.

((... Running out of things to say.))

Edge continued crawling through the darkness, when he was stopped at a dead end.

"Is this...the button?" He asked himself, as he reached out and touched the wall.

Nope. The wall fell over, revealling more tunnel for Edge to go through.

"Damn...I thought it was over." He said as he went on.

(OH NOEZ.)

Dehgan contniued onwards, lost in a train of thought. That is, until he ran into a solid object that impeded his path. Cursing, Dehgan rubbed the top of his head to see if he'd actually managed to hurt himself. finding nothing wrong, he ran his hand over the surface infront of him, to see just what he could find.

((I'm like...out of idea's...but I don't want to be the first done either. >.<))

Freak continued to crawl along the hole, feeling like one of the lab mice from her last job. A twisting maze with only one way out. Left . . . Left . . . Right . . . Left . . . Onward she crawled, wishing that she had a light of some kind to help her along the way. She should have gotten that lazy Col. Mustang to show her how to use Flame Alchemy before she left the Service.

She grumbled about that for a while longer as she skittered along towards the end.

((We can get out on the fifth time, right?))

Davin's knees, palms, and elbows felt as if they were going to explode. This crawling business was taking its toll on the Sith Lord. Still, he planned on pressing on until either they did explode, or he reached the end.

Suddenly, a clunking noise filled his tunnel as he crawled into a solid wall. Another turn? Had he lost his concentration enough to have missed that? But no, there was no turn. Instead, Davin turned to the wall he had just smashed his head against.

A button! This must be it!

He reached his hand up to the small button, and pressed it. The wall slid away, and revealed to Davin his exit. He crawled out, falling to the floor, then stood, heedless to the fact that his clothes were now rather filthy from the dusty tunnel.

First one out. He smirked, then turned to examine his surroundings.

Dehgan's hand searched the wall, and he smiled as he gound what he was looking for. He quietly spoke, "Button button...whose got the button? THAT would be ME." So Dehgan puched the button in and tumbled out into his new surrondings. Dehgan stood, dusting himself off, and glanced about to see who else had made it. So far as Dehgan could see, the only other one here was the Sith Lord. Dehgan produced his usual magical tome and began to read through it to pass the time, whilst he waited to find out for whom the bell tolled this time around.

Edge sighed as he moved through the maze. He had a feeling that he was shafted, and that he had the longest one out of everyone there. Just a hunch, but he still felt it.

He had also ran out of deep things to think about, so he just moved onward, mind blank.

(Dorp dee dorp.)

Sarkos like all the others continued to crawl through the tunnel.
The teeming darkness sweeping away at his hands and legs.
An empty void ahead of him slowly absorbing all and everything.

(3rd post)

Jared couldn't believe his horrible luck, his partner-to-be was an idiot. Though that was more likely an error of judgement than anything else. And he had gotten himself killed, which, all things considering, wasn't all that surprising. And even though his partners death wasn't all that unexpected, it had done a number on his already damaged sanity. Though even in Jareds somewhat deranged state, he still had the sanity to do what the raven said. Though, he reacted faster than he normally would, and he didn't actually think about why the raven was doing this, unlike before.

Without further hesitation, Jared climbed into the dark hole, and prayed he would survive the trip trough it.

Freak continued along in her hole. ((*snicker*)) Feeling the repetitive movement annoying, she wish to get this over with. All of a sudden . . . *snap* She didn't feel anything right away, so she figured that it had to have been either something she crawled on, or something with her arms. Sure enough, as she looked down, it was indeed her Auto-Mail. "Damnit, Granny Pinako is gonna kill me." She mumbled as she checked over the damaged area.

Her right hand was showing wear and tear from her last outing before ending up here. She should have gone in for maintenance, but she turned up in the first room before she had thought about it. Three of the spring loaded gears that caused her hand to open and close were cracked in half and the springs out of place and hanging loosely. "Well shit, I just hope I don't have to do a whole lot of climbing, cause it sucks doing it one handed." She complained.

She got right back into motion as she moved along in the hole.

((3rd post for me. =D ))

Sam was one of the ones left still in the room. In fact, he was one of the few left. He ended that promptly, putting his finger on the entry of one of the holes. He had just now rushed in from the spke room, where he did essentially nothing. And was incredibly bored. He decided to carve into the wall, "Kilroy was here" and a very crude drawing of a man with a large nose peeking over a fence. After a few more drawings on the wall, including a crudely drawn penis and a badly defined seaking with the words "SEAKING! FUCK YEAH!" he decided to go into the hole. Crawling in slowly, he merely winced at the total darkness. "'s cozy" His voice echoed back. He embarked further on in...

The hole which Jared had chosen, was absolutly FULL of mold, and most likely rats and insects as well. To be honest, none of this was all that bad at first though, save for the rats. Those things were vicious little creatures which were made of nothing but claws and fangs. But when one though about it, mold was not a good thing. The presence of mold most likely meant that the hole was unstable, as the mold had most likely been in the hole for years, based on its pure size, and the acid such an amount of mold would produce meant the hole would be very loose in some places. This really was not looking good for poor Mr. Parce.

"My my my, aren't you two rather un-observant?" a voice mocked behind the two victors. With a spin, they saw the owner. The Raven sat smugly, legs crossed and up on a foot stool, its hands laced together in its lap. It was sitting in a plain white lawn chair, and looking at two of its subjects. It cocked his head to the side, and looked at them. No emotion could be seen on its face, the mask hiding all. If there was even anything to hide. A slight wind passed through the tunnel, and ruffled the feathers on the side of its mask. It looked over these two, and assessed them each. One was blind, the other a magic user? What did it matter.
"Good work, you've made it out. That leaves seven others, if I've counted you bastards correctly. So, how do you do?" Each of them could just imagine the sick little grin that must be spreading across the Raven's face.

Dehgan's heart sent itself into panic mode when he heard the Raven's voice. A sudden thought burst into his head *How..? I had detection wards up!* Forcing the fear and panic that had temporarily seized control over his throught, Dehgan turned and faced the Raven replying, "I do well, thank you for asking. How are you?" Dehgan's eye's temporarily glanced over to the holes to see if anyone else was coming out. So far, it appeared no one was. Returning his gaze to the Raven, Dehgan could almost see the air of power that hung around him. To be honest, Dehgan was starting to feel REALLY bad about the odds.

Sam continued crawling. He heard dancing echoes- Three of them. A female and two males. The female was muttering incoherently, it was close. Barely familiar- The males were nonchalant, and possibly miles away. But the sound was treacherous. He looked around and blinked a bit. He kept crawling, took a right turn and started singing "Walking on sunshine" loud enough for all three people to hear. If it echoed that far in this thing, it could echo back. His mind briefly blanked out with the feeling his hair had just been grabbed from behind. Which was disturbing considering there was nothing around him right now other than moss and stone. Along with two toadstools.

Davin jumped slightly at the voice from behind. He wheeled about, and caught sight of the Raven, sitting neatly in his chair, feet propped up. Yet another trait the Sith Lord came to admire about his mysterious captor. He seemed so calm while putting these people he didn't even know through such pain. Or did he know them? No matter, Davin smirked.

"I'm having quite the enjoyable time, actually." Davin replied, crossing his arms. "I must say, you've concocted quite the little scheme here. Kidnapping people from all around, most of which hadn't known eachother beforehand, and putting them in such situations that there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. Quite the little predicament you have us in."

At this time, there were so many questions running through Davin's mind, but he didn't really feel like speaking anymore than he already did. He sensed the fear coming off of the one standing beside him, and barely managed to suppress a laugh.

"And you?" He asked, turning back to the Raven.

"Quite fine, thank you very much." The Raven stretched its arms forward, cracking all the bones in its knuckles. "Thank you for the compliments, I must say, this entire thing has been moving quite steadily, though, far more casulties than needed. Sadly, I may have to do some fiddling with the doors to shorten this entire play. These last few rooms have been dreadfully dull, I was expecting much more bloodshed in the Room of Spikes. Alas, at least there was one death in that room. Good riddance, he was nothing but brawn, and if it weren't for his own stupidity of thinking my doors would take kindly to abuse, he may well have lasted longer. But Natural Selection works, and those who lack the instinct of survival, and the intelligence to calculate, shall fall behind and be left for the buzzers." It looked at its two guests, saw the one shake in fear, and the other calmly laugh in the face of death. "I suppose this would make me xukuthe'l for deriving so much ssrigg'tul from this grand event, wouldn't it?" The Raven raised its arms, and placed its hands on the back of its head, stretching out and getting comfy in his seat. "Considering how long it took you two vith'rellen to make it out, others should be arriving at any moment."

"...Heartless, pleasure, fuckers. Nice. That's just more fuel for th-" Just then, before his stunning epiphany, Sam felt something bit at his left hand, he had a gut feeling he couldn't be too far now. Probably wrong though. He looked down, and lit up his arm with electricity. It was just a mouse, nothing big. However, he pumped too many volts in. And what do you know, the rat goes nuclear and explodes all over Sam's left hand. He shook it briefly in the crawlspace. "That's pretty god damned disgusting yet mildly awesome." At that note, he went faster and took a left turn. He ran with a clank straight into a pile of rat bones. And a very large rat. Which he punched in the nose, with enough electricity to kill it with that only. He shook his head. "Goddammit" He pushed the rat corpse forward as he went, and pushed it off to the next three-way section he found.

Edge moved on some more, when he got stopped by another wall. "Is this one the button?" He asked as he ran his hand across it.

CLICK.

Edge rolled out and landed infront of The Raven and the other two.

(I figure I waited around long enough.)

Sarkos continued crawling through the tunnel, but suddenly he felt a great pain in his crotch.
((See ask hedgecat thread))
He attempted to ignore it as he continued crawling.

As jared continued to crawl through the tunnel, he became increasingly worried. The farther he got, the more mold there was... and he could of swarn he just felt a bit of dirt fall on his head, maybe even a few pebbels.

Not good.

Freak kept crawling along, trying to think of what she'll tell Pinako about her Auto-Mail. She had to push the thought out of her mind as she heard some muttered curses and the crackle of electricity. Making sure that nothing was coming her way, she figured that it was on of the others, probably that odd character called Sam. She continued on in order to not be the last one, she was concerned about Link, Maddi and Edge. Edge had gone in before her, but there was no telling what could happen in here. Link and Maddi were still in the room with the holes when Freak had climbed in one.

"I hope they make it out okay. Don't make friends that easily in my business, so I'd hate to lose them" Just then she bumped into a wall. Grabbing her head, she thought for a moment. "Did I just find the exit?" She asked as she felt around for a button or a switch. Nothing was there, she had found a dead end. Grumbling to herself, she turned around and doubled back to the last intersection she had taken.

((She should have taken the left at Albuquerque. Ha Ha! 4th post. ))

Sarkos contined crawling through the tunnel.
As he peered into the darkness he could make out what resembled the end of the tunnel.
He picked up his pace, desperatly trying not to be the last one there.

(5th post, next post then I'm through)

Dehgan internally calmed himself. He thought to himself *Get a freaking hold of yourself man! You faced down a Demon Lord and now you're shaking in fear of this Raven? The only way I'll survive this is if I can maintain control.* Dehgan allowed the fear to flow away, and reopened his eye's to watch the Raven. he turned when Edge popped out of a tunnel. "Took you long enough."

((5th post, w00t!! ))

After making several more wrong turns into dead ends, and meeting a fried Rat somebody had put in her way, Freak finally made it to the end. The true end, as she pressed the button, expecting nothing, but hoping none the less. As the wall fell down, she crawled out, only to see Edge and a few others. "Hey Edge, have you seen Link or Maddi?"

Looking past them all, she saw the Raven sitting there. "Oh, hello again." She said. "I must say, I found your way of dealing with the muscle bound idiot very entertaining."