STRANGErs In The Night

Chapter 7: Colder Than Death, Swifter Than Shadow

STRANGE raced down a twisting tunnel filled with deactivated traps, past blood wards scrawled on the walls, jumping over pit traps and ducking out of the way of blades that no longer swung from the cieling. eventually, she reaxhed the end of the corridor— a smLl, roundish openign, to the side of which stood a great roundish cold stone rock—a rock the size and height of a big car and probably the weight of multiple cars.

STRANGE stepped forward into the room, noticing that the air quality had chanfed to no longer be quite as cold as ice. 

a light flicked on as she did, with a huge glowing bulb within. she was standing in a huge room, a cathedral-like cave embellished with the bones of countless dead.
Quickly, strange crept across the room and into the passage leAding away from her tomb. at the end of that, she found a wrought iron gate, guarded by two women slightly younger than the warden she had just, erm, dealt with. Both of these new ppl were wearing bulky plate armour of a shiny ceramic-like material under their heavy wool. robes, and carried wickedly sharp iron spears.

as strange approached, she bent down to try to crouch and hide. unfortunately, this alerted the guards to her presence, because her knees crakced terribly as she did so.

One of them spun around, brushing her chin length white hair back with her hand.
"Warden Phux? is that you?"
The other turned slower, and sunk into a battle stance. "Does it look like it, sister ethelred?"
The first one, sister ethelred, glances at strange, who has risen from her crouch and is drawn her rapier.

"Sister Ezekiel, No-one has gone past us save four the warden and apparently our lady Marrow."
"It was your fault we missed that by the way"
"It was not! But if memory serves, that means this... this is That Which Was Buried?"
Sister Ezekiel moved a bit closer to STRANGE, her armour clanking softly.
"I cannot say, sister. But whatever be the being that moves towards us, it entered the tomb unlawfully, and by the grace of the Queen our God, it shall not pass."

and STRANGE said "you know I can hear you, right?" and then "you're being pretty rude, too."

The nuns ignored this though they heard it, and Sister Ethelred turned to her counterpart and said, as she stamped the butt of her spear on the ground and intoned the words, "Colder Than Death, Swifter Than Shadow."
"Colder Than Death, Swifter Than Shadow." said sister Ezekiel, doing the same. Then they raised their spears, the edges glinting in the torchlight, and they approached STRANGE.

Then again black mist rose from STRANGEs eyes and mouth, and with it this time a light scent of eucalyptus, and she lunges at one of the two.

the battle raged fierce anf long. This time, strange was making an active effort not to kill, so she ended up getting samtabbedamtabbed a few times, so she learnt that she still felt pain, though her wounds healed near instantly (excluding the wound the rapier left in her chest, which remained unchanged.)
eventually strange vanquished her foes, though not before they swore religiously at her for several minutes. Then, having heaved the unconscious zealots to the side, she stole the power armour and robe from the one closer to her size to use as a disguise.

thus clad, with her hood up covering her (probably short, probably not white) hair, STRANGE set out throught the labyrinthine passages of the Abyss.

In her journeying, she oassed a multitude of people, the large majority of them simply ordinary nuns, with the same pallor to their skin as those she had encountered before. occasionally, she would pass other Sisters of Mercy, the warrior nuns with their black power armour and shortish white hair. When she did pass them, they would always say their motto/ slogan as a greeting, and by the fith or so time, STRANGE had started to say "Colder Than Death, Swifter Than Shadows" back to them.
a couple times she stumbled into rooms where prayers were being held, rosaries of teeth or finger bones clicking as tens of worshippers sat, heads bowed, before either masses of bones shaped into an A, or a portrait of a woman who STRANGE grudgingly admitted to herself was a classic beauty.

eventually, however, STRANGE made her way up a narrow flight of stairs carved into a damp rock wall, and emerged into a chamebr the size of an aeroplane hangar. the room was raised, and in the cwntre of the pit that was the abyss. through huge stained glass windows, STRANGE could see greyish fields being worked by animated skeletons, and she could vaguely see far away the huge rivulets of metal that had fled the core of the planet so long ago. the focal point of this room was a sort of tower, inlaid with hundreds of skeletons, most of them human, but with some cows, cats, geese, etc. At the base of this column was a set of burnished steel doors, guarded by tow Sisters if Mercry. STRANGE briefly glanced around at the the windows, which were rendered in shades of red, grey, blue, and black, and sepicted a bunch of scenes from the construction of her tomb and the founding of this place.

strange walked up to one of the door guards, who saluted, right fist over her heart. (STRANGE's armour seemed to have belonged to a relatively high ranking nun)
"Are you going on missionary assignment Sister?"
"Um. Yes?", said strange eloquently.
"Gods will be done through you sister", said the other guard, pressing a slightly raised disk of bone on the tower inscribed with an arrow.
"Colder than death, swifter than shadow."
"And to you too, sister.", said the guard. Then the massive steel doors slid open to reveal an extremely small cage elevator, with a loudspeaker installed in one corner.

when the elevator began (loudly and unevenly) to take motion, strange realized that the speaker was broadcasting a religious service, Nd had to put up with all the clicking bones and whispered prayers undill the elevator made a tinny dinging sound and she stepped out of another set of heavy steel doors and found herself looking at something out of a certain children's book.