Of course this was the ONLY way [Delilah + Rayne]

“What? ACK!” Delilah grunts as one of the portrait managed to get a hold of her while she was distracted with what Rayne was saying. She hit her wand at the bird claws that were digging into her hair. Thank goodness the plain portraits were quite weak. A melee attack from a shaman was enough. Still getting distracted was her problem last time and probably this time as well.

She can’t help it! The designs of all the creatures in here were either cute or beautiful. There was just something about slobbering mouth lined with teeth on a black fluid body that makes them so endearing to her. Bonus point if they have a lot of eyes and if they can split their body open to get a big gulp of whatever they wanted to eat. Cake probably.

The bugs were a nuisance but none of attacked them directly. It lead to the mistake on Delilah’s first run where she and her partner did not do anything to the bugs and allowed to cause all sort of mischief. Even later runs proof that those bug creature were a bigger threat than the painting themselves. The bugs keep pouring out from above, they spread out to take the hit that was meant for the creature from the painting. It led to a few close calls where Delilah got scratched in the face several times, but so far no major injuries.

Delilah already tossed out her explosive potion just to clear the swarm of insect a bit, but as they proceed down the hall the swarm just keep growing and growing. It didn’t take long before some insect managed to congregate around of the portraits. Delilah did notice them, but she was far too short and it was too high up. Disgusting gurgles can be heard as the insect do their best to nudge the portrait out of its position. Even if the gunslinger managed to take down those bugs it was too late. The gold lined portrait dropped down to the ground floor and instantly the content crawled out of the frame.

An old wizened face, covered in their own grey hair, leaving only the wart covered nose and the single glowing yellow eye visible. It also seemed that they replaced all their limbs with many spider legs with sickles attached to the end. The thing was huge, blocking them from passing the narrow hall.

Delilah screamed, but not out of fear. “Ahhh! PRETTY! Wait no-” She at least manage to drop down in time to avoid a pincer cut that probably will behead her. Another sickle came for her and this time she has nowhere to dodge.

As they made their way through the room it became increasingly difficult to keep up with the sheer number of bugs that were spawning. It was clear to Rayne at least that they weren't meant to. Sooner or later they would be overwhelmed by the giant insects. Her goal then was to kill enough of them to make it to the other side of the hall. Thankfully she was a good shot, and she didn't waste a single bullet putting down the monstrous bugs. Even with all her effort though, she knew it was no good.

The further they went the more it became clear that the insects were less interested in Rayne and Delilah, and more interested in tearing the pictures down from the walls. Rayne didn't want to guess what would happen if they got what they wanted though, so she kept shooting. Eventually though, some got through her rain of fire and knocked one of the portraits over.

Immediately the picture in the frame began to crawl out and Rayne let out a sharp curse that was echoed by Delilah's sound of dismay. Wait. Had she said pretty? Rayne didn't have the time to be aghast. She only had time to kill more bugs lest one of them knock over yet another painting. The gunslinger wasn't oblivious to her surroundings though, far from it. She was keeping a sharp eye on Delilah so that she could stay a step behind her.

Thus when the attack came that Delilah clearly wouldn't be able to block; Rayne was there shoving her out of the way. The sickle scoured a cut on the red-haired woman's shoulder down to her elbow; blood draining fast down her arm and sticky-wet on the grip of her weapon. "Don't hesitate Delilah. I told you, I've got your back."

She didn't have time to worry about the wound. Rayne shoved Delilah forward. "Keep moving or we'll be overcome!"

Delilah gasped as she was pushed out of the way and sees Rayne taking the hit for her. Before she could say anything or even cast her spells, she was shoved forward. Urged to keep going.

Oh so that’s what she meant by she got my six!

She had a mental victory dance of learning a new phrase, but she still wanted to take care of that wound first. Also they were still in danger as the creatures still come forward with stabs. She managed to get out of the way from those. Her other hand managed to grasp Rayne’s shirt and pull her a little further back from the other ones that came for her.

In all the ways, Delilah know what she wanted to do. She just hate it. Keeping in front of Rayne, she lobbed her explosive potion at the monster’s face, said a very quick “I’m sorry!”, and then cast her ice shield so the blast remained on one side of the corridor. The ice made a pretty good seal, but it was transparent. So she was treated with the horrifying image of those pretty monsters being covered by fire or splattered across the wall. If she had teared up, it would only be noted by Rayne and possibly her brother who was passing by her room and sees the tears passing through the head gears.

The good news was that the explosion not only cleared a good chunk of the swarm, but also burned down several portraits, leaving the inhabitant unable to climb through the smouldering pieces of the paintings. Delilah wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Okay, okay I’m going!” she get up on the floor and resume her run. Soon the last stretch was in sight. The door was visible with the pocket watch floating in front of it. However the swarm have all given up on the smaller portraits, they gathered the big one right above the doorway. The curtained burned away with demonic fire to reveal a grim looking knight with a large axe. It was already have its arm out of the portrait, with the axe – which turned into something with unnecessary amount of eyes and teeth. It seemed to wait for them to get closer or the bugs to push the portrait down to their level.

Delilah wasn’t sure. All she know was that one person just had to lay their hand on the pocket watch and then they cleared the dungeon.

A low growl almost left Rayne's mouth when Delilah grabbed her vest and gave her a sharp pull, but she quickly realized that the girl was trying to get her to move faster out of harms way so she pulled back the impulse and kept firing with her good arm. She managed a few shots with the injured one, but most of those went astray and she hated to waste the ammunition. Though in truth she had plenty of that.

Delilah kept in front of her, lobbing a potion of some kind back behind them and Rayne couldn't help but look back at the result. Fire exploded outwards from the innactious potion bottle, and the girl activated some kind of skill that put up an icy barrier between them and the burning insects now behind them. Rayne was immediately glad of the few seconds that this gave her to reload her weapons, snapping new ammo clips into place and looking ahead to where they had to go.

She could see their destination in sight, or what she was fairly certain was their destination. Surely that big painting looked important and there were a lot of insects already gathered around it. Not enough to knock it over yet, but enough to set her teeth on edge. She really didn't want to fight some ax-wielding metal monster.

As they drew closer to the picture she activated one of her skills just to be on the safe side. Delilah slowed down as she saw the ax leave the painting but Rayne shoved her forward once again, trying to keep the girl moving. They couldn't afford for this painting to fall over too and every second they wasted meant another one that might send it toppling over. "Keep going! I've got you!"

She already had her shot lined up. The moment that the painting fell she had a bullet aimed right for the middle of the metal-man's visor where the plate mail was vented for the eyes.

Slowing down was not her intention, but she sure was glad that someone was around to keep her on track and not admiring another thing that come out of the painting and possibly be mean to them. The shove was still a surprise and this time she lost her balance and tumbled forward, fall past between the knight’s leg, broke through the canvas and smacked against the door.

The knight looked down a little at the tiny figure rolling past them that they did not noticed the gun that was pointing at them. Large clang rang out the hall as the bullet hit and knocking the whole helmet off. It revealed a giant beetle head glaring down at the gunslinger, the exoskeleton has a hole right in the centre of all the eyes. The beetle split open its face to let out a horrifying screech at the gunslinger.

Delilah shook her head and rubbed her nose where it become red from smacking to the wall with full force. Then she noticed where she was and did not hesitate to reach up and grab the pocket watch. Instantly the door flung open and the same skeletal hand burst out and took them through the darkness and dump them back in the foyer. The door they went through faded into the wall paper.

“Weeeeh! I’m sorry I didn’t want to hurt them.” Delilah immediately wailed to the bones, who just vanished back into the nothingness.

She didn’t stay sad for long. Mentally reminding herself that those were pixels and probably feel no hurt like her. Unlike Rayne who was still bleeding. She tied the pocket watch to the side of the corset and took out her bandages and potions. If lucky she could use very little of the potion and save it for later more tougher room. Although in her opinion they already cleared the toughest room in the ground level.

Delilah went to Rayne and hold out her hand, “let me see your arm. I can patch it up while you choose the next room.”

Inside the armor plating was a beetle; another hard exoskeleton inside the first screeching at her vehemently for shooting it squarely between its beady eyes. The noise it made set her head to throbbing, and she resisted the urge to cover her ears lest it ruin her next shot. The next shot never came however. Delilah reached the clock and they were instantly transported via creepy hand-bones back into the main foyer.

Delilah was speaking to the hands, but Rayne was preoccupied trying to get a good look at her arm now that they weren't in immediate danger. The wound wasn't a deep gash, but it was long and ached now that she wasn't in the middle of a fight for survival. The gunslinger shook her head at the injury and Delilah's offer to fix it.

"Just a quick bandage. Save the potions for if we really need them. It doesn't hurt so much that it'll fowl my accuracy and we don't have time if we're going to make it through this floor in the time we have remaining." She just wasn't sure how long it would take them to get through each room. Thankfully it seemed like they'd made it through the last one with a decent amount of time to spare.

Rayne allowed Delilah to tend - quickly - to her arm, pulling it away the moment that it was wrapped and moving toward the next room. This was the one that Delilah had said they needed to find some kind of key inside. With her arm wounded it was the best idea to do this one next before it got to hurting her too much. "You ready?"

She waited only the briefest moment before opening the door and heading inside. The room was nothing like what she had expected it to be and yet somehow she couldn't imagine that it would have been any other way. It was filled with keys of every kind and variation. All of them floating and flying leisurely or with great speed depending on their mood. The room was short enough that the ceiling could be reached with relative ease, but the sheer number of keys made it difficult to tell which of the keys they needed to find.

"Well, hell. Any idea which one it is?"

Delilah nodded dutifully and start to bandage the wound up. Like Rayne said, it was not an extremely deep cut, just wide enough to make it seem like a lot of blood came out. She cleaned up the wound and dressed it appropriately. “The foyer time doesn’t count towards total time. There is only just a small time limit of choosing before that grandfather clock chimes and booted us into a random room.”

It had only happened to her once, where her partner was completely scared after the first room and was pacing between all the doors. It didn’t actually take long for the clock to chime and the same hands came out again just to throw them towards a random door.

Soon she finished bandaging the wound, and was considering pouring a few drop of regeneration potion anyway just to get it to heal a little bit faster. But Rayne moved on to the next room so she has no choice but to follow. She nodded when asked because at least this room won’t attack you straight away and comparing to the other room she encountered, much less deadly.

Rayne asked which keys, in which Delilah can only wince. “The key changes every time I entered.” She whispered, edging around the multitude of keys, as if she was edging around sleepy babies. Knowing touching too many could set off the swarm, even loud sound would scare them off. It would make finding the right key more difficult. “They key has to match the lock over there.”

She pointed towards a glass cabinet where the pocket watch was stored, glowing faintly and ticking softly. Delilah carefully tried to inch her way to the cabinet just so she could feel the keyhole and maybe guess which size of the keys it was. Still she bumped into a few keys, which immediately retaliated by jabbing into her. She resisted the urge to try and wave it away, lest the action triggered more keys to wake up from their sleepy flight. The floor was littered with a lot of broken nick-nacks, mostly loudly crunchy stuff that could easily wake a lot more keys so Delilah was basically limited to moving a snail pace.

From the look on Delilah's face Rayne knew the answer to her question before Delilah had even begun to speak it. It was a pain, but it seemed like they would have to go through the keys manually. A process that would have been a lot easier if only there weren't so many of them. How were they even supposed to know which one was the one that went into the locked cupboard? Rayne huffed out a breath and glared at the keys.

They idly went about flying and Rayne turned her attention to her companion, meaning to ask if she had any ideas. Delilah was already sneaking over to the cupboard though, watching her step for the broken bits of odds and ends scattered all over the floor. Rayne got the hint right away that they were supposed to not disturb the keys, but when she noticed that the ones that Delilah bumped into were stabbing at the girl she frowned seriously.

Inching her way across the floor to avoid the broken shards Rayne grabbed one of the keys out of the air and viciously crushed it in her hand. Breaking its wings and shoving it into her pocket. She followed in Delilah's wake, grabbing the keys out of the air and wrecking a little revenge for hurting the girl who was doing her best not to disturb them. Thankfully, none of the others seemed to realize what Rayne was up to, and they reached the cupboard in good time.

Lowering her voice to a whisper Rayne offered up the handful of keys that she'd plucked out of the air. "Here, we can try these first." One of the keys near her darted in, offended that she'd spoken and she grabbed it too out of the air, crushing it in her grip and offering it to Delilah with a bare smile.

After several runs of this room, Delilah had a good handle on how to tip toe across the room without waking up too many keys. Still get jabbed a few times, but at least she wasn’t been pecked out like the last time she entered into this room. She had to use a full health potion because she was literally blinded by angry keys.

They made it to the cabinet. She immediately knelt down to examine the keyhole, running her finger through the opening and the outer marking, gathering every clue possible. However as she was about to stand up and tell Rayne which keys to look for, there was a bunched shoved to her way. It didn’t take her long to recognise they were the keys in the air, or the fact they were all very hurt with crushed wings and even broken handles. More dots were connected as Rayne very easily caught another key in her hand and crushed that one to smithereens as well.

Delilah look liked she was about to cry. Actually, tears were already forming at the corner of the eyes and threatening to spill. “You didn’t have to do this.” She whispered cry. Looking absolutely heartbroken at the state of the keys, despite the fact one of them was jabbing at her at the beginning.

Still the knowledge they were on the clock were still enough to spur Delilah to pick those keys up and immediately try them. She first set aside the ones that were too big and too small on the side, very gently as well. Then she grouped them with similar patterns and lined them all up neatly next to the cabinet.

“Okay ummm... brace yourself.” She picked up the first key, it still wiggled in her hand feebly. “The cabinet screams if the key is wrong.” She said and then put the first key into the lock. Fully prepared to immediately grabbed the next in line should this key fail. Then continue on until she hit the right one or get pecked out again. Hopefully one of the ones Rayne grabbed was right, she doesn’t want any more innocent keys to get hurt.

An expression of horror and sadness crossed Delilah's face at the sight of the keys and Rayne could only blink at it, trying to figure out what she'd done wrong. She didn't have to snatch the keys out of the air? How were they supposed to catch them otherwise? Admittedly she didn't have to be so rough with them, but they'd deserved worse for being so aggressive. At least in her opinion.

While Delilah looked over the key hole, Rayne kept an eye on the keys, watching for any stray ones that looked like they were liable to attack. That thought was killed a moment later however when Delilah pointed out that the key hole was going to scream if the key she used was the wrong one. Which in Rayne's experience, was inevitable.

Indeed, the moment that the first key was tried in the lock there was a huge wail which sent the nearby keys into a frenzy. They dashed toward and away from the cabinet respectively, all of them becoming violent. Rayne did her best to shield herself from the keys, grabbing a few more of the vicious little things out of the air and adding them to her collection for Delilah to try.

"Keep it up Delilah, I'll do my best to protect you from these blasted things!"