[quote=@Mokley]
[b]"Ho, heel! To me!"[/b] The child hollered, just as the beasts crashed and shattered the tables and benches, their scales and spines and feathers filling the room. [b]"There are alive ones here. Break that door, bring them to me."[/b]
[/quote]

As Maria started picking up the spilled candy, she heard the distant shouting of the Grit-child. As she worked, part of her mind wondered at his (its?) mode of speech. It... sounded awfully medieval. Maybe that was just how people talked, outside the wall? But that was preposterous, nobody lived outside the wall, and the Grit were all just monsters.

...Weren't they?

She went back to gathering her candy.

[i]...Wait a second, he's shouting to the Grit. Something about alive ones?[/i]

A moment where her mind went blank, like a new piece of paper with the candy-coated, rose-tinted gears that made up Maria's mind turning and clanking behind it.

[i]...Oh. That's us. Shit.[/i]

[quote=@Mokley]
A roaring, screeching mass of fur and claws and slitted eyes rushed the flimsy doors that Flor had shut, and they slammed their collective bodies against them.

BANG

BANG
[/quote]

The world felt like it was suddenly doused in molasses. Maria turned her head - slow, slow, yet slower, if such a thing were possible - and stared at the door, just as the first BANG sounded. Her eyes, the only thing unaffected by the sudden downpour of sugary slowness, darted downwards to the candy scattered on the floor. Loath as she was to leave her parents' candy to these monsters(?) (even as she thought it, some treacherous part of her brain added a question mark to the word "monsters"), it just might work to prevent some of them from following them. She quickly grabbed a few of her favorites that were near her, stuffed them in her jacket, scooted away from the door, and prepared to run.

[quote=@Mokley]
[b]CRASH[/b]

The doors exploded into splinters, and all manner of nightmares flooded into the landing -- three-headed, jagged-toothed, bat-winged monstrosities, with five legs or eight legs or no legs at all. The landing immediately filled with a foul stench of bile and sulfur. One of the Grit -- a gigantic snake with a rooster's head -- hissed and rattled and coughed a ball of fire that flared and blackened the wall of the downward stairwell.

Some were too big to squeeze through the door, while others were nimble and on the humans' heels in an instant, teeth flashing.

The stairwell was filled with howls and snarls.

Something metallic was clanking toward them from the bottom of the stairs, rushing at an incredible speed.

An eight-foot-tall robot with the highest tech in speed and joint control -- painted in the queen's violet-and-gold -- appeared on the lower landing and immediately shot a Grit out of the air behind Vincent with a flash of a laser pistol.

[b]"C'mon, twerps, let's go!"[/b] the robot hollered in a very human voice. A rune was etched into its chest -- this robot was enchanted. [b]"Is this everyone? Move it! Comin' through! Go down, go down down down! I'll take this guy, run faster!"[/b]

The robot reached out with one arm, grabbed the unconscious Moth and slung him over its broad shoulder like he was a ragdoll, shooting all the while.
[/quote]

As the Grit burst through the door, Maria promptly started sprinting towards the stairs, her fear giving her feet wings. As one Grit, the nightmarish spawn of an octopus and some sort of large cat, lashed out at her with a tentacle, she narrowly dodged it and made it safely behind the robot, hiding behind it. "Guys, c'mere! We're safe over here!" She glanced up at Moth, who looked like he was just waking up from his impromptu nap, and smiled at him. "Hello, sunshine! Having a nice ride?" She giggled.