[center][h3]Ms Fortune[/h3]
[b]Level 4[/b] Nadia (47/40)
[b]Location:[/b] The Maw - the Belly
Blazermate's [@Archmage MC], Bowser's [@DracoLunaris], Ace Cadet's [@Yankee], Hat Kid's [@Dawnrider], Sakura's [@Zoey Boey], Frog's [@Dark Cloud], Mirage’s [@Potemking], Mr. L’s [@ModeGone]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1546[/center]

At a steady, methodical pace the shadow beast’s fell beacon roved across the miscellaneous landscape. With so much ground to cover it spent only a second or two on any particular item of furniture or clump of debris, lingering here or there for a moment at a time, and occasionally sweeping from one area to a farther one without focusing on anything between the two. As Peach’s distraction showed, it would lock onto any disturbance and retaliate with needless brutality, but as fearful and threatening as the monster was, it wasn’t unstoppable. Mirage’s tentative footsteps, taken well away from the phantom’s baleful gaze, proved that it couldn’t hear well enough to prohibit movement. Its glare passed over the extra-large shirt in which Geralt swaddled himself, but it did not penetrate the cloth to discover the boy hidden within.

Even after the danger moved on, Nadia stayed still for a good few seconds, fighting to get her breathing under control. After holding her breath she needed air but couldn’t risk hyperventilation, and regulating her breath with the added bonus of ribs bruised from the impact with the television turned out to be surprisingly hard. Nevertheless she managed, and once she’d craned her head around to make sure the pillar of red light was far away, she gingerly hauled herself on top of the TV. She pulled at the parachute that covered her, mindful of every swish, until her head poked out into the open air with ears twitching.

Immediately she spotted Mirage beneath her, seated on the stand her television rested on. Given the haphazard way everything in this place seemed to fall she was a little surprised to see the device and its platform still reunited, but maybe they were bolted together or something. Either way, that was the least of the concerns. She could see the crimson spotlight wandering around still, never so distant that she could afford to ignore it, and at the peak the sight of the shadow beast’s eye, suspended in the utter darkness up there, sent shivers down her spine.

As she watched, the phantom’s gaze swerved toward the bookshelf Geralt fled from once again, drawn by the sound of the Blazermate’s jet turbines. Following in Peach’s footsteps she flung a book as a distraction, but the imitation proved shortsighted. A book made for a lot less stimulation than an alarm clock, and a bit less than a noisy, flying Medabot, and it bought her only a second to make her escape. Then its gaze sped after the noise, following a short distance behind and forcing Blazermate to race to stay in the concealing darkness. An enormous hand hurtled from the darkness, silent as the grave, and slammed down only just behind her with a tremendous crash. Its twin followed, close enough that Blazermate could feel the wind of it rushing past. She zoomed over where Sakura climbed into and hid inside a washing machine, narrowly avoiding getting her ally found out. A few seconds later she reached the bed. Blazermate dove beneath the blanket and stopped cold, while the beacon in hot pursuit overshot her to the junk beyond and stopped, no noise or movement to guide it. For a tense moment its hands loomed to either side of the bed, but the shadow beast had lost sight of her. The hands lifted away into the pitch like marionettes, and the monster resumed its search.

Nadia groaned. She was afraid to go and terribly worried for everyone (with a VIP badge for Sakura in particular), but there was nothing she could do and staying put was even worse than going forward, so she couldn’t stick around any longer. “Psst!” she whispered down to Mirage. “You alright there? Jeez, can you believe this crap we gotta deal with?” With a beleaguered sigh she wiped her brow. “Well, whatever. Don’t want that thing givin’ us a peer review, so ‘eye’ guess we’ve gotta stealth mission on our hands.” She couldn’t help but feel annoyed that her plan had been scuppered already and her not-at-all-silent fan rendered useless. Even her parachute wouldn’t serve its intended use, since it probably wouldn’t unfold before she hit the ground even if she jumped from one of these junk-mountains. But it wasn’t worthless. She surveyed the terrain ahead briefly. “I see a painting leaning against the TV, a long dresser, and a rolled-up rug. C’mon, let’s go together. Stick a dart on the screen and climb up. Once we both grab onto the painting we can kick it and ride it to the other side.”

She and Mirage got underway using the feral’s strategy to get to the dresser with only a minor clatter, then ran across without falling into the holes left by missing drawers (more than once apiece, anyway).. When they got to the rug it took some effort to quietly extract and unroll it, but once they did it lay ready to offer a smooth ride down. “Wait, wait!” Nadia whispered urgently, her bright cat eyes staring through the dark at the junk mountain’s base. “There’s some kind of pit. It’ll be hard as hell to get out of.” She took another look at the pit, evaluating the stuff around it. “It...looks like there's a dishwasher beside the pit. If you can dart it, we can jump from the rug right before it gets to the pit and use it as a platform to get across. We’ll need to circle around a little for a straight shot.” With furrowed brow she looked at the party streamers strung between nearby gardening poles and fake plants. She took a running start and leaped for an artificial ficus, which her claws helped her climb until she could reach and cut through the streamer knotted at the top. Its end clenched in her teeth, she slid down, then offered the makeshift rope to Mirage. “Here. You’re a good shot, right? Think ya got what it takes to nail the washer while swingin’ around?”

While he got busy she crouched down under her sheet, on lookout for the monster’s beam getting too close. She caught a glimpse of the others making their way through the Belly, wary of Bongo Bongo’s gaze. The Peach had found herself a [url=https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/c819a5d7-18f6-4ee1-9150-de2de2c2000a/d9z2gla-f46fb5fd-2e5c-4943-baab-3e49d903e7ad.png/v1/fill/w_800,h_475,strp/goomba_shoe_by_lanceberyl_d9z2gla-fullview.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9NDc1IiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvYzgxOWE1ZDctMThmNi00ZWUxLTkxNTAtZGUyZGUyYzIwMDBhXC9kOXoyZ2xhLWY0NmZiNWZkLTJlNWMtNDk0My1iYWFiLTNlNDlkOTAzZTdhZC5wbmciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9ODAwIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmltYWdlLm9wZXJhdGlvbnMiXX0.zj_MV8RKHWSZm5zrGJwjqz3s68NjbL0BmQ7N8pjvckA]peculiar shoe[/url] and was using it to hop across the surface of the junk, but the tendency to hit something that made a clatter forced her to hide under her parasol a few times when she provoked the phantom’s ire. Way on the other side the Koopa Troop plus an enlightened Rika had managed to get out of the ball pit. Between them and the other side stood two distinct zones: an area littered with everything one could find in a garage plus the instruments of an entire garage band, and then an [url=https://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/spiritfarer/6/6f/IMG_0135.JPG]actual houseboat[/url] half-buried in the junk. [i]Good luck with that.[/i] Link made his way with a deftness none of the other children could match, needing nobody's help to progress across the Belly; in fact, he went out of his way to give a trepidation Glenn a hand. Nadia was also glad to see Sakura, fresh from her stay in the washing machine and up to her old tricks again. Not far away she spotted Bella in a toy boat complete with oars, using the strength of her leviathan tail to row her one side at a time across the ground layer after Sakura, and relying on a bucket to shield her from the evil eye.

In short order Mirage managed to prove himself a hotshot gunslinger still, and with the dart in place there was nothing for the kids to do but crouch on top of the rug and edge slightly forward in anticipation until it finally overbalanced and started to slide down the mountain.

The end came quickly, a yawning void in the junk. Whether or not it had a bottom Nadia didn’t want to find out. “Now!” she cried through clenched teeth, as quietly as her overworked heart would let her. She sprang, her arms and legs flailing for balance as she soared over the drop, and the next second she landed on the dart. Its suction held, and she bounced right off and over the rest of the pit to land in what looked like a well-used dog bed on the other side. [i]Fwop.[/i] Though it smelled of four-legged friend, Nadia didn’t seem to mind, and allowed her head to plop down as her thumping heart worked itself out.

Her rest came to an end when the shadow beast’s searchlight drew near, forcing an emergency hunker down below her sheet. When it passed, Nadia wasted no time in getting going. The next and biggest mountain seemed to have a lot of mechanical parts, and a mixture of tires, bike frames, and car doors took them to the top. There, however, their shared journey hit a snag. There seemed to be no furniture nor methods of conveyance available to get down the mountain and over the final stretch to the far wall, where they could now see Peach’s vent exactly where she said, sure as sugar. “Drat,” Nadia snarled. “I’m not seeing anything. And we’re so close…'' She kicked a tire in frustration only for it to roll halfway down the mountain and crash into a flower pot, which Bongo Bongo was only too happy to annihilate. When a trembling Nadia pulled her sheet off a few moments later she was wearing a sheepish look. “Sorry…”