The notches in the stairs had completely escaped Aria's notice. Man, was she glad Yerbol was here now or she might have fallen victim to that trap if she'd been on her own. They stopped when the staircase came to an end, finding themselves on the platform that Yerbol had picked out from below.
The Sith acolyte grumbled some kind of expletive under her breath, turning around in a full circle a few times as she tried to search around them for a way up the walls or something like that. But there were no grooves they could use as hand or footholds.
Yerbol was looking across at another platform opposite them, where a door (presumably leading upwards to the next level), loomed towards them. It was almost like it was mocking them, if inanimate objects were capable of such a feat. Bet you can't get over here.
"Bah!" Aria snorted. She hated losing. Extending her hands, she slowed her breathing and focused on helping Yerbol to pull the other platform out of the rock towards them. The sound of stone grinding on stone as it shifted was so loud that she didn't hear the catch releasing or the cackle echoing towards them until it was too late.
The ceiling above the pair opened up and Aria shouted out as a weight dropped down on them from above. Three massive clawed fingers, joined by a membrane that led her to believe they were attached to wings of some sort, grasped around her torso. She rolled over to find herself staring into a completely eyeless face, only the slightest indentations in the bald wrinkled skin to indicate where eye sockets might have once been at some point in its early evolution. A long dog-like snout ended in massive slitted nostrils protected from ash and dust particles by another flap of bare skin, rows of inward angling serrated teeth grinned back at them as the creature's head darted towards the two Force sensitives it clasped tightly against its chest in its winged forearms.
Aria grimaced uncomfortably at the sight of the beast that almost resembled some kind of entirely bald bat, frantically trying to twist free before the creature could chomp through them both. She didn't want to give it the chance to sink those teeth in, they looked like they were made for one thing: stripping flesh clean off bones.
Just above the beast's jawline, Aria could see the skin pock marked with small pinhead sized dents. Sensory pits, they had to be. How else was this totally blind monster going to find its bearings? Deciding to take the chance, Aria kicked out aiming for the indentations, the beast screaming out as her foot hit it's mark. It dropped both Aria and Yerbol, the Sith acolyte rolling dangerously close to the edge of the platform. Aria gritted her teeth, teetering over the edge of the precipice despite her best efforts to use the Force to slow her momentum.
She desperately grasped at the rock face with her hands, scrambling to try and find a groove that would give her enough purchase that she could pull herself back up.
Up ahead, the bat monster thudded onto the platform, claws scraping on the stone as it advanced towards them again.
"Oh, shit! Shit! Yerbol!" She squealed, hoping he had at least landed a little better than she had...
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