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You hear a shrill, humming noise; it sounds almost like something is firing past you–and sometimes, you even feel a sharp burst of air, like something has just missed you. Maybe, even, it does get a slice out of you. Sharp, bladelike threads seem to string up around you; you’d best be careful not to get cut on any of them between now and your next dice roll.

Ran didn't trust that the shrill noise wasn't whatever had just breathed on him. He didn't know anything about anything involving projectile weapons, not having any way to know any better until he heard the distinct whizzing sound past his ear and felt the near-miss along his cheek. He skidded to a stop, a glint in the fog telling him that something was off up ahead. His steps were more cautious, then. He saw the threads, then. Like spider silk, but he realised immediately after touching one that it hadn't come out of any spider he knew of.

He stuck his finger in his mouth to stem the bead of blood forming and looked around. Now what? What if whatever had breathed on him was coming after him? He couldn't just stand there and look at the razor wire that had strung up around him. Was something actively trying to catch him, or had he just set off a trap? Was it related to the thing from before?

He wasn't keen to find out. Ran reached out with a hand again, but using the fabric of his skirt as a shield against the razorwire.

It sliced through the fabric like it amounted to nothing, and Ran hurriedly dropped his hand before the strings could find purchase on his skin again.

Now what?

Now what?

Ran wasn't sure if he was imagining the air moving against his neck, but he wasn't keen to stay around. It seemed like he'd had to roll the die, and so he gave it another shot and prayed it would land him somewhere a bit better than this. He wasn't sure how he'd get out of the razorwire, but surely there was some way? Maybe if he backed up and went around---

He didn't go far before having to stop and catch his breath. Ran took a moment to ponder how quickly he was getting winded, but that was wrenched off of its tracks by the feeling of something moving over his foot. Slithering over his foot.

Now, Ran wasn't afraid of snakes. He liked them, actually!

But feeling it again, and again, and again? That was too much. He danced backward, yelling and kicking his feet out. He could hear the hisses, and he could see that some of them were looking at him.

In fact, they looked at him more the more he moved and waved his arms and yelled.

One reared back and Ran found himself nearly eye-level with a cobra whose hood was the size of his head. It opened its mouth, and the only thing keeping venom out of Ran's eyes was the sudden instinct to cover his face by burying it in the crook of his elbow. He felt the venom splash against his arm, and the skin it touched began to burn and itch something terrible.

Ran swung his other arm out, catching the snake in the middle and shoving it away from him. While it had to take a second to rebound, Ran rolled the die and ran for it.

He had to be almost there! He had to! He was getting! Kind of tired! Of running down! A gameboard!

He had to be almost there!

He had to!

Almost as if it heard his mental prayers, Ran saw what looked like the end of the path come into view. He willed himself faster, faster, faster.

Then the ground began to shift and jump under his feet. Ran skidded to a stop to avoid losing his footing, but it did nothing for him as the ground itself just fell away. He scrabbled for a handhold to keep from falling into the ever-reaching dark beneath him, but it was nearly for naught and only a handhold made of packed earth kept him from tumbling down. His fingers already beginning to ache, Ran spent a moment gasping for breath with his face pressed against the freezing side of the hole trying to swallow him alive.

The edges of the die bit into the palm of the hand that had been holding it before he'd almost been dumped to his death. As the initial shock and certainty of death wore off, Ran found himself more and more aware of that. He looked up, trying to squint into the dark to see if it was worth trying to put the die somewhere else. But he was heartbreakingly far from the lip of the abyss.

A moment was spent thinking about this, but he couldn't afford to think for much longer than that. Very, very carefully, very slowly, he shifted the hand covering the die, adjusting to cradle it between his fingers rather than between the dirt and his palm. His feet pressed and scraped against the side of the hole, managing to find just enough purchase that Ran was able to move one hand up, toward the next precarious finger hold. He had never been a mountain climber, and he wasn't usually one much for feats of strength. To that end, his shoulders and arms were already starting to burn alongside his fingers. The arm that had gotten splashed with venom now seemed to burn inside and out, and Ran's breath hissed and whistled between his teeth as he tried to ignore the pain.

It was ignore the pain or fall in the hole.

First one hand, then the other, than the first, then the other. For one heartstopping moment, a piece he grabbed onto did not prove as solid as it had seemed, and it crumbled into jagged fragments as soon as Ran put any actual weight on it. He felt some of the fragments bite through his glove, but thanks to the glove they did little more than press against his skin. The points of the die were another matter, however, and Ran felt the bruising acute pressure on the interiors of his fingers as he tightened his grip to keep from dropping the die during hand movement.

One hand, then the other, then the first, then the other.

Until he dragged himself, shaky and sweating, far enough to have only his legs dangle into the abyss. He let the die fall to the ground in front of him, watching dispassionately as it tumbled.