Sam was soon discovering that the week days were the dullest parts of the week. As much as Lyria could be cruel and apathetic at least when she was around things could be interesting. When she was gone from the house there was nothing around and nothing for him to really do aside from explore the living room. There wasn't really much to see. It was so utterly boring that when Lyria returned and gathered him for lunch he found himself much more willing to engage in conversation with her. It was nothing groundbreaking, how was your day? Anything interesting happen?

Amazingly the elf was detailed in her accounts and humored him, informing him of the minutest details. In a way Lyria had become his method for experiencing the world outside this apartment home. She shied away from informing him about the exact details of what she was working on; opting for things that occurred at the job itself rather than what it was about. He wasn't particularly sure why, it wasn't as though he could take the info to anyone. He opted not to push lest Lyria halt these little sessions.

Lyria's baths were now a constant though the aftermath of the baths was much more chaste now. The man figured that there was little purpose in denying her on that front if he had cracked once. He had also opted to go on her morning runs, tucked within the pocket of her sweat pants. It was hardly a fun affair for him, being thrown around like pocket change, but it kept him getting his meals and allowed more time to talk to Lyria. Despite these he still managed to keep up some semblance of resistance, refusing this or that offer. It often cost him a meal but better to miss one that just become her domesticated pet.

It was Thursday at breakfast when he finally made the suggestion to Lyria. "Could you possibly not put me back in the living room when we are finished here?" Sam said, finishing up his bread and drink.

The elf, who had previously been reading something, turned her attention to him with a slight frown. "Why?"

"I've already explored the living room. Figure getting a good lay of the land might be a good idea since I live here now." He said, keeping his tone carefully casual. He'd rehearsed this all last night in his head; he needed to be practical and logical to get Lyria to agree.

The elf hummed slightly as she turned back to her reading, taking a sip of her soykaf as she did. Sam figured that meant she would think about it which was better than her skillfully finding some excuse to deny the request. His reasons were not entirely to alleviate his boredom as he was hoping to locate something that might help him bypass the step problem in the living room. He'd be barred from crossing most doorways of course; they all slid open and had no openings at the bottom to slip through.

After a while Lyria set her reading down and gave Sam her attention once more. "Interesting idea. Wouldn't you rather come to work with yours truly though? If I'd known you were so stir crazy I'd have offered to bring you along ages ago." She purred.

The young human weighed that counter offer very carefully, savvy to Lyria's manner of thinking by this point. If he refused he would likely be missing a meal and he might just end up in the living room anyway. If he accepted he'd be walking into the situation blind. He was intrigued to see the elf at work first hand but the opportunity to find a way past those stairs took priority. The outside world was tantalizing if he was being honest, any other time he would have leaped to the offer. As such he figured it was better to risk her displeasure now rather than postpone the scouring of the apartment for supplies.

"Uh, not today. Thanks for the offer though, I think I'd rather just stick around here till you get back." He responded.

A tiny frown, followed by a shrug. Not a good sign at all. "Suit yourself. Before I leave I let you down to the kitchen floor so you can explore to your heart's content." She said.

That... was almost too easy. So much so that Sam was picking over her words searching for some kind of a trap. She was giving him what he wanted once again like she always had but this time there seemed to be no real chance of drawbacks. It wasn't like he could be trapped anyplace like the sink and she wasn't putting him in the living room which granted him almost free roam. It was as though there was no catch involved. Had this been his first day here he might very well have believed that but refusing Lyria always had some drawback aside from losing a meal or two.

Regardless, true to her word, as Lyria was preparing to leave she set him down on the kitchen floor. Staring up at her from this angle always did make her truly seem like a titan of sorts, filling his with equal parts somewhat irrational fear and adrenaline filled arousal as he followed those legs that went on forever. For her part the elf simply walked out the door to her apartment without a single parting word, leaving Sam alone in the apartment to explore these new areas now open to him.

He had a general idea of the layout from Lyria having carried him around pretty much the entire apartment. The kitchen was as good a place as any to start his search, so he set off upon the white tiled wasteland. Chair and table legs stood as might pillars nearby and various cabinets were closed to him unfortunately. The towering monolith of the fridge loomed far in the distance, its doors something only Lyria could force open. It appeared for the most part he'd be forced to stick to the floor. He could probably climb the legs of the chair and table, though falling from so great a height would certainly kill him.

The progress through the kitchen was slow going and frustratingly it was mostly clean and pristine. He occasionally heard the sound of a vacuum of sorts making the rounds through the apartment though it typically avoided the living room. At least while he was there. Lyria certainly wasn't the one doing the cleaning and he had his doubts she arranged for anyone else to handle the place. Still, the image of the controlling elf pushing around a vacuum and wiping down countertops and chairs with a bottle of spray, blue rubber gloves and an apron actually got a chuckle out of him.

As he took to this journey across the kitchen his thoughts turned towards his dead mentor. Of anyone he imagined Razor could have easily lasted through Lyria's games. The older street samurai had been one of the most adaptable people he had ever known. Sam imagined what he might say in this particular situation. Probably something about one of the many jobs he'd been through or that time he'd tangled with a troll in a kitchen with nothing but a butter knife. The young man doubted he'd have given an inch of ground to the other elf. That's what he chose to believe anyway.

As he closed in on the impressive looking dinner table Sam could have sworn he heard something whirring to life in the distance. His eyes turned towards the kitchen entrance and noticed a rounded machine slowly moving through the kitchen. His question regarding the cleanness of the home was now answered; a robot did that particular job for the floors at least. The thing was fairly big from his point of view, the size of a small dinner plate and was about his height from his best guess.

The little thing moved towards the counter near the table before he noticed the little blinking green light on its top turn solid red. The thing swiveled in place until he assumed it was facing him. That... did not seem good. Immediately a long serrated needle protruded from the area that was facing him. Ok, that was definitely not good. Sam swallowed hard as he realized that in his time here he'd never encountered any bugs or rats. He suspected this thing was probably the executioner of pests around here and judging from the absence of them it probably did a damn good job at it.

The thing barreled towards him, needle gleaming in the artificial light. Sam didn't gawk any longer and ran towards the relative safety of the space under the table. The thing gained quickly as he went into a full sprint, the senses Razor had spent long hours honing returning to him. A quickly glance behind told him revealed the needle speeding towards him, thus Sam waited to the last second before leaping to the right. He fell into a roll as the needle and the robot whirred past him, recovering quickly to continue his sprint for the table and chairs.

His opponent swiveled sharply, locating him quite easily and speeding towards him like some murderous death machine. It was coming at him from the side so he once more waited for it to close before leaping forward and closing the distance between him and brief safety. He ran between the thin gap between the chair leg and the table leg, his pursuer hitting both as it tried to follow. Sam smirked as the thing struggled futilely to get between the overly thin space, the needle pointed at him but too far away to possible hit him.

At least until the needle suddenly extended with lightning speed.

Sam's eyes widened and he only just barely managed to move aside, the blade grazing the side of his cheek. He hissed in pain and cursed whatever engineer had created the infernal device as he wiped the thin trail of blood from his cheek. So this had been the draw back to his refusal to Lyria's little offer, tangling with some killer vacuum cleaner. The young street samurai allowed an uneasy smile to cross his lips as his senses sharpened, adrenaline flowing through his body. In a twisted way he was actually somewhat pleased, this was an opponent he could lash out against and actually fight through physical means.

He channeled every lesson he had learned from his mentor as the thing lashed out with the extendable needle. He dodged and backed up until he was out of range of the infernal thing. Once the opponent's strengths and weakness' were discerned one could counter attack. That needle only seemed to be on one end and didn't seem able to change positions. If he could somehow get on top of the device he might be able to figure out some way to deactivate it. Of course since the thing probably hit like an oncoming vehicle even without the needle he'd need to devise a way to get up without being smashed and then stabbed through the face.

The device stopped lashing out, retracting the needle and backing up as it started to recalculate the situation and find a path in. Going under the chair itself would be easy enough for the thing and then he would be trapped in an enclosed space with the thing. The machined seemed to realize this at the same moment he did, moving towards the opening quickly. Thinking quickly Sam ran towards the table leg, leaping up onto it as the thing quickly gained on him again. His hands found purchase with the smooth grooves in the wood. His climbed quickly, the needle slamming into the place one of his legs had been mere moments ago.

He half turned his head, smirking as the machine had made a mistake in its single minded pursuit. Sam leaped from the table leg, landing on the back of the killer vacuum with a grunt. A savage grin was on his face as he had succeeded in getting the drop on his mechanized opponent. He was most certainly not bored any longer as he fought for his life. His heart was pumping and his pupils were dilated as energy surged through his body. How therapeutic it was to finally have the advantage over something since arriving in this home.

It appeared his opponent was less than pleased he had found purchase on top of it as it became quite frenzied. It sped from beneath the table and out into the open kitchen floor, hit its sides against the wall to try and dislodge him. Sam nearly slipped from his place atop the smooth metal, managing to find a handhold on the red light. His fingers clutched it for dear life as he searched around the surface of the machine for something he could do to switch it off or at least deactivate its kill mode.

His eyes zeroed in on a button with a power symbol on it, his grin widening as his panicking foe continued its efforts to dislodge him. He couldn't quite reach it while he held on to the red light. If he made a mad dash towards it just when the machine hit against the wall then he just might be able to make it. However if he was off by just a second he'd probably be flung from the thing and stuck in the wide open with no escape. It did not take a genius to calculate his odds of survival if that occurred.

His mentor had been of the mind that if the goal was easy or without risks then it was no goal worth achieving. With this in mind, the second the machine slammed the wall Sam ran towards the power button. Everything else in the world melted away as he only had eyes for the button. If he thought about the possibility of failure then his legs would slow. He was going to make it or die. There were only those two absolutes.

Sam gripped the edges of the circle around the button, slamming his elbow against the power button without a second of hesitation. The endless whirring of the device slowed to a halt and it lightly bumped against the wall. The red light faded out to black as the machined was defeated. The street samurai lay out on his back, breathing heavily from both the exertions and the excitement. He let out a sharp string of laughs, slapping a hand against the surface of the vacuum roughly.

That... had been a twisted kind of fun. It hadn't been a horror show like being trapped in Lyria's water bottle, or a dreadful experience like being isolated and starved. For those moments when he'd been avoiding death and fighting against the machine he had been reminded of what he had done before this had happened to him. He liked to think that, considering the circumstances, Razor would have been pretty damn proud that he had retained so much. Lyria probably would not have expected him to have conquered it, she probably had expected him to run and hide. See if the bitch would underestimate him after this.

Slowly Sam sat up and slid off the top of the machine, staring at it a little warily as though expecting it to return to life. It stayed deactivated fortunately. With a sigh Sam realized it was unlikely he was going to find anything of use in the kitchen. Perhaps one of the other rooms might yield more resources. Of course he doubted many would be open to him as Lyria usually closed most doors behind her.

With his mental map of the large apartment he knew that there was the kitchen, the living room, Lyria's room, the bathroom, and four doors that he had never entered before. He assumed one was a spare bedroom and the other might be another bathroom for extended stay overs. Possibly a study, she certainly seemed to vanish behind one of them for a while. Sam figured he'd see them sooner or later in his time here. For now he headed towards the bathroom he knew was there in the hopes it was not closed.

The giant apartment continued to look as imposing as ever as he trekked out of the kitchen and through the adjacent hallway. He didn't know exactly how much time had passed since Lyria had departed but it had to have at least been an hour between his exploration in the kitchen, his fight, and the trek through the hallway. The elf's work days fluctuated he had found, sometimes she was home early and other times she was home very late. These days she was typically a bit moody.

Sam felt great relief at noting the door to the bathroom was still open. Things were looking up for him it appeared between conquering that killer vacuum and this. The room itself was dark but the light from the outside helped to illuminate things nicely enough. The young man started his search along the floor, noting that like the kitchen it was mostly clean. He feared the machine had already been through here as he moved his search towards the open shower cube. Very likely it had not been inside of there.

He stepped into the shower space and noted it was still quite wet. It smelled of her fruity shampoo, filling his nose with the smell he most associated with Lyria. Her morning runs usually replaced the scent with sweat so it was always nice to smell this scent. It was odd to him how she took a quick shower, ran up a sweat, and then took another shower. It seemed needlessly frivolous to him though he was glad she never insisted on him taking another bath. Then again he supposed she had money to burn to afford a nice place like this one. If she wanted to take two showers she had that right he supposed. Maybe the first was to wake her up and the second was more of an actual shower?

Regardless he stepped through the after math of her showers and gazed warily at the drain. It was thankfully grated so it was unlikely he'd be falling down the hole. He did notice something very useful at the drain that made his eyes light up. Some strands of black hair. Lyria's black hair. Her hair was fairly long; if he twisted a few strands together he might be able to craft a decent enough rope. If he could also find something to tie to the end of it he might be able to make a grappling hook. That would most certainly get him over the steps.

Excitedly Sam gathered up three strands of the hair, wrapping the bundle over his shoulder and around his waist. The hair was still as silky smooth as ever; hopefully it was also as strong as silk. With this haul made Sam made his way out of the shower and back into the bathroom proper. He hummed slightly as he looked around and opted to head towards the area around the toilet next. It had some tight point where that infernal machine would no doubt have difficulty reaching.

It was still as clean as the rest of the bathroom, a few dust particles here or there but otherwise it was looking like a bust. That was until he noted something that looked rather out of place. He picked it up and smirked at his luck. One of Lyria's toenails. Looked rather like it was from the big toe from its size and strength. He could still see some very faded blue on spots of it. It was fairly clean as well; then again everything in her apartment was clean. He half expected the few bits of dust would sparkle.

He slipped the trophy under the wrapped hair and slowly made his way out of the bathroom. He pondered over just heading to her heels and storing the items with his blanket but opted against it. Lyria probably wouldn't care over much regarding his supplies. She'd probably give him an amused look and let him do as he pleased like she normally did. Ironically he was using bits of her to try and climb a previously insurmountable barrier. He wondered if that would please her more than not.

___________________________________________________________________

It was some hours later when the door to the apartment opened once more. Sam could hear Lyria humming some light tune as her heels clacked against the floor to signal her approach. He had spent his free time tying up the hair into a suitable rope and tying the nail on the end of it. His grapple was complete; he'd just need to test it out later. For now he just couldn't wait to see the elf's reaction to the inactive machine against the side of the kitchen. He lingered near it with a slight smirk on his face.

The elf stepped into the kitchen with a set of headphones in her ears though her blue eyes found the thing easy enough. Sam, who had expected a frown, was surprised to see a little smirk on her lips at the sight. She said nothing, merely picking up the inactive machine after setting her purse down on the counter and walking out of the kitchen. Well... that had been disappointing. He had expected annoyance or displeasure but the last thing he had expected was for her to be pleased to see the sight.

She returned a few minutes later, her heels and stockings having been discarded. Her head lightly bobbed to whatever music she was listening to and her feet made little dainty steps, half between dancing and not. Sam found himself mesmerized by the motions of her body, the great titaness moving towards him on her way to her purse. Her grace was almost unnatural and it showed in the simplest movements. His eyes lingered on her feet and her slender toes, the fresh coat of blue nail polish bright and vibrant. Despite himself he felt a bit of arousal shoot through him.

He snapped out of his trance as he noted that Lyria wasn't even looking at him, indeed as her steps came closer he suspected she had no intention on stopping. Sam's eyes widened as her left foot came up, its shadow falling over him. The young man quickly leapt to the side as her foot came down, barely escaping being trod upon by the seemingly oblivious elf. He stood quickly, a surge of adrenaline coursing through him. The machine had been something he could fight but Lyria was most certainly not.

"Lyria! Hey, Lyria!" He shouted, realizing it was probably no use with those headphones in her triangular ears.

The elf indeed did not hear him, checking something in her purse before moving away from the counter and back toward him. Her foot crashed down perilously close to where he was, so close he could smell the mixture of her sweat and scented soap. He had an idea and tried to reach out to touch her closest toe, but her foot was already gone as she walked towards the fridge. He needed to use touch to get her to notice him if his voice wouldn't do it. Otherwise he could very well end up a red smear on the tiles.

He ran off after her, once more reminded of just how massive she was. With a few steps she was so far from him that he dreaded the run, opening the fridge and humming under her breath as she looked through it. She tapped the ball of her left foot against the ground as she searched for what she needed, raising her heel up and presenting the arch to Sam. She removed a carton of milk from within and drank directly from it for a few moments. He was getting closer, just a little bit more. A little bit more...

He was panting and gasping by the time he neared Lyria's feet, the elf placing the milk back in its place and closing the fridge. Sam had nearly reached the exposed arch of her left foot when she started moving again. The arch was moved to be flat and he quickly jumped out of the way to avoid being crushed beneath it. He punched the ground as she walked off towards the cupboard. Damn it, he had been so close! He cursed the elf and her stupid games, they always ended up with him panting and gasping for breath.

With a low growl he got up and started jogging towards Lyria once more, who had opened one of the top cupboards and was looking through it. She removed a box of something and placed it on the counter. Thankfully she was not too far away this time so he managed to catch up with her soon enough. She was munching on some kind of crackers or something, humming without a care in her world. Sam meanwhile had encountered a new problem as her munching on her little snack sent a few crumbs falling towards the ground.

To her they were probably nothing but to him they were rocks falling from a great height. A couple of times he had to jump aside to avoid one hitting him in the head. This rather dangerous obstacle subsided briefly between each cracker, giving Sam a window to make a break towards his goal. He reached her nearest foot and all but threw himself at it, panting and gasping as he rubbed it to try and get her attention. He was getting quite a bit of exercise today apparently, from killer vacuums to chasing after Lyria.

The elf peered down at him and swallowed, removing one of her head phones and cocking her head with amusement clear in her eyes? "Sam? What are you doing down there, it's a bit dangerous to be scurrying around underfoot." She said.

He glared up at her in response but soon found himself caught by surprise when her foot shifted away from him. She moved it closer then, managing to dexterously catch him between her toes around the waist. Sam immediately felt his arousal skyrocket at this particular position, his member pressing up against the underside of her big toe. There was one arousal he would have preferred to remain a secret. He did most certainly enjoy her feet quite a bit and being pinned like this was more than enough to get his arousal aching between his legs.

Gravity shifted as she moved her foot up enough for her to be able to remove him with her fingers, something he was both disappointed by and silently grateful. He was laid out on the palm of her hand before her as she was munching through another cracker, swallowing moments later. She offered him a rather innocent smile that certainly did not fool him for a second. She probably had some silent bit of fun putting him through the ringer. Her eyes trailed over his member.

"A bit excited are we? Didn't know you had a thing for feet, Sammy." She purred.

He glared up at her. "I don't!" He growled.

She raised a single brow. "You say that but your body disagrees with that assessment. I felt something pressing against my toe and it wasn't your hand. It's quite alright. I'm not one to judge, pet." She cooed, drawing in closer.

"If you ever want me to play with you, just say the word. What kind of owner would I be if I didn't play with my little pet every now and again? Now that I know what gets you going I'm certain we can have quite a bit of fun." She whispered, her breath hot and smelling heavily of grain.

Sam was about to rebuke her again but found the words failing to rise in his chest. One because Lyria was unlikely to believe him, and two because despite himself the offer was appealing to him. It would be on his own terms so it wasn't like she was forcing him to do anything. He was wary of her suggestions and ideas given they were all geared towards giving control to her, but this one had some promise he was fond of. Sam opted to let the suggestion sit in his mind for a bit rather than discard it out of hand.

"I'll think about it." He said, earning a pearly smile from the elf.

"Anyway. You didn't tell me you owned a killer vacuum." He said, her tone taking on a slight edge.

Her answer was as infuriating as it was expected.

"You never asked." She replied.