"Guns have truly become a terrifying force in this age. Yet a sword does the task of monster hunting almost as well." Amelia paused. "Also, I am a poor shot."
"And related to that, it's easier to suffer friendly fire with a firearm."
"Anyway," Jerry turns his head-mounted light on. "We're here."
He walks up to the temple doors. Or through them if they're open.
Jessica holds up her hand as they step into the darkness. A longsword suddenly appears in her grasp out of nowhere. It bursts into flame, sending a bright, dancing light around her.
"Yeah, broadly." Zeke nods at Jessica and moves forward, shotgun easy in one hand, flashlight arcing wherever he turns. When the girl produces her flaming sword, Zeke glances sidelong at Jerry. "Friendly fire, huh?"
Jerry glances at the flaming sword, meets Zeke's eyes, and then turns to examine the temple.
Amelia glanced at the bank, unsure if they should be revealing such fire power in the form of flaming swords and guns while in view of potential witnesses. She kept her own sword hidden beneath the long coat she wore.
The former river bottom had a few rocky stretches that looked like an easier route to the doors than the muddy areas and the best way into the open doors without leaving a very obvious trail.
Once inside, Jessica's lit up sword makes it a lot easier to see. The floor is stone, damp and uneven in places. The stone walls have remnants of what at best guess would be cloth banners hanging on. This is a open space with what looks like a well to one side. At the edge of the sword's light, three darkened passages ways can be seen on the far wall and remnants of the wooden floor of an upper floor.
Glancing around at the darkness, Amelia pulled out her shield and extended it with a 'clunk'. It should keep her alive if anything was lurking.
Then she started fiddling with the electronic device supposed to create light.
Nightstick in hand, Jerry carefully shines his light down the well before the group moves past it.
Unless Jerry stops the group or calls attention to the well, Zeke approaches each of the passageways in turn, shining his light down the entrance to see whatever he can. Breathe easy, big guy. This is nothing you haven't done a dozen times already.
The well is deep, it's hard to tell how deep with the murky water that is likely mostly old river water at the moment, but Jerry would guess it's currently about half full looking and whatever had been used to draw water out, there wasn't any sign of it left that Jerry could see.
At each corridor, Zeke spots some similarities - more of those torn cloth banners, doors farther back into rooms, and the last corridor near one of those doors has what looks like smashed boxes.
Confident that there isn't something just below the top of the well that needs to be worried about, Jerry moves on to join the others without wasting any breath about the well. If there was something to be concerned about, he'd let them know.
As they deliberate over which way to go, Jerry tries to see if he can see any footprints to indicate if any of the passages were more used than the others.
"Well," Zeke says, peering down the final passage. "Good news is we can take any way we like, cause I don't see danger. Bad news is, I don't see anything else, either, so no leads." He pauses and takes a step into the corridor. "Wait, scratch that. I've got some smashed up old boxes here. Truly a sign from God." He snorts and turns back to rejoin the others."So what's the plan?"
"Well, if we cannot go futher along, and we cannot go up as there is no up, I suppose we can only observe below." Amelia glanced into the well, seeing if there was anything down there.
"Oh, no, there are doors back there. Just no markings or ideas of which one is the right to take." Zeke shrugs and gives an apologetic, ugly smile. "I'm not sure I like the idea of going down that thing, anyway. Last well still gives me the willies thinking about it."
There are some smudgy marks that might be footprints, Jerry's not sure, especially as they seem to go in all directions. He is pretty sure that there isn't an opening he could see in the well to be investigated.
There is a vague noise that Zeke, Jerry and Amelia think they could hear - a tiny giggle - but as soon as they're somewhat conscious of the sound, it fades into the surrounding noises of the nearby forest and moving water.
Zeke notices that moving water sounds louder in the corridor with the broken boxes.
Jessica stays quiet and alert, following just behind the others. She sneaks her own glance down the well once everyone else has passed.
She nervously gives her sword a twirl, then immediately regrets it as it sends the shadows dancing.
Looking around at the others in the universal look for did thou also hear yonder noise?, Amelia began to try and find it. Because it seemed creepy, and you headed towards creepy.
About the same time Amelia starts looking for the noise--prompting a curious shrug from Zeke--the big man starts moving down the corridor with broken boxes at the end, cracking his neck as he goes. "Well, we gotta start somewhere."
The spinning sword creates a beautiful show, lights and shadows playing up to the heights of the open space.
As Zeke moves down the hall, the sounds of water get louder. At the first room, he can see the bits of broken boxes more clearly. There is old rotten wood further into the room, but the bits he can see are new - and parts of them seem to be jammed under a paving stone, the sound of water seeming to come from beneath it.
Still looking for the source of the giggles, Amelia remained nearby. Just in case. Strange giggles in a ruin were rarely a good sign.
"Hey, think I've got something here," Zeke calls out. He waves for the others to join him and gestures to the propped stone. "I'm gonna check it out, but I'd appreciate someone having my back in case it's a trap. I've seen Raiders enough times not to stick my hands somewhere without backup."
Once the others are with him, Zeke carefully kneels down and moves aside the paving stone if he can, hoping not to disturb too much of the surrounding flooring.
Jessica almost asks Zeke if Raiders is that really old movie about the guy being chased by a boulder, but decides not to voice it. She'd never seen it outside of that one scene anyway.
She moves close to him, being both backup and providing the light source as he checks out the paving stone.
While Amelia and Jessica watch Zeke, Jerry watches their surroundings.
With her recent experience, Amelia's suspicious attention is caught by on the moving shadows from the various light sources.
The two bright lights make it more obvious to Zeke and Jessica that the broken bits of wood were purposefully put there - and probably quite recently. Once Zeke has moved the paving stone, it's obvious to both him and Jessica that there is a large space under this building, a space large enough that even with their lights, it was difficult to see all of the depths.
Now that was interesting. Was it simply the lights sources flickering and moving, or would it be something more. Amelia tried to work it out.
Jessica peers down into the space, frowning. She straightens, then looks around the room again to familiarize herself with it.
I can't believe I'm suggesting this. "If you've got some rope, you could lower me down. I can get back up quicker than anyone else if there's something nasty down there."
"I was gonna just lower myself down," Zeke comments. "Assuming it's not just a straight drop... Actually, hang on." The man grabs a few chunks of the wood, and holds up a finger in a gesture of quiet. He then lies down with his head by the hole and drops the wood in, straining to hear it hit the bottom--and hoping it happens almost immediately.
There is nothing hiding in the shadows that Amelia can see, though with recent experience, it is hard for her to not think that there might be more that there appears, but at the very least she was confident that there was nothing hostile or pursuing from the shadows.
A few moments after Zeke drops the bit of wood, a loud splash is heard. With Zeke's experience, he reckons that it must have hit a fairly large source of water, enough that dropping down would probably be safe, but a way back up like the rope might be useful.
"I suppose we should get some rope, then," Amelia says as she pulls her attention from the walls and shadows. "I can search for somewhere suitable to secure it while you get it from the truck, assuming no one is carrying it one their person?"
Zeke frowns at the apparent drop, and raises an eyebrow as he looks at Amelia. "What, you don't see the fifty feet I'm carrying? Keep it right next to my ten foot pole." He gives an exaggerated eye roll and stands back up. "I'll go look in the truck, I think we still had some in the bed from... I forget why, but you wouldn't want to know anyway. Don't go anywhere without me."
Amelia would consider a pack a suitable place for rope, but didn't comment. Instead, she sploshed around looking for a good place to tie it to, so they didn't accidentally lose Zeke.
Jerry accompanies Zeke to the entrance of the building so that he can (hopefully) hear if Zeke runs into any trouble and if Amelia and Jessica do the same.
The growing biting wind nipped at Zeke as he made the trek back to the truck. Rope and a few other potentially useful bits were easy to find.
As he made his way back, Jerry in sight, suddenly Zeke felt something painful at his ankles. It felt like something was yanking it - and him with it - through the mud, sending the man roughly onto one knee, the lower part of one leg under the mud, the painful tight feeling still there like a heavy weight.
"Trouble out here!" Jerry calls inside before running to Zeke as fast as he can, keeping his eyes peeled for anything that might also try to drag him down.
When he gets to Zeke , Jerry grabs the man and pulls.
Amelia heard the shouts and started sploshing to the source of the problem.
Zeke scowls as the wind bites at him, and he makes his trip to the truck as quick as possible. Rope and a few other odd tools and bits go into a field pack, and he slings it over one shoulder. With a brief second thought, he also snags a plain black patrol cap and pulls it on his head, keeping some of his hair from being whipped around in the wind.
On the way back, he waves to Jerry, letting the man know he's fine... And that's right when one leg goes under deep, pain shooting up his ankles. With a shout, the big man tumbles into the mud, sliding on one knee as he curses. His first instinct is to grab his leg with both hands just above the knee and pull as hard as he can, trying to get it free from whatever's got a hold of him. If that doesn't work, he draws his knife and starts probing, careful not to stab himself in the excitement.
Jerry can't see anything but hold and what seems to be odd mostly mud-filled hole that Zeke's foot seems to be stuck in.
"Ah, son of a..." Zeke hisses and swears under his breath as he fails to break free at first. He curses again, much, much louder, when he catches a possible glimpse of what had hold of him. With a final effort, Jerry's assistance, and a good deal of backwards scrambling, Zeke breaks free, and immediately points his shotgun at the hole.
"You see that, Jerry? There was something in there. Looked red, and it definitely had a hold of me." Zeke keeps his gun trained on the location while he uses one hand to roll up his pants, checking for wounds around his ankles. "We'd better get back inside and see what's down that hole."
"Well, now that you've told whatever's down there where we're going, sure," Jerry grouses, but still heads back to the temple with intent of going down that hole.
Meeting the two men at the entrance, Amelia asked, "Dare I ask what happened?"
Jessica stayed back, watching the hole and the rest of the room with her flaming sword in hand. When Jerry shouted about there being trouble outside, she almost moved herself there -- but outside meant the possibility of witnesses so she used her legs. By the time she got to the entrance, whatever had happened was over.
"What was it?" she asks at the same time as Amelia voices her question.
Looking over at the angelic woman with a wry smile, Amelia laughed a little after they spoke over each other.
"There's something underground. Grabbed my ankle on the way back, tried to drag me somewhere." Zeke steps back inside and swings the pack around to his front, unzipping it to pull out the rope. "What say we go down there and return the favor?"
Returning in the room with box bits, there are a few wall posts that with gaps that would probably be strong enough to anchor ropes.
What on earth lived beneath the mud like that? It seemed bizarre, even for a monster. Still, it was pretty much a defining trait of monsters to be bizarre in some way.
Securing the rope as firmly as possible, Amelia tied her light to the end of the rope. "I shall lower the light down with the rope. Once Zeke climbs down he can untie and use it there. It might also give us a peek of what waits below."
She began to lower the light and rope, trying to spot anything below as it went.
Jessica shakes her head. "No, I'll go down. I can get up the fastest. I have... an ability. I can choose to be somewhere else if I want. So if I go down there, and it's crawling with monsters, I can be back up here before you even pull the rope."
Zeke gives Jessica a long look, as though gauging the truth of what she's saying. After a while, his eyes widen slightly, and he rests the shotgun back on one shoulder and gestures towards the hole. "After you. But if it is crawling with monsters, give a holler and get out of the way, cause I'll be coming down shooting."
This is fine. This is fine, Jessica thinks as she steps up to the hole. She gives her sword another nervous twirl as she looks down into the space, paying attention to whatever the light might be illuminating.
As long as it's not obviously teeming with monsters, she sends her sword away amd grabs ahold of the rope. She winds it around her leg, grateful for her gymnastics classes when she was younger, though hopeful that this would be like riding a bike. She twists the rope around her waist so she can control her descent then lets herself drop through the hole.
It's okay. So what if there are monsters down there. I'm a monster too, right? She tries to keep her left hand in control of the rope, so her right is free enough to call forth her sword.