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[protect_and_survey]

Jemma wakes up in the dark with an unexpected headache and a severe case of disorientation.

"Fitz, I think Marrihew spiked the punch again." She groans, struggling to sit up.



"... Fitz?"



"... Leo?"

Comments

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae is ignoring Jemma's staring, and trying to ignore the way even the uneven drip..............drip of water droplets from somewhere in the darkness are making her tense up.

"I vote we head that way," she says. "Uphill."

That sound comes again - a far-off, echoing sound, like the enraged bellow of an animal. But the passageways make it impossible to tell which way the sound is coming from.

"Okay, I know it's not my imagination now. Let's go."

[protect_and_survey]

Uphill makes sense, as a cave system has to run out somewhere, and the higher you go, the less ground there is in general.

"It could be the locals are using the caves for cattle storage - it would be an easy way to get them into a defensible space." She muses, because babbling stops the rattle of nerves. Sort of.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Locals who might've left those decorations back there, you mean?" Rae says dryly, climbing. "I really don't care to find out whether that was a cow or something else."

Right before another branch in their path, there's a particularly steep bit where part of the stonework has fallen away, broken by something stronger than itself in some distant time past. Rae manages to pull herself up, and then, with a grip on an edge of the wall, offers a hand down to Simmons.

[protect_and_survey]

Rae's protests are met with a long-suffering look and silence, waving off the offered hand to clamber up on her own. The other woman might not actually be a SHIELD field agent, but the attitude is familiar - in this case, depressingly so.

"Well, you seem to have a plan - lead on."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Only if 'keep going and don't die' counts as a plan," Rae replies, only faintly wry, as they approach the next fork. "I'm just as lost as you."

[protect_and_survey]

Simmons makes a non-committal noise at that, studying the rock strata layers in the rough-hewn walls visible through flickering torch light and her travelling companion's odd fire ability. She would love to get Fitz's DWARF droids down here, but she suspects she'll have less luck at that than she has getting them into the bar proper.

"Which way next then?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"They look... just about the same." Rae hesitates. The fork in the passageway is a flat T, one way leading right, one way leading left, both passages disappearing quickly into darkness. From somewhere in the echoing halls, there's the deep sound of rock grating against rock. Rae can't help the uptick in her pulse at the sound.

"Which would you say?

[protect_and_survey]

"They do look remarkably similar." She agrees, scrunching her nose at the options. "Clearly not a natural formation."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Yeah," Rae lets the light above them drift a little ways down the left corridor, and then down the right. "They were definitely built - or at least hollowed out - but ages ago, by the looks of things. Built, and then abandoned."

"Apart from, you know, whoever contributed their blood to the decor back ther- oh gods," Rae covers her mouth, having seen the skull and partial skeleton the hovering light had illuminated down the right passage.

[protect_and_survey]

Simmons, on the other hand, moves forward, using a shard of rock to carefully push aside scraps of clothing and desiccated flesh.

"Relatively young, but poor dental care, probably lives near an ocean or desert - there's lots of sand in the diet, you can see the wear on the teeth."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Sand blown into the food, and stone-ground flour," Rae says, not looking at the body, her lips pressed together and her eyes closed. "You get a lot of grit, in the bread. Damages the teeth."

"Ah, so, if we're somewhere or when on Earth, it's pre-industrial."

[protect_and_survey]

"Not necessarily, but definitely somewhere distant from a major metropolis." Simmons shrugs. "Probable cause of death is head injury - something fractured the skull back here, but that could be postmortem damage."

[sunbaked_baker]

"This place is full of 'not necessarily's," Rae rolls her eyes, frustrated by not being able to determine anything about her surroundings apart from not wanting to be there.

"Let's keep moving. I'd rather get out soon than find out what's been leaving these decorations."

[protect_and_survey]

"Which way? Further on past this fellow or back the other way?" Simmons asks as she looks over what's left of the skin on the arms for any tribal marks or tattoos.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Well, we didn't go the way Mr. Arterial might have been going. Let's not go the way Mr. Massive Head Injury might have been going, either."

Because really, one way is as good as the next, when you don't have any way of knowing which way either of them were going. Just that the passages they mark have death in them - and as Jemma said before, it's not a strong recommendation.

"I vote left."

[protect_and_survey]

"Very well." She gives her new skeletal friend a pat goodbye - there just isn't the time or the equipment to properly record all the information she could get.

[sunbaked_baker]

Each passage is much the same as all the previous passages; each fork in the broken stone corridors as unmemorable as the ones that came before it. Sunshine is growing thirsty, and longing for the sun, and it may be the presence of another person that has kept her calm.

Still, every so often, there are sounds. Some are easily identified - drips of water, the high-pitched squeaks of bats. But some... some make the hair on the back of Rae's neck stand up.

"Hey," she whispers, reaching out to touch Jemma's wrist lightly. "Stop for a moment. Listen."

Very faint, there is the semi-regular crunch of something hard impacting stone.

[protect_and_survey]

"We'd best look for some place defensible then." Simmons decides - she learned way back in Academy that running blindly gets you killed. Finding a place to defend sometimes gets you killed too, but at least there's a chance.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Where? It's all hallways!" Rae says, trying to figure out which way the sound is coming from.

"It's coming from behind us, the way we came from - let's look further on for some place where we can..."

Hopefully not end up as decoration.

[protect_and_survey]

"Come along then." She has quite a lot of practice dealing with Leo's panic, so she can at least present a calm front now, hurrying down the hallway, the torch held aloft so she doesn't trip over anything.

[sunbaked_baker]

The hovering light follows Rae as she hurries through the shadowy corridors. She only trips once, and not badly - her knee stings something awful and the skin on her palms is roughed, but she keeps going.

The crunching noises follow them, but are not - with their increased speed - yet growing noticeably closer.

Until a large chunk of the crumbly stone floor gives way beneath them suddenly. Rae can't help but shriek as they fall.

[protect_and_survey]

The fall isn't terribly far, but Jemma wasn't set up for a drop. She hisses as she tries to stand, her right ankle twisting awkwardly underneath her weight.

You know, she could really do with seeing another SHIELD agent. Preferably one geared towards field work.

Aaaaanny time now.

That'd be brilliant.

She swears softly under her breath, trying to find her doused torch.

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae catches herself awkwardly against an outcropping of rock, her ribs aching and her already-skinned palms not appreciative of her grip on the rough surface. The crunching sounds are getting closer along the corridor above, the stonework shaking with every impact. Again they hear the angry, bestial bellow they had heard before, only many times louder, a sound of mindless rage. A beast, sighting its prey.

"Jemma!" Rae calls. "Down here!" The outcropping of rock Rae had caught herself on was the jagged ceiling of a corridor a good ten feet lower down than the one they'd been on. Beneath it, there is a small gap no more than a foot and a half wide, leading into pitch darkness. Darkness through which Sunshine could see the passageway beyond.

[protect_and_survey]

She struggles to make her way over, scraping her hands on the rock as she leans heavily against it to try (vainly) to keep weight off her foot while negotiating the tumbled rock floor.

"I don't think we'll be able to hide under there for long."

[sunbaked_baker]

"It's another corridor," Rae explains, remembering Jemma can't see into the darkness beyond the opening of the gap. "It may bypass us if we get in there quickly, and if it does see which way we went, it'll still buy us some time. Defensible, right?"

Rae offers the woman her hands. "C'mon. I'll lower you down."