tampered | (no subject)

(no subject)

WHEN: the ~~not-so~~ shiny days of the grave-digging event.
RATING: PG-15.
SUMMARY: The maze only ever gave good greeting to its dead.
NOTE: iiiiif plot participants want to log away any kind of maze-interaction, you're welcome to start threads here! If you've already handled it somewhere else, don't worry! Another log post will follow for the second half of the plot.

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[How many days had it been? One, two? It seemed like ages to Klarth, who found himself laying on the floor of this God forsaken maze. He had to admit attempting the dig on his own was indeed foolish, let alone not letting anyone else know of it was even more so. Six feet deep and more, the place wasn't pleasant in the least bit. One of the main reasons why he was sprawled out on the dirt in the first place. One minute he was able to pull of at least Undine to strike the enemy before him and the next, BAM. Blacked out. He couldn't have been more grateful of Cless and the others at that moment for all the times they've distracted the monsters while he casted his spell. He helplessly forced a chuckle to the thought. He truly was nothing without them.

Cocking his head to the side, he located his spell book and his communication device a short distance away from him. Phew. He let out a relieved sigh. Thank goodness, he wasn't robbed of those items of all things. He slowly turned over onto his stomach and crawled his way towards them, reaching out with his arm. Now, he could at least call for...

It was that very moment when his eyes widened in shock as his hand slipped right through the device.

He quickly attempted again. A nervous chuckle escaping him. What the... After a few frustrated grunts here and there with no success of picking it up, Klarth sat up as he stared at it in disbelief. Just what was going on!? He looked around his surroundings once more when he noticed a small red stain on the ground, precisely where he was laying a few minutes ago. Was it... blood? Automatically, his hands went to examine his own body to see if he were injured in anyway but nothing.

All right, calm down. Calm down, Klarth. There has to be a reason for this. Staring down at his hands, the summoner gathered his composure as he tried to logically think of what exactly happened to him. Though really he could only think of one outlandish conclusion.

Was he... dead?]

Nearly a day has passed since Peter fell into what he can only suppose is a portion of underground caverns set apart from the Underground people are already familiar with. Things are not pitch dark, so even without a candle or better a torch he is not utterly blind, but his pace is slower than it normally would be. Caution mandates it as he cannot afford to lose himself to foolish overconfidence. His siblings are waiting, as well as the other king of Narnia and friends like Blue, friends like Claire. He will not disappoint them. Nothing on the network that has caught his attention has been particularly telling, but he keeps it out anyway just in case, the mild glow it casts certainly helping to ascertain that his next step and the subsequent ones won't be his last.

The labyrinth like quality to these passages is not lost on the High King who has frowned enough as he etches distinct scratches into the wall with a loose rock, noting that even as he avoids going backwards the way forwards seems without end or even implication of end. Frustrating is one word to describe it, and taxing another, but the main problem has so far not been the trick of its layout as much as it has been the unwanted company. Though without his shovel, and certainly without Rhindon, the blond has made do as well as he might, which means he has come out of each scrape quite alive if a little disheveled, generally tattered in the department of clothing and very much up to over-smudged with earth on his hands, his face, so on and so forth. For the most part however, he is even uninjured, which is surely something to be grateful for. A cut here, a bruise there, but nothing broken or the like. In short, he counts his blessings.

Close by--or seemingly close by--there is the rather distinct rise and fall of footsteps. This gives him cause to pause and flatten himself against the nearest, narrowest pass between two rock walls, shadowed and hidden from the nearest corner. If they are as close as he perceives them to be, he would like to know who or what they are first. Though he doesn't doubt others must be down here so far his only run-ins have been with the long dead and done for. If this is more of the same, best to have the jump on them.

[ooc; locked to Rosella as prearranged, backdated to Tuesday--July 20--daytime.]

This is not the first set of underground caves that Rosella has found herself wandering through in her life, and to be perfectly frank, these ones seem to be considerably more pleasant than the last ones she found herself in--for the very notable reason that the chambers in these ones aren't nearly so big, and therefore the small light from her candle illuminates them much better than her old lantern did in the others. Also, she hasn't run across any chasms yet, which is fortunate.

She'd gone to the graveyard expecting a trap, and a trap is exactly what she'd walked into--but not the sort of trap she'd been expecting, so it had caught her off-guard. She'd thought she'd meet a zombie rising up out of Sam's grave, or find some hidden secret, not end up getting sucked down as though it were a whirlpool and not a hole in the earth. But at least she went prepared, and once again, her great-grandfather's advice has come in handy. Stuffed in her pockets are all manner of odds and ends, many of which have proven useful--like the candle and matches, which have given her a light, or the small sack of cookies, which she's been nibbling on every so often to help keep her strength up.

She doesn't know what else might be down here, and just because she hasn't run into any monsters yet certainly doesn't mean that there aren't any at all, so she's come up with what she hopes will be a reasonable plan in case of trouble: her bow is safely on her back, though she can't very well shoot it without dropping her candle, so she has instead chosen to hold her little gold crown in one hand and the candle in the other. The last time she used this crown, it turned her into a frog, possessions and all. With any luck, it'll work the same way again--and hopefully, any monsters that she encounters will be too confused by the sight of a girl turning into a frog to catch her before she can get away.

It's not the best of plans, but it'll have to do.

She continues walking, clutching the crown tightly in one sweating palm, and readies herself as she begins to make her way toward the next chamber.

Lighter footsteps, he can identify them well enough, probably a woman but no matter how adept one becomes at this kind of guesswork the fact remains that it is still just that; guesswork. So when he glances around the corner and catches sight of Rosella he lets go a breath he did not realize he was holding and comes around the corner's bend entirely, hands at his sides and palms open-faced as if to say he means her no harm--just in case that was under any even minor question. One never knows in the City, to be fair to both parties.

"Rosella, right?" He has not spoken to her--that he recalls--directly but he knows of her, as he is aware of most of the City's longer-standing citizens just as a matter of being informed.

She jumps, visibly, at the sudden sound and movement, and the little gold crown is halfway to her head before it occurs to her that the person that had just spoken, whoever it was, had called her by name--and if there is one thing she is willing to put her faith in at the moment, it's that no monster in this maze should know or care what her name is.

Still, it takes her a minute of staring before the vaguely familiar voice and the vaguely familiar face add up in her mind, and it occurs to her that yes, she does know the figure in front of her, and if she had a hand free with which to snap her fingers when the realization finally dawns, she would've.

"Yes, I'm Rosella," she answers with a nod. "And...I know you, don't I? From the Blue Light--don't you work for Blue? My goodness, what in the world are you doing down here?"

His brief appraisal of her carrying the crown and how she seems initially poised to place it on her head is just that--brief, but there all the same before he nods, affirming her realization even as she affirms his own for him. It isn't bred into him to bow or anything, but he inclines his head a little in greeting which is a decent median ground for someone both from Narnia and England's earlier half of the twentieth century. On his person there is exactly nothing of use except for his device most recently stuffed unceremoniously into his pocket, and he folds his arms absently if only because he has nothing else to do right now, shifting his weight from foot to foot and momentarily forgetting his present state of appearance which while not downright alarming is still clearly...well, the word might be somewhere between bedraggled and bothered. Might.

"Yes, that's right," a pause as he glances over his shoulder and then back to her. "I could ask you the same thing," he points out, not to be smart with her but to say without saying that the topic just isn't a pleasant one no matter what direction one approaches it from.

Then he is a friend of Blue's. At this confirmation, Rosella lets her hand drop to her side, and then on further thought replaces the little crown in one of her skirt's numerous pockets. It's strange, really; seeing Peter in his bedraggled state suddenly makes her acutely aware of just how well off she is at the moment in comparison. She has light, food, magic, and at least two weapons within immediate reach, and really, to be perfectly frank, the wandering has been an inconvenience at best. How must Peter have fared, she wonders, when he doesn't even seem to have a light to see by, much less any of the other small comforts she has with her?

"I fell down a hole," she replies simply, shuffling through her other pockets as she does so and eventually retrieving her sack of cookies. There were a dozen when she started out, and she's been nibbling along the way, but there are still several left inside, and when she finds the packet, she offers it to him.

"Oh! Here, have one. You--" look terrible, she almost says, but catches herself, "--must've been walking for quite some time, too."

...fell down a hole. Hm. Well he doesn't have to think on that too much to come to what he is relatively certain is the correct conclusion for both of them but he nods to it rather than pursuing it further. The how of getting here is somewhat inconsequential compared to how they might get out of here, and likely they can both agree on that. Rosella seems sensible, off the bat at least.

"Thanks," he smiles a little, because he doesn't mind smiling as much as people sometimes poke fun at him about being reserved and generally, well, not smiling. He doesn't have an unpleasantness about him, though he supposes it could be mistaken for it. In any case, he does take one cookie, politely biting into it as he returns the parcel to her, and glances around them again now that he can do so unworried about who might be approaching. "Something of a mess we've gotten ourselves into." No need to be specific, but it is rather true. "They say safety in numbers," he turns back to her and tilts his head slightly. It's less a suggestion, more a point made, but he tries not to state it too definitively for once. It's not just up to him after all.

She returns his smile with a friendly one of her own, reaching out to take the bag and return it to her pockets once again. He does seem a sensible sort, Peter--and naturally so, she reminds herself, since he works for Blue and Blue wouldn't have hired him if he wasn't at least reasonably sensible. And he makes a very good point, bringing up safety in numbers. While it's true that her family's predilection for adventure usually resulted in one of them going adventuring alone, it'd be silly to reject a potential companion simply for the sake of continuing that tradition. Besides, she does feel a bit bad for him, that she's comparatively so well off and he's on his own without much of anything at all.

"It is quite a predicament, isn't it? And I must say, it's been quite unsettling, walking around this place all alone," she answers, picking her words carefully. She does notice Peter's hinting toward going exploring together, but he seems hesitant to ask outright to accompany her. She's not entirely sure if it's because he doesn't want her to think he's taking advantage of her, or if he doesn't think it's proper to invite himself along, or if he's embarrassed to admit his own rather unfortunate predicament, or if it's something else entirely. Still, regardless of what it may be, she knows an easy way to fix it, and that's by asking him herself.

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to help me try to find a way out?" she continues, casting him a hopeful look. "I'd be terribly glad for the company, and you're right, we'd both be much safer if we were together."

"I think that would be in both our interests," he nods with some relief in tone and expression, the set of his shoulders softening just a little and he steps closer to her. It is yet a polite breadth but close enough to be considered friendly, companionable even, and considering the constricting nature of some of these cavern paths, such casualness is worth appreciating, or rather that Peter simply doesn't think of it any other way. Propriety is all but imprinted onto him, though bred is closer of course, given his duality of times and places.

"Suppose since you came from that direction and I came from that one," he gestures opposite-ways, "This middle lead is the way to follow...as far as unexplored territory goes," and again he does not order. Rosella is not a close friend and nor is she a subject of his--he hasn't had one of those in a while really, and even they he usually treated with the courtesy of a choice rather than a flat-out command. There are exceptions. War settings were one, but this is not that, so he treads a line of protocol and what he hopes is something like kindness even though he also knows he isn't the most gregarious of fellows.

"That sounds like a fine idea," she agrees, pleased to see that her suggestion worked out as she'd hoped. The caverns are lonely places to wander, it's true, and she's sure that the experience of continuing to explore them alone after encountering another wanderer would be nothing short of miserable. It'll be better to work together, and already she can feel her spirits rising at the prospect. She hasn't smiled much since tumbling down the hole in Sam's grave, but she is smiling now, and regarding Peter with as amiable a look as she would offer to any of her other friends.

"Would you like to take the candle?" she offers, both as a practical suggestion and as--she hopes--a means of showing her trust in the recent partnership they've forged. "It'd free my hands so I could have my bow at the ready. I haven't yet met anyone but you in these caves, but still, it's better not to take chances."

Wordlessly he accepts the proffered candle careful of the flame more in the matter of not putting it out than of not burning himself. There is no mysterious breeze down here but one can never be too sure of how soon and suddenly one's source of light or sound or otherwise will be effectively snuffed out. So he tries to be cautious as best he can, relieved that Rosella has candles and bow and arrow, as well as...

"...do you mind if I take the shovel then?"

He doesn't explain it, not thinking to just yet, eying it with some resignation. Not a sword, not by a long shot, but the head of them is usually easily sharpened...well, once the shovel-plate itself is knocked off.

Really, it's the candles that will be most precious down here, she knows. They can make do without food for a time, if they have to, and as good as it is to have weapons, they could run from danger if it came down to it. But to go without light--no, that would be the real peril of this adventure, to be left stranded in these caverns in the dark, with no way of finding their way and no way of telling what dangers might await them until it is already too late. She manages to repress a shudder as she recalls the troll's cave, and the lantern she carried that cast only the barest light, and how she was sure that the monster lurked behind every shadow, waiting to ensnare her in its talons...

But no, they have light, and so long as they're careful, it should last. It's a pity that Sam's big flashlight broke when she fell; having it would make things much easier. Still, she has a few spare candles with her from digging in the graveyard, and then of course there is the spare candle she retrieved from--well. She's already resolved to make amends for that act someday, and consoled herself with the thought that at the moment, she needs it much more than that other poor soul does.

"Oh! Would you? Yes, please do," she answers, freeing it from her things and offering it to him with a nod. "I can't imagine we'll have much use for a shovel in the midst of all this rock, but it does make a good walking stick, I suppose."

"I had a weapon more in mind, truthfully," he gives half a smile, not sheepish because it is practical what he is about to do before they actually set off, but a little more aware than he normally would be of how assuming something else might jump out at them may not be the cheeriest of dispositions. Still better prepared than not, right? This is his reasoning at least.

By the time he has it properly sawed down--don't ask what he used to saw it down in the first place, probably a fortunately placed rock--and the network entry has died down, assuaging the fears or nerves of at least some, Peter has decided he quite likes Rosella of Daventry. She avoided the detail of their being in the cemetery of all places quite gracefully and it isn't lost on Peter that part of that subtlety may in part be due to his own vagueness on that part of their explanation. It just won't do to have some people thinking of them in a graveyard's undertow. Lucy and Susan come to mind first, but it is in all truth not a decent thought for any person. Looking over at the other blonde, makeshift staff, pointed to something more of a stake--a very long one--in hand as well as the candle previously set down while they set to work.

"Onward then," he says half to her and half to himself, leading the way because even though it doesn't suit him to have Rosella's back not accounted for, it's worse to have her stepping ahead; there could be traps for all they know or more of the undead he would rather not run into but assumes they very well might.

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[Open AP:]

『 just a mark of the people we are

『 just a mark of the people we are

『 just a mark of the people we are

『 just a mark of the people we are

『 just a mark of the people we are

『 just a mark of the people we are

『 just a mark of the people we are

『 just a mark of the people we are

『 just a mark of the people we are

『 just a mark of the people we are

『 just a mark of the people we are

『 just a mark of the people we are

『 just a mark of the people we are