That Bones Might Linger
13th of March 2007 A.D.
An uneven trio of stones rise from the dunes, crooked and wind-worn, like fingers curling inwards to snare whatever is foolish enough to lie in its barren palm. So there you dig, like a bur of brass tunneling deeper and deeper, laying down rings of steel in your wake. The strangest thing is what you don't find, no smallburrowing sand mice, not even bugs or roots. It's all sterile as far as the eye can see and most likely below that too. So far the unforgiving sand and the dry air had been comfortable, almost familiar, even though you've never been in a place like this, but now for the first time you wonder
'Should I just stop breathing air altogether?'
Thankfully you don't have to start spending down your reserves quite this soon and neither does Tiffany having brought rebreathers and oxygen for all three of the company. Putting on yours you motion for the others to do the same. All out powered armor would have taken too long to learn how to use not to mention adamant to a user with no cybernetic implants, but these are sturdy systems meant for exploration in conditions far more hostile than the Sahara.
Finally your your digging head strikes solid... limestone...
cold. The feeling shivers up from the tools and into your hands like you'd dipped them in ice water. The stone is smooth here and paler than the sand that had blown in over-top scored with fine likes that curl and twist like veins in marbled flesh seemingly without rhyme or reason.
"The
carrion wouldn't really need much in the way of a door would they?" Lydia speculates coldly. "The thinnest crack will do."
"They would if they want to bring anything with," you say, fingers following the lines of the stone until something gives under the pressure, a place to catch your ginger and pull.
With Tiffany's help you open the mouth of the passage only to be greeted with the macabre sight of three skeletons splayed out on the slope beyond. They had clearly died scathing at the door to get out. From the faded waistcoats, buttons still bright with the light now pouring in and shirts as fragile as dried leaf you know these are no bones of ancient builders who had toiled here in the years nameless to history.
"Looks like we found some of Nathanael Cobbler's friends," you call back.
"The lucky ones," Tiffany says, gingerly leaning down to pick out a small gold cross among the bones. "Faithful to the end, escaped after a manner."
"Did they?" Lydia asks, coming close. "This place is too thick with death to tell for sure, but if I let my light shine any of the dead that linger will be drawn to it and these three have no reason to keep whatever secrets their ill timed delve might have revealed."
"On the other hand not everything that can see that has to be friendly," you remind her.
But she isn't convinced, arguing that if something were to attack, better that it be here with the sun at your back than in the depths of this place. An enemy is a kind of clue as well to Lydia's way of looking at things.
"Not all guardians such a place might have would charge the open door like a raging bull," Tiffany adds to the voice of caution. "Some might simply be forewarned to to ambush us further in. Not to mention the ghost light does not burn without fuel."
What do you do about the remains of the past investigators?
[] Take them out and bury them
[] Lydia flares her anima to see if any lingering ghosts want to talk
[] Leave them here for now, you'd deal with them on the way up
[] Write in
OOC: At first I had Tiffany use Shape Flesh to make it so you can just take in masive amouts of oxygen but then I remembered that would cost her all of her faith. You guys might want to up her faith when you level up next.
) .
