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Aphismet was going through the mental check-list as he watched Ebony close the trunk of the car. Make sure Isi and the Raevans were okay for the day: check. Made their lunch and left it in the fridge, check. Made Ebony and Aphi's lunch and packed it, check. Brought his backpack with extra bars and water bottle, as well as first aid kit, check. Spelunking equipment... Well, supposedly check, since Aphi owned none of that and it would all be Ebony's.

"Yep, lunch is all ready and packed, and you've got enough flashlights, right? And batteries?" Aphismet fussed, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans to prevent the fidgety fingers from wringing at his shirt. If Ebony had wanted to take Aphi out of his comfort zone, then this was WAY out of his comfort zone. He'd never done anything like this before, but Ebony had made it sound so easy. Just another training exercise, she said. But Aphi couldn't help but imagine himself falling to his doom in a dark chasm...

After the flashlights and batteries were confirmed, Aphi figured he had no other reasons to stall. Sighing, he turned one last time towards the house and waved to Rivener, who was floating on the porch with arms crossed, leaning casually on one of the wooden beams. He waved back, nearly impatiently. Go already! Aphi could almost hear him say. The chef chuckled and got into the passenger side, clicking open the dashboard and pulling out the map. He tied the seatbelt and set to work figuring out where they were going. "You already know the way, right?" he asked, unsure of his capabilities with maps...

Aphismet laughed self-deprecatingly as Ebony teased him. He folded the map again clumsily, shoving it back into the glove box and taking the GPS instead, lifting an eyebrow at the device. With a flick of the "on" button, Aphi found that their destination was already entered, the course all mapped out. "Ah, that's great," he said, smiling nervously.

Ebony's subsequent words, however, did nothing to make Aphismet feel more comfortable. He turned horrified eyes over to Ebony, mouth agape with shock. "Wh-wha-what? You're not serious are you? ORCS? Holy hell, when you told me this would be another training exercise, I didn't think you meant we were going to have to fight for our lives!! You're not, right? Serious, I mean? Cause honestly I don't th-think I'm ready to face a group of O-Orcs..." The chef was thumbing the GPS nervously, swallowing past the sudden lump in his throat. He blushed slightly, ashamed of his own fear, but he couldn't help it! He could face humans, sure. But a group of something as weird as ORCS? Who knew how they fight?! Aphi would rather face a group of guys with guns, thanks! At least it wasn't full of unexpected things!

Aphismet turned large brown eyes to the Brit as she went on to explain, after trying to play it off as a joke, that there WERE Orcs down there. Even her attempt to draw a laugh from him at the end only caused a nervous chuckle. "As if I'd go piss anyone off on purpose, much less an Orc!" The chef glanced out the side window then, wondering if he should just start insisting they go home NOW, before they get all set up with the equipment. Surely he'd chicken out sometime soon.

Ebony's confidence in his skills was a small comfort, drawing a slight smile under anxious eyes. "Well, okay, but... you're sure those Orcs don't wander around, right? Ah, the GPS says to turn here," he informed her, looking at the device in his hands. "...then it's pretty much a straight shot until you see a dirt road on the left. Then it's a long-ish ride to that Cave."

Oh god, this is a bad idea...

As predicted, Aphismet HAD spent the rest of the drive trying to think of a way to bow out of this without seeming like a total pansy. Nothing came to mind the entire ride, and when the car stopped and Ebony bounded out, Aphi had to come to grips with the fact that this WAS going to happen. He was gonna go in the deep, dark cave and face the possibility of Orcs and Deadly falls. Resigned, the chef got out of the car too and walked around to the back, slipping on the gear as Ebony was doing.

The mention of taking pictures instantly brought Rivener to mind, and Aphi glanced up with uncertain gratefulness. "Y-yes, I'm sure he'd like that. Although I don't know how likely it is to take pictures in a dark cave... Wouldn't it come out all weird-looking? I'm not as good with a camera as Riv is..." Seemed Aphi's mind was somewhat distracted from the fear now, which was rather good.

The pair finished preparing, shouldering a small backpack each and wearing special light-fitted hats that Ebony had brought. Nervous, Aphismet followed his teacher to the mouth of the Cave, not really knowing where the purple-haired woman had intended to go. "Lead the way, I'll be right behind you," he said quietly, as though afraid of rousing the Orcs by speaking too loud.

"G-give you the slip? I would not! I already came all the way here, I-... Oh, fine. Although I don't know where to go or nothing, so you'll have to take the lead eventually." Aphi frowned slightly but advanced, making sure his sleeveless vest's pocket was zipped up with the camera safely tucked inside; he wouldn't want to lose it in here.

VERY unsure of himself, Aphi walked into the gloomy interior, reaching up to flick his flashlight-hat thing on right away. The chef squinted for a few moments, letting his vision adjust to the darkness, tripping on a loose rock and gasping in shock. "F-... nearly gave me a heart attack," he complained quietly, clearing his throat and continuing on.

For five minutes the cave was rather straight-forward, angling down slightly as it dug straight, but now the pair arrived at a crossroads. The cave split into three separate tunnels, and here Aphi paused, looking over his shoulder at Ebony and shrugging, motioning for her to come up and tell him where to go. He was NOT being quiet out of fear of waking sleeping Orcs, not at all...

Aphi didn't like the look of things. He didn't like how it seemed Ebony had NO idea where she was going, no plan at all, nada. He began to frown and fidget, startling as her voice echoed out to ask for a picture to be taken.

"Ssshhhhhh, not so damned loud!" he pleaded as the zipper to his pocket slid open, the chef retrieving the camera as asked. He took a quick picture, flinching at the bright flash. Swearing, he fuddled with the settings to put it on "low-light" and took another photo, this time without a flash. The picture on the LCD screen was surprisingly clear, and Aphi let out a sigh. He had a sneaking suspicion he knew what the picture was for.

"...Should I be drawing us a map or something here, Ebs? Be honest, you have NO plan, do you? You don't know the cave layout, there's no set place for people to come cave-climbing or whatever, is there? Guh, why did I let you talk me into this? This is giving me the creeps now!" The whole string of complaints was barely a whisper, the chef regaining Ebony's side and keeping step as they ventured into the middle tunnel. Aphismet hated not knowing.

"If I get hurt, you're covering the hospital fees," he warned with a dark-eyed frown in her direction.

Aphismet physically flinched back when Ebony turned to him with that furious look, the look that usually preceded him being ordered to do three hundred push-ups. As usual the chef just waited until she was done talking before even considering saying anything. Rolling his own eyes, Aphi just followed her down the corridor.

He wasn't about to talk back to his teacher, he wasn't that stupid, but he could have pointed out how this was HER fault for tricking him. She COULD have told him she didn't know anything, she COULD have said this cave was not the well-traveled, spelunking-friendly place Aphi had been led to believe, but he wouldn't say a word. He didn't want to have that purple-haired woman mad at him any more than she already was. And well, she had gone to all this trouble to take him along, he'd feel guilty just going back...

"Alright, alright, wait for me, okay?" Aphi said with as little annoyance as he could muster, following her at a jogging pace. He still frowned and swore silently to himself that this had better not turn out horribly or he'd never let Ebony hear the end of it.

The cave ahead was taking a sudden turn downward, the first real "climbing" they'd have to do. As the pair walked close to this sudden drop (which thankfully wasn't all THAT far, Aphi could clearly make out the bottom), the chef began slipping off his backpack to look for rappelling gear.