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Slievenamon, Page of Neptune

It was unknown to how long the young page stood there before the Academy, but she seemed rooted to the spot—too scared to act on the desire that she thought once drove her. It was as if she needed a contradicting variable to get her to move again, and that seemed to come in the form of whatever was keeping that beckoning company down there in the depths. The growl it gave was enough to tremble the girl to her core. Slievenamon seemed ready to book it.

Almost.

Nothing was going to give her up from finding what was calling her. Carefully, she trekked to where she thought she saw the others going in an attempt to keep up; quickly hoping to snatch up one of the glowing crystals as a light source lest all of them get swallowed up by the darkness below.

Arthur the guardian Cat

The whole place shook and he arched his back, growing low as he felt the wave upon wave of just plain awful wash over him like being downwind of a dumpster in July. It made his insides crawl, and he moved about to avoid the falling stone and wood that splintered and cracked around him.

As he moved, he watched as other knights and senshi started to talk among themselves. Looking about, he watched as crystals rolled through cracks in the ground and down to the stairwell abyss below. Running over, he picked up a crystal of his own, before looking up to see a knight run by and DOWN!

"MRAIF!" He called out, chasing down after her. "MRED MROM MRELPH?"

**Muffled "Wait!"
***Need some help?

It wasn't that Paris WANTED to go into the inky darkness that was well, the darkness. It was just that he was exceptionally more paranoid of all things with beckoning calls and strange tugs. So far they had led to nothing but bad news.

Looking at the earth page who was trying to hold him back, Paris spoke in a shaky voice.
"I d-d-d-don't want to really." He gulped in some air before elaborating.
"But ev-every time I've gotten weird feelings? It- It's been bad. So this time, I'll go the other way." He was visibly not too keen on either option.

"Hypmo- yeah I don't- Wanna go to a trap. It feels like a trap."

He yelped as stones fell just a few feet away. His shock at the instability had also caused him to jump- and his foot to land on a further unstable portion of the path.

It was like time had slowed down for him as he felt his body shift backwards, as his mind didn't move quick enough to reach out, his body frozen in sudden fear.

And thus, as his foot slid off stone, Paris fell backwards, down into the darkness.

Super Varuna

Varuna tried really, really hard not to let all the strange noises and weird things startle her. She wrung her wrists as if to try and prevent herself from launching an attack of snow on everyone around them. That would be really bad and she knew she had a habit of being a little magic happy.

She stayed close to Palatine and the knight named Kairatos even if she hadn’t said anything to them yet. She also eyed Themiscrya curiously since she seemed to be with Kairatos as well.

Hopefully they could figure out what they were there for and get out of there. The place didn’t seem to be very stable.

Newgrange

The thought of sticking together was a great idea—and was one Newgrange would have very much liked to have followed through with. He had turned to respond to Ananke when he heard Paris' yelp. He was immediately on edge and jerked his attention back to him—just in time to see him falling backwards.

His instinct kicked in at about the same time Altair's seemed to; he lurched forward to try and grab her before both of them fell into the darkness. For a second, he thought that was going to be the end of it. He had thought he had a good grip on Altair's uniform and it would be easy to just pull her up to safety—and Paris, with her. He hadn't anticipated that the solid slab of rock he was on would shatter under his weight, sending him entirely off balance. The shards of it slid down the gaping hole and he scrambled to pull back—but it was too late; he couldn’t catch himself—or Paris, or Altair, and he nearly jerked his arm out of socket trying to grip the ledge on the way down.

Things could be worse, though.

Thankfully, it looked like there was some debris and glowing crystals to slow their fall, and they probably had a nice, hard ground to look forward to.

The crystal fragments that had been broken free flickered before settling into a slightly softer glower than the parent. They would give some light but it was clear that once the crystal was removed from the source, it quickly began to weaken. Reaching for one still attached to the wall would have resulted in a test of strength. Without some sort of hard force, those light sources did not want to move. But there was enough on the ground now to go around. But the limits they had as compared to those that lined the walls were still tested.

The result was quickly seen when Andronicus and Arthur quickly descending into the stairway that allowed the others up top to see that a single shard, paired with the few that grew on the walls, was enough to make it about 20 steps before losing it from view. It also meant they were dealing with a narrow, spiral stair case. Descending it meant no more than two could be side by side at a time into the inky darkness. There were no windows to be found, or even doors. This stair way now had one exit far below the ground level…

Clearly though there had once been other exits from this stairway. Every now and then, those who had begun to descended downward would see covered arches where hallways had branched off. They had been sealed with what appeared to be fallen rubble marked with a dark line across. Clearing this had meaning but what?

It would not be until those who ventured into the unknown began to feel the air cool around them that they would even find weakness in the stone barriers. These few appeared thrown together in a hurry and marked with a red line.

But the true drive was the feeling of wanting to be found. The deeper they descended, the stronger the pull was. The crystals that grew from the walls also had begun to change. The rich purple they had been above was lightening. They were also smaller, farther apart, casting long shadows on all who ventured.

At the bottom of the stairs opened up into a vast room that was as large as a football field and as tall as a five story building. Crystals, much larger in size, grew from the walls, ceiling, and floor. They had shifted as well. In the cold of the room, they appeared almost a pale blue to cast twisted shadows along the wall. In the corners of the room, glowing in the light, skeletons lay in piles. Some were unable to be identified. Others were clearly…human. All one could tell was they had all been down there in quite some time.

But more importantly, in the flick of the light appeared movement in the back right corner. As quickly as one could look, it was gone. Only to reappear directly above them.

A hiss from the ceiling and all one needed to do was look up to see a Giant Scorpion Youma. Releasing its hold on the crystals around it, the beast dropped several yards away from the ‘guests’ to hiss once more. Ground shaking from its weight, the back wall began to crumble revealing something very important…

A shifting mass of energy and sand formed together into a callous mass. There was light coming from it but all around it, chaos swarmed in dark energy.

The Code.

But first, they had to get through the lair of the beast!

Paris, Newgrange, and Altair though had found themselves falling into the darkness that was below the Academy. Down they would go with rubble and crystal shards until all three bodies made impact with something hard and solid.

A stone floor.

The room they had fallen into was long and narrow, clearly long since cleaned out leaving nothing more than smooth walls and floors. Above them, the opening they had come through. To their left, a door that appeared slightly broken…something on the outside was forcing it in. Rubble blocked the door from being opened. Their only light was from the crystals that had fallen with them. Somehow, these stones had kept the rest from growing.

So while the rest of the group was about to face off a rather angry scorpion, these three had found themselves a cold room all alone. Where words from above came down as mumbles.

Sailor Ananke

Before Ananke could reach anything she heard her companions scream out. "Alta- Gahh!" Ananke fumbled to the ground when the large creature landed. She stared wide eyed... As she quickly tired to regain her footing. She looked around to see if anyone was nearby her...

Ananke backed up to the wall but made sure to keep sight of the creature. She had to keep sight of everyone around her but unfortunately her abilities made her unable to make a move... She had to hope that everyone else could handle the front lines.