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"We certainly did a lot of moving though I tend to like wasting my moves with more curvy dance partners."

He stepped off his branch to a slower one but remained out of reach.

"And I don't trust that last bit as far as you could throw me. Not unless you wanna shake on it. Way I see it, you guys are wandering about in the wrong ways while I have the best chance you got in getting home. Horsemen are mighty fired up from the last prisoners they lost and won't be keeping their new ones around for long."

Lawrence laughed at Melody's comment, seeming to be very amused by the whole prospect of sleeping with TG. "No my dear." he said with a smirk. "Sleeping with them, as with clones results in pain of a sort you wouldn't like to experience, I can testify. Not that I think our tiny friend would be interested in me. From what he's said he likes his partners more female than I presently am"

He gave the small demon a curious look. "I'm not in such a hurry to get back to the camp that I would shake hands with you. I have read about demon deals, I'm not stupid."

"She is right though, you look like you could be thrown clear across the jungle."

Sometimes it just plain felt nice to find someone shorter than he was.

Melody peered over at Lawr and kept her voice low and head tilted down. "He does know you can climb, right?" She was all too aware of this skill after watching him scale the totem like it was nothing just moments ago.

At the demon's response to her, Melody recoiled in horror. "Not even if you were the last d**k on earth." She was clearly not above double entendres.

"Hah! I'm packing more than these two horns, and I never got any complaints. Pleased a long set of legs for a while and a witch after that was your gal's size and all."

He stayed on his branch and wagged his finger." Don't sell yourself short, Claws. I know you better than that." And he knew he was fast. He'd seen that at the haunted house.

"How many demons you talk to?" He seemed to not know much.

Lawrence found the demon rather amusing. Like almost all of the Halloween denizens they seemed to encounter, it was obviously a child and still in the throes of pubescent bravado which seemed to be the same almost everywhere you went. He didn't believe for a second that there had been anything pleasing about their encounters unless the other was equally young, in which care maybe their inexperience had left one another in the dark. He found himself curious if a human could match up at all to any of the creatures that were out there.

He still remained smiling at TG though, weighing up if he could get away with climbing the tree and pulling him out of it before he made a run for it. "Not many demons I'm afraid. We don't see many in our line of work. Are they all as short as you are?"

This answered Melody's question at least. "I think many of them are neither short nor horrible." he said. "I've read quite a bit of research on the matter. I suppose this one comes from one of the more inbred family lines."

Melody raised a brow curiously as the demon spoke of himself and his lineage with such grandiose. "Is he serious?" She muttered to Lawr under her breath.

As the demon's speech drew to a close and he pulled out and turned on the walkie talkie, he suddenly had her full attention. "B-but if you do that. Then we can't... We can't." She couldn't believe she was doing this. She loosened Lawr's jacket slightly, allowing it to slip down to show more of her neckline. "We can't have a little fun." Despite her words, she looked ill, her face turning strangely pale.

"That fear owned you the moment it came to you and still does. We wouldn't be the world we are if not for that. I hardly call you all gods." He said as he adjusted the frequency on the talkie.

He lowered the talkie for a moment. "If you think you are a god, what can you even do?"

He looked over to Melody and smiled. "Nice try, sweetness."

Artax felt like his distractions had worked admirably, they had gone for the most part without harassment as they worked their way through the dark temple, the small team of hunters which had been in pursuit had fallen back, blocked off deep in the darkness. The rest of the safeguards in the way had also fallen as the days marched on to the prolonged efforts of his companions. There had been a few rather brutal dissipations along the way due to careless missteps. Now only one solitary door lay between them and the treasure room beyond. His men were exhausted and so was he, many of them – the lucky ones who had evaded dissipation - riddled with injuries from the various intricate traps which had barred their path on the way to this point but now they were finally here, mere inches from their justly deserved reward and the power they sorely needed.

The torchlight flickered across what at first had seemed like a mural decorated wall but which further inspection had confirmed to be a tremendous doorway, covered end to end with elaborate pictograms and carvings, it seemed almost everything else in the temple was wired into this, a sliding puzzle of stone and ancient architecture which all seemed to precariously balance on this single door. The mural spoke of a great battle and a great and bloody sacrifice carried out to satisfy the great ruling god Itzamna, going on to speak of the gift bestowed upon the former civilisation in celebration of their works and the wonder of their creation. It would be theirs, he knew, and the hunters had failed thus far in redirecting them.

Mat Zero Bird, a very old, wizened war hunter who had been around when the ruins they presently wandered in were new was the one who led the way. Artax treated him with great respect and trusted his wisdom and opinions. He spoke up, reading the pictograms closest to the group while he did. “It speaks of several ways in, several doors. Water, air, fire, earth and the ways to each. We will require at least four of us to attend to these triggers to open the door and unseal the way.”

Down in the darkness, the trapped hunters began to give up hope of rescue. It was different to be forgotten rather than attacked or held captive, more hopeless. They could hear nothing from above and all around was darkness with their light sources beginning to die and supplies running out.

- This will be the last update before the final stage of the mission, if anyone wants to go help the trapped hunters now would be the time, roll a 17-20 on a 1d20 to see if you can find them, if you roll anything else you take 10HP damage from traps.

- Next stage will go up on Saturday morning GMT