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 Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 7:56 pm
The grooves were writing, in great, looming ugly script, as if carved with a knife like a vandal defacing a canvas:
RIP YOU
RIP ME
RIP US ALL, HAIL TO THE KING
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Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 1:18 pm
Saiph had left off thumping on cobblestones for the moment, hurrying over to Alcyone and adding her own torchlight to the mix, silently reading the carved words. With a grimace, she re-read them, lips moving silently as she repeated the words to herself, clearly hoping that they'd make sense upon repitition.
"You know, I don't think a prisoner would have written that. No prisoner in a place like this would be allowed anything that they could in turn use on their keepers. So... a guard or the Head Torturer, maybe?"
You're going to be a paleontologist, girl, she scolded herself silently. That's going to involve puzzles just as frustrating as this one, though on a different scale. Start thinkin'.
Pacing, she tried to put herself in the shoes of whomever had carved the words. To her, they rang with a bleak, fatalistic tone.
"You know, if a guard did this, why would they care about whether or not the prisoners were resting in peace? And why tack Hail to the King on the end?"
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Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 1:26 pm
There were shapes in the darkness further along the wall from the writing. It was hard to make them out from here.
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Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 3:11 pm
It wasn't a switch like Alcyone had hoped for, or even a secret diagram that conveniently detailed the way out of this dungeon. Her eyes widened as they took in the anger that had clearly carved through the wall to make these words, and she had no doubt that its location behind the iron maiden was not coincidental. She took a step back, careful not to bump into Saiph and faced in a way she could comfortably speak with both her and Sirona.
"There were words carved into the wall," she explained to the girl in pink. "Rip you, rip me, rip us all, hail to the king." A shiver worked its way up her spine and down her arms. Evidently Alcyone wasn't a fan of horror-suspense novels when it rotated to something she was genuinely experiencing.
"I agree with Saiph, those words couldn't possibly have come from a prisoner. It would have had to been someone who felt betrayed. ...I don't really know what it means for us, but maybe if we split up between the room and inspected all of the walls....we could find more information."
There was a pause in which she waited for anyone else to object at her idea, and when none came, she walked to the other side of the iron maiden (a little further right from the carved words) and began to illuminate the wall.
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Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 3:20 pm
"Makes sense," Saiph replied shortly before moving to illuminate more of the wall. "But who would feel betrayed enough to write somethign that bitter? Guard, maybe?"
Saiph waved the torch for maximum effect and briefly considered setting the remains of the torture chair on fire before dismissing the idea. Granted the stone floors and walls wouldn't burn. But the mold, dust and bone would. She really didn't feel like dying from smoke inhalation or being roasted alive.
With a slightly annoyed snort, she muttered to herself, "Who the hell ******** carves stupid riddles into dungeon walls anyway...."
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Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 3:46 pm
Rip you, rip me, rip us all, hail to the king, Sirona repeated once more to herself, absorbing each morbid word. "All I can think of is a coups d'état gone wrong..." the female mumbled to her companions.
Shaking her head from left to right to clear her mind of unhealthy thoughts, Sirona dominated the left side of the iron maiden, warily shining her torch onto the stones. She wasn't sure she wanted to find out what else was on the walls.
OOC:: Sorry for my inactivity!
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Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 3:55 pm
The scratchings there were nearly scratched-out by another knife blade, but enough remained to be readable:
DEATH TO BENEDICTUS
And again, in the same scrawling, almost mocking handwriting:
HAIL TO THE KING
Illumination further down the wall, however, produced the shapes. They were three dead men: dead men in armor, shining metal armor with blue tabards emblazoned with golden lions. They were nearly skeletized now, but torture implements, long shards of wood, firepokers and all manner of improvised weapons stuck out of the chinks in their armor. The manner of their death was clear.
Ten feet away or so lay two more corpses, also in armor -- but their armor was bronzed-over, more dull and plain. By the stink, they were more recent deaths, too. There were no weapons sticking out of them.
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Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 6:34 am
It was a wonder how she didn't notice the smell before. Perhaps the mold and grime had caused her sinuses to ignite, rendering her sense of smell as non-existant for the time being. However, when Alcyone drew closer to the bodies, eyes and hands completely fixed on the wall (did that say death to benedictus?), it was her nose that allowed her a faint whiff of decay that warned her. Immediately she switched her make-shift club to the other hand and covered her mouth, stifling a gag. "Oh god," She said, turning away from the wall and lighting the direction of the smell with her torch.
She recoiled instantly. "Mierda. You guys, come look at this. I think you were definitely right, Saiph." She added as she took a closer look at the armor. "Ugh...we have some actual dead bodies here. Not just skeletons."
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Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 2:05 pm
In the flickering torchlight, Saiph's normally golden skin took on a weird, yellowish tinge as she paled. Attempting to breathe through her mouth in weird gulps of air, she tried to force the smell form her mind. Instead she focused on the words, on the source of potential weapons. Anything but the smell of recent death.
"You know, I am not usually very up to date with world events and such, but I am pretty goddamn sure that there hasn't been a king named Benedictus around for quite a while. I am also reasonably certain that no one wears armor and tabards these days either."
Yes, look at the three in the blue. Focus on them. Think... It only took a brief moment for Saiph to set her makeshift club down and stalk over to one of the human porcupines. She eyed the bodies, appeared to waver for a breath, and then she closed her eyes, shot out a hand and wrenched a firepoker from one of the bodies. One after another, she pulled the torture implements from one of the bodies, noting distantly that the wooden shards would be next to useless.
Wood in one pile, anything metal (and thus durable) in another pile, she moved on to the next two bodies, giving them the exact same treatment. As she worked, she began issuing curt orders.
"One of you two check the two fresher bodies. Look for anything useful, maybe keys? They look like guards to me, so who knows. When you're done, get over here and pick some stuff to arm yourselves with."
Unspoken was the stream of babbling words that was looping through the green-haired senshi's mind.
Oh HolySHITWhatdoIdoHow'dtheydoOhgodthesmell
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Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 2:39 pm
The combination of the three blazing lights provided a panoramic view, along with the pungent stench of the dead, no shipping and handling fee required. Sirona had never been particularly fond of corpses, but whether it was the level of their predicament or experience in horror flicks, the smell was bearable. The thought of rotting in a moldy dungeon, was not.
There were two more lines of scratchy text; Death To Benedictus, and Hail to the King. She hadn't taken Latin, but bene- that was good, right? And another mention of a king. Sirona rolled her eyes. At least she could be assured she did not have a future profession in cracking codes.
There were five corpses. Three were clothed in an armor of high-caliber with their own emblems to boot! On the other hand were two more corpses, fitted in a plainer armor. Had there been a showdown? Sirona didn't want to know.
She nodded towards Saiph. People would be sent to insane asylums if they were seen tramping around town in medieval armor and weaponry. "I'll check!" she exclaimed, trying to be as enthusiastic as the atmosphere would allow. At this point, dealing with the deceased was at the bottom of her concerns- she wanted a way out, for all of them.
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Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 3:04 pm
Alcyone shook her head, agreeing with Sailor Saiph. No, nobody in any healthy state of mind wore clothes like this in their era, let alone Destiny City. "Not unless they were in a Renaissance festival, and even then, I'm quite sure we're not in one." She wouldn't exactly know what one looked like aside from hear-say and wikipedia, but she was certain, certain, that real renfairs did not contain real human corpses and trapped tourists for fun.
She admired Saiph's courageous and thorough investigation of the skeletal guards, and eagerly took a firepoker to replace her rusty-nailed club. There was something about the dead that made her squeamish, though in all honesty, it wasn't an uncommon feeling shared between people. Looting through the dead is even considered taboo to some cultures, though for them, it deemed as a survival strategy. The iron pokers would make much better weapons in defense of anything that would come up against them, especially paired with their torches; much better than a stubby club.
At the thought of sticking her hands into the fresh corpse, though, and Alcyone paled. There was another moment in which she felt like she might throw up from the thought, but watching Saiph (and even Sirona's resolve) encouraged her to do the right thing for the trio. She walked over to the farthest carcass, and began to poke it around with her new weapon. The smell was unbearable, but she pressed on, rolling the body over to see if there was anything from behind.
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Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 3:42 pm
The body produced nothing but more of a stink, but standing in this light caused a white gleam nearby to become visible -- resting against the wall, not far from them, was a white water pitcher. It was a strange place for a pitcher to be, certainly. One wondered what one might use it for.
The floor still thudded dully hollow under their feet.
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Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 5:21 pm
The gleam of white caught Saiph's eye and she hurried over to the wall and crouched by the pitcher. To her mind, the pitcher's location was almost as strange as the thought of a white pitcher located in a dark dungeon. She didn't really see the guards (or what was left of them) as the types who would want a bit of color to spruce the place up.
Was there anything left in it, she wondered, nearly going cross-eyed trying to look inside without singing her hair off. Picking it up carefully she turned and grinned at the other two senshi.
"I'm going to look and feel pretty stupid if this doesn't work, but I have an idea. Stand out of the way a bit, would you?"
Tipping the pitcher and hoping that there was some liquid in it, she upended the pitcher. If there was a little liquid in it, and provided the floor wasn't full of holes she couldn't see, they might be able to figure out how to access whatever hollow was beneath the cobblestones.
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Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 6:03 pm
The pitcher was, indeed, full, though not of water -- some oily, viscous black liquid came pouring out. Lantern oil, it seemed like. Just when it seemed like a waste of good lantern oil, though, the oil all ran in the same direction.
The consistency of the fluid caused it to stay together and roll a little slower than might water -- but they'd still have to hurry if they had any hope of following it -- downhill?
Liquid flowed downhill. They were standing in a very shallow, dark, hard-to-see basin.
They'd have to hurry.
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Posted: Tue May 25, 2010 3:45 am
What Sirona had expected was yet another clue. But when the foreign liquid turned out to be of the least expected kind, she knew it had to mean something.
The oil looked alive, plump and indolent, rolling down-- Wait, where was it rolling to? Her torch was hurriedly place near the bucket. Sirona was positive that this would be their way out. Well, even if they came to a dead end, they'd be one step closer.
Although the pace of the fluid was a bit drunken, the trio would have to hop to it; she was sure her two companions had the same exact thoughts. "Well then," Sirona eyed both Saiph and Alcyone with question in her eyes, "I guess we go follow it?" Her voice was a bit shaky. Without waiting for confirmation, she tossed her torch to her right hand, and began to follow it's trail.
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