[B6*] Stage One: The Shifting Sands [LIVE]

[Excited Apathy]

Erin wanted to wait for Rosa. She really wanted to wait. Continuing this far had gone contrary enough to her nature, and only frequent mental repetition of 'she'll be heading north too' had gotten her this far (one might say remembering how dangerous the desert was had helped, but making her worry even more canceled that out). But before she could open her mouth to say as much, she caught sight of Rosa.

Elation bubbled up...and just as quickly fizzled. Fizzled, and dropped into a deep dark pit in her stomach, as she saw the look on the other girl's face. "That's her! Rosa, this is Howl and Pyxis!" she stated, forcing her voice to sound light. Happy. She was glad Rosa had made it, Erin could forget that she was very probably upset with her! ...Ha. Unfortunately, that knowledge and the accompanying guilt wasn't so easy to dismiss. "You want a hand?" she offered the one that wasn't holding paper and charcoal to Pyxis, trying to refocus her attention. He looked ready to fall over, and the rather immediate nature of his plight was a welcome distraction.

She and Howl could get Pyxis inside the cave, and then...she'd think about everything else when she got there.  

[LizzyMoo]

"Careful, Mr. Pyxis." As the boy seemed to wobble on his feet, the other young man outside of the cave easily accommodated the lacking balance with his arm. He was about to guide the young boy and the rest of the group into the cave when yet another young lady appeared. This one had much darker hair, and looked rather upset. Once Erin explained, the whole thing pieced together rather easily in his head.

With a gentle nod of the head, he acknowledged the brunette with a mindful "It is a pleasure, Miss Rosa."

A lovely smile spread across his face as he then turned towards the mouth of the cave. "I think it would be wisest to resume this reunion inside of the cave. I think Mr. Pyxis would benefit from this greatly." Without anymore explanations, the teal-haired lad began to escort the younger boy towards the cave mouth.  

[Xaki]

"Nothing." Raite answered in response to Scylla's and Boreas's questions. The darkness made it difficult to see anybody, or even to discern what was happening as they only had verbal interaction to explain. Although in the next few moments, if Scylla's squeal and the crash against debris had been an indicator of anything.. well, Raite didn't need an explanation for that. The words after that were the ones that interested the older male, hinting that Jada had found something other then what they had found already.

"It's better then nothing." He felt his side of the wall for a response, while judging if there was anything in close proximity within him. While he didn't mind pain, there was something to be said about walking into walls, and tripping over hidden obstacles on the ground. Asinine.

His fingers encountered flat stone over on his side, making sure to cover different ground from both Scylla and Boreas. His gloved hands reached above him, examining the area before progressing downwards, while he rested on his knees. And he sighed.  

[Moving Pictures]

Boreas removed his focus from the other two travelers in the room. He couldn't see them and as far as he knew, he couldn't help them either. His mind then focused on the letter like engravings on the wall. He delicately traced each one he found over and over again. Desperate to find their meaning, he tried to make sense of each one. However, after several moments of repeating the pattern, he was unable to make out a single letter. The sting of disappointment set in as he tried not to think about the fact that he couldn't find any water or figure out the meanings of the letters. He was getting more and more impatient as time went on. It was at this time that he then heard Scylla's encounter with the debris and the words that followed. Hope poured into the senshi of winter's mind and he once again turned to face the others. At least, he thought he was facing them.

"Did you find something? What is going on?"

The pitch black darkness before him yielded no answer, so he was forced to rely solely on the words of his companions. He then called out to whoever was still listening:

"Hey, I found some markings over here. They seem to mean something, but I can't make them out in this darkness. Maybe if we could bring that light you found over here, then we could figure out what they mean."

He wanted to seem useful, like he had just found a clue to everything that had happened to not only Howl and himself, but everyone that had stepped foot into the cruel desert above.

"Let me know if I can do anything to help you Scylla! I will try to make it over to you if necessary!"

Hope returning. Answers? Unlikely. However, he couldn't just stand around in the dark, literally and figuratively.  

[Successful Edit]

Oh yeah, they were Them. Rosa could just picture herself, a weary but lovely girl, arriving at long last after being abandoned in the desert...and one person greeted her? One? Erin not counting of course because she'd proven her true colours earlier. It was cruel. They should crowd around her and be thankful she hadn't died, impressed that she hadn't (nevermind that they were surviving out here too). No one was on her side.

Inside, she bristled as Rosa accompanied the others into the cave. But she politely replied to Howl anyway. She hated how everyone seemed to know each other and would have to work hard to catch up on their names and just what was going on here.

"The pleasure's mine I'm sure. Did you and the others wake up in the desert like Erin and myself?"  

[Shazari]

The long piece of straw which Scylla stuck down the hole immediately caught flame, crackling like a sparkler momentarily before settling. Scylla now held a small piece of straw which was on fire -- but it was burning down quite quickly. She'd only have a few more seconds before it went out.

Lieutenant Raite found a long, narrow groove in the wall, running vertically. Moving his fingers upward revealed that the groove continued overhead somewhere above his reach, and a similar search downward found that the same groove continued all the way down to the floor.

A door, perhaps? A little more light might make it clearer.  

[Shazari]

The more Scylla ran her hands over the debris on the ground, the less it seemed like debris and the more it seemed like -- straw and long pieces of wood.

The long pieces of wood, in fact, weren't just any long pieces of wood. Beneath her hands, Scylla could distinguish that they were lengthly and had been whittled down into cylinders, narrow at one end and pommeled with some kind of cloth at the other.

Torches?

They wouldn't fit in the narrow hole with the flame in it, though.  

[Shazari]

Once again Scylla had a few pieces of straw that were now lit on fire -- she'd have several seconds before they burned down too close to her fingers.  

[Shazari]

The cloth caught flame rather quickly.

The light from Scylla's torch threw her area of the cave into flickering relief:

There were, including what Scylla had picked up, about seven or eight loose torches. Against the wall, clustered in one place, there were also about as many leather slings, each one stuffed tight with three more unlit torches. That was convenient.

She could see the silhouettes of where Raite and Boreas each were standing, but the light from her single lit torch didn't reach that far on its own.  

[Shazari]

The walls near Scylla were blank of any features save the narrow hole with the flame in it -- it seemed the torches weren't meant to be left where they were.  

[Xaki]

Boreas called out, about finding something. But Raite didn't answer because something else had caught his attention.

..That was strange, Raite thought as his fingers touched upon the irregularities on the wall. He was used to edges, or irregular slants that was the cavern halls. But this.. was something that seemed to be deliberately carved? Standing up, no longer sighing, his hands ran over the indentation once more. The shape reminded him of .. a door? In a cavern? He stared at it. He would have liked to confirm his suspicion before revealing it to others. That would be difficult.

At least it was until Scylla attempted her feat. Straw, cloth, fire - and finally light. And when light flickered in the dark cavern - not enough light, but considerably more than the ray that had been there earlier. He was able to see Scylla, covering the distance between her. I'll hold that." He picked up the two torches from her hands, since her hands seemed to be full. "Do you have another torch?" If so, Scylla, Raite, Boreas, and the other members of the cave would handle some torches as well.

"Boreas needs a torch, it seems as if he's found something."

"I need one as well."