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Despite her better judgment and clutching fear, Nina couldn't help but to perk her head in curiosity once Cody had mentioned an unfamiliar name when his eyes caught sight of the long-dead guard. Had he read about who this skeleton once was? If that was the case, how long exactly had the older spawn known about the bowels of this strange place? Her ears twitched, and she leaned back slightly in a partial reaction of self-defense before her voice was found again. She strained herself to keep any sound of fear out of her words as she spoke, "Seven whaa? You knew that thing was here?" Not as eloquent as she had imagined the words being, but at least it got her point across. She suddenly dropped a notch in excitement over the whole adventure, and started wondering how much Cody actually knew about this place. Was he just leading her on? Should she even be down here?

She sighed silently; it didn't matter, she was much too wrapped up in the whole deal to find all of this anything but fascinating, and she wanted to find out more. It didn't matter if she was scared, it didn't matter if Cody couldn't be trusted, it didn't matter if it was dangerous -- none of it mattered as long as she wanted to find out the secrets of this place, as long as she was curious. It was hard to ignore her better judgment, her sense of self-preservation, and it was starting to feel as though she were ignoring a huge chunk of her own being.

She was snapped back to reality by the sharp sound of the metal door, and her arms shot up to her ears with little hesitation. So hard, she ended up hearing nothing but the ringing caused by a rush of blood to the eardrums when she pounded on them. Teeth clenched, she leaned to the side slightly to try to get a better look past the door before it was even fully open. She heard Cody say something, but it was little more than a mumble past her ears. She removed her hands from them, but by that point, his sentence was over with. Blinking, she didn't take her eyes from the room now set before them, even watching as Cody dashed in and activated the runes on the floor.

Gasping, she stared at the softly-glowing runes in awe, moving forward in an attempt to touch one. With a clatter, she heard when the torch went out, glancing upward and growling a quiet, "You didn't--" However, her voice was no match for the crashing of the door as it slammed shut behind her. Heart beating a mile a minute, she spun around and beat on it a couple of times before she came to the ultimate consensus: she couldn't budge the gears. "What happened!?" she shouted, as if the darkness also enveloped sound as well as it did the light. He had to know something, right? He was the older one here! He had to know what to do, right!?

Eyes lowered to the floor, she watched as the carved markings flickered back to life in the hands of darkness, and she was able to keep her grip on reality. Perhaps it was because she didn't feel as completely helpless anymore, being able to see whoever -- or whatever -- approached her, but she wasn't exactly feeling any safer. She saw the dried blood painted on the walls in odd, specific patterns. She wasn't ignorant about it, either; the blood may have been discolored by time, but it still smelled thickly of blood. Her eyes started falling to the floor again, "A lot of people died here, Coyote. A lot." How else would that amount of blood be able to get there? It wasn't just one or two, no, there was far too much of it.

As if answering her comment, she started hearing the voices as well. She glanced quizzically at the tapestries at first, then to Cody to make sure it wasn't just him. But, no, he wouldn't be saying that if it were him playing tricks on her; he seemed too proud to admit that it was creepy without it actually being... well, creepy. She scanned the ceiling, but the runes weren't nearly bright enough to illuminate that high up. Rolling a moan out her mouth, she shook her head and held her balled hands up to her temples. After a moment of silence, she responded to the lighter problem, "Did you drop it? Maybe the lighter fluid leaked out? Did the wick get wet?" What other explanation could there be? Nobody was here to be casting any sort of magic on them, and she was unfamiliar with the thought of old magic just 'sticking around.' "In any case, we should find a way out," she stated stiffly, trying to find a way out as quickly as she could. There appeared to be doorways on the other end of the room, but she couldn't tell if there were doors situated in the doorways at all. "Let's check over there," she said as she pointed, already moving in the direction.

She frowned as Cody refused to give her any sort of answer she was looking for. Partial sentences weren't going to cut it, and the veil of "if we get out of here alive" seemed to only be irritating her further. Of course they were going to get out of here alive; she wasn't about to lose touch of the virtuous blood in her veins now, when it was most needed. Survival instincts and all -- she was positive that, between the two of them, they could take care of any obstacles that stood in their way.

The only problem was Nina's willingness to go on any further, being led blind while the murmurings of disembodied voices floated to her ears. Grabbing at the side of her right arm, she growled. However, before she could grumble a retort to the nonsense that Cody seemed to be on about and her frustration with not knowing anything about this place, she got her answer. Slowly, very slowly, she relaxed a few muscles, absolute distrust fading. She was tempted to thank him for finally giving her a straight answer, let alone quite a few of them, but her voice was lost as she filed through the concentrated answer. It was a lot to take in, a lot to remember. Nullifiers? Well, that would be a problem... but they could work around it easily, now that they knew about it.

The tone of voice Cody used alerted her to the fact that he was holding some information back, but Nina willed herself to let it slide for now. She felt lucky to get the answers she did manage to get -- perhaps he would tell her the rest sooner rather than later. In the meantime, she'd just need to keep her guard up to the surroundings. Honestly, that wasn't too difficult of a feat to accomplish, as the voices that surrounded the area were enough to do that on her own. Pleads of release, to be saved, obscured warnings... she had to ask, "They died willingly? Why would anyone want to do that? They're asking for help..." She cut herself short, realizing how oddly that sounded. There was only two reasons she could come up with on her own: either they were just that devoted to whatever was going on here, or they were trying to protect someone. She shivered slightly at the thought.

Rolling her eyes at Cody's comment about scaring her, she continued to move toward the doorway across the room, following the teen's lead. It was just teasing, after all; at least she wasn't in any immediate danger from him anymore, the 'ghosts' couldn't really hurt her while they were stuck in limbo, and she doubted a building would be out to get her at all. Too bad this thought process was lowering her defenses on the building's mechanisms a bit, as they approached the doorway. Don't go that way! a voice almost seemed to jest in a whisper, despite it being the only way that was possible to leave. Eyes narrowed, she grumbled as they reached the doorway at the other side of the room, "I hope you know what you're doing, at least."

Nina frowned at Cody's reply. That was definitely not the answer she was looking for, and she was having a hard time deciphering whether or not he was joking with the comment. It didn't help that the voices in the room seemed to speak in a similar fashion, some sarcastically while others held the truth partially-concealed -- they were just as difficult to understand! In fact, with a morbid hint, she wryly wondered if Cody actually was born here as opposed to the facility. At least he knew what he was doing better than she did, but that thought hardly raised her morale.

She cringed as Cody had replied to what probably happened to the voices in the room, before they had been trapped. Such deceit... how long had they been waiting for someone like the two of them to come around, for someone to ask for help? Despite never knowing who these beings were, she felt the anger begin to boil up inside of her. How could anyone just use a life like that, for their own gain? The people that had done this needed to have absolutely no conscience whatsoever! Eyelids lowered in thoughtful rage, she turned her eyes to the floor, "Did demons do this?" Still such child-like naïveté.

Her hand shot up to cover her eyes when the first sign of light started peeking through the opening of the door. The room that they had been wandering through, although lit by the runes, wasn't nearly as bright as the next room. Her hand relaxed once she realized the light source was emanating from the flames of candles, which, although brighter, was still not very eye-blinding. After a moment, she blinked in confusion, Wait, candles? How were they lit? To what extents did the magic in this place reach, exactly? And where were all the cobwebs, if nobody had been here in so long?

Stiffening, she stifled a gasp once she noticed the long-dead sacrifice on the altar in the center of the room. Cody's warnings weren't helping her either, at the moment, suddenly finding her feet holding fast to the floor as fear paralyzed her. At that moment, the only thought that came to her mind was a simple request: I want to go home! The trapped voices seemed to sing the same tune in unison to her own thoughts, which managed to give her a little more determination, if only because she didn't want to end up in the same position as them.

She stuck close to Cody in his steps, making sure not to touch something. That always set traps off in the movies, right? But one thing was bugging her about the situation, and she had to ask, "If nobody's ever made it out of here alive, what chance to a couple of kids have?" She wanted him to give her a good reason to hold onto hope, as she was finding it increasingly difficult to do it when left to her own devices. Her eyes fixed on the platform that the skeleton was lying on, trying to look at the markings etched into the material through the thick coating of dried blood, trying desperately to ignore the fact that the person was once living. Perhaps if she just thought of it as an elaborately-created prop? She clutched tightly onto her shirt with both of her hands, ignorant to the fact that her talons were stabbing holes through the sides of it.

Her hands bunched tighter together when Cody began offering an answer to why all this had been done to the spirits in the walls, whose voices seemed to be gaining in volume the further they went along. Gritting her teeth, she was about to comment on the horror that must have gone on -- with what, she wasn't sure, but the anger was rising too quickly -- before Cody dropped to the floor. Stun overtook any other emotion at that point, wide-eyed in surprise at the reaction as she quickly tried to figure out what she needed to do. But wait... he was saying something... She crouched down to try to get a better vantage point to hear what it was he -- or rather, what the spirit who had grabbed hold of him -- was trying to say through the stuttering. Nina remained as still as she could, frozen.

Once he rose back to his feet, Nina frowned up at him, still crouched. "Are you okay?" she asked, though knew that she probably wouldn't get an answer one way or the other. After all, it looked like it could be painful, and even if it wasn't, it was probably at least draining. She pursed her lips as she rose, mulling over the words that had barely made it out of Cody's mouth in one piece. She followed the older boy as he kept moving along, close in his steps, but her mind was muddied once more.

She flinched out of the thoughts with relative ease once Cody had spoken again, though the circumstances were less-than-ideal. She barely had any time to move outside of the quick reaction before the floor had opened up beneath the two of them, and they were suddenly airborne. She shrieked with shock and horror, but her voice was quickly rendered silent as her eyes and mouth shut tightly, as if she could block out what was happening as easily as she could in a scary movie. Her hands tried to grab for something, anything, and before she knew it, her body was jerked to a stop. With all the adrenaline coursing through her veins, she didn't even feel the sharp pain in her shoulder that the action caused, just short of dislocation; there was far too much at stake for her to feel it.

Oddly enough, she found her voice just fine when Cody complained about her weight. "Charmed," she muttered, though the usual malice behind the words was watered down. To help him out, once they reached the side of the pit, she swung herself over, to save the teen from having to carry her the entire way. Seems the trap designers didn't think to put any spikes on the sides of the pit, all the way around... perhaps they didn't feel it was necessary?

A set of runes circling the walls above them pulsed to life, and the darkness grew a little less suffocating. Nina turned around and inhaled sharply, immediately faced with one of the spikes. Good Gods, they were taller than she was! "Th-Thanks," she managed to say to Cody, though any other words of appreciation were smothered by her shock.

At about chest-level to the average, fully-grown man there was a gem-like depiction of the sun in glass, semi-circular and jutting from the wall. A number of braille-like protrusions littered the walls, carved from the stone and almost seeming to glow in the ghostly light that came from the glyphs above them. In fact, upon closer inspection, there were a number of other pieces of colored glass that bulged from the walls, in differing sizes but all circular in shape, like an orb. Squinting, Nina scanned the area until her eyes caught sight of a familiar pattern, which she wasted no time in pointing out, "The Big Dipper!" It was an astrological depiction of the sky!

A patch of runes took their time in lighting up, but once they appeared, they scrawled along the wall next to the glass sun. To move forward, one must step through the gates of Hell. The dimmed voices of the lost spirits seemed to take pieces of the words and repeat them, confusing Nina. She couldn't read the strange language on the stone wall, and the voices didn't seem to make sense! "Coyote..?" she started, wondering if he were able to understand it, or even read it at all.

Nina's nose wrinkled as she glanced at Cody, curious as to why he cut himself off. She wasn't going to bother asking, though; chances were good that it was a 'you're too young to understand' moment, and although she was convinced that she wasn't, she also figured that it would be an unneeded waste of energy to argue otherwise. Instead, she tried to focus on the wording of the runes as the boy had read them aloud. Frowning, she graced a hand against one of the seemingly-giant spikes in front of her, a morbid sort of smile tugging at one side of her mouth, "Y'don't suppose they mean to impale yourself, do you?" There wouldn't be much of a path beyond that, for sure, but maybe it was just a roundabout way of saying 'goodbye'?

Spinning back around, she snorted derisively. Even if there was no deliberate way out, she wasn't about to give up after coming so far. Mildly and nervously, she wondered if she could force her wings to work, despite never having tried before. It would sure help if she could...

However, she was at a loss for what else the riddle could mean, her mind too cluttered with frustration. It was a good thing that Cody had more of a grip on the situation, though he was driven to a different extent than Nina was. She opted to follow him toward the glass-like depiction of Pluto, holding her breath as he mumbled a little rhyme and pressed it. Honestly, she was half-expecting the spikes to turn into a garden of flames or something, but instead, the wall behind Pluto lit a box outline of a doorway, the same pale glow that the runes above were giving off. She wasn't sure if she were seeing the wall disappearing before her eyes or not, as in the dark pit it was nearly impossible to tell, but a shadow seemed to descend over the inside of the outline, revealing a hallway without a door to prevent entry. "Good job," she stated, it being the only thing she found herself able to say.

She stuck to following Cody, though once she noticed her own actions she attempted to walk beside him. Sure, she was scared, but she didn't want to blatantly display this -- she was too proud for that. However, the smell of rot and decay came easily down the stale walls once they had stepped into the hallway, and Nina had to cover her nose and mouth with her hands before she was able to take a breath. Her eyes grew wide, about to ask what that horrid smell was before the answer came to her eyes, further down the path. Most of the bodies scattered along were wrapped up by various means, for preservation purposes, but it was obvious by the shape of their casings as to what they were.

There was a sharp inhale, but Nina didn't actually make a sound as she jerked backward, smacking into Cody before she got a grip. Just stick to the middle... don't look at them, don't pay attention... she told herself, trying to breathe at a regular pace despite the likelihood that she was giving herself bad advice. Turning to glance up at Cody, she mumbled a quick and stifled, "S-Sorry." Maybe she could take all this a little better if the voices didn't seem to follow them wherever they went, but this couldn't be determined accurately. After all, how could a child so young know if they could take seeing so much death and twisted beliefs well or not? Maybe if she distanced herself from it all, mentally, it would help her take it with stride...

Nina found herself squinting through the darkness of the room, not in an effort to cut through it better but rather to partially block her vision with her eyelashes. Unfortunately, it didn't work all that well, but since she didn't have a plan that was any better, she continued on with it. She was almost glued to Cody at this point, but she consciously tried to keep some sort of distance, if only not to trip the boy.

It took a surprising amount of effort to keep herself from running off forward when Cody mentioned that there was a door up ahead. If it was so close, it means that they were almost out of this death chamber that they found themselves in. Why not get out sooner, with that train of thought? However, she had been trapped in this nightmare of a maze long enough to know that the room that lied ahead could be that much more worse than any of this, than anything they had encountered thus far. She was not eager to acquaint herself with this new room, even if she could hardly breathe with air this thick.

In fact, she was getting a little dizzy from the low amount of oxygen. In a slightly-foggy daze, she glanced up to the teenager with a scrutinizingly curious frown. Fresh air? "I can hardly breathe in here, what are you talking about?" she grumbled through her hands, voice wavering very slightly in reaction to the fuzziness of her brain. They were so far underground, weren't they? How could there be any sort of breeze, other than the stale air that they were kicking up with their own movements? "You going senile?" she mumbled with a passing thought, not expecting any sort of retort other than an explanation.

(( I can add onto this if needed. o3o ))

Instead of focusing on the things that were displayed in front of her eyes, Nina decided to take a step back and purposefully cloud her own mind, falling into distraction that her own thoughts -- or lack thereof -- were able to generate. As it was, she was dwelling much too long on things that would only prove to upset her, if she let her usual curiosity take hold. As a defense mechanism, she decided to try to not pay things as much heed, ignore the finer details, if only to stop herself from being so scared. If this were anything else, she would have scoffed at herself for being such a baby... but this was walking a fine line between life and death with a stranger that seemed to be walking a secondary "fine line" of his own.

For now, the only things she was paying attention to were the words coming out of Cody's mouth and her own pace, so as not to run into or over anything. Stopping at the door as the teen did, she glanced over her hands to stare at the door without really seeing it. She was about to make a comment about the fact that he was, at the very least, older than her, but thought better of it; after all, she was able to see a number of retorts that could be flung back at her for that one. She frowned at his observation of her cloudy brain, but kicked at the ground a little instead. "Though, now that you mention it," she replied after a bit of a pause, "I can feel it, now that we're at this door." The remark was enough to confirm Cody's own examination of the flow of the air.

Blinking, she took another step backward when the other spawn attempted to kick at the door, on the off-chance the door actually did open or Cody fell over from the impact. Neither happened, though her reaction seemed to be a good one nonetheless. "It can't hear you, y'know," she snorted bluntly, finding his reaction amusing, if nothing else. The amusement managed to increase as the door seemed to shrink from his threats and unlock itself, but this feeling was short-lived.

If she hadn't known any better, Nina could have sworn her heart had jumped into her throat just then, or found itself clenched in her own teeth. Almost immediately, the hanging skeletons were visible from the doorway, and the opening of the rune-brushed door only managed to kick up more of a breeze, causing the forms to sway a bit. She didn't even seem to notice the mass amounts of blood that painted the room before her eyes shut tight, allowing her mind to convince her otherwise. They are props. They HAVE to be. How else could they still be up there, intact, and not have fallen down by now? Of course, she had to momentarily forget about ligaments, but her swirling mind accomplished this with little effort. As for all the blood... It's a nice effect. Makes a person almost believe it's real. So dark. Opening her eyes, she took a slow breath with the thoughts in mind. Okay... okay, she could get through this.

Noticing the plaque wasn't too difficult. Not only was it one of the shiniest things in the entire room, or any room they had been in thus far, but it was strangely devoid of blood stains. The rest of the room hadn't been so lucky. It must have been important, to stand out so much, but was this in a good way or not? Sighing, she grumbled, "Yeesh, how big is this place, anyway?" Did it span the entire town's length, underground? She didn't wait for a response before heading in the direction of the black door, curious as to what it said. Honestly, she'd never seen a plaque used for anything other than an award, but what sort of weirdo would hang an award in a place like this?

Unfortunately, the plaque was much too high above her for her to read. Standing under it, she tried to read it just the same before pointing up at it and turning around, "What's that say, Cody?" At least he could fly, if it was still too high for even the teenager to read. Her eyes wandered to the nearest skeleton, catching on the structure of the skull. A sickened frown appeared before it turned more mild, Great detail, at least.

If it could have been called anything in particular, Nina flashed Cody a rather scrutinizing look that quickly turned more and more confused. Although Nina had never actually read anything by the renowned writer that the teenager was quoting, Cody fit Hamlet's description rather well at this point -- it was unclear whether or not either one of them were putting on an act to throw people off, or if they were truly as crazy as they projected themselves out to be. Come to think of it, was Cody even aware of how psychotic he sounded? Nina could only watch in annoyed, if slightly amused, consideration.

She visibly brushed off the older spawn's actions, huffing a nearly-silent, "Such respect for the dead..." She was only so bold in comment because she was still fooling herself into thinking that everything was a prop, however. Instead, she turned her attention back to the black door, the only part of the exit that she could examine herself. Placing a hand on it without thinking of any consequences that may arise from it, she half-expected it to blaze alight with a spattering of rune-text like the door previous.

Cody's words drifted down to her, and she found herself glancing upward to meet them. She was confused as to the origin of the words for a moment, considering the skull was just a 'prop' and all, but figured that Cody may have thrown it down if it really was the one doing the talking. Then again... it was Cody she were talking about; not the easiest person to figure out, especially after his little spat with Yorick. In fact, she was so distracted with trying to figure it out that the words that were being spoken barely phased past her mind. It wasn't until the word "poison" floated through the air that she finally snapped to attention, figuring these rhymes were important. Unfortunately... there wasn't a word of it that she could decipher a meaning from, leaving confusion in it's wake.

She jumped slightly as Cody called her name, finding it almost chilling for him to be using it. Never had she felt so opposed to hearing her name uttered by someone; she wasn't looking forward to figuring out what he wanted, she was sure it wasn't anything good. Her eyes narrowed before turning back to the door, noticing that Cody had been looking for a way through. Of course he was, the message mentioned there was treasure at the end, she grumbled mentally, Though it never mentioned a way out...

Well, in just standing here, she wasn't leaving any sooner. Might as well answer. "Like, what kind of liquid? Like acid?" she asked, it being the only thing that came to mind. That was what always melted through the floor in cartoons, at least. She tried to think harder on the question, but... the door was only wood, right? She didn't exactly understand the question the other spawn was proposing, but couldn't they just find something to break it down? She started looking around the room for something that might help, but all she was finding were shackles, straps, pottery... and a knife that was much too short to cut through any sort of wall. Perfect for cutting up one of those fake corpses, though. A cautionary glance toward Cody was put forth before she, almost hesitantly, asked, "...Why? What did you have in mind?"