Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Yes. Because of what we'd do. We'd take care of it," he answered immediately. We. "We'd do what was right.

"But it doesn't matter. She didn't do this. I was just--agreeing--you're right, if she'd done this, it wouldn't be her, but I just--don't think she did, aside from--from defending herself. Because Randall and Bernice are up there and they know this is here, obviously--surely they know--"

He hesitated, and he looked at Syntax's menacing gleam, and abruptly Fionnghal's runes were spilling pale, dappled sunlight over the floor.

"They know," he repeated. And they left us unattended. His earlier concerns of what are they doing right now came back full force, attended by thoughts of the power going out to the elevator.

"It just seems to me more and more likely," said Taym after a long pause, running his thumb back and forth over the bronze antlers branching over his fingers, "that we're going to run into trouble if we go back up, if they don't just kill the elevator halfway back and get rid of us that way. But I don't know what the ******** else we're supposed to do. What if she got loose without her pendant and she's out in the woods somewhere? ********' hell." He raked his free hand through his hair uneasily although he did not, to his credit, go so far as to say: this was your idea, a*****e.

"Ve are on same page, in that note. They have out for us, if this is vhat they have done. Ve know too much."

He approached the sticky note, like so many more before it, and looked.

"There is a vay back, but also vay to city. I vant to see it." She was so, so excited about the maze itself-- she had to have been ecstatic. "But vhat do you think?"

Kostya waited it out, patient and bored. It was easier, to focus on this. To distill what knowledge he had into probabilities that were, in fact, little more than wild guesses in the dark.

"Okay," he said. For all they thought the same, on processes and immediate actions, the pair of them drew quite different conclusions.

Boris looked much more like a victim than a perpetrator, and from what he'd gleaned from America, he seemed... not the type.

But, he supposed, withholding a bark of laughter, you couldn't trust anyone to be what they said they were. He'd be hypocritical to do so. Kostya's memory was good, but they had spent a great while navigating in the maze. He was 87% certain that he could guide them both back to where they had started from-- and, perhaps, Obadiah remembered it better-- but that was not a 100% guarantee.

Think, Konstantin.

Think.

Where would she have run? Maye Obadiah was correct, and she was in the woods. But, still, he was drawn to the city.

"To call it curiosity belittle it," Kostya said, "but can have debate later. I think she is there. But, have no logical explanation for thinking it. So am yielding. Do ve take vay back vay ve came, or follow directions from the sticky note? Or do ve stay down here, until Edith and Otto and Peyton come?"

While Obadiah spoke, Kostya took pictures of the scene before them. No signal, sure, but better to have the evidence than not.

He didn't agree that coming down to the maze had been a mistake, but if it had, at least it would not be without evidence. Sparing one last look down the path that (supposedly) led to the city, Kostya turned to follow Taym.

"Traitors vould be the best possible outcome of enemy to see," Kostya said, equally as frank.

Going up.

The only light was the glitter of Syntax and Fiona, blue-and-red matched with gold.

Kostya angled his hand upwards, grim. "Likelihood of it returning, you are thinking? Can give you boost. There is hatch at top."