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Tarak Tales Shake-down: Terror Down Below!

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Kohdeki wanted to ask Chay if he knew where he was going, but decided to remain silent. His nigh-invisible state was the only edge he might have over anything down here.
 
"It's a mine, Chay. What did you expect?" Cersei rolled her eyes and continued to follow. "How far are we, do you think?" She asked as if she hadn't just insulted their navigator.
 
"Judging from time, air holes, and how this is set up... we haven't even taken the third layer from the surface," he says and looks to her, glad that he had the goggles on or his eyes would hurt from the sudden change. "At the fifth layer is where the grouping was missing, then there's the sixth-ish where they found the gaurdsmen."
 
While Chay consulted the map, echoing out of the black tunnels only sparingly lit here and there by crudely-tacked-in gemlights came a distant slithering noise, barely audible beneath the gentle rushing of the circulation system and the distant drip of ground-table water seepage.
 
Cersei sighed again. "So much for this being over quick. Maybe we'll run in to some action on the way to keep me from getting bore...Well...seems like I think it and it happens. Let's hope for your sakes that it doesn't happen all the time." She laughed a little at her own joke then readied herself for battle.

((Is there enough room to draw a sword without hurting myself or the others?))
 
Out of all the sounds he could hear, Chay wasn't expecting to hear anything close to a slithering. He looked up from Cersei and the map, pulling his helmet off and dropping the goggles around his neck again. "Y'hear that? Sounded like something slithering," he says and looks around, his eyes adjusting quickly to the darkness as he almost expects to be attacked right away. He leans closer to Cersei and whispers. "It's too far away to be close enough to attack us, so how about we just go quietly for now, and we think of a plan."
 
The main passages of the mine tunnels run about 6-7 feet high and 9 feet wide, wide enough for a mine cart to move and have people walking by on each side. Headroom in active cuts is somewhat less, more dwarf-height or shorter.

The team is able to ready their weapons with little difficulty, considering it's not a crisis situation. Chay's darkvision operates with or without his goggles or the illumination; for a ways beyond the reach of Cersei's light, he could "see" the contours of the rough-hewn mine walls, the sturdy timbers, the occasional nugget of ore or tool left behind in a shaft. There wasn't anything moving within the range of his vision, but then again, with the way the sounds echoed against the rock, it was impossible to tell what direction the sound came from. It could even have come from farther down... or farther up.
 
Cersei nodded then whispered back to him. "Let me borrow your goggles then so I can put out my light. I don't even know why you use them if you can see without them." She commented, almost obsessively putting in her nagging quip even during a possible crisis situation. Either way, instead of using a spell, she just put the marble into a thicker pocket just about completely covering its light.
 
"Because even though I can see in the dark it's hard to fight when you can't tell color from color except with shading. These goggles are like torchlight to me, so I can see better with them as well..." he says and sighs, putting the goggles over his eyes again. "Also they shoot fire. You wouldn't want the pyro to be without something to ignite other things with, now would you?"
 
"Still, the marble gives us away, and I can light things on fire better than you can. All in all, you can still tell a monster from me whether you see in monochrome or technicolor. Just gimme the damn googles!" Cersei was almost willing to wrestle the goggles off Chay's head just because he was being an idiot, but thought better of it lest she just reveal their position and void her reason for trying to take them in the first place. Oh the painful irony of it.
 
"Try telling the difference between a snake and a rope that's slipping when you're climbing and you can't tell the difference between colors..." he says before sighing and tossing her the goggles. "If I need to light something on fire and neither of us are near each other, you owe me one of those ignition stones that I know your guild has been researching." That was Chay, beneficial yet paranoid about his possessions, as well as trying to find ways of making a new fire-inducing a part of them. "By the way, the fire is like a dragon's breath and it's activated when you wear them and yell out 'Ignition'."
 
"Fine. I could probably make them myself if...well it's complicated but rest assured I'll see what I can do." She put on the goggles and smiled when she got her vision back. "Let's get this show on the road, shall we?"
 
Chay mutters in his mind while they continue, putting his helmet back onto his head and adjusting it to where it's not scraping his horns again. "Oi," he says and resumes heading down the walkway, ducking down and beginning to slide down slightly instead of testing his back by bending and walking as usual.
 
Cersei followed closely as Chay ducked down. She was shorter than he was so she didn't have to duck down as far, but it was just enough to make her neck hurt a little. "Ugh, you'd think dwarves would make tunnels big enough to accommodate everyone, not just themselves."
 
"You'd think that humans would make steps shorter for the smaller races," Chay shoots back to her, pointing out that a race will normally only think about their own physic when making things they believe only they would use, or if they're lazy and only want the bare minimum of efficiency. "Then again, there's always the chance that an ogre has wondered why other creatures don't come freshly dead for when it wants to eat something."
 
As the group went down the ramp, all under lights-out discipline and with a nearly-invisible member trying to stay with them but separate, it soon became annoying, as the tunnel ceiling kept seeming closer and closer the farther down they went. And that didn't make sense, as they weren't even in the lowest mining levels, where the major passages would be still being cut from the rock, this was high enough that the standard 6-7 foot ceilings they were used to throughout Tarak would be in place. It didn't make sense.

((Chay and Koh both have Perception attributes of 4D. Cersei's Perception is 3D. Chay rolls 1, 2, 1, 3; I'm judging the Wild Die 1 as a penalty so the roll is a 3. Koh rolls a 2, 5, 4, 1 = 12. Cersei rolls 6, 2, 6; reroll is 2 = 16. She's the only one who perceives a bit of data, which I will PM right now))
 
"Oi," Chay calls and stops, motioning for his goggles again so he can check out the map. "I'll need my goggles to check the map, and so you know where I am," he says and grabs his tail, holding it for Cersei to hold onto it. "Keep this as a promise that I won't be leaving you in the dark... Hah! What a pun."
 
"So many times, Chay...I just want to strangle you. But I can't 'cause then I'd be out of a friend to nag about how much of an idiot he's being. I can't do that to Koh, he's just too smart for his own good." She loosened her sword in its scabbard just so it would be ready if she needed it.

"Wait a second, Chay." She said looking up at a seam between the ceiling and the wall, seeing it move. "This ceiling isn't supposed to be this low, which means we need to move and fast."
 
"What are you talking about? We could be lost as far as we know because I can't read the map without those goggles," he says and then looks upwards, noticing that he doesn't need to be so low anymore and straightens up, though tilting his head at what seems to be the ceiling lowering itself. "Oh... that's what you mean..." Chay nods sagely and then looks to her. "Guess we run forward." He suddenly grips the map in his hand and keeps his tail in the other, taking off in a sprinting run as he makes his way farther down the tunnel, hoping that he can make it in time to not be crushed.
 
Cersei ran close behind him, ducking down lower since she had less room. She nearly fell over once, but there were no other worries about that as they ran. "It's not a trap though, Chay. There's no grinding. The dropping...it's like its melting, it's magic!" She tried to say quietly as they ran, speaking just above the volume of their frantic footsteps.
 
"Does that mean we stop running or that we keep running because we still have something coming down on our head!?" he calls back, not wanting to risk it yet, and beginning to slow down if he sees an opening up ahead so he doesn't end up running into a chasm and finding his death at the bottom of a long fall.
 
"No we keep running. Just thought I'd let you know so you didn't try and follow a lead that wasn't there." Cersei kept pace with Chay, slowing down when he did.
 
((damn it, this was supposed to have posted just after you made it down. Oh, well, it still applies, even if you're running, and Koh is following))

Running does the trick, apparently; it was only the ceiling of the ramp passage that was silently collapsing. As they enter the lower level, the third active mine level of the 5.5 or so levels available, the main ramp passage just kind of melts closed, like the ceiling was taffy. Once the passage is sealed, the ceiling stops, and becomes solid, stable rock again.

This is not the only access upward, but the other ramp is on the far end of the mine, possibly as much as a mile away in a straightaway (of which no straight passage exists). There are several vertical winch sites and, of course, the Water Wheel dips down this far to collect seepage water. None of them are anywhere close, however.

And there's the distant echo of that slithering sound again.
 
"... Fuck..." Chay says aloud before drawing his longsword and motioning for the goggles again. "I'll need those because this frustration is giving me the urge to light what attacks us on fire and I'd rather not rip my own goggles from your head in the midst of combat." His sword is ice-picked, so he's not being offensive with it, just having it out of the sheath just in case they're attacked. "Friggin puddy doors and that slithering sound..."
 
Cersei handed Chay back his goggled and pulled the gemlight back out into the thin pocket before drawing her own sword. "Yeah, yeah. The slithering sound we can take care of, but I don't have the means to move part of a mountain. I just hope whatever it is makes it here quick..."
 
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