Night 60: Underground Lake

[razing_phoenix]

[From here.]Just like the last time, Guy's feet hit the uneven sand as he took in that unmistakable smell of dampness. This area was almost dead quiet when compared to the hallway that they'd just come from, but he still could make out the lapping of water and the creaking of the dock. All of those sensations just reminded him of the fact that they

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[toxicspiderman]

[from here, timeskipped after the other group]Life's a beach, and then you die. There was a fucking lake down here. S.T. couldn't see it -- there'd been a lot more torchlight in the ballroom -- but he could sure as hell hear it. And smell it

[its_the_mileage]

Indy gave up on sorting out who Freddy Kreuger was. Dent's reply suggested that he wasn't an immediate threat, which put him at the bottom of the list of things that mattered right now. He kept quiet the rest of the way down and focused on keeping an eye out and staying in step with the others. It was easier tonight, although pain still washed through his chest whenever he moved. Still, the now-familiar trip down went pretty quickly--and what was better, uneventfully. Until they went through the black doors on the other side of the ballroom

[unheroed]

Harvey had been a little annoyed by Depth Charge's insistence on getting the door open when he had been handling it just fine, but in the end he'd allowed it because it meant he got to conserve his own energy and didn't have to bend his metal pipe even more out of shape

[scalyfishman]

They passed through the doors, only to be consumed by an even larger cavern than the basement's ballroom might once have been. Now this place could almost have been his home away from home (away from home, even: Earth was no Cybertron, even if he hadn't been back there in stellar cycles), with soft silty sand shifting under foot and the dark glimmer of deeper waters up ahead, the damp, porous smell unmistakable- though they certainly weren't anything Depth Charge would have risked taking a dive into out of choice. He wasn't that homesick

[vsyourface]

Scott would have said something about this not exactly being a day at the beach, but even he could reach his limit on lameness

[trolltaker]

After dealing with the three stooges, Charon was ready to settle down for the rest of the night and take a nap in the boat. But the minute he heard another set of voices approach his humble little dock, he used his long, bony arms to push himself up to a stand.

More people, then. Goody! As entertaining as everyone else has been so far, he was starting to wonder if they were the only ones who could find their way out of a paper bag -- or maybe the only other ones here, period. After waiting all this time, he was glad to see he was wrong, if only so he'd have more poor schmucks to play with in the future.

"About time," he grumbled as he wrapped his fingers around his ebony staff, peering at them with hollow eyes. He was still using Blondie Two's voice from earlier, but the beauty in that arrangement was that these guys probably had no idea he normally didn't sound like that. Now he really wished he had Cutie's voice.

"What's this?" He leaned forward, counting each person he saw. "One, two, three, four--oh, six of you now?

[toxicspiderman]

At the word boat, S.T. dropped the bits of the archeology playtime set he'd been toying with, and squinted into the gloom. Definitely a boat, with what looked like an entire skeleton hanging out near the stern. It'd be a tight squeeze, but they wouldn't need to leave anyone behind.

Then the bones talked.

S.T. could have been more surprised. The thing could have pulled out a guitar and posed for an album cover. Attempted to kill them. Both at once. Instead, it bitched like an old dockhand, though with a voice way too young to ever call grizzled.

"This your boat? Where can you take us?" He made it sound like he talked to skeletal water taxi drivers every day. Wasn't really that weird, compared with Sphinxes and zombie robot dinosaurs. This was just an old guy and a little boat. Only question was whether or not the fee was going to be anything they were willing to part with. Like their lives.

[its_the_mileage]

Charon, was Indy's first thought, and "Oh, for crying out loud" was his second. He couldn't fault Landel's interest in Greek mythological figures, but the execution always seemed to owe more to the funnies than to any classical depiction. At least he got the attitude problem right.

What this place really needed, Indy decided, was a mythology research department. Not a bad retirement plan, if you were an archaeologist with megalomania and a high tolerance for bad company. Belloq would've loved it.

He turned his attention back to the situation at hand. That there was a boat was good, but it didn't ease his suspicions that some test had to be passed--or some price to be paid--before they could get across. Obviously Peter's thought were running along similar lines. "I agree, kid," Indy muttered to him before he stepped forward, feet creaking on the dock. "And what do we have to do to cross?" he added to Taylor's questions.

[unheroed]

Beast mode, he said. Harvey figured that he couldn't expect much more from someone who called himself Depth Charge, and he decided that he really didn't want to ask any clarifying questions about that

[scalyfishman]

A talking skeleton now. Okay. Depth Charge squinted at the figure in the boat, the whiteness of its bones almost glowing in the dark. He wanted to be more surprised, but he was all out of shocked expressions for the week (and, frankly, he'd heard stranger voices coming from stranger creatures); if it was a reaction the thing wanted, he wasn't going to get it. They'd have to pry that reaction out of his cold, offlined, fleshy fingers.

But even if he refused to be shocked it didn't mean he had to trust what he was seeing- or hearing for that matter. This was 'rich' to him, huh? Sounded like a wise-guy to Depth Charge, and he didn't like wise-guys. S.T. and Jones had it covered with the practical questions, so the Maximal stuck to eyeballing the skeleton warily, as if to draw attention to the skeleton's lack thereof, and add to the little undertone of mutters. "Six now? That mean other people have been here

[vsyourface]

Scott just stared while everyone else talked, eyes round and wide. He was completely silent up until the last of the questions. His eyes never moved away from the handsome-voiced thing in front of them. And all he could think was that everyone else was missing one very crucial thing here, something that he finally voiced in a quiet tone that would have been scribbled in sketchy letters in the background had they been inside a comic panel:

"Oh my god it's a skeleton."

Giant fire-breathing monsters, shadow versions of himself, dinosaur laser fights, and the entire concept of the fourth wall, and it was the talking skeleton that got him.

[trolltaker]

Oh, good. Now he had to deal with an onslaught of stupid questions and commentary from the peanut gallery on top of that. It had been a long time since Charon had seen a group of this size, but his initial excitement was already beginning to wane.

"Thanks for that helpful little observation, Captain Obvious," the skeleton said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. If he'd had any eyes, he would have rolled them. Looking at the other mouthy kid, he gave a small chuckle. "And nope, no candy here, I'm afraid, though I could arrange it, heheh."

Whatever, though, they needed answers, and he wasn't going to hold back. He had a feeling the questions would just keep piling up if he didn't get to them, and then he'd feel like dumping them all in the lake before too long. "Anyway, no, you're not the first group down here, so if you were expecting some kind of special first-customer prize? Tough luck, kiddos. But this is my boat, and I can grant you your 'heart's desires' and 'wildest dreams' -- if they involve getting across this lake,

[toxicspiderman]

Of course they weren't the first down here. These doors had been thrown open by the Bastard-in-Exile days ago, and a bunch of people had already been through the resurrection machine.

"You got it, man." S.T. held out a hand. He'd touched weirder things than bones, if the Grim Reaper took him up on it. "One sense of smell. Hope it's okay if it's a little beat up."

The entire lake smelled like a mildew factory had moved in to his sinuses and started a fraternity. If he puked his guts up in the middle of the lake no one would ever respect him again when he mentioned the Zodiac. So the solution fit the problem.

"Take someone's sense of taste and next time I'll bring you a beer. Deal?"

[trolltaker]

"I like a man who knows how to bargain," Charon laughed. "But, unless you're willing to let me have someone's stomach, too, I can't exactly take you up on that offer, now can I? Nowhere for the beer to go. It'd just get everywhere, stink up my boat, and then the whole damn neighborhood would think I was throwing a party without 'em. The spiders here have nasty tempers, you know. Hold terrible grudges over the dumbest things, too