amberconarizona.theiforum.com

Nihilistic Mind · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:24 pm Post subject: Scene 3.1 - April at the Pit

April awakens to darkness and cold. She is in a very damp place and can hear the sound of running water. The echoes of water tell her much about the size of the room she is in: it is about ten feet by twenty feet, the ground is a polished rock or concrete surface of some kind, slippery and cold, while the ceiling is low, perhaps 6 and a half feet.

She can hear more water down an opening ahead of her and she can feel the splashing of water to her right. Her stuff is gone, everything but the clothes she had on and her left shoe is missing.

She can also hear, faintly, distant music and singing voices.
_________________
AmberCon Arizona Webpage
FabienBadilla.com
Desert Sky Design

TonyLB · Joined: 09 Jun 2008 Posts: 494

"Aw man," April says, rubbing her head gingerly, "What was I drinking?"

"Oh ... yeah ..." she says, as memory returns to her bit by bit. "Freaky sold me out. Stupid bird. Later for you, Freaky."

"So, yeah, I figure someone can hear me," she says to the dark air, "and here's what I'm thinking: Only my family can work up this kind of shadow-trap, which means that one way or another I'm being jerked around by a relative. Which ... y'know ... pisses me off. Keeping me in the dark and taking my stuff is the kind of prank that won't make this any better for you in the end."

When no sudden light or opening doorway appears to release her from the darkness, she grumbles, straightens her clothes, and sets out to explore the entire cavern complex that she's been dumped into. She does so systematically, patiently, and with a spelunker's expert understanding of her own limits and the dangers of cave-swimming. She shows no hurry to track down the music, concentrating on mapping every possible path with fingers and ears and nose, until she either comes across something genuinely interesting, or finds a way out.

She murmurs a constant string of low profanity as she works.

Nihilistic Mind · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:44 am Post subject:

April finds passages too small for her going into the water from this room. She can reach in and feel cool running water going fast enough to know it must go somewhere. The rock walls have been carved naturally by water and shifts in the ground, which is good news.

The drifts of cold air and the running of water leads her to four passages.

One leads to the driest room and has the most airflow. There are cavities and in each is a small pile of bones and skulls. There are other holes filled with cocoon like things that may have once been human. The air travels through to a three foot wide crack towards where the ceiling is, alas it is only four inches tall. The air makes an eerie noise that is almost comforting in its own sense, like a song of sorrow. At one point, she thinks she heard a sigh.

Another leads to a roundish room, wide and her steps echo all around. It feels damp and drippy, with stalactites and stalagmites of various sizes everywhere. The ceiling here is very high, and the water drips into a pool which then flows down a narrow passage, again too small for her to get much more than an arm in. This one flows slowly and only seems to make the passage damp.

A third passage leads to the widest area and she can see faint light way above her, a dot in the sky. This is possibly where she fell from, but perhaps not or she might be a splat somewhere on a rock. There are things or people in this area, but even spending a few minutes adapting her sight to the darkness, the light is not enough to convey much. This area is rocky and some sort of fungus grows everywhere. The airflow is nice here and it is probably where all the air flows from. It is about one hundred yards by twenty yards, opening only to heights above and the passage she came from.

Finally, there is a long winding passage that requires a bit of climbing on her part getting her closer to the splashing sounds of waterfalls, a piano and creepy whiny singing voices. The language sounds like Thari, but it's hard to tell without getting closer.

She's starting to feel cold, and judging from her hunger, she might have been in the caves for a day.
_________________
AmberCon Arizona Webpage
FabienBadilla.com
Desert Sky Design

TonyLB · Joined: 09 Jun 2008 Posts: 494

In the third room, surrounded by presences she can feel just beyond the edge of her senses, April stands for a time. She glances up at the tiny patch of light, high above, and sighs.

"Freaky," she says with certainty. "You and your whole ... what's the word ... not parliament ... oh yeah. Murder. You out there, you little cheat?"

Nihilistic Mind · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 5:51 am Post subject:

Sure enough, from high above, she hears the beating of wings. Hesitant at first. She can hear it fly down to her, eventually landing a few feet away. He dares not caw.
_________________
AmberCon Arizona Webpage
FabienBadilla.com
Desert Sky Design

TonyLB · Joined: 09 Jun 2008 Posts: 494

April looks down at the darkness. She sighs.

"Odds are this'll end poorly for you," she says plainly. "I don't know yet whether you were brave or desperate or just stupid ... but I do know you led me to a long drop and a sudden stop, and that'd take an awful lot of excusing."

She glances up at the patch of light. "I'm going topside, and I'm going to figure out this whole mess and your place in it. Then, some day soon, you and I will have a reckoning."

....

April turns on her heel and stalks from the room. She makes her way by touch to the winding passage leading up, and follows it as far as it will take her.

Nihilistic Mind · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:08 pm Post subject:

Freaky moves around her and gargles for a second, as if he's about to say something, but doesn't. When she leaves the room, she can hear him fly up again.

...

April climbs for a while, slowed by waterfalls and darkness. Eventually she arrives at the top of a dry rock where she can rest for a bit. She hears continual singing, clapping in a group every few seconds. Around several winding corners of a passage, the sounds of waterfalls and the eerie music and singing gets louder and, at last! There is a glow of light! Blue and pale.

There is someone asleep, lying against a round rock in the passage. It's a very old man, skin and bones and bearded and pale. He snores, but by now the music is so loud she can't hear it much.
_________________
AmberCon Arizona Webpage
FabienBadilla.com
Desert Sky Design

TonyLB · Joined: 09 Jun 2008 Posts: 494

April nudges him gently on the shoulder. "Hey, old-timer," she says, close to his ear so he has a chance of hearing above all the noise, "I don't think this is a real safe place for you to doss out."

Nihilistic Mind · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:05 pm Post subject:

The man is startled and tries to look at April in the dark. "What the... Who are you?!" He backs away from April.
_________________
AmberCon Arizona Webpage
FabienBadilla.com
Desert Sky Design

Nihilistic Mind · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:09 pm Post subject:

The man is startled and tries to look at April in the dark. "What the... Who are you?!" He backs away from April.
_________________
AmberCon Arizona Webpage
FabienBadilla.com
Desert Sky Design

TonyLB · Joined: 09 Jun 2008 Posts: 494

"Whoa, whoa," she says gently, backing away a fraction. "My name's April. I'm a friend."

For what little it's worth, in the dim light, she gestures around. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

Nihilistic Mind · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 7:18 am Post subject:

"Mwah! Uhm... Doing here? I'm... uhm... passing the time... What else is there to do?" April can now see his silhouette better, her eyes adapting to the amount of light a bit more.

Still leaning back and away from her, he asks, "So... You said your name was April? You remember your name. When did you arrive?"
_________________
AmberCon Arizona Webpage
FabienBadilla.com
Desert Sky Design

TonyLB · Joined: 09 Jun 2008 Posts: 494

April shakes her head. "Nooo ..." she says, "This is all twisted, somehow. If nobody up here knows I'm coming then I came in another way. But if that's the case then where were my things?"

She steps forward and looms over the old man, gently shaking the tension from her hands in case she needs to move quickly to stop him from screaming a warning.

"That pegs you as a guard ..." she says, "no, not even a guard, a keeper. I need your silence, and you don't look the type to keep quiet by choice...." She lets the phrase trail off ominously.

Nihilistic Mind · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 4:18 pm Post subject:

"Wait, wait! You... you said you were a friend! M-maybe the others saw you... I, uhm... sleep a lot. Maybe the others brought you here... I dunno!" He looks absolutely scared of her very simple threat. "Most folks fall from over there." He points behind him to where the music and singing comes from. Despite his agitated tone, the sound of water and music and singing is too much for anyone there to hear April and the old man. "I dunno! They maybe moved you to down there while I was asleep, I dunno where you things are, I swear!"
_________________
AmberCon Arizona Webpage
FabienBadilla.com
Desert Sky Design

TonyLB · Joined: 09 Jun 2008 Posts: 494

April shakes her head, skepticism in every line of her body.

"No," she says again, "You ask who I am, and in the next breath you're admitting that you didn't even expect me to remember my own name. That says you're playing me, and that flavors everything that comes after."

She gestures toward the water and singing ahead. "I was ready to think that you were someone separate from whatever's happening out there, but the more you talk the less I buy it. Sounds like you're part and parcel of the whole mess, and now you want to get ready to cut ties before it all comes crashing down."

She tilts her head. "Not," she continues, "that I'm unsympathetic. But you'll have to be more forthcoming. You know plenty, and you're not saying much."