About those carvings..." Oka began, still nibbling away at the banana, "I'd rather not think about that too much. I knew a snail with future magic once but uh, I don't think they could see that far forward. It's kind of...I dunno. Kind of scary." Like the chaos visions Oka had once been privy to. But that was neither here nore there. What was here, though, was a suspicious dip in the ground.

With Oliver's scouting, and Oka's own bright glow, Oka was easily able to spot a suspicious dip in the ground ahead. "You said that there's pits right? Hm, I wonder if I could..." Oka said, beginning to trail off. Oka had seen the smaller snail stick to walls. Surely Oka could too, right?

Oka's foot began to slide up a side of the tunnel. As it turns out, Oka was built differently. In a bad way. Without the weight of all the plants on their shell, without exhausting themselves thickening vines earlier, Oka's foot might've been able to hold the weight. As it was, soon as Oka left the ground, gravity called them again. Oka fell with a yelp.

@Jinyi

Jinyi offered an easy smile in response to Mossie's thanks. "It's no problem at all. I'm happy to help." He could not, however, share her enthusiasm about the carvings on the wall, and a chromatophore-aided frown rippled across his face. "I agree with Oka. It's kind of creepy," he mused, staring uneasily at the stooped figure that looked disturbingly like himself. "I feel like I'm being watched. What if they're not friendly--?"

Of course, Mother watched plenty of people through the eyes of her Drones and Lessers--was watching them now, in fact, and had noted Oliver's transformation with great interest--but that was different. Mother was benevolent, not creepy, so it was fine. The comparison didn't even cross Jinyi's mind.

The spiked pits in the drawing, though, were a sobering warning. He would not ignore a warning like this no matter how creepy the source, especially considering Mossie's tale of how her friend had previously fallen. Falling slightly behind the group and pausing for a moment in a looming shadow, so that Oliver's orb of light would not display his show of Ordered magic for all to see, Jinyi hid his arm in his robes once again--and when he withdrew it, there was a long, chitinous cane in his hand. It was rather solidly attached to his body, but he pretended to grasp it as if it was simply a tool he had packed in a large pocket somewhere. As they pushed onward through the darkness, the Drone poked carefully at the ground ahead of them. It would not do to meet the same fate as the one they were trying to rescue.

The new carvings warned of a different danger, and this warning too, Jinyi took seriously despite the uneasiness in his gut. He was careful to always stay within the radius of Oliver's light, tilting his face upward to check the ceiling ahead for any sharp stalactites ready to drop on them all.

"So, Oliver--" the Drone began as the party crept on down the tunnel. "How are you able to go between bird and dog like that? --You don't look like your bird half did when you hadn't turned fully into a bird." The feathers striped instead of black, the wing shape a bit different--or was he imagining that?

The question distracted him from watching the ceiling ahead, and he was only reminded that hey, this place is dangerous when Oka fell. "Oka!" he cried as the snail yelped, jerking in her direction. The expression on his face changed like violent ocean waves, colors and shadows whirling and flooding across the smooth surface until they had formed a deeply alarmed (and alarming, if you looked at it too closely) look.

@Oliver

At first, he was quite overly cautious--nearly crawling ahead, feathered breast to the floor as his huge eyes peered off down the tunnel. He kept his wings half-spread, his taloned feet feeling the way forward even as the orb-light lit his path.

Conversation, though, distracted him.

"Oh--well, there was a stone. One that was pinkish purple, and gold, and it flashed and glowed--it granted wishes. I wished to be able to help others. I saw... I don't know what I saw. Dreams, visions, sort've?" he half-suggested, uncertain. "It changed me into a bird, and I fell into my stone it hurt so bad. I'm getting... used to it, but it still hurts," he explained.

He didn't explain--it seemed awful to--that he was compelled to help others, no matter how agonizing the change was. If someone needed a scout, or a flight, it was like he simply could not say no. And Oliver could hardly admit that to himself, let alone vocalize it. And anyway... was that so bad, to 'have' to help others? It was the choice he'd usually make, anyway, though a few times the lengths to which he'd offered to go were horrifying, even self-destructive. He'd blanched, later, thinking on it--but at the time, it was almost like he'd had no choice.

At the last moment, he realized that the topic--the bad memories, too--had distracted him from watching for danger. He stumbled to a halt just at the edge of the pit, just as Oka slid into it--his talons scrabbling at the edge, wings beating with soft thuds to propel him back to safety. "Oh-" he blurted, a tad too late.

The Gembound safely detected, and passed by, a series of barely-covered spiked pits. Though only a few feet deep, the spikes were sharpened, pointed sticks jutting upward from holes in the stone.

Why would anyone leave traps, yet leave a warning on how to avoid the same traps..? How very strange.

Unfortunately the next set of dangers proved more deadly: Oka's sliding stumble struck a pressure plate hidden against the stone tunnel floor. A thick-bladed axe, formed of chipped stone, dropped from a slot above and swept in a curving arc across the tunnel ceiling. It would strike first Oka, and then Jinyi, unless they managed to avoid this new trap.

---

Jinyi and Oka must roll to avoid the slicing axe trap. Mossie may still roll to detect the axes, but if she fails, must then roll to dodge. Anyone who has dodged the axes may also roll to aid Jinyi and Oka, or make any other post they wish.

GM note: Posting order's unimportant.

@Mossie @Jinyi @Oka

Mossie, truth to be told, has not been paying a whole lot of attention.

She shambles at the back of the adventuring party like a ghost, holloweyed, only barely paying attention to the snippets of conversation. Sometimes, her brain just...tanked. And even the smallest of tasks required herculean effort to complete.

But she couldn't just not rescue Callum.

On reflex, she sends out magical sensors, trying to scan the path ahead for danger...

She catches magical sight of the axes just in time, darting away with a yelp. But two others haven't been so lucky...

Oka felt the suspicious slide of stone beneath them. Before they even had the luxury of developing a sinking feeling, a massive axe came lunging for them. While getting out of the way was the ideal course of action, Oka was not just a snail, but an eight foot tall snail. Dodging was sort of out of the question. Oka did what came naturally to them. Oka obeyed the compulsion to tuck inside their shell, hoping it and the cushion of plants would block the worst of the damage.

The snail's intuition proved right. Between the thick layer of plants, and Oka's own thick shell, they did not feel a thing. Oka was safely knocked aside by the axe, their shell spinning like a top. A bit dizzy and more than a bit shaken, squeaked a warning of, "Look out!" ,from within the safety of their shell.
@Oliver
@Jinyi

So, perhaps trying to strike up friendly conversation in the depths of the PIT of DEATH wasn't one of Jinyi's brightest ideas.

He tried to react in time. He saw the stone axe coming--heard Oka shout a warning--and took a flash of inspiration from the giant snail's defense, trying to draw up his magic to form his own chitinous armor. But it came too weakly, and too slowly, and all he could do was throw out an arm to try to shield himself--strangely, across his upper chest instead of over his face as might be expected of a humanoid's reaction.

Still, he was too late to avoid the brunt of the axe's swing, and with his magical chitin armor still not existent, things didn't look to optimistic. Morbidly, Jinyi wondered if it would be all that bad, apart from the pain. It wasn't like he could bleed out, after all.

Owlish eyes widened as Oliver realized that Jinyi... wasn't gonna make it. Not if someone didn't intervene, and Oliver wasn't sure he'd be quick enough. He launched himself without really thinking, wings giving a hefty single beat, feet lurching forward to try and knock Jinyi back just enough to avoid the axe.

He couldn't be sure if he'd managed to save the stranger, but he felt an impact of something, the thud of feathers and claws on flesh and then himself bouncing--unharmed--down across the rock. "Are you okay?!" he cried, alarmed. Fear--for this new friend--shot through him.

There was a silence, broken by the whistle of wind curling down the tunnel and ruffling fur and feathers as it passed.

Ahead--lit now by the Gembounds' magic--another carving was visible. It was past the pit, past the swinging axe--which now settled itself back in the ceiling, blade untouched by blood or Hive. And it was a broader drawing, carved clearly into the wall: each of the present Gembound, clambering straight down a hole.

Should they press on, they would find just such a hole--one claustrophobic, perhaps, for Oka but for the rest... passable. But it was twisting, turning and winding, a steep and narrow descent that would plunge them in pitch darkness to an unknown fate.

A 'trust fall,' as it were... but the drawing seemed to suggest that this was indeed their path.

---

Gembounds may each choose to acknowledge the carving on the wall and take a trust fall down a dark, narrow pit that plunges an enormous distance into the ground--or may choose to go over the pit and continue down the tunnel. They may also choose to further investigate the carvings, or even turn back, if they wish.

@Mossie @Oliver @Oka @Jinyi