A Dirge for Derrick Cork: The Warren

[Twitchcraft]

The nearest Troll howled in pain as Lauren lashed out with hands ablaze. Lightning arced past the two of them to strike the next creature in the chest. It staggered back under the electrical assault.

Wyatt grappled with his own opponent at close quarters. He strained for a grip on the Troll's neck, but the thing was protected by its scaly natural armor. As he struggled for leverage, it rose up, carrying him along with it. The two combatants threw themselves back and forth, each hoping to finish with the upper hand. They ricocheted off the warren's stone walls, each impact ringing out sharply.

Lauren continued to pound at her foe with a series of scorching strikes. The Troll swatted back at her, but its attacks were slow and clumsy. She kept her focus on its face and chest, igniting the very air around it. When it dropped to one knee, she knew she'd bested it.

The one that had withstood the lightning strike shuffled forward, still crackling with excess electricity. It advanced on Chris and Sam through what seemed like raw spite alone. It muttered various threats, some audible, most not. But just as it came into reach of them, its eyes rolled back in its head and it toppled toward them, unconscious!

Wyatt rolled and spun, slamming his Troll into the warren wall once more. It finally went limp in his grasp, and he let it slide to the floor.

But the shudder that had run through the stone during his last attack didn't stop. Instead the warren trembled as bits of granite cracked and shifted. Dust swept into the air, and the entire warren groaned...

[Chris Sloan]

Chris looked over at Sam, and then his hand, still wincing from the pain but trying not to do more than that. "Yeah, it'll be okay... just can't use it for now..." And then he saw the Troll approach, slowly beginning to back up and hope something would stop it. Sure enough, the Troll fell flat on it's face just before reaching them. He smiled a bit, realizing the pain actually was worth it.

And then, the warren groaned, and Chris looked around in alarm, "We have to move!" He knew sounds like that could never be good, and this place looked unstable enough as it was.

[Wyatt Wyborn]

"Oh, eff word," Wyatt said to himself. The walls and ceiling looked like they might be coming down on top of them. Chris' words made it through the low rumble all around them and Wyatt agreed with him.

They were too far in to try to find their way back out. But Wyatt knew the old saying about using a cave for a refuge in war -- caves make a fine tomb. If the Trolls were holing up here, there would be more than one way out. He figured their best bet would be to press onward. He turned to count heads, but the dust was as thick as a Smokey Mountain fog and he couldn't see more than a few feet in any direction. He just hoped the others heard and followed him when he said, "This way!"

[Mia Cobol]

As she took off with the group after Wyatt, Mia reached over and grabbed Chris's hand. A little rougher than she intended, but she needed to be sure her grip wouldn't loosen as they moved. Not even bothering to keep quiet anymore, she chanted a few lines of Latin and let the energy flow from herself into the wound on Chris's hand.

"That should at least get you back to fighting! It's a patch job, but I can finish healing it when we get out of here!" With that she let go and and sped up to catch up with Wyatt, praying quietly and scouring her brain for any spell that might stop the cave in.

[Chris Sloan]

Chris cried out for just a moment when Mia took hold of the burnt hand, but quickly quieted himself, following after the group. "Thanks. Do you have... any big barrier spells? Don't need to stop the collapse... just stop it from reaching us. We can find another way out."

[Twitchcraft]

The tunnel groaned and trembled again.

A shower of stone rained down on the passageway behind the Westbrook group, bringing with it a tremendous cloud of choking dust. When the latest tremor finally subsided, the way back to the surface was completely blocked by debris.

Mia's rough set of directions for the camcorder still held, though. With no better course open, Wyatt set off that way, waving for the others to follow. The warren sloped downward, taking the group deeper and deeper beneath Baumton.

There were more dead ends, more wrong turns. In one case, the passageway was blocked by a massive slab of fallen granite. Neither Lauren nor Wyatt dared shift it. The attempt to detour around it ate up more precious minutes, though. The tremors continued, increasing in frequency and duration.

One last turn brought the group to the location Mia thought she had seen through the Troll's eyes. But after all the tremors, only the smallest of openings remained, rather than a full-size passageway. Through the narrow crack, it was possible to catch a glimpse of the pile of scrap and electronics. And there was the camcorder -- well, a camcorder, at least -- stacked atop it. Miraculously intact even as the rest of the warren fell apart around it.

Moving all the rocks blocking the way would be risky in the extreme, they knew -- and it would take a substantial amount of time. But, from the looks of it, it might be possible to widen the opening just enough for a small, slender person to slip through...

[Chris Sloan]

Chris looked at the opening. His hand still hurt, but it was somewhat usable now. He looked around the group. "Guys... I think Sam or Cassie have the biggest chance of getting in if we can get her some room to move..." He looked at the opening more, examining it, and the space beyond.

[Eternal-Equinox]

Sam looked at the others as she heard Chris say that she or Cassie could fit. She took in the hole and then looked back at the group. Chris was probably right, they were the smaller ones of the group.

She looked from Lauren and Wyatt.

"Y'all make the call, I'll go if you want I'm not much use out here without powers anyway. But I ain't gonna go all gung ho and jump in the hole without talkin' it out with everyone."

[Twitchcraft]

Widening the opening seemed to take forever.

In reality, the whole job couldn't have been the work of more than fifteen minutes. It called for a certain amount of delicacy and precision, though. And every tremor brought a fresh jolt of adrenaline, and every small noise carried with it the possibility of pursuit and combat. Was that the Trolls approaching? Had the Heracles kids made their way into the warren? How many of them? Too many? No chance of escape? No possibility of victory?

In the end, none of the worst-case scenarios came to pass.

In the end, there was only the tunnel and the rocks. And the rocks yielded a piece at a time. Until the hole was at last large enough for someone to climb through...

[Lauren Lombardi]

“I'm worried. It seems too easy. Whoever goes in there is going to be on their own.”

Lauren looked around the group before turning her attention to the hole.

“But I don't see an alternative...”