Labyrinth

[raptorcanaria]

Here's the thing about Milliways: It's not the Real World. Dinah has a very clear delineation in her mind: there're things that happen in the bar, and there are things that happen at home, and even if people visit from one to the other, they're very different places.

Justice League, supervillains, Oliver. Those things don't follow her in. Which is good and bad, because it becomes a place to escape. And escape becomes too safe, somewhere where actual threats aren't real. That's the problem with the place. It's not home, and it doesn't touch home, and if she wanted, she could stay in the bar, rent a room, and never have to worry about outside. And that's what's so dangerous.

Not that she's thinking of danger right now, even deep in the forest where there might be demon rabbits. She's just thinking of the run, and the exercise, and also where she wants to take Ollie for dinner tonight. That's how she manages to get lost.

And how she finds herself facing a rough hewn stone wall, with a door cut into it.

Dinah stands in front of it, stretching out her warm muscles, staring at the door. Has that always been here?

Comments

[boston_bruiser]

And, you know, Voodoo follows, turning around occasionally to check for any more MurderBunnies.

"'Monty Python'. That's that one British group, right?"

...look, he's not very pop-culture savvy when it comes to anything outside the Western Hemisphere is all we're saying.

[raptorcanaria]

Nearly all of Britain is in the Western Hemisphere.

"Yeah," Dinah says. "They were pretty big when I was a kid."

Her Dad liked them anyway.

She steps carefully, and slowly around the bones. Partly because she doesn't want to be taken by surprise by any more of those murder bunnies, but also because she needs time for her eyes to adjust as they move into the shadow and then towards the doorway.

"I just hope we don't run into the Beast of Aaaargh."

[boston_bruiser]

And, you know, that's sensible enough, so Voodoo does it too.

"The Beast of whatnow?"

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah shakes her head.

"Same movie, different monster. Chased the knights until the animator suffered a fatal heart attack."

British people are weird.

The doorway actually doesn't go that deep. It's just a tall arch leading into an area set back from the main cavern by a couple of yards, before being cut up by a large stone wall.

In the middle, at shoulder height, is inscribed that same triangle.

Dinah looks at Voodoo and shrugs.

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo grunts in response. "Ain't like we could get any more screwed, right?"

(Famous last words.)

He taps the triangle, then brings his gun up.

[raptorcanaria]

She gives him a faint smirk.

They've done pretty well so far, all things told. But when Voodoo hits the triangle, she spreads her feet into a wide stance, and takes a breath, her hands coming down to her sides.

The wall moves, stone sliding behind and into stone, as a doorway opens in front of them.

Opening out into a long, tall corridor in front of them. Stone walls stretch high towards a much sturdier stone ceiling above them, with the only markings being deep horizontal grooves carved in the side - four of them, dividing each of the long walls into five sections, about twenty feet high, each of them.

The far end of the corridor doesn't look that far away - maybe fifty feet. there certainly doesn't look to be anywhere convenient to hide, and nothing obviously threatening in front of them.

"...well, that's anticlimactic."

[boston_bruiser]

"Are you complaining?"


Then, after a few moments of thought:

"...okay, yeah, you got a point. This looks too easy. How about we toss some bones in there, see if they set off any tripwires?"

He's watched all three Indiana Jones movies, see. He's very prepared for this kind of thing, see.

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah stands in the doorway, one foot halfway into the long room, peering into it.

There are sconces at the very top, she realizes, flickering candlelight down.

Keeping her gaze on the new room, looking for threats, she nods.

"That's a good plan. Pass me one?"

[boston_bruiser]

Ask and ye shall receive, Dinah. Voodoo roots around in the rubble and eventually comes up with a femur, which he holds out to her.

(He's got the remains of a skull sans jawbone, himself.)

"Try skidding it across the ground. Smart guys set them at ankle height."

[raptorcanaria]

She turns to give him a look, but stops that when she realizes he would have no way of knowing that she knows that.

"Thanks."

Crouching down, she holds the femur about six inches of the ground and flicks her wrist, sending it skimming at that height. It makes about fifteen feet before it hits the ground and skids along more before coming to a stop.

Nothing.

[boston_bruiser]

Huh.


"Could be some pressure plates instead," Voodoo says. He slings his gun across his back and drops to the deck.

"Watch my back, yeah?"

He starts lowcrawling forward, slow and steady, tracing the mortar binding what look like the most-traveled flagstones. No need to risk setting anything off.

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah hangs back in the doorway, watching him, reaching back for a bone as she does so.

He's about halfway down when something clicks - and the doorway Dinah's standing in starts to grow bricks again.

"Dammit!"

[boston_bruiser]

"What the - oh shit!"

Dinah looks like she's undecided whether she wants to stay in or out, and Voodoo's running on instinct and right now that instinct tells him -

- to get up, sprint to Dinah, and unceremoniously yank her inside.

[raptorcanaria]

"Hey!"

Dinah shakes her arm free of him, and gives him a firm look of disapproval.

"A simple 'come in' would have been enough. Now we're commited to forward."

Because the door, slow as it went, is now a stone wall.

And just as that happens, there's another pair of clicks from the long walls, and spikes start folding down in the bottom fifth.

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo rolls his eyes. "Yeah, as opposed to what? Split up an' - synshlyukha chertovski derevne what the fuck is this shit?"

(Voodoo doesn't get to use Russian as often as he'd like to these days. A shame - it lends itself to cursing so well.)

"Dinah, if they covered any'a this bullshit in that fuckin' Holy Grail movie, now would be a real good time."

[raptorcanaria]

"Nope, we're officially in a different movie," Dinah says, rocking back on her heels to look up.

The entire bottom twenty feet of the long walls are now beginning to move forward, into the center, now patterned with two foot long spikes in a grid.

"For crying out loud," she raises her voice to no one in particular. "We were kidding about Indiana Jones!

"Alright - "

She turns and races towards one of the spiked walls, which is heading into the center, then turns and slides between the spikes, climbing them like a stretched out ladder.

" - Looks like we're moving up."

[boston_bruiser]

"We are? Well, shit, if it'll keep my good bits from gettin' spiked-"

Monkey see, monkey do, and it only takes seconds for this particular monkey to make like Dinah and start climbing.

Except he doesn't.

The pack on his back is too big, way too big, and the space between the spikes is too small - but the pack is holding all his gear, all his supplies, three day's worth of MREs and water -

"Aw, fuck it!" he hollers, undoing the straps and tossing it down before he starts racing to the top, gun slung across his chest.

(You ain't never seen climbing like this, son.)

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah stops as the pack falls, hanging by one of the top spikes. For a second it looks like she's going to drop down after it, but she thinks better of it, swinging herself up and onto the top of the moving part of the wall.

Then she offers a hand to Voodoo.

"What was in there?"

[boston_bruiser]

"Food, water, an E&E kit, some nav gear and medical supplies," Voodoo says, taking her hand and hauling himself onto the wall. "'bout all I brought 'cept my gun, my mags, and my compass."

[raptorcanaria]

"Ugh, that sucks."

Well, not as much as if he didn't have any ammunition left.

She turns away as the walls get close enough that the spikes are overlapping, just in time to see and hear the second section of the walls start to shift. This time the spaces between the moving parts are further apart, but instead of spikes, something round, narrow and hollow starts to move out of every hole.

Dinah realizes what they are just in time.

"Down!"

She actually wrestles him to the ground before she gets the word out, and the air above them cackles as lines of flame fill the space for three seconds.

And again, the walls start to creak inwards.

[boston_bruiser]

"Really? Fuckin' really?"

He rolls out from under Dinah, running to the wall, dropping to the deck as the pipes spit fire again.

"A soundtrack would be nice, you know!" he shouts to nobody in particular as he hops to his feet. "Common fuckin' courtesy to pipe in some John Williams when people're dodging your fuckin' death traps!"

The pipes spit fire again, and he drops to the deck -

- but he's too slow; the fire wings him, and soon there's an inferno blossoming on his sleeve.

"Shit! GodDAMMIT!"

[raptorcanaria]

"A soundtrack would make this fun," Dinah says, from the deck. "And we can't have that.

She's stayed down for the two fires, despite the impending death by crushing and when Voodoo drops beside her, she dives towards him.

"Voodoo! Are you okay?"

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo doesn't respond - more to the point he doesn't hear her, busy as he is patting out the nascent flame. For an oil fire, it dies fast, and he squeezes the affected arm. Pain jolts up his arm like a lance.

"Just a burn. No bone. I'll be fine."

He presses his head to the deck as the pipes spit fire again, then hops to his feet when they die out.

"C'mon, move!"

[raptorcanaria]

"Three seconds," though it's hard to hear her say that because she says it as the fire is spurting.

As soon as it is out, she rolls to her feet, grabs a pipe (and scowls because it's hot) and swings herself up, putting a foot on another one and rolling on to the next level.

When the fire spits again, she's above it.

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo follows suit - he's not quite as lithe or acrobatic as Dinah, so it takes him a little while longer, but soon he's above the fire.

"What's next?" he hollers. "Ninjas? Pirates? Poison gas? Low-yield nuclear bombs?"

Someone doesn't know when to stop tempting fate.