e t h a n (duelbreaker) wrote in valesco,
@ 2012-11-01 00:33:00

Entry tags:

ethan jordan, larkin whitby, nicodemo penrose, samantha cadwallader

Egypt Cursebreakers!
He blinked wearily, waking up from a rather deep sleep. Ethan let out a long breath from his nose as his eyes adjusted to the dimly lit wands that were gathered in the center of the room---oh, oh no, excuse him, tomb. The wands were in the middle of the dimly lit tomb that he and the rest of the curse-breaker team were trapped in.

If he was going to narrate this disaster, he had to get the wording right.

It had all happened very quickly. One of the final hurrahs of the expedition was to get to the center of a recently unburied pyramid that had a lot of magic reverberating from it. Muggles couldn't get past the first set of rooms (which they had announced already, to the world, was the furthest the tomb would go), but within a few days the wizard team had managed to find ten more locations with various dedications to different deities, sarcophagi that's paint was still as bright as the day it was lathered onto the casket, and precious jewels that had literally knocked them off their feet with the amount of magic they each contained. It was a beautiful way to end the rather successful trip, and Ethan was more than proud of the work they'd accomplished.

At least, it had been a beautiful way. Upon entering this resting spot of theirs, the excitement of the find had left one minor detail overlooked; no one had been assigned to watch the entrance. The door had slid shut behind them and no matter the volley of spells that they hit it with, it would not budge. That had been yesterday, and after agreeing that a good night's sleep might help them think of a solution, the team camped out. Ethan had hoped an idea would have come to him in a dream, but all he could focus on was the heavy weight leaning on his bad arm.

"Penrose! I told you not to touch me!" Ethan let out, shaking his upper torso wildly to knock the sleeping curse-breaker off of him. He looked across the cramped room, his frustrated attitude not alleviating, "Larkin, he's touching me again!"

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otets
2012-11-07 11:12 pm UTC (link)

Despite his stinging face, Nicodemo considered himself genuinely thrilled to be climbing into a potential nest of snakes if it meant getting out of that antechamber as fast as was wizardly possible. The definition of his job was poking around in ancient detritus, salvaging the value of years, more often centuries, past. He'd encountered tombs, caves, ships, you name it, stacked high with bodies, valuables, and curses, and it had never once bothered him. The story of what happened was always laid out for anyone willing to read it. To have it all just… disappear, like the tomb's neat little way of cleaning up after itself, spooked him beyond belief.

Being that Larkin hadn't appeared in danger, he didn't fear meeting any snakes when the three of them clambered up there, but he was interested to know if it was where they had originated. When he gave it a quick look around, however, there was no evidence that this had been their nest. No one had touched one of the smaller specimens, so perhaps they had been a spectre, but the monstrous one was absolutely corporeal. Nicodemo had a sneaking suspicion that the network of tunnels and chambers was much more complex than previously believed, and the antechamber had been a dead-end with no way out. There must be a hidden passageway in one of the outer rooms to get to the heart of the pyramid, and at least several chambers on a magical rotation, such as wherever the oversized cobra had come from. This tunnel either led them to the heart of the pyramid or out of it. Or to a trap, but he was really hoping not. Given his low supplies, the way out would have been the best option, really.

As one half of the tunnel was entirely black, the foursome opted to head in the direction that was lit, albeit dimly. Larkin produced a flint-lit torch, but they lit their wands anyway as they moved. Nico thought his eyesight was failing, but further down the tunnel, the lights began to wink out at certain intervals. Uneas,y with good reason, they still pressed forward until they caught up to the last of the lit sconces. Nico still held his breath as it extinguished itself, but that had been expected. They still had their torch and four wands, anyway.

Or they did, until he'd taken a step forward and all the lights flared into blinding brilliance before plunging the group into utter darkness. Not one wand remained lit, but spots still swam in front of his eyes, playing tricks on him, making him think he'd seen all kinds of shapes, shadows, and spectres in the black.

"Grab on to somebody," he barked, reaching out to his side for Larkin to form a chain. "We've gone through way too bloody much to get separated now."

When linked, they edged forward cautiously for what truly seemed to Nicodemo like an eternity, but may have been anywhere from a few minutes to an hour when there was a sudden booming echoing up and down the tunnel.

All at once, the lights blazed even stronger, causing him to throw his arm up to shield his eyes. When he dropped it, his eyes widened, and not only because it looked as if they'd reached a dead end, but because of what was waiting in front of it, a mere ten feet away.

A sphinx was definitely not something he'd ever encountered before, no sir.

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