Alice lights up, the glint in her eyes nearly bright enough to rival the city as she spots the altars. She lets go of Stelle, now that she can see, and retrieves her codex and a rugged-looking pen. She flips to one of the clearly color-coded, earmarked sections and begins to sketch, eyes scanning the nearest altar with almost rapt interest. “Oh! Look at this! This must be some kind of ancient religion they practiced,” she wonders aloud to no one in particular. “Look at the masks. Could it be that you weren’t allowed to look on the face of the divine?”

“It may well be,” Arachne/i/span>/spanSofia does not share in Alice’s enthusiasm for the altars, letting out a gentle breath and setting to assessing any threats in the area as she and other nerds like Ambrose and Arachne set to assessing things. She flips off her flashlight and tucks it away, scanning the surroundings and noting that many of the sculptures appear to be of animals. Perhaps there’s other fauna out there?

“Fascinating,” Ambrose agrees, looking to that piece of ceramic mask as he walks along with Arachne and Sofia, mentally mapping as they go with effort. “… how long does this go on for?” he wonders, looking past the altars toward the temple beyond.

Stelle keeps her eyes more alert, and like Sofia she’s less interested in research and more interested in anything possibly threatening or anything that catches her eye.

“Jaguars?” Alice asks curiously, marking that down with an underline and an exclamation point. She switches colors on her pen (yeah, it’s one of those) and circles that word, too. “Aztec in origin, maybe,” she wonders. Anthropology’s not really her strongest suit. She starts to hunt around for a mask that isn’t in pieces, carefully picking her way across the ground, eyes down. The others can look for danger.

Jaguars, alright. Two of them, prowling one after the other, nigh-silent, follow behind the group, but clearly do not have the element of surprise. Instead, they merely wait.

Sofia swivels around with her bat at the ready and shouts, “INCOMING, BEHIND US!” to Ambrose, Arachne, and Alice, the whole A team, while the S team guards them. She raises her bat over her head and starts staring the jaguars down, making herself look as big as possible with her bat lofted to try to scare them off.

Stelle glances back and tenses, shoulders squaring towards whence she came. “Company,” she says quietly with a quiet spin of her spear, attempting to make herself seem at least a touch more intimidating as she stands up straighter but then swiftly moves in upon a jaguar’s move.

Stelle says “Tough guy…“

Alice barely has time to get herself ready – she was too busy looking for an unbroken mask, and brings her hand up to start mancing. “Jaguars!” she calls unhelpfully.

“Big motherfucker…” Sofia says, narrowly dodging a slash of claws from the jaguar before whacking it heavily in the chest. “I didn’t think… they got this… big naturally.” She backs off slightly readying another attack, still seeming just fine.

Alice skids back as one of the jaguars swipes her. What looks like it should hit her skin just barely doesn’t, deflected by a shimmering distortion hovering just above, invisible until struck.

Stelle twirls her spear before her but it’s quickly slung over her left shoulder and her blade sings out from its sheathe, footwork unsteady at first until she settles herself in for the fight with a smattering of testing slices and flesh rending swings. “I… Hrk… Do not think they do,” Stelle replies to Sofia, exhaling heavily as she glances towards Alice and begins to reposition between the redhead and the jaguar that assails her by habit more than necessity.

The pair is upon them rapidly enough, and they are tough, taking little in the way of visible wounds to their heavy bodies. Fast, but not particularly deadly. They prowl low to the ground between assaults, unshaken, unbothered. They’re probing, but if they’re communicating, it’s only in the occasional owwwrr they emit.

Arachne brings her back to Stelle, Alice, and Sofia, keeping her eyes trained upon the twin jaguars that circle around them. Her wrists flick, spattering the ground with the dark blood that stains the blades, eyes narrowed.

(Unpause in 10 seconds.)

Stelle mentally ‘locks in’, a flicker in her eyes and her blade moves just that small amount faster, cutting just a touch deeper with each swing.

Alice says “One down!“

Sofia says “Let’s get the next, they go down easy enough.“

Sofia kneels down by one of the corpses and shakes her head. “Man. Shoulda run away. Poor things.”

After the last of the pair falls, there is again quiet in the massive cave system, aside from the occasional odd, distant echo of something imperceptible, or the rebound of the group’s own noises or words. The altars remain open for exploration or investigation, with no signs of more creatures inbound. Yet.

“There’s no way to know that they wouldn’t have ambushed us later,” Arachne points out to Sofia, pulling her blade out from the neck of the downed jaguar, and cleaning her blades meticulously on a microfiber cloth

Stelle flicks blood from her blade before resheating, eyes closing as she exhales a breath and then turns her attention towards Alice, already hovering and ever doting. “You are okay?”

“Correct. I would worry about more, or… I do not know if they are particularly pack animals,” Ambrose considers back to Arachne pragmatically, looking down to the corpses and to Sofia. “… still. Would have been nice if they hadn’t.”

Alice wipes the sides of her hunting knife off on the fur of one of the corpses, looking at it sadly. “Sorry,” she says to the dead cat, a deep frown on her face. “Rest easy, I hope.” Then, it’s back to the mission at hand, (mostly) none the worse for wear. “What did they eat to get that big…?” she wonders, nodding to Stelle to confirm her status. “Do they hunt down here…?”

“Maybe. Couldn’t have done that much too us unless we were all split up though,” Sofia replies back to Arachne, before grinning faintly and addressing Stelle, Ambrose, and Alice. “Won’t be a problem though, we’re not gonna split up like the scooby doo gang, right?”

“I do not have any Alice snacks,” Stelle says, a hint of a tease in her voice as she adjusts her clothing and keeps herself close to the Warden. “So we simply cannot, no?”

“We should not. Gentle exploration, but we do not need to cover a ton of ground,” Ambrose permits as he peers toward the altars in consideration. “If there were things you were looking for, this seems like the kind of place to look for more clues or answers — but we are looking to find one of these pools, eventually.”

Arachne hums low in her throat, more vibration than sound, in agreement toward her knight, Ambrose, and Sofia respectively. A hand rises to push an errant curl behind an ear, a hint of sweat gleaming at her brow. “There is one thing I’m interested in finding,” she murmurs, heading forward, but not terribly far.

“We can’t be the first ones to have come through here,” Sofia supposes as she looks over the jaguar corpses. “Maybe there have been others seeking El Dorado and that’s how they caught a taste for human flesh. I’d like to check out their den as well, it surely can’t be too far. Maybe in the caves on the way back…” She nods gently to Arachne however, curious what she might be looking for.

Whatever anyone might be looking for is anyone’s guess, but the Garden goes on for some time. Infinitely, it might even seem. Stepping too far between those pillars of sandstone is an eerie, same-y feeling, a liminal space that might just keep going… but the possibilities — who knows what’s around the next altar’s corner?

Alice eventually gets over her frustration with the cats, returning to her more anthropologically-focused search. “I don’t have anything I’m looking for specifically,” she mentions, picking over ruins and looking from statue to statue. “I’d like to find something small enough to take back for further study, though… besides the, uh, liquid.” She scans, though she doesn’t stray far from the group. “I wonder if the primary function of this area was worship? It seems like it’s sort of… external. Maybe a gathering place?”

“You ever read that picture book as a kid,” Sofia starts to Alice, “Where a bunch of people in the far future excavate a motel, and they think everything has ritual significance? Like they consider a toilet seat to be a ceremonial garment and stuff?” She grins a little as she scans the area. “How much time could ancient peoples have had for creating things of ritual significance, really, when like ninety five percent of the stuff we collect as people is mundane and boring?”

“It’s not mundane and boring,” Alice answers. “You could see that we’re a materialistic society, focusing on personal spaces and filling those spaces with artifacts that hold some form of importance.” She goes on to say, “We value success. Trophy cabinets, framed diplomas…”

“If you do not understand something it is a ritual object,” Stelle adds, kicking through dust and scanning the floor for nothing in particular. She isn’t particularly looking for anything either, it seems. She’s just looking. Respectfully. “More likely it was just somewhere to show off though, no?”

“Use of a toilet seat is ritual in and of itself,” Ambrose notes as he follows along, placidly wandering.

“Ever since we got that fancy robot toilet that auto opens and warms and bidets, and blow dries,” Sofia supposes to Ambrose, “It really does feel like it’s a whole ritual now, and I’m the one being worshiped. It’s really dramatic. Lets out weird musical notes too.” She crosses her arms and wonders, “What would archaeologists think of that, unearthing a functional robot toilet?”

“It blow dries,” Ambrose repeats to Sofia, tone indicating he was apparently unaware, dumbfounded, and appreciative of this fact in one. “What will they think of next.”

“They would think that we were sophisticated, if not wasteful, for our time,” Arachne supposes toward Sofia as she trails along, eyes drifting over the bracers wrapped around the sandstone-carved wrists of the statues they pass with a modicum of curiosity.

“Overuse of tee-pee is the real culprit of waste,” Sofia defends to Arachne, though second guesses herself a bit. “I guess I gotta wonder what the carbon footprint comparison is, but, thoughts for later.” She tilts her head as she clocks the bracers as well, glancing over Ambrose curiously.

Alice keeps her distance from whatever’s going on with those bracers – when that statue inevitably comes to life and starts stomping around, she wants to be in a position to either shoot or run, and she only needs to be faster than a vampire whose legs she can cause to stop moving. But she’d never do that. Instead, she’s still focused on the masks, almost completely distracted by hunting through the detritus. She hunts them like one hunts trilobites in a limestone deposit; and just like hunting trilobites, finding a whole one is a nightmare. “Stelle, do you think they used macahuitl?”

“… those look an awful lot like the…” Ambrose starts for Arachne, looking first to Sofia and then following her sight to the statue. A small, slow nod, as his brows knit. “… fascinating…” No movement out of him, even without a turncoat apprentice leglocking him into a second statuefied death.

But nothing of the sort happens; the statue does not seem to be trapped or enchanted. It just stands there. Braced for nothing.

“Maybe. Euh… Spears too, like in the movie. And probably guns once they got their hands on them,” Stelle replies, frowning at the floor, “Just about everyone uses guns now, no?”

“Guns?” Alice asks incredulously, stopping her search to stare at Stelle. “You think they had guns in El Dorado? Did they fire golden bullets?” Her tone is a little teasing. She doesn’t believe it. “They probably used slings and bows,” she insists. “But they definitely played weird hip basketball.”

No statue would dare animate to life unless Queen Arachne declared it so, her monomaniacal levels of confidence seems most certainly assured of it while she bends to inspect the bracers, looking but largely not touching with her petite frame wrought to duck and make Ambrose do his knightly duties at a moment’s notice. “Mmhm,” she intones, straightening up, before turning toward Alice and Stelle and Sofia, opining, “We should bring a vintage camera, next time, for photo evidence.”

“Some people are still fond of the poke poke that a spear gives ’em,” Sofia muses back to Stelle, doing a bad job at concealing a grin to Ambrose. She snaps her finger lightly to Arachne, saying, “Where is Miles when we need him for photography? He snapped some great pictures of a bunch of us on a yacht trip when Dovie got Gilligan’d.”

smirks a little bit about something or another, but keeps his thoughts to himself. “Truly, Miles would be great to have along,” he laments, continuing along through the Garden with the others.

Ambrose smirks a little bit about something or another, but keeps his thoughts to himself. “Truly, Miles would be great to have along,” he laments, continuing along through the Garden with the others.

“I imagine he’s likely absconded away on some fishing expedition or a secret cat rescue project,” Arachne supposes toward Sofia while she delicately works to lift a bracer off the wrist. “Though I’m skeptical of his ability after he froze in place last time we were on a yacht, and it was sinking.”

Two things are evident along the edge of the Garden’s boundaries: one, the flat cavern abruptly divots downward, into a mostly-rounded pool that sure looks an awful lot like one of those ceremonial pools… but it is nigh empty, with a seemingly low level of liquid in it. That glossy, oily substance is void-dark except where it reflects light in a sickly green, here and there. What’s more, the remaining walls and flooring of the pool are muddied and slick, no doubt with that substance itself. Getting down to recover specimens will be a problem.

What’s more, just askance this pool, the cavern wall carves away into a tight warren of tunnels, filled with the odors of death and cat piss. Bones litter the floor, along with tattered and discarded remnants of those unlucky enough to not have noticed the jaguars prior. Tattered clothes. Broken electronics. And yes, in fact, even a gun.

Alice stops when she gets to the edge of that pool, peering down into it with some disappointment on her face. “Oh, there’s barely any,” she says, furrowing her brow but careful not to get too close, heeding Ambrose’s earlier warning about the liquid. She doesn’t pay too much heed to the jaguar death cave, not with Sofia and Stelle nearby, instead focusing on what they came for. “Ambrose, is there even going to be enough here for the research? I mean, we found it, but…”

Likewise, Ambrose remains near Alice, heedless of the bone-filled loot tomb in the walls, considering the pool. “We are only going to need a trace amount regardless, and we prepared three sample containers,” he considers back to Alice aside, thumb drifting absently across the pair of rings on his fingers. “… it should be enough. Worst case scenario, we come down and find another.”

Sofia stalks over to the human remains, the shreds of clothes, and takes a knee to begin sifting through them like some sort of grim loot goblin. After a bit more poke-poking through the refuse, she finally finds a lightly chewed hockey puck on a nylon strap that appears to be somewhat functional. She pauses for just a beat to consider her actions, then plucks the device up and lofts it up over her head, waggling it towards Ambrose. “Think this is it,” she replies. “Just like in the dossier. Uh. Secured.” She begins fiddling with the thing, trying to suss out how it works, blinking lights seeming to indicate some level of function.

Stelle hovers near Alice as usual, only sparing Sofia a momentarily glance. Concern? Confusion? The emotion is unclear but its quickly interrupted when Stelle peers down into the pool as well and comments simply, “I have rope.”

Stelle says “Euh… Not that we should go down, more that we can try to toss one of your containers and actually get it back, no?“

Alice points down at the liquid wayyy down below, before glancing at Stelle. “Look at the walls, they’re covered in the stuff. I’m not sure rope’s gonna do it.” She’s scanning for a spot that’s not filthy with the stuff, where someone might be able to stand. “Maybe you could throw me onto a clean spot and I can get the stuff,” she wonders.

Attention broken from the pool, Ambrose looks to Sofia, and to that device for a moment before recognition clicks. “Oh, most excellent,” he enthuses quietly, watching her futz for a moment before his gaze returns poolward. “… I think this should be good,” he confirms again for Alice, and a nod to Stelle as well. “I think several of us brought rope. But yes, exactly, we can do something. This was just recon — we still have to bring the containers, next time through.”

adds on quietly, “Doctor Lin wanted to come, previously. I am unsure if that would be the wisest, now.”

Ambrose adds on quietly, “Doctor Lin wanted to come, previously. I am unsure if that would be the wisest, now.”

“I do not want to have to throw you into the washing machine after,” Stelle comments flatly, eyes monitoring the liquid like it might come up and bite her. “Euh… Yes, I do not know if Doctor Lin has done much fieldwork but I would not want her to get eaten.”

“Judging from these corpses,” Sofia supposes to Ambrose, Alice, and whoever else might be listening, “We might have competition from another group wanting to take samples themselves. Probably mundane if I had to guess,” she says, looking the device in her hand over one more time. “Corporate interests. I’d act as if this area was hot the next time we came in.”

Alice grimaces, but Ambrose’s urging pulls her back from the edge, and she nods, no longer wracking her brain about how to fastball-special herself into the liquid but without dying. “Do we want to head back up, then? We know the way in, so we can come back with the containers and make it quick next time. Maybe bring some catnip,” she suggests at the end.

“Black Sun,” Ambrose fills in the blanks of what Sofia says, attention also on that puck. “Lab division.” The man’s gaze goes to the middle distance a moment in consideration, before he nods to Alice, shedding the rime behind his eyes in the process. “Right. Next time. We should — get back, unless there’s anything else while we’re down here?” He looks between faces, head counting, ready checking.

Stelle shakes her head, she’s a ready girl.

Sofia flashes a thumbs up to Ambrose, ready to depart.

“Ready,” Arachne sounds off lethargically.

Alice looks over towards the statues one last time. Next time, she’ll get her mask, and she’ll do the funniest thing imaginable. “I’m ready,” she reports.

With that, Ambrose nods, turning to backtrack the way they came.

It likely takes the aid of Stelle and Alice and their stellar navigational aid, but the trip back is uneventful, and the darkness, while just as cloying and unpleasant, does not hold any unforeseen surprises.