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[GrueMaster]

Ardan looked around trying to tell where he was.  Torches?  he wondered.  Are we in a castle or something?   Before he could study the place more, a group of people showed up, a blond-haired woman in front introducing herself as Kat.  "Oh, hello, ma'am.  I'm Ardan Daithi," the young man said as he returned the friendly wave.  "Shame, that," he lamented calmly at the lack of peroxide.  Figures, with my luck... Anyway, back to the more important matter...

 

"Pleased to meet y'all," Ardan gave a polite nod to everyone, before turning to Kat.  "Well, that's strange that you wouldn't have anything. I still have my backpack..." He slung the pack around and gave it a heft.  "Yeah, feels like everything is here...  Anywho, as to where we are..." he glanced around, throwing one hand up in the air.  "All I can say is: Elsewhere." Ardan said this last bit with equal parts seriousness and whimsy,  "I was hoping y'all might know.  Well," he turned towards one of the torches and lifted it from the sconce.  "I suppose there's someone in this place that would know.  I don't think these things got here on their own, yes?  Wanna find them and ask?"

[FreemasonGamer]

"Agreed, and the name's Ben." Benjamin replied shortly in response to Ardan's introduction, dipping his head briefly towards the ginger. "But we aught to at least find the others first, before we look for a way out of here." He added to his remark, soon casting the pale blueish tinged light of his smartphone through the shadowy gloom ahead as he eagerly beckoned Ardan, Kat, and Andre to follow. A hasty determination mingled with the slightest panic fueled the youthful mechanic's footsteps as he wandered through the torch-lit corridors, listening intently for any remaining victims who might have been lost in the medieval ruin, if it was indeed a ruin of medieval design as the eggheads believed it to be.

 

"Don't be rude." Ben suddenly chided to himself as they continued their exploration, his derogatory thought regarding the two intellectuals of their group leaving a sour taste in his mouth. Then, he heard a brief conversation echoing through the corridors once more, and a brief flash of electronic light taunted his vision from around a nearby corner. Quickening his pace, Benjamin swiftly darted around the corner and nearly ran into a pair of women; he quickly dug his heels into the smooth stone floor to avoid crashing into them and nearly tripped in the process.

 

"Whoa, sorry about that." The young man noted, taking a moment to regain his balance before running a hand over his pulled-back mess of hair. His curious gaze quickly scrutinized the pair of them as he tilted his phone's screen towards them for a better source of light than the torches above them. They both seemed to be young adults in their twenties or so, but the two women contrasted greatly in appearance. Focusing on the tanned redhead who was the closer of the two, Ben spoke rampantly with his quickened tone propelled by his gradually intensifying hysteria from being lost in a dark, unfamiliar, and somewhat claustrophobic space, "Well, hello, I suppose. Sounded like there were others down here with us, and I don't suppose you pair know of any way out?"

 

Glancing over his shoulder in a slightly paranoid manner, Benjamin called out to his newfound companions, "They're right over here!" Once his attention focused upon the two ladies again, he spent a moment biting his thumbnail before noting plainly, "I'm Ben, too. Probably should have lead with that, not that it matters, though."

Edited by FreemasonGamer, 03 November 2015 - 02:57 AM.

[AurianaValoria1]

Kat followed Ben and the others to the two women, and as he stopped to introduce himself, she noticed that the other echoing voices were gone.

 

"Looks like this is all of us," the young professor mused aloud. After a few moments, she added, "So...any idea how we all managed to get ourselves lost here and how we can get out without loss of life or limb?" She shook her head, "I just don't get it. Where were we all before we got here and why did we all end up in the same spot?"

[Lisnpuppy]

Rose narrowed her eyes, noting with familiarity a piece of Ben's fingernail falling through the dim light from the cell phones and onto a dusty greyish floor.  Ben seemed to be wrapped up tight and she wondered if it was the unusual situation in which they found themselves or perhaps his natural state of being.  The only thing keeping Rose from doing the same was the dirt and grime from the walls that was now, on her fingers of her right hand.  She didn't care how ill of ease she was, nothing would make her stick her nails in her mouth with that....whatever...that was on them.  Tucking her hands, via crossed arms, under each arm Rose nodded to Ben. 

 

Rose then looked toward the others that had come into the room including the well-spoken and of course, taller than she, female whom had just gotten right to the crux of it all.  She could almost hear her Nanna's laughter, "Rosie Girl, that is what most women never learn.  How to get right to the point.  Being woman and taught all our lives to be gentle and delicate til we are even afraid to let someone know a tree is about to fall upon their head.  Be polite but be yourself and never let being a woman keep you from saying what needs to be said."  

 

Almost smiling, Rose cleared her throat and spoke, "I'm Rose.  I have no idea where we are but I was in my Grandfather's home in the Navajo Territory close to New Mexico.  I assumed that this was his doing, being a shaman and perhaps a few fries short of a happy meal."  Resisting the urge to step back or grab a bite of a Snickers Bar from her bag, Rose just stood there and stared at each person in turn, hoping beyond hope that they would all start laughing and calling for her Grandfather to end this impractical, practical joke.

[Zephyr2011]

Aaron was staring out his office window in Chicago, the rain beating down in vicious sheets. He sighed heavily. The one time I leave the umbrella in the car, he thought. Of course, the car was in the parking garage almost a block away. Much cheaper on the company to pay for those lots than in the large high rise the headquarters occupied. It was nearly six thirty, it had been pouring for an hour and showed no signs of slowing by the time he'd have to leave after this last print finished in, what the computer told him, would be another 44 minutes.

 

Gates was late at the office yet again working on his pet project. Although he oversaw the direction and vision of the company, he liked to still keep a finger in the pie that was R & D. He was hard at work at making the first fully efficient and commonly available conductive filament for 3D printing. Other filaments existed on the market, and they could work, just not without adding some resistance to circuits. Aaron envisioned rapid prototyping of circuit boards themselves, the process of which had been figured out to a degree for repeatable, industrial applications, but not with flexibility and availability in mind. He believed he was almost finished with the project. This was trial 137, as recorded by the tally marks in his little black notebook that sat in his pocket. He was very close, he was sure, and now he was even more hungry for success.

 

44 minutes later, Aaron used a small lab spatula to remove the print: a copper coil encased in a special, flexible polymer filament. The thought was to make something that could be easily tested in a variety of ways to determine how close the filament was to 'traditional' copper wiring. He inspected the coil carefully, making sure that there were no fidelity issues with it; a habit that had become somewhat superfluous as the quality of his machines gradually improved, but an old one that was hard to break. Happy with the structure, Aaron pocketed the coil and gathered his things.

 

As Aaron rode the elevator down to the first floor, he pulled out the coil to admire and play with it. He turned it in his hands, pulled it, twisted it and otherwise contorted it. It was flexible like copper wiring, but the special black casement filament caused it to gradually bounce back to its original shape. Honestly, the casement served more for amusement than for practicality. Once in the lobby, Aaron bade the building receptionist good night and braced himself as he exited the revolving door, thunder shaking the building.

 

He trudged through the torrents towards his parking garage as the lightning seemed to be becoming more and more powerful and frequent, almost as if it was insisting on being heard and noted. Aaron rounded the corner and neared his parking garage, he pulled out his keys and fumbled with them as he dropped the coil. As he reached down and grasped the coil the ground seemed to almost erupt with energy and Aaron writhed with pain. A massive lightning bolt had struck him, the sound nearly deafening him as he crashed to the ground in agony. Then all went black...

 

===================================================================================

 

Aaron awoke with a splitting headache in a dark space. He could feel the cold of stone as he lay there. Dully, he noted that he still had the coil in his hand, almost in a deathgrip, his keys looped around his curled index finger in the other hand. Slowly, he relaxed his hands and opened his eyes. A faint, yellow light and the echoing of voices emanated from his right. He slowly rose and shook his head lightly. Curiously, he didn't seem to be scorched, or battered in any manner, only his head hurt and the pounding was decreasing rapidly.

 

His first thought was to check his phone - no bars. He almost used it as a way to guide himself towards the voices, but he suddenly thought better of it. Torches. Stone. No signal. Wherever I am, I'm probably a long ways away from a charger. I may need my phone or the battery later, best to feel it out for a bit now rather than waste juice. He took his phone out of his pocket and removed the battery before replacing it and feeling his way to a wall and calling out. He listened for the voices to respond as he followed the wall towards them and greater light, continuing to hail them.

[Macman253]

Andre followed, he reached into his pocket and removed his square rimmed glasses and looked at the stonework. He noticed that most of the stones were certainly Pre-Norman in design but as he looked at the various shades and colors he noticed that some were cut from older stone and reshaped using chisels. "Huh." He said loudly as he stopped and looked at them closer, he noticed the jagged chisel marks against the burn-cut marks favored by the Romans.

 

"This is Roman cut stone..." He said as he ran his fingers over the stone, feeling the pot marked and worn stone. "Oh my god." He said, a look of shock on his face. "This is sandstone!" He said and laughed. "Dieter will go nuts." Said the young american historian. He noticed his companions had walked on, he looked back at the stonework and then followed them after a moment of consideration. He vowed to get samples before he left to prove Dieter's theory that the Saxons also used sandstone in their architecture rather then importing it from torn down Roman buildings.

 

Andre came up behind them all as Ben was talking to two women who had also ended up in the same predicament.

[AurianaValoria1]

Under normal circumstances, the tanned girl's greeting would have been matched by a "Nice to meet you, Rose." But these weren't normal circumstances, and so the first thing that flew out of Kat's mouth was a high-pitched, "New Mexico?!" The words bounced uncomfortably loud off of the dank stone walls. Kat cringed in response, her hands in her hair and clutching her scalp as she waited for the echo to die down; then, she whispered, "Sorry...It's just...I was in a diner in Indiana. I think I got struck by lightning in the parking lot..."

 

The more the young professor was finding out, the more she felt like this was all utter insanity. It had to be a dream - she was certain she would wake up sooner or later and find herself in a hospital bed or something...

[GrueMaster]

"I guess we're not in Ohio anymore..." Ardan murmured as he listened to Rose speak of being in New Mexico just before being, well, where ever "here" was.  And Kat...   "A diner, eh?  Food sounds really good right now..."  The college student was starting to actually be uncomfortable now;  He was cold, aching, hungry, and stuck inside some place that apparently no one knew of.  Just great... 

 

 Stopping for a moment, Ardan spoke up to no one in particular.  "Don't mind me, folks, just want to grab something real quick..."  Feeling the need to be prepared, Ardan shrugged his backpack around and pulled out his kunai after digging around for a bit.  It was more of a tool than a weapon, but the worn grip and bladed edge gave him a small sense of reprieve and security from recent events.  Zipping his pack shut and giving the dagger a spin on one finger, he was ready to move again.  "I'm all set... let's see about finding someone now... and maybe some food along the way..."

[FreemasonGamer]

I'm surrounded by a bunch of Central timers, Ben immediately thought to himself with weak amusement as he paced around briskly whilst listening to his companions, perplexed by their wildly diverse origins. "If it makes anyone feel better, I'm from Georgia..." He decided to share with them, casting the faint light of his smartphone across the stone floor. At the mentioning of food, Ben's stomach also began to growl hungrily, and he soon turned on his heel and noted to the others, "Perhaps we should get moving if we plan on finding a way out anytime soon."

 

While his intentions of escaping the puzzling labyrinth were understandable, Ben's anxiety steadily grew as he contemplated the mystery surrounding their assembled presence in such an unusual, unknown place. He felt that if he spent a moment longer in the damp darkness of that place, his heart would soon burst out of his chest; hence, he was more than a little ardent to keep his companions mobile as they hoped to seek out an escape route. Within moments of voicing his insistence that they kept moving through the maze-like corridors, however, Ben anxiously ran a hand through his hair repeatedly as his pacing quickened; he needed to find the exit, quickly.

 

"Ugh. Stop it." Ben quickly chided to himself, struggling to remain still for a few moments, resting a hand over his eyes as he took a deep, prolonged breath. I can't actually be this claustrophobic, can I? Or whatever else is causing all this. A second breath slowly escaped Ben's lung before he pleaded to his accomplices without meeting their gazes, "I would really appreciate it if we found a way out as soon as possible." His trembling tone regrettably betrayed his worsening panic and dread, the sheer fearfulness of his statement hinting at his distress.

Edited by FreemasonGamer, 10 November 2015 - 04:44 PM.

[Lisnpuppy]

Rose glanced again at Ben, his hand once again in hair.  'Oh good,' She thought her own sarcasm surprising. 'All we need is two angst-filled southern folks here.'  Rose also took a deep breath and leaned against the wall, trying to assume the pose of nonchalance.

 

"Perhaps we should find a way out," Rose ran her hand in a circle around her face, "Out of...where ever this is and worry about further details later."  Rose's voice took on a bit more of its country tone as she tried to suppress her own anxiety.  It wasn't so much the walls that got her, but the dark.  She didn't mind dark in spaces with which she was familiar.  Rose could often be found in the nooks and crannies both inside her home and the hills surrounding it.  But this...the dark loomed, hanging on the walls like a thick drape.  She really didn't want to think about what creepie-crawlies were up..way up in the dark.

 

She looked around again at all the faces and gestured forward, "Anyone else want to take the lead with Ben?"