Magic Beans.

[Vega]

She had pulled him into trouble? Vega had grinned at him and casually poked out her tongue. "If so, yer welcome." She got him into trouble, indeed. All the trouble the pair of them had gotten into had been them, together, she said. But then, there were these men and they were insistent on sending the two of them down into the unknown. When Arlo signed to her, though, not to provoke the men, Vega glared at him. But thankfully, the leader took Arlo's signing in a different way and Vega shrugged. " Jus' don't provoke him is all," she said to the leader and gave a slightly helpless gesture in Arlo's direction. "If he has an episode, it'll take me an age to calm 'im down." Touching Arlos arm gently she looked at him reassuringly and then the pair of them made their way. As she looked at Arlo, her eyes showed the mirth she felt at any opportunity to tease him, even in these circumstances.

When Arlo spoke to her, though, Vega snorted. "There's three of us in this relationship, Arlo Creede. Me, you an' your ego. One of me, two of you an' I love you both." She was quite sure, however, that his ego would survive and then some. She grinned at him, briefly touching her hand to his face and then focused on the task at hand. Which was, getting down there and seeing what they could. Why the men had let them go, Vega did not know, but she was very aware that the bandits -if that was what they were - knew more than either she or Arlo did. And for all that she argued, and teased him about the three of them, she didn't stop him being in between her and the men with weapons, not at all.

The corridor they walked down had four bodies, each one in an alcove. They were ancient, dust and bones but Vega didn't rummage in them. She didn't say anything if Arlo chose to do so. It was a strange thing for her, it didn't feel right to loot a corpse, even one so old, but the weapons and so on would certainly be useful. So she said nothing, because she felt too conflicted about it. Whoever they had been, they had been interred with weapons and jewellery, trinkets and so on. At the end of the corridor there was a t-junction and between iris and Lyova, they already knew that there were four rooms, in a square, connected by a corridor. As they made their way, though, having just turned, Vega suddenly stopped completely still.

"Arlo," she said, her voice suddenly urgent. "The floor underneath my foot, it sank when I walked on it an' I felt a click." She sounded calm but he knew better, of course. Looking at him with a very serious gaze, Vega put her hand on his arm. "I know I've got no 'ope of you jus' bein' sensible an' walkin' out, but Arlo..." Her eyes showed her worry, her fear, too. But also, there was that unmistakeable glint of adrenaline and the rush of their life in her eyes, too. " We appear to 'ave a situation, Creede." Vega said with a smile. "What do you an' yer ego propose we do?"

► Show Spoiler

Cos I know I'm rubbish at description of stuff like this!

					C
					C
					C
Room	--	--	--	--	C	--	X	--	--Room
I										I
I										I
I										I
I										I
Room	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	Room

Where C = corridor we came in through
-- and I are corridor
Room is... a room.
X is where Vega just stood on a funny thing

[Arlo Creede]

So they were agreed, Arlo would have pointed out had they not been interrupted. Vega was the cause of most of the trouble they got into, and there she went, she'd done it again. It would have been a nice comeback if he hadn't been so busy playing at somewhat unhinged and mostly unpredictable. It wasn't the message he'd intended to send with his efforts at communicating with Vega through sign. But if it did part of the trick, he'd go with it.

He merely grinned though, in contrast to the risky situation they'd found themselves in, in order to further the suggestion that he was just a little bit mad when Vega patted him on the shoulder. It must have worked. At least one of the men looked very uncomfortable in response and shifted from foot to foot, and back again. Soon enough though the two of them had dropped below ground and curiously, the men didn't seem interested in following them. "I suspect they've already been down here before us," he'd whispered from behind Vega while they'd walked.

It was the only explanation he could think of. The armed men must have a reason for thinking there was no other way out, or if there was, then they must have made sure to send others to guard it. But at any rate, "There must be something down here they're worried about, and they want us to have to contend with it first." It would pay then, he figured, to take extra care, and he had no qualms about arming himself, using the cache they found in the catacombs. He wasn't superstitious. Dead men didn't need their weapons but he did.

According to Lyova at least, any of the four corridors were like the others at a glance, but Arlo was still determined they ought to go cautiously. Nonetheless, Vega stopped walking so suddenly that he nearly collided with her. And yes, he agreed, they had a situation and he and his ego were of like minds in this case. "Don't move. Not even a little. Don't shift your weight," he whispered. Whatever had been triggered by her added weight, was only waiting for her to step off again. And what was it? There was no way of telling.

"I can't lift or pull you off without something to replace the weight with." Otherwise he'd have said get off quickly, or he'd have reached out and pulled her to him. Which might work, depending on what had been triggered. Or wouldn't, depending on what it was. It took longer than he wanted, but Arlo took the time to study how Vega was standing. How much weight she was putting on one foot as opposed to the other.

Math wasn't his strongest suit, so far as mathematics just for the sake of it went. But as a master of the kitchen or campfire, measurements, percentages and so on came as second nature. He needed objects, and just one that approximated Vega's weight wouldn't do. And still, some of it was going to be guesswork. "Hold on," he told her while he looked for two stones, one slightly larger than the other. And then returning with them, Arlo knelt down at Vega's feet.

"Slowly slide your left foot to the side," he whispered, having identified the edges of the troublesome depression in the floor. And as she did it, Arlo would slide the rock at the same weight in, so that it would sit where her foot had been planted before. He held his breath when he did it and suggested that she did too, dreading any sound or shift that might spell disaster. When nothing happened, he took a breath, readied the second stone and said, "Alright, do the same with your right foot now. Slowly."

[Vega]

"Yeah," she'd whispered back when he'd suggested that the men might have been down here before them, "I reckon you might be right you know." She glanced back at the place where they'd come from and muttered darkly, "cowardly grumbledethumpin' losers, that's what they are, an' I hope their left ears drop off an' land in their right pockets." The thing was, she said, and quite meant - if they'd said hey, we've got a very obviously genuine treasure map, but there's a bit of bother, then she'd have helped them. But sending them down here without any weapons? "It's not very sportin' is it?"

When her foot slipped down lower than she'd expected and there was a definite click, she stopped still and told him. He told her not to move, not at all and Vega looked at him calmly. "Alrigh' Wendy, there's no need to over react. Lets hope I don't sneeze, eh?" She was worried, afraid, but there was no point to giving in to it and she quipped as much because she was afraid as any other reason. When he said he needed something to take the weight, though, she raised an eyebrow. "Steady on, an' hang on a bit, wot you sayin'? You callin' me fat, Arlo Creede?" Yeah, she didn't like this, not one bit. She stood there, absolutely still, but a frown deepened on her face. "An' stop starin' at me."

He disappeared off and then came back with two bloody big rocks. "Jog on, I don't weigh that much. Like a feather you said I was. Cassion gave you a feather. Use that." She was genuinely a little insulted, although she recognised that she probably was about that heavy, but still. She didn't need to tell him how she was feeling, the swirling colours in her eyes told him plenty, but she was doing her best to stay calm. Focused. Useful. In fairness, she didn't think she was doing great at any of them, but she was giving it her best shot. "A'right, so I'm gonna move my foot, jus' like this. It's a waltz beat. I'm gonna move it from where it is to off in a one-two-three, ok?" She was standing still so couldn't demonstrate with her hand so did it with her whispered voice.

And then, he told her to hold her breath and she did and moved, as she'd told him she would. Her left foot was free and she was very, very careful not to shift her weight now, because of that. Vega looked down at him as he told her to do the same and she pursed her lips. "I wish you'd go," she whispered. "I wish there was a point arguin' with you." Of course, in the same situation, the reverse would be as true.

"Arlo?" Vega whispered and she looked down at him kneeling there. There were a hundred things to say in her head until he looked back at her. Then, there was nothing. Nothing needing to be spoken between them as she stood and he knelt and everything hung in the balance. She smiled at him, softly, the colours in her eyes calming. "Can we 'ave them little potatoes in their skins tonight? I like those."

Then, she held her breath and moved her foot. The stone slid over and Vega remained very focused and calm while she moved her foot and he slid the stone. Then she breathed out and sat down on the floor with a thump. "Well that were bracin', weren't it?" Frowning, she motioned behind him. "Arlo, there's a wire across the corridor. Can you see?" Just beyond where they were, if they'd continued walking past the button-like thing in the floor, there was indeed a tripwire, visible to her because of her lower, seated, position. .

Vega's eyes darkened. "Do you reckon they've sent us down 'ere cos it's trapped to jiggery?" Vega suddenly beamed at him. "Told you there was treasure, didn't I? An' this proves it."

[Arlo Creede]

Cowardly and not at all sporting? Well Vega was definitely right about that, Arlo figured, so far as the group of thugs waiting outside above ground. "It's a good point, but if someone is both of those things, then it's not the stupidest of moves to make someone else go first and clear out all of the dangers," he pointed out. Especially if some of those dangers were the killing kind, which was yet to be determined. He still wasn't convinced that the map wasn't just a farce, and he was completely convinced that the beans were.

Then of course she'd stopped on a copper and he'd nearly collided with her in the corridor. As for Arlo's plans however, lucky for him, good sized stones weren't too hard to find down in the tunnel. "Stop grousing," he scolded Vega, but with a lopsided grin. "These stones are light as a feather." Kneeling down, prepared to slide the rocks in place however, he knew that her grousing was a sure sign of nervousness and a bit of fear. He could relate. One mistake on his part, one miscalculation, just a few ounces difference in weight or a half trill in timing could be disastrous. To say he'd never forgive himself if something went wrong was putting it mildly.

"There never was and never will be." A point in arguing, he meant. "I'm not going anywhere that you're not going." And then finally it was done, and they could both breathe again. "Little potatoes with crispy skins, roasted game hens and dark greens with browned butter, garlic and bits of crispy salt pork," he promised, and thought the worst might be over until Vega had to go and say that it wasn't. If not for one possibly deadly trap, they'd have stumbled straight over another...

Yeah, he saw it, Arlo grumbled as he hauled himself up off the ground. And it seemed like a pretty good bet that this was exactly why they'd been sent first. Still, he frowned curiously, looking back the way they'd come. "How'd they know that though? I mean, that trip wire hasn't been tripped. The trigger you stepped on hasn't been recently triggered. If they had been, there'd be a dead body or two lying around. They must have known in advance this place was littered with traps."

Either way, it appeared the only way to go, was forward. And he wasn't prepared to accept the premise that there must be some treasure at the end that would make this all worthwhile. Still, "Maybe the armed corpses were buried back there all those arcs ago, to guard whatever is hidden down here." Which meant there might be ghosts, and Arlo would rather not know it. "Step carefully," he suggested, while shining a light on the floor where the tripwire was, in order to make it more visible.

[Vega]

"Grousin'," she asked, incredulously. "Are you serious? Grousin'? Here I am, stuck on a trap an' it's all your fault. If you'd believed me in the first place, things would've had a whole diff'rent way of bein', wouldn't they?" But no, she said, her eyes dancing in mirth as she teased him, no, he had to go and be so sure. So very sure that she had been bamboozled by this young lad. "Come to that, I haven't heard any 'you were right an' I was wrong, Vega. An' may I say yer lookin' very beautiful today, my love' outta you. Quick to tell me what you think, slow to admit yer wrong?" She would have shaken her head if she wasn't worry that the pair of them might end up in kibbles and bits if she did.

Her eyes flooded violet when he said that there was no point to arguing with him, because he was going where she was and nowhere she wasn't. "Yeah, I've noticed you tend to follow me around," she said, her voice soft. "An' I love you too. Jiminies jaw, though, Arlo, get on." But he did it and she breathed out, sat down and reached up to grab ahold of him, pulling him down to her so that she could kiss him. "I love yer crispy potatoes, an' those salt pork are to die for. How'd I get so lucky, Creede, hm?" But then, she spotted the tripwire and she sighed slightly. Yep, no doubting it, this place was trapped and yet she had to agree with him. How did they know if they hadn't been here and, if they had, why weren't there bodies.

But then, Iris spoke to her and, no doubt, Lyova did the same. The corridor went both ways, into a room in each corner. It made a square, basically, with a room at each corner. But directly opposite them, a door had opened. Maybe, Iris said, when Vega had stood on the floor thing, she didn't know for sure. "Is Lyova seein' that door openin' too? Come on, that's well good, that is." Vega beamed at Arlo as Iris reported that, once they were directly opposite where they were, they'd be next to a door which had slid open. Through it were steps down, carved into the rock.

"So, maybe this isn't the trap. Maybe this bit is the entrance. Come on, let's find out." She stepped carefully over the tripwire, holding the light for him to do the same. There was another tripwire, about halfway down, but no more pressure plates. The rooms were large and empty, and Vega glanced at him. "Maybe they saw the tripwires, got over em but didn't bother tellin' us? I guess if we missed them, they'd find out what they do?" Unkind as an experiment but there it was. However, the pair of them made their way and got to the far corridor and there, indeed, was an open door and a dark stairway down. Vega put her hand on his arm. "Want me to light the way for us?" She could do that with her Nalos mark, after all. Then she grinned and nodded. "It's wide enough. Lets go down together. There's treasure down there."

[Arlo Creede]

"My fault?" Arlo shot back incredulously, even while getting her safely off whatever it was she was standing on, that just might blow them both to bits if they weren't careful. "We wouldn't be down here, in fact none of this would be happening," he pointed out, "If not for you being bamboozled by a street urchin with a sackful of beans and a stack of mass produced treasure maps." HIs fault, indeed.

She was beautiful, he said as they eyed what probably was a trip wire up ahead. But being beautiful didn't make right, or any less wrong for that matter. On the other hand, none of it changed how much he loved her or the fact that if he was going to be wandering through a tunnel riddled with one death trap after another, there was no one he'd rather do it with than Vega. They were both lucky that way, he figured.

Once they were safely past the tripwire and on their way again, Arlo was quick to note that yes, Lyova was for all intents and purposes telling much the same thing as Iris was telling her. Probably in much greater and sometimes unnecessary detail, and in entirely too many words. But it was Lyova's way. So then, maybe the thing that Vega had triggered hadn't been a death trap after all. But something that opened up a way in front of them. And two tripwires later, they arrived in one empty room and then another.

Arlo could only imagine that they'd been sent down alone because, well, the only reason he could think of was something similar to what he'd once thought about an unwanted third wheel on an outing. A canary in a coalmine, that was. "That's us," he told Vega, grinning in response to her suggestion that they travel down the steps together. "Just a couple of canaries in a coal mine." And when they got to the bottom of the stairs? The chamber there with stone floors, walls and ceilings wasn't much larger than the cellar beneath the average farmhouse root cellar.

Still, it wasn't completely empty. In the center was a large, solid looking altar, or something like it. Old, strange carvings all over the sides and top. At least it looked like an altar, but maybe it wasn't that at all. "Look here," Arlo said, giving the thing a closer look. "The top of it looks more like a lid. A really heavy stone one...But maybe it's a stone coffin...Like a tomb?" he wondered. Though clearly if they were going to open the thing and look inside, it was going to take both of them together to get the job done.

[Vega]

"Now who's grousin', Arlo Creede?" Vega shot back at him as he grumbled. "Yer gettin' right crotchety in yer old age, you are. Thanks." The last was as he more or less lifted her off the area and she grinned at him. "An' if it wasn't happenin', we'd be doin' somethin' else. Yer just jealous cos I got a treasure map an' you didn't believe me." The real problem, she told him with a face which could not hide the grin, was that he was recognising what a bad, bad boyfriend he was being. Not supporting her in her treasure map-getting or her magic bean-belief. "I'm sure that Friel would have been more understandin' an' had more faith in me, you know," even as she said it she was nearly laughing and Vega couldn't help thumping him. "I don't care about the map or the beans. They've made memories for us, an' those are my greatest treasures. So you know what, they are magic an' up yours." With a nod and a grin, she stood with him.

Vega thumped him more gently the second time she did it, and shook her head as she did so. "An' I don't really expect you to tell me that. It makes me well uncomfortable." Taking his hand, though, she made sure to point out. "I know you believe it, an' that's enough for me." Though it wasn't beauty that made her right, she pointed out. It was fortune and circumstance. "Unlike you, who's wrong by virtue of pig-headed an' stubborn. Blinkered, too." This tunnel, she said, gesturing around. "You know, it might be quite the nicest tunnel I've ever wandered round. All cos of my map an' magic beans."

She was determined, it had to be said.

Over the tripwire, through the empty rooms, and then they stood together by the entrance to whatever was down there. Canaries in a coal mine? Vega briefly put her hand into his and smiled. "Tweet," she said, rather solemnly. And down they went. It wasn't a large room, but the one thing in it was fascinating. Absolutely fascinating and Vega took the time to explore it, examine it. Then she looked at Arlo and grinned. "Well, we might as well, eh?" She grinned at him and then moved to the opposite side to him. "Come on then, Muscles," Vega teased and then counted as they started to lift together. It moved slowly, the screeching sound of stone on stone evident.

"Schnizzle my snoot!" Vega yelled as the skittering sound heralded the exit of a swarm of over-large beetles.Two or three times the size they should be, they started to first trickle out in relatively small numbers and then, by the time Vega exclaimed, they were pouring out. As they exited the sarcophagus, the more of them there were the bigger they got until beetles the size of Arlo's fist were skittering out of it, spreading out all over the floor and making a sort of chittering, chattering noise. "EW! ARLO!" Vega was stomping, trying to stop them getting on her, as they were trying to do to them both. Any that did made good use of their sharp pincers to hold on and sharper mandibles to nip. "GERROFF!"

Without even really discussing it, or actually without discussing it at all, Vega clambered up onto the lid of the sarcophagus, since they were all skittering away from it. "Arlo! Are you .... Arlo, this is movin!" The beetles were continuing to get larger and soon, the floor of the room, the stairs and who knew how far would be full of them. They weren't natural and that many couldn't have fit in the altar. But they skittered out and what was causing the incredibly heavy lid to move became apparent as a beetle roughly the size of a large dog started to exit the sarcophagus. It had pincers and mandibles the size of Arlo's forearms and the lid Vega was standing on started to shift. It's eyes glittered like crystals and it, as well as all the small ones, had a strange chitinous shell which shone oddly. "Nuts that's ... gerroff!!" She, of course, had no weapon with her as the bandits had taken their weapons away and she hadn't taken a weapon from the corpses. But she was stomping at the bugs with the best of them. "Arlo!"

[Arlo Creede]

"When I was a kid I found a rock of a particular shape, and for arcs it was a precious gem I'd found and hid in an old cigar box buried beneath the floor in the barn. It was still just a rock," Arlo had remembered as they carried on through the underground corridor. His point? One man's trash, another man's treasure. One man's treasure map, one kid's scam that apparently had lured in more takers than just Vega, if they were to consider the men who...Arlo presumed, were still milling around outside.

That was the cynic in him of course. But if he was honest, the armed individuals that had been buried closer to the entrance, the traps, the chambers...It would have to seem like an awfully elaborate ploy if there wasn't something of value hidden away down here. He'd give Vega that, but wasn't ready to tell her so. "Don't you think that if there was a treasure someone would have found it before now?" he reasoned. Surely she couldn't have been among the first ones who'd taken the map home with them, then followed the trail.

And then maybe, some of those seekers had ultimately been confronted with the same sealed sarcophagus, or whatever it was. They'd come all this way, no matter what was inside. To walk away without opening it? Neither of them, him or Vega either one, were that lacking in curiosity. They had to open it and in that sense, Cassion had done him a lot of good. Between him and Vega, they had plenty of strength to spare.

But then there were the bugs, and not just a couple of them. Vega wasn't the only one shrieking and hopping and flailing. Not him so much, but Lyova, for all that only he was able to see and hear her. The ordinarily ferocious diri, who would soar through fire on his behalf, was instead flinging herself randomly about the room, wider eyed than usual, her shrieks had an ear piercing effect and if she'd had legs, Arlo could have envisioned her up on a kitchen chair, hopping about, hitching up her skirts and wielding a broom, had she any hands.

As for him, he was trying to swipe away those that ran up his arms and shoulders as he helped move the lid, While trying to stomp the ones on the floor beneath the heels of his boots. The dagger he'd taken earlier did him very little good. The things moved too fast. A couple had closed in and dug their pincers into his calf before he could even hop out of the way. "What are you doing?" he said to Vega as she climbed up on the lid. "I can't move it with you up there!"

That was before he noticed the bugs were getting bigger, and it was them that were moving the lid. So he joined her and continued to kick at the insects that tried to get at them. And the biggest one? After a failed swipe and jab with his dagger, Arlo opted for his fists and delivered several blows in quick succession until he ended up stunning the dog sized ones. Then dropping to his knees beside Vega, Arlo peered down into the now empty sarcophagus and caught a glimpse of something small that caught the light.

"Make sure the lid doesn't slide closed on me?" he said to Vega as he dropped through the opening and reached for the shining object. And when he came up again? Arlo held a single gold coin between his fingers. "Here's your treasure," he told Vega with a grin. A gold coin it was. But one so old that neither of them were likely to recognize the carvings on the thing. At least as old, or much, much older in fact, than the tombs they'd stumbled upon earlier.

[Vega]

As they'd walked together, Vega had glanced at him as he'd spoken about the stone in the cigar box. There was a strange expression on her face, not one she wore often. Reflective, thoughtful. Not her usual state either of them. Still, she said nothing until he asked if she thought that any treasure would be long gone. When he asked that, just before they got to the secret doorway, Vega sighed. "Yer right, Arlo, I know you are. About the stone in the cigar box, I mean." Somebody believing something didn't change the intrinsic worth of an item, did it? "Although, you know," she had him and she knew it. "I've got a similar story. Though I found a shell, rolled in my trouser leg. It's not mine no more, it's yours. It's not worth 'alf a copper, an' I know it." Yep, it was a soft smile of victory. "It's still a treasure, though, innit?" He'd handed her the victory on a plate and she couldn't be happier. So, she shrugged slightly and added, just for good measure. "So I choose to see this adventure, this time the two of us, this whole thing as a treasure. It goes with my magic beans an' makes my world a much more interestin' an' excitin' place than if I was a crusty old cynic." There was magic in the world and they would always remember this time, this treasure map. Was there anything of greater worth? Vega thought not.

So, down into the room and she had to admit to a spring in her step and a rather pleased grin on her face. She said no more, though, she'd gloated enough. For now. However, the sarcophagus was strange and Vega frowned. "This thing hasn't been opened for a long time. Why's no one opened it, you think?"

Lifting the lid was still enough of a feat that it caused the muscles in her arms to bulge and she looked at him a grin. "Heavy, innit?" But they were good at working together and so they shifted the lid and.... bugs came out. Poured out. Oozed like a nasty, skittering, undulating wave of gnarly. Vega did not like bugs, did not want to be near them and was stamping and swatting and making yelping noises as much as she could. "What do ya mean, what am I doin'? Lookit! Looksie! They're gettin' out an' movin' it themselves! Get up here you...." the Rakahi which poured out of her mouth was half directed at him, half at the bugs.

At which point, Arlo decided he was going to punch them. "You've got a sword!! STAB THEM!" What was he doing!? "Stop messin' about Arlo! An' get OFF me you skitterin' sleeze!" The last was to a large bug of her own, against which she landed a firm and heavy fist to the ... "Have they got faces?" Vega wondered as she punched. But eventually, they were in a room empty of bugs, all of which had exited into the outside and Arlo jumped down into the tomb.

And came up with a coin. Vega took it out of his hand and she grinned at him in absolute delight. "Treasure, see? I told you Arlo Creede," pulling him close she kissed him, adrenaline from the bug-battle still flooding in her veins and her embrace full of passion and not a small amount of delight. "When're you gonna learn that I'm always right?" Vega mumbled, loathe to pull away but she held on to the coin and glanced at him. "Come on then, lets go sort out that lot up there."

It turned out they didn't need to. At the sight of hundreds of bugs exiting the place, the fundamentally rather cowardly group of men - who had not gone down into the place to begin with because it looked dark and scary - had run. Vega stopped to pick up their stuff, handing him his weapons and the two of them made their way back to their camp without incident. Except, when they got there, the dog had upended the pot in which Vega had planted the beans and had eaten his way through the contents. It was strange, the dog didn't usually do things like that. Vega turned to Arlo, eyes dancing with amusement as she thought that, putting the small treats they fed Xyqat into that pot had been a really good plan and she spoke.

They both knew what she'd done, she knew that. But she'd no more admit it than he'd expect her to. So, instead, she looked at him with her best "I told you so" expression on her face. "See?" Vega said. "Magic beans."

[Aegis]

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