Descent [MC:SM]

5: offer me that deathless death

  Jesse entered first.

Lukas was right behind him, lighting the torch in his hand with a flint. Light flared up and casted the inside room with a glow, highlighting the creepy statutes that stared down at them with hollow eyes. He heard the rest of the Order's ringing footsteps follow.

"Wow," Axel whispered. "Whoever built this place clearly didn't want to tone down the scary."

Olivia elbowed him in the side.

Lukas ignored him, glancing up at the carved stone images. Most weren't human, or looked a mix of human and something else, unnatural: a wolf with a serpent's tail, a huge dragon-looking creature on two legs with antlers, a woman with long hair and horns, a three-headed dog, a tall dark frame with arms that hung at its knees.

Above him, the roof was vaulted and arched, a mural long lost and faded to time painted on the ceiling. Jesse slowed slightly to walk beside him, and as they passed a bull with feathered wings the old torches in brackets on the wall sparked and caught fire, the ones in a line on each side of the room lighting up in a quick rhythm without a visible reason.

Jesse continued moving, his face a little unsure now.

Lukas didn't say a word, the gears in his mind turning to find an answer as they found themselves deeper and deeper in the temple, looking more like a shrine to the statues that stood on marble pedestals engraved with the same symbols on the map. The answer was simple: no magic involved, to do that all someone had to do was lay down a pressure plate with redstone or wire leading to dispensers or something created a spark right behind the brackets, so that when the spark happened it lit the fuel-- probably slow-burning wood doused in gasoline.

That was the explanation. No magic. When he looked over his shoulder at the others, Olivia's expression told him she'd come to the same conclusion. Axel seemed a bit worried, Petra not fazed at all.

He sped up to catch up with Jesse again, then stopped as they reached a fork in the road. Specifically, three passageways going straight, left, and right. Jesse rubbed his face with the back of his hand, thinking, then turned around. "We should split up, cover more ground that way. Since this looks like a temple, there's a possibility we might find books somewhere. Take what you can get, search for something that can translate the language. Petra, you good with going alone?"

Petra rolled his shoulders, grinning. "You know I can handle it."

"Okay, just shout if you need anything. That goes for you too," he added, pointing to Axel and Olivia. "Regroup back here in three hours. If any of us are missing we'll go back and check it out."

They went off in different directions, Petra down the middle, Axel and Olivia to the right, Lukas and Jesse to the left. The skull of a much too big viper hung above Lukas and Jesse's pathway. The lit torches continued down the hallway, too-- although with a dimmer, reddish glow to them. Lukas gazed at the barely discernible murals portraying pictures of death tearing the world apart, causing droughts and executions.

He shuddered, choosing instead to focus on Jesse walking in front of him, outlined in crimson. Lukas sometimes wished he could be as brave, as self-assured, or at least have the outward appearance Jesse did when it came to dangerous and uncertain situations. Lukas knew he was probably more nervous than he let on, but he hid it all behind humor, self-deprecating jokes, stupid smiles.

The corridor twisted and turned, random flights of stairs with steps at different heights breaking up the floor. Eventually it gave way to a medium sized room with six panels on the left wall, a closed door ahead of them. Lukas cautiously edged his foot onto the floor. Nothing happened, so he walked over to the panels and pieced together in his mind what they were for.