Alex turns and walks to the stream, sitting down and unloading her gear on the bank. Okay, Alex. We have a creepy dungeon with no water, food, or anything else. You’ve been sweating, so you’re well on your way to dehydration.
Alex takes a deep breath, feeling her cracked lips and dry throat. I would kill for Moxie and my SAR kit.
Fuck, who’s taking care of Moxie? I’ve been so focused on myself that I barely had time to consider if she’s okay. Alex feels tears welling in her eyes as she thinks about her horse.
"Fuck, this is the last thing I need to lose more water," Alex says, stifling a sob and a sniffle.
Continuing to talk out loud, Alex starts a pep-talk. "Okay, you have a stream. We have gear; we can make this work. We need fire, a safe wood like oak or something. Fuck, what if these trees are all fucked up? You know what, we have to take some risks."
Alex gets up, her training and years of outings her mother would call stupid giving her a plan. She heads for the trees, collecting dried leaves and wood of various lengths. She piles them near the stone building, hating it but knowing having a stone wall would help at night.
Deciding to try the easiest method she can think of first, she moves over to her gear, taking out her SCBA helmet and nomex hood. Crouching at the edge of the stream, she fills the nomex hood with water and lets it drop into the faceplate.
Moving over to her leaves, she holds the mask up, letting the pooled water on the clear lens catch the light of the suns above and focus them. Moving the face mask for a few minutes, she manages to get both beams closely aligned and watches as the leaves start to smoke and then begin to burn.
Setting the mask aside, Alex quickly feeds small sticks into the fire and then larger and larger, building it up. Smiling as the fire starts to get hotter, she gets up and moves to the stream and her gear, grabbing her gloves and picking up a few fist-sized stones from higher up the bank that look sun-baked and moving them to the fire to start heating.
Moving back into the woods, Alex looks for familiar wood. She smiles when she finds a tree that looks exactly like maple. Smiling, she roots around, finding a large branch that looks to have fallen in a storm and drags it back to her fire.
Alex feeds a bit more wood into the fire, happy to see none of the rocks exploded while she was gone. Moving to one side, she uses her Halligan to help her break off a chunk about the size of her thigh from the thickest part. From there, she uses the pick end of her Halligan to punch into the wood before using the other end to scrape it out.
With the start of a bowl, she moves over to her fire, grabbing a couple coals with her gloves and sticking them in the small bowl to char it so it's easier to scrape out. She continues this process for a while until she has as deep a bowl as she can reasonably expect.
Smiling at the makeshift bowl, Alex heads down to the water with her now bowl and nomex hood, using it to prefilter water into the bowl before heading back to the fire. Putting her gloves back on, she pulls the stones out one at a time, dropping them into the water.
The water in the makeshift bowl quickly rolls to a boil. Alex pulls the rocks from the bowl, putting them back in the fire.
Okay, water kind of done. Alex leans back, letting her body rest while the water cools. After lying there for a long time, Alex realizes in a daze that she needs to drink water. Some quiet part of her starts screaming about the need for water.
Alex grunts, sitting up and picking up her bowl. She tests the water against her lips and finds it cooled after the first sip. As she goes to drink more deeply, some instinct inside her screams not to, and she stops sipping her bowl of water, spending long minutes sipping and watching the fire crackle.
When she finds the bowl empty, she gets up, moving down to the stream and repeating her earlier process of getting water and dropping the rocks in to boil it.
Her head stops feeling so spacey as she waits for the second batch of water to cool. Her eyes keep drifting to the stone building and the waiting stairs.
She repeats the process one more time before looking at the sky and knowing she has a long night if she doesn't figure out shelter soon. She banks what's left of her coals, using her Halligan to help herself move earth to trap the embers and have them for the next morning.
She almost yelps when a notification appears and startles her.
General Skill Acquired: Survival
Survival has reached rank 4
Adaptation 85% complete
I thought I turned this off. Alex thinks to herself as she gets the notification to close. Okay, it's time to go see if the creepy stairs are a billionaire’s bunker or just a cold cellar.
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She picks up her gear and her bowl, moving into the stone building. She drinks the water before stashing the bowl just inside the building. Pulling out her flashlight, and deciding to be careful, she pulls on her nomex hood, frowning when she finds it still damp before pulling on the faceplate of her SCBA, thinking if nothing else it will protect her eyes.
Almost subconsciously, she arranges her gear so she can reach the nozzle of the air tank and the regulator from somewhere she can reach.
Alex starts down the stairs and into the darkness, Halligan raised. Descending the stairs with her light, she sees the stone slabs at the bottom as she slowly moves down the stairs before seeing a small room maybe 6 feet across and 10 feet deep.
The room ends in a large set of double doors. Looking around the room, Alex can feel her heart beat steadying as she takes in scrollwork that looks like fire running in lines on the walls.
The large doors at the far side of the room stand intimidating and decorative. At first, all Alex sees is fire in the carvings, but then she sees the eyes, the malevolent smile, the face carved in fire decorating the door.
It's giving less billionaire more cult. Alex thinks to herself as she moves forward examining the door. She doesn't see any handles but gives the doors a push, finding they don't move at all.
Okay, Alex, do we find out what’s in the creepy lair or cut our losses? Alex stares at the door for several long minutes before curiosity gets the best of her.
YOLO, everyone probably assumes I'm dead. Alex smiles at the thought as she digs her Halligan into the crack of the door. It's while staring at the door that she realizes she hasn't seen the glow of weak points in a while.
She thinks about that as she digs the end of her Halligan into the crack and begins to pry. Maybe it gave up? Wait, wasn’t there something when they threw me across? Honestly, good riddance; it was annoying.
The door starts to open slowly before with a grind and hiss of inhaled air, the door opens. Looking inside, she sees another small room. Something about it makes the back of her neck prickle, causing her to suppress a shiver.
Alex moves into the next room, taking in the alternating black and white stone slabs on the floor and a large symbol carved into each wall using the same flaming face from the door.
For sure cult. She thinks, taking in the room. Then she hears a soft hiss that instantly makes her think of a gas leak. She fumbles for her respirator, pulling the regulator to her mask and turning the oxygen nozzle as she backs towards the door.
She hears the beep and shake that indicates the tank is in its last thirty-three percent of the tank. Her back presses against the door, and it's then she realizes it closed and sealed behind her.
"FUCK FUCKING FUCK!" Alex lets out a stream of expletives before settling herself and attempting to pry the door open with her Halligan again. It doesn't budge despite her putting all of her weight into it and smashing the door multiple times.
The room is getting hazy as she moves to the far side, attempting to open the doors on the other side to no avail.
Alex starts going through the room more closely, looking for mechanisms to release the doors or turn off the gas.
After what she estimates to be about ten minutes, she notices the hiss is gone and the haze is starting to dissipate. The door at the far end of the room opens on its own.
A notification appears in her vision.
Notification: Trial Past Cult of Ember
Alex stares at the notification before attempting to open the previous doors and finding them firmly sealed. Her teeth on the edge of grinding with frustration, she turns and heads into the next room.
"Yolo, everyone probably thinks you're dead already." Alex mimics her earlier thoughts out loud as she walks back to the now open doorway, stopping to examine the room.
She hears water running and looks over to one side, seeing a fountain with cups sitting next to it. She scans the room, seeing shelves and what looks like a kitchen to the back of the room.
Panning her light around, she sees what looks like a cross-legged statue at the back, sitting below the same symbol emblazoned in gold on a red banner.
"Creepy," Alex mutters as she continues panning her light, finding what looks like a bed to one side. The sheets are a deep red, almost black, and the wood making the bed frame appears to be fire-treated, with deep scorch marks.
A desk sits not far away with shelves of books.
As she steps into the room to take a closer look, another notification appears.
Notification: Trial begun Education of the Flame
She no sooner clears the notification than torches sputter to life all around the room, lighting it in the flickering light of a dozen sconces set into the walls.
"What in the actual fuck is this place?" Alex asks out loud, unsure how to process everything.
Her SCBA alarm starts blaring in the darkness as she stands there too long. Cursing under her breath, Alex shakes it, causing it to stop alarming. She decides to risk it and moves into the room, turning off the oxygen tank and taking off her mask, knowing she likely only has minutes of air left.
She takes off her mask after breathing for several minutes and not noticing any issues.
She notices in front of the statue is what looks like a pedestal with a note on it. Moving over, she looks at what appears to be complete gibberish; just lines flowing across the page. She studies it for several long minutes.
She looks up at the statue, taking it in. The eye sockets of the statue look deeply burned as though the man’s eyes had been burned from his head. She studies his face. It looks calm, the eyeless sockets still somehow giving the impression of perceiving the world. He has close-cropped hair and sits with his back upright.
Alex notices a necklace on the statue and moves up a bit to look closer before deciding the creepy statue can keep its necklace.
Alex moves over to where the bed is and sets all her gear down, testing the bed before resting on it and taking inventory. She doesn’t have her bowl but does still have her Halligan and all of her tools. The room looks like it's intended for people to live in.
Deciding to make the inventory more complete, she moves down the shelves, taking in more and more strange writing. Sweet, like 50 books I can't read even if I wanted to, a desk, torches, a fountain, and a creepy statue. She thinks before moving over to what looks like a small industrial kitchen in the corner.
She finds pots and pans, what looks like a stove she can’t find a way to start, and what looks and feels like a refrigerator but no food. She notices more of the flowing writing carved into the counters but can't make heads or tails of it.
Deciding she has had water and a mostly secure place to sleep, it's time to sleep and make a plan in the morning. She moves over to the bed, testing it again before settling onto it and falling asleep almost as soon as her back sinks into the bed.