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Something Wicked - Summertime Blues


Nina

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So Jordan decided to try to push at solid stone and Hannah totally wigged out. Roach could almost believe it was the Necronomicon at this point. Spreading madness!

 

"Kalimah," Rochelle intoned in a sinister tone. She hooked the fingers of her right hand into a graspy-claw sort of gesture and jabbed it at Hannah. "Kalimah shakti-de!"

 

Then she pantomimed yanking something towards her in midair....and dusted her hands off.

 

"And that's our show, thank you. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. We'll be here all week. Jordan, you want to come over here and pick up this junk? It's heavy. And be careful it's got like...grease on it or something. Hannah, chill out. They're skulls. Of all the things in this room right now, they're the least likely to hurt you."

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Hank sighed.  "Honestly."    His tone suggested exasperation, and he looked at his gathered friends.   "Just calm down.."  He left the examination of the jars.  "Well the bones might be old but those Jars aren't close to that age, they just didn't exist, so that easily means we aren't the first, or probably even second or third to find this place."   He set his backpack down, and pulled out some work gloves, putting them on before going to pick up the skulls, replacing them on the shelf as best he could.  

"I might have something to undo that lock in my bag, if one of you wants to take a look."  Hank's bag was joked about being linked to another dimension, as he always seemed prepared for most anything.   While he wouldn't have a set of lockpicks, among the sundry things in there probably did exist a suitable replacement in a pinch.  "Or we could you know, wait to open that somewhere that's safe from the environment, clean, and where we had much better light."

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“For God’s sake, Roach, quit being a jerk!” Quinn had clearly gotten over her shock at finding the cave and the gold and the skulls. She went to Hannah’s side, putting an arm around Hannah’s shaking shoulders. Giving Roach a reproving “Mom-glare”, she gently rubbed Hannah’s arm as she said, “Finding this crap is enough to scare anyone.”

 

Truth be told, Quinn was a little shaken herself. The skulls and the altar all suggested something that existed well outside of the safety of her parents’ house and the warmth of their horses. This entire cave suggested something that existed well beyond the scope and understanding of her life. It hinted at something unnatural, something beyond her comprehension. 

 

She wanted no part of it. She wished that they hadn’t come at all now. We shoulda just gone riding and had pizza, she thought, her dark eyes locked onto the unnatural place of worship. She attempted to control her own shivers as she comforted Hannah, but she wasn’t sure if she could keep a grip on her fears if they stayed here much longer. 

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Roach was about to shoot back at Quinn when a blast of thunder smashed overhead and reverberated through the chamber. All eyes were drawn to the opening above and a second crash this time with the flash visible to the kids struck. The whole mountain seemed to shake, skulls rattled and jars jumped, instinctively the kids all backed away from the alter and the opening above, and it was a good thing they did.

Lightning struck for the third time striking the through the opening and lashing the alter top, electricity  splashed off of the alter and along the chamber walls and floor a web of blue white electric charge which made hair stand on in and skin tingle then instantly the thunder crashed and it was as if the world was coming to and end.

 

The flash blinded the kids the thunder deafens them and shook them like rag dolls. They grabbed at the shelves to keep from falling but Roach wasn't so lucky. The wise mouthed girl was holding the book in both hands and when the thunder blasted her she was pushed back against the wall and went down under a shower of bones. When she hit the floor she felt a powerful tug on the book and could not hold on to it.

 

The chamber was plunged into darkness and the thunder rolled again above but it was distant now. Slowly the kids crawled back to their feet as their hearing and sight returned. They check the flashlights and their phones and found them still working although Jordan's phone now had a sharp crack running across the screen. The only casualty. As Hank checked to make sure everyone was alright and they all wondered how they hadn't been electrocuted, Roach got to her feet and using the light from her phone was looking around at the floor.

 

"What are you looking for Roach," asked Silas?

"The Book. It's gone," Roach replied breathlessly.

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"And God said, "No, you're not ready."      Hank muttered.    It wasn't a verse from the bible or anything, and he was thankful for no one actually being hurt, though Jordan's phone wasn't in great shape with that massive crack.   "So that happened.    I think that's the world of the strange and mystical telling us we best go back the way we came."   He sighed.  They couldn't take any gold, and he couldn't imagine taking anything else they'd found.  

"What about the old knife, that still here?"

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SIlas didn't bother looking for the knife. He'd been on edge after Hannah's scream and the whole lightening blast from above had definitely tripped his nope meter. "I'm with Hank on getting out of here. And I've got an idea God probably doesn't want us looking in a book in a murder cavern ever." 

He took a deep breath and told his baser instincts that no one was. . . probably. . . trying to murder them . . . right now. "Look, we should get back anyways. It was a hike up here and it'll be worse getting back in rain and lightning. We should. . .uh, probably tell someone about this place?" He didn't sound quite sure of that. "I mean, it's clearly something. People will want to study it."

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"No!" blurted Roach. She pointed at Hank as she backed up towards the entrance to the rough-hewn room. "No, you don't get to just...blow this off like that! The BOOK...is GONE. It was on the GROUND, and now it's GONE. Fuck strange, fuck mystical, fuck god...this isn't normal! Stop acting like this is NORMAL! The lightning bolt didn't even HIT the book!"

 

She pointed at the altar, then looked up at the hole in the ceiling. "I mean, it hit the table. What if there's some kind of machine in that thing? It could generate some kind of charge, try to attract lightning...but that doesn't explain the BOOK!"

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“Everyone calm down!” Quinn’s normal mom-voice shook a little as she knocked more dirt and dust off her body. She refused to consider how much of it was bone dust; the thought of dry human remains clinging to her clothing had her on the verge of puking.

 

“We’re not going to fall to fighting among ourselves,” she added firmly as she bent down to clap at her boots. Realizing that she’d have a harder time of sounding authoritative (or as her dad put it, talking like the herd stallion) all hunched over, she told herself that she’d gotten all the bone dust off herself and anything left was dirt, just dirt

 

She straightened, put her hands on her hips in a familiar stance, and announced, “First things first. Hank, is it safe in this cave? If we stay, are we in danger of getting trapped or hurt?”

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"Well it was before the Lightning hit and all at any rate, but who knows what happened after that.   I mean lightning strikes have been able to explode rock, and if there are any cracks then yes, it could become unstable and collapse. "   Hank answered.  "We should leave, not in a panic, not without some sense of urgency, that I do agree on."  He went into his bag, and pulled out a smaller  folded duffle bag.   It was old, and used.  "I'd planned to use this for any trash from this hike.  If we want to take anything with us, put it in here.  The bag's old but solid enough it won't tear under weight."   He held it out, in case anyone wanted to actually bring anything back.   

"Snap a few pictures, lord knows we should have started with doing that, but we need to at least get back to the opening.  None of us can go out the way that lightning strike came in."

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Jordan listened to the argument and shined her light back at the tunnel they had come through. "Well shit." Her light revealed that the tunnel, which had been tight to begin with, had caved in about half way down trapping them in the chamber.

 

"We aren't getting out this way."

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Silas internally said a few words that would make his parents frown to know he knew. He glanced back around the cave for a solution. He finally ended up back at the alter, peering upwards into the opening. "Alright," he said a little more loudly than the others were talking among themselves to get their attention. He glanced over the rest of the group just to confirm his thought. 

"Hank, why don't you give Jordan that smaller bag if it'll fit your rope. Then she can boost me up, I'll climb out the hole. If I can find a good tree close enough, I'll tie it off and people can start climbing up with Jordan last to act as belayer in case someone falls. If not, we'll need a specific order since it'll just be me up there holding the rope to start. Hannah first, then Roach, then Quinn, then Hank, and Jordan last." He gave the large girl a friendly grin. "You get to belay either way."

His eyes tracked over to the caved in tunnel. "And we should do this as quick as we can. Sorry about the book, Roach, but we don't have time to go hunting for it right now. We don't know how long the rest of the cave'll be stable. Roach, Hannah, grab whatever you want that's easy to find but leave the skulls. They'll just break. And yeah, grab some pictures so people don't think we're nuts if this place does cave in."

With that, he moved to one side of the alter to give Jordan room to hop up and start the acrobatics. 

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Hank frowned, this was Not the best way to do this, but they had to get out.  Quickly pulled out the rope, and tied a loop in the end that any scoutmaster would have been quite proud of.  'Just loop it around something and put the end back through the loop.   That should hold well enough and The rope will easily support everyone else, one at a time."   He stuffed the rope in the bag, and  sighed. This had been a relatively fun hike to start, but now he just wanted to make sure they all got home.

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Jordan glared at her phone, more angry at it being cracked than disturbed that Roach lost the book - somehow - during the thunder and lightning flash, or the bone dust clinging to her. She nodded at Silas. She wasn't bothered by the collapsed tunnel the big girl told herself, it had been tight to begin with, and besides, she liked climbing. She hopped up onto the altar, brushing it clear of dirt and rock and bone with her feet to make her stance more stable, then laced her fingers to form a stirrup for Silas.

 

"I got you, Silas."

 

Bracing herself against Silas' expected weight, Jordan glanced over at the box still on the ground, the lid open. Then her gaze shifted back to the gold-veined quartz of the chamber. There might be a way to afford to fix or replace her phone.

 

"Roach. Roach!" Jordan called again to get the girl's attention. "Can you still close and lock the box? We should bring those candlesticks too. I can drag it up after me or pull it up."

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Jordan boosted Silas who managed to find a finger-hold and pulled himself into the shaft. The firt thing he noticed was that it was made of brick, old brick to be sure, but brick nonetheless. The second, there were plenty of cracks and crevices in the mortar and weeds, roots and vines grew in abundance and supplied various handholds for his climb. 

 

When he got to the top he found that he was in a thick copse of trees the shaft or well itself had an uncommonly short protective wellhead which was obscured by the thick undergrowth. It would be very easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. Silas quickly found a suitable tree and attached the rope and in no time the Kids all were out with Jordan coming last. Once she made it topside she pulled up the rope and at the end was attached the box.

A short argument ensue about the appropriateness of taking the box but what was done was done. The kids started to make their way out of the trees and found themselves on top of the short mountain and easily oriented themselves. It had stopped raining but was now hot and humid and as they climbed down they quickly became soaked with sweat. 

 

The way down on this side of the mountain was much easier and they made good time and within a couple of hours were back at the cabin with the horses and Jordan's dog.

 

Spoiler

Ok this ends the scene everyone take 2 xp. I will be starting the next scene shortly it will start where this one ends. 

 

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IV

 

“I don’t think we ought to tell any of our parents,” said Roach, “not until we sell that gold. Our parents would just take it away from us.” She was thumbing typing on her phone now that they had a signal,. “Holy shit!” Everyone looked at Roach shocked since most of them refrained from cursing, most of the time. “Jordan how much did those rocks weigh?”

The giant girl was crouched down scratching Banner’s ears. The dog had been laying in the steaming sun when they had come up on the old cabin and he had bounded to his feet and his tail wagged like it was about to take off. The horse all looked o.k. as well, and had meandered over to the fence close to the humans as Quinn had gone up to the and checked them over and gave them comforting pets and reassurances.

“I don’t know,” Jordan shrugged, “ten, twelve pounds maybe. But it’s not all going to be gold, most of it’s just quartz.”

“It takes anywhere from a couple of tons of rock to hundreds of tons in some cases to produce even one ounce of gold, “ Hannah said quietly. She had been very quiet during the entire trip back to the cabin.

“Yeah, I know,” Roach retorted, “but that stuff we found isn’t rock that you get the quartz out of its the quartz. That whole cave was a freaking quartz vein. They found one like it in South Africa the pictures are just like what we found, well without the skulls and the sacrificial alter and stuff, and theirs was worth over fifty million dollars and it was only a fraction of the size of what we found.

“What was it y’all found?”

That slow southern drawl came from behind them, from the direction of the cabin. Hearts lept into throats and pounded chests and Banner gave a friendly bark as the kids spun around to face the cabin only to see the teen aged boy form the Clairburn house, Dylan Coventry, standing in the now open doorway and wiping his hand with a dirty rag.

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“Apparently, discovering trespassers,” Quinn snapped as soon as she recovered from her shock at being interrupted. She’d had enough nasty surprises today, and frankly, she was sick of them. Thankfully, she could yell at this one. She’d completely forgotten about the hope to ride on the Clairburn lands.

 

Rising to her feet, she squared off in front of Dylan, his delicate beauty having zero effect on her libido. Had he been trailing a string of top-of-the-line endurance horses, she might have relented, a little. Today had been upsetting, and even looking after Bey-bey and the others hadn’t calmed her. Now hearing that they had found a million-dollar treasure and this unknown jerk popping up just as she was starting to calm down had her back on the warpath.

 

“What do you want?” she asked aggressively, scowling at the intruder. 

Edited by Dawn OOC
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Dylan smiled. It was disarming, almost angelic, "Well, for starters, if I'm trespassing, so are all of you since this is federal land, although at one time it did belong to the Clairburns. But actually I was out exploring and found this place and the horses and that wonderful dog. I ain't never seen a dog like that before," he said around Quinn, at Jordan. "When I went in the cabin, lord have mercy what a mess, I guess I just fell into cleaning out of habit."

 

Spoiler

Silas had been told that this place had belonged to his family. Quinn can see that the inside of the cabin has been cleaned up. it almost looks habitable now.

 

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"Probably a little bit of civility," Silas snapped back, his own nerves frayed. It was the most fire she'd seen out of him in weeks. 

 

Quinn shot Silas a look that usually sent a horse back a step or two. Silas’ gaze swept over and past her, the first time he’d probably ever just brushed her off when she was upset. He stepped towards the cabin, smiling at Dylan. “Yeah, Banner’s something else. Goes well with Jo, though.” He shot Jo a wry smile, all his words meant as compliments and somewhat clumsily trying to deflect the conversation away from the cavern.   

 

“Thanks,” he said to the delicate youth, with a sheepishly apologetic smile and a motion towards the cabin. “This must’ve been one of the places passed back and forth between the Walsh’s and Clairburns. My dad told me about the cabin, but I don’t think anyone’s been out here in a generation or two at least, until now.” 

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Rochelle kept an ear on the conversation, but most of her attention was on her phone still. She was busily entering more searches in, like mining rights and federal land grants and just trying to get a feel for exactly how awkward a situation this was going to be. Not that it would STOP them, but it'd be nice to know what the rules were so that they'd know how best to break them.

 

The good news was that this wasn't really a 'mine' in the traditional sense. A few kids with pickaxes and time could get a ridiculous amount of quartz-gold ore out of that cave without needing lots of equipment or manpower. That, plus the secrecy of the place, meant that it was virtually impossible to trace what they'd get back to this land.

 

But...it would have to come from SOMEWHERE. And the richness of the find meant that no matter where they CLAIMED to have found it, there would be a lot of attention stirred up.

 

There had to be a way though. What if they smelted it into coins or...little sculptures or something? Or maybe broke it way down and sold it off over time as just a successful panning operation or something lame like that?

 

This was, in a way, a mechanical or engineering problem...and a welcome relief to grapple with knowable quantities rather than try to square away magic lightning and teleporting books with the rest of science and human understanding.

 

The others could handle Dylan.

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Jordan didn't know how to get the gold out of the quartz, nor how to sell it without people asking them where they got it. She'd leave that part to others. But she had no problem going back and digging out more chunks of the stuff. With the collapse, they should be able to keep the place secret.

 

Jordan tensed in surprise, heavy muscle bulging, her guileless blue eyes wide as she stared at too pretty boy how stepped out of the cabin, hoping he hadn't heard too much. Then she looked down at Banner, sitting at her site looking up at her with his tongue lolling out of his mouth as she scratched him behind his dark furred ears. Then her eyes went back to Dylan.

 

As part for getting the dog, it had been the big girl's responsibility that he was well trained. And while Banner was great with the family and friends he'd been exposed to, Kangal shepherd dogs were very protective of their charges and quick territorial. Jordan was somewhat bewildered that Banner had just let Dylan go inside the cabin, let alone give him a friendly bark when he came back in sight.

 

She returned Silas's grin, not at all bothered by his words. Jordan was well aware she was a huge and athletic girl, and Banner was a huge and athletic dog. He was perfect for her. And a better and more loyal boy than Dex ever was.

 

"Banner here is a Kangal Shepherd," Jordan informed Dylan. "They're from Turkey, but a friend of my mom breeds them. I got Banner for my birthday two years ago." She folded her muscular arms and shifted her weight, brows lowering in suspicious. "It's kinda weird he let you by. He's usually not that friendly to strangers when he's told to guard something and I ain't around."

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Dylan shifted his penetrating gaze from Silas to Jordan, but his smile stayed the same. "Maybe he didn't think I's a threat," he shrugged, "anyways I have always been good around animals. They like me."

 

He glanced at the horses, and Quinn, still fuming at Silas who was still staring at the boy hanging on his every word, looked at her babies too and was somewhat startled to find that all of them had come to the fence and were looking, she could swear, at Dylan as if enraptured.

 

Dylan shifted his gaze again, this time to Roach, and for the briefest second a frown fell across his countenance but it quickly passed as he came back to Silas. "Well, back in them days there was lots of disputes about who owned what. Matter of fact the feud began right here, at this cabin." He said this, his voice full of confidence, then another small frown, "Or so I was told."

Spoiler

Dylan never once looked at or even acknowledges Hank or Hannah's presence. Any one can make an observation test if they are closely paying attention to Dylan. 1st one to send me a successful result gets the reveal.

 

Roach, still engrossed with her phone suddenly cursed. Her connection to the internet went out as the phone went into automatic save power mode. That couldn't be right she had turned it off during the hike only turning it back on when they found the cave to see if there had been a signal and when there hadn't been she had turned it back off. And off it had remained, except for briefly taking some pictures in the cave, until they had arrived back at the cabin and now it showed less than 1% power remaining. What the..., it should have had hours of power left.

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The day had been a trying one, mentally and physically, and Hank was simply glad to get back  without anyone getting hurt.   The talk about getting more of the quartz, selling it themselves, it was something he thought best to handle later.   Then Dylan showed up, and essentially ignored both Hank and Hannah.  Maybe he's got a thing against people with names that start with an "H"   he thought quietly, even as the conversation continued.   

He caught something though as he listened.  First Dylan had said he'd been out exploring, before happening on the Cabin, horses, and Banner.  "Hold up a moment.  When ya started out you said you were just out exploring.  That you happened upon the cabin.  Then you know that this exact cabin is where the family feud began.   Which is it then?"   It wasn't an outright accusation of lying, though Hank had a reputation for being fairly blunt ant to the point, and honest to a fault.   

He left unsaid that Dylan just happened to be there at the same time as the rest of them, which was a fairly unbelievable circumstance.   He didn't see another bike, so to say that he'd walked out here all this way, well that was some major explorative hike the newcomer'd undertaken, without any sort of preparation, too.

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Dylan's smile froze, then he looked at Hank as if seeing him for the first time. Several awkward seconds passed, Dylan stared at Hank like a small child staring at a weird bug he had found in his sandbox.

"I was," he stated firmly, " out exploring that is. It wasn't until Silas here," he turns that disarming smile back on the other boy, "said that it belong to his family that I remember a bit of history that Mr Clairburn had told me. I simply put two and two together."

He smiled back at Hank. "I could be wrong of course. Perhaps Mr Clairburn could enlighten us."

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"Mother..." Rochelle swore under her breath and cocked her hand back as if to throw the phone, then visibly restrained herself. "Could just be a bad connection."

 

She turned and went to sit down at the little table and pulled her multitool out to pop the back off the phone.

 

"Warren give you the day off, Dylan?" she asked absently as she gently wiggled the battery, trying to see if the interruption in power was from it not making solid contact. "Pretty generous for a creepy rich booooooooiiiiiiii..."

 

Roach glanced up at him, looking at him for the first time since he'd entered. "Hey."

 

 

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Hank nodded.  "Fair enough.   I'm sure Mr. Clairburn probably could.   I wouldn't mind a little history lesson, It's always fun to learn the history of your home.   Still with him just  moving in and all the work going on, I'd hate to presume on his time again so soon.   Maybe sometime later in the week."  He wasn't fully mollified, but at the same time, it was a good enough response.   Speaking with Mr. Clairburn would be enjoyable, and of course civil.  He wouldn't even mind helping him if needs be, he was a Scout after all.  Perhaps it wasn't a matter of great concern, maybe it was.   The fact they were all on federal land now couldn't be discounted too.

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