[The walls are choked with vines, there are echoing skittering sounds drifting through the air, from a distance. The way is long, and the crew (mostly) makes its way through at pace with each other as they find their way toward the center of the maze. Fanning out to canvas the corners and dig for progress—the escape mechanism that the officers had finally decided to fill them in on. Which means it's not uncommon to stumble across a teammate while searching. Say, this one. Perched on the top of a cracked and carved hunk of bluish stone and rolling a piece of (so-far-safe, hopefully) alien maze fruit thoughtfully between his hands. (The bright blue H still branded on his forehead marking him as both prisoner and murderer.) Could be he's just taking a breather. If one follows his eyes upward, it's clear he's studying an odd breakup in the patterns on the mossy walls. A few stories above ground level, a gap that's wide and tall. A deep alcove, or a passageway, perhaps—it's large enough for it, that much is clear to see from the ground. There's a flickering of blue light bouncing off the walls from deep inside. A little more regular than the little motes that surround them. Not that it means anything, on its own.
He hears his company approach, if the way he cants his head over toward the ground is any indication. But without looking back down, just yet—]
What d'you think?
[Any of it seem escape-mechanismy to you? Of course, it's hard to see much from all the way down here, so there's only one real way to find out. Or maybe he's just making conversation.]
puzzle room/minotaur baiting.
[Later, after the escape mechanism has actually been found, things move much more quickly. (Guarded by a space-minotaur, that just figures. Almost too on the nose, tbh.)
Bullets don't faze the thing, which becomes clear pretty quickly. Luckily, there are some heavier hitters on the team and among the inmates that are happy to keep the big bad busy and at bay. So he figures he'll be better use trying to crack the codes and get them out of here.
Easier said than done. He's partway through fitting the complex workings of a puzzle-lock into place when he has to duck a gout of greenish acid as it comes flying out of the fray. It spatters against a wall and corrodes pits and pockmarks into the stone, just beyond the space where his head would have been. The good news is that he'd gotten out of the way in time. The bad news is the pieces of the puzzle he'd fit into place have fallen back into locked disarray the moment he'd stepped away from them. Maybe the solo approach isn't going to work, here.]
etc.
(alternately wildcard me or tag me here with a preference (maze exploring/camping/monstering/puzzle-room/aftermath/idk) and I'll write you a more character-specific starter. brief this time, as I'm still recovering from work hell, thanks for bearing with me, friends.)
no subject
[The walls are choked with vines, there are echoing skittering sounds drifting through the air, from a distance. The way is long, and the crew (mostly) makes its way through at pace with each other as they find their way toward the center of the maze. Fanning out to canvas the corners and dig for progress—the escape mechanism that the officers had finally decided to fill them in on. Which means it's not uncommon to stumble across a teammate while searching. Say, this one. Perched on the top of a cracked and carved hunk of bluish stone and rolling a piece of (so-far-safe, hopefully) alien maze fruit thoughtfully between his hands. (The bright blue H still branded on his forehead marking him as both prisoner and murderer.) Could be he's just taking a breather. If one follows his eyes upward, it's clear he's studying an odd breakup in the patterns on the mossy walls. A few stories above ground level, a gap that's wide and tall. A deep alcove, or a passageway, perhaps—it's large enough for it, that much is clear to see from the ground. There's a flickering of blue light bouncing off the walls from deep inside. A little more regular than the little motes that surround them. Not that it means anything, on its own.
He hears his company approach, if the way he cants his head over toward the ground is any indication. But without looking back down, just yet—]
What d'you think?
[Any of it seem escape-mechanismy to you? Of course, it's hard to see much from all the way down here, so there's only one real way to find out. Or maybe he's just making conversation.]
puzzle room/minotaur baiting.
[Later, after the escape mechanism has actually been found, things move much more quickly. (Guarded by a space-minotaur, that just figures. Almost too on the nose, tbh.)
Bullets don't faze the thing, which becomes clear pretty quickly. Luckily, there are some heavier hitters on the team and among the inmates that are happy to keep the big bad busy and at bay. So he figures he'll be better use trying to crack the codes and get them out of here.
Easier said than done. He's partway through fitting the complex workings of a puzzle-lock into place when he has to duck a gout of greenish acid as it comes flying out of the fray. It spatters against a wall and corrodes pits and pockmarks into the stone, just beyond the space where his head would have been. The good news is that he'd gotten out of the way in time. The bad news is the pieces of the puzzle he'd fit into place have fallen back into locked disarray the moment he'd stepped away from them. Maybe the solo approach isn't going to work, here.]
etc.
(alternately wildcard me or tag me here with a preference (maze exploring/camping/monstering/puzzle-room/aftermath/idk) and I'll write you a more character-specific starter. brief this time, as I'm still recovering from work hell, thanks for bearing with me, friends.)