Re: Episode 1.01: Gateway to Hell
Raven shifted the pack on her back as she followed Dren through the passage. She was more tired then she’d ever admit but, if Dren didn’t need a break then she’d be damned before she’d need one. The ancient temple the two of them were trekking through was buried by Egyptian Sages centuries ago. The passage came to a large room with a doorway that was blocked by fallen rock and other debris. Dren slipped off his pack and readjusted the guns strapped to his ribcage while looking around the dark room, "Look's like we beat Draghun 'ere. That's good for us, and bad for 'im." The Irishman smiled back at Raven and found some humor in her tough girl act. He would have offered to help if she wouldn't bark that she could do it herself, so he just slipped the large flashlight from his belt and found the caved in area ahead.
“Draghun is a half-wit who wouldn’t be able to spot the moon in the sky without someone else showing him the way,” Raven said. “I’m sick and tired of him riding our coat-tails.”
"Agreed, all tha' rich Englishman's got is a team of mercs and a bigger bank roll, we're th' ones doin' all th'work. 'E is nothin' more than a thug tryin' to take wha's rightfully ours!"
As Dren cleared away the debris from the area Raven suggested he suddenly discovered several strange markings over what looked like the start of an archway, not being the abstract art type of person he set the rock he was holding down and grabbed Raven's attention.
"I think, I foun' an Egyptian Comic Strip!" he said jokingly as she studdied the markings.
“They tell the story of the battles of Anubis,” Raven said.
"Hmmm, so really t'is an Egyptian comic, eh?"
Raven removed her right glove and gently ran her bare hand over the runes. She carefully traced the markings with her fingers. She didn’t want to risk damaging them but she also needed to make sure that she correctly identified each symbol. It was a technique Dren had seen, literally, a thousand times, but each time she did it, he got chills. “This is it,” she said. “The Orb of Anubis should be behind this door.”
"Sooo close!" Dren, renewed with excitement, began clearing more rocks away to try and reveal the full archway, as he did so Raven returned to her pack. A few rocks later Dren felt the need to fill the dead air with conversation, "So, tell me 'bout th'Orb again?"
“According to legend, they were trying to hide the Orb of Anubis from a group who wanted to use it to summon their dead king. The Sages must’ve succeeded in stopping them because the temple has been lost to time for hundreds of years.” Raven put her glove back on then took her pack off and set it on a large, flat rock that was about the height of a coffee table. “In fact, for the longest time, the orb was believed to just be a myth – like the lost city of Atlantis, Excalibur or the Helm of Hermes. But you and I know for a fact that the Helm exists. I’m using the money we got for that to finish paying for my house.”
"I'm investing m'money." Dren said confidently
“Which means you just made your bookie a richer man.” Raven’s disapproving tone was hard to miss.
"'ay! I still consider tha' a charitable donation!" Dren would have laughed had he not been holding a 60lb. rock at the time.
Raven pulled a big, dusty book out of her pack along with a couple of scroll cases and a notebook. “I’m pretty sure I’m getting close to locating Excalibur. I’m still missing some pieces to that puzzle but, I’m sure, given time I’ll be able to find that as well.” She pushed her Akubra hat off and let it rest against her back, hanging from the chin strap going across her neck. “Anyway, the orb is supposed to be able to give life to that which once was but, now has none. Some scholars think it’s a resurrection kind of thing. Others think we might be talkin’ about Zombies. Raven glanced at Dren who'd stopped working and was just watching her. “What?”
"All tha t'was most informative, but I was just wondering 'ow much this 'ere gem was nettin' us!"
“Oh.” Raven shrugged, “Eighty, maybe even a hundred-thousand. Enough for you to get that sports car you’ve been eyeing.”
“Ye know I love it w'en y'talk like that!” Dren smiled playfully.
“If that’s how you want to waste your money,” Raven muttered to herself as she sat on the floor next to her low “table” and began flipping through the book. Dren looked visibly hurt as he finished clearing the archway and then directed his attention to setting up metal bowls that were laying around as light sources for Raven. Filling them with lamp oil and using makeshift wicks he lit them using his silver Zippo. Once that was done he found a spot to sit and relax a bit.
Raven, having found the page in the book that she wanted, pulled the scrolls out of their cases and unrolled them. She put the two pieces of parchment together, one on top of the other, and then held them up so that the light would shine through both pages. The writings on the second scroll shone through to combine with the markings of the first parchment. When the text of both scrolls were combined in this way, it was clear that they formed the same symbols that were on the archway of the door. Raven compared the scrolls with the pages in the book. “Give me a moment to figure out the correct order,” she said, as she opened her notebook. “The right combination opens the path to Anubis, while the wrong one opens 1 of a 1000 deaths!”
"Dinna these Egyptians think 1 death'd be enough?"
“Apparently, the Egyptians are very thorough when it comes to the whole death thing,” she replied.
Raven would look from the scrolls to the tome, scribble something in her notebook, and then look at the scrolls again to repeat this process several times. Dren, growing impatient, began moving more rocks to try and work off the nervous energy. Finally, she called to Dren, “Ok, I think I’ve got it! Are you ready?” He simply nodded.
Raven called out a series of runes for Dren to push. As he pressed each rune, the brick it was carved on would slide in a few inches and remain recessed in the wall. As he moved the last rune into place, they heard a click. Then all the recessed runes slid forward, returning to their original positions. Suddenly, a wall slid down blocking their exit. The ceiling opened up and water from all four sides of the temple began filling the chamber.
"Somethin' tells me we got 999 more deaths to go."
Raven didn’t even look at the wall that had sealed their fate or the water that was now rushing in. She simply looked at the still closed door and sighed, “No open, says me.”
Dren shrugged, "Dinna know there was a chant too." Then he started to use the large and flatter rock to build a makeshift wall around Raven while she returned to her notes, completely ignoring the water that was pooling around where she sat, soaking her boots and khaki pants.
“Not sunrise to sunset,” Raven said to herself. “But, sunset to sunrise!”
"I'd be 'appy seeing either one right 'bout now." The makeshift damn was clearly pointless by now as the water was coming too fast, Dren instead threw on his pack and started to put everything back in Raven’s, "Pigeon, we need an escape plan! We found it once, we can find it again!" but it was obvious she wasn't listening. Raven was focused on her work, the task at hand, and he dared not pull the books from under her even as one of the lights was snuffed out forcing her to use her, now wet, mini-flashlight. Though the situation was dire, deep down he still trusted her and he could give her until the very last second.
“No! I can do this. Just give me a couple of minutes.”
"Minutes?" Dren didn't think she had more than seconds. In an attempt to buy her time he started throwing rocks toward the two closest waterfalls in an effort to build up makeshift wells. Realizing this was actually slowing the water he doubled his efforts even as the water crashed down over him with the force of a fire hose.
Meanwhile, Raven was flipping pages in the book when something caught her attention. She turned back to a page she had just passed and looked closer at it. Then she turned the book and looked sideways at the text. “Hmm,” she said. “Missed that before.”
“Whatever you do,” Raven yelled to Dren, “don't touch the Rune of Set.”
Dren, now trying to get out from under a waterfall responded, “The W'at?”
Raven yelled even louder, “The Rune of Set!”
“Ok, I pressed it,” Dren answered, now standing by the archway. “Now w'at?!”
From nowhere a wind started to pick up. Dren looked around for any sign of an opening or crack in the structure, but nothing told him where the wind was coming from. Raven closed her book, risking damage to the scrolls still within, but with the threat of loosing them in the wind and with the water now blowing off the floor around her - she would take the risk if it meant saving what she could. Dren pressed on the door and found it wouldn't even give before pulling the leatherman tool from his belt and trying to force the Rune of Set back out... it was worth a try.
Raven clutched the book tightly against her chest as small pieces of debris were being tossed about the chamber. She watched as the wind began to swirl in front of her, spiraling into a circle that was growing darker and wider. “Dren!” she called. “DREN!”
"W'at now!?"
Turning to find out what Raven was yelling about he saw it, floating about half way in the air was... a hole. It looked like the eye of a tornado as it literally pulled the light, water, air and even reality into its dark center. Dren was next to Raven in two steps when he realized why she hadn't moved as far from the vortex as she could. The pull from the center was threatening to take both of them off their feet, and it was getting stronger by the second. Dren barely caught Raven's pack as it flew upward and past them. He forced them against a statue and locked his arm around it keeping Raven between the statue and himself, and himself between the vortex and Raven. But the pull was getting stronger and his grip was slipping, even his pack was now working against him and his feet were starting to slide. It was as if gravity itself was now turning inward and their options were running out fast. "Don' let go, Pigeon," he called to her. Then slipping his arms from around the statue, he wrapped them around Raven and the two were yanked up into the darkness... to Dren, it kind of felt like skydiving... then all light was gone.