Log:Explorer's Guild: Codru Conned-u
Explorer's Guild: Codru Conned-u
OOC Date: September 6, 2018
Location: Munto Codru
Participants: Explorer's Guild: Corr Waldin, Jehni'va Cihn, Siha Archer, Sajin, and Netep Muri
MUNTO CODRU
"Now, I have it from a good source that this castle, forbidden as it is, is the home of the mythical golden wyrwulf pelt," Corr is saying as the airspeeder approaches the cliff that houses said castle, a towering sprawl of thin rock walls and stone towers whose tips scrape up against the clouds. "And by a good source, I mean an old Codru wisewoman as came by the outpost one day and told me about it, said it's an old family secret and she don't got any kids to pass it on to. Why that makes me the next in line for the secret, I ain't rightfully sure, but I don't ask too many questions when- well, ever," the explorer explains as they cut through the fog that clings to the side of the mountain.
"At any rate, she said we gotta come in on this side of the castle so as not to disturb the sleepless, two-headed dragon that guards the golden pelt," he continues, pointing down through the mist towards an area where a gap has opened in the walls, their once-proud height now a jumble of mystical, horizontal debris. "Put us down over there."
Hang onto your butts, guys, Jehn is loaded. She's grown too used to desert conditions, and she doesn't have the sense to slow down for any debris hiding in that mist. "Sorry!" The pilot chirps pleasantly as she shakes, rattles, and rolls the speeder to an uncomfortably rough landing. "Wait, did you say sleepless, two-headed dragon?" She turns to the body behind her in the landed speeder. "Did he say sleepless, two-headed dragon?"
WOMP. SMACK. Siha is jostled and smacks her head this way and that, but she lucky because she got on a good ol' Mandalorian hat. Siha grunts, the apology causing a series of curses in Mandalorian, "You know, Waldin, I /was/ hired as a bloody pilot when you brought me on." Groused grouchily to the man explaining some dragon skin thing, "He did indeed. Dibs on the body."
Sajin is hanging around loitering. Such an odd guy. He came extra early. He looks to Corr as he speaks up. "Yeah man... sounds real fashionable. Maybe I can use it as a kingly cape or something." He waves his hand at the talk of dragins. "Meh. If we can take on sand people and they can take on krayt dragons as young adults. We are fine." Hubris is a downfall. "Siha dont be so hard on Mr Waldin. He is very generous."
"Does anyone else find it mildly disturbing that we're seeking out the flayed skin of some auric child?" Cause she's got to ask. "...turned chew toy of a mutant serp--" Muri's gab is silenced by the clacking of her teeth over her tongue. OW. Which occurs when the 'thunk' of her bounced skull ricochets off Siha's helmet. OOOOWWW. The sand-stranded traveler's healed face had almost erased all evidence of the black eye and broken nose gifted by Tusken hospitality prior to this moment. Now it's got some new lumps. Netep slumps back into her skin and cradles head in hands, bowed between knees for the remainder of the ride.
"Wait, /that's/ what a wyrwolf hide is?" Corr questions as the airspeeder plomps down amongst the rubble, keeping his balance with relative ease. He's at home in a rough landing, apparently. "All I know is what the ol' lady Codru told me after I paid her a tidy sum to keep talkin'. I mean, why would she hide that? It's not like my ten grand isn't good enough for all the details." As he slaps the button to open the exit hatch, the explorer adjusts his Exploration Belt, pulling his canteen from its holster to take a long swig of cool, clear liquor. He's learned, adventuring with these clowns. "I hired lots of pilots, Siha, and if you want to bring your own airspeeder next time, I'm not gonna stop you but a rich man can't afford that sorta extravagance, let alone me."
"She said it's a two-headed sleepless dragon, and I figure-" ROAAAAAARRRRR. A load, distant reptilian rumble shakes the thin walls, almost transparent, but not quite... or maybe it's a trick of the light, and it's not transparent at all, just a trick to disguise what's truly behind them. Either way, this spot has a breach for them to climb through. "I figure that's him," Corr sniffs, holstering the canteen turned flask and pulling out a line with a grapple at the end. Tossing it up towards the breach, the grapple snags, then tugs down a chunk of the rock that nearly smacks him in the head. "...Alright, looks like we're climbin' freestyle."
"So was I!" Jehni'va chatters back to Siha, conversationally, but she is interrupted by the roar. "She sounds precious." The pilot decides, launching herself out of the speeder and towards the indicated gap. She manages to drag half of her body through before she slips on loose rock and gravel, bringing her crashing back down to earth. "Alderaan's ghost." She moans, rubbing her sore behind. Did Corr bring her along just to be dragon fodder?
So much for an old family secret, Waldin, you got /duped/." So says Siha after Muri asks her question, though Siha, plum full of morals, speaks from behind that t-visored helmet of hers, "HEY. NO STEALING KISSES FROM ME." She's joking, mostly, grinning from behind her helmet after the head knocking with Muri, "Don't think I'm /that/ easy to get into bed. I've /grown/ emotionally." Oh yeah, lookit her. All emotionally adult and stuff, "Anyhow, who cares - it's not like we're /taking/ the skin off a living child - it's some super old arsed family secret that ain't a secret. I'm sure it's just some bantha rug. As long as the serpent-dragon thing is real we will be /goo--" Then the roar and a childishly happy smile blossoms on her face, a deep breath swelling her chest up a whole inch as her shoulders raise up near her ears, kinetic energy running through her bones as she near bounces excitedly in place and HOPS INTO THE BREACH. Wantonly. BOOP. And down she goes. CRASHING down, her armor snagging against that rock and another, which means she brings down a slab of rock that NARROWLY misses crushing into her head after she lands crazily down below. It smashes instead a few inches away, exploding into chunks to rain down around her as she lets out an aching laugh, "Haaa haaa oww shavit ..I ..need to ..watch where I jump .." A hand raises, waving weakly in the air, "DIBS on precious ..don't forget ...dibs." Limp. Rub that hip out, Siha. Rubrubrub, "Generous don't earn my sweet side, Saj .." Drugs. Drugs do.
Sajin pauses as the roar comes. He looks up having already engaged his powerarmors helmet. Its questionable if he was actually listening to the others about the nature of the pelt. "Ooooohh. I call girst blood!" The dumb hapan exclaims as he rushes towards the face and starts up it like some sort of unnaturally gifted monkey man far too eager to get to the top... or bottom like Siha. "Ouch Shihamajiji. Do you need help?"
"YES, that's..." Quietly, Netep. Quietly. Here there be dragons. "That's what a wyrwulf is," she rasp whispers at Waldin after he isn't brained by the grapple. Why d'ya think it is ya don't see any /small/, two-legged Codru-Ji walking about? It's called metamorphosis." Headaching Muri is grouchy Muri, but she does manage to slip a dirtily humored grin Siha's way and shrugs "Girl can't know until she's tried." Also a shit rock climber, apparently. Netep's pawed her way a few holds up but loses her grip on the slick stone. Moss fails to serve as a fail safe and she just sliiiides back to ground level on her belly. Well. A girl DID try.
Luckily, Siha's fall drags down enough of the remaining chunks of wall that the breach, once a large V in the barricade, is now... an even larger V, and fairly easy to scale the lowest portion of. Corr does so, storing away his grappling hook for its next useless deployment. "I don't hardly never see /no/ Codru-Ji, /Muri/," he talks back to the little woman, clambering up and over with little difficulty in Sajin's wake, following the trail made by Siha's destruction. "Let alone little two-legged baby ones. Besides, we got permission to be here from the old crone-Ji." Hopping down into the courtyard, he takes a look around while waiting for the ladies to join them.
Inside is a veritable garden of seemingly random flora that at one point was probably carefully cultivated and has since run to riot, a cornucopia of colors festooning the whole courtyard with exotic scents. "Pretty," he remarks to Sajin, pointing out the ajar door up on the central keep's entry. "Looks like it's that way." Immediately after entering, the entry splits into three passages, each corridor marked above its entrance with a mysterious sigil. "What do you reckon these mean? Maybe one of 'em is a back route around ol' Insomnia."
The sigils in question are arcane in appearance, glowing with dim, other-worldly light, one a pair of overlapping triangles, one three vertical lines, unevenly spaced, and one a sort of rectangle with small points of light around each side of the shape.
"Wait, we're stealing baby skin from dragons?" This is how Jehn is summing up this trip, now. "I'm not sure how on board I am with that." Yet, here she is, trying again to scale this miserable wall - and once they're through, the pilot is very distracted. "Beautiful!" She agrees, unlatching her bag in order to carefully smuggle several flowers and weird looking plants in. They probably won't survive, but she can't help herself. Corr's question gives her pause, and she breaks in her floral pilfering to point at the rectangle shape. "I don't know much about much, but... That could be our golden baby skin?" She stuffs a large, purple flower into her bag.
Siha Archer will, eventually, once she lands, address Jehn, speaking through the vocoder in her helmet, grinning beneath her helmet, "Honestly, I only point out my original hiring position when we hit hiccups in flight. If /I/ was the one flying today and hit a hiccup, I'd be reminding him he hired me as a gun or sword, not a pilot." Ah, the wink she gives is lost beneath the helmet, but the Mandalorian will laugh softly, "I like busting his beige chops, didn't mean an insult your way." Hands slap against her thighs as she dusts the gloved things off, "Oooof, beautiful landing, Muri ..Another way to entice me, show me you can recover from a beautiful belly-flop." Her tone, despite the helmet, hopefully conveys her amusement, a deep sniff drawn in as she arches back to crack out her kinks, hips given a slow wiggle as she readies her body for the abuse that is no doubt still coming in droves down the pipeline.
"Not yet, Sajmijaj-boo-snickie-doo. But ..keep me a spot on your belt. You know how this goes." Limp, limp. Off she goes to follow the Man in Beige, all the delicious smells lost due to the safety her helmet gives her against such siren callings, "Wut?" Her head tilts back as she stops as things break up into three distinct pathways, "They look like delicious ..delicious ..chips. You know the ones, you bake 'em with cheese and other bits ..drip 'em in things. Delicious things that help the crispiness of the chip .." SNNKKKTTT. Clearing out her nasal passages she considers further, "But like ..." And up her hands lift, two 'L's formed with either hand, one backwards obvs, to frame the two overlapping triangles, "Artsy ..ish meaning like ..two cool things instead of one. Maybe ..two cute 'lizards' or serpents or whatever. OR ..Something else. Like chips." Nod. Yup. She smrt.
Sajin is far too distracted climbing and moving from one rock to another to pay attention yo some stupid sigils and runes. He was like a gallant hunter after the beast who doth has his poonanny. He does however give Siha a thumbs up in affirmation. I got your back boo.
"Might be..." Netep HAS recovered from that belly flop and tugged all layers back into place from the frictious slip'n'slide. Aiding in the recovery was her own harvesting of botanical bliss and now her pockets are FULL. And her mouth. The flower petals are ground thoughtfully down into a paste that dyes a bit of her lips and tongue blue before she swallows it back entirely and sucks her teeth 'clean' from the vantage point around Jehn's shoulder. Chips? Pelt? Lines. "Which means might be where Ole Insomnia is posted, yeah? 'less he likes chips." Honestly though, who doesn't?
"I've had a lot of time on my hands o'er the years to read and these castles were built by an allegedly mysterious, extinct race who conveniently isn't around anymore to explain the schematics, but..." She wanders a few steps forward to stand beneath the 3-lined sigil and points uuuup on tiptoe. "I'll bet these represent the three towers they often construct around the keep's center. No known architectural purpose for WHY the three, what they signify, but three it is and three these are and...yes." Her arm drops, pointing finger repurposed to scratch at a thorn prick on her chin.
"Well, this is all very insightful, but uh... which one we gonna go down then?" Corr muses, scratching at the short beard on his chin. Scritch, scritch, scritch. "The obvious choice is the one that might be our golden hide... but the chips," because it's now hard to see them as anything else, "sound pretty good too." Who doesn't like chips? "The only one that feels right out is the towers, I mean... Crone-Ji didn't say nothin' about towers."
Taking a credit chit out of his pocket, the explorer gives it a toss, and it comes down... "Value side up. Hide Hall it is," and he heads down under the sign of the rectangle.
The hallway starts out straight, but soon begins to twist and wind as they make their way along it, curling, turning, sometimes sharply, snaking a meandering path that doesn't feel like it should be possible based on the external size of the castle, but eventually it opens up on a room, a large chamber, the thin stone walls letting in an eerie light that can't really be coming from outdoors, right? On the far wall, in the middle of a large, circular inset, is... a note. What it says is impossible to tell, as the chamber is large and reading it would require crossing the room. "That's not the hide," Corr observes astutely. "Be on the lookout for traps or somethin', anyone that's got a two-headed, sleepless immortal dragon is bound to have traps."
"Chips and dip, chips and dip, I love me. Some. Chips. And dip." Siha will humm this softly under her breath as Corr decides their fate with a coin, taking a look around as she heads down that hallway, trying not to barrel forwards as to avoid smashing into walls due to those sharp corners. At the eventual point where it opens up Siha is thinking the same thing Corr is, because she'd trap the ish out of this place if she was protecting some golden baby skin. "Nope." Agreed in a slow drawl in agreement with Corr, "That isn't, but ..I will tell you what that /does/ look like."
Down she'll crouch, sitting back on her arse where she stood only a moment before, her right boot yanked off, "Pretty sure that note is a trap." And because she's not into keeping people in suspense, as she rocks back forwards to a crouch again (along with a hefty pained grunt from her earlier love story with the stone floor on her hip) off her arse she gives that boot a good low toss. It skids across the floor towards the note, a sudden snapping sound ricocheting into the air suddenly with a sharp hiss and a grey net jettisons into the air, the note left dipping to and fro in the air on its way to the floor, a cloud of dust billowing up dramatically like the ghostly skirts of the net that could have snared any one of the group, "This is why you always carry a knife, folks ..just in case." But she used a boot, "And wear shoes." There ya go. Shoe's aren't just protection for your feets, they protection 'gainst secret nets. Yep. Some sage wisdom from the crouching Mandalorian woman. Chips and dip ..chips and dip.
"Damn traps..." Sajin says as he follows along into the cavern down the staggering and jiggering hallway. "Last time there was a trap, Siha and I ended up married." He still hasn't figured out to this day who spread that bit of misinformation (YAN) and why they would do such a thing. (BECAUSE ASSHOLE). Sajin is looking up, happy that Siha was able to spring the trap before it got anyone. "Woah... shhhhhh." He crouches hushing everyone and pointing towards the cavern ceiling, "He's just outside..." THe Dragon was stalking them.
"Remarkable..." Muri whispers under breath, fingers grazing the otherworldly walls as they go. There's a sort of childlike wonderment in her eyes overriding the academically righteous attitude held minutes before and a smile plays across her bruised face. Her farsighted eyes detect the disappointing but unsurprising absence of hide within that shrine and she cautiously sticks to the chamber's walls on appro-WOAH! Nope. Her half step slides right back before all weight's even been shifted forward. "Good toss," She eventually commends in whisper form when finding her voice and takes a long, wary gander upward at the shadows shifting beyond the semi-translucent ceiling. Yup. Muri'd have been herb-stuffed dragon bait, were she left to her own devices, apparently.
"So...Anyone fancy some chips, then?" Because she's already leaning toward the corridor they've just emerged from.
As the net darts up toward the ceiling to hang there in front of the inset like a giant piece of dragon bait, where the Explorers were thiiiis close to ending up, abruptly an old hag of a Codru-Ji comes slithering out of the shadows. "You vulgar bandits DESERVE to be eaten! Coming here to make off with the skin of a child just because an old woman told ye it were made of GOLD! FIE and SHAME, a POX on yer families and FAMINE on your people!" she cries in a high, temerarious shriek before throwing her hooded head back to keen a wail towards the ceiling.
"The Crone-Ji!" Corr gasps in wonderment, stating the obvious in case it wasn't clear and grasping at his canteen-flask, while Sajin's warning turns his eyes toward the roof just in time to see-
A pair of gigantic clawed feet smash through the translucent rock like it was glass, sending a cloud of dust, gravel, and chunks of stone falling into the chamber as another pair, this one of heads, peers through the hole accompanied by a guttural hiss. Horned, crested heads, each muttering bestial threats at the intruders before the creature, something not unlike a krayt dragon, comes dropping into the room, its great legs flexing under its own weight, the thud of impact kicking up a fog around it, mighty tail slapping the stone floor like a scaly log, armored scales clashing together as the beast turns to face them, lifting both heads high to ROARRRRR its dissatisfaction towards them, acrid breath washing over the group in a wave.
"Well, this part was true," the lead explorer breathes, casting a quick glance over his compatriots. "RUN!"
Blinking dully at Siha's apology (from way long ago before I had to step afk), Jehn tilts her head. "Wha-? Oh! No, it was a shitty landing, are you kidding me? I'm high as a kite." The pilot shrugs. Back to the present. "Maybe we can tame the dragon, yeah? Reason with it, put it to sleep." Is there a Star Wars equivalent for an adult that watches too many Disney movies? It's Jehn. But, at the end of the day, she loves her some chips and is happy to follow behind - she hasn't been the one to spring a trap yet, which is a miracle in itself.... What happens next, is not. She kriffing /runs/, even if she wants to try and get a better look at the two headed dragon, she knows that even her luck can be pushed.
"What, WHAT, WHAT?!" Exclaims the Hapan as the Cron-ji appears and chides them. "You mean there's no fancy Rug that grants me magical kingly powers? SCREW THIS." Of course he might have started to just walk away at that point but of course the 'dragon' busts through at that moment. "OH hell no! Not my jollies, not today!" And so he's running towards the hallway, not paying attention to exact direction and clips the side of the entrance which sends him spinning to the ground with a loud thud. He groans.
"I TOLD you!" Netep sounds not so unlike that dragon as she glowers aside at the gasping Corr. "A Child!" There. She was right. Shame on all the heads. Even if being right does not at all matter in these dire circumstances, because hindsight cannot save them now...but maybe a little humility can?
"We would never dare to steal so...so very precious and sacred a relic," Netep tries to plead their case over the sound of shattering stone and evaporating hope. Hard to say what's noisier - the voice of terror in her brain, the beastile snorts of dragon, or the sound of her own labored breath while she scampers around in search of any potential exit that isn't a winding, funneled death trap. "Only wanted to verify the legend! S'what we do...find answers. Was it..." Kriff, she's almost got her head stuck in that hole, there's no way the rest is going to follow. Sweating just a /little/ bit panicky like, Muri wriggles out and turns to face the Crone-Ji and vengeful dragon with resigned slump of shoulders. She's so dead. "Was it /your/ child? Is that why the other locals keep away? Did something happen? Something..." 'Seven suns, Muri, /shutup/' half her brain is shrieking to self 'and MOVE'. "Was it a kidnappin' gone wrong?"
"There IS no golden hide, you fools!" the weathered hag caws at Muri, crow-like, two wrinkled arms grasping her cloak around her while the other two level accusing fingers at the group past the dragon, the reptile between her and them. "You came here to make off with it, knowing what it was! And now ye shall be punished!" Is she crazy, or is this a valid point?
"You're crazy!" Corr decides, turning to make a break for it down the tunnel after he's advised the others to make like a sink and run, but the explorer stumbles almost immediately on a chunk of that rubble, going down pot over kettle, his exploration gear rattling and clanging, the new canteen-flask dropped from his fingers and skittering across the floor. "Hell no," the man growls, gamely scuttling after it rather than abandon ANOTHER canteen in a far-off locale.
Meanwhile, the dragon, massive, two-headed lizard that it is, is in the process of narrowing down its prey, though there seems like there might be some disagreement as to which of the large, slow, armored men to eat first, one head focusing on Sajin while the other stares down Corr. The two are just far enough apart that eating them both in the same instant is out of the question, producing instead this dithering uncertainty as the twin brains struggle to control their body.
She can't let her coworkers be eaten like this. "aatyn!" Jehn cries, spinning around with her best dragon gurgle. She the head currently debating a Sajin snack (Shame Snack = Saj Snack) and croons to it softly. Is she actually saying anything it would understand? Who knows. "toogeatheaghaa aafiehafas toov oghejata." She promises. "wydoote aewofevood." She points at the lady and grunts some more in a way that she hopes is convincing. Help us? Get free. Has it read Harry Potter? Has it been to Universal? Let's just... Un-canon this up. 'I don't think it's buying my sultry tones!' She mumbles to Netep and Siha, because she only trusts the ladies now. The men are dragon snacks, she tried, it doesn't look convinced. Sorry, bros. 'Lady, seriously, what do you gain by luring people out here and feeding them to your pet?'
Siha Archer had, after her discovery of the netting trap, gone off back down the hallway they had just come through to go, you know, take a pee. She had chosen one of those sharp corners because it was easy to back up into, and also gave her leverage to pop her boot back on while she was tinkling, "Pie?!" Siha will ask as she rounds back the corner, tugging up her pants around her hips and re-buttoning them just in time to see the screeching Codru-Ji woman do her scary thing, "HAHAHAHA. NO KRIFFIN' WAY." That is the Mandalorians response to the dragon that bursts through the ceiling, hands going to her stomach as she, you know, briefly, contemplates taking that huge beast on. She wants to. She honestly does. But ..but ..Oh girl, no. Siha's laughter dies off with a heavy sigh, the beast still doing it's thing with it's one brain and two heads, and Siha just sighs, "I wish Grom was here." So wistful. So she will nod to Jehn, helmeted head tilting towards the other woman in agreement, "I mean ../I'm/ buying those sultry tones, but .." Her shoulders lift and wiggle slightly, "We should probably run." Pat. That's Siha reaching out to pat an elbow on Jehn. A gentle sort of thing before the heavily armored Siha turns bumblebee and zips the hell away.
Sajin recovers after a few moments, looking between Jehn, Corr, and the head that wants to have Hapan for dinner. Slowly he rises as Siha comes back. "I know, right If Grom was here, we could totally take on this Bith Kisser." Sajin wanted to take on the chalenge to but not without the A-team here to take on that massive lizzard thing. They needd their own Lizzard thing to even the playing field and maybe a Yan-machine too. He nods to Jehn and looks to Corr and Muri, "Ya'll better beat some feet..." And he turns to follow Siha back down the hall way zipping away like a roadrunner, a dust trail behind him. Thankfully he dosn't slip on any of Siha's leavings.
"But we didn't!" Netep bleats. Somehow the need for validation outweighs the instinct to FLEE while she's got this chance to go traipsing over the floor-sprawled oafs and back to her own ship. Because this lady's got to know where they stand. Where SHE stands, at least. Is this one of Muri's many flaws? Most certainly.
"It was said this golden skin was crafted by your gods...any sentientologist knows such lore is oft...erm...farce. Inspirational a belief as any may be, it wasn't a claim we /really/ expected to find true. But if it /was/, wouldn't that have been quite the something to publish to your people? Think of the faith it'd have bolstered!" Or shaken, if it was in fact a pelt and thusly evidence of murder or tragic childhood mortality.
And then Jehn's speaking dragon. Or something weird that even this linguist can't identify as any known language. It warrants a dumbfounded stare - four whole blissful seconds of silence - that sadly cannot be made into eternity. Muri suddenly spasms into a sideways lunge and ducks under a menacing sweep of tail which spurs her into a sprint toward a different refuge of not-dragon space.
"She's the one who told me about it, Muri!" Corr yells, still scrambling around on the floor after his canteen. "Damn this thing," he grumbles harshly to himself, fully aware that he is tempting fate by lingering while the dragon, giant lizard, whatever you want to call it, is suffering decision paralysis. Will any of them help him? Would he want them to? The answer to both questions is likely 'no'.
That's when the roof starts to collapse, all the way this time. It turns out that dragons knocking holes in super-thin rock is not good for them. One sheet lands on the dragon, which serves to infuriate and distract it, while another falls to smash down on the crone. However, this is... really thin rock, and she's a tough old hag, and she continues to hurl vile epithets at the group throughout.
"Foolish child! I concocted the myth, I spun the web, I lured your greedy fingers hence! To wreak the fury of draconic justice on your souls!" CRAZY. The dragon stomps and swings its tail, smashing the scaly treetrunk into the crone and bringing an abrupt end to her raving, the creature barely registering that he's bludgeoned her into silence.
Jehn's 'dragon' was a series of grunts and motions that managed to convey some sort of bestial point... And solidify the depth of her drug problem. But Netep, on the other hand, is speaking sense. "Honestly, you just told a bunch of curios kriffers 'hey, there's this cool thing go check it out' and then when we came to check it out, said 'ha! How dare you! Caught you now!' Lady /you/ approached /us/, you cra- sith! Is she /dead/?!" The pilot is crouching behind rocks to avoid being BBQ'd or crushed by falling debris, and she scrambles up in a panic. Time to go!
"Yeah, probably." Jehn agrees with a sad nod to Siha, still conversational despite the collapse. "Where did you even go? Thought you had taken off and stolen the speeder. Need to drop cargo or something?" It's easy to forget that Jehn is literally just a glorified space trucker until she uses innuendo like that. "Whatever - I'm out!" She tries to run with the rest, but it's Jehn, so of course she stumbles, falls, gets back up, trips spectacularly, and falls again. The next time she is on her feet, the pilot actually manages to get somewhere, though with a slight limp.
"Sprinkling the skies with stars, woman!" Siha calls out behind her at Jehns question as to where she went, "SAJ. SAJ. WE GOTTA COME BACK HERE WITH GROM." Siha calls out behind her as she zips this way, dashes that, navigating the hallway like she's the one who built it, keeping just ahead enough of Sajin so she can hear him running behind her and snake a look back over her shoulder to ensure her safety buddy is never far behind. Is she laughing with delight? Insanity? Sure sounds like it, but with the roof crashing down it could be anything.
Sajin starts laughing with Siha as he runs, looking over to Jehni as she joins them almost stopping to help as she stumbles but thankfully she rights herself. "We'll come back. Yes we will! You hear that your old bat! We're guna totally come back and kill your stupid dragon!" Yeah, he showed them.
"But..." Gaaaaaaaaaaaaasp. Muri finally hears the disenchanting truth through the noise of her own soapboxing. Childlike wonderment is gone. Shattered, just like that bitch crone's sternum as a half ton of muscle finish what the glassy shale failed to do. But nothing, Muri. There is no argument anymore. "Shite," she whispers dejectedly and finally pursues the wiser avenue of self preservation. OUT.
A slight detour is made like the sad explorer's gonna help Waldin reclaim his canteen on the fly, but a piece of collapsed ceiling catches her heel on its way down. *Crack* goes the Muri. A plethora of obscenities spills from her lips while she struggles a frightening six seconds to free herself, stumbles up, down again, then finally finds some suitable gait to shuffle-gallop out like Jehn.
Latching onto his canteen triumphantly, Corr struggles to his feet and tears off down the hallway towards the entrance without a backward glance, seeing his crew ahead of him. "Run! Keep running!" he yells, still running for all he's worth.
Back in the chamber, the dragon finally realizes what's happened to the crone, and, turning without any real sense of guilt, turns to munch down on her instead. She is, after all, aged meat, which is almost always pricier.
With the beast distracted, escape is simple, and returning to the airspeeder a thankfully easy task. No one is eaten, everyone still gets paid- well, except the Crone-Ji, who definitely got eaten. Another job well done!
