[Flashback, Voco] I've seen things...

[Tarot]

"That poo-head wasn't here," the boy snarled, releasing his pent-up anger and frustration in the worst insult he could come up with. "He roped us in, you see. Taught us a little magic, set up the lab here, said he was friends with the Seven Robes, and we could make money off that, maybe even let us join them later. He wanted us to repay our debt by summoning things he could sell to rich people somewhere in Sylira."

He inched his way out of the cabinet and stood gingerly in the corridor, nearly trembling with fear. The announcement that Voco had been underestimated brought a new wave of uncertainty washing over him. He was clearly at a point where he could be talked into fearing his own shadow... assuming it even took that much. If anything, though, it made the boy want to stay close to Voco. If he had survived, then he could make others near him survive, right?

Well, it had not worked with his friends, but selective memory was the key.

"I-I'm strong too," he stuttered, "you may have heard of me. I'm Drax Beasley from Zeltiva. Everyone says I'm a young promise of magic!" Well, the only one who'd ever said so was Irlyn, and Drax was starting to suspect that maybe, just maybe, he'd been duped.

"I think Larya and Shivek are dead. Hardly knew them anyways." It was all very sad, of course, but worse things could happen. Like something happening to Drax. "Dunno about Piotor and Irene. They were probably around the place."

"To think it'd hide inside the cow to escape notice..." his voice trembled at the memory as he stepped right behind Voco.

[Voco]

"I believe... Piotor and Irene may still live." Voco walked down the hall-way, his mind churning, processing the flow of information and trying to make sense of everything he was learning. "There were footsteps leaving the room."

"Drax. The circle, do you remember where it went, what it summoned? This is very important. More than finding Irlyn. It may decide if we live or... die." The Pycon's transient mind attempted to recall any details of before he woke up. But, those events were lost, in a cloudy red-tinted fog within his mental landscape.

He gave up for the moment on trying to remember, and instead returned to learning. The child could prove a wealth of possible knowledge. "What was your role? What did you do? Your purpose here?" The Pycon ventured further down the hall, assuming Drax would manage to keep up with his much shorter stride.

[Tarot]

"They better be," Drax seemed to lit up with a spark of personality, "that Piotor owes me ten Mizas! I'm gonna need them now, too. This moneymaking scheme was such a scam. We were supposed to get a 20% cut off anything we snatched." The boy's mind had a tendency to revolve around Drax's problems.

As soon as Voco mentioned the summoning circle, what little bravado the thought of money had put into him seemed to be quickly extinguished. "The c-circle, yes. Like I said, Irlyn made it, we were only told to operate it and make minor changes. Entering coordinates and such like. We didn't really know where we snatched them from... all he gave us was a list of numbers. That's how we snatched you too... last night. But you were unconscious when the portal kicked you out. Can't even recall if you woke up later. We were too busy going through the list. You didn't seem valuable."

One thing that was quickly becoming clear was that the kids had been exposed to huge risks and did not even realize it. It was as if they had been set up to fail, or at least with a very tangible chance of messing up.

"We snatched a few scary things... some looked like beasts, one was kind of a carnivorous plant... but we pushed them all back into the gateway. But that thing... it was inside the little cow. We had been summoning from the same point on that world for several days. Too long... too freaking long. Made us predictable. We released the cow, it came out..."

Drax shivered and stopped for a moment. "Cuts, cuts everywhere. Sweet gods... I was too busy running... but I think it shapeshifted too. I want to go home," he wimpered again, on the verge of new tears.

[Voco]

Voco took it all in stride as they walked down the corridor, his little legs almost at a jog, but little more then a slow walk for the boy following him. The only thing that gave him any reason to possibly stop, though he did not, had been the fact that he was summoned. That meant he did not come from Mizahar, and that was something truly significant. It was almost enough to make him forget the rest of the boy's words.

But as Drax stopped and whimpered, Voco turned about and looked up at the boy. "Where is your home, Drax? Nearby? A city, or is it in these corridors? Perhaps you can lead me there. Maybe we can find Piotor after, and get your money." Voco did not need the boy to turn into a blubbering mess. While he was probably more likely to survive in the event that whatever killed Larya and Shivek came back, he still needed a guide. One that could first and foremost get him out of this corridor. There was certainly no guarantee that he would be able to squeeze underneath or around the next obstacle in his way.

The Pycon turned around, and started walking once more, hoping Drax would follow. "You mentioned a list of coordinates. Do you have it, or know where it is? Do you remember what coordinate you pulled myself, or the little cow from?" More information. He had to keep the child talking for as long as he could. Any knowledge could prove vital.

[Tarot]

"My family lives in Zeltiva," Drax said, his voice lower now, "but we are poor, you see. Our home, you'd be hard pressed to call it a house. It's the same for the others, too. We really thought Irlyn was giving us our only... chance in life, or something."

He shrugged. "This is just a shelter, pal. Can't really trust Irlyn's words anymore, but he said it was built thirty years before the Valterrian. It's not been used in a long time, so we converted it into our lab."

Crossing several other minor corridors, they eventually came across a metal door. This looked much sturdier than the one Voco had slipped under a few minutes prior - indeed, it looked almost airtight, with no obvious gaps for the Pycon to squeeze through. "The exit," Drax pointed at the door.

"The scroll with all those numbers? It's probably with Irene. Only she has any idea where we snatched things from. She's the oldest and Irlyn's favorite, if you get what I mean." Truly, it was a harsh world Voco had awakened into. Kids were willing to go to any length and throw their lives away in the pursuit of power and wealth.

Drax reached out for the handle and pulled. Nothing happened. He pulled harder, but the door did not move. "I-it can't be..." His voice slipped back into a semi-panicked state as his attempts at getting out proved fruitless. "Why won't you open?" He clenched his fist and beat it against the metal surface, obviously with no result. Frustrated, Drax looked up... and gasped.

And fell to his knees, trembling.

There were six vertical scratch marks aligned above the door, except far too clean cut and parallel to each other to have been left by a claw or even a sword. The first two had been crossed out with a second, smaller horizontal mark, whereas the other four had no further markings.

[Voco]

"It is pre-Valterrian, if the emblem I saw further back was not false." Voco appraised the door and frowned within his mind. No easy way for him to get out. He hated doors like that. But it had been in his mind, if this place were a shelter, security would be very important. Strong doors and the like.

He frowned even further when the boy was unable to open the door. "I assume it should have opened?" Then Drax fell to the ground after looking up at the markings above the door. "Drax? Be calm. What do those markings mean? Did they change?" The Pycon moved his gaze from the boy to the markings and pondered them for a moment.

Six vertical lines. The first two with a crossed mark each. Symbology? Another Glyph? No, not a Glyph, it is not drawn. Hmmm, peculiar. But it has apparently changed, according to Drax's reaction. But it is too clean to be something... hasty.

"Did any of the others ever use any sort of magic to open the door, Drax? Perhaps there is a trigger near-by, hidden?" Voco hated feeling... stupid. Having to rely upon Drax due to no familiarity with what was happening around him. And the boy hasnt answered all of my questions. What did you mean by a little cow? And I was summoned? From where? And what was it that came out of the little cow? Voco grunted within his head and then started searching the ground near the door. Perhaps there was something, anything, to find.

[Tarot]

Drax seemed horrified by the double discovery of the closed door and the markings that had been carved above it. Not only that, he was shocked that Voco could maintain his composure in spite of all that. In his altered state of mind, that even seemed suspicious to the boy. "Look, I don't know who you are, but how can you act like it's freakin' nothing?" Right, so he was made of clay. Well, Drax wasn't. If Drax got cut, then that was Serious Business.

He backed away from the door. "It should be open. It shouldn't have those marks. They weren't there last time I checked." His breathing was rough and ragged, but he somehow forced himself to calm down. Deep down, he knew that freaking out would only lower his chances of surviving these, and Dira knew they were slim enough as it was.

"Okay," he massaged his temples, "it's a shelter, of course it can be locked from the inside. I think Irlyn mentioned a control room somewhere in the complex, but told us not to mess around with it, or we'd risk getting stuck in here. There has to be some device, a trigger, something. But... if it was a pre-Valterrian shelter, then it won't be where just anyone can push it." In the event of having to spend years locked away in an underground bunker, someone was guaranteed to go insane and try to get out no matter what the external world may be like. Opening the door must have been a power in the hands of a select few, possibly a single leader. Certainly not in the immediate vicinities of Voco's location. There were only more footprints coming in, stamped in clay (and more of it) like the rest.

The realization struck the Zeltivan boy. "It's toying with us... it has spared us on purpose." He pointed a trembling hand at the marks. "That gods-damned thing even knows how many of us were in here."