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"Uther was supposed to be Arthur's father in the stories, I think," Saiph spoke distractedly, looking between the footprints and the statue. She didn't want to be in the eerie hall anymore. Almost without thinking, she stood and backed away from the body. Then, gripping her weapons, she strode off, following the footprints, her speed unconsciously altering until she was nearly passing Dude.

Saiph wasn't sure what lay beyond the archway, except for the knight's killer. At this point, she didn't care, wanting nothing more than to get out and perhaps leave the dark behind.

Her gaze had sharpened on Tony for a brief instant before he explained what he was doing, and his reasoning seemed to suffice for her, because she looked away without comment. If she had truly been upset by it, she would have very well told Tony as much. "I think," she said with a soft breath, "that we all really need to stick together," especially if there was a murderer lurking about. The more people around her, the less likely she'd get singled out, and the more likely they were to defend against an assailant.

The next person who seemed to deserve a glare from her was Abigail, and not because Nemesis could hear a word she said. It was enough to confirm her suspicions that the girl was talking to Dude in such a manner. The others in the group could probably make the conclusion that Dude and Abigail knew each other, but not that they were members of the Negaverse. Knowing who Dude was, and not all that willing to bring up that sort of drama right now, she knew who Abigail must be as well.

She could like Dude - Dude had aided her before, and she suspected that he would continue to do so. She trusted the Negaverser girl to aid Dude, but not Nemesis in kind. Nemesis could resolve herself to not give a rat's a** about Abigail. She wouldn't hate her, hell, she would work with the girl. Nemesis didn't have to really like her to get through this... well, whatever the ******** they were going through right now.

Curiously, she turned her head to the side, noting, ever-so briefly, the flicker of light. But, it was an easy thing to dismiss, and so she did. "Let's go," she insisted, and then made to catch up to Dude and Abigail, proceeding down the trail of footprints.

When the rest of their group seemed to 'take too long' (which was likely not the case), she called out insistently, "Come on, hurry up. I can hardly see where I'm going as it is." They needed light, because suddenly... it seemed to get darker and darker. She swore to god that she had lit the brazier and it should have been bright enough to illuminate this place...

'Dude' hadn't responded to 'Abigail' for the longest time. When he did, his voice was very quiet: "This is not a test," he said. "This is something I can't control. Follow my lead and you goddamn stay with me at all times, do you hear me?" He was kneeling down now to examine the footprints. When he stood again he looked at her directly in the eye, his grey eyes to hers, and he said: "If we're outed, I deal with it."

And then the braziers flickered.

"Come on."

Charonite's voice from the front was urgent now. Everything about the brazier room was suddenly tinged with the very real need to go, a malice that they hadn't experienced coming into it, and the dark hallway now seemed the only way they would get anywhere. Proceeding was the only move, and the man in bloodied white-and-purple seemed the type to herd everyone with his curt military-style orders:

"Everyone out. Nemesis, bring the torch and come to the head with me. Move it!"

Tony frowned. He didn't know what the girl meant when she said she had thought the knights had all died out. Did she mean from whatever this rebellion had been? He did, however, glance up when Dude asked how he, or did he mean they, knew about Uther and other Camelot-ish things. If they had more time to talk about things, he would explain his love of legend stories, and his large collection of the books, but for now he had other things to focus on.

Like the knight. Successfully removing the helmet without anything booby-trapped going off, he looked at the man's face in surprise. He was older, in more way than one, than Tony had imagined. He couldn't have been as freshly dead as they assumed, and his age was of interest as well. What was someone of these years doing in this armor? Tony wondered if he had been a long time guardian of this place, or if there was another explanation for this knight's being here.

He had the helmet under his arm, but he wasn't done with the mystery knight. He watched as Nemesis moved over to cover him completely, reaching to close the knight's eyes before he got up and moved out of the way. He took a moment, thoughtful and quiet, before he looked around at the gathered people, all trapped in this strange place with him.

They had to do something to get out of here, and survive where ever this Camelot was. Whatever it was.

He heard someone point out that it was getting darker, and Tony agreed, he moved to follow the others, assuming everyone would come along in their own time. And with the room apparently losing light, he wanted them to get out together.

"Yes, yes," he said, once he heard Sirona and Dude calling for everyone, "let's get going." He was worried about falling the footprints, made in blood, of a possible murderer, but he didn't think they had any choice: the person might have gone out the only exit. Tony made to follow the others and head out, letting Dude lead the pack while he followed from the back of the pack as it formed, though he didn't have an exact count of everyone in his head, as if the two men needed to keep the young population safe between them.

As Mister Darrow removed the fallen knight's helmet, Ian leaned a little to get a better look at his face, curiosity momentarily overruling his worry about what he might see. ... The man's withered face was hardly the worst thing he had seen all day, but it still unsettled him and he promptly looked back to Sailor Alcyone.

He considered her reply, glancing upwards for a moment before nodding slowly. "Sir Benedictus had a knight's title, but I don't know about anyone else," the red-haired boy told her. "We found a bunch of fallen soldiers on the stairs, but I don't know if they were knights."

The motion of the cloak caught his eye again as Nemesis spread it over the dead man, and he ventured to glance back. At least that half-decayed face would be hidden. Ian thought he saw the light of the brazier flicker, as well, but it was a flame, not a constant light like from a bulb, so he thought little of the timing of it. Alcyone's shiver was contagious, though, and he felt a prickling at the back of his neck as well that sent gooseflesh racing down his arms. As the initial thrill of fear at seeing the corpse wore off, though, Ian wondered why he looked so decayed if Dude said his blood would congeal in five minutes.

"Let's keep going," he half-suggested, half-agreed, peering at the cloak draped over the dead knight as he followed the others after the trail of footprints. Once he was past the body, he jogged a few steps to catch up to the others. Once he was with the rest of the pack, though, Ian asked aloud, "How long do you think he was dead?"

They ran into the dark hallway just as the brazier flickered low behind them, and just as Saiph cleared the archway they were slammed into darkness. All darkness but the light of their own torches -- and clustered together around the bloody footprints as they were, the light of their torches together did a fair amount to illuminate the hallway. It was no gargantuan chamber like the one before, but rather a stone hallway like one that might be found in a cathedral, ceilinged not far above the Cavalier's head in a gothic arch.

On either wall -- the hallway wasn't too wide, about wide enough to hold three of them abreast -- were a number of reliefs, depicting what seemed to be various stylized medieval scenes. It was hard to puzzle out any patterns or what was being illustrated without examining them further. Beneath them were engraved -- periodically along the hall, and not seemingly connected to the reliefs -- more ornate illuminated inscriptions.

On the floor was the trail of bloody footprints, which were spaced such that the man had clearly been walking, not running, and wearing unarmored boots.

Also on the floor in front of them was another inscription carved into the stone:



Did they look at the reliefs, examine the inscriptions, or, perchance, look behind them?

"...Not even a please," she remarked as she moved to the front of the group to walk alongside Dude. Her voice had been just loud enough for the man to hear her. But, obviously, he hadn't needed a 'please' to get Nemesis to do what he wanted her to do. She held the torch slightly off to her side, though still couldn't see all that far ahead of her until the rest of their group caught up. Like this, she could see well enough... at least enough to prevent her from slipping on another pool of blood.

She was also not even remotely comfortable with the fact that they were following bloody footprints. It seemed like something that would lead to death in today's horror movies. Nemesis subconsciously took just a small step closer to Dude at the thought. He looked fully capable of fending off some mad-murderer, while Nemesis, without her powers felt completely useless.

They had made it into a small hallway, and while Nemesis considered it progress, she still did not think it was a good sign that there were bloody footprints on the floor. Did no one else consider this a bad sign? Because, she sure as hell did.

"And, again, not even a please..." she grumped as Charonite took the torch from her, but she allowed it to happen anyways. Still, why couldn't he have taken the church from someone else? "You're welcome, though," she continued with a mockingly sweet smile. With a roll of her eyes, she then turned to the reliefs and began to examine them. Obviously Nemesis was not wracked by the constant paranoia that Dude suffered from. Nemesis was beginning to think the man needed to see a psychologist. Well, he was a leading member of the Negaverse, he should see one anyways.

"This is bullshit. We should keep going." Nemesis suddenly announced, because she didn't think anything here was going to help them.

Zanazziite was a stickler for orders and as such she stayed right close to Charonite. As they walked on her violet eyes took in their surroundings from behind her glasses. This hall wasn't as big as the last one and for that she was glad. The enormity of the statue room had made her feel very small, and being 5'3 she didn't need to feel any smaller. She noticed the reliefs, and another inscription on the floor. What was with this place and things carved into the floor? It was weird. She was tempted to go and check out the reliefs, but she stayed with Charonite. She wasn't one to break orders.

When Charonite slowed to let everyone pass Zan did the same, staying a couple steps ahead of him. When she didn't hear the sound of his footsteps after a moment she turned and looked back at him. Noticing where he was looking she looked past him and to the direction they had came from. Was someone following them? She hoped not, that would be creepy.