Tales of Jahe Chapter 2: The Bigger the Area, the Stranger its Inhabitants
 

Although many thought of the Lupos as keepers of the forest, the Lupos knew the forest would rather work on its own.
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"Ohh...my head..." Job moaned as he sat up. He saw nothing except the blaring dark, and felt nothing except for his head and arm, which seemed to be in a competition to see who could be the largest pain. Looking up and seeing no light, he tried feeling for the others. "If anybody is still concious, just say something...and maybe get some light in here, either or."

"Something? Try 'get-your-hand-OFF-my-face!'" Naerzul snapped from the darkness, "I think Silvergem has her tail wrapped around me...unless someone else in this little group has scales, and a tail." he said in a softer voice. Truthfully, he found the naga girl rather pretty...

Firecall grunted as he stood. He was ready for battle, but this sudden change in the earth obviously diverted that. He stood, hearing the call of the soldier and the muttering of the necromancer, and muttered a few arcane phrases while running his fingers around several knots in the cloak. When his hands returned to the macestaff, the business part of his weapon suddenly lit with illuminating fire.

"AH!" Drug screamed as he fell down the sinkhole.

"AH!" He screamed yet again, this time after landing. Darting away from where he landed, Drug dived behind what he assumed was a rock. Afraid that the fall might cause some of his inventions to hit each other, making a spark and igniting his gun powder, Drug did his natural reaction of running and hiding.

"Well, at least we can see each other now...sorry bout that...hmm." Job said. He surveyed what the light allowed them to see, but kept being drawn to look up. "We fell right? I mean, that implies there had to be a hole, which would let some kind of light through. But..."

But there was no natural light, nor a hole, just a cave. Job felt something crawling on his arm and saw a spider. He smacked it, then regretted since he hit his bad arm, wiping the bug away. "Lets go...this way. It might lead us to the top."

Naerzul blinked in the sudden light, shielding his eyes, V'hassa ((spelling might be wrong)) seemed to still be unconscious, so he groped around until he found the twisted-off skull of one of his zombies. Muttering a spell over it, the flesh evaporated, and the bones began to glow with a ghostly, pale green flame.

He used the light to check the unconscious party member for injuries, pushing aside his thoughts of a few seconds ago, keeping his mind firmly focused on making sure she hadn't been injured, "You...the one who got us out, can you heal?" he asked Job without looking up, checking for broken bones as he spoke.

Splitting Howl growled, and looked at Job. "Why would we go back up, considering our opponents could be waiting for us? And for that matter....the hole that could slid us down here could be someone's idea of a trap. I've seen you humes dig tiger pits in the ground...how do we know they weren't trying to catch something bigger?"

Consciousness snapped Silvergem back into eerie green light, her violet eyes fluttering open wide. Somebody was groping her! Her hand snaked up, catching the offensive hand and a coil of her tail thrashed, sending the intruder to the ground grunting in pain. Her own magelight flared into life, casting it's silver-blue light outwards, to clash with the light of the other 'torches'.
Her hand still on the intruder's arm, Silvergem searched for her ivory dagger. She sighed inwardly with relief when she found it dangling safely on her neck. That's when her magelight cast its light onto the sprawled necromancer. Surprise made her release him.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, but suspicion crept into her voice. Was he going to take advantage of me when I was unconscious?

"He he...eer, yeah, I'll help you get out of here, but I think you're human form would be better for everyone, unless you don't mind your tail scraping along every rock we pass in this rocky cave..." Job said, then turned to the Lupos. "If anything they'll think we're dead, and we could always hope this thing ends up somewhere else. Am I the only one hearing something skittering?" Job said, rubbing his ears. The skittering stopped and he chocked it up to the fall. "Lets...lets just stick together for now."

Firecall's senses, still at their peak as the adrenadline that fueled his combat had not yet receded, also picked up the skittering. However, he did not think it to be from the fall, seeing as they had already fell and that the skittering took on too regular a pattern for it to be the chaotic falling of pebbles. He looked around, trying to find something that would make that noise and still be heard.