𓍯𓂃𓏧⏾ how to cuɾɾγ fɑvoɾ
☆ mission board pearlescent ☆ + 1 any skill ☆ seadall/griss
As is beginning to feel like a fated conclusion, Seadall can see that he and Griss are once more thinking in completely different directions. When he takes one bottle, Seadall gasps, juggling the now unbalanced weight of breakable objects while his companion delves further into the wine cellar when Seadall had merely wanted to make an escape.
Back to where they’d come. No, it wasn’t a solution, but the air here was oppressive. Not warm, but stale and unmoving and Seadall much preferred open air to underground any day. “Griss…” His voice is a sigh swallowed by the dozens of shelved stocked on either side, feet moving forward as if they’re chained by the ankles.
And they are, aren’t they? This task has fallen to the two of them…and Seadall has never left someone behind willingly. He won’t begin now, even if that companion was once an enemy.
Especially when their route deviates from expectation in such a way that makes the hair on his neck stand on end. His dark eyes are sharp, lips twisted into a frown that runs in opposition to the smile Griss has adopted. “I’m afraid we’ve long since leapt from the pages of the book we were meant to read from.” Cautious, he finally kneels to set down the wine bottles he’d carried along. “That means we go down, doesn’t it? Divines…I’d have liked this to be more…” He trails off, not knowing exactly how to name what he’d wanted in the first place.
“We’ll go down, then.” Rising, Seadall waves a hand, pointing to the soft places in the dirt where the most footfalls seem to be leading. “It looks like more come in this way than leave. It feels…well, there’s hardly ever anything good that comes from these kind of hideaways. Be on your guard.”
Turning his back to Griss still feels wrong, but he does so regardless, taking the lead as far as Griss’ light will lead him. Really, what could they be hiding down here? “Ah.” He breathes, startled when the wide room narrows once more, urging Griss to move forward without saying the words aloud. At the end of what he’d expect the room to be, there’s…
“It looks almost like this was dug out by hand.” The steps down into the darkness are uneven, precarious in a way that makes Seadall brace each hand on the dirt walls at his side, nose curling at the odd stench of it. “I wonder why…”
They’re going too far down - a tremor of fear building in his core. He only notices a small alcove because his left hand suddenly meets air - and the hallway continues, but Seadall detours, holding still so that Griss’ magic can light the room. Even with such low visibility, he can see a few scattered books and what looks like half a dozen pages that crunch under his feet.
On they go into the dark, one less bothered by it than the other. Griss goes along with Seadall's decision to venture deeper into the unfinished dirt room without protest, ambling a few feet behind, taking his time admiring the plain earthen walls as if they might been the ornate halls of the villas sitting above them. He moves so unhurriedly that Seadall even escapes the sphere of light his flame produces and is forced to wait for him to catch up.
"Probably expanding it," he answers, voice echoing off the damp earth. "You saw how much wine they had back there."
He waves his hand dismissively - the one without the flame, miraculously enough - when he finally catches up with Seadall, who's stopped to check out a room branching from the main hallway. The light spills over a much smaller space than what they'd just left behind, revealing shelves stuffed full of musty books and sealed boxes filling each wall and most of the space inbetween. Griss stops in the narrow entrance nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with his unwitting companion.
"Looks like we've stumbled on someone's forgotten old storage." A smirk snakes back across his lips, but the books don't interest him at all. Maybe if he were Zephia, he'd snoop around for blackmail or something, but that's not what he's here for, and he doesn't really know all that much about what they should be looking for anyway. Something about an ancient artifact? That could be anything.
But Seadall probably has other ideas, he thinks, so he bends down to scoop one of the books off the floor. By the creases in its spine, it'd been laying splayed open on the ground like that for months, which meant it probably wasn't important. Griss pages through it on the ground just to be sure - it all looked like scribbles from someone's diary, with smudged dates and yellowed edges - before lifting it to hold over his flame as if to light it so that Seadall could have his own torch, too.
"No one's gonna miss any of this junk."
