"Perhaps discussion is something we no longer have leisure for," he pointed out.

---

  

---

— set by the long-lost bex —

Lou didn't like the sound of that at all, and it put them in a difficult position. They didn't have the weaponry to stand and fight against whatever was making that rumbling, if it was hostile. Starting off down a path and then potentially having the rumbling thing blocking their retreat — or worse, coming up behind them and getting them stuck between the unknown ahead and the unknown behind — was hardly ideal. If they stayed, though, there was a chance that they might be forced to retreat, which would push them into the down path, and that was hardly ideal, either.

This place was indefensible, and there was no guarantee that anything better would be coming along, but Lou had to quickly weigh out the lesser of two evils. "Let's go, then," he said, and started quickly towards the center path before anyone could suggest differently.

  

"It seems we have no choice now," Connie muttered, attention firmly on the ominous rumble coming from above. She wasn't sure why but something was still compelling her to go down, if only because it was further away than whatever was coming for them from above, and despite Mr Jameshill having already begun to make tracks down the marginally less unnerving tunnel Connie glanced over her shoulder at the right-hand tunnel even as she followed him. There was something down there, she was sure of it; hopefully they would get a chance to come back...hopefully they could. "Does that noise sound louder to anybody else?"

  

---

MJ made me beautiful

She had been glad, really, that the group of them were inclined to be cautious before making decisions of any kind - as with the sphinx, so here in the casino - but the rumbling sound from the uppermost path threw caution rather to the wind.

"It does," Carmelina piped up as they started off down the middle passage, although she wasn't sure if any part of that was just the blood thrumming ever louder in her ears and not whatever it was coming down the other path. It almost sounded like an avalanche, a rockfall; they could only hope it was not a booby-trap, ready to seal away the entrance. At that thought, perhaps for the first time all day, she might admit there was something of a tremor in her tone. "Do let's hurry."

---

  

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Constance Sykes Lupus Jameshill Carmelina Cramming Eugene Scamander Hamish Darrow

Unfortunately for Mr. Wood, he does not move fast enough, and is struck by the boulder, which sends him rocketing out the front door. (The door then vanishes.) The boulder collides with a wall and shatters into pieces. Mr. Wood will find himself outside - and needing the infirmary - on July 9th, which is odd, as it should be sometime in the early hours of the 4th...

The middle path continues flatly. Torches periodically hang on the wall, illuminating things.

The runes on the walls will begin to spell out something different* and the crew eventually reaches a gaping hole in the limestone floor. Across it is a narrow, rickety wooden bridge. At the bottom is a pool of water, if they squint... and possibly some crocodiles.

---

The next 'prompt' post will be after either 48 hours have passed from the time of posting (3:30 AM EST on July 27th) or after every member of the party has posted one time if this occurs before that deadline. Please remember that you must post within 72 hours to continue participating. :)
If you did not post in the previous round, you have until 9:30 AM EST on July 26th.
*contacting u MJ

The following 1 user Likes The Suggestionizer's post:1 user Likes The Suggestionizer's post
   Elsie Kirke

---

Are your characters stuck in the smalltalk loop?
Does your imagination feel like it just can't perform as it used to?
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Unable to get that post up?
Is your relationship suffering because of your inability to satisfy your partner?
SUFFER NO MORE!
With a little intervention from The Suggestionizer your RP life could be back on track in no time!

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Hamish was growing progressively less thrilled, and Oona seemed to agree with him.

"I daresay I never encountered this at the casino before," the wizard remarked dryly. "Do we dare cross?"

---

  

---

— set by the long-lost bex —

The runes along the wall were a mystery to Connie, other than the odd shape she recognised from the expert tome of the woman who was walking close-by to her, but she doubted they were words of encouragement. Thus far the Sphinx back at the church had somehow been the most reassuring thing they had encountered: at least she had been able to tell them something and had seemed more peculiar with a soupçon of danger. This was unlike anything she had seen outside of a museum and coupled with the Sphinx's riddles did begin to lay a very particular pattern.

"I suppose we must," she peered over the edge. "And consider ourselves grateful it isn't the Red Sea."

  

---

MJ made me beautiful

Well he hadn't been prepared for that upon rejoining his group! Eugene watched in fascinated horror as Wood was flung from the casino itself and out the now vanished door.

With a gulp, he followed his team as they pressed on. The tunnel seemed rather flat and deceptively normal, until they came to the bridge of terror. "One at a time I think. I'll go first." He was young, still pretty quick and was in good shape, he could totally handle this!

  

---

"This is her tomb. She was a witch," Carmelina recited, running her hands over the symbols on the walls as they walked, and wishing she could stand there longer to decipher it all, to take down drawings of them - she was itching to - and instead she just traced over them with her hands in the hopes the act would commit them to memory.

She did find herself dawdling as the others had already reached the bridge up ahead, and whatever lurked in the depths beneath. "In the interest of full disclosure," she called over, supposing she should at least relate some of the acutely distressing messages on the wall, "she was known for mastery of curses, those most grievous and unspeakable and vile. In her life, and afterwards. 'I shall cast the fear of myself into him who...'" Well, they all knew. The problem was, the curses had evidently been set off a month ago with the fog. So what choice did they have but to continue on?

(Glancing at the bridge, Carmelina began wracking her brains for something she might use as a rope. Just in case.)

---

The following 2 users Like Carmelina Cramming's post:2 users Like Carmelina Cramming's post
   Cassius Lestrange, Morwenna Skeeter

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Taking a step back from the edge Connie was almost embarrassingly willing to let the young man go first: if the bridge crumbled beneath him then he was the best suited of them to get back to safety. And it left her able to listen to Miss Cramming a little more intently.

"I don't suppose they have any clues about how to counter her curses?"

  

---

MJ made me beautiful

The boulder certainly hadn't been what Lou was expecting to be making that noise, but then, he wasn't sure what he had been expecting. Since he had been leading the way down the path, he only saw it when he looked back at the last moment, and wasn't inclined to waste his energy waiting around to see whether another would follow. He had entirely missed the fate of the youngest remaining member of their little group, and did not notice until they reached the bridge several moments later and the procession became something of a circle that they were missing a member at all. He felt a little abashed at not having realized the man was gone — but thinking back, he couldn't recall whether he had been with them when they had entered the Casino at all (having been rather distracted at the time by the decidedly un-Casino interior that greeted them). Since no one else had remarked on his disappearance, it seemed foolish to try and do so now, so instead he turned his attention to the runes that the darker woman was running her hands over.

"They might've imagined death would stop her," he pointed out. "As it generally tends to do. But we're still missing a piece of the puzzle — or maybe half a dozen pieces. Whoever she was, she wasn't buried in Irvingly." The town had existed for years, so it seemed unlikely that any groundbreaking related to its construction might have disturbed something that was inherent to the area. This had certainly never been in, near, or under the Casino before — it was too expansive already for it to have existed secretly for years, and they hadn't even explored much of it yet.

"So— what happened to start this whole thing?" he asked the group in general (or maybe just the woman with the runes; she seemed to be the only one with any sense of what was going on in this place). That seemed, to him, to be the one question that could sum up everything else they were still missing. Who was she, and how had she gotten here, and where had she come from? Who had initially disturbed the tomb, and was that in fact what had lead to the start of the fog, or was this an unexpected wild goose chase?

  

Constance Sykes Lupus Jameshill Carmelina Cramming Eugene Scamander Hamish Darrow

Mr. Scamander makes it across. On the other side, he'll see a large stone door.

---

The next 'prompt' post will be after either 48 hours have passed from the time of posting (11:00 PM EST on July 28th) or after every member of the party has posted one time if this occurs before that deadline. Please remember that you must post within 72 hours to continue participating. :)

The following 1 user Likes The Suggestionizer's post:1 user Likes The Suggestionizer's post
   Eugene Scamander

---

Are your characters stuck in the smalltalk loop?
Does your imagination feel like it just can't perform as it used to?
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With a little intervention from The Suggestionizer your RP life could be back on track in no time!

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If Eugene was a less impulsive creature he may have stopped to listen to Miss Cramming as she read the runes aloud. As it was, however, he was pretty distracted trying not to fall through the rickety bridge, and so didn't hear much, if any, of what forewarned in the runes.

When his feet found solid ground again, Eugene turned in triumph to the rest of the group. "Oy, there's a door over here!' He called, looking back at the group with a bit of a goofy grin on his face. At least they knew the bridge wasn't too rotted to hold weight.

---

  

---

"You're quite right," Carmelina agreed, to the man: the witch most certainly hadn't been buried in Irvingly, and this tomb was quite clearly not supposed to be lurking in the walls of the Irvingly Casino. "All this ought to be in Egypt," she echoed, still peering at the runes, and rapidly trying to pick out other clues in amongst the general rhetoric of doom. "I've never seen anything else like it somewhere like here. So that - " and whatever answered this had to tie into what had started all this and Miss Sykes' question of how to counter the curses that had been unleashed, as was the way, "- means there must exist either someone or something - physical - here, something bound to the witch's spirit which has brought her and her curses here."

She looked at the walls again, wishing her brain might decipher the runes faster so that she could be sure she hadn't missed anything obvious about what that was. If only Walter were here - he would have been a help. She had never done this sort of thing entirely without him.

Young Mr. Scamander's shout snapped her out of her faraway focus on the mystery and back to a more manifest clue. "Well," she said, clearing her throat and stepping towards the dubious bridge obligingly, "perhaps we'll find it through that door." She screwed up her face in a nervous sort of grin, glancing briefly at Miss Sykes, and then steeled herself to cross. Better not look down.

---

  

---

With an audible sigh and a silent prayer to whatever gods might listen, Hamish moved to steady the bridge behind Miss Cramming, not wishing to add his own weight until hers was removed.

---

  

---

— set by the long-lost bex —

In the interest of speed I'm gonna pilotfish you across the bridge. If you really want to fall give me a shout ;)
Constance Sykes Lupus Jameshill Carmelina Cramming Eugene Scamander Hamish Darrow

Once they're all across, the door just swings open. The room has clearly been ransacked - things are smashed up, and there's scuff marks from boots - except on the floor, in the middle, lies a black gemstone.

---

The next 'prompt' post will be after either 48 hours have passed from the time of posting (10:15 AM EST on July 31) or after every member of the party has posted one time if this occurs before that deadline. Please remember that you must post within 72 hours to continue participating. :)
If you didn't post in the previous round you have until 11:00 PM EST tonight.

  

---

Are your characters stuck in the smalltalk loop?
Does your imagination feel like it just can't perform as it used to?
Mid-thread crisis getting you down?
Unable to get that post up?
Is your relationship suffering because of your inability to satisfy your partner?
SUFFER NO MORE!
With a little intervention from The Suggestionizer your RP life could be back on track in no time!

--> Click here for more details <--

Known side-effects include: chronic ridiculousness, immense satisfaction, itching, uncontrollable laughter, burning, deep regret, despair, shock, horror, incidental dismemberment, joy, and death. Use at your own risk!