The drop wasn't too deep, but after both Sailor Senshi had landed in the dark cave underneath the ruin and looked up, they saw that the hole was too far up above their heads, so a normal human being shouldn't be able to reach it without the right tools.
Lucky thing they could always use their Senshi powers to boost their jumps and reach the hole easily.
Mars summoned a tiny flame that was hovering over the palm of her hand, and they looked around. The room wasn't very big, and there was only one exit: A small doorway directly in front of them. They could hear voices in the distance.
"Looks like we'll still be able to catch up with them," Rei said. "Let's hurry!"
"You think this is a good idea?" Sailor Moon whined in a small voice. "It's creepy down here..."
"Stop whining and get moving," Mars snapped in an irritated tone of voice. "Really, sometimes I wonder if all those battles we had in the past actually had some impact on you... you still behave like a five-year-old at times. Now hurry! I'm really curious where this leads."
"Really?" Usagi muttered. "Well, not me..."
They walked through the doorway and found themselves in a narrow corridor with a very low ceiling. A little bit lower, and they would hit their heads when standing upright. Mars went ahead with her light, and Moon followed her meekly.
The walls were covered with strange-looking engravings, but they had no time to look at them more closely. They just followed the voices in front of them.
Suddenly, they were standing at a crossway. "Now where did they go?" Mars muttered and looked from one corridor to the other.
Moon looked right, where she believed to see a dim flicker of light. She also thought she would hear the voices coming from there. "I think they're over there!" she shouted. Quickly, the two Senshi followed the right path.
But very soon after that, the voices were dying down, and the flicker of light vanished.
"We'll never catch up with them like this..." Rei muttered. "Hopefully, there aren't too many of those corridors down here..."
A few minutes later, they reached yet another junction.
"Which way?" Usagi asked. Rei thought about it for a while, then she gestured right again. "That way! If we always go in one direction, we'll surely find the right way."
Usagi wasn't so sure about that, but she followed her teammate all the same.
While they were walking, Rei held her flame close to the walls. "Would you look at those engravings?" she muttered. "I wonder how old those corridors are..."
Usagi just wanted to reply something, when they entered a circular cave with no less than six various exits.
"Oh, now what?" Usagi whined.
Rei came to a stop and frowned. "This is a downright labyrinth..." she murmured. "We should have brought a compass or something like that..."
She looked at the various doorways that were leading out of the room. Every single one looked the same. "Getting out of here won't be easy," she sighed.
Usagi sat down on the ground. "Whatever, I need a break... we've been walking for hours now..."
"Don't be silly, it has just been 30 minutes, more or less."
"Still..." the moon princess griped. "I'm tired and hungry. Let's rest for a while... please?"
Rei groaned. "For all I care... Fine, we seem to have lost them anyway." She sat down next to Usagi and let her flame hover next to her. She smirked. "I learned to do that trick last week, you know?"
Usagi wondered if she or the other Senshi would be able to do similar things with their powers, but she was too hungry to think about it.
She reached for her pocket, but realized that her Senshi fuku didn't have any pockets. "Now where did that bag of jelly beans go that I brought with me?" she wondered.
She searched through her subspace pocket from which she always pulled her Moon Rod and other Senshi tools, and smiled when she was able to pull out her jelly beans.
"Want one?" she asked and offered the bag to her friend after opening it.
Rei shook her head. "No, thanks. I'm still thinking about a way how we'll get out of here without getting lost..."
Usagi shrugged, then took a green jelly bean and put in in her mouth.
Rei was stumped. If all corridors looked the same, how would they even realize that they wouldn't walk through the same ones again and again? What they needed was something to mark the paths they came from...
Her gaze fell upon the colorful jelly beans within Usagi's grasp, and suddenly she got an idea.
She quickly snatched the bag out of her friend's hands and jumped to her feet. "Hey!" Usagi shouted. "Don't hog them all for yourself!"
"Usagi, that's it! I finally know how we can avoid getting lost," the Senshi of Mars shouted in excitement.
"Really?" Sailor Moon asked. "Um, how?"
"With your jelly beans! Here, look!" Rei took one of the sweets out of the bag and placed them next to one of the six doorways. "See? We'll just take this way, and if we ever come here into this room again, we'll know that we've been here already."
Usagi was amazed. "Rei, you sometimes can be ingenious, you know that? Even Ami wouldn't have come up with a great plan like that."
Rei smiled proudly. "Right! Now, let's get out of here!"
While they were running down the corridor, Usagi suddenly smirked. "You know, we wouldn't be able to get out of here if I hadn't brought the jelly beans."
They ran through the darkness, heading into various directions once they reached other junctions. Every time they did that, Rei placed one of the colorful jelly beans down at the floor. Sometimes, they reached a dead end and had to go back the way they came, and sometimes they reached junctions they had passed previously. In such a case, they would take a way where Rei didn't drop a jelly bean before and continue on their way.
After about half an hour, they still couldn't find an exit. "I don't believe it," Rei grumbled. "How big is this labyrinth?"
"Rei, look!" Usagi gestured ahead. The corridor they were following suddenly ended at a doorway that was bigger than the ones they had passed previously. It's frame was decorated with old paintings of strange animals.
Curiously, the two girls entered a big hall that was lying behind the doorway. Two big, but dark candelabras were standing next to a big stone block that resembled an altar.
Rei moved her light around. All over the walls, they could see the same gravures that were also covering the corridor walls.
"Incredible..." Rei whispered. "What is this place?" She went closer to the wall. "Those signs... what are they supposed to be? Some old hieroglyphics?"
Usagi stood next to her and looked at the wall as well. "You know, those look very much like regular letters. Look, if you take that one and erase the weird circle with the dot in the middle... it almost looks like an 'M', does it?"
Rei gasped in surprise. "You're right! But what people would write with such strange letters?" She looked over the writings in confusion. "Every single letter has this weird circle with the dot inside. Let's see if I can translate it..."
She squinted her eyes. It was difficult to decode the strange letters with only her dancing flame as a source of light.
"O-U-R W-O-R-D-S S-H-A-L-L R-E-M-A-I-N H-E-R-E F-O-R T-H-E A-G-E-S." she translated the first sentence. She scratched her head. "Strange... I wonder what that means."
"Rei, look here!" Usagi was standing next to the altar and gestured at the strange item lying on top.
Rei walked over to her and looked down at the weird, spherical item. It was about as big as a tennis ball and its top half was colored red and its lower half white. There was also a small button-like contraption on its front.
Usagi picked up the ball. "Weird! What do you suppose this is?" she asked her friend.
"Wait!" Mars suddenly shouted. "Don't touch the button!"
"Huh? What?" Sailor Moon asked in confusion. Unconsciously, her fingers closed around the ball and pressed the button...
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(Posted Wed, 07 Feb 2007 11:59)
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