Who: Courier Six & Luke Skywalker When: Day 6 Where: The other mine entrance. What: EXPLORATION. Rating: PG-13ish? Expect injuries, and it's Six, so expect swearing, lousy metaphors and loads of unintelligible, mid-century American slang, too.
At one end, the mouth of the cave opened up like a yawn.
She assumed the mouth was where the ankle-biters had tripped over a rock and stumbled into shit, which is the sort of thing you expect from a bunch of kids. But, per the network anyhow, the cave-in had been remedied. No deaths (that she knew of), no maiming (again, that she knew of), nobody greviously-bodily-harmed (ibid.). Everything was sunshine and god-damn rainbows.
At one end of the cave.
But caves… they're funny like that.
Last time she footslogged into one of nature's potholes, she kicked over a nest of fire-breathing geckos, which is why she'd thus far given this one a wide berth. Nobody needs fire-breathing geckos on their ass, nobody.
And gold? Cabbage like that ain't nothing but trouble.
So she'd spent the last couple of days… or weeks… or…. however long they'd been kicking around in a place that wasn't stocked with stardust, rationing out what was left of her cigarettes and watching some of the other plugs who'd been penned up in this joint pan for loose change in the local tributary. You know, the one that hadn't been here the last time they'd been stuck in the 'Compound.' 'Cause it ain't like there's a sucker born every minute or something.
But eventually, boredom grabbed her by the jowls, and the Courier went poking around where she probably shouldn't've. And eventually, behind some boulders that stood sentry like a couple of basalt prophets, Six found another entrance to that cave.
Leastwise, that's what she reckoned it was. Could've been swift death in darkness, but she was running low on cigarettes and swift death was a better notion than dwelling on the impending doom that came with having no more smokes. So, she found that cute kid, the one who bristled like a pinecone everytime she reminded him he was a cute kid, and she proposed they ought to go poking around in the darkness.
"'s over here," she said, balancing on one of the rocks by the entrance. Luke wasn't exactly a hulking behemoth, but he was still a good couple of inches taller than the Courier, so getting a leg up by standing on one of the rocks meant she could at least look at him square. "I haven't gone more than a couple of metres in. But…"
Six produced a sad little flashlight she'd lifted from somewhere and switched it on. Which, given the general abundance of daylight where they were presently standing, basically did fuck-all, but it was a dramatic flourish and she was working with what she had. Give her a break. A funny little smile tugged on the corners of her lips and she hopped off the rock. "Now I've got a light, an appropriately captivating companion, and a couple of hours spare. So, buttercup, you wanna see what's on the other side?"