fandomhigh | Archaeology Club: 4pm, the beach

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!club: archaology

Archaeology Club: 4pm, the beach

Having not made much progress in finding the Albatross the week before, but at least having a map for where they'd been, the Archaeology Club managed to cut down on some time and start in the middle of the caves.

They'd also brought power bars, in case they needed to think hard.

High tide was at 7:42pm.

[ooc: limited OCD ~~going~~ up. Sorry this is so late; one way or the other, the Albatross gets found tonight. So just ping in and go crazy. ]

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Evie Carnahan

Blair Sandburg

William Kessler

Zack Addy

Yasutora Sado

Annnnd there were right where they'd left off, minus some stumbling around. Miner's hats, rope, sand, electric torches, maps, compass that Blair wasn't allowed to touch, and special boots.

Oh look, a baby squid.

Evie squealed when she saw it.

Blair was following Evie, not holding the compass and trying to look everywhere at once.

"Ooooh...cute." Blair said, looking over Evie's shoulder.

Evie's electric torch played over the tidepool where the squid was, as well as a sanddollar, shells, and some driftwood. "Do you think that a huge sea monster still might be here? Because I would think there would be marks, or tracks, or something. Although, all the driftwood--" she pointed. "Goes that way, so I'm assuming the tides flow in that direction when they're forced in here."

"I think huge sea monsters breathe really heavy and make 'grrr' sounds." Blair tilted his head. "Hear anything like that?"

Evie stopped, and closed her eyes, listening hard. "No. ALthough, the surf could be covering up the breathing sounds?" She opened one eye. "Do you think we should follow the driftwood, or go in the other direction?"

"Driftwood." Blair nodded, pointing his flashlight in that direction. "Seems logical to me."

"Driftwood it is!"

They followed the trail until it opened out into an echoing cavern, water dripping in the distance. Their lights played around the sandstone, and revealed more stalactites and stalagmites.

Evie nearly slid down a sudden slope, and had to windmill to get her balance back. "Eep."

Blair reached forward to grab Evie's shoulders, dropping his flashlight in the process. "Whoa, you okay?"

The flashlight made cheerful plinky noises as it rolled down the slope.

"Oh. Ohhh. Yes, thank you. Careful! The ground is very soft here. As I just found out," Evie said, getting her breath back. Then she froze, studying the pool of light cast up by the electric torch. "Oh. Ohhh. Does that, right there? Does that look like wood to you? And not just driftwood?"

Blair blinked and tilted his head. "I don't think that's driftwood, Evie."

"EEEEeeeeeeeEeee!"

Which echoed strangely in the space in front of them: EEEEeeeeeeeEeee... Eeeee... eeeEEEee

And Evie sat down on her butt and just slid down the twelve-foot slope into the cavern.

Blair made a reach for her and then shook his head as she slid away. "Way to be safe there, little sister."

He slid down after her and grabbed the flashlight that had fallen, letting it play over the ship in front of them. "Whoa, that's big."

Janice scrambled down after them, bellowing, "Is everybody alright down there?"

That was when she noticed the bulk of the ship, and her toothy grin showed clearly in the light from her flashlight. "Well, hello there."

"Look...ship!" Blair pointed and then nodded. "Yeah, I'm good. You okay, Evie?"

"Splendid, absolutely marvelous! Can you believe it? Oh, *look* at it! It's beautiful!"

It was hung with seaweed, moss, and covered in dirt; bits were falling off, but it was relatively whole, albeit slowly rotting. It appeared to be just above the usual waterline.

ALBATROSS, read the flaking blue paint on the stern.

"We found it," Evie whispered.

"What d'you think is in there?" asked Janice, already scanning the ship's hull for some kind of entrance. "Damn good job, Evie. I'd say this expedition was a success."

Evie pinked up at the praise, and said, "Oh, no way to be sure, for certain. Maybe gunpowder, and the usual stores. Maybe gold and rum and maps and a logbook! They had to abandon ship a mile from the coastline, because the storm was so fierce and the rocks were too deadly." She tilted her head, and the crazy little light on the helmet played around a hole in the hull, large enough to walk through, albeit set with sharp, shattered boards and looking none too safe. "That's what did for it, then. That burst right there."

Part of the ship looked to be embedded in the wall; four hundered years of limestone accumulation affixing the port side like ropes of rock into the wall. "Oh, that's going to be difficult."

"But no danger of it disappearing on us, at least," Janice noted, examining the jagged edges of the hole. She hadn't actually heard much past the mention of gold, to be honest, but on the other hand she wasn't in any mood to get herself cut to shreds. "Doesn't look like much right through here except what's left of a few rotted sacks. We'd have to go further in to find anything valuable."

"We should wait until we have the permit, and then come back, and take pictures, and start the excavation, and oh, no one can take it away from us then, a real site!" Evie spun on her toes and the light on her helmet spun with her. "We should leave before the tide gets back, and we get trapped in here over night, shouldn't we. Oh, but I want to stay!"

"Oh, no. No, no, no," Janice cut in. "I'm not gonna be responsible for letting you kids get injured, drowned, or killed because you were too excited to be careful."

Honestly, this was such a pot-kettle sort of situation, but Janice did have her job to think about here. "This thing's pretty well welded to the rock here. It isn't going to wash out with the tide. Let's get all the paperwork hoops jumped through and save ourselves the hassle later."

She gestured back toward the entrance, almost shooing them out of the cave. "C'mon. Everybody out. I don't know about you, but I'm not in the mood for a saltwater bath tonight."

Billy sighed. "Someone want to help me tie a rope up here so we can get back up?" he asked.

"Don't discover Atlantis without the rest of us!" he called down.

"Hey, sorry I missed last week. I was a lizard. Glad to see you're still around Blair."

"Oh, that does happen, doesn't it?" Evie shook her head. "And don't worry about it. We only got a few hundred meters in before we got nervous about the tides. But at least we have a map, now."

"Oo, those are handy. Where'd you get it?"

"They're not complete, we made them last week." Evie bounced on her toes, and nearly tripped over some rocks. "But we'll save some time tonight because of them."

"Oh, right. Yeah that will save some time. So, where to fearless leader?"

And the cavern opened into a larger space... (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomhigh/1087001.html?thread=61182745#t61182745)

Janice had completely forgotten about last week's meeting thanks to being too absorbed in her continued cataloguing of her most recent acquisitions (no, really, it was that and not the damned Playstation in her office) but she'd made it this week. Someone had to watch the kids in an official capacity, after all.

The miner's hat was something new, and no matter how much she kept trying to adjust it it still felt funny on her head. It was convenient, though, she had to admit. And this? Yeah, exploring for real was definitely better than video game dungeons. At least here there weren't going to be 5000-hit-point dragons appearing out of nowhere.

. . . right?

"Dr. Covington, I'm so glad you could make it!" Evie jumped over a patch of rocks, and peered forward into the darkness. "We've been marking our trail, but it's not like there's anything we could really expect to find at this point."

"No, but at least you're taking all the right precautions," answered Janice, who never took any of said precautions herself. To her credit, at least, she wasn't smoking in here. "Swings the odds of our living long enough to find this ship in our favor, right?"

"Unless Blair is right, and there's a sea monster here!" Evie sounded half-hopeful and half worried about that.

"Sea monster?" Janice repeated incredulously. "There are no sea monsters. If it's anything, it's just the echoes and light playing tricks on our senses with the squid."

She didn't sound terribly convinced.

"Ohh. Well, yes, I suppose it must me," Evie said hastily, although she looked a little wistful. "Better it isn't, really. Then we don't have to run away."

"It wouldn't seem like a proper expedition if we didn't have to run away from something," muttered Janice, half to herself.

Evie gave her a dubious look, then cooed as they came within sight of (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomhigh/1087001.html?thread=61182745#t61182745) a cavern opening.

Zack tilted his head at the squid. "Interesting, I didn't know we had ssquid on this island."

"It's very cute though, isn't it?" Evie was tempted to touch it, but decided not to disturb it. "Do you think it'll get back out when the tides come in?"

"It should, since that's the mostly likely way it got in."

Evie tilted her hat back so the light wasn't shining in Zack's face. "What are you hoping we find here?"

And the cavern opened into a larger space... (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomhigh/1087001.html?thread=61182745#t61182745)

Chad got really distracted by the adorable baby squid for a while, and almost lost the party, running to catch up with them after he'd disappeared for a while in very well hidden cute-thing admiration.

And the cavern opened up, and there was... (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomhigh/1087001.html?thread=61185561#t61185561)

[feel free to pin in there, I can pick it up tomorrow]

Next week, the Alexandria Museum.

Week after that, hopefully we'll get a permit and start digging out. :>

I just realized that Chad's participation in this club is very much canon. Because in most episodes of Bleach, he shows up, does one or two things, and then is just in the background while everyone else does things.

So it works. XD

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Archaeology Club: 4pm, the beach

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