Previously in NWC-
The party continues their journey after stopping for a lunch break. Reno complains and CeCe makes fun of him. After a tiring journey the party reach the ruins and CeCe finds the entrance. They decide to leave exploration for the next day and make their camp 15 minutes from the ruins. After an uneventful night, they return to the ruins and have a briefing. Afterwards, they're ready to begin exploring the exterior...
CeCe quickly turns around and begins cautiously making her way towards the entrance she discovered the night before. She checks around it to make sure nothing had shown up over night and then begins to clear the area around it.
"She looks like she knows what she's doing. Where should we check, Luna?" Reno turns to his right where Luna had previously been, but to his surprise she is no longer there. He looks around to find her and finally spots her floating off and checking the perimeter. He sighs and places his hand on Medusa's head. "Can you go with Luna to make sure she doesn't get kidnapped?" Medusa happily begins rushing towards Luna, calling her name. Reno decides to check the opposite direction of Luna, checking the perimeter on his side. At first it's boring and he doesn't find anything, even thinking about just calling it good and going into the ruins. His attention is grabbed, however, by a strange looking stone tablet. He walks over, picking it up. "This thing is a lot heavier than I thought." Making sure not to drop it and damage it, he flips it over every direction, checking it out from every angle. "Something's written on it, but it definitely isn't anything I know." Reno look at the tablet, observing the scribbles. Not wanting to disregard the tablet entirely, he finds an easy to see location and set it down against a small stone. He goes back to searching, hoping to find something else interesting.
"Oh, hello, Medusa! Have you come to join me?" Luna, on the other side, greets Medusa as she rushes at her. Medusa jumps and smiles, eager to help. "You're always such a good girl!" The two begin searching, looking for possible secondary entryways or even things that look recently displaced. Their search is relatively fruitless until Medusa spots something shining.
"Muh?" Medusa rushes over to the shining object and begins inspecting it. Luna sees her rush off and begins following her. The shining object is what caught Medusa's attention, but the highly decomposed human skeleton is what catches Luna.
"Oh my goodness!" Luna finds herself startled when she comes face to face with the skeleton, but quickly calms herself. She sees the skull, which was severely deteriorated, then her eyes wander and she begins seeing the rest of the bones. "They must have passed a very long time ago. The bones are almost unrecognizable!" Medusa beings to look at the shining object while Luna is distracted. The item is a necklace with a smooth blue gem on it. She pulls the item off of the body which causes the skull to turn to dust. "Medusa! You should not disturb the dead!" Medusa excitedly shows the necklace to Luna and Luna scolds her. "Medusa, it's very disrespectful to take from the dead like that. However, since they're no longer in need of it, I suppose the deed has been done. We will take this back with us and show the others when we are finished." Medusa hangs her head with shame before following behind Luna again. She holds on to the necklace and keeps her eyes out for anything else.
CeCe continues to clear the large wild grass that had grown to cover the entrance. She wipes her head of sweat and pats the dirt off her hands when she's finally finished, admiring her work as she looks down the staircase leading into the ruins. "That should be good enough! Now we won't be have any issues getting in, and we can use the sunlight as a way to find the exit when we go in!" CeCe was about to join one of the groups before her attention is grabbed by a small object sitting at the bottom. She peers her eyes but is unable to see due to the light difference. "Hmm, I should be okay to take a couple steps in. I don't see anything that looks like it could be a trap or anything." CeCe slowly and cautiously descends the staircase and finally reaches the bottom. She picks up the object and blows off the dust that had accumulated for an unknown amount of time. "It looks like a journal! I wonder if it can tell us anything?" She slowly and carefully opens the book, attempting not to break the book. As she reads the barely legible contents, her eyes slowly begin to open. "No way. If what I'm reading is correct, this guy tried for months to get in and couldn't get the door to budge! And what's this about a gem and scripture? The further in the journal goes the more he rambles and starts making less and less sense." CeCe checks the last page to find a bunch of scribbling followed by a random string of letters and numbers. "Poor guy must've lost his mind trying to get in here. I wonder if the ruins themselves had anything to do with it or if he was just insane?" CeCe shrugs her shoulders and pockets the journal, making her way further in the ruins. A short walk in reveals a door with an intricately designed picture of a woman with her eyes closed. "I wonder if this was who they worshipped? I've never seen this illustration before. Could she be a lesser god that was only local to this civilization?" CeCe curiously bends down to attempt to life the door, but it doesn't budge. "Hmm, looks like that guy wasn't lying. I don't think all of us combined could hope to move this thing. I wonder…" CeCe closes her eyes and puts her hand on the wall, feeling around. "That's it! It's weak, but I can feel traces of mana in this door! That must be why he needed that jewel and scripture; they must have something to do with opening this door! But where are they, and why wasn't he able to open the door? Jeez, I wish he wasn't on the verge of losing his mind when he showed up. Maybe then his notes would have been more useful." CeCe decides to leave the hallways and return to the surface. Seeing that the two groups were well into their search, she decides to search a different area.
Reno continues his search, looking around. Not finding anything on the perimeter, and unsure of what to do now, he begins backtracking. This time through he is paying extra attention to the ground, as that was where he found the tablet. He walks across the grass and dirt until he's tripped by a sudden surge of grip coming from his shoes. "Dammit!" He falls on the ground, sitting up and turning to find on what he tripped. "Huh?" Reno looks at the ground to see more stone, this stone, however, wasn't a tablet like the last one. In fact, this stone was man made, apparent by finish on the top. He begins pulling the grass off of it, surprised to find that it comes up with relative ease. After a minute of pulling, he discovers a previously hidden concrete pad. The pad seemingly extends towards the entrance and in other directions. "Damn! This stuff is actually in really good condition compared the walls." Reno admires the quality of the concrete and compares it to the state of the walls that had all but crumbled into piles of stone. Looking back down, he notices a small feature of the concrete. "Is that more writing?" He continues to clear off the ground, exposing more of the concrete to thoroughly inspect it. He finds a small patch of concrete with more of the undiscernible writing and scratches his head. "I wish I could do literally anything with information. I guess I'll just tell the others and hope one of them know what to do with it." Curious if there's anymore, he focuses on clearing off as much of the pad as he can.
Luna and Medusa continue to wander around their area, looking for anything else that might be of interest. Not finding anything, they decide to join CeCe. "Hey guys! Find anything cool yet?" CeCe smiles brightly as she turns to face them.
"Medusa actually found a necklace!" Luna looks at Medusa and nods. "Want to show CeCe the necklace, Medusa?" Medusa nods her head happily and pulls out the necklace from her vines.
CeCe's eyes widen slightly as she looks at the necklace. "No way!" She pulls out the journal and compares the necklace to the sketch inside of the journal. "That's it!" She looks bath and forth between the necklace and the book, dumbfounded that they coincidentally found the jewel they would need. "Medusa, you're amazing!" CeCe hugs Medusa and laughs happily. Medusa hugs her in return and rocks left and right with excitement. CeCe excitedly looks at the necklace and begins to feel giddy. "Now there's apparently a stone somewhere with some kind of writing on it. If we can find that then we'll really be cooking!"
TO BE CONTINUED...