Previously in NWC-
Reno and CeCe have a one-on-one conversation. CeCe tries to help Reno understand why Luna get's mad at him, causing Reno to think deeply about every interaction he's had with her. He uses this newfound information to return and make better choices when interacting with Luna, causing her to become less and less irritated with him. She's not quite ready to admit it yet, going to sleep. Reno does the same soon after, thinking he'd finally gotten a hand on talking to women...
The next morning Luna finds herself waking up first. She looks to see that CeCe had returned sometime in the night and was loosely wrapped by Medusa's vines, but not as tightly as she does with Reno. Yawning, she exits the tent, looking around. She shivers in response to a slight breeze, quickly making her way back in the tent. "I wish I had my body back…" She thinks to herself as she waits for anyone to wake up. She hears Reno slowly shuffle out of his tent and she peeks her head out. She watches, wanting to approach him but still feeling awkward about how she'd been behaving.
Reno catches a slight glimpse of her and he turns around, hiding his smile. "Good morning, Luna."
She's silent at first but decides to speak up. "Good morning, Reno."
"Good to see Medusa didn't squeeze you to death. I guess she only really does that to me. Did you sleep okay?"
Luna slowly floats out of the tent and closer to Reno, still avoiding getting close. "I slept okay. Last night was your first night without Medusa for a while, wasn't it? How did you sleep?"
Reno finally turns around to face her. "It was a bit cold, not gonna lie."
"I see." Luna awkwardly gets closer to Reno at a slow speed. She was slowly working up the courage to apologize to Reno, unaware of the mental turmoil he was experiencing.
"(What the hell is the hidden message?! She's got to have a double meaning, there's no other way! She definitely wants me to do something, but what?!)" Reno does his best to hide his increasing level of stress as Luna slowly gets closer. He doesn't even notice that she's finally within in arm's reach of him.
"Reno, I need to tell you something." Luna's voice is somber and hushed, followed by a sigh.
"(She's sighing. She's mad again, but why?! I thought I was doing so good!)" Reno goes to speak, preparing to apologize, before an unexplainable gust of wind throws Luna into Reno.
"Ahh!" Luna goes face first into Reno's chest, the wind making her shiver.
"You okay? It's kind of cold today, isn't it?" Without thinking, he gently puts her in his shirt like when they're in Bambadale. "That's the worst part of spring. One day it's nice and hot, then the next is all windy and gross."
Luna is caught off guard by this, speechless for a bit. Finally, she sighs. "Thank you, Reno." Her voice is quiet and she becomes content with her position. Her voice is muffled by Reno's chest and he's unable to hear her.
"Did you say something?"
"Ah, I said we should wait in the tent until the others wake up!" Reno nods his head and gets back in his tent, sheltering from any future wind.
In the other tent, CeCe giggles as she stops using her wind magic. "I'll give them a bit to make sure things are good~." Satisfied, CeCe waits for Medusa.
After Medusa has woken up, the party gathers around their campfire for breakfast. They eat, then set back off for the ruins. This time, however, there's a less awkward silence between Luna and Reno. CeCe gives a quick glance, smiling as she sees them walking next to each other again. As they approach the ruins, Reno speaks. "What'd you find last night, CeCe?"
CeCe sighs and shakes her head. "To be honest, nothing. The door is still closed, and none of the writing makes any sense. I was hoping we'd stumble on another clue today." The party begins their search, looking around the concrete pad for any lead.
They wander around endlessly for an entire hour before getting slightly discouraged. Luna decides she wants to make her formal apology and calls Reno over. "Reno, could you please come here?"
Reno turns to look at Luna, nodding his head. "Coming!" He begins jogging over, not paying much attention to what's in front of him. His foot ends up snagging on a hole previously filled with debris. "Ahh!" He falls face first into the concrete, causing Luna and CeCe to cringe slightly.
"Are you alright?!" Both rush over which causes Medusa to rush over too. The party stands around Reno who's lying face first in the ground with a hint of blood underneath him. He speaks, not lifting his head. It comes out as unintelligible muttering. "I'm sorry?" Luna gets slightly closer to him, trying to see if she can understand him.
Reno lifts his head, blood running down his nose. He looks genuinely unentertained by the current events. "No, I'm not okay." He gives the group an irritated look before looking back to see what tripped him. He angrily uses his hand to scoop out the dirt from the tripping hazard. "Who the hell just leaves holes around the place. At least put a rock in front of it so it's easier to see!"
CeCe looks tat the hole and listens to Reno's complaining. Suddenly, her eyes light up. "That's it! Reno, you're a genius!" CeCe runs over to where she stored the rock and rushes back, bending down in front of the hole. Reno watches with confusion as he pushes himself up off the ground and rubs his nose. CeCe slowly maneuvers the chunk Reno had found until it falls into place, sealing the hole in the ground and completing the concrete pad. CeCe quickly stands up and steps back, expecting something to happen. "Huh?" After a couple of seconds of silence, her shoulders slump with disappointment. "I thought maybe something would happen for sure! Why are these words in the middle and the others on the corner? What if… what if the scribbles don't actually mean anything?!"
"What a letdown." Reno sighs as he continues to cover his nose. Multiple drops of blood fall to the ground. What they don't notice is the blood being absorbed into the concrete, disappearing entirely. Suddenly, the inscriptions begin glowing a light purple. "This shit is about to explode, ain't it?" He looks down at the glowing letters then back at CeCe.
CeCe giggles with excitement and shakes her head. "Of course not! I think…" She looks around to see all of the inscriptions glowing, her excitement growing with every passing second. Suddenly, stone rubbing against stone can be heard echoing throughout the hallway at the bottom of the stairs. "The entrance must be open!" CeCe rushes to the stairs and runs down them, skipping the last four steps entirely. She looks further in to see the stone door seemingly gone, vanished into thin air, leaving a dark hallway waiting to be explored. She happily runs back up the stairs and beckons everyone over. After they run over, she speaks, her words coming out so fast they almost overlap each other. "We did it! The door is open now! Let's go pack up camp and move it here! We'll head in tomorrow, but we want to pack our stuff up before that!" With that, the party excitedly rushes off to move their camp. They make quick work, Reno finally getting the hang of setting up and collapsing a tent. They set up their tents right off the concrete pad and their campfire right outside the ruins entrance. They excitedly exchange ideas of what might be lying in wait for them inside, not even considering the possibility of danger.
"I hope it's not too hard to breath in there. Who knows how long this place has been closed up?"
CeCe giggles. "I'll be fine, since I can just make air with magic."
Luna suddenly pipes in. "I'll be fine as well. I don't think Medusa will be too bothered by it either seeing as she's made of plant material."
Reno looks around, slightly annoyed. "You mean I'm the only one who's at risk of suffocating? What the hell, man."
CeCe laughs, waving her arms in front of her. "I can just make air, Reno! I'll just fill the place with magic then you'll be able to breath!"
"What if we get separated?"
CeCe shakes her head. "We shouldn't, so long as we're careful. We don't know what we're getting into, so we should be extra cautious. I'm not saying it's impossible, but we should prevent it at all costs. "The party spends the rest of their day getting more and more excited. Their excitement causes them to force themselves to sleep faster so they can start exploring sooner. Their plan was set. They would wake up, breakdown camp, then begin exploring the ruins, setting up headquarters near the entrance and alternating groups of two until they have a better understanding of the layout and can make a rough map, pushing their headquarters further in as they go along. Everything was going according to plan. That is until Reno wakes up in the middle of the night, roughly midnight, and gets out of his tent. "That's gotta be the first night Medusa didn't try strangling me." He stretches, walking off towards the trees to urinate. On his way back, he stops in his tracks, his heart pounding. He looks over at the entrance to see two glowing red eyes staring at him, encased by a shadowy figure. Immediately, his head begins pounding with a splitting headache, causing him to fall to his knees and his nose to bleed again. His eyes widen as he feels the shadowy figure watching him, observing him.
Suddenly, he hears a voice speaking directly in his head. The voice is scratchy and sounds like a deafening whisper, as if the wind it's self was speaking into his mind. The voice speaks a single word, "Sacrifice."
TO BE CONTINUED...