Why carry a canary when the cave is so very scary?

Mission Info:

Creating steel was a skill that fit somewhere between art and science. It was a craft that, when mastered, could produce the finest weaponry, tools for work, or sturdy ware for cooking the finest of foods. Of course, that was at the end of the line — a blacksmith had the materials, and it was up to them to properly mold the steel into whatever it was they working on. Where did the line begin? In the mines, deep underground, and a very rich group of people in charge of the worker bees who would salvage the ore within the dark, yawning, maw that invited the strong and courageous into its depths. It would be fascinating to go through this process, to learn how the blacksmith hones steel to their bidding. Kurado, a young man with a thirst for knowledge, had taken this mission hoping to learn this process.

"Well, here's the situation..." Began the tall man, broad shoulders, and a white beard he brushed with his hand. "...normally I have the young shinobi that come through here do a lot of the busy work for me. Awfully strong you lot, able to mine and carry ore as much as a dozen of my men." This man seemed to be in charge, to some capacity, of the mine. "But this time it's a bit of a rescue mission. As you can probably tell..." he looked around at the entrance to the mine — it was very quiet, "...most of my usual crew it not here. We had a bit of an incident. See, we hit the jackpot, and had several carts of ore ready to go. But, there was a sudden cave-in at the deepest tunnel in where they found the ore. So, the ore is behind a nice thick wall of rubble." He folded his arms across his chest and sighed, eyes glancing over to the mine. "To make matters... weirder... some of my crew said they thought they saw something lurking around right before the cave-in. You know, it's a mine, cave-ins happen, but my guys were pretty spooked. I'm sure it's nothing but, just keep an eye and ear out as you get out that rubble and clear the way."

"Wait, can't you just... I don't know... blast away the rocks?" Kurado spoke up, hand on his hip as he looked up at the boss.

He shook his head. "Can't risk another collapse. This needs a more strategic touch. Plus, if there is something down there, my guys are likely gonna get hurt."

Could something have really made it's home in the depths of a mine? With a mine being as busy and noisy as it was, it seemed unlikely, but it certainly started this mission off on an uneasy note. Kurado looked to the other shinobi who had been roped into the promise of some steel smelting, but was now faced with moving rocks, "well, what do you think? Ready to go?" He asked. "It looks like it'll be pretty dark down there..." small talk wasn't exactly his forte.

[WC = 511]

Murata was surprised by how quickly the panic subsided. Proud, too. Despite the desperation of her situation, her heart feels full simply from the integrity of the human spirit on display.

The lights above them flicker ominously - the miners speculate the cave-in may have jostled some of the connections, and it's a miracle that they haven't gone out entirely yet. The two dozen miners trapped with her sit on either side of the tunnel tracks, divided by several loaded carts of ore, as the foreman quietly, with shaky confidence, attempts to organize a plan to keep them all alive for the moment. Murata stands, quietly - for the moment, she is not the most well-liked person in the room, and she wishes that she had been blessed with Earth-natured chakra. In the initial panic, it had been expected that she would simply save them all with a wave of her hand, and she must wrangle with the guilt that she cannot do so.

There is one thing that she can help with, however. Murata's eyes remain planted on the flickering further depths of the tunnel. The wooden framing is an eerie orange in the faint light.

"Are we missing anybody?" the foreman calls. "Kazuo?"

"Here, boss."

"What about Ukon?"

"Ukon's here," replies another man, tilting his head to a shaky-looking miner who looks to be mentally very far away.

"Shinobi, you're still with us?"

"Yessir."

"Alright, then."

The lights flicker and then go out. The tension in the tunnel ratchets up several degrees in an instant. For a few long moments, there is utter silence, save for the distant dripping of water.

"...Helmet lamps, everyone -"

Then a wet, gurgling scream, and scratching against the stone.

[284]

The shinobi, a fellow genin a few years Kurado's younger, stood stiff and his face had clearly lost complexion. Pale as a ghost. "Hey... I uh... feel kind of faint. I might pass out on you in this tunnel... I don't want to uh... slow you down." The boy gulped, looking to Kurado who stared blankly back. Kurado wasn't thrilled to be going down into a dark cave either, but he had a job to fulfill. He nodded to the young shinobi, and the boy made his way back into the forests and presumably, to Kiri.

"Well, I'll be back in a bit. Hopefully with some good news, and whatever crew members got trapped behind that rubble." Kurado tugged on his dark cloak and made his way over to a hooded lantern that conveniently sat by the cave entrance.

"Forgot to mention, there's a shinobi down there, too." The boss said. Kurado stopped and raised an eyebrow at the man. "Yeah, I guess they got trapped too. M-makuto? Marango? Mumutoo? Ah, can't remember. So many of you come through here. Just keep an eye out for him, he's hopefully keeping my man safe."

Kurado smiled as the boss and reached for the lantern, quickly grinding a stone against its metallic cover to ignite a flame and provide some useful light sans chakra. As Kurado made his way into the cave, his mind began to churn. There was a shinobi in the cave-in... likely a genin if they were trapped behind the rubble. But it was concerning, did the shinobi have no means to get past a wall of rocks? That was the best case scenario. Worst case, maybe this "shinobi" was up to no good. The crew said they saw something creepy, and the cave-in seemed to happen for no reason, maybe this shinobi was up to something sinister with the defenseless crew? The other thought was, if something supernatural was down here, maybe it already sunk its claws deep into the miners and the shinobi. Kurado would effectively be walking into the lion's den.

"Crap. This is stupid. This is so stupid. What am I doing..." Kurado whispered, his brown eyes flicking right and left as he followed a well-used rail down and down into the gaping maw of the cavern. The young man had gone up against lesser spirits and monsters, but never under circumstances like this. The dark, deep, dank underground, where horrors could be hiding in silence around any bend, and no one was near to back him up. The stuff of nightmares, this was.

Coming to a stop, Kurado raised his lantern to look at what laid before him — a massive mound of loose dirt and boulders. This was the spot. Kurado moved up to the rubble, placing his lantern down to his side. He flexed his fingers and sighed. He was readying himself to began dislodging some of the boulders. He may not be able to move the earth through any ninjutsu, but he could start digging. It could take a while, it could bruise up his hands, but it would get the job done. He hesitated, though. He wanted to start... but what was waiting for him past the rubble? He could call out, but... what would reply back? What if—

"Raaaaaeeeee-YEEEAAAAAA!!!"

Kurado's eyes lit up, he heard the scream, a normal human couldn't have made that noise. "Hey!" Kurado tightened his fist and steeled it with chakra. He bashed his fist against a boulder that laid before him, cracking it. "What's going on?! Is someone behind here?! I'm going to start moving aside this rubble!" He screamed, as loud as he could, the echoing of his words coming off from the thin walls of the tunnel around him. Hopefully he wasn't too late.

[TWC = 1142]

The mine is suffocatingly dark, the shadows pressing in at the edge of Kurado's light taking on an air of malevolence in the quiet.

The trickling of distant water and the echo of his own voice and breathing are his only companions. It's cold and humid, setting an intense, rattling chill into the bones of any unprepared. Side-tunnels are slabs of inky darkness along the poorly-lit tunnel, offering multitudes of opportunities for some strange creature to reach out of the dark.

Overall, it's fairly peaceful compared to what's going on opposite the cave-in.

Panic sets in immediately, a flurry of movement and bodies crowding against one another as the gathered miners cluster up closer to the cave-in, a few desperately starting to dig at the wall as the screaming continues. Murata's headlamp flickers as she rushes forward towards the source of the noise. She stumbles to a stop and pulls back at the sight of three beady, humanoid eyes leering back at her in the dark.

"What on earth," she breathes. The creature appears to fall slightly back as well. There's a low moan of pain in the dark.

There's a loud crack behind her and Murata's heart just about falls out of her body. Those bulging eyes vanish into the dark with a skitter of inscrutable limbs, a dragging noise, and another cry from Ukon as he is dragged off god knows where.

"Be careful!" she snaps, stepping back, daring not take the light or her eyes off of the end of the tunnel. "You'll make the cave-in worse!"

"That one wasn't us," the foreman replies shakily, pressing his ear to the rubble for a moment before calling through it. "Hello!? Is someone there!?" He listens intently - Murata cannot hear Kurado's words beyond the rocks, merely the foreman's responses. "Hurry! There's... there's something in here!"

[306]
[TWC: 590]

There was a muffled sound that came from behind the rubble. Was that a response? Kurado pressed his ear to the rubble, and almost instantly the young man heard a response. There was someone behind the rubble, hopefully they weren't alone. "Just hold on! I'm going to get through as soon as I can!" Kurado grit his teeth. Would he actually be able to move aside this mound of rocks in time? There was no time to consider the what-ifs, he had to start doing something, and quick. "Move clear of the rubble! There might be more rocks falling!" He warned.

As Kurado started, essentially, beating on rocks with his fists, he kept his ears alert for anything behind him, and any further movement of the ceiling above. Part of him was concerned for a further cave-in. On the other hand, if there was a monster on the other side of this wall, it's likely it would kill everyone anyway. Risking further collapse seemed to be the best option.

A few powerful jabs from the genin left several of the larger rocks in more sizeable pieces for movement. Adrenaline running from both the monster's scream, and the fright in the foreman's voice, Kurado was able to largely ignoring the pain that was creeping through his knuckles. He dug in deep to the loose dirt that filled in the space between rocks, and began flinging aside the pieces of shattered boulder. He worked quick, thinking of nothing but moving earth and getting to the other side of this wall.

Only about a minute had passed, Kurado non-stop flinging aside rocks, when a new sound rung through the cavern. A rumble, right above him. Kurado's eyes widened as he jumped back from the wall, instincts taking over as the fear of being buried in rubble proved too strong to ignore. Loose rocks and dirt fell from the ceiling, but more importantly, the area above the rubble collapsed further, but rather than totally adding to the rubble, the wall of rocks fell inward toward Kurado. He seemed to have shifted enough pieces to disrupt the support it was giving to the ceiling and, thankfully, provided an opening between the sides of the tunnel.

Kurado jumped back toward the remaining rubble, a visible hole was at the top of the wall of rocks. It wasn't much, but enough for a person to squeeze through. Without another thought, Kurado climbed up and slipped through the hole. He slid down the other side of the rubble, looking to the older foreman, and out toward the rest of the tunnel where a few frightened people stood at the edge of the wall, and a noticeable shinobi standing further out than the rest.

"Is everyone alright?" Kurado asked, out of breath. He glanced down now at his hands, cut and bloody and dirt stuck in the various gashes he had received. "What's out there?" Kurado moved closer to Murata, keeping a bit of a distance as he attempted to size her up. While he believed the frightened foreman's statement about something being in the cave, he was still suspicious of the shinobi. "Were you able to get a look?" The way back was open for the miners to leave, but as far as Kurado was concerned, the real mission was dealing with whatever was in here with them.

[WC = 560]
[TWC = 1702]

Murata is quiet and stiff - she holds up a slow finger in a silent shushing motion, and leans slowly to the side, keeping her head trained on that same spot. Behind them, the miners scramble to get out, moving one by one.

"Ooouuuggghhhh..."

Ukon's voice echoes from unnervingly close. There's a slight scraping of metal as Murata picks up a discarded pickaxe from beside her, brandishing it securely in her hand.

"It's still nearby," she says, voice low. "It has one of them. You're here for backup?" Murata has not taken her eyes away from that spot in the dark, but from the tone of the newcomer's voice, she has to assume he is also shinobi.

Murata is not certain that it is the light of her headlamp currently keeping the creature at bay, but at the way its dark shape lingers just out of sight beyond the light's periphery, she finds it a safe assumption. She tightens her grip on the pickaxe in her hand and points forward, squinting into the dark.  "I have not seen it up close. It seems almost like a spider... and it doesn't seem to like the light."

[194]
[TWC: 784]

Kurado stopped in his tracks, watching as Murata adjusted her position, listening toward the dark dark tunnel. A shiver struck Kurado's spine, the sound of a man in pain, the low wailing noise that the young man could only contribute to a deathly groan. Kurado did not have hope that they would make it in time.

"Yeah, backup. Hopefully us two will be enough," Kurado bit his lip. Murata grabbed up a pickaxe, and Kurado took her cue, grabbing one of his own. The young shinobi seemed skilled with it, by the way she was holding it so deftly. Had she used a pickaxe as a weapon before? "Is your name, uh... Marango?" Kurado didn't even wait to see Murata's response before correcting himself. "Sorry, the boss out there couldn't remember. But, my name's Kurado."

The young man approached her side, less suspicious that she was up to something nefarious. Or he was just happy to not be alone going after this thing. "I've fought spirits and monsters before. Spirits can be tricky, they're not bound by the same physical rules like we are. But monsters? They bleed. They can be killed. And if this thing is afraid of the light, hopefully some fire will do the trick. Can't say I've heard of an arachnid type beast before, unfortunately." Kurado frowned, he wondered if his father had seen something like this before?

He pointed the axe down the tunnel. "If the miner isn't in harms way, I have an idea." Kurado slowly began to creep forward, hoping Murata would follow suit. "I can launch a sizeable fireball at it. With these tunnels being so narrow, I assume it'll try to escape toward the edge of the fireball, in the space between the flames and the tunnel. That'll give you an opportunity to rush it with your pickaxe, and hopefully a clean shot at its face." He gulped, wondering if that would even work. They'd either kill it or mess it up bad, or just piss it off. "If that sounds good to you, let's try and finish it quick."

[WC = 349]
[TWC = 2051]

"I'm Murata. You've never killed a spirit before?" Murata quietly teases, voice tense - it's clearly an attempt at levity that doesn't convince even herself. She sets her jaw as she stares into the dark, straining to hear the gentle scraping of the monster's limbs over the sound of Kurado's voice. She cannot, and this makes her nervous. 

Kurado does not get the opportunity to share his idea.

When he creeps forward, he enters the path of Murata's headlamp - just slightly, just at the edge, but that flicker of shadow is enough. Murata's stalemate with the creature breaks. There is an unearthly shriek.

A dark tangle of limbs surges forward like a wave of tar-black smoke, all fur and legs, and wide eyes and teeth - like a spider, a tiger, and a man all at once, scratching filling the cavern along with its voice as it twists itself along the wall to ceiling-walk urgently towards them. Its face(?) twists downwards into Murata's light, three eyes reflecting it like a cat in the dark. Hanging from its broad jaws - like a demon's or a cat's - is the twisted form of a man crush-swaddled in ghostly silver silk, delivered like a limp mouse as the creature moves above them like a shadow.

If uninterrupted by Kurado in its initial emergence from the cavern, it will pause there - as Murata gets one arm around the silk-wrapped form of Ukon and pulls, silk twisting around the fang of the beast as it rears around on the ceiling, a rattling hiss coming from its throat as its prey is challenged - black-furred, taper-tipped limbs twisting, towards the pair.

[271]
[TWC: 1055]

Kurado froze. That thing suddenly came into view. It crawled along the wall, then the ceiling, prize wrapped in silk hanging from its mouth. Words rose to Kurado's throat, but nothing came out. He wanted to strategize with Murata, but it was like his lips were sealed shut. It was as if even a single noise escaped, the creature would rush him. This was a primal fear, staring down a dark tunnel at a frightening creature.

After what felt like forever, the thing bolted forward, and Kurado took a step back. Clinging tight to the ceiling as it closed the distance, all Kurado could do was run through his list of possible moves to make. Fear still struck his body, and his legs didn't move, his arms were like stone, his breathing felt impossibly heavy. Maybe even more so, the thing hanging from his mouth, likely one of the miners that had been snatched up. Were they alive? What could possibly be done fight the beast without bringing the webbed worker any harm?

The young man's eyes widened, watching as Murata began her attempt to rip the cocoon from the creature's mouth. How could she get so close? The thing was right in range to strike her dead! She was fearless, willing to make the risk to save someone. However, if Kurado didn't help, perhaps that risk would become reality.

Pickaxe gripped tight, Kurado rushed the beast from the opposite angle. While Murata tugged hard on the silk-spun worker in one direction, Kurado would attack where the spider was now exposed, its underside now exposed as it was partially pried from the ceiling. He kicked off the wall opposite to Murata, pickaxe reeled back, and embedded it deep into the abdomen of the monster, to which it responded with another horrifying shriek.

Kurado let his grip off the handle of the pickaxe, leaving the rusty tool submerged into the spider's underside, and hit the ground with a shoulder roll. He turned to the beast on the ceiling, and to Murata, to see what opportunity that left him now to engage. He readied his hands, hoping for an opportunity to string together handsigns and unleash a hellish fireball against the spider.

[WC = 370]
[TWC = 2421]

When the creature cries out in pain, Murata pulls. She stumbles back with the silk-wrapped man in her arms, catching her balance and ducking back behind one of the minecarts to lie him down. The light of her headlamp dances as the creature rears about in pain, pale blood dribbling from the pick buried in its body. How intelligent is this creature, Murata wonders through the din of adrenaline. An animal would cut its losses and flee - does it feel pride? Is it upset for them for greater reasons of being hurt, in pain, and denied food?

There is a final moment of tension. Then the creature through the gap in the wall, slipping through it with apparent effortlessness. It leaves a streak of its blood along the stones.

Murata exhales. In the quiet, she cannot hear anything from the other miners - they must have gone out to the surface, far beyond the hunting grounds of this creature.

"It's just an animal," she says aloud to nobody in particular. "It will go to lick its wounds now."

Murata has the sort of shaky confidence of somebody trying to convince themselves. She looks down to Ukon, getting her hand in under the silk wrapping and checking his pulse. "He is still breathing," she says, starting to delicately hack the silk from his face and chest - once she is able to start to pull it off in larger clumps, she turns him to the recovery position, where he promptly rouses to vague consciousness and vomits on to the floor of the mine. "Yes, that is the sensible response," she says, giving him a 'there there' pat on the back while she looks him over. He seems clammy - and gasps in pain when she runs her hand over his side, where upon closer inspection there is a shallow, oozing bite wound.

"Are you alright?" she asks, looking to Kurado - getting a closer look, now. Though he is taller and heavier than she is, he has youth in his face and terror in his eyes. She is not certain what she would have done without him here. She gives him a broad grin, stands, and claps a rough hand on his shoulder. "I deeply appreciate the help. Both of us owe you our lives."

Could she have made it out on her own? Perhaps. But the feeling is genuine, and that is what is most important. Murata gently hefts Ukon up in her arms, seeming unconcerned with the possibility of getting thrown up on. Her mission wear is already a mess.

The miners are immensely relieved upon their return, though there is an undercurrent of worry, disappointment, and blame upon Murata's admission that they did not kill the monster. In the back of her mind, she begins to anticipate another mission slip in her future.

[471]
[TWC: 1526]