Silence again settled, and apart from occasionally taking breaks, progress moved ploddingly through the dark tunnels. Minutes blurred together and even the light and darkness slowly became indistinguishable, as there was so little to look at that Motonubu’s lamp felt almost superfluous. However, Junko noticed the imperceptible changes first: bit by bit, the lamp’s light grew weaker and weaker. It wasn’t until she realized she finally had enough room to swing her swords that the truth of what was happening dawned on her.

The walls on either side of the tunnel began to diverge. The distance between the opposite sides began to blossom outwards the farther they walked, fanning out like the mouth of a river. Soon the lamp’s tiny amount of illumination proved insufficient to cross the gap entirely as the tunnel unfurled into a massive opening. Compared to where they had come from it was like stepping out of a puddle and into the ocean. The room blew wide open and gone was the claustrophobic narrowness of the path- now the dark abyss that was once banished by Motonubu’s light now returned, threatening to completely overwhelm the group as the sheer size of the structure exploded outwards.

“Oh.” Junko scowled. “More bloody caves, great.”

A new, different kind of quiet fell over all three as they took in the surroundings. It was silence borne, momentarily, of awe. Calling it a ‘cave’ was almost an insult, as what little they could see didn’t immediately make sense. The largest structure back in Camp Monog was the Annitou headquarters, which boasted quite a hefty size to accommodate the numerous soldiers on Jinchi as well as armaments, supplies, and other storage. Even that building was dwarfed by the void of the room now in front of them. Even calling it a ‘room’ felt inadequate. The ceiling couldn’t be seen, nor could any of the walls apart from the one immediately behind them. That the dinky little tunnel from before led to something so open could only be met with a solemn pause.

Junko broke the incredulous silence first. “There’s no way I’m wandering off into that.”

“Naturally.” Motonubu swung his lamp around to look up at the one wall they could see, from which their tunnel had emerged. “Cadet Tanuma Gekko, do you see any directions on the surface behind us? Or perhaps a-”

“It doesn’t say anything useful.” Gekko was already scanning the area before Motonubu spoke. “Were we really walking downhill that whole time? How deep did we go, exactly?”

“It must have been a small incline that nobody noticed. Look, here,” Motonubu rose his lamp higher, revealing the edge of what looked like a mural on the one wall they could see. “Is there any information here?”

Gekko bent his head all the way back to look at it, then clucked his tongue dismissively. “It’s gibberish. Were you expecting something like ‘go this way for a giant pile of treasure?’”

Motonubu moved the light source away and pointed it down towards the infinite abyss in front of them. “I was hoping for something a little meatier, yes. Well, it can’t be helped.” Without waiting he began to walk away from the wall. As the shadows on the edges crept in, Junko and Gekko were forced to trot along to keep up, lest they get left behind. It wasn’t as though there was anything to bump into down there, at least. The smooth stone floor matched that of the tunnel’s, and looked free of debris or obstacles. The sheer size of this area brought with it its own unsettling atmosphere nonetheless. It almost felt like the oppressive weight of all the dark air above them bore down on their shoulders. At least in a tunnel there were only two directions that danger might come from.

More used to being able to focus her attention on one thing at a time, the emptiness bugged Junko the most. She spoke up to break the suffocating silence yet again. “Is this the big plan of the mastermind Motonubu?” Junko’s volume wasn’t abnormally high, but her words still reverberated and echoed off the far unseen walls as she spoke. “Wander around with a dinky light and hope you stumble onto your objective?”

Motonubu didn’t respond and instead continued his leisurely gait with purpose. With little other choice the other two followed. Gekko at least distracted himself by attempting to read the Bossa inscriptions as they appeared, though if he had uncovered any vital clues he was keeping them to himself. Junko was forced to just focus on the back of Motonubu’s head as he walked. The small halo of illumination from the lamp robbed her of the ability to read too deeply into his movements too, which only built up her anxiety more. Junko’s grip on her swords was so tight even her fingers were starting to fall asleep.

Then, gradually, something hazy and distant began to form on the farthest periphery of where the light could reach. The air here smelled slightly different too- a kind of damp, salty stench, reminiscent of the sea. “Oh, I get it.” Gekko broke his attention for a second while Motonubu continued marching forward. “We’re going uphill again. The incline is really slight but I can tell now.” Gekko was bringing up the rear so he couldn’t really turn to face anyone, but he tried speaking directly to Motonubu for once. “You think this opens up to the ocean somewhere? Like an old Jinchi dock or something?”

Motonubu held the light up a little more to reveal more of the distant wall they now approached. He let out the slightest and most disinterested of grunts. “I expect something of the sort, perhaps. Jinchi is dotted with human settlements and ruins, but no signs of any roads or trails or anything of the sort.” Motonubu didn’t turn his attention away from the ever growing wall, but it was clear who he was addressing. “General Gounomouno had a theory on that, did he not? Since the other Bossa speaker was expelled I believe that man has been acting as the sole source of information going back to Annitou regarding archaeological findings. Care to divulge any of that to us, Cadet?”

“What am I, a school teacher?” Gekko grumbled mostly to himself. It wasn’t like Junko would care about any of this, and Motonubu clearly had his mind made up already. “I help with that stuff too, sometimes...but, whatever. General Gou said the Jinchi people probably traveled along the shores and rivers and didn’t have formal roads. Annitou was like that too in its early years.”

“Yes, I suppose Annitou would like to compare themselves to ancient civilizations far greater than their own.” Motonubu attempted to provoke Gekko again but of course it wouldn’t work. Motonubu could insult Annitou all he wanted, because Gekko didn’t like his homeland either!

“Given the size of the stones used in their architecture though,” Junko took her mind off wondering what dangers awaited them in the dark and tried to join the conversation. “That can’t be true. You can’t move a giant rock on those tiny creeks. And you certainly can’t build a giant room like this all the way inland if you’re stuck on the beach.”

“Well,” Gekko jumped in, “Actually, you know, the Jinchi people had the help of the gods-”

“I will stop the preaching here.” Motonubu spoke in a sudden spurt, waving his lamp to indicate something he wanted them to look at. “Why speculate, when the truth is before us?”

Now that they drew close enough to the wall, its true nature became apparent. Unlike the tunnel’s exit, this section of the expansive room was far more ornate and complicated. “What am I looking at here, Mr. Bigshot?” Junko exhaled in disappointment, not even slightly sure what all the intricate carvings on the rock surface were supposed to mean. “Is this an ancient Jinchi board game? Are we on a history tour here?”

Gekko appeared about equally as confused, though his bewilderment came from an angle opposite of Junko’s ignorance. “That’s- these patterns, those channels...”

Motonubu approached the large structure and placed a hand against it. The surface was very cool to the touch, colder than rock this deep had any right to be. He waited for a bit as if in anticipation of something. Then, slightly disgusted, he muttered something under his breath and withdrew his hand. Gekko meanwhile grew increasingly insistent. “Hey, give me the light. I can’t read that part up there near the top. Junko, get the light from him.”

“Get it yourself! At least share with the tour group what you’re reading!”

“I can’t- it’s very technical okay?” Gekko pushed forward towards Motonubu, but didn’t quite come close enough to get within arm’s reach of the man. He was, after all, still an Agent. “I can read the words but I don’t know what they mean. I need more context. Hey! Mr. Kidnapper! How about you cooperate and let me do what you brought me here to do-”

Ignoring the child, Motonubu reached into his obscuring cloak and pulled out a small stone. The sight of it instantly shut Gekko up. The boy instead walked back a few paces and nearly bumped into Junko, avoiding such a fate because the woman very quickly sidestepped. “God damn it- doesn’t anyone look out for where they are going? I get how clumsy you are when you skipped your nap time, but even still...”

Without any further explanation Motonubu placed the rock against the surface of the detailed wall. Then he waited. Gekko seemed to have broken out into a small sweat and similarly remained quiet. Junko wanted to tell them both to knock it off and explain what was going on but instinctively she knew the second she made any noise, they would both tell her to be quiet.

So instead she took the moment to finish off what was left of the rum in her gourd. It might be her last chance to enjoy it, after all.

Wordlessly Motonubu began to move again. His palm held the stone against the wall and dragged the object along, stopping every few steps to again wait and listen. Junko added this to the list of things that made Gekko shut up, because the entire time the boy just remained completely silent. The entire group once again fell into a quiet lull as they followed Motonubu’s lead. He took a few steps, stopped, and everyone listened. This repeated multiple times and no one dared to break the loop. Gekko was falling farther and farther behind, though. Was he about to try and run away? Here, of all places?

Despite the concentration with which Gekko and Motonubu seemed to be listening, Junko heard it first. “Hm?” She stopped mid-sip to listen again. “Was that-”

“Shhh.” Motonubu rose up the lamp to emphasize his order. “Just remain silent.”

“No, I get it.” Junko capped off her beverage and replaced it on her hip. “You’re doing some weirdo Agent thing, that’s cool. I bet I heard what you’re listening for, though, so maybe don’t be so rude.”

Perhaps a bit annoyed at having been superseded, Motonubu's tone remained dismissive. “Impossible. It will likely be hours before-”

“Nope, see, there it was again.” Junko strolled up to Motonubu, the distance between them now shorter than a sword’s length. He clearly dropped his guard- letting the woman get that close to him would have meant death if her intentions had been hostile. Instead she put one ear up against the wall and closed her eyes. “Yeah, maybe like...right on the other side of this, I think? Some kind of bumping noise?” She turned to look at Motonubu, who was having issues deciding whether he needed to retreat or continue listening for this alleged noise. “Aren’t we pretty deep? Nothing could penetrate this far down from the surface.”

“Of course not.” Motonubu removed the stone from the wall and hesitated, then took a few steps back. He looked back towards Gekko, who now stood far enough away from the light source to be nearly completely shrouded in darkness. “Cadet Tanuma Gekko, Annitou is not operating any mines on Jinchi currently, correct?”

“Why on earth would I know anything about that?” Gekko spoke, a slight shudder present in his voice. “Do I look like I know jack about Annitou operations on Jinchi or something? I’m just a cadet!”

“Hm. Fair enough. Legionnaire Kiku-ichimonji Junko.” Now at an appropriate distance he gently tossed the rock he had been holding at the woman, who immediately snatched it out of the air as though she had been expecting it.

“What- Hey!” Her instincts responded faster than her brain could process it, and she stared at the odd rock for a bit trying to understand what just happened. “Don’t throw things at me without warning- what is this creepy thing? It looks like a skull!”

“Use that,” Motonubu gestured at the wall with his free arm, “and lead us towards that sound. I suspect it will finally reveal what we have been looking for.”

“It better be an exit.” Junko grumbled, but acquiesced. She resumed Motonubu’s strange behavior, putting the rock up to the wall then listening closely. The sound was very faint but it wasn’t as though there were a lot of competing noises to drown it out. As she moved along the damp wall Motonubu followed with his lamp, and Gekko...kept pouting. The boy’s attention seemed to turn elsewhere with every step. Concerning, but not alarming. The group pushed onwards.

Without warning the ground changed under her feet. “Wha- AGH!” Junko nearly tripped over the sudden shift in elevation and saved herself again by the mercy of her own reflexes, scrambling back up the side before falling completely into the trench. A large channel of indeterminable width opened up underneath her, as though someone had taken a slice out of the floor with a large shovel. “Tch!” She almost dropped the skull as she finally pulled herself back from the brink. Motonubu didn’t pay this much mind, and drew closer to the edge to shine the light down into the crevasse. Junko peered down as well.

The chasm’s true size was a lot less scary- maybe only two or three body lengths from where they stood. Easily a fall anyone could survive, though maybe not in the best condition if they weren’t expecting it. Most notable of all were the markings where the wall met the edge of the drop off. A series of large concentric rings, like those in the trunk of a tree, spread out right at the base of the trench. Some even poked out into slight cones. Those rings repeated down the entire length until they disappeared into the darkness. Junko was not an expert on anything mechanical but they bore an awful resemblance to plugs one might see in a bathtub drain.

“Really?” Gekko was still standing quite a distance from the other two, which might have been worrying if he had anywhere he could actually run to. “That’s how they did it? This is the ancient Jinchi transportation system?”

“Not quite divine intervention, is it, eh?” Motonubu held the light up to try and reveal more of the structure. “But what mechanism does it operate with? Could it be-”

“Oh, I get it.” Junko took the stone off the wall for a bit to turn to the other two, having pieced it all together. “It’s a canal, right? The City of Kings has some like this. Uh, much better made, but similar. Get a big trench, get some big barges, float everything down them at like no energy cost. Very efficient. So, what,” she turned back down towards the empty channel at her feet. “There used to be water here?”

“There still is.” Motonubu rapped his knuckles on the decorated wall. “There is good reason to believe on the other side of this structure is the open sea.”

“The sea!” Junko turned to Motonubu with a scoff. “We spent several days walking inland, you want to tell me the ocean somehow reaches all the way here?”

“Some part of it, yes.” Motonubu shifted his gaze to Gekko, who seemed quite content to stay far away from the two adults. “Well, Cadet Tanuma Gekko? Do you wish to add to the conversation?”

“I’m good.”

Exhaling with only a tiny amount of frustration, Motonubu gestured back towards the ornate wall. “That object- that skull you hold, Legionnaire Junko, should hold some key to progressing here. The Metsina believed the artifact to open a vault of some kind, which is the reason they kept it as a ‘treasure’ for so long.”

“A vault?” Junko glanced at the strange skull, only now noticing the strange thing looked to only have one eye and wasn’t in the shape of any animal she was familiar with. “Why don’t we just keep looking around? I’m not super comfortable trying to open long undisturbed vaults from ancient dead civilizations. That’s how you end up getting cursed by a mummy.”

“Mummies don’t exist.”

“You’ve clearly never fought a Maeda.”

“Here, bring the artifact this way.” Motonubu made another small gesture, this time to a small notch on the wall nearest the channel’s edge. His thin fingers tugged at, and eventually loosened and removed, a cylinder sitting in the middle of the decorative rings. “Let us try putting it in here.”

“I’m not doing jack.” Junko hurled the rock back at Motonubu, who also caught it as if he had been expecting her to do that. “You get cursed yourself, leave me out of it.”

Motonubu and Junko exchange mutual distrustful stares, but the Agent blinked first. After trying to insert the skull in a number of different orientations and finding no luck, he looked back at Gekko. The boy looked clearly troubled.

With renewed confidence Motonubu again began to insert the skull. Having tried all the obvious methods, an idea at once came over him. Rather than forcing it in, he placed it loosely against the outer rings, then began to spin it, as if it were a screw. The skull slid in with a smooth motion, and sank several inches down into the wall with each twist. Motonubu had to strain to get it in the last few turns, but with a satisfying click it eventually seemed to settle in. At the moment the skull fit into place a flash of orange flame burst out from its sides, causing Motonubu to curse loudly and jerk his hand back out like he just touched a hot stove. That pulled some barbed laughter out of Junko. "What's the matter, Mr. Bigshot Agent? Scared of a couple sparks?"

Examining his hand and finding it uninjured, Motonubu's agitated voice shot back with just a hint of wounded pride. "I would advise you to be more wary of flames, Legionnaire. You are so soaked in alcohol you might catch fire if you get to close."

As Junko's amusement faded she noticed first that the drumming noise at some point stopped, and that uneasy suffocating silence settled back into the cavernous room.

All eyes turned back down towards the canal expecting some kind of reaction. However none of the pipelike protrusions running along its length gave any indication of opening. Motonubu’s eyes narrowed, and he stuck his fingers back in the hole to wiggle the skull around some more. It did feel a bit loose. Perhaps that was to be expected of a millenia-long old artifact, it would be like trying to use a key in a thousand year old lock. Even if the Metsina Royals had taken care of it, a rock was still a rock.

“Try spitting on it first,” came Junko’s helpful advice. Since Gekko was still cowering off somewhere she was free to take up the stale air with inane comments again.

Motonubu turned to address her in a rare bit of give and take. “You are free to try.” He gestured towards the slot where the skull now rested. “You certainly have been consuming enough alcohol that I am sure you have the moisture to spare.”

“It’s important to stay hydrated!”

“Yes, of course. Nothing quenches thirst quite like-” Whatever typical Motonubu wet blanket comment he was about to make was immediately interrupted by the yelling of the distant Gekko. Junko spun around on her heels and again somehow resisted the urge to draw her weapons. That instinct of hers was useless here. It wasn’t as though there would be any enemies (apart from Motonubu or mummies, potentially) down in these ancient ruins after all. It turned out to be even more disappointing than that. Gekko’s little footsteps echoed through the chamber as he scampered past Junko, dropped himself into the canal, then started running across it. Even Motonubu reacted with a quizzical look.

“Kid, hey!” Junko turned back around and gave a reverbing shout out to the retreating child. “Did you see a spider or something? Get back here!” Gekko didn’t respond, and instead his footsteps started growing dimmer as he disappeared into the darkness. “Bloody hell.” Now she looked down at Motonubu, who always seemed to have some type of impossible answer. “Well, what is it? Shouldn’t you be going after him?”

Deep in thought, Motonubu's answer came too late to really matter. “We should probably both be following him. Spoken or auditory Bossa can be imperceptible to our ears. He might have heard something even your keen senses didn’t pick up.”

“Are you joking?” Junko looked back in the direction Gekko came and tried to listen, but heard nothing. “Those weird sounds stopped. How can you hear something from a sound stopping? I’m pretty sure that kid just snapped. Lots of stress, surrounded by hostiles, trapped in cave...oh,” her tone shifted as something came into focus. “I think that pounding is starting up again. It’s somewhere above us now. Can you hear-”

As though a sudden storm opened up from the skies above an enormous deluge of water poured down from above. It wouldn’t have been right to say the heavens opened up seeing how they were underground, but it certainly felt reminiscent of a rainstorm. It started out slow but ramped up in volume very quickly, barely giving Motonubu time to unscrew his precious skull before it became a downright deluge. The tiny lamp they had been using for light was designed for Annitou-style sea storms, but this wasn’t exactly a normal weather event. Instead as the simulated rainfall grew stronger it became apparent this was more like an open faucet rather than anything natural.

Strange as it sounded to even herself, Junko started to miss the relative peace and quiet of the tunnel.