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Marianna whistled in surprise at the rocky cliff that stood in front of them, stretching left and right as far as she could see, where it curved in the distance. She craned her neck to see the top of it, but even that was beyond her sight, shrouded in white fog.
“Well, this looks… nice,” she fidgeted with the straps of her backpack.
“Does it?” Ethan groaned, standing at her side, his face a mask of pain. His breath fogged as he sighed.
“Aww, come on, kids, it’s not so bad,” Kurtis proclaimed cheerfully, “nothing is even trying to kill us yet.”
“You can never know that for certain,” Lara adjusted her glasses, the red lenses reflecting the pale, weak sunlight struggling to get through heavy clouds, “something might already be in motion, we just can’t see it.”
“I’d be okay with that,” Marianna shrugged, shifting weight from foot to foot, “I can deal with something trying to kill me. But this… are we actually scaling this?”
“We are,” Ethan’s voice sounded as dead as was the look in his eyes.
“Alright, just one question,” Marianna turned to Lara. The older woman raised one sharp eyebrow but the twenty-year-old was not deterred: “Why did we not let the helicopter take us closer? To the top maybe? Why did we have to spend the last hour navigating some sort of stone maze and fight the local fauna? I mean,” she gestured wildly upwards with both arms, “there is a sky right there, the helicopter could fly us way, way, way closer!”
Kurtis patted his daughter consolingly on her shoulder. “Mari, there was a very serious reason for it.”
“What reason?” she frowned in concern.
“We would have missed a lot of fun,” Lara answered in complete seriousness but then grinned. “It wouldn’t be worth the travel if we couldn’t enjoy ourselves.”
“But-” Marianna gaped. “Aren’t we here to save the world?”
“Wow, Mari, I thought you were supposed to be the irresponsible one,” Ethan teased.
“What?” she stared at her boyfriend, feeling like she was suddenly the only sane person around. “No, no, this isn’t responsibility, it’s a sense of self-preservation! If the world is destroyed, I’m gonna have a hard time trying to keep on living!” she could hear her voice hitch a little higher.
“Don’t worry, Mari,” Kurtis patted her on the shoulder once more and went closer to the wall, inspecting it. “We’re not that much in a hurry, or even Lara would agree to take a shortcut.”
“Probably,” Lara shrugged.
“Probably,” Marianna repeated in a hushed, disbelieving voice.
“Come on, Mari, it should be easy for you,” Ethan nudged her. “With your powers?”
Marianna poked him back with her elbow, maybe a little too hard. “I’m not saying I can’t do it, just that I really don’t want to. And anyway, how is this archaeology?”
“Huh?” Ethan glanced back at her, already on his way to the wall.
“I mean,” she gestured at him and his mother, “I know what you do is more on the grave robbing side, but you do also practice actual archaeology, right? Did any of the things so far today come anywhere close to it?”
“Grave robbing?” Lara set hands on her hips.
“Yeah it’s better to call it tomb raiding,” Kurtis corrected.
“What’s the difference?” Marianna asked, not sure if she wanted to actually hear the answer.
“Grave robbers would take the short way,” Lara said simply and started climbing.
“Uhhh…?” Marianna scrunched her face.
“Basically,” Ethan said as he started preparing his climbing gear, “grave robbers do it for profit, tomb raiders do it for the adventure. And I suppose, occasional world saving?”
“Don’t argue with Lara about it,” Kurtis recommended and started climbing too.
His daughter conceded that arguing with Lara about anything was not conductive to one’s health, so she accepted the advice and started looking for a good spot to start her ascent, seeing as she hadn’t noticed where exactly Lara found her path. A nice wide dent in the rock she could grab – sure, it was about three metres off the ground, but as Ethan had pointed out, she had a certain advantage. Focusing on her powers, she pushed herself off the ground and jumped higher that gravity should have allowed, reaching the hole with her hand easily. Her feet quickly found purchase and she started grope around for more holds.
“So,” she said, pulling herself a little higher. “I didn’t get my answer. Have we done anything resembling archaeology yet?” She had to speak out loud, seeing as her father and Lara were quickly progressing and Ethan was still on the ground fighting with his gear.
“Well,” Ethan called back at her, “archaeologists do sometimes need to climb somewhere too.”
“Yeah, so can firefighters,” Marianna shot back. “Something more unique maybe?”
“The stone maze was pretty uniquely Lara,” Kurtis laughed.
“Yeah dad, Lara, not archaeologist,” Marianna grumbled, then added: “No offense!”
“None taken,” Lara called back easily from up high.
Something small and fast shot by Marianna and she almost lost her grip as she startled. “What the-”
The thing flew way above her, her father’s, and even Lara’s position and stuck itself into the rock. With quick, shuffling sounds, Ethan caught up the her and continued onwards, reeling himself with the winch in his hands, walking over the cliff face with ease.
“Cheater!” Marianna called after him.
“I have no need to make my life more complicated that it needs to be!” he responded cheerfully.
They eventually reached a ledge of sorts, far from the top of the cliff, but a good place to rest.
“You don’t deserve the rest,” Marianna punched Ethan in the shoulder when she finally crawled after them.
“Hey,” he massaged the sore spot, “I just came prepared.”
“There is nothing wrong with that, if one has a patience for it,” Lara stretched her arms above her head.
“Which you don’t,” Kurtis commented and Lara shot her partner a look, but then she smirked:
“Not for this, no, but there are other things.” With that, she started inspecting the… rock.
Something in Ethan’s eyes seemed to light up and he followed her.
“Oooh, you’re searching for something!” Marianna exclaimed. “Is this finally the archaeology?”
“Sure,” Ethan threw her a smile and went back to his examination.
Marianna watched them in interest.
Then with less interest.
What were they looking for, it all looked the same…
There was actually a really nice view at the valley from here.
About half an hour later, Lara and Ethan stopped and Marianna jerked to an upright position where she had been sitting, her eyes slowly drooping. Her father glanced over with mild interest as well. “Found anything?”
“Yes,” Lara agreed, “we did.”
Ethan grinned at his mother in satisfaction and she returned a lopsided smile.
“There are dozens of different grooves,” Ethan started explaining, “but most of them are decoys and some might even be deadly.”
“How can a groove be deadly?” Marianna asked, now staring at the seemingly plain wall in suspicion. Okay, now that she looked, there seemed to be grooves all over, but those actually means something? They weren’t naturally occurring?
“You slide something thin enough through them to activate them,” Lara told her, pulling out a pocket knife.
“And you know which?” Marianna asked though it was more like a statement. She doubted they’d spend so long on not figuring out which were which.
“Yes, it’s a very delicate, ancient mechanism that has its own logic,” Ethan nodded, pointing to what to Marianna looked like a completely random place. “This one is definitely trapped, for example.”
“Uh, okay.”
“So are these ones,” Lara pointed elsewhere and Marianna was still seeing nothing.
“Okay, so, you’re going to activate the correct ones then?” she asked, hoping that those would somehow be clearer to her but knowing it wouldn’t be so.
“We could,” Lara said, “but one of them is damaged, by all expectations it will be unusable. But still...” she set the knife to the wall and let it slide down over the slightly looping groove. It was clearly visible at one moment as the blade hitched on something as it followed the trajectory. Reaching the end, Lara took the knife away and they waited but – nothing.
“It’s busted,” Ethan confirmed their findings.
“So what are you going to do?” Marianna was now standing, watching with renewed curiosity. “This definitely looked, uh, archaeology-like, so what’s the next step? Search some more? Repair the groove? Find an alternate path?”
“We will need to move away from here, in this you’re correct,” Lara told her. Then she pulled out a pack of explosives. “We don’t want to be caught it the blast.”
“What?” Marianna squeaked. “Then what was all the search for?”
“If the mechanism worked, we’d have used it,” Ethan shrugged. “But because it doesn’t...”
“This is sooo not archaeology!” Marianna waved her hands.
Kurtis snorted. “Yeah, it’s not.”
“But isn’t this something that you would absolutely do?” Ethan crossed his arms, reminding her of the destruction she had caused to Babbs’ residence, including tearing down a whole wall in one room with nothing but a thought.
“Well… yeah,” she admitted. “But I thought you were more careful – I mean, I know Lara has a reputation, but I still thought…” she breathed out, defeated. “Okay, I’m not sure what I actually thought. I guess I’m just used to handling the Lux Veritatis heritage with lots of caution, all the old castles and catacombs...”
“You broke that table last week,” Kurtis pointed out.
“Okay!” Marianna lifted one finger. “That was my fault, I can admit that. Centuries old table, I didn’t expect it to not handle the weight of a few books.” She narrowed her eyes at the others, daring them to comment. “But I didn’t do it on purpose and I’m not an archaeologist.”
“I’m not either,” Ethan pulled out a lighter, “I’m still just a student.”
“I have only done some distance courses, really,” Lara tossed the explosives lightly up and down in her hand.
Marianna pursed her lips. “Okay.” She let out her breath, looking at the wall, the explosives, the lighter. Well, at least they wouldn’t need to climb all the way to the top. And… it’s not like she was against excessive destruction, she just hadn’t expected it. Her lips slowly curved up into a smile. “Actually, this could be fun, let’s blow it up!”
“I knew you’d approve,” Ethan laughed and tossed her the lighter.