Path of the Vampire forum

The tech was excellent. It had actually been one of the first thing Renard had thought about when he’d heard they were going into the Labyrinth. A few years before, he had flown to South Dakota to do a shoot in the caverns of Jewel Cave. Nearly 160 miles of underground terrain was a lot of distance for a film crew to work with to get the very best shot, but communication was of key importance. Especially underground, when there was great risk of either cave in or pitfall. Of course, the majority of Ren’s work had been done in trailers outside of the cave system itself, producing subterranean monsters and mutations. However, he had been on call the entire time to do touch ups between scenes. Extremely low frequency radio waves they had called them. Had the ability to penetrate through rock and dirt. Renard was impressed Jesse had thought of it, though he had not said as much.

The meeting itself was short and to the point, which Ren also appreciated. He was a creature of action, and the act of waiting around tended to make him feel antsy. Left to his own devices, he probably would have plugged his ears with some buds, turned the music up loud, and gone in guns blazing. In this case, he deferred to someone who knew what they were doing. Which was odd for him. Renard had a complicated relationship with authority figures. Specifically, he hated them. Blame it on Hillstrom. Blame it on Beatrice. Blame it on Isengrim. The moment someone felt they had a right to bark an order at him (or in some cases, make polite suggestions), he was apt to buck. Except Jesse hadn’t asked for him to show up. He hadn’t given orders. That was the difference. Renard had been the one to demand volunteer to go in. So he couldn’t rightly be a trouble child could he? See. Maturity.

The walkie talkie was hooked to his belt. He had opted for fairly simple garb, orange baseball cap, a black and orange windbreaker. T-shirt. Black jeans. Black and orange high tops. His gun, which was a massive assault rifle, was strapped across his back overtop the sheath for his sword. Of course, he was giving his best impersonation of a mouse. Though he suspected no amount of sneaking was going to help them up ahead, because it looked like the winding tunnels of the Labyrinth were about to narrow to the point where people were about to have to file through in a single line. Possibly even turn on their sides to pass through. Limited mobility. The best place for someone or something to make the drop on them. Renard wasn’t particularly pleased with it, but that was life.

“Babe, let me get around you.” he said as he gripped Beckett’s bicep a moment to pass in front of the other man. Originally, he had been behind the other man. To uh. Watch his lover’s back.

Yeah.

Watch his back. That sounded legit.

But if they were about to walk into a potential zombie trap, he wanted it sprung on him, not Knuckles.

UGH. “You know some guys would be ******* thrilled to have a boyfriend who is willing to get chased by some crazy as **** giant, Indiana Jones boulder. Or take darts to the face. Or whatever the **** is down here. But nope. Here I am. Risking my ***, and my boyfriend is talking about putting pictures of pancake, dartface Ren on the wall. ****’s. Sake.” The words were more hissed than anything else, as Renard crossed in front of Beck so that he could ‘lead the charge’. Not that it was much of a charge. For the most part, the objective was to stay as quiet and unnoticeable as possible so as not to draw the attention of some big ugly monsters. And while he was out in front, he continued to mutter things about how he was being a gallant ******* knight, and how Beck had better ******* repay him with...and at that point his chatter became either too quiet or too indistinct to make out. This was, surprisingly enough, Renard in stealth mode. In fact, his normal volume was somewhere around a shout.

Of course, then he realized the other people were talking and he just sort of shut up so he could listen. How many times had Beck told him not to talk over people? It seemed there wasn’t a ton of information to go around. He heard the term ‘Hebigumo Foundation’, which tugged at something in the back of his mind. He had probably heard the words before. Like ‘Apple’ and ‘Microsoft’. Eventually some corporate entities became so large that they entered the vocabulary of the average person as points of reference to products. Though Ren couldn’t, for the life of him, remember what the Hebigumo Foundation actually produced.

The narrow passage came to an end abruptly right into a large chamber. He could hear some rustling ahead and he squinted. There was a bright light behind him, held by Ysmir and when the beam connected with the area the sound had come from, he caught sight of what looked like a pillar crumbling. It didn’t look structural thankfully. But that was curious wasn’t it? He approached slowly, glancing around for an exit. “I don’t have any sort of information, but I am curious. Who made this place? The Hebigumo Foundation might have been digging around in here, but this architecture is ancient. It was deliberately built and carved out of the ground. It goes deep. Very deep from what I understand. So who would have had the resources and the ability to have made this?” he asked.

“It would have to have been years and years ago.” Renard mused, clearly lost in thought for a moment. He didn’t say much more on the subject, but the architecture was foreign to him. He suddenly wished that he had both paid more attention to set design, and to some of the native architecture related to the region. He could tell they were descending into ruins, but he couldn’t have said with any confidence if they were a few hundred years old, and had been made after the arrival of European settlers, or if they had been built by the indigenous people. His gut instinct was that the masonry and the scope of the work involved in excavating into the earth was outside of the abilities of the latter. But then there were the famous Pyramids which had been built thousands of years into the past. So maybe it was like one of those mysteries. Either way, Ren was not ashamed to admit he didn’t know what the **** he was talking about as far as that topic was concerned. So he let the subject drop.

Then there was the sound of static and a loud, feminine voice. The shuffling of undead bones across the stonework.

Well this was certainly not ideal. They weren’t even very deep and had already lost the element of surprise. The mission had been one of stealth, which meant they needed to quickly either run or put down the skeletons which came more and more into view with every passing moment. Renard was not the type of person who believed in backing down from a fight (which was usually because he was the one who started them), but he also knew the things in the Labyrinth were supposed to be a lot stronger than he or Beck were used to taking on. So his first instinct was to quite literally pull his boyfriend over his shoulder and haul *** in the opposite direction, leaving Arauchia and Ysmir to fend for themselves. Something told him that Beck would probably punch him if he pulled that move though. And before he could make any suggestion to the contrary, the fight had already begun.

Ren dragged his sword out of its sheath. He worried, for a moment, that even if these things were as deceptively weak as they may have appeared, the clamor was going to attract stronger things. But he didn’t really have time to focus on possible problems because one of the skeletons descended on him like a rabid animal. The thing clasped a dagger that looked like a jagged piece of glass in its hand, and it swiped at him rapidly, as if it was a beast with claws. He just barely stepped back and out of the way, when it surged closer, trying to get inside of his guard. The hand with his blade in it twisted, to catch an oncoming swipe, and with all of his strength, he slammed the thing backwards and right into a wall as with the intention to stun it.

The skeleton bounced off of the stone, and Renard hammered the pommel of his sword right into its skull with so much force that a cranium began to crumble immediately as if it was made from nothing but dust. Another couple of firm jabs and the thing's entire head was completely gone. From there, it just took a few deft sword strokes to leave it as nothing but a pile of old bones on the ground.