[IC] Artifacts of the Ancients

[chukklehed]

"Come on you guys!" Chris shouted, readjusting his glasses. "If you don't hurry up I'm going to leave you all behind!" He stepped over a log and suddenly dissapeared from view, followed by a loud 'Whumph'.

"Ow..." Chris's voice groaned from below, a bit muffled since he was laying face down at the bottom of the cliff he had accidentally discovered. He rolled over onto his back and stared up at the log he had fallen from. "There's a cliff over here guys, watch out!" He shouted ironically.

[No Bite and All Bark]

Kyle himself was not paying much attention to the path until he heard chris fall over. He leaned over the edge and smiled at him.
"Hey chris you need to watch your step." He said sarcasticly, sliding down the hill as safely as he can, and attempted to jump off dramatically at the end, landing right on his stomach in the process.
He turns his head to look at chris.
"Sup"

[Whirlwind]

Aedre followed the others at a leisurely pace, not one to bother to hurry. She raised an eyebrow in mild concern when Chris just disappeared after stepping over a log, but hearing his shout made her smirk instead. Coming up behind Kyle, she leaned over the log next to him until he slid down the hill to Chris. “I’m guessing you’re fine!” she called down, a statement and not a question as she scooted over the log and slid down herself. She stood once reaching the bottom, brushing off the seat of her jeans and back of her black tank. “If one of you dies one this adventure I’m not carrying your body back,” she said, half serious, half joking as she crossed her arms and started walking lazily ahead again, a small smile on her lips.

[HylianRose]

"That's one way to find the cliff." Jessie spoke from behind the group, her voice slightly gruff from the smoking she'd been doing. She'd only started last year but her voice had been rather harsh even before then from all the yelling she'd done at guy's night. If one were to look at Jessie, they'd see deep brown eyes that reflected a life spent trying to pretend her sisters didn't exist, relatively pale skin that reflected a majority of her life spent indoors. The only time she ever tanned was over the summer when she played soccer for the rec center. And, choppy black hair that went down past her shoulder blades.

Currently, she had on a basic tank with a loose sweater over it and light blue skinny jeans. Her sneakers were nothing to scoff at though. They were actually relatively nice. Even though her sister's would yell at her for how.. grey and basic they looked. But still, she was prepared for this little endeavor. She had a backpack with a first-aid kit, water bottles, and other such supplies. After all, this wasn't like your standard trip to the mall with your friends.

She shook her head as she followed the group down the cliff, sliding down with relative ease. She stopped just next to Kyle with her arms crossed. "So, where exactly as we headed? Does anyone know?" She asked looking around at the others.

[chukklehed]

Chris scrambled to his feet and readjusted his glasses, hoisting his pack higher on his shoulder.

"Uhhhh... this direction?" He said, trying to figure out where he was on a mental map. "Nobody's been this far into the woods as far as I know. We're headed into uncharted territory!" He started walking again, if a bit more carefully now, stopping just a few feet ahead to look back at the group.

"I bet there's something in here, something nobody's ever seen before, and we could be the first ones to discover it."

[No Bite and All Bark]

Kyle hummed as he stood up, dusting himself off. He had a scratch or two on his arm, but he didn't seem to notice.
"So its an adventure then!" He said triumphantly, taking a few wide strides forward. "Who Knows What we could find!" He grinned a bit, resting his hands on his hips.
"All joking aside, we really have no clue where we are going." He looked around at their surroundings. Kyle liked to think he had an eye for detail, but things easily passed him by.

[Whirlwind]

Aedre took a band off her wrist and tied up her, clearly dyed, lilac hair as Jessie asked where they were headed and Chris picked a random direction. Aedre was slightly hesitant at first to go on this adventure, but she was bored as hell and had nothing else to do. After all, what if they did find something exciting and she missed it? She’d have been ticked. She snorted in amusement when Kyle said they had no clue where they were going and just continued on where Chris had pointed. She started to walk backwards, facing her friends as she spoke once more. “Seriously though, if we don’t find something in the next hour, I say we turn ba—“ Aedre tripped over something and fell backwards onto her rear, face flushing red as she looked around to see what she had run into. There was some stone on the ground in the middle of the grass. At first she frowned at it, angry at the rock for getting in her way. But as she was about to look away from it she noticed there were carvings on the side, and it looked like it had been broken off. Off of what she had no idea, but she picked it up with two hands and moved it around, trying to figure out exactly what it was or what it had come off of.

[chukklehed]

"Hmm?" Chris said, moving closer to get a good look at the stone. "What did you find there?" He hoped her curiosity would help disguise the small smirk on his face from watching her fall over. Looking around he spotted a similar stone, then what looked like a chunk of a low wallpaper sticking out of the undergrowth.

"Hey, there's something this way you guys!" He called excitedly, passing between two crumbling pillars and finally emerging onto an overgrown cobbled clearing. Grass and small plants pushed up between the cracks, but several structures in the enourmous area seemed untouched by time. The first, a large stone arch that seemed to be entirely decorative, stood against the edge of the ring. In the center, ringed by six stone pillars, was a massive door. Two of the pillars were empty, but on the remaining four stood four very unique objects. Chris immediately crossed to the pillars and stopped in front of one, gingerly reaching out and plucking the palm sized sphere from it. A bit of static electricity jumped from it to his hand, but he barely noticed.

"Hey guys, check these out!"

[No Bite and All Bark]

Kyle walked, wide eyed, into the group of pillars. He made a small mischievous smile as he stopped before an item on the pillar. It was a gauntlet, something that would completely cover his hand and halfway up his forearm. He made a humming sound.
"There's only one? Guess some craftsman got lazy." He went to pick it up before throwing his hand back a bit. It was... cold. So much so that it sort've Hurt him. He rubbed his hand together, reaching for it again. But this time, it felt fine. He picked it up, looking over the small intricacies.

"Who dares me to put this on?" He said to the group, waving it in the air a bit. "I'm gonna do it anyway, so someone should dare me so if i get hurt i can blame them."

[Whirlwind]

Aedre looked up from the stone and let Chris look at it, turning her head and looking around them for more. She was seeing what Chris was seeing and smiled. Finally, something interesting! She got up quickly, tossing the stone to the side and following the others. When they stumbled upon the structures and pillars forming a large circle, she was in awe. How had no one else found this before? Or had someone? No, couldn’t have. It was too untouched. “Hey I’ll dare you… if you get hurt from it I can outrun you anyway,” Aedre laughed a little to Kyle, walking over to a pillar they hadn’t examined yet. She ran her hand over all four sides, until she realized there was a long cylindrical object stuck in one side. Frowning, she bent down, looking the wooden object up and down. Why was this placed into a stone pillar? She gingerly tried to remove it, and did so after a little effort. There had been a carved spot for it in the stone, and it had fit in perfectly. Now that it was in her hands, she turned it over and over. This was a flute of some kind obviously… a formed mouth piece, holes… but there were spaces and keys missing. “Ugh, this would be fun to play,” she mumbled under her breath, frowning slightly. It was hers now though, and she stuck the mouth piece under her tank, rubbing it off to ‘clean’ it before standing once more and trying to figure out where to put her fingers before playing it.

[HylianRose]

"Triple dog dare ya." Jessie told Kyle sarcastically as she walked behind everyone. By the time she reached whatever the others were talking about, there was only one pillar thing left. She walked past the other, giving them a look that said, 'You guys are crazy.'

Shaking her head and smiling, she picked up the bronze looking thing and pulled it from the pillar, a sharp, hot pain shooting up her palm as she did so. There was only about a cm of it showing on the surface but below was much more of the item. Her interest, despite the hot pain, in the object grew as more and more of it came out. Soon, she had a spiraling bracelet looking thing in the shape of a Chameleon. "Sweet... but uh... Why'd I get a fashion item? And why did it practically burn me?" She asked, looking around at the others.

She shrugged and put the thing on her wrist, admiring it. It had several empty crevasses in it. For what, she didn't know. But as she was thinking about this, the bronze tightened around her wrist, forming to her arm. The tail of the chameleon slide up her arm, locking into place about half way up to her elbow. Her eyes went wide as she began to try her hardest to get the damned thing off.

Over all, she was pretty quiet about it for a few minutes. But when it finally sunk in that the thing wasn't coming off, she looked, wide eyed, at the rest of her friends and called out, "Uhm... I... uhh... have a problem." She mumbled, swallowing. She could feel the heat of the thing beginning to fade away as it stayed on her arm. Which was good... but also bad because she could feel that same heat make it's way through the rest of her body. Once it had reached every part of her, it disappeared.

"W-Weird..." She stuttered her hands shaking a bit.

[No Bite and All Bark]

Kyle smiled as people called out their bets. He slipped his hand into the gauntlet, which promptly locked itself onto his wrist.
"Hey, what the?" Then Kyle felt a searing pain spreading throughout his arm. Kyle yelled loudly, falling on the floor, and he tried to grip onto his arm in reflex, but the outside of the Glove was just like it was a minute ago: Painfully cold. "Agggh oh god!" He began to shake his arm, as if the lock system that attached to his forearm would just wiggle off. His screaming slowly trailed off, and as kyle panted, looking at the glove, he realized that the heat was subsiding. He lightly touched the outside again, this time it felt almost...normal. No... as he touched the pillar with his gloved hand, he saw small bits of frost begin to form. The temperature didn't go back... he got used to it.
As kyle tried to process the turn of events, he attempted once again to pull it off. No matter how he pulled, it stayed firmly locked to him. Kyle sighed, falling onto his back, looking up at the sky and taking deep breaths.

[Whirlwind]

Aedre was messing with the odd instrument in her hands when she heard Jessie say something about burning. She frowned glancing up to see her friend trying to get some piece of jewelry off her arm. “What it won’t come off?” Aedre asked, confused as to how she got it stuck on her in the first place. A ring would have been understandable, but a bracelet? She didn’t have time to think it through when Kyle screamed and Aedre’s first instinct was to run over to him wide eyed. “Dude, what’s wrong?” she asked concerned, but not connecting that the objects from these pillars were possibly dangerous. She frowned, standing over him as he laid on his back, the thing he’d been messing with apparently locked onto his arm as well.

“At least this thing can’t lock onto my arm,” Aedre mumbled to herself, looking back to her flute but still frowning. Hesitating but too curious, she fixated her fingers over a few holes that were the most comfortable for her hands to reach, and blew into it. A hollow, unearthly tone filled the area. It was loud but a note so low it blended in with the hum of the forest around them. “Well, that’s pretty I guess,” Aedre said, looking up only to see everyone almost frozen in time. Her eyes widened in fear. “You, you guys? What did I do?” she asked their slowed down forms, taking a few steps back and almost tripping again. Just as she was about to start panicking, the forest sounds sped up again as did the others. “The heck?!” she yelled, frightened and holding the wood instrument out far in front of her, as if it were diseased.