Octavius's POV
I cracked open an eye, my bones ached I could see nothing but black abyss. I'm in the underworld. The back of my mind spoke, you've died and gone to the underworld. my head was spinning, I tried to stand but I couldn't, my legs were caught in some kind of net, no wait a net? I looked at my feet and after about 3 minutes I could just make out what it was, cobwebs, huge ancient cobwebs, the things must have broken our fall I don't thing I could ever hate spiders again after today.
"Jed, hey Jed, are you there?" I called into the darkness scanning the dark ground with my still adjusting eyes I just needed to catch a glimpse of my friend, I was not leaving without him, but then I spotted him, and he didn't look to good.
He was lying against a support collum unconscious, there was a little trail of blood leading to his head from were he had slid down it oh no I tor the cobwebs from my legs and ran towards him, stumbling through the dark catacombs of the museum. Please be alive. I put my head on his chest, and his heat beat was to my utter relief still going, it was faint and fluttering but still beating, I shook him,
"Jed! Jedediah!" he didn't react "Please you need to wake up!"
He didn't reach to my shaking, all that happened was that his head flopped around, so I slapped him, hard. His blue eyes shot open and he started moaning, if not for the urgency of the situation I would have to admit that he looks really cute just now, sleepy ocean blue eyes half lidded, hair a tussled mess, mouth open a little and grim smeared across his face not that I was into that kind of thing of course, this was no time to sit back and stare.
"Come on Jed we need to get out of here before sunrise"
I grabbed him under the arms and I tried to haul him to his feet, just as his rear was leaving the ground he screamed, agonisingly loud.
"Jed!" he was bent double and whimpering now, "what is wrong with you! What did I do!?"
He looked up at me, by now my eyes were adjusted enough to pick out the details of his face, his eyes were red and puffy, tears of agony were streaming down his face and there was a bleeding cut on his forehead, his eyes spoke of a pained and weak Jedediah I had never seen nor heard before, it was like the stubborn, determined, adventurous and out going soul I had come to know had been ripped out of him and replaced with this pained and angst filled persona, it was heart breaking to see him like this.
"My leg, I can't move it" his voice came out in a hoarse croak.
I looked down, and I had to struggle not to vomit right then and there, now I knew why he had screamed, Jed had been impaled, there was a long rusty spike of iron protruding from the ground, piecing straight through his outer left thigh, there were bloody strands of spider silk clinging to his legs which were covered in small scratches, I just didn't understand why I had managed to recover with nothing but bruises, and Jed had suffered so many injuries, had he angered some deity sometime, or perhaps he had been jinxed, but dammit, as long as he still breathed I was going to get him out of this! I looked up, it was a long way, barely illuminated by the light from the gap we had fallen through and various other kinks and gaps in the rotten flooring, the brickwork of the support collum would have good footholds, I could make it in about half an hour, less if I discarded my armour, and time was something I didn't have, I ripped off my armour, down to my undershirt and tunic, I rolled up my leather vest into a rope and wrapped it around Jed's wound and pressed his limp pale hands onto it.
"You need to hold this here and press ok, your going to need to save as much blood as possible, I'm going to go and find help, and you are going to have to stay awake! You hear me!" I grabbed the sides of his face and shook him a little to emphasise that last point.
"Alright ill try to, nghh!" he grunted in pain as his battered hands pressed down on the coiled calf leather, his face had contorted into something resembling a gnarled wooden statue.
"I'm going up just hang on ok!" I spared one last glance at his pain racked form, and took a jump start up the brick collum, this was going to be one tough night.
Exactly 24 minutes later I arrived at the surface, I ran as fast as I could to the doorway that, thank Janus, was still open. As I ran into the hallway, my unspoken fears of being lost were destroyed, Dexter's trail of overturned crates, scattered packaging containers and just down right mess had yet to be cleaned up, leaving me a clear path out of the storage rooms.
I made it to the foyer in exactly 9 minutes, and again to my relief, there was Sacagawea by the front desk, she appeared to be very anxious, but to tartorous with that.
"Sacagawea! Sacaga," I had to stop and catch my breath, but I definitely had her attention.
"Octavius please, calm down, we al thought you were dead, were is Jedediah?"
"He's still down there, he got impaled on a nail, you need to run to the diorama room and get help right now!" her eyes widened to saucepans when I said impaled, but she recognised the direness of the situation, she placed me on her shoulder and ran,
When we reached the diorama room, we were greeted with near chaos, the Huns had been trying to keep things under control, but the language barrier, and the size barrier was not helping. When the Huns tried to wrangle the cowboys back into the frontier diorama, they would run every which way and that away from it, when the Huns attempted to chase down the Romans, they assumed offensive positions, and prepared to bombard, just as the catapults were about to be launched I could step in.
"Everybody halt!!"
Silence swept across the battle ground, which was swiftly replaced by a murmur, the roman legions cautiously came out of their positions and lowered their shields, the cowboys steadied their horses to a stop and stared, it appeared they expected me to speak, and speak I would.
"Frontier men, there has been a terrible accident happened to your leader jedediah, you need to get him medical attention now or he may die, Romans, please stop your battle, the Huns are attempting to help"
For a moment everybody just stood still, taking in what I had said, and then everybody took of scurrying away to do as I had asked, to my surprise a quantity of Romans had run to help the cowboys, it appears they had not been fighting against one another as I had first assumed.
Soon me and Sacagawea were guiding a small army of Cowboy medics, running top speed towards the store room, while Sacagawea had little trouble avoiding Dexter's mess, the miniatures had a tougher time, having to weave there wagons between all the fallen debris, and every second wasted, meant that the clock was ticking on Jedediahs life, it was almost to much to bare.
When they winched him out of that pit on a stretcher, my heart lurched in my chest, he looked so dam pale, and there wasn't a piece of his body that wasn't battered and bruised, his leg had been enclosed in a cacoon of bandages, and his leg was in a splint, he was barely conscious and I could only catch a glimpse of him as he was bustled into the waiting cart, horses chafing at the bit. As the horses took of, I could not help a feeling of foreboding, I just didn't like this one bit.
"Octavius, we should hurry and tell Ahkmenra and Larry that you are alive, Larry was pretty, upset" I could tell he was a bit more than upset, but I was in no mood to be talking to a frantic night watchmen at the moment.
"You tell them. I need a little time alone right now, just leave me in the lobby"
"Alright ill let them know, just don't take too long it will be dawn in a few hours"
--1 hour later—
I had to go see Jedediah, it was about time, I knew it was I just didn't want to. I slid of the front desk to the floor. I didn't really absorb anything going on around me. It was like my soul had left my body. I didn't know why I felt this way, I hadn't felt like this when I was running off to find help Jedediah could be on his way to a full recovery for all I know, so why do I feel as if something has died, its like the feeling I got when I looked upon a deserted battle field, this dead feeling I wish it would just go away, but it wont I don't think I could ever fully leave a person once its taken hold. This feeling just blocks out everything, I hope that I'm right in the fact that its just worry, and not foresight, I really don't know what id do if Jedediah didn't make it. It's a little strange now I think about it, Jedediah had once been a plague to me, but now I look upon him as one of the dearest friends I've ever had, its odd what impact mere circumstance can make on how you view another person, I have Larry to thank for that.
I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't realise that I had reached the diorama room until I heard the whistle of the train in Jedediah's frontier diorama. As I looked up I noticed that Ahkmenra was standing there, tablet in hand.
"Ahkmenra? What are you doing here?"
"Ah Octavius! I was wondering where you had gone" he picked me up and put me into the palm of his hand "I was just seeing to Jedediah, that was some run you did earlier, it probably saved his life"
"Umm thankyou? So Jedediah is going to recover isn't he, their not going to chop off his leg of or anything" he chuckled a little at that last comment
"Yes Octavius he will recover fine, he's going to have a bit of a limp but nothing that will stop him from living like he has been, I was just using the tablet to confirm that, I could not heal him but I could speed his natural healing process so that he will be more or less healed in a month or so" I felt a weight lift off my shoulders, that was a relief to say the least. "He is awake now and I think he might want to see you" he put me down on the ledge in front of the frontier diorama.
"alright ill go see him, oh and by the way, Larry didn't kill Dexter did he?"
"no of course not, Teddy argued him out of that one, he'll be in a bit of tight spot over the next month or so to say the least"
I nodded and climbed into the diorama, steeling myself for what might be in store for me inside the makeshift hospital building, I don't know why after all Ahkmenra said he would be fine. But after seeing him like that during the accident, I just couldn't help but worry, I quickend my pace. The quicker I saw him the quicker ill know for sure.
"Mr octavius!" I looked up, there was a woman in nurses getup running towards me.
"we were wondering where you were, come on quickly, Jedediah wants to talk to you"
