The Scout stared at the entrance, confused and vaguely let down. "That's it? The base is pretty much an abandoned cave?" He peered in, his eyes drawing in warm sources of light and the gleam of a metal cabinet. Dust-covered stairs led down into the bowls of the base, although all that was visible was a fragment of the dirt cavern below. Frankly, he was a bit cautious to enter at all.
"Nah, mate. That's just the outside." The Australian came up over his shoulder, nonchalantly strolling past him and down through the entryway. He stopped at the bottom, glancing around before clicking his tongue and moving on. He knocked on the side of the metal container before walking out of view from the surface. The Sniper's voice gave a small echo from under them. "Just setup for battles down here."
"We can bring this in later," The Engineer motioned to the crates before descending down the steps himself. "I reckon you want to take a look around." The Scout couldn't imagine what else there could possibly be to look at. The whole place looked like dirt walls wooden panel. Despite this, the Pyro motioned enthusiastically for him to follow, bounding down into the base's depths to supposedly catch up with the Sniper. The Scout followed suit, following the Engineer closely as he advanced over the creaking wooden steps.
"How old is this place?" They stood in a relatively large dugout room. Abandoned railway tracks meandered around parts of the dirt floor, wooden signs with arrows on them directing the reader to 'Control Points.' The Scout could already feel edgy dust fragments seeping into his running shoes.
"This part, I would think is relatively old." The Engineer judged, looking at the walls, which were slightly crumbling with age. Lanterns nestled in some of the corners completed the lingering mineshaft feeling.
"Part?" A hint of curiosity sparked in the Scout's voice. Unexplored caverns would surely prove entertaining, especially if there were some unmined ores lying around. Not that he was necessarily experienced in that line of work, but it didn't seem there would be much to do in the dusty basin anyway. Maybe the Pyro would be willing to tag along for adventuring.
"You'll see." He replied simply, smiling a bit.
The group turned down a reasonably wide tunnel, following after the Aussie. What the Scout had been expected were rooms like that of in a bomb-shelter bunker, judging upon the front of the base. As he followed on, he realized he had been entirely wrong. The grimy ground sifted away into clean tiled flooring save a couple copper shoeprints, the walls taking a similar liking to clean white plaster. It was as if he had stepping into a whole different place in the mere span of feet. A metal door rested at the end of the underpass, decorated with a keypad and a sleek handle. The messy dust of the desert area had melted away into refined modernity.
The Scout blinked in surprise. "Oh." The Sniper typed in a four-digit code and pulled the handle; it clicked open to reveal an equally neat hallway, a single stripe of blue expanding towards the end of the hallway.
"It's 9-4-7-1. Everyone on the team gets to know it." The Sniper murmured, stepping in the door and out of the way of the others. "You better not blab it to RED though," He added pointedly, sharp eyes meeting the Scout's blue ones.
The Scout nodded as he passed the Bushman, peering past the Engineer and the Pyro. There were two hallways, one that went left and one that went right. To the right there was a pair of doors, the rest of the hall being void of room entrances. He could vaguely hear someone muttering down one of the halls, and a language he didn't recognize.
The Engineer turned to the right-sided hallway and towards the closest door lined against the wall. He motioned to it slightly, but proceeded as he explained the setup. "Here we have the storage, that's where we'll have ta bring in the supplies later," continuing to the next door, he stopped, gesturing to the keypaded doorway. "This is the Respawn machine's chamber. Ya know about the Respawn, right?"
"Yeah, comin' back to life and stuff. It was in the letter." He shrugged, indifferent to the thought a machine keeping him from dying.
"Yeah. It's always locked; don't bother tryin' ta go in there, son."
With that out of the way, the small group turned the corner, almost crashing into a black, seemingly drunk Scottish Cyclops. He seemed as surprised as the Engineer, who had jumped, startled; the Scotsman lost his balance and half-ran half-fell into the wall. The Scout couldn't help smiling a bit at the funny display, thinking that the stranger had possibly passed out mid-step. This was not the case.
Surprise quickly turned into intoxicated giddiness as the eye patch-donning man cracked up, lifting his head and toasting his bottle up. "Ye scared me 'alf ta death," he slurred incoherently.
The Pyro approached the drunk happily, mumbling equally unclear from under the gasmask. He held out a gloved hand to the collapsed man, which was taken gratefully.
"This is the Demolitions Expert." The Engineer said as the man stood.
"The bloke's usually drunk," the Sniper mumbled to the Scout, careful not to raise his voice too loud. Nobody else seemed to take notice thankfully.
"Hi." The Scout's slight smile still stuck to his face. The Scout hadn't seen anything like these types of people before, especially not in the smaller outskirt of the city he had lived in. Travelers usually didn't take the time to venture out away from inner Boston.
"So there's really one a ye Scouts after all," he commented, turning around and stumbling again as he retraced his way back down the hall. "Ye can jus' call me the Demoman, e'eryone else does."
Glancing slightly at the rest of the group, the Scout followed after the Demoman. The thudding of shoes accompanied the growing unit as they moved through the halls. The Engineer showed the new recruit the door into the garage, the Sniper's room that neighbored it, and finally the door in the middle of the second hallway, in which he would be staying.
The silvery doorknob turned easily, and the Scout stepped into a room painted blue and white. A simple bed and table were positioned against the walls, but most of the living space was void. Dropping his stuff on the floor for later, gladly dashing back to continue the exploration.
Lazy author is lazy. Sorry, I really hate beginning stories.
Thanks to those who have been reviewing.