"Of course," Hongjoong realized.
"The Roman god Mercury," said Celestia. "The messenger and god of travelers. He's the god of other things, but mainly the first two."
"So he's like Hermes," Dahae said.
"Yes, but the Romans basically copied Greece when it came to mythology," Celestia joked.
"What does the symbol have to do with Mercury?" San asked.
Somehow, Celestia was annoyed by her husband's comment, and shot him a look. "The most notable symbols for Mercury are the shoes with wings," she snapped, "or, in this current situation, a winged staff. It's the winged staff symbols we have to follow."
San just nodded. He knew his sweet wife wouldn't normally act like this. They had known each other since they were children, and San knew that Celestia was slow to anger. She has always been a sweetheart and would never hurt a fly.
Hormones, he thought.
"Looks like we're going left," the captain said after a moment of awkward silence. "We follow Mercury."
Like a mother goose with her little ducklings, Hongjoong led his team down the dark tunnel, this time the ground a little harder to walk on, and the path began to twist and turn. San worried about his wife falling, so he remained close behind her despite her just have snapped at him. They came across three or four more divided passageways, one of them splitting into six paths at one point; but the crew kept going down paths marked by the staff symbol.
After walking down some steps, a noise echoed off the walls, causing them to stop in their tracks. Voices.
"There must be tours going on above us," Dahae guessed.
San checked his map again and pinpointed where they were. "We're very close."
"You think they can hear us?" Mingi asked as everyone continued walking.
"Not if we keep our voices down," Hongjoong said.
"Plus, the Hypogeum is closed off to the general public," Celestia added. "They can only look at it from a bridge over it."
"And the map leads us right beneath the Hypogeum."
"Underneath the underneath."
"What's that?" Grace-Anne pointed out something.
Up ahead was another fork in the catacombs, but this time, a faint pale glow could be seen down one of them. Dahae checked the wall over it to make sure there was symbol engraved, and sure enough they were to follow the light. One by one they turned off their flashlights and relied on the light to guide them.
The smell was now stronger, but nothing overwhelmingly horrid.
Soon, they approached an archway that separated the tunnel from a large stonewalled room. It was still dark, but a large slit in the tall ceiling provided enough light for the crew to spot something sparkling in the dark brown wall opposite them. The only separating between them and the diamond piece was a stone bridge with every other one discolored.
Hongjoong nearly stepped on one when Grace-Anne stopped him.
"What?" he asked.
Grace-Anne looked back down at the stones, picked up a loose rock by Yunho's foot, and tossed it onto one of the discolored stones. Immediately, it moved down about an inch, and an arrow shot out from one side to other faster than lightning.
"Don't say I didn't warn you," she said, "but you may wanna take a look down below."
She was pointing to where the room dropped about twenty feet around them and the bridge. When everyone else looked over, the smell finally made sense. To their horror, piles of dry human skeletons littered the floor beneath them. Each one had some sort of stick poking out from various body parts. Both the sight and smell triggered Celestia's nausea, and San followed her back down the path to a different one for her to release everything that was firing up her throat.
"What kind of Indiana Jones movie did we walk into?" Dinah complained. "If we all try to make it across without stepping on the certain stones, we'd all be dead."
The captain knew it wouldn't be too terrible, but he didn't want to risk losing his whole crew all at once. Even if they did get across unscathed, none of them knew how to dislodge the diamond piece from the wall if it was wedged in there really well. Then, he remembered something. He turned to Grace-Anne.
"Since you're our Geologist, do you think you can get across and get the diamond?" he requested.
With a confident smile beneath her mask, she nodded.
Not only did Grace-Anne geodes, gems, and other matter of geology, but she also learned about jewel thieves and how they would use their own tactics in their stealing. Of course, none of the crew condoned it, but it did come in handy once in a while on their quests.
Slipping off her backpack, she gave it to Seonghwa to hold. She opened it up and pulled out a small pouch and her gloves. As she stepped up to the first stone, she slipped on her gloves and wrapped the pouch around her waist.
"Now or never," she whispered to herself.
"Be careful, Grace-Anne," Seonghwa warned.
Focus took over her thoughts while the rest of the crew held their breaths. When she stepped on the first stone and examined the other ones, it clicked in her mind that it was some weird game of hopscotch. However, she still had to be careful. She could lose her balance at any given moment.
Death over a game of hopscotch? She thought. That's a new one.
As soon as she was about five feet away from other stone platform, a few discolored ones seemed to be blocking her way. As much as she hated it, she would have to take the leap. Taking a deep breath, she got into a lunging position and threw herself over the stones and tumbled onto the platform without triggering any arrows.
The rest of the crew cheered as San brought Celestia back from her nausea spell.
Grace-Anne brushed herself off and stepped up to the stone wall. The diamond piece was stuck in there, but it was easy enough access to release it. In her pouch she held a glass replica of the piece she had made prior to arriving. In her head she counted to three, and within a split second she had swapped the diamond with the diamond-shaped glass.
"Got it," she called back to them.
"Alright, we're out of here," cheered Hongjoong as Grace-Anne placed the piece in her pouch and sprint-leaped back to them.
Something metallic dropped onto one of the regular stones in front of them. Seonghwa leaned as far as he could to examine it. The object was spherical and as big as a grapefruit, and it had a blinking red light on it. With each blink, I clicking noise sounded. Another one fell through the open slit. Then another. Then another.
"What's happen-" Phoebe began.
"BOMBS!" Hongjoong screamed.
The crew immediately sprinted like jackrabbits as more and more of what they now knew as grenades were falling into the room. Yeosang ran ahead of them as they traveled back the path they came, keeping a keen eye on the symbol; and San was carrying Celestia as she couldn't run as fast. In the distance behind them, they heard rumbling which caused some of the rocks around them to crumble around them.
"They're going off!" Dahae squealed.
"It's way behind us! We'll be fine!" Dinah shouted back.
However, the eruptions seemed to be getting closer. The cold air was now starting to heat up. An orange glow was seemed to be growing behind them. Fire was chasing them, and if they didn't get out fast, they were done for good.
Finally, they reached they reach the entrance, but to the crew's horror, the lid had somehow been shut. Yeosang wasted no time, using every bit of strength he had to push the lid open. The lid opened successfully, and he dashed out of the entrance. The crew seemed to jackrabbit leap out of there just in the nick of time as they ran back the way they came. Feeling the earth beneath their feet rattle wildly, everyone lost their balance as the fire roared a demon-like eruption. Ash and hot debris began to fall down, and the crew took cover by getting into fetal position.
The captain could tell that possibly much bigger ones had replaced the smaller grenades. No little trigger could have set off something so big.
"When I tell you to run," Hongjoong commanded loudly, "run to the HALA, and board it as quickly as possible."
Another explosion, and Hongjoong waited until it began to settle before screaming, "GO!"
Like roadrunners, the crew scrambled to their feet and dashed towards the direction of opening. Celestia struggled a little, but Dahae grabbed her by the hand and held onto it to encourage her to keep going.
Hongjoong pulled out his communicator and radioed Jongho, and the youngest crew member immediately answered.
"Jongho, start the ship now," he commanded. "We've got the diamond piece, and we're leaving now."
"I heard the explosion, and I started the engines," Jongho reported. "I'll open the door for all of you to enter."
"We'll be there shortly."
He stuffed the communicator in his pocket and kept running, never looking back.
They were about twenty feet away from the opening when San felt something sharp and hot pierce the right side of his back, and he cried out in pain as it burned. The impact knocked him to the ground, but Wooyoung was quick to pick him up and fireman carry him back to the open area.
"SAN!" Celestia screamed.
"I've got him!" Wooyoung reassured her.
"Just keep running, baby!" San encouraged her with one last breath before passing out.
