The drop was not nearly as far as Inaho had imagined, though the sensation of falling into a potentially endless abyss was far from pleasant. Surprised, justifiably terrified, and without anything else to grab onto, the two had shamelessly clung to each other in their descent. The almost immediate impact with the ground came as a welcome relief for the split second before they began to roll further down into the hole, and then they were falling again, much further this time. While having Troyard to cushion his final landing was fortunate for his own wellbeing, he found himself worrying whether the other man was alive, or if he'd crushed him to death. A soft groan confirmed the former.

"Good god you're heavy, get off of me!" Troyard complained, though still too stunned to move.

Inaho carefully slipped his hands from beneath Troyard's head, which he'd somehow had the foresight to protect from dashing against the ground as they tumbled along, and slowly crawled off of him.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his genuine concern mostly due to the fact that his companion's health had much to do with his own at this point.

"Barely, no thanks to you," Troyard shot back, and Inaho could hear him sitting up, "What is this place?"

"I don't know, I didn't finish reading the inscription before you set it off."

As if to punctuate his words, the white light above went out and they could hear the door that had opened beneath them, now distant, slowly close again.

Troyard swore under his breath. "I should have known this place would be booby trapped. No wonder no one's ever returned from this quest."

"You failed to mention that before..." muttered Inaho as he crawled around a bit and felt along the wall and ground. "But I don't believe this is a trap."

"How is this not a trap?"

"There are no bodies. If it were a trap, there should be a pile of them. I doubt we're the only ones to have ever chanced upon this place, so somewhere here must be a way out, at least to another chamber or - ah," he stopped abruptly.

"What? What did you find?" Troyard's eager inquiry almost sounded spooked.

It was the perfect time for a practical joke, and Inaho wished it was a joke, but there in the inky darkness before him was the unmistakable feel and form of a skeleton. "It… feels like bones."

"Spectacular," Troyard replied dryly, though not without an edge of worry to his voice. "So it is a trap."

It was hardly his job to provide encouragement, but talking through the situation rationally with Troyard was the best option. "No, this doesn't mean there's no way out," he reasoned. It was really too bad the fall had snuffed out his makeshift torch, because they could use some light right about now. "They might've just fallen on their head, or been too dull-witted to consider looking for an exit."

"You do realize that at one time, that was a living, breathing, human being, right?"

"Actually, it could be an animal. I'd rather not touch it any more than necessary, so we'll assume it's human for the time being," and with that he crept past the pile of unidentified bones, continuing his search for some form of exit.

Troyard sighed audibly. "That wasn't my point. Anyway, shouldn't there be a pair of them? I mean, it took two people to activate that mechanism just now. If it's an animal, it came out from this so-called exit or pathway you speak of, which I might add would be a concern rather than a relief."

This was admittedly true - an animal might prove an added danger, especially since they hadn't brought any sort of hunting gear aside from knives and pistols - the latter would be far too dangerous to use in a dark, enclosed space - and any creature that lived in this kind of environment must be at an incredible advantage as far as the senses were concerned. He turned his thoughts back to the human option. "I don't feel any others. If this is the only body, and it's a human, there must be a way out, then. Help me look."

In the meantime, Inaho was simply glad it wasn't rotting flesh he'd just touched. And considering he'd already thought of the possibility of finding something dead here, dry bones was somewhat of a relief. The clean, moist, earthy scent in the air was another comforting assurance that nothing recently deceased was lurking nearby for his searching hands to find.

"Got left for dead, did you?" Troyard muttered to the skeleton with a cynical laugh as he scuffed along on all fours, "I suppose some partnerships weren't meant to last."

Indeed - this poor fellow's had been unfortunately short, if betrayal had been his end. It seemed odd for someone to kill their companion so early on, though, with no apparent motivation. There was only one conclusion he could reach given their current understanding of their surroundings. "Starvation can lead to desperate measures," he reasoned aloud, "If that was the case, we can assume the exit is very well hidden and could take some time to find. This pit seems extensive."

There was a pause in the shuffling behind him, and then a quiet "I sincerely hope it won't come to that, Kaizuka."

"Indeed. Speaking of, do you have your pack?"

"I… left it by the fire."

Inaho quickly ran the mental mathematics for their supplies, estimated rations, and number of expected days before exhausting their current stash. "We'll be alright for four days, at most," he concluded.

"That's not bad, I suppose. Hold up, don't you have heaps of food with you?"

Ignoring Troyard's assumption that he planned on sharing - though given the unpleasant implications of their recent discussion, it might be in his own best interest to do so - he brusquely pointed out the real issue at hand. "Yes, but we only have one, near-empty canteen. I had meant to fill it and the others at the creek but then the storm came up."

"Ah… water."

Though admittedly the vindictive streak in him found it almost fitting for Troyard to suffer from extreme thirst, he did not wish to repeat the experience himself. The following moments were filled only with the sound of fabric dragging across dirt and stone as they searched tirelessly for some kind of opening. There had to be one.

What must have been hours passed and not one hole or crevice or door could be found. As far as they could tell, they were in a cylindrical stone pit with a comparatively thin layer of dirt over the rock below them. The walls were too smooth to climb, there was not even a single crack in them that might indicate a loose stone opening to a passageway. What they did find was four more skeletons. Not exactly a pleasant discovery, but the math was in their favor. With five total, either a third had fallen in with a pair, or at least one person had made it out.

"Did your father's research include anything about this?" asked Inaho, at last leaning back against the wall and trying to think through this rationally. He was finding it difficult to do so when the reality of the situation was hanging so heavily in the air. The complete darkness was not exactly calming, either.

He heard Troyard settle nearby to this left. "He wrote almost exclusively about Aldnoah itself, except the single hypothesis that there was once a connected ancient civilization, and that it might be located where such a people group once existed. Not a word about caves and traps."

"I see." He would have liked to have read the notebook for himself, but Troyard apparently no longer possessed it, having committed it to memory and burned it, save for a few pages containing an incomplete cryptograph and a few illustrations. Yet another reason to be cautious. If Troyard had already established that his value was greater alive than dead, he would need a similar insurance. There was no telling what kind of troubles lay ahead, if they ever even managed to make it out of this pit. He shivered as his damp clothes were chilled in the drafty air.

"A draft…" It was the most obvious evidence of an exit, but where was it? Was it coming from where they had entered? But that had sealed up after them…

"Up."

Inaho looked habitually in the direction of Troyard's voice. The pause must have communicated his questioning look, because Troyard elaborated. "The exit is above us. It took two of us to get in here, it takes two to get out… come, stand up." He felt a hand on his arm, pulling him forward. "Hold still," Troyard instructed. A moment later there was a boot on either shoulder and he was slowly walking the perimeter, face to the wall as Troyard felt along above.

"Why am I on the bottom…" he groused. Troyard's boots were digging painfully, and the man was not exactly light either. "Are you going to abandon me here, as well?" They now had a decent idea of why there was an odd number of skeletons in the pit. Being used as a ladder and then left to starve alone in the dark was only a slightly less unpleasant thought than the murdered-and-eaten theory.

"Of course not," Troyard responded, "You simply don't have the strength required to pull me up from above."

It was true that Troyard was taller, broader, and weightier than him, and though it had healed up well over the past several months, his shoulder was still not quite what it used to be. It would be far easier for Troyard to pull him up than the other way around. The fact did little to assuage his current vexation, however, or the increasing discomfort in his shoulders. And Troyard had called him heavy.

"Found it!" Troyard exclaimed with rather shaky relief. The pressure on his shoulders vanished as Troyard crawled into what was presumably a passageway above. "Give me your hand."

They groped around in the darkness until their hands eventually met, and Troyard began to haul him up. It was a struggle, but after being dropped twice, and having his arms dragged across stone, and nearly knocking himself unconscious colliding with Troyard as he came up, at last he was safely out of the pit.

Inaho followed wordlessly behind Troyard as they crawled through the passageway. It was not quite high enough to sit up in, which was extremely uncomfortable in more than the physical sense. That, with the continuous lack of any light whatsoever, made him incredibly uneasy as the feeling of needing to escape this tight, enclosed space began to build, threatening to turn to panic at any moment. He could hear Troyard right in front of him, but every so often he reached out with one hand just to be sure the man was still there, and he wasn't following something else entirely. He wasn't one to be superstitious, or believe much at all in the way of the supernatural, but this place had already proved itself to be rather eerie. The last thing he wanted was to get separated now, or find himself being led along by some creature bent on luring him to his death. The tunnel seemed eternal, and so eventually they were forced to stop and rest as best they could in such tight quarters. Laying flat out on their stomachs was the most comfortable position. Turning around was near impossible. He hoped nothing would come at them from the front, because they would be forced to retreat by crawling backwards, or risk getting stuck in an attempt to turn. It was small consolation that Troyard would be killed first in such an attack.

"Shall we press on?" asked Troyard reluctantly, when some minutes had passed.

Inaho agreed and they took up their crawling again. He wondered where in the world this lead to, and whether they weren't simply crawling to their untimely deaths, or even straight around the globe. If the underworld truly existed, he wouldn't be surprised if this tunnel led straight to its ghastly gates. Yet they never reached anything. On and on they went, knees scraping along the bumpy floor of the tube they were creeping through like voles in a garden bed, palms cut and swollen from the unaccustomed wear and strain. Every so often he heard a thump, and a variety of curses, as Troyard hit his head on some low-hanging portion of the ceiling. Fortunately, they were not traveling fast enough for the collisions to cause any real damage to his skull, but he was likely to have a rather bluish forehead once they got into the light again.

"Did you hear that?" asked Troyard, stopping with such abruptness that Inaho's face collided forcefully with his rear.

Inaho clutched his nose. "No. What did it sound like?"

There was a pause, and he wondered whether Troyard had heard him, until the uncertain response eventually came: "Birds… I think."

"Birds? An exit…" He had been so certain they were going downward all this time, from the angle and pressure on his wrists.

"I think there's light ahead… I'm going to check it out."

Inaho gave some absent minded response, his attention being occupied with the strangeness of the stone beneath him, which he had stopped to investigate. The floor had changed somehow, but he wasn't quite sure in what way.

"Troyard, stop!" he warned, far too late. That strange floor was moving away from him, sliding back into the walls, and he crawled desperately after Troyard, trying not to think about what kind of chasm he would vanish into this time. As he felt himself falling once again, he wondered if Troyard at least had made it to safety. The frigid embrace of water banished all further thought. It dragged at his clothes and stiffened his already tensed muscles, and once the initial splash and rush were over, he was left in silence with only the thump of his own heartbeat in his ears. Then, very suddenly, came the terrible realization of what had happened, and that he was both unable to breathe and horribly disoriented. His arms and legs knocked against the walls as he began a frantic search for the surface.

Seconds passed. His lungs felt as though they might burst from holding in the small measure of air he'd managed to gasp in his fall. The pool was only slightly wider than the tunnel above, and its stone walls scraped and bruised, too slippery to grab hold of and only serving to trap him in as he pounded bitterly at them. Eventually he tried to brace himself between them, his energy at its limit even if he had known which direction to swim. Where was the surface? Where was the air? His feet ached to touch some kind of solid ground. Just one reassuring tap... But the bottom could be leagues away. He would rather die where he was than drift endlessly down into this abyss, where anything could be lurking in the darkness. With his shoulders pressed to one wall and his knees to the other, he clung to the hope that he would soon fall unconscious, and avoid having to fully experience the rest of this.

Time dragged on. Everything was numb except his mind and his aching chest. He would not be able to hold his position for much longer. Perhaps if he inhaled, it would speed things up. Every fiber of him wanted to take a breath. Just one...

He had almost opened his mouth when a white light appeared. It was not terribly far away, but it was too far for him now. His muscles relaxed and he let himself fall, and as he slipped away, he saw something move above. The water stirred around it, sending tiny waves and bubbles to caress his frigid skin. Someone was grabbing hold of him, and he thought he must be dreaming as he was pulled towards that blinding light.