Everyone was perfectly ready to go along with Lee's latest whim, and thus, after getting everyone onto the same page, Nami, Kuina and Lee set out on a tiny boat, a small, but sleek and functional vessel meant to transfer fishermen short distances within the archipelago, barely big enough for the trio.
Nami stood before the two students of the martial arts, with an ear to ear grin. "Row faster!" she called, as Lee and Kuina competed to try to throw off the other's rhythm while at the same time not losing their own, as they had to row in synch to actually move the boat forward and not simply spin in circles.
Not far behind, a raft was being pulled, and on it sat Anne Bonny, cross legged, while Mary Read stood behind her, one hand above her eyes to block out the rays of light that peeked through the cloud cover, the mists of the early morning sea having given way to a slightly gray and overcast day in general.
They had wanted to set out earlier, but, well, realistically it just hadn't been a possibility, and even if Nami was willing to take risks, getting lost at sea because you couldn't see any landmark or distinctive feature of the East Blue to direct them, especially once the sun had set, was simply foolish.
And now, Kuina and Lee were the workforce pulling the group towards the treasure island that Nami had pointed out in her map, while she guided them. Would that the trip there had been eventful, but despite the relative lack of experience for the two rowing, Anne and Mary together had more experience than entire seasoned crews on their own, and Lee had great talent to learn from beautiful women, and as such, had no trouble following their directions.
Kuina, not wanting to be any less, adapted just as perfectly.
"Wow you guys really are in perfect synch, okay, now, starboard let up some," she said, "just about- there, and now we're in line," she said.
The mists had faded enough that they could see the island, or rather, what passed for an island. It was a spike of stone that poked out of the ocean.
"When the tide recedes a little later in the afternoon it's a bit bigger," Nami pointed out, "but that doesn't matter, see that?" she asked, gesturing at the peak, "on the other side of it there should be an entrance…"
"Oh! I can see it!" Mary said, "alright, I think we can tie the boat to the peak. Did we bring more rope?"
"We've always got rope," Kuina said, looking at the three coils of large and reinforced rope, "enough for a secure knot and then some."
Right, that was important, very much so in fact. While none of them were devil fruit users, that didn't mean they wanted to be swimming back through saltwater with a devil fruit on hand. No matter how safe and free of sea monsters this part of the East Blue was, no matter how worthy of the name "Easy Blue" it might get sometimes, the ocean was never safe.
"Then let's see what kind of knots you guys can do, remember, fancy knots are for bored sailors, pirates are practical unless we're tying up each other," Anne said, winking and smirking at the group, standing up and almost knocking Mary, the two moving in perfect yet precarious synch around each other.
"Is that as sex joke I'm too classy to understand?" Kuina asked.
"You, classy?" Lee countered. "Also yes."
"Yes, classy, classier than you anyway," Kuina muttered.
"Come on guys, stop squabbling and get us closer," Nami said, "we can tie the boat on the outcropping, and according to this," Nami said, waving her map around, "the inside should be nice and dry so no need to worry!"
Nodding, Lee and Kuina rowed in the right rhythm, trading who was pushing harder and even stopping to turn the boat in the right direction, until they were close enough to the rock spike that they could actually start tying the boat to the outcropping Nami had pointed out.
Already, they could tell that the water would recede quite a bit before the day was through, especially considering they could follow the marks on the rock to see how far it had receded already. It hadn't, crucially, reached the large hole in the middle, a hole just about big enough that one of the many giants that wandered the land could go in, if he squeezed through, and regular sized humans could go in quite comfortably.
"This place stinks of fish," Kuina muttered.
"If the tide grew more than expected at some point, it would've flooded in, some fish might've made it in and when the water dried they went with it," Nami said, rubbing her chin. "It could mean that any treasure inside might've been damaged by the saltwater," she said.
"If these guys were smart about storing things here, and if they stored something in some rock in the middle of nowhere they either were excessively cautious or deliberately fucking with someone," Mary explained, crossing her arms as she looked up at where the hole sat on one of the faces of the rock, stepping off the raft and onto the dirt and sand that was still covered in water but would be dry in a few hours, "they would've known about the possibility of flooding."
"So whatever's stored here doesn't get damaged by water," Anne hummed, "or it's sealed in a water resistant container. Even a good chest can only do so much," she muttered. "Makes me miss plastics sometimes."
"Oh that's not the reason you miss plastic and you know it," Mary quipped, wagging her eyebrows.
"Way too true," Anne agreed, laughing.
"I have no idea what they're talking about and I'm not sure I want to know," Nami said, then she turned back to Lee and cleared her throat. "Alright, glorious leader, are you ready to do some spelunking?"
"Call me Captain," Lee said, "and hell yeah I am," he said, as he and Kuina handled tying the boat, while Mary climbed atop the island's central stony little mountain.
There wasn't anything to report around, so she slid back down and all of them then promptly grabbed some of the equipment they had brought from the ship. Some torches, some bags that were filled with equipment and others that were empty, thicker shoes for Kuina and Nami, who hadn't worn appropriate footwear due to wanting comfort for the trip, and most important of all, a backpack full of packed lunches.
Lee carried the heaviest weights, as it was part of his training, while Kuina had to settle for the second heaviest load, while the other three were not particularly upset about not having to carry any of the load whatsoever.
Lee hummed, ran a hand along the stone face of the cliff. The hole they would enter through was roughly shoulder height for him, meaning it was high enough Nami and Kuina could barely peek into it, much less Mary. He tested it, pushing his energy, his chi, out through his palm and soaking the rock with it, closing his eyes and concentrating for a good few moments, before he opened them, stepped back and raised his fists, lowering his knees to adopt a fighting stance.
With a wordless kiai shout, Lee moved forward and his arms exploded into motion, fists flying like bullets at the face of the wall, palms extended, glowing slightly with the power of his chi, his fingers at first extended but closing just as he was about to land the hit on the face of the wall, delivering quick but powerful and critically effective punches that caused the stone to explode, turning to dust where he struck it, cracks spreading around the impact.
Then he did it with his other hand, to the left and above where his initial hit had landed, near knee level. Then his right went again, and he carved yet another hole, above and to the right of the second one, and it was immediately obvious what he was doing within moments, as he punched six more times, creating holes in the rock face that were just about deep enough for someone to put their foot in comfortably, even if the shape wasn't perfect, and they made a good impression of a spiderweb with the cracks that had formed.
"Ladies?" he said, gesturing for them to go up the steps.
The hole, inside, was just about big enough for each of them to climb into it with ease, and only Anne had an issue getting in, mostly a product of her bodacious bod and the fact that she was carrying an extremely large and long rifle with her, but they made it work, entering the hole and slipping past the at first slightly cramped space to drop into what seemed to be a much more obviously man made tunnel.
It was even lit up, with what seemed to be some sort of bioluminescent plant that grew bulbs similar to mushroom caps all over the hallways, about knee height for a regular adult.
"Well that was fun," Mary said as she landed, the one to come up last behind Lee himself. "Anyway, so, where to next?" she asked, looking around.
The hallway split in two different directions.
"Time to split up?" Kuina asked.
"Time to split up," Lee agreed. "Okay, first, Anne, Mary, you guys know what to do, go that way, and we'll go this way, if there's another fork, mark it," he said, "just make sure it's a mark I can recognize, whatever it might be."
"Aye aye, cap'n!" Anne and Mary replied, striking faux salutes. "If we hit a dead end we'll track you down."
"Right. Nami, stick between Kuina and me, I'll take the lead, Kuina, take the back. You're the one most used to sneaking places and checking for traps and things, so keep your eyes peeled, Nami," he said, pointing at the redhead.
"Aye?" Nami tried, not quite used to the lingo.
"Alright, then let's keep our eyes peeled. We never know what we're gonna find in a place like this. I'll leave things to your discretion on when and if you want to meet back up with us," he said, "everyone, you have your orders! Move!"
"Aye aye, cap'n!" the four chorused, and then split up, Anne and Mary, the two more experienced ones, as the smaller group.
Both groups quickly separated and due to the darkness and penumbra of the tunnel, as well as the very bright but not very large mushroom caps that lit up the place, they quickly lost sight of each other. Anne and Mary were walking side by side, and their voices faded until it was no longer possible to hear the jokes they were making to each other.
Meanwhile, Lee took the lead, keeping two steps ahead of Nami, while Kuina advanced two steps behind Nami, one hand on the hilt of her sword. "Alright, the finer points of combat – If I tell you to duck, you duck, you don't ask anything, you just duck, clear?"
"Why?" Nami asked.
"I'm not good enough to cut around you," Kuina said, "not yet anyway," she amended, "so either you move out of the way, or I split you in half along with whatever I'm swinging at."
"DUCK!" Lee shouted.
Nami actually froze in place for a fraction of a moment before the command processed, making her dive and roll, almost crashing into Lee as she moved out of the way, the captain himself had dropped to a very low crouch, just in time for Kuina to act upon the trap that they had just triggered, a pressure plate on a slightly raised tile that dropped a large log from the ceiling, covered in some moss and a few vines, from weak ropes.
The swordswoman leaped forward and up, then touched down on top of the log, which sailed harmlessly over Lee and Nami, and then as Kuina slid off past the distant end, it kept going, the ropes coming back as it swung into the darkness, crashing loudly and causing dust to rise in a cloud.
Kuina smirked and sheathed the crappy blade she had used.
"I'll give it a six," Lee said, "you should've done a flip or somersault off the end."
"That was at least a seven and you know it you stingy-"
"Can we not?" Nami interrupted, raising her hands as if to touch her head, then dropping them and sighing, shaking her head and causing her hair to show just how tense she was. "Alright, new plan, let's walk a little more slowly, and avoid traps if we can."
"Fine," Lee said.
"I'll disarm what I can, I'm more of a… scammer kind of thief, but I can handle some dungeon diving, though usually it is in an actual, proper dungeon," Nami said, waving her hand.
"Then I'll walk a little to your left and give you better field of view," Lee agreed. "Also, proper dungeon? Ever been to a navy base?"
Nami nodded. "Yeah, this one time – well it might sound silly, but that was back when I was still considering joining the Marines," she said.
"You thought about joining the marines?" Kuina asked. "Sorry if this sounds weird but, you really don't look the type."
"Well yeah, it's an organization filled to the brim with incompetent clowns, whose leadership is so far removed from the real world, and especially from the East Blue, that they can basically operate with no oversight and can do whatever they want," Nami explained, waving her hand, then pointing at a slightly suspect tile, which was a slightly brighter shade of brown. "That's a trap – but it's a reverse plate," she explained, "every other tile around it is trapped."
"Oh?" Kuina blinked, looking at it, "how can you tell?"
Nami hummed, crouching down, "the pressure plate would normally be raised slightly above the rest to fit the mechanism underneath," she explained, "but this one is lower than the others instead, or so it appears at first glance, the other tiles are the ones that are raised if you compare with the rest of the tunnel and on top of that," she said, gesturing at the walls, "can you look at those weird slits on the wall?" she also pointed at the rocky ceiling. Some of the slits were covered with moss, but, a lot of them were visible.
"If blades came out of all of them, none would touch the tile in the middle, and if that was where the trap was, you'd think that you'd want to hit whoever's standing right on it," Lee noted. "What if a blade comes out curved?"
"You don't want to make these sorts of mechanisms too complicated, the more moving parts and the more complex it is, the more likely it is to fail, and the more likely the failure is to be catastrophic," Nami explained.
"Do the Marines use a lot of traps in their dungeons?" Kuina asked, raising an eyebrow. "This doesn't seem like something you'd learn from breaking into their places."
"Right, no, but they do a lot of pirate treasure trove digging, and it's in their training manuals," the redhead said. "Jump over the tiles and we should be fine."
Lee was the first to go, he made a small hop to the middle tile, then skipped past the trapped tiles, and indeed, nothing happened. Nami followed, then, though as she landed on the otherside she slipped on some slightly loose and wet moss on the ground, nearly falling backwards onto the trapped tiles, only for Lee to catch her.
"Easy now," he called, as he put a hand behind her back and caught her in the almost cliché romantic pose, looking down on her with a wide and somewhat smug smirk. "If you wanna leap into my arms, we could always go back to the ship and spend some time in my bedroom."
"Bedroom? On a ship?" Nami asked. "Wait, you don't mean…"
"Oh yeah," Lee asked, "we've got a way modern ship, with engineering tricks you could never imagine. We even have functional bathrooms."
"Well this is looking better already," Nami quipped, standing up as Lee helped her.
Once Nami was out of the way, Kuina jumped behind her, and gave her a jump scare as she did, Nami almost leaping forward as Kuina touched her back with the sheathed blade of her crappy katana.
"If you let him take an inch, he'll take a nautical mile," Kuina quipped. "If you really don't want to end up on his bed before the day is through, let's keep moving!"
"Right! Treasure first, treasure second, and treasure all the way through," Nami said. "We'll just talk about that part of the job later."
"Spoilsport," Lee said, rolling his eyes as he took position at the front of the party again, and they continued the way forward. The hallway began to curve, towards their left, and they followed it. It increased the angle of the curve slowly but it did become a pretty sharp curve at the sharpest point before it began to smooth again, slowly but surely becoming a straight line again.
"This is strange… these stones are carved perfectly," Kuina hummed. "But I can tell, this wasn't done with the proper tools," she ran a hand along the smoothed out surface of the bricks that made up the manmade walls of the tunnel. "It seems like these were cut with a blade… ohh, this is getting exciting now!" she said. "This tunnel was made by someone who literally cut these stones into shape! This must have been done with a weapon of great renown, this is limestone, any regular blade would've lost its edge with the first cut or shattered outright!" she spoke, sounding quite giddy.
"But you're not gonna find that sort of sword just laying around somewhere, you'd have to check some out of the way middle of nowhere shop in some unknown island," Lee said.
"Uh… wouldn't going for a large shop in a commercial hub in the grand line be more efficient if you're looking for high ranking swords?" Nami asked. "Also it might be better to trip the wire there from a safe position instead of trying to skip it, usually if the trap is highly visible like that, there's a good possibility it's hiding something else."
"Right," Lee said, looking at Kuina.
The swordswoman rolled her eyes but took position and swung her sword, fast enough that her swing was a blur of silver, and within moments she was sheathing her weapon again as a flurry of arrows exploded from both sides of the hallway, from holes hidden under blue, green and bluish green moss, and as the arrows landed, what Nami had said became evident, because the arrows in the trap were shot such that certain tiles weren't touched at all, and it sort of drew a pattern of interlocking C shapes, flipping twice to create a sort of snake of safety.
"Alright, all the tiles in that C are probably trapped, or at least some of them are," Nami said, pointing at the middle one.
"You can tell?" Lee asked, crossing his arms.
"Yeah, I can just guess because, well, you'd have people trip the trap, then they'd walk on the bit that wasn't hit, not really thinking about it, especially if they test the first few tiles and nothing happens, then the middle bit is trapped and that hits you unaware. It's what I'd do if I had to protect treasure."
"Makes sense," Kuina agreed. "What do you say we skip the entire thing?"
"Read my mind," Lee laughed, grabbing Nami and lifting her, not in a bridal carry but in the vaunted fireman carry, throwing her over his shoulder, as she yelped and protested, bending his knees, and then leaping forward with a powerful movement that saw him clearing the distance between the start and the end of the trapped part of the hall with some distance to spare, successfully skidding to a stop moments after landing, planting his sandals on the ground. "Hah!"
Kuina followed moments later, with a graceful leap that included a front flip this time, swinging her sword in the air as she flipped, slicing all the stuck arrows around her so that she could move without risk of hitting any of them, the shafts falling to the ground harmlessly and clattering slightly, the wood weakened from the time they'd been stuck in a mostly damp tunnel.
She also cut down some of the mushrooms growing on the wall, which actually caused them to stop glowing, which was a good thing to know that they shouldn't cut their light sources lest they be left down there in the dark.
Lee put Nami down, and she glared at him, opening her mouth to speak only for him to put his finger on top of her lips, then he cupped her chin and tilted her head up to face him directly. "Would you'd rather have me carry you like a man does his bride?" he asked. "Because that can be arranged," he said, "any time you want, I'll treat you like a princess if you want me to," he said, wagging his eyebrows at her.
"What if I want to treat you like a princess, huh?" she responded, crossing her arms under her not inconsiderable chest. "What then?"
"Then I'll put on the dress if you wear the tux," Lee responded.
"Really man? Really?" Kuina asked.
"Hey. I'm perfectly secure, and you know I'd rock it," Lee said, making finger guns at her. "And if you think you're not worth the pain of wearing a corset, then you don't know your own value, for someone with such a good eye," Lee said, turning back to Nami with a wink.
"Riiiiight," Nami said, rolling her eyes. "You think you can charm me with just a couple of nice words?" she asked.
"Well you are blushing like you've got a bad fever so he's got you there," Kuina said, throwing her hands up. "If you two lovebirds are done flirting-"
"Never!" Lee interrupted.
"We should keep moving, and if I'm not wrong, we're coming up to the end of this hallway," she said, pointing forward.
Indeed, it was hard to see at first but as they kept going, they soon found themselves standing in front of a large door, made of the same grayish brown and moss covered limestone that seemingly everything but the arrows and spikes were made of in that place. The door also had a lot more deliberately placed light sources, specifically, a lot of bigger bioluminescent mushrooms in pots all around it, almost like candles in some sort of ritual room.
"Does it smell like fish here?" Lee asked.
"It absolutely smells like rotten fish in here," Kuina said.
"It smells like weeks old rotten fish in here," Nami specified. "And trust me, in Cocoyasi you get used to the different levels of fish rot," she hummed, "especially since mom ain't great about time tables," she sighed. "Anyway, so…" she began to inspect the door, bending at the waist and sticking her butt out slightly as she did.
Surprisingly, Lee wasn't busy staring at her nearly exposed ass, as her skirt somewhat rode up to reveal the bottom of her cheeks, and instead, he joined her in inspecting the door. After a quick little glance because, well, she was a wonderfully good looking young woman after all, and once she fully developed and grew into her true beauty, she'd be a jawdropper, he already could see that her body was starting to settle into its final development course. She even looked a little better than he off handedly remembered seeing her, a little more meat to her bones.
"Say, Nami, have you ever thought about getting some tattoos?" Lee asked as he looked at her exposed arm. Nami's tank top reminded him that it was nice that she had nothing to hide, no brand upon her skin that she would live to be ashamed of for entirely too long.
"Not really, no, I mean, never been too interested in that, identifying marks like that make it hard to wear a disguise and all," she said, "why?"
"Nah, just checking," Lee said.
Kuina snorted. "I bet you're thinking about her tattooing your name somewhere in her body, huh?" she asked.
Lee looked at her, scandalized. "Hey! No way!" he said, shaking his head, "I mean I won't stop you if you want to wear it, but I won't make you do it either, you're not my property, you're my precious crew," he said, "yes, even you and your annoying mouth!" he said.
Kuina huffed, crossed her arms and looked away.
Nami, for her part, ignored all of this and instead began to physically inspect the door in front of her, using her fingers to test the cracks, crevices and imperfections on the limestone. "Alright, this door seems pretty solid, heavy too," she said, "and it doesn't vibrate at all when struck," she added, pounding it softly with a closed up fist, then making a show of attempting to shake it. "This is either incredibly thick and very well set up, or the entire door is a fake," she muttered. "If it's the former," she muttered, "then I… still have no idea how to open it."
"What about bashing it down with brute strength?" Lee asked.
"Too dangerous, this thing could have traps if opened in any way other than the intended way," Nami said, "we're talking about the kind of thing you'd easily collapse the entire tunnel to protect. And I don't know about you, but I intend to get out with the treasure and not just be stuck here dying next to it," she said.
Well, wasn't that nice? A lot of people would get greedy and do something silly, and would risk everything in a mad bid to obtain the treasure that was hanging out right in front of them, at such a crucial and important juncture.
"Should we maybe wait for Anne and Mary to join back up with us?" Kuina asked. "If the path they went down is a dead end and the treasure room is on this side, then they'll eventually double back and come find us."
"That could take minutes, hours, or maybe longer," Lee said. "Besides, you already know how this is gonna go."
Kuina groaned and rolled her eyes.
"What? I'm new here, explain to me," Nami said, standing up and putting her hands on her hips. "What's going on and what he's talking about?" she asked.
"Well, it's like this – we're separated from Anne Mary right now, they are both very strong, stronger than us,"
Kuina snuck in a "for now" that Lee sent a nod of agreement for.
Then, the captain continued. "Stronger than us for the time being," he corrected himself, "and that means that it's extremely likely that there's something behind this door that's going to fight us. Maybe a robot, maybe some sort of ghost pirate monstrosity, why, it might even be the spirit of all the shots Kuina missed when she was practicing how to do cool sword throwing tricks when she thought she could a whole bunch of katanas with only two hands."
"IT WOULD'VE WORKED IF I HAD MORE TIME AND MORE KATANAS!" Kuina countered, her face red. "It was cool and you know it!"
"Cool, sure, functional, absolutely not," Lee said, "and functionality is the key to badassery and that's way better than coolness alone," he said.
"I am surrounded by dorks," Nami said, "and I did this to myself," she groaned, rubbing her palms along her face. "Look – you can't just assume that everything's going to work out the way it has in past situations, just because it happened before," she said, gesturing towards the door. "I mean, it's not the first time I've seen a door like this in some cave in the middle of nowhere, but you don't see me assuming that it's gonna open to the same password of Open Sesame-"
The sound of grinding stones reached everyone's ears, deafeningly loud for a brief few seconds, then with a screech of metal on metal and stone on stone, the door began to slide into the wall, as Nami's jaw dropped.
She picked it back up and glared at Lee and Kuina. "This. Proves. Nothing!"
"It proves that I was right," Lee countered. "But you should get used to that, that's the way the world works!" he said.
"Why would it work like this!?" Nami countered, "that makes no sense!" she said, gesturing at the door slowly sliding into place as it was swallowed by an opening in the wall, bits of rock and debris dropping from the edges of the door and the ceiling, "why would it just open with the most common password in story books!?" she asked. "That's like the first password anyone would try!"
"Well, you said it yourself, it IS the first password anyone would try, and it's easily remembered, right?" Lee asked. "I mean what's the point of making a secret treasure vault to protect something if you forget the password and have to break in anyway?"
"But- that doesn't mean you should make the password something that any random idiot could guess by total accident!" Nami cried out.
"Are you a total idiot?" Lee asked.
"What?!" Nami grabbed him by his vest, pulling him closer to her. "Are you making fun of me now!? Because I'm already having enough with the possibility that all of this was a dud because what sort of fool would protect a treasure as valuable as a Devil Fruit with just a door with a password so ubiquitous I don't even know where it comes from but I still know it!"
"Well, what about protecting it with some sort of living statue?" Kuina suggested.
Nami sighed and let go of Lee's vest, pushing him back a little, closing her eyes and massaging her temples. "Well at least that'd make me feel a little bit better about the possibility of there being some actual treasure down here if they had left something like that to guard it. I mean, only those with Devil Fruit powers could create that sort of thing, right? And that means it could be a famous or powerful pirate, or perhaps a Marine with great power or even something like a bounty hunter that needed a place to stash a treasure from a pirate he caught where the government wouldn't look for it!"
"To me that sounds like cope but-"
"No, like, there's an actual living statue, right there, and not to be too urgent but it's looking at us all mean like it's going to try to beat us up," Kuina said.
"Oh," Lee said, turning to where Kuina was pointing, into the now open room, which was a big rectangular room, a huge arena really.
Suddenly, the hallway behind the group seemed to close with a sudden sound of screeching stone on stone, then with another mighty sound that caused the trio's ears to ring, the wall suddenly moved forward and nearly slammed into them, forcing them to jump into the now open arena, at which point the door closed behind them.
"Okay, so I figured what happened," Nami said, "I'll bet that this is a fake password and if we used the real one the security system, the statue, wouldn't activate."
The trio looked at the stone humanoid, about twice the size of a regular man, wielding a massive stone club in one hand, and a massive stone axe in the other, roughly sexless features but wearing an armor-skirt looking thing from the waist down, it didn't really have fingers and it had its face set in a rough scowl, as it loomed over the explorers from above, swinging its weapons around threateningly, it took a step that caused the ground to shake.
"See, this is why we go with the brute force approach," Lee said, "it's the more fun way anyway."
Kuina sighed. "I don't know why I follow you places," she muttered, putting a hand on the hilt of her katana, and moving it forward a little, bending down and grabbing the handle, ready to spring into motion.
"I'll leave you guys to that," Nami said, "and see if I can find a way out of this room in the meantime."
"Fine by me… this is our specialty anyway!"
"Talk about you, swords weren't made to cut stone!" Kuina shouted.
"Weren't you just getting giddy about it!?" Lee asked, as he stepped forward and then both he and Kuina split up, the statue following them with its head.
"I can't do it yet you fool!!"
And as the statue brought one weapon to bear against each of them, and swung wildly, battle was joined.