5901/Themyscira: The Wonder Cave

Themyscira: The Wonder Cave
Date of Scene:	10 April 2021
Location:	Enchanted Forest
Synopsis:	Diana takes Cassie to a special location on Themyscira where items from Diana's century of adventures have come to rest in a vault / museum of Wonder Woman's heroic exploits.
Cast of Characters:	Diana Prince, Cassie Sandsmark

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Diana Prince has posed:
Early in the morning on one of the days that the Themysciran vacation was taking place, Diana approached Cassie's room early in the morning to catch her just after they had finished breakfast. She'd asked Cassie if she wanted to head out and take a bit of time together, so that Diana could show something to the young Wonder Girl.

Cassie had accepted!

The two women had gone to the stables and gotten each a mount to ride out of the city and toward the grasslands that fed in to the edge of the Enchanted Forest. They never fully broke the edge of the woods and went in to the deeper regions of it, instead just riding south in to the foothills that swept alongside the woods. The pathways here were ridable, but a bit challenging requing one pay good attention to keep their mount from possibly slipping off the narrow pathways and tumbling toward the trees that were goriwng ruther and further down as the path ascended further and furhte rup.

While they ride, Diana falls back to side alongside Cassie as they go. "It is beautiful up here." She tells the other, looking to their left they can see the sprawling forest, with the peaks of Themyscira City visible over the far horizon of the woods.

Diana is atop her horse, Arrow, with a set of leather armor on, trimmed in lines of shining gold that accentuate her form. Her dark hair is braided back behind her shoulders that are bare. Her sandals are tied up around her long legs to her knees, and her white skirt flows gently around her as they ride further onward. The Princess does have weapons with her too, though its just a sword and a dagger sheathed on Arrows fancy saddle.

"It is good to get out a bit further from the others today, I think." She says, glancing over to Cassie to grin at her. "Plus, I wanted to make sure you were shown this place I am taking us too, as it is important to share, I think."

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
It's no doubt been pretty busy for Cassie, playing hostess and tour guide for her friends since their arrival. Not that they aren't showered in hospitality, or offered many opportunities to learn about the island and its people by Diana, Donna, and numerous other Amazons, but there's still stuff that falls back to Cassie: she's not only the mastermind of the trip, but the best bridge between the outside world and this one -- at least for a bunch of other teenage superheroes!

All of which means that a chance to sneak out with Diana comes as a welcome break after a few days of it, a vacation from the work of her vacation!

Thus, a little while later, she's happily engrossed in their ride along the forest, the gait of her own favorite kanga mount just a little more up-and-down bouncy than Diana's more elegant steed. Throughout her stay, she's fallen into Themysciran dress (she really loves the look, but it's a hard fashion to pull off back home!), and so her appearance is not much different than her mentor's, save for some ever-present artifacts of her teen normalacy, like the fact that she tends to bring her phone everywhere, relying on a jogger's armband holster for it since even on Themyscira, the clothing often lacks in pockets!

"It's beautiful everywhere on the island," she banters back, grinning, although that comment doesn't undermine the fact that it is a very scenic route they're on. "But this is nice, yeah." It's the revelation that they're headed somewhere in particular, somewhere unknown to her, that really catches her interest. Of course Themyscira has a lot of secrets, places that even its eternal residents find remote and mysterious, so it's not so unusual for Diana to take her somewhere new. Just exciting! "Oooooooh. Sounds cool. Any hints?"

Diana Prince has posed:
With the pathway wide enough for them to ride by side, Diana just shares glances forwar dand sideways over to Cassie who gets slight smiles or grins based on what the younger one is saying.

"Hints..." Diana says then... pondering the possibilities. She looks forward with a large smile on her red hued lips. "Ah... hints ruin all the fun." She comments, struggling to pick a good one "Lets just say... I have had some people offer good injspiration for having a place like this myself." She looks back to the young blonde and grins playfully at her ever still.

The unmistakable sounds of something thundering can be heard around the mountain's edge up ahead.

A waterfall. A big one. Cassie would know of the falls, they're obviously visible from afar, a mountain spring flowing out of the side of the tall peak, though they are a bit harder to see than som eas the fall is tucked in to a rocky alcove in the mountain.

But as expected.. the bridge that goes over the gap in the road is up ahead, crafted by the island's residents. The bridge is large, well made, and has statues on the end of each side. But just befor ethe bridge is a nice little green space with two trees and grass off to the right of the path near the mounta side. Diana guides her horse in this direction.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Cassie cocks her head slightly at the hint Diana offers, such as it is. Which isn't much! After a moment, she looks stumped, and seems to give up, if her helpless grin is any indication. "Hmm, nope, doesn't help at all!" No doubt, she'll find out soon enough!

And with the sounds of the falls ahead, that might serve as a bigger hint. "Oh!"

If she'd thought about it much, Cassie might have even worked it out ahead of time, given the geography. If she was some kind of geography nerd, anyway! As it is, her lack of amazing detective work makes the whole thing a bit more of a surprise, which really only works in her favor, particularly as the full sight comes into view. "Wow, I didn't even realize you could cross up here, I think I've only really seen it up close from nearer to the bottom," she remarks, looking out over the bridge spanning that gap. And quite the bridge it is! The large statues and impressive architecture definitely draw the kind of awed look that the general terrain had not quite accomplished, earlier in their ride.

"My mom would have all kinds of questions about how you built it," she points out, even as she gives her mount a little nudge to adjust off the main path and follow after Diana, toward this apparently well-positioned scenic overlook. She must have the idea that they're at least going to stop there for a while, because even before Diana can make it official she hops down and runs toward the edge...

...to get some pictures. Whether these are for her mom's architectural reference, or just for cheap likes, is anyone's guess! "What a view!"

Diana Prince has posed:
"We are almost there..." She says. "We will leave our faithful rides here until we return." She states this while her horse approaches a tree and she swings her leg over it to drop down to the grass.
<missing content of last pose>

Diana Prince has posed:
@emit

Diana smiles as she sees Cassie rush off to get pictures. She ties Arrow up to the tree there to let the horse rest in the shade and enjoy the serenity of this little green oasis up on the mountain. Diana, then turns to walk toward where Cassie is snapping pictures. "Oh, you might want to leave that here on your Kanga." The Princess says then as she moves up on Cassie's right side. She smiles at the water falling down the mountainside in sheets of white wash.

"Because we're going behind it." The Princess then adds with alook over to her 'sidekick'. She flahses a grin then and reaches up to her shoulders where she pulls up a leather hood that was hanging down behind her head, curling her braid in to it and raising it up over her head to bathe her face in a cover of sun-blocking shadow.

"This way." Diana then says, walking toward the edge, avoiding the fancy bridge all together as there is enough space along the rocky mountainside to let one just barely walk toward the Fall itself.

Diana pauses to look back to make sure Cassie is with her before she turns to proceed further and further back toward the rushing white waters falling down toward the pool far below.

This is a tucked away little access, the kind of thing you'd never notice if you didn't really know where it was...

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
At first it takes Cassie a moment to process what Diana means. Leave it here? Going behind-

"Oh! Hmm. Most of them are water resistant nowadays, but yeah, maybe it's best not to tempt fate on that one." She takes one or two more, including one WITH her kanga (for the purpose of what can only assume to be 'internet lolz points'), before undoing her armband, tucking the phone back into it, and stowing both of them away inside one of Hoppa's saddlebags. Once the phone is tucked away and her faithful steed secured beside Diana's, she rushes along to catch up.

Soon, she's close behind Diana again, although not having realized what the plan was on their outing, it doesn't seem she'd chosen an outfit with a hood. So even before they really reach the falls, the spray from it starts to land on her, although the way it mists means there's really no avoiding it completely anyway, and she hardly seems to mind. One foot after the other, she follows along on the treacherous little path, albeit without any sign of being worried by the lofty, narrow ledge.

They can fly, after all!

Even still, she doesn't cheat. It's one of those vague rules of Amazon living that she's come to appreciate, that you don't just spam your powers like some noob, if you don't have to. Sometimes the Gods get prickly about it!

"This is great! A secret passage behind a waterfall. It's like something right out of a videogame, haha." One might point out that the Amazons probably had the idea first!

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana raises her dark eyebrows at the revelation that most smart phones are waterproof now. "I guess that makes sense." She notes. "I... dropped quite a few in water back when they were new, and I suppose that is burned in to my user memory." She says with a slight grin that comes and goes.

But when the two are off down the little narrow pathway, it mostly just becomes a measure of concentrating on your steps and less chit chat. Sure neither of them are really at risk of harm here, but still its best to learn the route so you'll know what to expect in possible future situations.

The bit about the video game cave makes Diana grin. "Look at what they have done to you." She jests back at the young woman with her on this little journey. "Just a bit further.

The waterfall pours down around them, the spray from the wind rushes over them both, drenching Cassie's hoodless head to a point that she'll have to wipe her face and flutter her eylashes quite a bit, while the better prepared (thanks for telling her ahead of time, Diana!) Princess is mostly saved by her hood.

Diana moves around a rocky outcropping behind the falls and then there's the crack in the cavern wall that holds the darkness of an interior passage. A crvice large enough for them both to walk through side by side, but it isn't a straight and perfect door, more of a jagged cut in the rock face...

Once inside the light from the sun starts to dwindle quickly, but soon the light of Themysciran glow orbs can be seen illuminating the path up ahead. Two of them, large and encased in brass spheres that are afixd to the cavern walls.

"I suppose this is like a bit of a game though." Diana finally says as they walk under the light blue Orbs providing light down on to them. "But then, video games often dig in to real world lore, and real world lore is based on... well... yes." She shows a hint of a grin before she leads Cassie further in to the darkened cave.

"There."

Diana points up ahead, there's a natural rock bridge now that leads across another gap in the dark, and on the other side of the natural rock bridge is...

A Jet.

If Cassie isn't up on her fighter jets, it'll look like something out of Top Gun, though a bit more angular than a F-14. It's also a matte black and has a large bubble canopy. The Jet just sits there alone on a perfectly smoothed stretch of rock, more Glow Orbs around it and two large statues standing in front of of Amazon warriors....

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
When it gets time to pass through the actual FALLING WATER part of the waterfall, Cassie does make a bit of a scene of it: she pauses at the threshold, such as it is, waits a moment (and for Diana to get a little further inside) and then kind of charges the last few steps, running through so she has as little time as possible to be drenched. Whether this has much benefit in preventing her from getting wet is dubious, however, and she still comes out the other side looking rather like she's been out in a rainstorm for a bit.

Her reaction to all of this is a bit of a shrieking laugh. "It's cold!" It tends to be, when it's fast moving like that!

On the far side, after sputtering and wiping her face momentarily, Cassie soon lights upon the passage beyond, again quickening to make up just the little extra time she's taken and catch up with Diana. "It looks pretty-" Again, surprise takes her as the shadows of the jagged opening quickly reveal the magically lit passage beyond. At least the orbs she's more or less used to by now, as Themysciran home lighting tends to go.

"Yeah, I suppose that's true. You've got all that cultural metamyth stuff, and like, Tolkien's whole cobbled together mix of different folklores- you know he actually used to be a nerdy professor sort like my mom, before he got famous for those books? -and then everyone just kinda ripped off his stuff. And like, the Greek and Norse myths are pretty much the biggest ones everyone tends to go to for that kind of..."

She is going on a nerdy ramble, at this point, but lo! Something more interesting. So for yet another time in the trip, surprise cuts short her wandering thoughts and brings Cassie back to the moment. "Woah! How'd that get in here?" She can probably answer her own question as she rushes forward a bit and starts looking around, getting a look at the cave and how it must connect to the main falls.

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana hadn't escaped the wrath of the falls either, she was dripping wet by the time they made it through too, but she also had the luxury of that hood and when she drops it back down she's at least got a mostly dry face and head. With her hood down, she pull sher braid down over her right shoulder so it drapes down her front over her leather and gold top.

She grins at Cassie's words but doesn't quite comment on them directly yet. She leads her to the natural rock bridge and then lets the girl react to the Jet fighter tucked away inside this cave. "If anyone were to write stories bout Themyscira to the general public, I would very much love it to be your mother." She admits then as she starts to cross the bridge toward the black jet.

"I flew it in here." She then says of the vehicle. "From down there." She points down the crevice and further ahead in the cave it opens much further, so there's feasible room for a pilot to have gotten the jet in here, but it'd be one hell of a pilot!

Once they cross the bridge, Diana walks toward the black hulled Jet and motions toward it. "Howard Stark gifted this to me, ages ago." She glances toward Cassie with a grin. "I'm sure you've seen pictures of it before, yes?" She's not entirely sure of that.

Her eyes go back to the plane then. "Once I learned how to fly without it, I used it much less. And when I acauired the Lansinarian technology... I felt it was time to retire it here entirely." Another look is sent to the glonde girl then and the Princess grins once more. "Plus, fuel was really expensive..."

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
"Uh, yeah I think you can count on that," Cassie calls back, even as she zips ahead to look ALLLLLL around, still speaking about her mother. "She's already writing all kinds of stuff, journal articles and eventually a whole book. I think the only reason it isn't all over the place yet is that she's, you know... all serious and academic about it?" Helena is if anything, quite a perfectionist when it comes to her work. "So like some of them have to go around for peer review, before they can get published in the academic journals and whatnot. And that's probably tricky, considering." IE: who exactly would her peers even be, on a subject where she's the ONLY scholar who knows anything about it?

"She said she was gonna talk to your mom about it while she was here, though, like- about stuff for the Art Center and for how to handle that, you know? How to go about... presenting the island to the world."

But really, talk about her mom's very boring academic stuff is sort of an afterthought to the fascinating discovery of this hidden marvel. "Right, sure, you flew it. Guess someone would have to, right? Well, I guess you could have carried it instead, if you really had to."

After checking out the cave a bit, she moves closer in to the plane, circling around it and checking it out from various spots on the ground... before finally giving in to her impulses and lifting off to sail over top of it, ultimately hovering near the bubble-dome of a cockpit and peering inside.

"Mmm. Pictures? Not good ones, just blurry stuff, kinda like you see on UFO pages- which is ironic cuz it wasn't a UFO, but the new one IS- or like on those creepypasta forums." Yes she reads that weird stuff! "But that's kinda the point, right? People were'nt supposed to see it! I can't believe this is the real deal though, the original. So cooooool."

Diana Prince has posed:
The Princess is well aware of all the rumors about her existence prior to her coming out publicly in 2017. She'd tried hard to stay hidden for decades, but that was impossible when you were as naturally flashy of a combatant as the Princess was... there were slip ups, even if she didn't like to admit it.

Not every camera could be smashed quick enough, once they became a common place thing in the world, and not eveyr camera stored its footage on itself. Some sent that footage to servers that she just couldn't get to...

But still, she did damn well with staying hidden up to 2017 all things considered!

"Yes, the Queen always enjoys spending time with Helena." Diana says with a slight smile before she turns to let the young Cassie spend time with the jet while she moves to the back of the cave. She approaches a carved archway and she runs her hand over the light sconces mounted on the wall beside the archway, causing the new lights to slowly fade on brightly.

"Come and see this." She calls back across the distance toward the jet.

In front of Diana now is a bronze and stone doorway, a safe door? It's large enough to be very hard to move without the right abilities or tools, and now Diana is standing in front of it and moving metal parts around on a carved surface until she gets the pattern precisely-so...

The door starts to open then, and the Princess spares a glance back to Cassie before going through the open stone archway...

Once inside, Cassie will see the literal motherlode. This is a literal vault, filled with relics of 100 years of Diana's adventures around the globe. All the items that she couldn't put in a museum, couldn't hide safely in man's world. From alien armor, helmets, to even strange weapons hung on walls or displayed on pedastals

Foe's she's fought and vanquished.

Items she's found and saved from falling in to the wrong hands.

There are items of power here, at least to some measure.

And there's just a lot of really great loot! Like a video game!

Diana Prince has posed:
With Cassie getting up close and personal with the original Invisible Jet, she's able to see that the black armored hull of the plane isn't your typical metal... it's got little grooves in the surface of it. Cameras, an uncountable amount of tiny cameras... So that's how it works, apparently. Or at least partially how it works.

The Princess is well aware of all the rumors about her existence prior to her coming out publicly in 2017. She'd tried hard to stay hidden for decades, but that was impossible when you were as naturally flashy of a combatant as the Princess was... there were slip ups, even if she didn't like to admit it.

Not every camera could be smashed quick enough, once they became a common place thing in the world, and not eveyr camera stored its footage on itself. Some sent that footage to servers that she just couldn't get to...

But still, she did damn well with staying hidden up to 2017 all things considered!

"Yes, the Queen always enjoys spending time with Helena." Diana says with a slight smile before she turns to let the young Cassie spend time witht he jet while she moves to the back of the cave. She approaches a carved archway and she runs her hand over the light sconeces mounted on the wall beside the archway.

"Come and see this." She calls back across the distance toward the jet.

In front of Diana now is a bronze and stone doorway, a safe door? It's large enough to be very hard to move without the right abilities or tools, and now Diana is standing in front of it and moving metal parts around on a carved surface until she gets the pattern precisely-so...

The door starts to open then, and the Princess spares a glance back to Cassie before going through the open stone archway...

Once inside, Cassie will see the literal motherlode. This is a literal vault, filled with relics of 100 years of Diana's adventures around the globe. All the items that she couldn't put in a museum, couldn't hide safely in man's world. From alien armor, helmets, to even strange weapons hung on walls or displayed on pedastals

Foe's she's fought and vanquished.

Items she's found and saved from falling in to the wrong hands.

There are items of power here, at least to some measure.

And there's just a lot of really great loot! Like a video game!

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
There's no further discussion of her mom, or that relationship. How aware of the obvious she is, or not? That is a question! But right now, she really is just kind of geeking out at this peek back into the depths of Wonder Woman lore. While her mom is the scholar, she's the once-obsessed fan!

And she could probably spend quite a while checking on the plane, but at Diana's summons first glances back in that direction, and seeing that there is a BIG MYSTERIOUS DOOR? Well, OK, maybe something could be even more interesting than the plane. Plus, there's always something about the unknown, the way it can build up more in your own imagination of what might-be that something right in front of you might feel boring by comparison.

As it turns out, though, her imagination probably doesn't do the room justice!

Cassie sails over and skids to a landing just behind her mentor, watching with some fascination as she works through the strange lock that seals this all away. Fortunately, one can probably count on her scatterbrained nature that she won't remember the sequence just from watching.

Right?!

Finally, it slides open, with all the appropriately dramatic ancient vault noises, stone grinding on stone, really and TRULY like something she has seen in a dozen video games. But this time it's real... and it's spectacular!

"Woah." Cassie looks a bit awestruck by it.

...For about three seconds. Then she rushes ahead at superspeed, as if she can't contain herself from zipping around and checking out, well, EVERYTHING. "This is amazing! Wait, is this real? What's this one do- oh, oh, is that a-" It goes on like that!

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana follows Cassie in to the vault room and just holds her hands together in front of her lap. She shows a smile to her young friend's reaction to the items here-in and even spares a moment to look around at the different items herself. She shows a quick grin before nodding to some of the excitement that Cassie voices.

"Yes, and yes." She replies in order. "And, well no, but it's the real one. The one you know of was the fake one." Ancient truths and old secrets!

Diana moves to the center of the room where there are a number of displays setup with the helmets of weird alien creatures. "These were the enemies to the Princess of the Lansinarians." Diana says. "Vanquishing them, was what earned the 'Egg' gifted unto me by the young woman." Diana says with a soft smile. She glances back to where Cassie is. "Ah, that is the ... bullwhip of a demonic lord that took up root inside of a tower in Scotland..." She walks over to the item coiled up on a stone pedestal. It is barbed and made of a weird dark iron that reflects lights in unusual ways. "A nasty weapon. Best left in here, I believe." She says with a soft smirk.

Diana then looks over to Cassie. "I wanted you to know of this place, incase there were a time you would ever need to come here. Because of... recent events, as you know. There are things here that might help. Donna knows of this place already, but I feel it is time for you to as well."

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Zipping to and fro, grinning at the occasional answer or explanation given for each item, Cassie eventually, FINALLY comes to a stop when Diana moves to that central area. Appearing at her side, the younger hero edges up closer to the displays, regarding the helmets with some curiousity. "Huh. Was that like, a crazy space adventure? Or did they come here? Seems like we get an awful lot of alien attention." Not just those several large, noteworthy attacks, but visitors the likes of Superman and even several of her friends in the Titans and Outsiders. Starfire or Kian, M'gann, or even Toni's weird alien parents/abductors/whatever.

As for the whip? "Very metal." She presumably does not mean that in the sense that it is literally made of metal, although that is also true!

There's no doubt more investigating to be done, with the sheer number of treasures secluded here. And equally, there is no doubt a tale behind every one of them. They could spend a while, and might! But all those smaller inquiries can be handled in time, as Diana brings home the reason she is showing Cassie all of this stuff. One more serious, even if it very much feeds into every genre trope from those games and stories.

"Oh." For a moment, it does put a darker cast over things. Those 'recent events' were sort of her fault, after all. "Mm. Well, yeah, I guess it could end up that they'd come in handy." Despite being suddenly offered access to precisely the vast loot pile she was so excited to see, she doesn't sound quite so eager now. Still, after a moment, she straightens up some, trying to look heroic. "I'm honored. And I'll uh, guard the secret dutifully!" It comes out a little awkard, more solemn and ceremonial than is her normal mode of operation, yet sincere all the same.

Diana Prince has posed:
Another few moments are spent by the Princess watching Cassie continue to look around the room. she nods her head softly a single time to what Cassie says in response to her.

"Excellent." Diana says before looking to the helmet. "Her ship brought her here, it was part of its emergency systems, as this was the closest inhabited planet, even if not ideal for the situation she was in... well, it worked out in the end." Another light smile is shown before she starts back toward the door.

Standing beside the door now, Diana looks to Cassie again. "If you come across items you feel belong in here, do not hesitate to suggest it. That ... armor, that your doppleganger had, for instance. It very well could have ended up in here, under different circumstances."

Diana motion then to the way back out toward the Jet. "Come on." She tells the other before showing her a grin. "I need to introduce you to someone before we leave too." As they start out of the archway and back through the vault doorway, Diana looks to her friend. "How familiar are you with Dragontongue?" The Princess idly inquires of the young Wondrous one.