8902/The Last Archivist: We All Ignore The Pit

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The Last Archivist: We All Ignore The Pit
Date of Scene: 14 January 2022
Location: Bucoda, Washington
Synopsis: Martin and Cael head to Bucoda, Washington to look for part of the Archive, and find a pit the locals won't acknowledge.
Cast of Characters: Jonathan Sims, Cael Becker, Martin Blackwood




Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Bucoda is a small town lining State Route 507 in southwest Washington state. A few miles northeast of the larger (though still small) towns of Centralia and Chehalis, situated on the relatively flat plain between the Cascades and the Olympics, it's the sort of place that has a bright red trailer for a post office, where the buildings feel slightly run-down and the surrounding evergreen forest makes things feel closed-in and damp even in the height of summer.

    It's clear today, the winter sky a crisp blue, the air cool. There's still a dampness that lingers in the air--a truly ridiculous amount of rain has fallen in the past two months, perhaps Mother Nature's way of reminding the locals that they live near one of the great temperature rainforests of the world. In contrast to New York, the Evergreen State truly is /green/ even in the depths of winter, with the small town surrounded by new growth forest, with moss decorating bits of buildings and benches and the like. Somewhere between 500-600 people live in that tiny stretch of forest; it's the sort of place where everyone knows everyone.

    There's also a giant pit at one end of town, that the locals refuse to acknowledge exists. State Route 507 goes right around it. Nobody looks at it, or talks about it. And that's why two SHIELD agents have come out today.

Cael Becker has posed:
    "The vest was over the top," Cael is remarking as she drives the SUV along Route 507, through the cool, overhanging forest. "And really - you had to make him //outrank// me?" she asks. "You have a cruel sense of humor, Blackwood." Despite her words - Cael's tone is light and amused.
    "We're only a mile or two out now," she adds, driving perfectly at the speed limit on the last curve approaching the small town. "God, I don't know that I've ever been somewhere this... small. Why do people //choose// to live here?" She's left the obvious SHIELD branding behind for the moment - though she does have a thin set of body armor on under her usual leather jacket, and an ICER tucked into place in a shoulder holster. Hopefully neither of those things will be necessary, though. She'd love for things to stay nice and simple.
    But is that possible, with a weird pit no one will talk about in the middle of the road?

Martin Blackwood has posed:
    Martin is looking over a arial map of the location in question with a close readout of everything he could feasibly glean about the pit. "Well... I had to think about ability in the field. I mean, do -you- have a fur coat that could double as a heat source if deserted in the artic? Or the ability to dig out of a landslide, avalache, or some other falling catastrophe?" he shrugs and gives the woman a smile.

    "I mean, you're a valuable asset in the field Becker, but the dog's utility use is greater in my opinion." He considers her view of the location. "Some do it for privacy--less people equals less social paranoia. Some do it for money--cost of living in places like this is oten lower than the city or even more populated towns." He, too, has left behind the signature signs of his being an agent of SHIELD, though like Cael he has his sidearm tucked under his coat and the gloves he uses to focus his abilities --his spells, he's still coming to grips with it all--in his pocket.

    "So... about this pit... I think we need to verify the claims that no one talks about it for ourselves before we go investigating it" he says. "As much as I don't like to slow play this, it is too undocumented for us to go in directly. That make sense?"

Cael Becker has posed:
    "And here I thought //Sims// was the worst all this time. Oh how wrong I have been," Cael mutters under her breath - with a smile playing across her features. Her expression slowly sobers as she turns her thoughts towards the mission, however. They do have a task - and very little available to them, out here, as far as back-up was concerned. Caution was no unwarranted.
    "Alright. So I find us whatever passes for the 'town diner,'" (they can't have more than one in a town this size, can they?) "and we try asking about 'that pit we drove past.'" Seems simple enough to her.
    "Unless you have something else in mind?" she asks. "There's probably a gas station... Right?"

Martin Blackwood has posed:
    "I think that would work well enough yeah..." Martin replies, peering at a close geographic readout of the pit. He paues and frowns. "I need to know, you're not claustrophobic are you?" he asks. "Worst case scenario--which is likely--we might have to go into it. So I need to know how you handle caves" he asks, sounding vaguely uncomfortable about the prospect himself.

    He glances at her then. "Seriously? You questioning if a town has a gas station? Of course they have a gas station, it's not like we're going through an anachronistic portal or anything..." He hoped that wasn't the case, because temporal anomolies were -way- out of his wheelhouse. He snorts and shakes his head dismissing the very real possibility that there might not be a gas station.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    There is, so far as the SHIELD agents can see as they enter Bucoda proper--the pit is on the far side of town from the drive in from Interstate 5--no gas station. None at all. Not a single gas station within the limits of this tiny town in the middle of the lowland forest.

    There is, however, a diner. Joe's Place, it appears to be called, with a 70's-era sign showing two hands clinking beer mugs that proclaims "Good Food" beneath the name of the diner. The front of it is brickwork painted white, gone dingy from the local damp.

Cael Becker has posed:
    "Oh, caves are pretty neat, honestly," Cael answers easily. "I mean - I've only been once. We went on a field trip, when I was a kid but... I had blast." She smiles briefly at the memory - a relatively rare thing for her, smiling at childhood memories.
    "You're not a huge fan?" she asks, just as she pulls off the 507, and soon finds herself on 'Main Street.' She actually stops and stares at the sign in disbelief, before looking up the street - and back down the street behind her. "This is //Main// Street?" she breathes. There's more empty lots than buildings. She drives slowly until she comes to a shop with a green awning, and despite it's claim of 'Good Food,' it doesn't look promising. She pulls up to a stop, and just stares.
    "...I'd go completely mad living here," she remarks. "This place is- wow. I- ... huh." People //choose// to live like this.
    She gets out, heading into the diner and placing an order for a sandwich and a soda, which she accepts with a polite smile from the only waitress in the place. She's also the cook.
    "This looks... good. Thanks for that. So, ummm... what's with that weird pit in the middle of the road down there?" she asks, nodding back the way she came.
    There's an odd pause from the woman, before she says, "Oh, yeah, the sandwiches are great. Most of the ingredients are grown local - you can really taste the difference."

Martin Blackwood has posed:
    Martin orders a soup and a coffee before giving Cael a nonplussed look as the waitress wanders off. "Well that's not strange at all..." he mutters sarcastically. He managed to grab a copy of the local paper at the entrance and scans over the headlines.

    He gets a tap on his shoulder that almost makes him jump out of his skin. He manages to keep his composure, but only just. It's a grizzled bearded man with trucker cap and a lot of flannel on. "You two just passing through?" he asks. The way he says 'you two' clearly implies he thinks Martin and Cael are a couple. Martin makes a line with his mouth. While he's not against the concept of using it as a cover, it isn't something they discussed and so he's not sure improving something like that could be done.

    He lets it slide and files it away to discuss with the woman later on. "Oh yeah, we're just passing through. So... what's the deal with that pit we saw coming in? That some sort of rockslide or a mining cave in or...?" he leaves it open. The man's eyes seems to glaze for a moment and then he says, "If you're thinking of staying the night, the motel on the other side of town has some good rates. Tell 'em, Cody sent you... might get my discount." He chuckles and turns back to his own meal.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    This is the way of things if the agents keep poking around. People just don't seem to even hear the mention of the pit, not a single person in the diner acknowledges that it exists. Weird.

    Outside the diner, the sun is passing its peak. If they're going to examine a weird pit that nobody will acknowledge before the sun goes down, they'd better get moving.

Cael Becker has posed:
    A brief quirk of amusement crosses Cael's lips at the man's assumption, and she silently grins at Martin before the takes another bite of her sandwich. "Should we brief the old codger on how the whole 'V' thing works?" she asks in a dry tone. She leaves it at that, glancing around the diner, but not spotting anything particularly out of place. "Anything interesting in the paper?" she asks - as they leave a large tip on the table, and head back to their car.
    She'll drive them towards the pit, moving slowly through the town.
    Though she has to admit, if she'd had her C6 with her, she'd have enjoyed tearing through this place like hell was at her heels.

Martin Blackwood has posed:
    Martin doesn't deign to even register the comment about their 'unique' relationship. In a town like this it might get them pitchforks and torches for all he knows about the political clime.

    As they're leaving he shakes his head. "Unless you count snow and flooding as out of place? No" Martin replies blandly. He sighs and focuses as they approach the pit, opening his magical senses to the ambient energy of the place. He's not sure what he should expect, but he's going to go in aware all the same.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    There's actually the faintest 'ping' on Martin's magical senses, that gets stronger the closer they get to the pit. There's magic here, to be sure, somewhere down beneath the earth. Terrific for that claustrophobia, right?

    The pit itself looks like a sinkhole, but it's almost completely circular, and instead of the sheer drop of most such holes, this one slopes gently down towards a small opening at the center, maybe ten or fifteen feet below street level. Maybe more of a crater, but it's too neat and regular for that. It's huge, bigger than width of the street, which splits apart just before the pit, goes around it, and then comes together on the other side. It doesn't look like the road is new at all, though, far more weathered than the pit itself.

Cael Becker has posed:
    "...what the hell," Cael mutters. She pulls the car up to a stop off the road, and then pulls out her phone, studying the google satellite image, then the pit, then the satellite image... "Blackwood," she remarks in a baffled voice. "It's... bigger. Isn't it? A lot bigger. But still, the road just... goes around it." The only way she can judge the size of the hole from the image is by the scale of the width of the road, compared to the width of the pit - but it seems undeniable.
    She starts cautiously towards it, frowning deeply as she remarks, "And we're just going to go in?" She has a flashlight in hand already because- really. Who trusts this shit?

Martin Blackwood has posed:
    Martin sighs and approaches the bit. "Looks like we have no other choice really" he mutters. He slips on one magically etched glove and gets a large flashflight for the other. "I's not that I'm claustraphobic... it's just..." he mutters looking at the pit.

    "It -is- bigger... that's... disconcerting" he approaches the edge of the crater. "Especially since this road hasn't been changed regardless of the size difference. A masking spell or something more sinister?" he muses and finally shrugs. "Only one way to find out. Down we go." He gestures for Becker to lead the way.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    The slope is gentle enough to walk right down, and then there's that opening, a hole in the center of the pit just large enough for Martin to get through comfortably. The sense of magical weirdness gets stronger and stronger as they walk into the pit--at first, a compulsion that even Cael can feel to 'go away, do not see me, do not approach.' Somewhere about halfway in, however, that reverts entirely and suddenly there's a gentle compulsion to... go on in. Just walk right down to the hole and drop on down to what looks like the floor of an evenly-hewn tunnel.

    Yes, please, come on down. Come in to meet whatever fate awaits.

Cael Becker has posed:
    "...I don't like this," Cael voices quietly. "I don't like things getting into my head." She lingers at the whole - her teeth gritting. It wants her to go in - and that worries her. Why? Can they find out without going in? Can they find what Jon needs without going in? If they both go in there - ir something happens to both of them...?
    She doesn't like this at all.
    "Okay. I'm going first," she offers quietly. She shines her light into the hole, looking for any obvious signs of threat or danger, before she carefilly lowers herself in. Once in, she draws her ICER immediatley, scanning through the darkness with her flashlight, and her weapon raised.

Martin Blackwood has posed:
    Martin nods and swallows as he feels the compulsion to avoid shift abruptly to one of invitation. He stops at the hole and shakes his head. "This isn't right... why did it change..." he says softly.

    "Be careful, Becker" he says, a waver of anxiety lacing his words. He waits for her to pass a few feet out of the entry and then he follows her into the darker hole. His boots land softly on the stone and the light of his own flashlight and the soft blue glow around his left hand adds to the oppressive darkness within.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    It's... a weirdly regular tunnel they're in, for something with no obvious tool marks. About seven feet high and five wide, continuing to slope gently downward. There's odd striations on the walls, leading back behind them, as if the tunnel was pushed *up* from beneath the earth until it erupted on the surface.

    And then, after about a quarter of a mile, with darkness behind them, the tunnel just... stops. A blank wall, at least to Cael's eyes. To Martin there's pulsing threads of magic, pulling them forward, beckoning them down.

    Worst of all... bodies. Three of them, in various states of decomposition ranging from 'dead a few months' to 'dead a couple of weeks.' One man is slumped next to the ending wall, a woman looks like she was trying to claw her way back up the tunnel on hands and knees, and the last--and freshest--is a man that appears to have sat down next to the woman's body and shot himself in the head.

Cael Becker has posed:
    "You and me have the same damned question," Cael agrees, her voice quiet. Who knows what's down here? Who knows what the noise of their passage might summon? ...besides, she'd rather hear it coming.
    This was not the fun cave of her youth - with well explored and ADA compliant ramps and walkways with handrails. Nope, this is a terrifying, mystifying, magical hole in the ground - and she doesn't trust it.
    "Ugh. Do you smell it?" Of course Martin smells it - they both do long before their flashlights land on the corpses at the end end. She crouches down, shining her light over them as she tries to make sense of it all. "Bullet wound on the most recent guy - but what killed the other two?" she asks, careful not to touch anything as she runs her flashlight over the other two budies, searching for the cause of their demise. "Could one of them have the thing we're looking for?" she asks in a dubious tone.

Martin Blackwood has posed:
    Martin doesn't like this -at all-. He brings his flashlight hand to his nose to mask the heavy scent of decay around them as they reach the dead. "I don't think so" he says. "Too new, from the smell. Even the oldest is only a few months." He's been around enough dead to take a guess at time of death from the -scent.- A morose thought.

    He steps around Cael and eyes the striations on the wall. "There's more here..." he says reaching the dead end. "This wall isn't..." He reaches up and places his glowing hand on the wall, seeking to unravel any obfuscation that keeps them from proceeding.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Just before Martin puts his hand to the wall, there's a grating sound, and suddenly there's another wall /behind/ them, about ten feet from the end wall, seemingly trapping the both of them down there. It'll certainly seem that way to Cael, and it explains the dead bodies--people came down the tunnel, and then it closed behind them and kept them in that seven by five by ten box, presumably until they died of thirst in the first two cases.

    But Martin can /feel/ that there's something beyond what seems to be that dead-end wall. That the packed dirt there is an illusion. A good one, of touch and scent as well as sight, but an illusion all the same. That's his expertise, after all. What's /actually/ there feels hard and smooth and cold to his hand, though it will take a /bit/ more effort to unravel the illusion entirely.

Cael Becker has posed:
    "That's... not a good thing," Cael remarks, as she turns her flashlight on the wall now blocking their exit. "I mean, sure. Why shouldn't a pit that can grow bigger with a road wrapped around it be able to seal itself off?" she asks. Her voice sounds calm, and even as she holds back the urge to shout. Or panic.
    This is not the first time she's been in a room with no exit. If there were little glowing golden bowls, or if Martin suddenly turned to her with molten eyes- but no. That was not going to happen. //This// has nothing to do with //that//.
    "You can get us out of this, right?" she asks Martin, tension starting to enter her voice as she puts her hands on the walls, feeling her way around in the hopes that something was merely and illusion.

Martin Blackwood has posed:
    Martin turns to regard the sealed wall and his own breathing quickens. "I... I think so..." he says and he offers his light to Cael. Once she has it he takes the other glove out and slips it on. He take a few deep breaths, not thinking about the fact that doing so limits the amount of air they have. If they're sealed in here better they die quickly of asphyxia than the slow suffering of malnutrition.

    The blue glow about him intensifies, shedding enough light to illuminate their small enclosure in turquoise light. "I can do this..." he says, opening his eyes with an expression of defiant, bull headed stubborness. He splays his hands out against the seemingly true illusion of the first blocking wall and bends his own will against whatever is holding it in place. Sweat beads at his brow despite the chill of their subteranean cage. He'll get them out of here, he has to.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Under the force of Martin's will, the illusion melts away. Suddenly it becomes clear that there's a wall there, yes, a wall made of black metal. A vault wall. For some reason, there is a vault buried in the ground below the woods just outside Bucoda, Washington.

    Which might be reason for despair--just another wall?--but there's a hole that's been blow in the wall, from the /inside/ out, from the floor to about halfway up. The striations seem to come from that point, as if whatever created the hole in the vault wall exploded on up and out and created a regular tunnel on up to the surface.

Cael Becker has posed:
    "You //think so,//" Cael repeats - bitterness leaking into her tone for a moment.
    Some of her rising panic, however, is eased when the room is filled with a gentle blue glow. A glow so very different than the golden hues she'd feared - so something in her begins to ease.This is fine. Fine. Jon knows where they are, and Martin has his magic, and no angels are coming.
    "...alright. That's a good first step." She tries offering Martin his flashlight back, before she shines light into the dark vault, her expression still a bit strained. "Was something trapped in there with dynamite at its disposal?"

Martin Blackwood has posed:
    Martin lets out a sigh of relief as the wall falls away to reveal... a vault? He takes his light and shines it into the blasted out hold. "Maybe? But... what would do this sort of damage?" he asks, noticing the striations on the walls in line with the explosive force from within the container.

    "And... if that is the case, what could've surived the blast to remain within the vault?" he asks, a note of unease in tone. "I don't know if we're entirely out of the woods just yet. Don't let your guard down." He turns to regard the wall still barring their exit.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    The wall barring the exit is... gone. It was part of the illusion, too. All three of the people who died here could have walked right on out if they hadn't been fooled.

    As they crawl on inside the vault, soft light begins to glow, magical light, a faint greenish-blue. It's a square room, about 15 feet to a side, with a door in the far wall, presumably still locked. There's no evidence of damage inside the vault itself, no evidence of dynamite or any other explosives.

    And what the vault holds? Rows of shelves, filling the room and lining the walls, and the shelves full of boxes, neatly organized and labeled. It looks more like a place for document storage than a storehouse of magical artifacts.

Cael Becker has posed:
    Cael enters the room slowly and cautiously, still taking the lead. Martin has skills that she doesn't - if someone's going to get them both of here, it was problem him.
    So it was better if she took the risks.
    She studies the door for a moment, then fixes her eyes onto the boxes of... documents? "Are these part of the Archives?" she asks uncertainly. "Is this what we're after?" She moves towards one of the boxes - touching one at random and after a moment, trying to lift off its lid.

Martin Blackwood has posed:
    Martin steps in and looks around, shining his light at the door and then the hole. He bends down and runs a hand over it. "A grounding point... for..." he rises and looks at the door. "A ward. An alarm. Something managed to trip the ward but the magic used was so powerful it..." He makes a noise in his throat. Worry.

    "Something strong did this..." he says. "Stronger than me and maybe stronger than Jon. But we're lucky they didn't find this hole." He looks at the boxes. "It's possible. I mean, scrolls maybe? Or... I don't know. It's something that maybe Jon could understand better than either of us will." He looks at the amount. "We're going to have to take multiple trips, obviously." He doesn't sound thrilled at having the traipse back and forth from the car to this pit.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    The first box is full of... papers. Documents, indeed, some printed and some filled with neat handwriting. Other boxes are filled with journals, filled with the same handwriting. Yet others are filled with neatly labeled casette tapes, larger than the sort Jon uses.

    It's a lot like the sort of thing Jon's been keeping in his office in the Triskelion. Journals full of notes, casette tapes full of recordings, paper documents backing up certain events. Presumably this is the place Gertrude Robinson kept those things.

Cael Becker has posed:
    "Man. We're going to have to take //all// of them," she agrees in a put-upon tone as she sees the contents.
    "And after we go... what about the pit? What about the bodies." God, it stinks down here. "We need to identify them and give their families some sort of explination - and ensure this never happens again. What you did to open the way - was that temporary, or permanent?" Cael asks, turning to study Martin in the low light.

Martin Blackwood has posed:
    Martin sighs. "Permenant. THe compulsion effects are still there. It might be worth while to call in a team to keep watch on it just in case, but..." He frowns. "With what's going on in Manhattan it might be best to just put up a sign and come back once things are taken care of there."

    There is little room in his worldview that Jon and the others will fail in saving the world. He sighs. "We best get moving..." he says eyeing the damage to the far war. Something about the failure bothered him. Something he couldn't put his foot on at the moment.

Cael Becker has posed:
    "You don't think filling it in or covering it up would take?" Cael asks. "Maybe once we get these documents out - it stops growing? It loses power?" Does it work that way? She has no way of knowing.
    Even as she's talking, though, she hefts the first of the books - starting back towards the tunnel. We need to get back to Jon - before he gives himself an ulcer," she remarks in a voice that has both cheer - and a teasing edge to it. Even if the target isn't here.

Martin Blackwood has posed:
Martin chuckles. "That's not how ulcers work, but I get what you mean" Martin replies, picking up a box of his own and following Cael out. "I'm... not sure. Maybe something in these boxes is causing it. It's possible. I'd hate to think of the infrastruction cost to fix the road though."

    He steps through the hole and frowns at the bodies as he passes them. Nothing is without cost and knowledge sometimes comes with the largest. In this case, three lives. He give the dead a sympathetic look. "We'll give you at least some of the closure you deserve."

Cael Becker has posed:
    "I mean - the road's fine. It went around the pit. If we can fill it in - they can put a... monument on the spot or something." Cael pauses for a moment, then lets out a snort. "Who the fuck am I kidding? This is Bocuda."