9341/Digging Up The Past: La Canela, II

Digging Up The Past: La Canela, II
Date of Scene:	31 January 2022
Location:	Quito, Ecuador
Synopsis:	No description
Cast of Characters:	Tim Drake, Jonathan Sims, Phoebe Beacon, Martin Blackwood

---

Tim Drake has posed:
    In the end, Tim never went into further detail than the abbreviated Cliff's Notes he gave at the dig site, that first day: it was haunted. People died. His father, with help, dealt with the ghost and then Jack Drake left soon after. Whatever else Maria may have told Tim in those three hours they spent together while Jon, Martin, and Phoebe were led on a very detailed tour of La Canela remains between the two of them.

    Instead, Tim does his best to enjoy the trip. After siesta upon their return to the hotel, they take a drive north of Quito, to the Mitad del Mundo and its 30-meter-tall monument marking the equator as defined by the eighteenth century Franco-Spanish Geodesic mission to find it.

    They take all kinds of touristy pictures, and tour some of the museums onsite--one about the Geodesic missions, another featuring in pre-Columbian art, and a third focusing on famous Ecuadorian artist Oswaldo Guayasamin--and stop at a restaurant for a snack of choclo con queso (a type of corn covered with melted cheese) and empanadas de morocho (made with corn flour) before wandering through the shops surrounding the central square.

    It's the picture perfect vacation activity, without the crowds that can be found in Quito proper.

    By the time they make it back to the hotel, it's dark out. A late dinner is hardly an unusual thing here, though, which they enjoy in a private corner of the walled garden. It's a very fancy meal, adapted from the hotel restaurant's tasting menu to offer both the standard and a vegetarian option for each of the seven courses. Tim breaks his usual no-meat diet by occasionally stealing bites of food from Jon's plate as a long-running joke that stems from their first meeting. Each course, naturally, comes with a wine pairing.

    There may have even been some late-night rooftop running, thanks to the wine and maybe a few drinks at the hotel bar. If there's any photographic evidence of such, it's locked down under some tight encryption.

    If not for the glimpse of light that can be seen beneath the crack of Tim's bedroom door later that night, lasting well towards dawn, it might even seem that he's actually taking time off to enjoy himself.

    Their flight is in the evening the next day, an overnight that'll take them back to Gotham safe and sound. In the morning, Tim has a private viewing of the museum where the artifacts from his father's personal vault now reside, and Jon attends with him--just a minute or so walk from the hotel. They return after with llapingachos, which are stuffed potato patties, from a street vendor on the way back.

    And given that paying the extra cost for a later checkout (or perhaps just paying for another night's stay entirely) is nothing at all for Tim, there's no rush. They can walk around the nearby plaza and the Iglesia Catolica San Francisco, do some shopping at one of the local malls or smaller stands, and still have time to come back to the hotel in-between for an Ecuadorian take on "High Tea" served out on one of the patios, with fresh coffee, juice infusions made with herbs and flowers, and an impressive selection of tiny hors d'oeuvres.

    Eventually, though, it's time to leave. Their bags are packed, the rooms are given a final sweep for anything left behind, and all that's left to do is for them to sip on complimentary champagne as they wait in the lobby for the car to take them to the airport.

    This is, of course, when Tim gets a phone call. The others only get to hear one side of it, but that's certainly Angela's voice on the other end, and a frantic one at that. Before he's even done, he's stepped aside to grab a notepad from a nearby table and scribbled 'we need a Jeep' which he flashes at the others.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon has been very deliberately enjoying himself, and very deliberately /not/ thinking about angels or the potential end of the world or any such craziness, by decree of Martin--at least, outside the hour or so each day he spends on video call with Cael Becker. He comes back from those calls oddly happy, though, so it doesn't break the mood. Despite heart-to-heart talks and philosophizing in museums and Tim /stealing his food/, it's all a nice relaxing vacation.

    He probably drinks too much, and eats too much, and buys one too many local handmade crafts at the plazas, but who cares? It's a vacation, you're supposed to do all of that, even when the people you're vacationing with like to run across rooftops in the middle of the night. He /definitely/ spends some time at the spa. Jon should probably do that more often.

    He's surprisingly relaxed when Tim gets the phone call, is the upshot of all of this, so his first response to the scribbling on the notepad is to blink, and look down at his watch, and then back up at Tim. "Oh good lord," he mutters. "I suppose we /couldn't/ get out of this without /some/ kind of excitement, could we?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    It was all in all a very good vacation. Whether Phoebe was letting herself have fun, or just putting up an act, but there was a sense of being lighter about her, especially after running on the rooftops, since rooftop running in Gotham isn't often accompanied by playful laughter and someone almost falling off a church. She is slightly shy about the tourist thing, sometimes going through Google Translate and other times relying on one of the others for translation. There was a brief moment during a tourist display of native fauna that she got to hold a white-throated tucan as people spoke about the need to preserve the rainforest, and purchased a blanket from a display of native weavers -- one for everyone on the trip. Tim's was red, naturally. Jon's was blue, Martin's was green, and she picked out a purple one for herself as she made it through the plaza, though the face she may make at being very judicious with her funds because she's certainly not relying on Tim to pay for everything was always hilarious in a way that only two young people can start into half-veiled arguments with ridiculous, unfufillable threats.

    She had enjoyed the spa, and seemed in such better spirits, though looking at the surrounding churches had made her quiet and reflective. She had even gone into one, briefly, on her own.

    BUt she was packing up, her blanket around her shoulders as she looks over at Tim as he gets the call.

    "A jeep? What's wrong? Are they okay?"

Martin Blackwood has posed:
    Martin thouroughly enjoyed the vacation. Time to be away from the disasters of New York, time to focus on something other than terrorists, or aliens, or holy beings. Time to be with Jon and friends. One of the things he had found a great deal of interest in is the local beverage variety.

    The one item of note that he let himself splurge on what an asortment of loose leaf variety blends of Yerba Mate. He had had the pleasure of trying a blend at the hotel one evening and found the flavor to be strong at first, but after repeated sips and seeing th assortement of spice varieties that blended well with the leaf (he was particularly fond of cinnamon and black pepper, surprisingly) he found that he -had- to have some of it for home so he found a small bazaar that might have been less reputable than one of the larger tourist holes but to him that meant it was legitamate in what it was bartering.

     He had been (mostly) packed since the night before. One of the things he prided himself on was preparedness and he liked to ensure that should any last minute searches arise, he would not be busy in the event that a helping hand was available. As such he was sitting comfortably when Tim gets the call. At the scrawled note he nods and rises. "I'll get it" he says, looking to the others heading for the front desk.

    One of the benefits of being an EMT in a city like New York is a surprising sense of directions. He had found, over the years, that he only needed to take a trip once to have a rather comfortable sense of how to get there a second time. He wouldn't have any issue getting back to the dig site if he needed to drive--and while he hasn't done much off roading, hazardous conditions were often par for the course in his line of (cover) work. He returned with a set of keys in hand. "They're bringing it around to the front. What's the situation?"

    Gone is the casual laid back demeanor of the tourist, in its place is the agent of SHIELD ready to handle whatever crisis, in whatever field, he is presented with.

Tim Drake has posed:
    No doubt it's thanks mostly in part to the incredible amount of money that Tim has thrown around over the past few days that makes the hotel staff so accomodating. They are of course happy to take everyone's bags back up to their suite--that they still technically have claim to until check-out the next day--and all Martin has to do is request the Jeep for one of the staff to hop up and go bring it around for them.

    Tim makes certain to hold a couple of bags back, for them to bring with them.

    "Someone's dead at the dig site," is all he's willing to say in the hotel lobby.

    But once they've piled into the Jeep--Martin does indeed get to drive, but Tim's up front, phone on the dash to help navigate--he twists around in his seat to look at Jon and Phoebe in the back. "They were wrapping up for the day when the workers heard a scream up in the culuncos, and a big group went up to investigate. They didn't find anything, but when they came back down from the mountain there was a body laying in the reflecting pools."

    His eyes drop, away from everyone's face. It's hard to read his expression as the sun is nearly below the horizon, but Tim looks unusually pensive. He settles back in his seat and looks out the window as they make their way through the streets of Quito towards the outskirts.

    "Angela can't find her mother anywhere, either."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon's whole countenance changes at 'someone's dead,' and he just goes right along to the Jeep, frowning slightly. "Is the body one of theirs, or someone they don't know?" He looks out along the road they're traveling, as if he could somehow see right to the dig site and what's going on there.

    Not that he can, but he sort of wishes that were a thing he might manifest eventually.

    He frowns thoughtfully. "There's a lot of power there. Could be... something lurking, but I'm surprised it didn't show up before now." A pause. "Lord, I hope /we/ didn't stir anything up." He pulled a statement off the place, after all.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe knows that Tone, and she drops into Balm-mode as easily as someone puts on a jacket. She also takes one of her bags with her, shouldering the beaten-up leather of her investigations bag as she gives a Look to Tim, and a small nod, and follows him out, hoisting herself up into the jeep to settle in the back seat.

    "It's possible that two powerful magical beings wandering through a place of high voltility might have dredged something up -- it's also possible that there is an entirely natural explaination behind this." Phoebe points out quietly as she opens her bag, ruffles around a moment.

    "There's an antiquities black market that runs through Gotham and New York. I checked it once for shabti with my blood on it."

Martin Blackwood has posed:
    Death and a missing person, wonderful. Martin doesn't need anything with him, aside from the gloves in his pocket. And in truth, he doesn't -need- those; they just help. He drives along the streets, making decent time despite the pedestrians and the unfamiliarity of the terrain. "Between location and historical significance, I doubt this is anything of the sort... but top marks for optimism" he says to the dark skinned young woman in the back seat.

    "Just the two incidents?" he asks the young man in the passenger side. "The death and the missing person?" He's running through possibilities in his head. "No other unaccounted for personel?" It strikes him as odd that the incident was so final and yet so small scale. The dichotomy betwen a single victim and the fact that the victim -died- didn't sit right with him.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Whatever's in the bags Tim threw into the back of the Jeep probably isn't any of his gear, though Phoebe at least (and maybe Jon too) knows that he's likely to have a set of it somewhere. And he has the red blanket Phoebe bought for him over his lap, if only because it's a long drive (and then quite a walk, too) before they make it to the camp.

    Every minute that passes sees a slow decrease in the temperature, and there's little the Jeep can do to keep them warm.

    He leaves the theorizing to the others. Whatever awaits them at La Canela, all Tim knows is that they have to deal with it. That this might somehow be totally unrelated to their presence doesn't even cross his mind.

    "One of the techs working the site," he tells Jon. The mention of the black market--and Phoebe's frequenting of it, if for good reason--is enough to force a nasally, frustrated noise out of Tim's throat fully without his consent.

    No doubt the Bats have run afoul of many buyers and sellers from it.

    He tucks his fist underneath his chin. "That's all I got out of Angela before the connection died. I haven't been able to reach her--it goes straight to voicemail." Tim's tone is even, but there's no missing the undercurrent of worry, there.

    At least with Martin at the wheel, with his EMT experience they make excellent time getting out of the city. Once they're on the winding dirt roads that lead around Pichincha, though, there's only so fast you can go. And now, the deeply forested land that brackets them in on both sides feels foreboding, encroaching. Not at all like the verdant green wilderness of only a day past.

    Though maybe that's just Tim. The only forests he's used to are made out of concrete.

    They decamp at the same spot before the bridge as last time, having encountered no difficulties on the way. Crossing the river in the dark might seem intimidating, but Tim breaks out survival equipment--including flashlights and headlamps--and ultimately the only issues they might need to deal with is (frankly justified) hesitance on their own parts to cross it.

    On the other side, safe and sound, there's good news: within a few moments, they hear engines in the distance, and coming around a curve in the footpath are several of the digsite workers on ATVs. Most of them speak in frenzied Spanish, obviously spooked, but rather than running way they beckon for Jon, Martin, Phoebe and Tim to climb onto the backseats for a much quicker trip to La Canela than on foot.

    When they arrive, chaos. None of the big lights seem to be working at the digsite, so it's only by beams of torchlight that anyone can see and be seen. There's shouting from far off, in Spanish and then some other, more distant language, and then finally a flashlight is pointed in their direction from someone emerging through the flaps of a nearby tent.

    "Oh, que alivio! You made it!"

    It's Angela.

    "Quickly, please, in here!"

    She ushers them all into the tent, which is lit from within by an old-fashioned oil lantern that someone must have dug out of storage. And on a cot in the corner is a man, dark-skinned, with a bandage poorly wrapped around his head.

    He's also alive.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon's blanket, alas, is already packed. It'll wind up staying with him wherever else he goes, but for now, it is in his bags in the hotel room. So he's a little cold. Brr.

    Jon understands Spanish, in the entirely normal way of learning it so he could actually go talk to the locals in Spain while on vacation, so he takes in the chatter of the people on the ATVs with a slight frown. When they go into the tent he glances around at the others and steps back a bit to let Phoebe and Martin look at the man, looking to Angela instead.

    "What exactly happened here?" he asks. He knows Tim will do so, but he unconsciously threads a /touch/ of compulsion in his speech, so Angela's tongue will be loosened enough to explain clearly. Assuming it hits, of course.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe probably tapped Tim to help her look for them while she was in recovery; Tim's knowledge of the underbelly of Gotham was absolutely invaluable in making sure no tainted objects got to the market.

    The young woman with the trio of men steps into the tent, and she frowns, and she makes her way to the injured man, and she sets her light down a moment.

    "Soy una enfermera." she introduces herself as a nurse, and motions to his head, looking to take a close look at it, and inspect it for any traces of what might have happened to him, and she takes out her own first-aid kit from her bag.

    The fact that she ran her thumb over her left wrist and gave a muttered sound in Latin that might be passed off as a prayer as she goes to work, listening.

Martin Blackwood has posed:
    While Jon and Tim tend to the interviews, and Pheobe tends to the wounded man, Martin looks out over the dig site. His eyes narrow as he sends a trickle of his senses out. It's a broad spectrum sense and not something that's terribly refined yet, but it is useful.

    He shudders and looks back to the others. "There's... something out there..." he says, his voice a bit shaky. "It's not pleasant." He tugs out the gloves from his pocket, white with light blue thread in geometric shapes on the back and the palm. "I don't know what, but it's bad..." he adds. "I'll try to get a stronger sense... but, this is still new territory for me."

Tim Drake has posed:
    There's little for any of them to glean from the chatter of the workers who drive them back to the dig site. They themselves are mostly confused, and go back and forth trying to determine if any of them actually saw anything.

    Which appears to be a resounding no. Though they all heard the initial scream that sent them up into the mountain tunnels.

    Not much more to gather from the conversations they can overhear once they arrive at La Canela. The shouting is too far off to make any sense of, though it doesn't sound like the type of yelling that means trouble. Just people trying to communciate over long distances without access to their normal electronic means.

    Which, yes. No cell phone reception. Batteries start to drain very fast, too, if anyone checks their devices. Very strange.

    Angela is beside herself, and it's only Jon's mental compulsion that allows her to pull her thoughts together enough to explain: "Jorge," she gestures to the unconscious man on the cot, "He stayed behind when we went up into the culuncos, because he twisted his ankle earlier in the day. He's the only one with advanced medical knowledge here at camp, the rest of us only know basic first aid. He was getting ready for whoever we brought back down...."

    And yes, they're in the first aid tent. At least this means that the information about someone dying was, in fact, incorrect. It also means that the cluster of people in the tent make way for Phoebe when she announces herself as a nurse.

    "We carried him here after we found him. No one knows what happened! There wasn't anything around him that could have caused the head injury. It looks like something hit him."

    He's bleeding into the pillow his head is resting on at an awkward angle, like there was some attempts at trying to keep pressure off the wound. It certainly looks like some sort of impact, though he also has a bloody nose and bruises on his face that suggest he fell forward.

    After a moment of stuttering, Angela shakes her head. "By the time I realized my mother was gone, all of the lights were out! We're trying to search for her now, but everyone is scared and I'm worried she's lost out in the forest." Though Martin's announcement makes her hesitate, and Tim steps in, between them.

    "We'll find your mother," he tells her, then glances towards Jon. A quick nod, and then he reaches out to put a steadying hand on Angela's shoulder. "Make sure your people stay grouped up as they search. Three people per group, at least. Never farther than arm's reach from one another. Tell them, if they find something to stay put and call out until another group joins them."

    Then, Tim steps out of the tent to stand besides Martin. "I don't believe in coincidences."

    This is of course immediately followed with a sharp, terror-filled cry of "Dios mio!" from somewhere across the dig site and then a chorus of shrill screams. Tim takes off in a run towards it.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon nods to Angela and says, "Thank you. Yes, we'll find your mother." He doesn't say 'alive or dead.' No need for that. But... he thinks it.

    As he steps out of the tent after Tim, he gives Martin a /look/ with widened eyes that means 'stop saying these things in front of civilians!' He doesn't have any of his weapons on him, because they were /on vacation/, but he actually does pat his hip like he's looking for his ICER or staff. Erk. He sighs--and then there's a yell.

    "Shit!" He takes off running right after Tim, pulling out a torch and turning it on so they don't go falling off a ledge in the dark. There's so much fear in the camp it's almost overwhelming and impossible to sense anything else, so following the voice is what he'll have to go with.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "He's lost a lot of blood." Phoebe comments quietly to herself, and thankfully, being in the First Aid tent, with the First Aid kit, she has plenty around to hide the fact that Jorge is going to have a bizzare and miraculous recovery. She wraps the injury, her ambient healing power already getting to work to staunch the remaining bleeding. "This injury is weird -- look. All the impact is at the back of his head. The broken nose and probably cracked orbital is secondary -- falling face first. You are one lucky man." she states quietly to Jorge, and as she pins the updated, secured, and hiding-her-hidden-handywork as she looks up at the scream. She gives a soft oath under her breath, and she looks at the gathered group. "Don't let him move around. Have him lay back. Check to make sure he's orientated every fifteen minutes." she states, and hopes that someone in the group is able to translate before she checks her tablet for her translator app -- and finds that the tablet's drained.

    "-- manifestation?" she asks to no one in particular, but she looks up at the group, and then with a deep breath she gives Jon and Martin a head-start, letting those in her aura have a moment's respite from the terror outside as she takes out some glow sticks and cracks them to provide more light for the tent.

Martin Blackwood has posed:
    The people of the camp are already so on edge, explaining the danger they are in is hardly an unkindness. Martin has a hair of warning before the screams start up. "Company..." he says, following after Tim. He follows after the man and snaps his fingers producing a ball of ambient blue light that he tosses above the young man to give extra (if not blinding) illumination.

    Phoebe's calming aura washes over him and he's thankful for it. The darkness of whatever is out there rattles him and that it was able to cross so much distance at such speed has him worried about their ability to contain it, but they're going to bloody well try. He reaches into his coat (because, of course he kept a coat out; planes can get cold) and removes his ICER. He's learned after 15 years of being part of SHIELD that -nothing- is 'just a vacation.'

    He offers it to his husband as they move. "Not sure if what we're facing will be affected but, I have to have my hands free to do what I do." He's aware of Jon's abilities and that the man is more capable with his abilities.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Another one of the techs says to Phoebe, "Okay, we will watch him," in accented English. Angela is too frazzled at the moment to be paying attention to Phoebe's explanation, but she does nod at Tim's instructions, looking between him and Jon as they try to reassure her.

    And then the screaming starts.

    That only causes more chaos, but the good news is they can hear Angela behind them beginning to call out to her team and begin to gather them together. During their mad dash towards the general area where the yelling came from, the group passes several people making their way back to the tents as best they can in the dark, some with little more than the dim screen of their dying phones to see by.

    Tim, at least, has exceptional nightvision for a human without any kind of superpowers. Though he glances back to acknowledge Martin when the ball of light appears over his head.

    They make it to the tola, the truncated pyramid at one end of the dig site. Unfortunately, the wide structure built overhead blocks off most of the light they'd be getting from the moon overhead, but it proves to be pointless.

    Because there, at the top of the pyramid's steps, is the glowing figure of a Conquistador, a feathered plume atop his helmet and a tall halberd clutched in his hands. At his feet, crumpled and prone, is Maria Rodriguez, the woman who--with Jack Drake--discovered La Canela two decades ago.

    Wordlessly, the conquistador lifts its halberd and lowers it in a pointed taunt down towards where they're gathering at the base of the pyramid. And this close, the malevolent presence Martin felt is like a black hole of hatred, inexorably drawing everyone down into destruction. Even Tim seems to feel it, judging by the way his posture tenses up and his hands ball into fists at his side.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Well, shit.

    Jon doesn't bother to actually fire the ICER that Martin handed him at the ghost. Instead, he calls, "Phoebe, you've got this, right?" and steps to the side, trying to draw the ghost's attention by using the ICER to guide one of the crystals he's been manifesting from the Astral Plane lately, shooting it right at the thing. It might go right through its form, but you know, maybe that'll piss it off enough to back off of Maria and let Phoebe get to excorcising.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe's got this.

She's run through the woods, her own light was left at the medical tent -- she didn't need it, after all.

    She bursts from the woods behind the grouping, brilliantly lit, her staff come to bear, her braids flying as if caught in a slow-motion wind storm.

    "AY MUCHCACHO! Su madre era un hamster y su padre olia a bayas de sauco!" she calls out. It's the only insult in Spanish she knew, but she breathes out, and she raises her right hand, and she flicks a ball of light at the conquistador!

Martin Blackwood has posed:
    Martin eyes the conquistador and frowns. "Oh wonderful..." he mutters blowing out a breath. "Phoebe, focus your efforts on the Conquistador" he says and then concentrates his attention on the top of the tola. Seven shadowy forms materialize before the Conquistador before they spring into the view of his phantom light.

    Inca warriors (at least by modern depictions of them) complete with spears, cudgels, bucklers, and hide armor move forward to pressure the ghostly consquistador. The idea is to distract and enrage hoping to give the master spiritualist the ability to handle the ghost itself while hopefully he and Jon and Tim could get the woman the ghost is assaulting free of the threat.