Posted using PostyBirb",
"writing": "The light didn’t spill far beyond the door, and a dampness fell out from it into the dry room. The difference led Wieland to shine the flashlight on the walls, but they were as dry as this side of the door. Once out of the room’s light, undulating patterns appeared, carved into the stone walls.\n“Wieland, can you shine the light up?” Niel asked. “Anyone have an idea how the air isn’t killing us?” He covered his eyes from the light in his eyes.\n“Why would the air kill us?” the German shepherd asked.\n“Air goes stale in sealed environments like this one,” the raccoon replied. “It’s killed more than one archaeologist in the early days of tomb exploring. One of the thing that led to the rise of the ‘cursed tomb myths’.”\n“You not say anything?” Fedor asked.\n“The air smelled fresh when the door opened. I’m just wondering how they did it.”\n“Magic,” Isamu said, and started walking again.\nWieland shone the light up, revealing more stone, then followed.\n“Can magic last this long?” Niel asked, joining them. “I thought it only lasted until the cum dried, or something like that.”\n“Strong magic,” Isamu said with the kind of certainty that made Niel want to argue, but lacked the knowledge to do so.\nLight gently came to be, revealing another room, and this time, Niel made out the markings on the walls generating them. As the light grew until he could make out the circular room without problem, the temperature dropped to where, when he voiced the question, his breath fogged.\n“Are those sigils?”\nThe room was large, easily forty paces in diameter. Six columns were equidistant from each other around the center point. Each covering part of a grid that covered the floor. A rectangular block of stone as high as his hip, and large enough he could lie on top and only his legs would be over the long end, was next to one column. And a stone door was opposite where they entered.\n“Are you fine?” Wieland asked Fedor, and Niel realized the Pallas cat was hugging himself.\n“C—c—c—cold.”\nNiel nearly ask how the cat could feel the cold with that thick fur, but stopped himself. Fedor’s senses were cranked up, and that included pain receptors. Wasn’t that part of how cold was felt? Wieland added his jacket to Fedor’s and shrugged at the look Isamu gave him.\nNiel studied the floor and realized the grid didn’t fill it. It formed a square, with the corners touching the walls, and the space outside the grid filled with the same undulating lines from the tunnels’ walls. In fact, he checked. They moved from the walls down to the floor at the room’s opening.\nStepping toward the door, the cold intensified, as if that was where it came from, even though it was no-colder to the touch than the walls. Wieland put his shoulder to it to the same lack of result from the previous room.\nNiel sighed. “Okay, let’s look around for any sort of clue as to how we open the door.” He checked the closest column.\n“Edge has number,” Fedor called, teeth chattering, and motioned to the outside of the line on his side of the room. “Zero here.” He was in the center, “up and down by ten.” He motioned to each side.\n“Same,” Isamu said.\nDario looked around, eyes going wide. “Is Hearth!”\nNiel knew the term, but he had to search through the memories the bat had given him to work it out. Six columns and a stone altar.\n“That’s a place of power for the Society, right?”\n“And Survivors,” the capybara said, regaining the life he seemed to have lost to the pedestal. “He comes in Hearth.” Niel was surprised to be the only one chuckling. “Survivors start in Hearth.”\n“Does that help us figure out how to open the door?” Niel asked.\n“The stone is light,” Wieland said, raising a side with a hand. He looked at them. “Lighter than I’d expect. Still too heavy for you.”\n“Hearth goes center,” Dario said. \nWieland looked at Niel, who shrugged. He pushed it until the capybara was satisfied with the position. The door didn’t open.\n“Have sex!” Dario called, taking off his jacket.\nNiel walked around the room, ignoring the capybara’s surprised yelp as he sat, naked, on the stone block. The numbers didn’t simply go away from zero in both directions; each corner ended with one hundred and eighty.\n“How does having sex on that?” Niel asked, as Wieland, the capybara’s legs over his should, thrust with abandon. “Relates to the floor being a map?”\n“Energy?” Fedor offered, putting on Dario’s jacket. “Not get naked,” he added.\n“I don’t think that’s how the puzzle works,” Niel said, considering having sex too. It had been a while since he’d fucked because he wanted to. He looked at the kishu, who shook his head.\n“We need to find the end, then we have sex.”\nWhile the German shepherd and capybara went at it, Niel worked the problem. The column and altar made what this room was obvious to those who knew of it. Why put it over a map? Why hadn’t the altar been in the right location? In one of the memories, it had been explained to him the Heart were all built the same. There were five of them, the altar in the center, and six pillars around it.\nWieland came loudly, and Dario let out a satisfied sigh.\nNiel looked from the altar to the squares, then moved next to it, ignoring the two enjoying the afterglow. While it straddled lines, the altar looked to be the same dimension as the squares. His memory told him that wasn’t right. The Frat had had a reproduction in the basement. He’d only experienced sex on it in one of the fabricated memories the bat gave him, but the experience had remained clear. The altar was narrower in one direction. It was made to accommodate a man lying back on it, while this one was…\n“The stone’s a marker, not an altar. We need to put it on the right square so it will unlock the door.”\nWieland pulled out and stretched before putting his pants on. “Which square?”\n“Antarctica,” Fedor said, then was moving away from Dario. “I cold.”\n“I cold too,” the naked capybara replied.\n“Put pants on,” Fedor countered.\nNiel went to the zero on one side. “Okay, where’s south?”\nNo one knew, and another search of the room didn’t give them a clue.\n“Isn’t there a phrase that can tell you that?” he asked Isamu.\nThe kishu shrugged. “I do not know outdoor phrases.”\nNiel looked at Dario, who’d managed to get his jacket back from the Pallas cat. He shook his head, as did Wieland.\n“We try each one,” Isamu said. “There is only four sides.”\n“Which means thirty-six possibility four times,” Niel replied. “Unless one of you knows for a fact, the Hearth is at the zero-zero coordinates.”\n“Wieland move the stone while you think of a better way,” the kishu said, almost dismissively, and went to help the German shepherd.\nNiel couldn’t think of one. Had those who’d made this expected anyone who came after them to be well rounded in their magic? Five of them were needed to gain access, so it was reasonable to expect a range of knowledge. Instead, they were a group of teens with, at best, a rudimentary education in magic.\nThe sixteenth square on the second side they tried sunk in once Wieland slid the stone to it and the door slowly ground open.\nWieland leaned against the stone. It might not have been as heavy as such block of stone should have been, but it was heavy enough to tire him out.\nHe looked at the opening door and the state the German shepherd was in. What would the next room demand of them?\nIf not for the Neo-Nazis trying to blow up the door, he’d considered not continuing. They’d be safe here, other than the danger of boredom and hypothermia. Maybe he was immune to it, not that he was sure of that, but the others weren’t. Fedor definitely wasn’t.\nThe tunnel was illuminated with a soft green-blue glow that reminded Niel of broken icebergs, or a winter snowfield in the country, the sun high, moments after a snowstorm. it angled down, and the undulating lines didn’t continue outside of the room.\nHe turned. “Water,” he whispered. “That was water. It’s staying there because this is…” he looked around. The walls were stone, but the glow made them seem like—\n“Niel?” Wieland called to him.\n“Give me a minute.”\nThey’s started in a room that was normal, well, for this place, and identified where the expeditions had started from. Then the undulations. The water had been around them as the temperature dropped, and got colder once they reach the room with the map and representations of the hearth.\nWere they going through a representation of the journey the Survivors had taken? If so, shouldn’t it have ended in that other room? When they found him and made the deal? No, they were still trapped after that, just no longer in danger of dying from starvation. Were they actually heading for an exit?\nHe rejoined the others.\n“You guys have any idea how they made this?” Niel asked as he noticed the angle of the floor becoming steeper. “And please don’t just answer with magic, Isamu. I know that, but look around. You guys know anyone who could do this?”\nIsamu looked, then did it again, only this time, taking his time, as if Niel had made him considered something. Wieland wasn’t as interested, and Fedor now hunkered in on himself, looking down and nowhere else. Dario looked awed.\n“Can our magic do actual crafting?” Niel asked. “I mean the cutting stone and raising buildings kind, or digging holes in the side of mountains kind. Or do you think this was there before they arrived? Some other people crafted it and they just took advantage of what was there to…”\nCrafting.\nGrant had said something. It was about how his magic was crafting things, how his people, the Practitioners, had helped the Survivors with something. The lore around that help was how the kangaroo had known about the Survivors when they went to length to remain hidden. Could they have been the one to make this for the Survivors?\nIf so, why?\nAnd why would Nazis be interested in some Survivor thing? It couldn’t be because of the sex. Nazis and gays did not mix. Maybe some of these Neo-Nazis were progressive enough for it, but they’d all have to be for them to benefit from anything the Survivors hid here. Or would that talk of bringing canidae to supremacy mean they were willing to put aside something like their heterosexuality?\nHe massaged his temple. He was trying too hard. They were fanatics and would latch onto anything to further their belief, that it was real or not. He should focus on escaping this place, and then getting away from the fanatics.\nEventually, the path leveled. \nNiel had no idea how far underground they might be. It could be miles when they stepped into another circular room. This one was smaller than the other, but shared the six pillars and altar, which was in the center.\nThe boom of the door slamming closed behind him made him jump, then check they were all there, and then look at the slab of stone blocking the way back. \nHe looked around; then up at the ceiling.\nThe only way out.\nIndiana, fucking, Jones.\n“Alright.” He sighed. “Let’s look for the next clue to this fucking place.”\n* * * * *\nSome time later… Niel thought it could be two hours, or it could be two hundred, but probably closer to two. He wasn’t about to keel over from lack of sex. He wasn’t even feeling weak, so much closer to two, and they had nothing.\nThe room had the altar, which was longer than wide, so an actual one, but it had nothing written or carved on it. The pillars were similarly devoid of designs, as were the floor, the ceiling, and the wall.\n“Stop that!” he snapped as the stone nearly hit him. Isamu had been throwing a pebble he’d found, or had had with him, while muttering under his breath. The pebble bounce in complex patterns on the wall before landing back in his hand.\nThe kishu glared at him and, when the pebble was back in his hand, threw it harder without looking. It came close enough to Niel’s face, twice, that he felt his fur move because of it.\nFedor yelled in Russian at Dario, and the capybara replied just as loudly in Spanish. It might be funny, Niel thought, if the frustration rekindled arguing didn’t take him right back to the container, with their voices bouncing off the metal walls and his inability to grab either of them and shake some sense into them.\nWhich he could do now.\nHe stepped in their direction, and the sting in his arm made him swear. He grabbed the pebble off the floor. “See how you like it.” He threw it at the kishu as hard as he could, just as the volume of the arguing went up another notch.\n“Will you two just stop and fuck already?” he yelled at them. “I am so fed up with your screaming. Which don’t you just make like the fucking Society and fuck it out so the rest of us can hear ourselves think!”\nThe following silence stunned Niel, as the Pallas cat and capybara stared at him, then proceeded to rip each other’s clothing. They fought for who’d be on top, and Fedor threw Dario on the altar, then climbed on it between his leg, marking him as the victor. He snarled in Russian all the time he pounded the capybara’s ass.\nNiel kept on watching, still trying to get over the fact it had worked. He could take grunting and moaning much easier than screaming. He adjusted himself, then looked down at the tent in his pants. He could definitely take some grunting and moaning himself. He looked at the kishu who gave him a ‘are you fucking serious’ look before throwing the pebble again.\nWieland was seated, eyes closed, possibly sleeping.\nOkay, so Niel would get a turn after they were done. It wasn’t like it would be difficult to convince Dario to fuck him after the pounding he was receiving. He could wait.\nFedor’s snarling became primal, his thrusting erratic. The Pallas cat screamed his orgasm, and the room shook.\n“What the fuck?” Niel asked, keeping his balance for the seconds it lasted. Dario was lying on the altar, oblivious, while Fedor looked around.\n“The door,” Isamu said, and Niel turned. If it had… it was still closed, but the top of the slab was lower. “Sex is key?” the kishu asked hesitantly.\n“Oh, I am such an idiot! Of course, Sex is the key.” How had he not gotten it sooner? “What did the Survivors do once they’d made a deal with Him?” he asked the others.\nIt was Wieland who answered, undoing the tail strap as he stood. “They fucked.”",
"writing_bbcode_parsed": "The light didn’t spill far beyond the door, and a dampness fell out from it into the dry room. The difference led Wieland to shine the flashlight on the walls, but they were as dry as this side of the door. Once out of the room’s light, undulating patterns appeared, carved into the stone walls. “Wieland, can you shine the light up?” Niel asked. “Anyone have an idea how the air isn’t killing us?” He covered his eyes from the light in his eyes. “Why would the air kill us?” the German shepherd asked. “Air goes stale in sealed environments like this one,” the raccoon replied. “It’s killed more than one archaeologist in the early days of tomb exploring. One of the thing that led to the rise of the ‘cursed tomb myths’.” “You not say anything?” Fedor asked. “The air smelled fresh when the door opened. I’m just wondering how they did it.” “Magic,” Isamu said, and started walking again. Wieland shone the light up, revealing more stone, then followed. “Can magic last this long?” Niel asked, joining them. “I thought it only lasted until the cum dried, or something like that.” “Strong magic,” Isamu said with the kind of certainty that made Niel want to argue, but lacked the knowledge to do so. Light gently came to be, revealing another room, and this time, Niel made out the markings on the walls generating them. As the light grew until he could make out the circular room without problem, the temperature dropped to where, when he voiced the question, his breath fogged. “Are those sigils?” The room was large, easily forty paces in diameter. Six columns were equidistant from each other around the center point. Each covering part of a grid that covered the floor. A rectangular block of stone as high as his hip, and large enough he could lie on top and only his legs would be over the long end, was next to one column. And a stone door was opposite where they entered. “Are you fine?” Wieland asked Fedor, and Niel realized the Pallas cat was hugging himself. “C—c—c—cold.” Niel nearly ask how the cat could feel the cold with that thick fur, but stopped himself. Fedor’s senses were cranked up, and that included pain receptors. Wasn’t that part of how cold was felt? Wieland added his jacket to Fedor’s and shrugged at the look Isamu gave him. Niel studied the floor and realized the grid didn’t fill it. It formed a square, with the corners touching the walls, and the space outside the grid filled with the same undulating lines from the tunnels’ walls. In fact, he checked. They moved from the walls down to the floor at the room’s opening. Stepping toward the door, the cold intensified, as if that was where it came from, even though it was no-colder to the touch than the walls. Wieland put his shoulder to it to the same lack of result from the previous room. Niel sighed. “Okay, let’s look around for any sort of clue as to how we open the door.” He checked the closest column. “Edge has number,” Fedor called, teeth chattering, and motioned to the outside of the line on his side of the room. “Zero here.” He was in the center, “up and down by ten.” He motioned to each side. “Same,” Isamu said. Dario looked around, eyes going wide. “Is Hearth!” Niel knew the term, but he had to search through the memories the bat had given him to work it out. Six columns and a stone altar. “That’s a place of power for the Society, right?” “And Survivors,” the capybara said, regaining the life he seemed to have lost to the pedestal. “He comes in Hearth.” Niel was surprised to be the only one chuckling. “Survivors start in Hearth.” “Does that help us figure out how to open the door?” Niel asked. “The stone is light,” Wieland said, raising a side with a hand. He looked at them. “Lighter than I’d expect. Still too heavy for you.” “Hearth goes center,” Dario said. Wieland looked at Niel, who shrugged. He pushed it until the capybara was satisfied with the position. The door didn’t open. “Have sex!” Dario called, taking off his jacket. Niel walked around the room, ignoring the capybara’s surprised yelp as he sat, naked, on the stone block. The numbers didn’t simply go away from zero in both directions; each corner ended with one hundred and eighty. “How does having sex on that?” Niel asked, as Wieland, the capybara’s legs over his should, thrust with abandon. “Relates to the floor being a map?” “Energy?” Fedor offered, putting on Dario’s jacket. “Not get naked,” he added. “I don’t think that’s how the puzzle works,” Niel said, considering having sex too. It had been a while since he’d fucked because he wanted to. He looked at the kishu, who shook his head. “We need to find the end, then we have sex.” While the German shepherd and capybara went at it, Niel worked the problem. The column and altar made what this room was obvious to those who knew of it. Why put it over a map? Why hadn’t the altar been in the right location? In one of the memories, it had been explained to him the Heart were all built the same. There were five of them, the altar in the center, and six pillars around it. Wieland came loudly, and Dario let out a satisfied sigh. Niel looked from the altar to the squares, then moved next to it, ignoring the two enjoying the afterglow. While it straddled lines, the altar looked to be the same dimension as the squares. His memory told him that wasn’t right. The Frat had had a reproduction in the basement. He’d only experienced sex on it in one of the fabricated memories the bat gave him, but the experience had remained clear. The altar was narrower in one direction. It was made to accommodate a man lying back on it, while this one was… “The stone’s a marker, not an altar. We need to put it on the right square so it will unlock the door.” Wieland pulled out and stretched before putting his pants on. “Which square?” “Antarctica,” Fedor said, then was moving away from Dario. “I cold.” “I cold too,” the naked capybara replied. “Put pants on,” Fedor countered. Niel went to the zero on one side. “Okay, where’s south?” No one knew, and another search of the room didn’t give them a clue. “Isn’t there a phrase that can tell you that?” he asked Isamu. The kishu shrugged. “I do not know outdoor phrases.” Niel looked at Dario, who’d managed to get his jacket back from the Pallas cat. He shook his head, as did Wieland. “We try each one,” Isamu said. “There is only four sides.” “Which means thirty-six possibility four times,” Niel replied. “Unless one of you knows for a fact, the Hearth is at the zero-zero coordinates.” “Wieland move the stone while you think of a better way,” the kishu said, almost dismissively, and went to help the German shepherd. Niel couldn’t think of one. Had those who’d made this expected anyone who came after them to be well rounded in their magic? Five of them were needed to gain access, so it was reasonable to expect a range of knowledge. Instead, they were a group of teens with, at best, a rudimentary education in magic. The sixteenth square on the second side they tried sunk in once Wieland slid the stone to it and the door slowly ground open. Wieland leaned against the stone. It might not have been as heavy as such block of stone should have been, but it was heavy enough to tire him out. He looked at the opening door and the state the German shepherd was in. What would the next room demand of them? If not for the Neo-Nazis trying to blow up the door, he’d considered not continuing. They’d be safe here, other than the danger of boredom and hypothermia. Maybe he was immune to it, not that he was sure of that, but the others weren’t. Fedor definitely wasn’t. The tunnel was illuminated with a soft green-blue glow that reminded Niel of broken icebergs, or a winter snowfield in the country, the sun high, moments after a snowstorm. it angled down, and the undulating lines didn’t continue outside of the room. He turned. “Water,” he whispered. “That was water. It’s staying there because this is…” he looked around. The walls were stone, but the glow made them seem like— “Niel?” Wieland called to him. “Give me a minute.” They’s started in a room that was normal, well, for this place, and identified where the expeditions had started from. Then the undulations. The water had been around them as the temperature dropped, and got colder once they reach the room with the map and representations of the hearth. Were they going through a representation of the journey the Survivors had taken? If so, shouldn’t it have ended in that other room? When they found him and made the deal? No, they were still trapped after that, just no longer in danger of dying from starvation. Were they actually heading for an exit? He rejoined the others. “You guys have any idea how they made this?” Niel asked as he noticed the angle of the floor becoming steeper. “And please don’t just answer with magic, Isamu. I know that, but look around. You guys know anyone who could do this?” Isamu looked, then did it again, only this time, taking his time, as if Niel had made him considered something. Wieland wasn’t as interested, and Fedor now hunkered in on himself, looking down and nowhere else. Dario looked awed. “Can our magic do actual crafting?” Niel asked. “I mean the cutting stone and raising buildings kind, or digging holes in the side of mountains kind. Or do you think this was there before they arrived? Some other people crafted it and they just took advantage of what was there to…” Crafting. Grant had said something. It was about how his magic was crafting things, how his people, the Practitioners, had helped the Survivors with something. The lore around that help was how the kangaroo had known about the Survivors when they went to length to remain hidden. Could they have been the one to make this for the Survivors? If so, why? And why would Nazis be interested in some Survivor thing? It couldn’t be because of the sex. Nazis and gays did not mix. Maybe some of these Neo-Nazis were progressive enough for it, but they’d all have to be for them to benefit from anything the Survivors hid here. Or would that talk of bringing canidae to supremacy mean they were willing to put aside something like their heterosexuality? He massaged his temple. He was trying too hard. They were fanatics and would latch onto anything to further their belief, that it was real or not. He should focus on escaping this place, and then getting away from the fanatics. Eventually, the path leveled. Niel had no idea how far underground they might be. It could be miles when they stepped into another circular room. This one was smaller than the other, but shared the six pillars and altar, which was in the center. The boom of the door slamming closed behind him made him jump, then check they were all there, and then look at the slab of stone blocking the way back. He looked around; then up at the ceiling. The only way out. Indiana, fucking, Jones. “Alright.” He sighed. “Let’s look for the next clue to this fucking place.” * * * * * Some time later… Niel thought it could be two hours, or it could be two hundred, but probably closer to two. He wasn’t about to keel over from lack of sex. He wasn’t even feeling weak, so much closer to two, and they had nothing. The room had the altar, which was longer than wide, so an actual one, but it had nothing written or carved on it. The pillars were similarly devoid of designs, as were the floor, the ceiling, and the wall. “Stop that!” he snapped as the stone nearly hit him. Isamu had been throwing a pebble he’d found, or had had with him, while muttering under his breath. The pebble bounce in complex patterns on the wall before landing back in his hand. The kishu glared at him and, when the pebble was back in his hand, threw it harder without looking. It came close enough to Niel’s face, twice, that he felt his fur move because of it. Fedor yelled in Russian at Dario, and the capybara replied just as loudly in Spanish. It might be funny, Niel thought, if the frustration rekindled arguing didn’t take him right back to the container, with their voices bouncing off the metal walls and his inability to grab either of them and shake some sense into them. Which he could do now. He stepped in their direction, and the sting in his arm made him swear. He grabbed the pebble off the floor. “See how you like it.” He threw it at the kishu as hard as he could, just as the volume of the arguing went up another notch. “Will you two just stop and fuck already?” he yelled at them. “I am so fed up with your screaming. Which don’t you just make like the fucking Society and fuck it out so the rest of us can hear ourselves think!” The following silence stunned Niel, as the Pallas cat and capybara stared at him, then proceeded to rip each other’s clothing. They fought for who’d be on top, and Fedor threw Dario on the altar, then climbed on it between his leg, marking him as the victor. He snarled in Russian all the time he pounded the capybara’s ass. Niel kept on watching, still trying to get over the fact it had worked. He could take grunting and moaning much easier than screaming. He adjusted himself, then looked down at the tent in his pants. He could definitely take some grunting and moaning himself. He looked at the kishu who gave him a ‘are you fucking serious’ look before throwing the pebble again. Wieland was seated, eyes closed, possibly sleeping. Okay, so Niel would get a turn after they were done. It wasn’t like it would be difficult to convince Dario to fuck him after the pounding he was receiving. He could wait. Fedor’s snarling became primal, his thrusting erratic. The Pallas cat screamed his orgasm, and the room shook. “What the fuck?” Niel asked, keeping his balance for the seconds it lasted. Dario was lying on the altar, oblivious, while Fedor looked around. “The door,” Isamu said, and Niel turned. If it had… it was still closed, but the top of the slab was lower. “Sex is key?” the kishu asked hesitantly. “Oh, I am such an idiot! Of course, Sex is the key.” How had he not gotten it sooner? “What did the Survivors do once they’d made a deal with Him?” he asked the others. It was Wieland who answered, undoing the tail strap as he stood. “They fucked.”",
"pools_count": 0,
"title": "Hope in Coincidences, CH 29",
"deleted": "f",
"public": "t",
"mimetype": "text/plain",
"pagecount": "1",
"rating_id": "2",
"rating_name": "Adult",
"ratings": [
{
"content_tag_id": "4",
"name": "Sexual Themes",
"description": "Erotic imagery, sexual activity or arousal",
"rating_id": "2"
}
],
"submission_type_id": "12",
"type_name": "Writing - Document",
"guest_block": "f",
"friends_only": "f",
"comments_count": "0",
"views": "0"
}
\n\t\t\t\t\tbenjaminmahir and