Ice: The Immortality Trinket

XVI: Déjà vu

I watch as Alex makes his way to Neto and Yvette, both of them still at work. A bit of talk between him and the Brazilian ensues. Neto eyeballs me, then gestures towards his people to follow suit. Yvette's got an inquisitive posture on her as she puts back her papers into her bag. Kelli's busying herself with a prick mosquito. Alex beelines to Nienke as per usual and starts signing a string of words to her. I'm no expert in ASL, but I could make out the words 'content' and 'friendly'. 

Seems like a decent lad; hope he is at least.

"Liz, you found something?"

I snap out of my thoughts. "Aye." I extend a hand to the nearest stepping-stone in front of me. "I remembered that wee riddle you mentioned back in London, so I gave the thing a knock and it sounded hollow. Didnae feel like stone too."

She and Neto look at each other for a moment. They definitely know what's goin' on. Yvette crouches down to verify my claim and is quite pleased to find out I wasnae thinkin' shite.

"Damn, you're right..." Yvette marvels with a faint essence of a smile shining through. It did make me feel all warm inside. Just for a moment though, since Neto interjects. 

"What do you suppose we do with this information, Lacroix?"

She doesn't reply, opting to instead further examine the object in question. I would do the same too if I found a hollow stone in the middle of a South American jungle. She caresses it and checks her fingers.

"This is from a very long time ago," she states to Neto and everyone else. I reckon she figured that out from the dust and grime accumulated on her skin? Fuck knows how that's even possible.

"I concur," Neto agrees as he adjusts his glasses by putting his fingers on the lenses. Mental. "though I wonder what function it has in finding this Immortality Trinket."

"I'm thinking the same thing..." wonders Yvette out loud.

Without warning, Kelli pops up from behind me and gives me a jolt. "If I um, may chime in with a bit of a suggestion...?"

Neto rolls his eyes with poised subtlety. She takes it as a yes.

"Maybe stepping on it would help?"

"How exactly will that—"

"I agree with her," pitches in Yvette. "It's clearly a part of some sort of contraption. And the fact that it's smooth means that people won't accidentally use it to cross the stream, so only ones who know of the entrance can open it."

Neto takes a moment to mull over the matter. "I do recall mentions of advanced and intricate technology involved in the protection of the Immortality Trinket. I expected to encounter them, but perhaps not as soon as this."

"So who'll do the honours?"

Kelli smirks at me and I smirk back. I nod my head in the direction of the stone.

With careful arms extended, she sets a foot on it and presses down.

"Uh, nothing's happening."

"Put both of your feet on it, Anderson. It may be a heavy-weighted pressure plate that's placed underneath."

Kelli complies and the stone abruptly sinks down, causin' her to slip and fall into the water on her side with a splash. She gets up and removes as much water from her hair in a manner that's not too far off from a cat dryin' itself off. "Fucking shit..."

I can hear snickers from all around but they're cut short by the sound of loud scraping from the entrance Neto and Yvette were researching earlier. The entrance with its queer symbols and patterns sinks all the way, revealing a lengthy set of stairs going down. And no light.

The Bloodhounds chatter amongst themselves. Our resident clumsy Kiwi shuffles next to me with a few groans and muffled curses, still soaked. "Made a bit of a laughing stock of myself just now didn't I?"

I feel bad for not managing to stifle a chuckle myself, but she seems to take it well and reciprocates. "Ah, no worries lass. With your graceful gesture of assistance, we've just unlocked the next step in finding this blasted treasure."

"Huh." She dons a shit-eating grin. "Coulda sworn you weren't all too excited about it when you first came here."

"That was different. I'd no bloody clue it even existed then." I spot Neto signalling his gunmen to enter. They line up single file with Alex and Nienke being the two furthest in the back. They turn on their mounted flashlights.

"But now..."

>>

Something's off.

It was a bit too easy. I don't think it should be this easy.

The riddle I mentioned to Eliza back in London wasn't the full picture. It was in a series of paragraphs. I only told her about that specific part. Evidently it proved to be the most useful bit, so lucky us.

'Enter the domains of the red fish and discover the stepping-stone.'

But that wasn't all. Since the Katembri language has especially confusing syntax, coupled with the tattered quality of the manuscript on which it was written on, in addition to a very limited set of known words, I couldn't and didn't want to translate all the other bits.

Perhaps it's time to reevaluate that. 

I take out said manuscript from my bag and have a look at it.

Hmm, sequieifi. That means jungle, I know that much... boa, bozofoxi are moon and sun respectively... oh this one's that belter that I could never make out, too bad it's stained. Might as well give it a go.

Boi—boio—boioozoo—ugh, it's useless. I'm just making my internal monologue sound like proper gibberish.

Damn, maybe I am just being too uptight. I brush off the thought and stash the manuscript back into my ba—

"Atenção! Jaguar!"

>>

What? Ah fuck, not this shite again!

I could only manage to draw my bow and an arrow before the deafenin' sounds of gunfire overwhelm my ears. I get on one knee and take aim at a jaguar comin' my way. I loose off a shot and hit it square in the chest. I take another arrow and finish it off with a shot to the skull as it lets out a final whimper. One down, Lord knows how many more to go.

Bullets upon bullets whizz by what feels like right next to my ears. Seems like Nienke and Alex as well as the rest of the heavily-armed Bloodhounds are no lousy shots; I see the spotted beasts get picked off from all around me. Jesus Christ, they're comin' from everywhere!

I get into my stance and shoot more arrows into my targets. One of the Bloodhounds was unlucky. Got pounced by a jaguar and they're bleedin' out not far from me.

Shite, it's just like... just like with...

"Yvette!"