In Bocca Al Lupo

32- Secco Mode

Although he still seemed a bit iffy about going up the stairs, seeing that he had no choice, Mista sighed, "Guess we have no other choice than to keep going up... but what do we do if we find a path that goes down?"

"Make a new one," I answered, not really in the mood to play twenty one questions with Mista, "Besides, looks like this place is built into a mountainside, so we really lucked out... there's probably no way to descend unless we drive the car off the cliff."

"Alright, so you're not driving," Mista teased my nonexistent driving skill, "What kind of car do we get?"

"Something with a corpse nearby," Bucciarati took over for me, "We won't have to fuss about getting keys if we can find one that's already running. Plus, it won't be stealing, because the driver would be dead."

Pausing in my spot right in front of the staircase, I gave Bucciarati a weirded out stare, "That... doesn't that just make it looting...?"

Seeing that he had been slightly bamboozled by me and my amazing wit, Bucciarati attempted to make amends, "It's for a good cause."

Accepting that answer with a shrug, I strolled on ahead of him towards the stairs. Spotting some cans tumbling down the stairs, I wondered where the hell they had come from. Bucciarati seemed to notice too, leaving Mista to be the only one actually climbing up the stairs.

Brushing off how rattling the noise of cans falling in the middle of the night was, I commented quietly, "That's like out of some crappy horror movie..."

Already having ascended all the way up the stairs, Mista began the task of finding a suitable car, probably oblivious to Bucciarati and I not even having taken the first step up the staircase. About to do that and take the first step, I was stopped by Bucciarati swinging his arm out to block me, "(Name), don't go up those stairs."

"Huh? Why not?" Looking up to stare at the staircase, I quickly spotted the problem with them. The staircase had begun to rapidly sink into the ground with weird gross squelching noises. The ground beneath me felt squishy and wet, although it very much did not look like either of those things.

Guessing some weird shit was up with the ground, I shuddered when my foot started to sink. Not wanting to relive memories of getting stuck thigh deep in mud or lose my leg to freaky mold, I summoned Daft Punk to make my sense of gravity lighter. Seeing as how he had basically no way to ensure he wouldn't sink, Bucciarati gave me a quick glance.

Already having formulated a plan of how to get up the ledge without using the stairs, the first thing I did was lift Bucciarati into my arms. Grunting at how heavy he was, I held back any mean comments about him being dead weight for later. Using Daft Punk's ability to make his weight more manageable, I found myself able to stand on the surface of the 'water' instead of sinking into it.

Wanting Bucciarati to do his part too, I leaned down to get his compliance with my plan, "When we go up to the edge, we'll use our Stands to pull each other up, okay?"

Not waiting for him to say anything, I tightened my grip and began to make a mad dash for the ledge. A hand coated by a hard, earthy textured plating shot out of the ground, reaching out for my ankle to try and trip me. Letting it happen, I purposefully tripped and let my Stand appear behind me, Bucciarati's following as the two Stands gripped each other's hands tightly. Like clockwork, I used the force of my fall to throw Bucciarati up onto the edge.

Pulling himself up and over the ledge carefully with his available arm, Bucciarati began to hoist me up the ledge. Trying to shake my ankle free from the second Stand user, I thrashed my leg around wildly, knowing that it was unlikely to move to a lower position. The second enemy tried to pull himself up, half of his body emerging from the ground.