Garden Gnomes, an Omen for a Very Not Good Day

Thick dust particles swirled in the pool of light the large hole in the ceiling created, the three scientists barely conscious as a result of a 10-foot drop into the unlit cavern below, say for Osmond, who by adjusting his goggles back onto his face correctly, spluttered in response to the dusty air. 

He looked around to see Takashi, who was suspended by the grip of a statue that had "caught" him by the hem of his lab coat. He wiggled around trying to free himself until, in a bout of frustration, swung at the statue's underarm with his robotic hand. The action, in turn, made the stone crack upon impact and break, thus freeing Takashi. He landed on his rear with an "oomph" and a giggle.

Wendell however, wasn't in sight.

"You quite alright doctor?" Osmond asked with a hurried pitch.

Takashi smiled, eyes closed and arms outstretched proclaimed, "I've never been less than amazing!"

Osmond blinked once and smiled in succession to Takashi, but the contempt faded when he realised they were a member down.

"Oh, but what about Vendell? Did you see him drop down too?"

Takashi shrugged, unconcerned as he patted away rumble from his shoulders and sides, "I didn't see shit during the fall. Maybe he scampered off as soon as we fell to leave us in this pit."

Osmond wasn't so convinced with the doctor's theory, not about Wendell, it wasn't out of character for the elf to disappear when the situation grew generally unsafe, but one thing was certain, they were in no pit.

"Not to worry! This isn't a pit it's a whole underground structure! look!"

"... I can't see shit, goggles it's too dark."

"Oh. Vell just take my vord for it, it is quite the architectural marvel, in much better condition to what's up there."

"Sure. Let's just get out before we fall into another ditch or something."

Realising once again that Wendell was still missing, Osmond protested, "but what about the other doctor?"

"What about him-"

"Ow!"

Takashi's sentence was cut short on account of a suffocated shout from under his foot. His shoe was pressed onto what he thought to be another statue, was Wendell, lying on his back.

"I stepped in shit," Takashi said before having his leg yanked away as Wendell pushed him off of him and straightened up.

"Anyone got any fractures or breaks?" he asked the group as a whole. Osmond and Takashi replied with negatives to the question.

"Good," Wendell continued, "so nothing is stopping us from getting out as quickly as we can."

He started to push past statues as discretely as he could, even his tone hushed and agitated.

"Slow down pixie dust, you just re-joined the land of the living, what's the rush. Do you hate us that much?" Takashi pulled a fake puppy-eyed face as to mock the doctor further.

Wendell swivelled around on one heel, finger to mouth, "shh!"

"Don't you shush me, prick-"

"Kawasara, for once, listen to me when I say the less noise the better." Wendell hissed.

"Pshh-" Takashi scoffed, leaning on the frozen corpse of a man in iron-clad, "why?"

Wendell was about to leave the doctor to his childish jokes when the statue Takashi was leaning on toppled over, sending the statues in front of it falling in a literal domino effect. The noise was tremendous.

All three stood in the clearing, illuminated by the light above, still listening to the crashing of stone breaking and colliding, gradually trickling to an echo as the noise diminished through the halls. An eerie silence befell the scene after a continuous 45 seconds of sound.

Wendell was stunned into his silence, jaw hung in undiluted horror.

"Whoops," Takashi said bluntly and unsympathetically.

Osmond looked around at the cavern, and although the other two couldn't see the extent of the damage he surely saw it in all its glory. "I think you got them all, doctor..."

"I try."

Wendell was on the verge of an internal explosion but he had no such chance to detonate when his shoulders tensed up and his ears pointed back as if he'd heard something far off into the distance Osmond and Takashi hadn't. 

His ears sprung up and down for a second before lowering. His head spun wildly on his shoulders.

"Vendell, you look worse than before, you're as vhite as a sheet."

"I-It's because I-"

Suddenly, as if prompted by a spectator, all around them small dishes fixed onto the walls of the building lit up in unison, flooding the darkness of their surroundings with a dull orange glow. The architecture around them was seemingly ancient, pillars stood tall as the supported the ceiling, old weaponry from a whole array of periods scattered the tile floor. The most prominent feature, of course, was the statues that both stood and littered the floor all around them, horrific in their own right.

The three came back to back in a tight circle, a stance at the ready. 

"Close your eyes." Wendell snapped as he picked up a shield from the ground and hid behind it.

"Ey?" Both Osmond and Takashi asked, perhaps not hearing Wendell initially.

"Please tell me you two at least know what a gorgon is?" Wendell huffed, even now in such a time as this, irritated on their lack of knowledge on the magical world.

Takashi, snapping a finger, "Oh one of those bat looking things!"

"No!" Wendell objected, "Madusa, you've surely heard of her right? The most famous one?"

"Oh, a giant snake woman! Are we going to meet a giant snake woman? The one and only Madusa?" Osmond bellowed.

"How am I supposed to know if that's her name?" Wendell spat, "they're all awful, it doesn't matter!"

Wendell gulped, mentally blocked up within an old childhood fear he forgot about. He didn't answer beyond repeating to the others not to open their eyes and ready any weapon they had or could find.

Wendell, using the underside of the shield and a means to project a reflection onto it that he could safely scan the room with, tilted it to gauge their surroundings. He barked out to his other party members to follow his voice and scuttle forward to a possible exit. 

Osmond grabbed onto Takashi's labcoat as to not get lost as his eyes stayed firmly closed. Takashi, while still reluctant to take orders from a "sugar-coated twink" like Wendell on any occasion, thought it in his best interest to just suck it up this one time only. Wendell continued to help navigate with the aid of the shield through the winding halls, careful to point out deep holes and bumps, Osmond and Takashi jumping over them accordingly.

"How much further, Vendell, are we close?"

Wendell, not knowing the floor plan, wasn't sure, he was going off on how dense the statues were getting in cerin areas and using that as a basis on where to go. surely the fewer statues the closer to the exit...

"I don't know, just keep up. Wait..." he paused.

"What?" The other two said in conjunction.

"Haha, jinx." Takashi laughed.

Wendell rolled his eyes, how this man found comedy in such situations and his refusal to take anything seriously was almost beyond any of his medical reasoning. nonetheless, he carried on with what he was going to say:

"I think. Yes!"

"You found a way out?"

"Down there, it's a straight path out, there's daylight up these stairs."

Eyes snapping open, Takashi sprinted forward, pushing past Wendell which in turn made him drop the shield. "Well then let's go!"

Osmond followed his partner respectively, whether he opened his eyes too nobody knew.

Wendell swallowed again and daring not to look back, sprinted as fast as his legs could go, maybe the fastest they've ever gone. In no time flat all three were welcomed back into the warm light of day and the untainted fresh air, free of dust.

While they were out of the dark, one would argue they weren't in the clear just yet, but Takashi and Osmond were busy celebrating their successful escape.

"I vill admit, I'm a little sad that we couldn't at least hear a hiss, or get a scale at least... so sad." Osmond huffed, catching his breath.

"I know right," Takashi chimed in, "fucking boring as shit snake woman."

Wendell, emerging last from the stairwell, lashed out, a crooked grin on his face, miffed, "What part of keeping your eyes closed did you not hear properly?"

"Chill, we got out, didn't we?"

"That's not the point!"

Wendell went off on a whole lecture on the importance of listening to his advice, with the occasional remark with emphasis on how he proclaimed himself to be the best medical practitioner of his field, blah blah blah...

Amid his ramblings, Takashi grew bored again and Osmond stared blankly to the side.

Concurrently, that's when he noticed a flash of gold and green in the corner of his eye, though he tried ruling it off as a sudden change in the light. That's until he saw it again, crawling into the shadows in a flash. Takashi too saw it the second time, Wendell did not notice such.

The two watched around the arch of the entrance they had emerged from, Wendell was not aware of such as he began to wrap up.

"But who am I kidding... we got out, I guess," Wendell said with a sigh, defeated at the notion his contribution to the group wasn't headed.

"Uhm, Vendell."

"What, Boman?"

"Behind you."

"Wha- Arghh!"

As quickly as it happened, it was evident that Wendell had been dragged by the ankle into that dark once again by some force, grunted as he was pulled. Osmond peeked down into the stairwell just in time to see Wendell losing a game of tug of war as his grip faltered and a green and gold colouration of a slender tendril tightening and wrapping around his leg dragged him away.

"Ve should get him."

Takashi groaned, "woulda shoulda, coulda."

"No, we really should. And we could finally meet a snake lady!"

"...Fine, but if he's already being swallowed whole by the time we kill that thing you're getting him out."

TBC