#erwa

Arlo himself was armed with that broom and shovel and was quickly tiring of moving the seven inches of snow that sat on top of the three inches of ice and had, within the last hour, stopped piling it neatly alongside the path they were clearing and instead was just happy to move it out of the way however he could.

Behind him, as he cleared away the top layer of snow, Sam and Remington worked together on the ice - Remington cracking and lifting, and Sam getting it out of the way.  Theirs was perhaps the harder job even if Arlo technically had more to move by volume, and after a while (after she chucked a double handful of ice chunks off to the side) Sam straightened from where she'd been bent over, rubbing at her lower back.  "Man, even with my gloves on I can't feel my fingers."

"This is weather only Papa Bear's suited for," Remington grumbled as he wedged the blunt end of the pickaxe under the edge of the next section of a freshly-revealed layer of ice.  They'd tried earlier to use the actual pick end of the pickaxe to try and shatter the ice but had, in the process, accidentally gouged the sidewalk a few times; the only way to prevent any further damage was to use the other end as a makeshift pry bar - it was harder and would take longer but was better than the alternative.

Remington grunted and threw his weight against the haft of the pickaxe and there was a crackling sound as the ice began to splinter and pull away from the stone beneath it.  As the sheet lifted Sam bent again to slide her hands under into the gap between ground and ice.   "--think Selene could rig something up to make this any easier?" she grunted as she lifted in tandem with Remington's prying.

"Think of it as strength training," Arlo replied. "We can't run today so this'll have to do."

"Let me rephrase that - think Selene could rig something to make this faster?" Sam went on, huffing a bit and stumbling as the ice came loose and she shoved it off to the side.  "It's going to take a couple days just to get this ramp cleared off at the rate we're going."

Remington rested the head of the pickaxe on the ground and leaned against the handle, panting.  "Let's switch gears and get the snow out of the way - maybe with some sunlight on it the ice'll melt enough to not be such a pain to pop loose."

"Sounds like a plan to me - give me that broom."

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For the last three days, thankfully, the weather had been clear and sunny, if still frigid. Remington had been right regarding the sun and the ice -even with the arctic temperatures it had thinned out enough that they'd managed to clear down to the landing near Gale's house and also the ramp and stairs that connected with Central Plaza. There they'd linked up with Paulie and managed to get a narrow footpath carved out around the border of the plaza leading north to the research center and south to Martha's bakery within an afternoon of work.

There were, out of sheer necessity, already compacted paths along Main Street made by Portia's townsfolk and the few stranded tourists present; once they'd gotten walkways open to Martha's and the research center they'd started working on what had already been worn in by stomping boots around town. It was a bit easier to bust up the compacted pathways and if more willing hands joined them they'd have it done soon enough -- Arlo had estimated another four or five days at most to get it clear even if it was just the three of them the entire time (assuming it didn't snow again).  Knowing there was an end coming helped keep spirits high as they shoveled, slowly digging Portia out from under the worst storm anyone could recall in recent memory.

"At least the kids seem to be having a blast," Remington had chuckled as Toby and Polly went whizzing by on polished wooden sleds to thud into a pile of snow they'd left mounded at the base of the tree planter in the center of the plaza.  "Going to have to keep an eye on them, make sure if they go out into the countryside they don't go flying out on top of the river - don't need anyone falling through."

From off to their left they heard a sudden cry then, and turned in time to see Erwa lose his footing and fall backwards onto his rump; with the snow mostly cushioning his fall he at least didn't go sliding down the incline behind the two kids but the ice under the snow left him floundering right at Martha's doorstep, unable to get enough purchase to get his feet back under him.

"-speaking of someone falling," Sam grinned.  "Come on, let's go help him out."

Arlo turned his back to hide his smile - it felt impolite to laugh at Erwa rolling around in the snow - and kept shoveling, listening as Sam and Remington's footsteps crunched over toward the portly man.  The crunching eventually stopped, as did the sound of shoes scratching against ice, and for a brief moment there was the sound of a conversation that was slightly too far off to hear -- the sort of noise where you could recognize someone was talking but not actually make out the individual words.

"'ey, Arlo - have YOU seen Dawa yet today?"

Well, he definitely could hear that.  "Can't say I have.  Why?"  He jammed the tip of the shovel into the snow and turned toward the trio in the distance - Erwa was back on his feet and had his hands out to his sides for balance.

"Because I can't find him, is why," came Erwa's answer.  "He wasn't home when I popped in yesterday, and he's not home right now, and I didn't see any new footprints in the snow aside from mine so it doesn't look like I've just missed him each time.  It's not like him to NOT be at the tree farm - not for any length of time, anyway.  No one else has seen him either."

Arlo frowned - this was NOT the kind of weather anyone should be wandering around in.  "Right.  We'll look for him.  Did anyone see him recently?"

"Not since the day after that storm hit - Emily said she saw him busting ice off the gates to the farm but she's the only one since then."

"Guess we'll start at the farm then and work our way out from there. Let's get moving," Sam said.  She took a careful step around Erwa and began to pick her way up the path, trying to stick to the well-worn and frozen over footprints in the snow.  Erwa wobbled a bit in place and Remington steadied him with a hand on the shoulder and then Remington was off up the hill too.

Sticking to the path they'd made Arlo headed toward Paulie's store first and left the broom and shovel leaning against the counter, then he too began to carefully climb up the path and toward Peach Plaza.  He didn't see anyone else along the way (not that he blamed them - it was bitterly cold) and it didn't take long to meet up with Sam and Remington at the city gates and head out as a group toward the tree farm.

Erwa was right in that there didn't seem to be any new tracks up this way; Arlo could pick out a single set, shaped in such a way that it looked like everyone who'd walked it had all stuck to the same footprints. They too stayed within the tracks, walking in single file all the way up to the farm's gates and beyond, following the footprints up toward the house where the trail then split into five different ones with only one leading up the steps to the building and the others angled out in various directions all seeming to lead out into the groves.

Arlo eyed the tracks - they were all spaced out enough that he doubted any of them met up anywhere close.  "Everyone pick a trail and see where it leads.  We'll meet back here in a half hour and see what we've found."

Remington picked a trail that headed along the fence line, and Arlo watched the snow fall from the fencing as the man kept a hand on it to steady himself as he headed off. 'Hope his knee isn't bothering him too much,' he found himself thinking -- he tried not to let it slip his mind that Remington's knee wasn't in the best shape but the man went out of his way to hide when the joint was aching anyway.  He'd gotten on his case about hiding injuries or aches before but it always seemed to go in one ear and out the other.  'At least we don't lack for ice packs at the moment.'

Arlo shook himself from his thoughts; Sam appeared to have picked a trail that led out to the middle of the tree farm so Arlo chose one that was nearer to the house but angled to the west, and then seemed to veer to skirt along the northern border of the farm.  He knew Dawa liked to walk the property a lot -- he needed to, to be able to catch any issues or potential signs of disease in the trees early enough to do anything about it, so him walking about was a usual occurrence...it COULD be that Erwa had just missed him each time he'd visited, and with the weather being so cold no one was really going outside unless they had to so it was possible Dawa had been outside when no one else was around to see him. Both of those were equally as possible as the man being in trouble somewhere out here and Arlo preferred to hope for sheer poorly timed coincidence as he plodded along.  

The branches around him sagged and creaked under the weight of the ice, and the further he went the more trees he spotted that were wrapped in heavy rope and what looked like burlap, and in a few places he saw a couple of trees that looked to be slowly splitting in half; one of them he recognized as a tree that had been struck by lightning a few summers ago -- there were thick metal rods connecting the two halves of the tree, and steel cables up in the crown of the tree holding the two halves together.  The repair, as ghoulish as it looked, appeared to have actually saved the tree as, once he got up near it, he could see signs where the bark had grown over and bulged out near the bolts that held the rods in place.

Dawa's tracks led right up to this particular tree and went in a circle at its base so clearly the man was keeping a close eye on this one; Arlo edged around the tree and kept going, eying the trail ahead of him and noting how it stopped its meandering among the trees and, about fifty feet ahead of him, straightened out to...hmm.

To the northeast of here Arlo knew was a bridge that crossed the lake that separated the Somber Marsh from the northern shore of Portia's territory along that lake.  Unless he was mistaken it sort of looked like Dawa's path was going to lead him directly to that bridge -- the trail had definitely straightened out enough for that to be a viable destination unless it suddenly veered away far enough ahead that Arlo couldn't spot it from here.  

It certainly seemed to be case as he drew nearer to the abandoned Old World building that made up part of the northwestern border for the tree farm, and sure enough as soon as he'd walked the length of that building and gotten to the far side of it he could see the bridge in the distance, and Dawa's tracks bee-lined straight for it.

"Why would he go out  there..." he wondered aloud.  It didn't make sense to go out to the marsh - there wasn't anything out there except monsters and ruins (even the fishing out there was poor).  Dawa wasn't the sort to go anywhere near a ruin, he didn't fish, and so far as Arlo knew he'd never gone after monster-based resources on his own -- he wasn't even the sort to deal with monsters when they happened to invade his farm: he'd always enlisted someone else's help to shoo them away or exterminate them.

As he hurried along Arlo mentally cursed the weather as he didn't dare move at a pace faster than a brisk walk unless he wanted to take a tumble; it felt like it took an age to reach the bridge and even longer to carefully climb up the ice-coated wooden ramp and metal steps.  Up at the top he could see the tracks heading straight across the bridge; he followed them across and then began to follow a path that seemed to crisscross at random between crumbling rock wall sections, rusted old buildings, and even a couple of gigantic trees that had gaps between exposed roots.

It almost seemed like Dawa was searching for something...but what?  What could possibly be out here that he'd be looking for?  

The bridge he'd crossed led to one of two large islands in the marsh's lake -- this particular island was known for the two ruins on it: the Deepest Ruin and the Somber Marsh Abandoned Ruins.  Dawa's tracks at least didn't lead up to either of those (not that Arlo thought he'd have any reason to go inside either) but eventually the tracks ventured outside of the crumbling, circular stone walls that partially enclosed the ruins, and once those tracks weren't sheltered by the walls they quickly disappeared -- erased by the cutting wind out here that had blown most of the snow away and exposed the ice to the sun (in fact he could almost see dead grass in several spots where the ice had almost melted through).

So Dawa had come out here, searched around, and then headed out of the walls to... The only other places out beyond the walls was another ruined building and a crashed ship that doubled as a bridge to the far side of the marsh, but surely Dawa hadn't gone out THAT far, right?

Rather than trek out there Arlo instead turned to look at the walls -- they were tall enough that maybe they'd give him enough of a vantage point to see if it was even worth it to check the other side of the lake.  He fumbled a few times as he climbed (numb fingers - this cold weather was beginning to get on his nerves) and once he was at the top of the wall he saw an unmistakable black smudge on the far shore to the northeast.  It was just far enough away that between distance and the glare of the sun off the snow Arlo couldn't make out much more than a dark mark on the ground but whatever it was was pretty big.

He'd definitely need to head over there now, if only to see what that was.

It was too steep to climb down the outer side of the wall so he had to go back the way he'd come up and then take the long way around; the wooden foot bridge that spanned across the two halves of the crashed ship was thankfully still intact and was even mostly thawed out so he got across without issue, and then it was just a matter of getting over to whatever the big black smudge was.

The trees were thick on this side of the lake, both in number and in canopy cover, and the snow had the branches sagging low so it was difficult to see through them; the big black smudge remained a big black smudge until finally Arlo was almost on top of it, and there he noticed two things.

One: the big black smudge was a freshly opened sink hole.

And two: there were footprints in the mud that ringed the opening that led to a long skidmark suggesting someone had slid in.

The sinkhole wasn't perfectly circular and was about twenty feet across at its widest point, surrounded by upturned rocks and broken tree roots, and the wind whistled eerily over the gaping hole.  The earth around the sinkhole was sludgy and angled sharply downward toward the opening as well - he didn't dare get close enough to look into the sinkhole or else he'd risk falling in himself.

'I guess Dawa must have heard this thing opening up and came looking for what caused the noise, and fell in.'

"Dawa?" he yelled toward the opening.  His voice echoed back to him; there wasn't a response.  "Dawa?" he tried again, louder.  Again there was no answer aside from the howl of the wind in the hole.

...if the wrapped trees were any indication then Dawa had to have rope stored somewhere on the farm, and there were trees enough here to tie off to provide a handhold to get close enough to investigate.  

Arlo turned and began to hurry back the way he'd come -- by now Sam and Remington would probably be waiting for him anyway, and he'd need their help to get down into the hole.

----------------------------------------------------

"You sure about this?"

"Yeah.  You and Sam got me beat in the raw strength category, and if I do find Dawa down there he might need the help to haul him out.  I'm pretty sure I can get down there and back out without a problem but I can't promise about him - especially if we don't know how far down this thing goes."

Arlo nodded at Remington; he did have a point - they had no way of knowing if Dawa was in any shape to climb out of there.  "All right.   Sam and I will wait up here - tug on that rope four times if you need us to help pull you up."

"Give me that other coil, there -- no telling how deep this goes."

Sam handed over a spare coil of rope which Remington slung over his shoulder bandolier-style, then with a nod he grabbed hold of the other rope - the one carefully tied to a nearby tree - and began to carefully edge his way forward toward the sinkhole's edge; the mud here went up to his ankles and then midway up his shins before he got to where he could slip over the edge and begin to carefully rappel down into the darkness.

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Once he was over the lip and down about fifteen feet the incessant howl of the wind across the sinkhole's opening ceased, and now all Remington could hear as he picked his way down was the crumbling of dirt and rock each time his boots touched the wall, and somewhere he could hear a trickle of dripping water -- probably melting snow, and the last thing this sinkhole needed was more moisture to cause a further collapse.

He estimated he was about thirty feet down when he wrapped his legs and one arm around the rope to hold himself in place long enough to use his other hand to click on the little headlamp they'd borrowed from Selene; around him the dark dirt seemed to swallow up the pale yellow light and as he looked down his heart jumped a bit as the lamp illuminated roots and vines that jutted out of the sinkhole's walls.

And the vines looked like they'd once been thick and had choked this entire area out but now there was a large gap through their center, and he could see the glimmer of sap leaking out of hundreds of split and broken ends of the plants as he steadily lowered himself toward them.

"Well, at least something slowed the fall," he mumbled as he went -- he'd be lying if he said he hadn't been silently panicking a little bit as the depth of this hole began to sink in (no pun intended) coupled with the fact that he hadn't seen Dawa or even signs of him until this point.  If the vines had slowed and cushioned the man's fall then there was a pretty good chance he'd survived the drop.

Remington kept at it with his steady rhythm as he rappelled, and then just above where the vines began his boots hit the wall with a muffled thump; again he held himself in place as he experimentally stomped a boot against the wall and again got the thump -- it almost sounded like metal.  He let himself drop a few feet more and then used a hand to dig and pry at the wall ahead of him; something bit into his finger and he yanked his hand back and (perhaps stupidly) stuck his fingers into his mouth but there in the light of his headlamp was a dull, reflective metal visible through the grime he'd scraped free.

This sinkhole must have opened into an underground ruins.

The way down became more difficult as now he had to pick his way through the vines that crisscrossed what he suspected was some sort of ancient elevator shaft as he was starting to see door-like shapes at through the gloom and vine cover regular intervals as he went.   Eventually he reached the end of the rope he'd been using to climb down and he wedged himself into a little gap in front of what he was now sure was a doorway, and tied off the rope's end to the coil he'd brought down with him.  When he was certain it was securely tied he let the coil drop and listened as it hit something not too far away beneath him -- apparently there WAS an intact bottom to this shaft, and it was a lot closer than he'd thought.

He went the distance of four more "floors" and then finally he was almost on top of a rusted out elevator...pod?  Car?  What did the Old World call these things?  It was the thing that carried people up and down the cables - whatever it was called didn't really matter at the moment, honestly.  

From here he could see the ragged hole in the top where Dawa must have either fallen or climbed through, and the metal around that hole was sagging under the weight of the rope coil he'd tossed down; without a doubt it would fully collapse under his weight, so Remington was careful to aim himself at that hole and slide down through it, pulling the coil of rope with him and finally getting his boots back on solid ground within the elevator...thingy.

The air down here was heavy and smelled of dirt and rot; Dawa had already forced the elevator doors open and beyond it was a hallway full of dust and moldering old carpet.  Remington could see footprints in the dust (really, the carpet had mostly rotted into dust itself) and began to follow them...not that he really needed them as there wasn't anywhere he could see to go except down the hallway, though there were doors to his left and right.  He did stop to try one of the doors and couldn't see a way to get it open -- they had no handles and were almost flush with the walls.

"Dawa?  You down here?" he called ahead of him.

There wasn't anything except his own echo so he kept going.  Ahead of him the hallway turned to the left, and the closer he came to the corner the more apparent a thudding, dragging noise was beginning to become, until finally--

"Dawa!"

There around the corner was Dawa -- he had his hand up shielding his eye's from the glare of Remington's headlamp, and was dotted with bruises and cuts that left dozens of bloody spots across his clothing.   "Never been happier to see someone in my life, I was running out of matches," came the man's reply.

"The feeling's mutual - had no idea what to expect to find down here," Remington laughed.  He reached up to slide the headlamp over to his temple so he could look at Dawa without blinding him.  "You in one shape, more or less?"

"I've been better - not worried about a few bruises but I'm ready to eat an entire cow by myself."

Remington nodded.  "I bet.  Come on, let's get you out of here."

"Yeah, about that... Don't know that I can climb out of here.  Not on my leg, anyway."

Dawa gestured toward his left leg and Remington brought the headlamp around again; the yellow of the lamp made the bruised and swollen ankle look ten times worse than it probably was, but even still it was the size of a small melon and looked rather painful.  "Ah.  Hmm.  Well, we've got Sam and Arlo up there ready to pull you out."

"Don't know if I'd trust that -- I mean, don't get me wrong, I trust THEM.  But at current I don't trust gravity, friction, or the structural integrity of a regular ol' rope.  Not even sure I could hold on the entire time to make it out of here either."

"How'd you end up down here anyway?"

Dawa huffed out an annoyed sound.  "It's dumb.  It's really dumb.   So, I heard a noise out here and went looking - you know how I've been keeping an eye out for Aadit, after that Knight scared him off.  So I hear this noise and I think to myself, maybe it's him, or maybe it's that damned Knight come back and is up to no good.  I wait out the storm then walk out here and it takes awhile to find anything weird - but eventually I find this hole, and when I went to look at it it became a bigger hole and I fell right in."

Remington blinked at him.  "Became a BIGGER hole?"

"Yeah, a bigger hole - it was barely bigger than I am when I spotted it.  I guess it'd started opening before all the snow and ice hit, and the storm must've formed a crust over the actual size of the hole because I definitely wasn't near the opening when it all broke loose under me and dumped me in."  He paused and looked around them.  "Who knew there was an old ruin out here completely underground?  Usually these things have some sort of above ground entrance.  Wouldn't have gotten near if I'd thought it'd lead to this."

"Yeah...wouldn't have expected something like this."  Remington rubbed at his chin, thinking -- if Dawa couldn't make it out on his own and didn't think the others could pull him out, then they'd need to find another way up.  "You know, on the way down here I saw a lot of elevator doors lining the shaft.  We're down pretty deep but maybe we can find a way to link up with a floor that's higher up and climb up out of that floor's door."

"Yeah...yeah, I like that idea.  I think I could do a shorter climb, no problem.  And I DID find another elevator back that way-" Dawa jerked a thumb over his shoulder.  "Couldn't get the door open though, and even if I could've I don't think there's any power going to it anymore."

Remington nodded and then dropped to a knee to swing his pack off his back; he rummaged through it and pulled out an old, battered water bottle.  "All right, here's the plan then: I'm going to climb back up and let Sam and Arlo know you're all right, and have one of them get Selene or Higgins so we can get this elevator back up and running."  He handed the bottle to Dawa, who began to chug from it noisily.  "-I'll also get them to bring you something to eat, too."

"You're a lifesaver, Remington.  In this case literally."

With a chuckle Remington pulled his pack back on and tightened the straps.  "S'what we do.  You need anything else in the meantime?"

"Don't think so.  It's actually not so bad down here if you get away from the shaft and around the corner."

"What's ahead of here?"

"There's this big room back there - it's got some old furniture in it, some tables and chairs and a counter.  Might've been some old cafeteria or something.  Been back there since it's warmer."

"All right, then.  I'll be back as soon as I can."