"Hold on a second--" stand UP "--okay. Okay, got it."

Zoe reels the end of the rope back up and secures it to Mordred.

"I have to say I am not filled with optimism right now," but okay, let's try this, being very very careful and trying not to think about how they're going to have to wade through Nectar-poisoned seawater soon.

In spite of his trepidation, or perhaps because of it, Mordred gets down without incident.

"Alright, my turn!" Hopefully this time is less embarrassing for her.

On the way down, she finds a very easy route-- all three of them will be able to take it back up with the rope without much worry.

Now, at long last, they may go through the chambers of the ancient temple to the hall of posts.

"Alright, compass. Which way is north?"

Away from the well that grants access to the ruins, the ceiling is a mere five feet high and the walls are angled stone. The place quickly gets claustrophobic. The shadows seem to swallow up light. Only the occasional etching in the stone walls hints at the place’s ancient function. Mordred gets the sense Lev would be bouncing right now.

It’s weirdly cold in these ruins. Every step crunches and echoes on the uneven gravel.

Though chambers extend in virtually every direction, only the north allows passage of more than a dozen feet or so.

"There's supposed to be a... hall of posts?"

"At the end of the north chambers, I think."

A small, chapel-like chamber gapes off to one side of the passage. Strange runes have been deeply carved into the walls. Chipped and faded paint on the ceiling depicts a sky filled with stars, focused on the Pleiades.

An attempt at open sky buried deep underground. He's not sure if it helps or makes the claustrophobic doom feeling worse.

Zoe wonders about the runes. Maybe someone else could decipher them, but they mean nothing to her.

They don't mean anything to him either, as much as he wishes they did.

(Lev would love this.)

(Lev would probably know the significance of the Pleiades, too.)

The hall of posts is a wide, low-ceilinged chamber made up of many columnar stones set irregularly into the floor and ceiling and held in place by dozens of wooden posts, standing floor-to-ceiling, some at odd angles, throughout the room. It is all but impossible to traverse the space without moving or removing posts, intentionally or accidentally.

The catacombs above have fallen down into the Neolithic ruins, linking the ancient ruins with the half-collapsed Christian catacombs above. That’s the way out.

The posts must have been put in place to keep the ceiling from collapsing.

"Martin said 'Remove only the posts you must, replace all the posts you can.' Which... must we remove? They... kinda all look necessary to stop the ceiling from falling on us??"

"So do we go with the shortest route to avoid poking at most of it, or the posts that look easiest to quickly put back, or the places where the ceiling looks least like it might fall on us?"

"Do any of the posts look like they've been moved before? Maybe we can tell a path that way?"

"Do any of us know anything about engineering," they won't, they super won't, he really misses Carrie sometimes--

He shakes his head.

Zoe does as well, her lips pressed into a line.

She thinks back to everything in the temple and tunnels so far, hoping something they saw might somehow be a clue, or a guide. Maybe the posts are arranged like the stars? Zoe doesn't know how she would tell. Or what path that would indicate, if they were.

Okay. What can they see. Looking for places the posts seem looser than usual, ceiling integrity if that's something they can tell, areas that could plausibly be wedged through, preferably near each other and in a direct path to the collapsed area but he doesn't have his hopes up.

Any maltese crosses on anything? So far lots of paths have been marked with maltese crosses...

Oswald manages make out a path through the posts that looks safe... er? Safeish.

"Hey, do you think..." and he indicates the sort of safeish path to the others.

"Looks as plausible to me as anything else."

The safeish path is safe... ish. But "safeish" isn't the same as "safe." Zoe tries her best but she can't quite squeeze between two posts.