[That wakes him up. He sits up with a start, squirming free of the remains of the burial shroud, yelping.]
Aah! What? What? Where? Where are the - ?
[But they're alone here. He holds a hand to his stomach, as if feeling for a wound there, and then the hand goes up to the rabbit's foot on its chain, rapidly feeling for it. He lets out a sigh of relief to discover it's still there.]
[Then he sucks in a breath of alarm when he actually looks around to see where they are.]
Uuuh, this is a tomb! We're in a tomb! [There is no universe ever where being put in a tomb by a ghost is a good thing. He pops up to his feet.] We're in a tomb where we were gift-wrapped for death, all nice and pretty. We need to get out of here.
[He starts knocking on the walls, feeling along them, trying to find the one that seems to have the least depth to see if he can start trying to dig them out. They've got swords here, to use for leverage to start moving stones out of the way. He's an engineer. He can figure something out.]
There. This side. This side is the thinnest, probably opens to the outside. You can feel a breeze through the cracks. We just have to damage it enough to get out.
[The stones are piled up in a way that makes it seem like they were the last things piled in to close up the tomb.]
[That's when the singing starts. It's otherworldly. Unworldly. A cold murmur, rising and falling, sometimes high and tired and thin, sometimes like a low murmur from the ground. The words are unclear at first, barely shaping themselves out of the music, but the general impression comes through without them.]
[The night is railing against the morning that forced it away; the cold is cursing the warmth that could replace it.]
[Then the song turns into a chant.]
Cold be hand and heart and bone, and cold be sleep under stone: never more to wake on stony bed, never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead. In the black wind the stars shall die, and still on gold here let them lie, till the dark lord lifts his hand over dead sea and withered land.
[Harper freezes in place, ice running down his spine. His voice is high and thin.]
I've heard that before. Where have I heard that before?
[But he doesn't have time to worry about it. Around the corner that led into a nearby passage, there's a scraping sound and then a hand walks into the room on its fingers. The arm is thin and pale and the fingers are far too long. It's moving towards the long sword that was laying across their necks.]
[Harper reacts quickly, reflexes honed by years of dodging absolute bullshit, and grabs the sword, bringing it down on the being's arm, chopping off the hand at the wrist. A loud, inhuman screech rends the air and the sword splinters up to the hilt. The decapitated hand twitches in place like a dying spider and the rest of the arm retreats.]
Okay, that was all the heroics I had in me. I'm tapped out!
[There's no way he's chasing after that thing. Harper tosses the splintered sword away and then...something happens. He does something on instinct to try to get them out of this. His body collapses and something blue and translucent and glowing bursts out of it. For a moment it has a vague human form that looks like Harper himself and then it changes to look like some kind of alien manta ray creature. The form fills the room with slightly brighter light than the eerie green, and starts slamming into the wall Harper indicated. It does it carefully, trying to direct all the force to the same point in the center.]
[Harper's body is left on the stone floor. Small gestures, movements like he's trying to get up and look around give away that he's still alive, but he looks like he can barely see what's going on, or do more than move a little bit, like someone barely conscious.]
lifting a little prose from Tolkien lol
Aah! What? What? Where? Where are the - ?
[But they're alone here. He holds a hand to his stomach, as if feeling for a wound there, and then the hand goes up to the rabbit's foot on its chain, rapidly feeling for it. He lets out a sigh of relief to discover it's still there.]
[Then he sucks in a breath of alarm when he actually looks around to see where they are.]
Uuuh, this is a tomb! We're in a tomb! [There is no universe ever where being put in a tomb by a ghost is a good thing. He pops up to his feet.] We're in a tomb where we were gift-wrapped for death, all nice and pretty. We need to get out of here.
[He starts knocking on the walls, feeling along them, trying to find the one that seems to have the least depth to see if he can start trying to dig them out. They've got swords here, to use for leverage to start moving stones out of the way. He's an engineer. He can figure something out.]
There. This side. This side is the thinnest, probably opens to the outside. You can feel a breeze through the cracks. We just have to damage it enough to get out.
[The stones are piled up in a way that makes it seem like they were the last things piled in to close up the tomb.]
[That's when the singing starts. It's otherworldly. Unworldly. A cold murmur, rising and falling, sometimes high and tired and thin, sometimes like a low murmur from the ground. The words are unclear at first, barely shaping themselves out of the music, but the general impression comes through without them.]
[The night is railing against the morning that forced it away; the cold is cursing the warmth that could replace it.]
[Then the song turns into a chant.]
Cold be hand and heart and bone,
and cold be sleep under stone:
never more to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die,
and still on gold here let them lie,
till the dark lord lifts his hand
over dead sea and withered land.
[Harper freezes in place, ice running down his spine. His voice is high and thin.]
I've heard that before. Where have I heard that before?
[But he doesn't have time to worry about it. Around the corner that led into a nearby passage, there's a scraping sound and then a hand walks into the room on its fingers. The arm is thin and pale and the fingers are far too long. It's moving towards the long sword that was laying across their necks.]
[Harper reacts quickly, reflexes honed by years of dodging absolute bullshit, and grabs the sword, bringing it down on the being's arm, chopping off the hand at the wrist. A loud, inhuman screech rends the air and the sword splinters up to the hilt. The decapitated hand twitches in place like a dying spider and the rest of the arm retreats.]
Okay, that was all the heroics I had in me. I'm tapped out!
[There's no way he's chasing after that thing. Harper tosses the splintered sword away and then...something happens. He does something on instinct to try to get them out of this. His body collapses and something blue and translucent and glowing bursts out of it. For a moment it has a vague human form that looks like Harper himself and then it changes to look like some kind of alien manta ray creature. The form fills the room with slightly brighter light than the eerie green, and starts slamming into the wall Harper indicated. It does it carefully, trying to direct all the force to the same point in the center.]
[Harper's body is left on the stone floor. Small gestures, movements like he's trying to get up and look around give away that he's still alive, but he looks like he can barely see what's going on, or do more than move a little bit, like someone barely conscious.]