[Celtic]

Ket sighed as he moved carefully through the sewer. The steps were treacherous and he was absolutely not going to slip and fall. For one, he could break his neck, for two this place was utterly filthy and he had no idea when he'd get the chance to properly wash his clothes again.

"Ugh grooooss," a slightly high pitched voice went behind him. Ket sighed and just kept going, ignoring his companion. At least, he tried to. At the third complaint, he snapped. "jack if you don't like it, just go back to the surface and I'll do the job without you."

"You wouldn't get your cut. I'm your trainee, remember? You have to train me!" The snide little voice cut in, and Ket just about slugged the brat. A little squeak from him shoulder though reminded him to calm down. He needed this money, bad.

[Celtic]

Ket kept moving through the tunnel, and was surprised when he heard other living creatures. His head whipped around, trying to find a hiding place-- he knew better than to assume anything was friendly. Unfortunately, he couldn't process his surroundings fast enough and the little lizard folk were surrounding him and his companion.

Thankfully, they seemed friendly enough, but Ket was still stiff as a board as they spoke. Jack though, was being his usual bratty self and assuming they were friendly. "oh yes! Please take us around. Is there a cleaner section? This place is disgusting."

Ket gaped and quickly attempted to cover for him, "No, no your village is lovely. Don't mind him, please."

[Celtic]

The hydrolisks didn't seem to catch the insult, busy as they were shuffling the two newcomers to their little huts. Ket shot a glare at Jack, and mouthed 'Shut up.' Jack just rolled his eyes and said out loud, "oh it's fine. They don't seem to care." This did catch the hydrolisks attention.

"What care?" Said the one to their right.

"Oh nothing, so sorry! What is this lovely hut?" Ket responded, still covering for his companion. The hydrolisk seemed to light up at the question.

"Yes yes! This home. Warm, sleep good here!"

Ket smiled, "It looks like a lovely home, you should be proud!"

[Celtic]

They were shown around several more huts, first a kitchen, next a small artisan shop with a couple hydrolisks working what seemed to be pieces of leather inside. Lastly, they were shown a set of tunnels, one was explained to be "surface" and another way labeled "mean folk" and a last was "wall."

Ket perked up at mean folk. That sounded promising-- a research facility would likely be guarded and not welcoming to guests in their territory. "Ah, what are these mean folk? Are they in coats?"

The hydrolisk gave him a very grave expression, "Yes, long coat very mean. Nice people not go that way."

[Celtic]

Ket thought for a moment, and gave a slightly sad smile, "We need to find bad people, they have something we need." Jack looked skeptically at Ket, "but we need to find a research facility." Ket waved at him and gave him a look that he'd hopefully recognize as "we'll talk about this later."

The hydrolisk was still deeply concerned. "No, bad people that way, no good people."

"Yes, we need to find bad people. We'll be okay, very strong!"

That did not give the hydrolisk confidence, "Go back camp, mealtime soon!" Ket sighed, unsure how to proceed. It didn't seem likely they'd be happy with him insisting on leaving this way.

"No, not hungry. How about wall? Where is wall?"

The hydrolisk thought for a moment, "Outside wall! Far from city." Ket nodded sagely.

"Yes, we go wall! Thank you for your help."

"But--" Jack started and stopped as Ket socked him in the ribs, grabbing his arm and dragging him along.

"We'll wait for them to leave and we'll go that way. The facility is probably guarded."

[Celtic]

Ket definitely thought he was being sneaky-- he thought Jack was even following suit and being sneaky with him.

Turns out he was wrong. They had been thoroughly out-sneaked. But of course these hydrolisks live here- he should know better by now that natives always outmatched him in just about everything.

But there was no time to reminisce about his lack of ability with this giant, heavy, definitely going to, possibly kill them boulder rolling towards them. Lovely.

Jack started screaming, and Ket wanted desperately to hit the idiot but was busy getting his feet moving. He was too busy to even tell at him, or look at him to make sure he was running too, he was just trying to survive.

[Celtic]

The next several minutes were a blur. Not much was really being processed by Kets brain other than scanning the walls for an alcove, an offshoot or even if the walls somehow would narrow enough to catch the boulder.

His eyes darted every which way, but he couldn't find anything and it was getting darker. He was running away from the torches, away from the city lights, away from it seemed life itself. Is this really how he was going to die? Crushed to death by a boulder? That wasn't very appealing, heck it'd probably be weeks before anyone even noticed he was gone! What sort of a life did he lead? Not a very good one apparently.

[Celtic]

Thank God Jack kept screaming-- it pulled Ket out of the dark dark depths of his mind (scary how quick he went there though, damn). "Will you" big breath "shut" big breath "the fuck up."

Jack apparently didn't hear him-- he just kept on screaming. Maus though at that point tool it upon himself to shock Ket, causing him to jump and nearly forget how to run properly. A brief moment of himself falling getting crushed into a bloody mess by the boulder flashed through his mind before he quickly banished it and saw a small laser of light (presumably from Maus) pointing out a divet that looked like it may provide enough space to shelter the two.

[Celtic]

Ket snatched Jack's bicep and pulled with all his might, just about catapulting his companion into the little divet. Surprisingly there was not much resistance-- the little rat weighed just about nothing apparently. He shoved himself into the same spot, pressing as hard as he could on top of Jack and praying it was enough.

Weirdly, the pushing causes the wall to fall in and the two tumbled into an adjustment tunnel. Jack coughed from Let landing full force on top of his from the fall. Ket however, just laid there, stunned.

After a moment he rolled into his back and off of the nearly suffocating Jack. "Holy shit."

[Celtic]

"Holy shit is right." Jack said after he finished hacking up a lung, "Those bastards tried to kill us!"

"Well technically they just tried to feed us to something." Ket corrected.

"What?"

"Oh yeah, they didn't want to kill us I don't think. They were gonna feed us to something!" Ket said almost cheerily.

"Dude you're creeping me out. You don't sound phased at all."

"Eh I've been fed to a few monsters. Not as uncommon as you think."

Jack chose not to ask further questions, probably his first smart decision of the whole excursion so far.

"So, uh... Now what?"

"We find the laboratory-- duh."