you're in the jungle, baby / you gonna die

[lucetimods]

Who: All draftees
What: Fighting the Third Party... and perhaps the wildlife.
When: June 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th. (Characters will be pulled out at 11:59 of the 6th.)
Where: An as-yet unmapped by the Malnosso tropical rainforest.
Summary: Here are your details. Try to stay alive, won't you?
Rating: Anywhere from PG to R.

No cut for you. Most of you will know how this works by now; if you don't, follow the lead of the others, or perhaps look to the last draft's fighting post for ideas. Don't forget to use your handy dandy character tags. Go forth and conquer thine enemies!

Comments

[all7seas]

"Might be just the place to find golden things, Annie." He drew himself up, unmindful of the numbed injuries now. "And sparkling ones."

[herotypical]

"You should be resting, not treasure hunting." But she ventured a little further into the dark. Luckily, she had the tools for this. She drew a heavy Maglite from her satchel and twisted it on.

[all7seas]

"I should be, shouldn't I?" He switched his own light on, focusing it on the tunnel. "Sometimes I find myself tempted, Annie."

[herotypical]

"What, to rest?"

She glanced sharply across at him -- her beam of light swinging to somewhere about his knees and casting just enough additional glow to see his face. They would have to find somewhere secure. Perhaps a little alcove. Then she could put him down to rest and heal up a bit. First watch.

[all7seas]

There was a low chuckle at that. "No--by treasure."

There was a small alcove not far ahead, containing an old torch. Jack reached up to try to light it, but his tinder box was soaked through.

[herotypical]

"Try this," she murmured and tossed him a small silver zippo. Upon learning that they might be here for the evenings, she had fetched it from the bottom of a drawer. It had been salvaged from Spike's apartment -- not his original lighter, no. One found here. But it would do when older styles of fire-starting were not so practical.

Buffy scuffed her shoes against the ground. What a miserable, musty place. But still not as bad as a sewer. "And I'm not really surprised -- see above re: you being tempted."

[all7seas]

Within seconds Sparrow had the torch blazing.

"You shouldn't be. I've not seen real treasure...real actual treasure...in quite a long time. Not since the Isla de Muerta, and I never got to keep any of my spoils from there because of our dear friend Norrington."

[herotypical]

Buffy hadn't seen an approximate version of treasure since 'liberating' all that gold from a Swiss bank, but she didn't voice this. Instead, she looked from her heavy-duty Maglite to Jack's torch and found herself slightly envious. He looked the part.

Her surface jealousy leaked into her tone: "What'd he do? Confiscate it all? Melt it down to make buckles? He seems like the melt it down to make buckles kinda guy."

[all7seas]

"Why Annie? Are we jealous of a bit of piracy? A bit of treasure-hunting? We ARE, aren't we?"

Well he probably could have sounded more obnoxious, but not much more.

[herotypical]

"What? No. Of course not. I've done lots of treasure hunting just -- different treasure. And nobler goals. I've pilfered many a dusty old jewel-covered ring out of a crypt, y'know. Right off the dead guy's fingers."

Because often these sorts of relics were needed. Either to cast a spell or to stop someone else from casting a spell. "I'm a treasure-hunting pro."

She wasn't. And yes, she was jealous. Jack's joie de aventure was infectious, by-times.

[all7seas]

"Then I'll need you." And, pulling the torch from its bracket, he struck off into the interior of the ruins.

[herotypical]

Well. Hmm. This was neither of the two time-spending options she had kept in mind for the evening. One had definitely involved giving the pirate some well-won downtime after a day of playing guard. The other had very little to do with downtime at all and even less to do with entrepreneurial treasure hunts. And yet, she wasn't upset. She did not feel like she was missing out on a thing and if Jack Sparrow felt himself capable enough to hunt for treasure then treasure-hunt they would.

After all, there had been a few perilous uses of the dating label of late and while she was hard-pressed to think of any situation where treasure-hunting should count, she would also be hard-pressed to think of anything more fitting. Or more viable. It wasn't as though the village had much in the way of destination-dating. Bar. Restaurant. Beach. Rinse. Repeat.

In the end, Buffy found she was simply content to be dragged along on this adventure with him -- particularly if it meant keeping him out of enemy-shaped harm's way for the time being.

"...I should never have made you watch that movie," she griped. Good-naturedly. Displaying her contentedness through mock-discontent.

[all7seas]

"Aye! I can be Indy. You can be my lovely blond woman, what I rescue from the heathens. Although you might be handier with a whip..."

He picked his way down the corridor, scouting for clues to treasure. Happy. Tired, sore, but happy.

[herotypical]

"Just 'cause you have a hat," she argued, scanning her flashlight's beam across the ground ahead. "Doesn't mean you get to be the -- aha. If you're him, then you have to be the hero. You get that, right?"

[all7seas]

"And if you're HER, you get to be the fair helpless maiden."

[herotypical]

"Let's switch. You be fair and helpless and I'll stick to being heroic."

Winding, winding. Buffy nudged his elbow with the end of her flashlight.

[all7seas]

"Normally, I'd be all for it, darling, but now there's treasure at stake. And also possibly the chance of sweeping you up in my arms."

He nudged her back before sweeping the torch toward one part of the wall that seemed to hold some runic information. Carvings.

"Interesting."

[herotypical]

"Sweeping has already happened today. I think I'm all swept out, even if I wasn't awake to experience all the many heroic levels of the sweeping."

Buffy frowned at the runes. Not her area of expertise -- there was a twinge when she realized whose area it probably was. "That one kinda looks like a submarine." It didn't. Not really. Or it only did to someone who mostly had seen submarines in cartoonish, Saturday morning depictions. "They're like -- hieroglyphs. Oh God, we are so going to end up waking up some cranky mummy and then it'll try and...hello."

Her toe had stubbed onto something small and boxish. A little miniature chest. It wasn't much but she crouched to open it. A portent, she perhaps thought, of treasures to come.

[all7seas]

"And what's this...Erm. Annie?"

There was of course always the off-chance that they'd discover a cursed idol instead of actual treasure. Hollywood had taught Jack Sparrow that much, after watching the Raiders trilogy with Buffy.

[herotypical]

Introducing Jack to Hollywood might have been a mistake, really. But at least she had yet to blow his piratey mind with anything too too outside of his comfort zone. Dawson's Creek was still on the to-watch list, though.

Back in the immediate now, Buffy traced a fingertip along the carved wooden lid. "A box. It's...a box."

[all7seas]

He knelt beside her, gently removing her hand from the box.

"And now we're going to open said box, aren't we."

[herotypical]

"That we sounds an awful lot like just you."

Though -- what did she care? He was playing Indiana and she was mostly here for his company, anyway. But there are certain things that simply begged to be argued.

[all7seas]

"I AM the pirate in this circumstance, aren't I. But if this little chest contains any cursed trinkets, it's much more better that I be the one to find that out and not you, fair maiden."

[herotypical]

"...And the last thing we need is some cursed amulet summoning forth a whole slew of musical shenanigans."

But she reached back out to the box. What, she now realized, if it was cursed? Relicish treasures so often were.

[all7seas]

"Buffy." The pirate snatched the box away from her and opened it himself.

Inside was one lone scrap of paper. Sparrow lifted it out and peered at it in the flickering torchlight.

"Well that's odd..."