Operation: Exploration of the Depths

"Probably not my smartest idea," Safiya muttered to herself. She had heard rumors of things being in the labyrinth and that not even the High Priestess knew how deep it was or what was in it. The fifteen year old had always been a curious person and on occasions she could be impulsive, but 99% of the time she stopped to think out what she was about to do. This time she hadn't really thought about it when she decided that she wanted to investigate the deeper parts of the school, the parts that no one really knew anything about. She hadn't even thought to ask someone if they'd like to join her because if she did get lost she'd rather not have someone with her. Not the smartest plan she'd ever had, but probably not the stupidest one either.

She let out a quiet sigh as she walked, hands shoved into the pockets of the jeans she had changed into. There was still time to turn back and try again another day, but where would the fun in that be? She might never actually get up the courage to try this again if she didn't do this now.

[Hakeem ibn Al'Abbas]

Hakeem had always been a curious and an exploratory boy, he enjoyed looking into things that were unknown to him, even now he was often stuck in the library looking through scrolls, getting Professor's permission to look at the more abandoned and older ones with much more darker scriptures upon them, and of course he wasn't a teachers pet, but teachers had no tendency to hate him as he did his work and kept quiet enough in class. Except for the occasional turning to a girl and making smoochy faces at her like he was some sort of crazy bad ass.

Regardless, he was exploring this labyrinth today, believing that it was quite amazing. He had his wand out and lit up, knowing that deeper down by instinct there would be no more torches or anything of that sort to light his way. That was until he turned a corner and ran into a girl, a girl from his year no less. He grinned at her almost immediately. "Hey~" Was his natural greeting.

Safiya hadn't been walking for long when she was suddenly coming face to face with another student. The fifteen year old blinked at the suddenly appearance before a small smile curled at the corners of her lips. "Hey," she returned with a small nod of her head. She recognized the boy in front of her as being someone from her year and she knew that his name was Hakeem, but other than that she really couldn't say she knew much about him. She'd never really talked to him, except for perhaps the occasional greeting as they passed each other in the hall.

"I see I'm not the only one that decided to explore today," she commented. Perhaps he'd be interested in exploring with her. It would give her someone to talk to and if she got lost she'd have someone else who might be able to help her find the way out. Though she wasn't sure if she'd have much chance convincing someone she didn't really know to explore with her, but she'd give it her best shot.

[Hakeem ibn Al'Abbas]

Hakeem let out a light-hearted laugh as he nodded, "Looks like we're both up for this adventure, huh..? Though really I'm here to see where this leads, after all if I could know more then someone of great power, who knows what kind of praise I'll get." Hakeem was always looking out for himself, and always looking for praise and all kinds of selfish wonders, but that was just for himself, he didn't particularly care what this girl was here for, and what she was trying to gain out of it, all he knew was that he was going to explore with her, whether she liked it or not.

"So, onwards then?" He asked, already assuming that they were officially a team of exploration.

The conversation had been going pretty well until the boy started talking about the praise he might get for knowing more than someone of higher power. Seriously? He was only exploring for the praise he might get? Though Safiya was pretty sure there would be no praise gained from exploring the area, no matter what this boy thought. Still she wasn't going to say anything for now. If he got to bad then she'd say something. Plus, he was all good for exploring with her which meant she wouldn't have to ask him if he wanted to explore together or convince him to explore with her.

"Yes," she agreed with a nod. Since the boy already had his wand out it meant that Safiya didn't have to pull her's out and the boy could lead the way.

[Hakeem ibn Al'Abbas]

Hakeem didn't know why the girl was so silent and kind of moody but he didn't comment on it, instead he remained silent and walked on, he didn't care if the girl had much to say or not she had always come across as a bit of a party pooper anyway and Hakeem wasn't interested in party pooper's, though she was quite cute, but then again that wasn't much coming from Hakeem seeing as he thought every girl ever was pretty adorable or cute in some way, he always found something sexy about someone.

On he wandered, turning to her briefly and grinning. "So what made you come here?" He asked.

It wasn't that she meant to come off as silent or moody because Safiya was anything but silent or moody. She supposed she just had yet to think of something to say. She had just opened her mouth to say something when Hakeem spoke. For a moment she seemed to think about the question before she shrugged slightly. "I'm not sure, boredom I suppose. All my friends seemed to be busy with school or other friends and I wanted something to do. This seemed like as good an idea as any."

Her eyes moved away from the path in front of them and glanced at the boy next to her for a moment. "Are you down here just to try and have more knowledge than someone else or is there another reason?" she asked curiously. Once she got the 'why are you here' out of the way she'd start talking his ear off like she did with just about everyone else.

[Hakeem ibn Al'Abbas]

Hakeem laughed when the girl said it was just for the sake of boredom, that was a good of reason if nothing else. He cleared his throat softly, and nodded. "That makes sense, though I don't have that many friends who are into school, they're just being retarded and not wanting to "explore something they don't know about" as they put it," Hakeem rolled his eyes, he ended up alone here not only for the sake of wanting praise when he searched, but also for the sake of exploring with friends, but obviously his friends were cowardly.

"My friends are pretty useless though I suppose you could say," He chuckled.

Safiya laughed quietly as the boy explained why he was exploring alone instead of with some of his friends. "I did believe that the point of exploring was so that you could know about it in the future," she said, "I suppose your friends don't see it that way?" If they already knew about it then why in the world were they going to be exploring it in the first place?

"Well now you've got me to explore with," she said as if that would make up for not having his friends here to explore with him, "maybe after we've explored you can convince them to come down and explore it with you since you'll know about it."

[Hakeem ibn Al'Abbas]

The young man smirked, "I suppose not," Everything with him was in a very flirty nature, he had a hard time saying anything without it having a very subtle hint of flirtatiousness in it. Which was normal of course, at least for the young man, Hakeem was just that way and nobody could really stop him at all. Not even his own father.

"Maybe, we'll see..." He stuck his tongue out for a moment, "Though I mean I don't even know what we're going to find! Probably nothing if even a goddess decided to not search, it's probably super boring.." He joked.

Safiya was a bit naive when it came to flirting and so any hints of flirtatiousness would be ignored on the basis of she didn't know it was happening. About the only way to get her attention was to wear a big sign that said 'hey I'm flirting with you' or something similar. She simply let out a quiet 'hmm' when he agreed that perhaps her words had been correct about his friends.

She pouted slightly when he joked about there being nothing down here. "Well that wouldn't be very fun," she returned, "it would just be another boring part of the school." She was silent for a moment before her eyes lit up. "I heard there's supposed to be a monster down here," she cast a quick glance at the boy walking next to her, "what'll we do if we run into it?"

[Hakeem ibn Al'Abbas]

Hakeem laughed when she implied that there were monsters down here, a ridiculous notion. Though not one he was about to just simply let go before making a heroic statement. "Well! I would battle them.. I would help you battle them! And save you, because... Well... I'm a hero of course so that makes sense, right..?" He grinned, and pointed his wand forward in a very determined manner.

She was a team player and so instead of pointing out that she'd be just as good at battling any monsters down there and wouldn't need his saving she went along with it. After all he had mention helping her battle them before saving her. She laughed lightly and placed a hand over her chest as she said in a mock awed voice, "my hero here to save damsels from evil monsters wandering the depths of the school." She laughed again and allowed her arm to drop back down to her side as they walked. "Seriously though the chances of some kind of creature living down here is pretty high and no one really knows what it might be. Do you have any thoughts about what it could be?" she asked before quickly adding on, "if there really is something down here that is."

[Hakeem ibn Al'Abbas]

Hakeem laughed at Safiya's mocking tone as she pretended him being the hero, he smiled over to her and nodded. "Of course! YOUR hero." He chuckled, thoroughly amused by her actions, knowing that they were not at all serious but he had to play along anyway because it would have been too much fun to just pass up like that. "Ha! I don't think anything is down here, honestly.. Well I mean maybe some runes or ancient artifacts just thrown in here, yes.. But I highly doubt a creature is just roaming around these halls without any kind of gates to protect us from it! It's a school after all." Hakeem reasoned.

She laughed lightly at his words, but when he talked about there not being anything down there she sighed. "I suppose you're right," she agreed. A small frown came over her face as she glanced into the darkness ahead of them. "But if it's just a rumor and they don't know for sure do you really think they'd put up a gate or something to protect us? I mean if you don't know then you're not going to waste the effort protecting yourself, especially from it." That's what she was kind of hoping was going on because she wanted something interesting to be down here.

[Hakeem ibn Al'Abbas]

Hakeem shrugged, "Well, I would assume that the only reason we don't have gates put up is because not even the gods know what lies here, so I highly doubt our mortal eyes will be able to see anything." Hakeem suggested, "So maybe something does exist, but we can't see it... Or even fathom seeing it.." He didn't really know for sure, but he could ponder somewhat.

Safiya seemed to think over the other's words quickly and nodded in agreement. "Yes," she finally said, "that makes perfect sense. If the gods can't see it then we certainly wouldn't be able to." It was both exciting to think that something might be down here, but it was also rather sad to think that the idea was silly because there were no precautions in place to protect them from the unknown. It was the whole reason she was down here. Still she supposed something interesting could happen.

[Hakeem ibn Al'Abbas]

Hakeem yawned as they walked, he was a bit bored. There wasn't much to see, other then just dark hallways, before he realized something, he frowned a bit. "Wait a minute, we haven't been marking where we came from.." He looked over to Safiya. "How are we supposed to get back?" He asked, this was after all, a maze!

Dark wall. Dark corridor. Dark wall. Dark wall. Dark corridor. Nothing interesting seemed to be appearing anytime soon and she was almost tempted to suggest that they head back, but then Hakeem pointed something out. She froze and glanced behind them. Now it was just dark behind them. "Uhm..." she said as she tried to come up with something, "start marking our way now?" They could either start marking now and keep going forward or mark this place and then try to head back.

[Hakeem ibn Al'Abbas]

"Yeah... Sounds like a plan." He nodded, and with that said, he marked the wall with a quick spell before walking on and occasionally he would mark. Everything was very born though, and so after a moment he looked over to Safiya. "This... is kind of.. boring.." He mumbled admittedly.

Safiya followed the other teen through the maze. This was rather boring and when he looked over at her to admit that she nodded. "It is," she agreed with a sigh, "perhaps we should start making our way back? Since it might take a bit of time to find the exit considering we didn't think to start marking from the beginning."

[Hakeem ibn Al'Abbas]

After a pause and some thought, Hakeem nodded. "Alright, lets make our way back.." He agreed and proceeded to turn and walk back, he kept his wand up, looking around to make sure where the marks are. However, he couldn't find any, and that was certainly confusing. He frowned. "Uhh... Do you think the walls are magical..?" He suggested.

Safiya nodded and turned with Hakeem to head back up, but when she looked at the walls where the marks should have been there weren't any. Her own thoughts moved to the same path that the boy's question came from. "Considering the marks are gone I'm going to have to go with yes," she replied with a frown. What were they supposed to do if they didn't have a way to find their way out? Sighing she tried to think up a good way to go about this without going and getting themselves more lost.

[Hakeem ibn Al'Abbas]

Hakeem looked straight ahead and tilted his head. He then folded his arms, thinking about what they could do, finally a thought came to him, if they walked back, but never took a turn and instead walked straight forward, they would eventually get to the entrance no matter what, it was just the logical result to things most often and so he turned to Safiya and smiled.

"Follow me, I have an idea."

She had come up with a couple of ways to try and get out, but none of them seemed to sound very good when she went to actually say them. So when Hakeem suddenly made the comment about having an idea she happily followed after him. "So what's this idea of your's?" she asked curiously as they walked.