DISCLAIMER: Unfortunately enough, I don't own Indiana Jones—or anything else that you recognise. All original characters and the plot are mine, though some of the facts are really stone fact.

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The fourth ring was cold on my finger. It was chunkier than the other three—and I knew honestly I would be happy to see it gone when I took it off—when I could take it off. I had worried about the other three rings—whether or not they'd make it through this adventure. I knew that at their core, they were ancient rings worth millions—but to me?

They were my mother's rings.

And if I could do anything, I would keep them as safe as possible.

At this point, however, it seemed like that may not be an option.

"Christ, what the hell?" Mutt muttered as we entered the room. Following that, only the sound of Indy cuffing Mutt over the back of the head (for using our Lord's name in vain) broke the sound of the even slightly painful silence of the room ahead of us.

I clenched my hand into a fist, feeling comfort from the feel of the cold metal on my finger.

The dark of the room was so purely black that is almost hurt to look at it. It was the sort of sight that triggered terrible headaches and the inability to even remotely function. I pressed my fingers to my eyes, squeezing them shut to stop that feeling from continuing. For a moment, the diva in me expected Mutt to ask about it, before I realised that he couldn't see a thing.

Because none of us could see a thing. Even with the light of the last room on our backs none of it streamed past us. It was like parts of the room were impervious to light.

I rubbed my eyes again.

"Is this the right place?" Sawyer whispered. He sounded as lost as the rest of us now—and since he couldn't see I momentarily considered running him, but recalled that in his confusion, he tended to get a little trigger happy.

Of course, his question also indicated why he of all people had no right to be here, but Franklin, in his subtle wit, managed to emphasise this and also answer this question. "The most famous of all texts on Zeus's temple gives reference to how light can only be brought to those enlightened, Sawyer. Surely you remember?"

I heard a slight growl from Sawyer's direction, but he didn't say anything. Instead, I heard footsteps at his place. Indy quickly protested.

"No!" He urged. "Don't move."

The footsteps stopped.

"What?" Sawyer demanded instantly, sounding far more on guard now. "Why?"

Indy swallowed. "There's a reason that people are scared of the dark." Indy followed ominously.

I gulped, and I heard someone shuffle their feet slightly. In the silence, it was easy to hear movements even like that. I wondered momentarily if that ability was all to do with the silence—or maybe another manifestation of abilities that Artemis had talked about.

Speaking of, I could now hear Marion, letting out a soft sound of pain every few seconds. It appeared that walking through the door had brought an end to whatever mojo that had been keeping her from feeling the pain. Now that she could feel it, she was probably far closer to fainting on us than she had been.

And then we had to factor in the blood loss.

Everyone seemed to have noticed, and Indy made a point. "Sawyer," he appealed to the man who remained in charge. "We need to do this quickly—she's losing a lot of blood."

Sawyer snorted.

"Think about the discovery we're about to make, Dr. Jones." He said, amusement colouring his tone. "I think it's worth a sacrifice."

I felt compelled to go and punch him in the face, and the scuffle and sounds to my left indicated that Mutt had the same ideas. It seemed someone had held him back—probably Indy—and managed to calm him down.

"We'd like to avoid that, if possible." I hissed through clenched teeth.

Sawyer ignored me. "Franklin," he demanded of my grandfather. "What do your books say we do next?"

Franklin cleared his throat. "We've followed the path—as the inscriptions found at the Labours of Hercules dictated. But as the figure—Artemis—said, we haven't reached the end. I think the best thing to do it move—in some sort of organized fashion, and find the end of that path."

They were vague suggestions, at their best. But I figured that everything else we'd seen so far—concerning the path itself—could be explained by some sort of mechanism. And while I'd been shocked and surprised to find a sand/man/chimera, I was quite sure that Franklin assumed there'd be another sort of physical mechanism to unlock this next part.

Everyone moved to walk again, before we were once again promptly stopped by Indy. "Don't move." He warned everyone. I didn't have much of a problem complying.

There's a reason people are scared of the dark. The memory of Indy's previous words made me shiver, so I tuned in when he stared to give proper instructions.

"Everyone, pair up." He said quickly. "Hold onto each other—places like these are full of booby traps and trapdoors and secret passageways."

I nodded (stupid, since no one could see me) and reached out my hand. It collided with the person nearest to me—whose hand quickly grasped mine back. I couldn't tell whose hand it was—and I considered attempting to figure it out through the feeling of their clothes before realising how awkward that would be if it were someone other than Franklin.

It might not have been as awkward as if it were Mutt—but can you just imagine how quickly he'd turn it into something embarrassing.

Instead, I grasped the hand tighter and swallowed. Then, making the decision with an informed second squeeze of the hand, I moved forward, slowly. I held my other hand, my right hand, out to my side, and felt it instantly when my hand hit the cold stone of what I only assumed was a wall.

Or at least, it better have been a wall. I was so not in the mood for any more surprises. Not that I was sure I could still be adequately surprised.

"Oh—" I let out an odd noise when I felt the wall that echoed far louder than I'd intended. The hand tightened, and I quickly hastened to explain. "It's a wall," I said. "I found a wall."

It was disconcerting being in this dark. More than I could really explain. If I had been able to see, I would have at least been able to register a nod of the head of some sort of response. It appeared that the person who held my hand was interested, but silent. I had the strongest urge to ask who it was, before frowning slightly and deciding not to.

But my questions were quickly answered when I felt the body move to my other side and I heard Indy's distinct voice let out a breath as his hand hit where mine was.

"It feels like some sort of smooth stone," he mused, and I could hear the sound of his skin running across the smooth wall. "It's curved slightly, inwards, I would say—but I can't even tell if it's a wall. It feels almost completely intact—and we don't even know if it is a wall."

His observations were loud in my ear and for a moment I thought I'd hear the thoughts and opinions of the other couples in the room—all silently exploring themselves. But no one spoke—no one even commented. I noticed, with a chill of fear shooting down my spine, that I couldn't hear their footsteps any more.

"Uh, Indy? Where did everyone go?"

"Kitty?" He verified, shaking our joined hands slightly, once he remembered the situation and stopped his archaeological observations. "I thought you might have been Marion—hopefully she's with Franklin or Mutt…"

I hadn't thought of the other groups. I could only imagine if Mutt had ended up holding hands with Sawyer—that was a pairing that could create an escalated situation in any time or place. But here? In the pitch black where everyone's emotions were running high?

I only hoped we could find the light switch soon.

"Where is everyone?" I hissed quickly. "Why can't we hear them?"

Indy sighed—a noise that I could pick up instantly. How could I hear so much of Indy's movement—his breathing, even maybe the sound of his heart beating—and not the sounds of my friends walking around?

"I don't think that this dark is just because there aren't any windows, Kitty," he said softly.

There's a reason that people are afraid of the dark. I shivered slightly, and gripped his hand tighter.

"There's something odd about this wall," Indy was commenting. "It's almost indented in places—like there's a pattern, or lines or symbols engraved in the side. Can you feel them?"

I didn't drop his hand. Instead, I used my other hand to lift and analyse the wall myself. I felt the lines almost instantly, smooth juts in the otherwise smooth surface. I followed them with my fingers and jumped slightly when my finger suddenly slipped into a deeper indent.

Indy tensed instantly at my yelp. "What?" He demanded instantly. "What have you found?"

"An inlet," I said, trying to keep my voice calm. "Or something like it. My finger is in it—I think I pressed something."

Indy swallowed—another sound that I heard with perfect clarity. "Take my hand to it," he said. "With your hand."

I did as he asked, dragging out joined hands up to the point where I'd foolishly explored with my fingers. His finger quickly joined mine in the small space and even when he was pressing down I refused to move. It could have had something else there, watching out for it.

"Now what?" I hissed urgently.

"Well," Indy sounded strained, as he thought. His voice sounded heavy as his mind spun through the many options I'm sure he had in his mind. "There's really only one option."

No one could see it, of course, by my face quickly melded into one of horror. With my mouth gaping (probably loud enough for Indy to hear it) and my eyes wide, I stared at the general point where I guessed that Indy was standing.

One?

There was only one option?

I shifted from foot to foot, making sure to not remove any pressure from the button that I'd pressed.

I then tried to say, "Well, what is it?"

Indy had pressed the button before I even got to the 'what'.

But by the time he'd done it, I already voiced my full and furious protests (by screaming bloody murder). I had, of course, taken note of all the other things that had occurred simultaneously.

With the heightened senses that came to see with the sheer blackness of the room and our official loss of sight, I could feel movement with what would almost be called hypersensitivity. So when the ground shifted beneath my feet, I let out another shriek and clung to Indy, ensuring that I didn't fall over but unable to do much more than that. The ground that moved pulled us forwards—almost into the wall.

From what Indy had told me, it was obvious that no one else would have heard my shrieks.

Except for Indy, who, as we suddenly stopped, hastened to get out of my grip and shushed me. "I'm an old man, sweetheart. Easy on the ears..."

I glowered at the area he thought he was standing in, but refused to let go of his hand. "You could have given me some warning." I said angrily.

"I could have."

Well, he was his son's father, I suppose.

He was already pulling at my hand when the thought whizzed through my head and I rolled my eyes but was anxious enough to get off the moving platform that I let him pull me along. Upwards, it seemed—as I felt the distinct shape of steps beneath my feet.

Wherever Indy had taken us, it certainly wasn't any lighter. But as we made our way up the stairs—a task that was surely doing wonders for the muscles in my legs, but would have me moaning and groaning with every movement tomorrow—I noted that this dark wasn't the type that would irritate eyes. It was more like this was the dark that came in sleep—it had me feeling nearly drowsy.

I was so focused on ignoring the desire to fall over, roll up into a ball and fall asleep that I didn't notice when Indy stopped and walked right into his back. When I almost lost my balance as a result, Indy almost casually caught me and held me on the stairs.

"I can see what Mutt said about you being fragile," he commented lightly.

Were it visible, Indy would have surely noticed as I puffed up my chest in withheld fury, and watched as my cheeks turned what had to be an angry shade of puce. He did, of course, hear my angry intake of breath and before I could even let out any of the rude, well-worded insults that had welled up inside me, Indy was shushing me.

"Don't take it personally, Kitty," he advised me, again sounding almost nonchalant. I felt as though he even had his back to me, and I could hear his fingers running against the flat wall that had stopped our ascent. "I still worry about Marion getting into trouble—and I know she could very well take care of herself."

The fury abated slightly. Still, I was going to kick Mutt's ass.

The timid girl in me, however, ignored the fury for a second. "Really?" I asked in a small voice, before mentally kicking myself in the face.

Indy chuckled.

"Yeah, kid, really."

He seemed to decide that examining the block in front of him was more important than reassuring me that Mutt didn't really think I was some delicate—which it was, duh—and returned his full attention to the block.

"It's got the same sort of patterns as the block down stairs." He observed. "I think, if we passed through a wall downstairs, this is our doorway back to the other side."

My eyes widened, and though a lot of my attention was still focused on the fragile thing, I couldn't help but recall what we'd just done.

"Indy, we've walked up like, four flights of stairs. If we come out on the other side, we'll come out in the middle of the air." I pointed out.

Indy didn't make a noise, so I assumed he was nodding and had just forgotten that I couldn't see it.

"I don't think so. We'll check it out. Help me find the button."

He pulled me forward, and lifted my hands to the wall. For a moment, we didn't speak, the only sounds we could hear being the abnormally loud sound of our hands brushing across stone. I felt the familiar patterns and, as I had down downstairs, ran my fingers along the lines until...

"Found it." Indy declared.

I pouted but stepped back. If I had found it, I would have at least been able to stall Indy for a moment, before he pushed us out of midair. Once again, before I could protest, he'd pressed down with his finger and the ground was shifting beneath us.

I shrieked, squeezed my eyes shut and let my fingers instinctively press into the carvings on the wall. The wall was moving out to my side like a door opening away from the person walking through. The inlets were deep enough that I might have been able to hold onto them and then get my footing back inside the—

"Kitty. We're not falling."

I had, obviously, noticed this by the time that Indy pointed it out. But by that stage, something else had happened. The blackness that I had seen behind my closed eyelids turned to a familiar burning red, and I knew that the lights had come back on without having to open my eyes.

I could also hear that we seemed to have found the others.

As Sawyer, Mutt and Marion all swore in unison, I listened gratefully to hear my grandfather speak again. "By Jove!" he exclaimed, and I didn't even have it in me to be amused by the expression. They were all okay.

I opened my eyes.

For a minute, the blinding whiteness of the room took me off guard and I had t wait for a moment for my vision to clear, but once I had.

Good god it was worth it.

The door proved to be entirely disproportionate to the size of the room it kept. The roof was cavernously high, reaching a point that the light of our lanterns couldn't reach. The walls were stretched apart and wet—but we could only tell because of the glistening from the light, as no one was going to risk touching anything. The floor was stone—and old stone at that. It was covered in a layer of dirt and dust thick enough to form a cloud around our feet when it was disturbed.

But no one was paying attention to our feet.

Because this sheer cavern was its enormous size for a reason. It was only so big so that it could it facilitate to the size of its giant occupant.

Sawyer's arm—the one that I could still see from where I stood, with which he held the gun—fell limp to his side. Franklin muttered a string of words that I'm sure were obscenities in his day and Indy used a slow arm to reach up and remove his hat.

For Mutt and me, who didn't care about the artefact (if you could call it that) as much as the others, we were simply astounded by its sheer bloody size.

No wonder he was the king of the Gods.

The Statue of Zeus sat proudly in front of us, its gold glowing brighter than anything else in the room. I had just seen a man made of sand turn into a chimera and back, and yet I couldn't believe it. I should have been able to easily suspend my belief in rationality, but the logic in me pressed on, and told me that it must have been the result of exposure to lantern light after all this time.

He sat proudly on his throne, made of similarly glowing gold. The throne was raised on a white stone platform—that had decayed as much as you would expect everything to be. But then the statue itself looked as though it had been made only yesterday.

And, oh yeah, Indy and I were standing on an outlet in the high wall, at about his eye line. "Why the hell am I always in high places?" I wanted to ask, but now really didn't seem like the time.

"I've found it." Sawyer breathed.

I could see from all the way up here as he dropped the gun to the ground. He clearly didn't care about us any longer. We'd gotten him where he needed to go and he had the prize now.

Mutt turned quickly and quietly, reaching the spot where he'd dropped the gun and snatching it from the ground. He moved back to Franklin's side (it looked like they'd been partnered together, while Marion had been left with Sawyer) looked ready to use it but didn't—as both our families had stepped forward with Sawyer.

"Franklin..." I sighed hopelessly, as he moved forwards in the same fashion as his nemesis. He looked to be a man under a trance the way he approached it.

Mutt cocked the gun and stepped forward cautiously towards his own parent, Marion, who was staring at the statue. Beside me, Indy was muttering to himself—as I'd recently learnt he did when something large happened.

"—It looks like it's got almost the exact dimensions that were recorded—it looks almost completely untouched—probably one of the ancient Greek acidic based preservation tools—it might have been placed on the statue—"

His rant fell to background as I focused on Sawyer. He was creeping forward slowly, whispering words in a language I didn't recognise, revering the statue in a way similar to the way I assumed Greek servants would.

I was just observing how foolish he looked, when I noticed Franklin behaving remarkably similar.

I rushed forward quickly, breaking the reverent silence we'd inadvertently created. "Franklin?" I called down.

My voice echoed through the entire house. Indy shushed me, but I'd caught the attention of my grandfather. He barely seemed able to look away, but when he finally turned his gaze to me, he looked at me with an expression of concern.

"Kat..." he said slowly.

Bringing attention to us, the other three heads down on the floor turned to us and their eyes widened again—something that I wouldn't have thought possible.

"What?" I asked quickly.

"The stone you're standing on," Franklin said staring at the bottom of the platform in horror. "Indiana—it say's offering."

.:.

So, I'm a sucky author.

A really crappy, horrible author who doesn't deserve your attention or you as an audience. But finally, it's here. Chapter 20. I made it a little longer just to try and make up a little of it :S

Sorry guys. Please review.

G