Private/Closed Hell Deep (RP)

[comic]

July 24, 2024

35,000 feet above the Middle East, fifteen unique individuals brought together from all over the world for one purpose. Some members of this crew are veterans, some are new, but all are considered experts in the fields they were hired for. They were on a quest to discover and traverse Hell itself. Their journey was on the verge of nine months now, and most of the crew was growing tired of the search. The only thing that kept some of the newcomers on board was the prospect of money. They weren't being paid until Hell was discovered, and the money was astronomical. One little journey and they'd all be billionaires. Some weren't in it for the money, rather, the adventure. The discovery. The danger. This was true with most of the veterans, as this crew had discovered other lost relics before. Noah's Ark, Nicolas Flamel's Philosopher's Stone, the Ark of the Covenant, and the Ruins of the Lost City of Atlantis.

The private jet soaring through the clear Arabian night was owned by Leon Hamilton, the oldest member of the group, the richest, and possibly the most dangerous. His reputation was little-known by just about anybody on the crew, aside from his close friend, Yelchukov Danya Anatolievich (he just goes by Danya), who's history was even more mysterious than Leon's, and he was their equipment specialist. In the center of the passenger lounge, two individuals stood at a table, various maps, notebooks, and a laptop spread out across its surface into an overlapping mess that these two seemed to comprehend. The large man on the left was Cillian O'Malone, an Irish Pastor, with extensive biblical knowledge, but also an acceptance to science, and an open-mindedness to biblical errors. The short, petite woman on the right was Jia Fen, 22 years old with a and PhD in... just about everything. But despite her vast intelligence, her job here was solely as the historian. These two had been running with Leon since the beginning, but here, they struggled. Finding Hell was no easy task, but the past nine months, they'd deduced that certain obstacles stood in their way. Hell would be beneath the Garden of Eden, and the Garden of Eden would be in the most desolate place possible, or so they thought. But after running around for so long, it was no secret that the both of them were beginning to doubt Eden or Hell existed. At least on the mortal plane of existence.

"Okay, so... if Eden wouldn't be here or here or... here..." Cillian pointed to several spots on the map. "Maybe... we should be looking somewhere else?" He asked, stroking his long, bushy, red beard. Jia shook her head. "Humanity's origins circle around the Middle East. If Eden exists, it's around here somewhere."
"Maybe... it's in a cave?" Cillian suggested, at which Jia scoffed. "How do you grow a garden in a cave?" At this, another man spoke. A tall, dark skinned Native American watching the pair from his seat, his gaze stern, yet docile. "Not all of nature needs sunlight to flourish." He stated. "I have seen a garden in a cave before."
Jia folded her arms, turning to Sequoyah, their geography expert. "Where." She demanded. Before Sequoyah could answer, the pilot's door opened, and Leon stepped out of the cockpit, leaving Danya in control of the plane. "Good news." He spoke, averting everyone's eyes to him. "Got a lead on the Garden of Eden. Who's up for gettin' a little wet?"

@Gamingfan @RisingGarchomps @Night's Shadow @Killerbunny the god

 

[Gamingfan]

"Wet? Oooh! Do you mean we're going underwater? Hell yeah! Carla, did you hear that?"
"I'm standing right next to you Kal, of course I did."
Kal ignored the sarcasm, standing up and pumping his fist. "This is gonna be sick. Maybe we'll find a shark or something. Or maybe a sunken ship!"
Carla sighed. "God I hope not. Losing an arm is not something I want to do yet. Or ever."
Kal sped towards Leon, and let out a barrage of questions. "What body of water are we diving in? How deep? What will be there? Will it be dangerous?" etc.
Carla gave a deeper sigh, looking at her brother nervously. "Another day, another chance of my brother dying."

 

[comic]

"Calm down there, Hermes." Leon replied to Kal, giving him a pat on the shoulder and a tiny smirk, before redirecting his attention to the rest of the crew. "No sharks where we're going. No life at all, actually."
"You can't be serious." Jia frowned. "The Dead Sea?"
Leon gave her a nod. "Just got word that an underwater cave was discovered near the bottom. Unexplored. Unreachable without the right equipment. Equipment we just happen to have, thanks to Danya."
"If the Garden is there... how do we get past the Cherubs?" Cillian asked, at which Jia rolled her eyes, but said nothing. "Got that covered too." Leon stated, nodding his head toward Niko Takahashi, their weapons specialist, near the back. "You can't just... blast through Angels of the Lord." Cillian grinned, thinking the idea was a joke, looking about at the others. "I mean, that's fockin' crazy!"
"I say why not?" Leon turned away, heading back for the cockpit. "We'll be arriving in Queen Alia International Airport in thirty minutes. We'll drive through Jordan to the Dead Sea from there." With that, he left them to mull on the new data.

Jia shook her head, falling into a seat near Adelaide Brown, their demolitions expert. "This is insane." She stated. "There's no way we even could get to the bottom. There's a massive build-up of salt beds in the deep, we'd have to dig through it, and I know Leon doesn't have anything needed for that."
"You need more faith in the man." This time, Aya Asfour spoke, sitting to the left of Niko. "If anybody can get us to Eden, it is Leon. He has never failed us once, fils de pute chanceux."

 

[=Nightshade=]

Adelaide had been sitting near a window, watching as the landscape grew as they descended. When Jia flopped down next to her, she nodded in agreement with her statement. “We’d need some heavy-duty explosives or something. Or a drill. Like, a massive one.” At that point, Aya spoke up on behalf of their captain, and Adelaide nodded to her too. “That’s true. We’ve already found things from Atlantis to the freaking Philosopher’s Stone. I’ve got plenty of faith in this mind of mine.”

Seth Williams, the math geek on board, adjusted his glasses, a nervous look on his face. “How can you be so sure?” he asked anxiously. “According to my calculations, this mission has a less than one percent chance of suc—“

“Shove it, nerd,” Adelaide smirked, leaning her head back against the headrest. “Did we have any better chance of success finding Noah’s Ark? And yet here we are. What’s next after Hell, the Holy Grail?” She grinned. “No ancient treasure is safe! Mwahahahaha!” She almost made it through her phony maniacal laugh with a straight face before shaking her head with a self-ridiculing smile. “We will find it.”

 

[Helios.]

Niko Takahashi was sitting back next to Aya Asfour. He was wearing his chaos black ninja suit, which covered his face completely apart from a slit for his eyes and a small thinner layer around his mouth for air. He was surprised that Leon would look to him for a way to get past the 'Cherubs' of Eden. He dropped his eyebrows. He did not really believe these mythical beings were there. He wasn't even a Christian.

"Hmmm..." His voice was quite silent, like a cold whisper.

"If the Cherubs exist, we will have to use stealth to get past them." And with that, he stood up and drew his sword.

 

[Killerbunny the god]

Markus listened to everyone who spoke, but his interest was only peaked when Niko spoke about stealth.
"Stealth would mean we need to leave a lot of equipment. We can't really be stealthy. But a diversion could work. Blow some shit up and hope for the best. But that could cause a rockslide..." Markus grumbled. He wasn't the smartest person when it came to maths or shiny rocks, but he knew a little about stealth thanks to his criminal past.
"Perhaps me and Sequoyah should scout ahead? I apologise for the butchering of your name, man" he said, thinking he and the indian might have a good chance to go undetected.

 

[Helios.]

Niko swished his long ninja sword around in the air. "We cannot cut at them directly...but if we attack in stealth from behind, we can sever them...we can stab them in the back." He thrusted his sword in a forwards motion to show them using his sword.

He then produced several Shuriken in his hands. "We must use different kinds of weapon to outwit our opponents."

Then, all of a sudden, the Shuriken and the sword were gone. In fact, his whole body had gone. Niko had vanished into thin air. He snapped his fingers, and he appeared visible next to Leon.

"Once again...Stealth..." He muttered, as he lifted a long black and white woolly cloak in the air for all to see. "...Is the way..."

He produced a large basket full of the knitted cloaks, each with different designs suited for different body sizes. There were two words carved at the bottom of them. It said 'Takahashi Industries'.

"Invisibility cloaks..." Niko whispered. "...are our only chance..." He faded into darkness.

At the back end of the plane, a gruff man with a strange battered hat was watching the sea of clouds ride past them. He got up after he heard Niko's words. Niko was normally strangely silent and barely spoke to the group like this. The man wondered what was wrong with him. He appeared much older than he actually was. He was muscular and thin but had gained weight recently. His face was covered in brown hairs and looked like an ancient ape from a long distance. But this man had not been taken from the grasslands or jungles of Africa or South America. In fact he had been recently riding the waves on his ships, most notably during the expedition to recover the ruins of the Lost City of Atlantis. That was when he was brought in with his fleet of ships who would normally be found off the coasts of America and Britain pillaging royal navy ships and trying to find the location of a treasure worth millions. Unfortunately, only a share of the treasure had been found but the man had been promised by the others to locate the real portion of the treasure off the coast of Britain once he had helped Leon with his projects. He had been several missions in and felt uneasy about the whole thing. He thought the stories about Eden had been just a Bible myth,, not intended to be real. However, he stayed in the group for financial gain. Billions of dollars would be more than Avery's treasure, though the treasure might be inflated to beyond that. He and his fleet had been heavily praised for the aid they gave with the Lost City of Atlantis. They had encircled the ruins and stopped rogue hunters and representatives from bad nations taking their treasure...or oil reserves for that matter. But still, this man was not satisfied. Maybe Eden would uplift him. Maybe he'd end up dead. It was probably a waste of time for him. He thought about this, drinking away at large bottles of rum. He hadn't drank so many in quite a while and on a table beside him where about five of them. He then tucked into some Captain Morgan, his favourite and sobbed.

After a while, the man decided it was time for him to do something and got up. He was wearing a large Royal Navy jacket decorated with badges of honour and many false ones to give the impression he was some kind of Admiral. He staggered drunkenly towards Niko to investigate him.

"Hey Niko!" He shouted.

Niko turned his head.

"Shut your mouth! You bastard!"

 

[comic]

"Oi!" Cillian stood up, his bulky form too much for the room, forcing him to hunch over. "Ye've done toed the line here too often with yer drinkin'. Chill the fock out before I make ye." He threatened the Avery heir, face going red. The two had an ongoing feud that nobody else really understood, and usually took to verbally bashing each other whenever the chance arose.
"Cool it, Cill. You too, Richie. We don't have the time for you two to be pickin' fights." Leon snapped immediately, pointing at each man as he spoke to them. "We need to be in tip-top shape. This is Hell we're goin' to, ladies and gentlemen. Not church camp with Timmy and Pastor Dave. Literal God-forsaken ground tread by the goddamn Devil himself."

Everyone was silent for a moment as their de facto leader turned to Niko, folding his arms. "Stealth would be a great option- if Angels weren't all-seeing demigods packin' some serious heat. 'Sides, how do you reckon we slip by them when they got a wall of fire in front of them?"
"You packed the thermal armor, right?" Aya asked, drumming her fingers on her arm rest. "I always pack the thermal armor." Leon replied. "Never go anywhere without it. Saved Adelaide from flowin' lava once, they're bloody useful."
"Then we use the thermal armor to get past the fire." Jia replied with a shrug. "Simple."
"Naw. Ain't that simple, sweetheart." Cillian corrected her, stroking his bushy beard. "Holy fire don't work like regular ol' fire. Sears the very soul, no matter what ye wear."

"Then I believe it would be best if Markus and I do as he suggested, and scout the ancient cave that lies ahead." Sequoyah offered, ignoring Markus' apology of possibly butchering the old Indian's name- which he had.
"We're all assuming that Eden- and Hell -will be in that tunnel. What if it isn't?" Jia asked. "I do have a life outside of this, Leon. Interstellar travel won't wait on me forever." Leon pursed his lips, staring at her for a moment, before looking to each member of the crew gathered about him. "Tell ya what." He began. "If it's a fluke, we bail. Drop the mission, and forget about the garden. If it ain't here, we're not findin' it anywhere else. This is our last stop, and for the foreseeable future, our last mission together. What you do after is your business. If this fails, then we're packin' up and headin' home. Any objections?"

 

[=Nightshade=]

“True enough,” Adelaide agreed. “I mean, we’ve searched pretty much the entire world, unless Eden’s in the North Pole—“

“Doubtful,” Seth chimed in.

“Duh,” the girl continued. “So it makes sense this is the last stop on the train. Sure hope it’s the real thing, though, otherwise I’ll have to go back to random acts of arson for fun.”

“I don’t know,” Seth whined nervously. “I don’t think it would be a bad thing if it was a dead end... then I could go to MIT and get a degree and make a life and—“

“Yeah, yeah, we all know about your dream of becoming a famous astrophysicist with an IQ rivaling Einstein. Big deal. We could be going to Hell itself soon! Next time I tell someone to go to hell, I might actually know where they’ll end up! Won’t that be worth it?”

 

[Helios.]

Niko lifted his eyebrows when Richard had threatened him and had waded through the plane to approach him. His mask concealed any sense of shock and so it looked like he was standing there, calmer than ever. "Please don't come near me, Senpai Avery. This is the most threatening you've ever been."

Avery looked at the others before giving a grunt and calmed down. He heard talk of the thermal armour and responded. "Wall of fire?! Why don't you use water to put it out! What's the name you Christians have for the religious church thing? Holy water! Can't it kill demons and vampires or somethin'?"

Niko looked at him. "Don't be silly, demons and vampires don't.."

"Matey, if you don't shut up right know i'm gonna slit yer throat!" He roared.

"I'm not the Christian here. I wouldn't know or believe all this existed. But you're a pirate, why should you care, unless you're secretly a religious one too?"

Avery had had enough. He drew his pirate-like cutlass sword from his belt, grabbed Niko and rammed him towards one of the walls of the plane. He then let go of the Japanese ninja briefly and slashed down with both hands at him. Niko responded by drawing what looked like a longer ninja sword. The two swords clashed as Niko had cleverly responded with a parry. Niko pushed back with more force and Avery's sword lept out of his hands and hit the floor.

"Now, Senpai Avery, any last words?"

"Mercy!" He cried.

Niko placed his sword back on his belt. "You will do what I say. If you approach me like that again with violent intent, I will end you right here. From now on, there will be no infighting so long as I am here."

It seemed like waiting any longer on the plane would lead to Niko or Avery killing each other. The pair of them were desperate to get back into the action and find Eden.

 

[Killerbunny the god]

"If it's about angels and stuff, maybe they'll let us through if our hearts are pure or some other bullshit" Markus joked. He figured that if angels really did exist, they would be powerful. And they would most definitely not let anyone sinful enter Eden. Which would leave out Markus for his lies, stealing and murder. Though he kept a happy facade, the doubts he had could definitely be noticed in his eyes. Not that he actually believed in God or angels or anything like that, but it was the kind of feeling you had when you felt like you were about to do something incredibly dumb.

Markus cleansed his thoughts and went to grab something cold to drink. Not alcohol, because he needed to be alert. Completely ignoring the one's fighting almost right next to him, he went to grab himself a soda. He smiled to himself. Just like Sweden, ignore all the shit happening around you. He wouldn't even be able to begin to count all the times he's heard gunshots and no one even reacting to them. Something that he never used to his advantage when he was robbing places.

 

[comic]

"Bloody hell." Leon shook his head with a sigh, watching the exchange between Richard and Niko with disdain.

In about 25 minutes, the plane had landed on a private strip at Queen Alia International Airport. Jordan was an arid, dry, high desert country, not unlike most of its middle eastern neighbors.
The airport itself had a more modern design, while the spaced out surrounding town was still clearly in poverty. It made sense that the airport could afford the care it did, what with so many locations in Jordan being popular tourist spots.
The Dead Sea acted as a border for Jordan and several other countries, but what Jordan was most well-known for was the Jordan River that wound it's way through the land, offering life, a little humidity, and green scenery wherever it went.

The crew wasn't given much time for sight-seeing, as Leon heeded them off to an assembly of waiting cars, which they loaded up with belongings, necessities, equipment, and themselves, of course. Most of this was handled by the ever-silent Danya, who'd become somewhat of an expert on handling other people's shit and looking scary while doing it.

The sun was still yet to rise as the black vans they loaded into took off into the desert, and nobody really felt much like talking. Some were tired, some were nervous, and some were sleeping off the copious amounts of alcohol they'd consumed. Or at least one of them. That left just a few to silently watch the desert roll by, or look up at the brilliant night sky, full of vibrant stars. The Milky Way was amazingly visible from this place, what with it being so unindustrialized.

A good hour or two had passed before the vehicles slowed to a stop, and Leon had everyone load out to set up base camp. By this time, it was only almost four in the morning.
"Let's get these tents up, people. You know the drill. Scout for a day or two and get ourselves prepped." He told his crew, clapping his hands loudly, making some of the more tired members mumble sleepy insults his way.

As per usual, Danya covered most of the set-up, quiet as a dead mouse as he worked, setting up a surveillance and reconnaissance station in the main tent, while decking out several surrounding tents with sleeping bags. Even now, barely a word was shared between anybody. They were only a couple dozen meters away from the shores of the Dead Sea, which they couldn't make out at all, as no moonlight shone down. It was silent. No bugs or desert critters made a peep. To some, it was uncomfortably silent.
Mumbles of good nights were passed through the crew as most laid down for the night. The only ones that bothered to stay up was Richard and Jia, who mostly ignored each other as they went about their business, the man eventually drinking himself back to sleep, while the woman prepped the recon gear for the morning. Advanced scuba gear, fitted with a special filter to keep out the copious amounts of salt in the water, and tiny cameras attached to the headpiece of each one so the rest of the crew could see the progress of the recon mission.

In about four or five more hours, the dive team would be underwater.
Four hours came and went, with the camp stirring to life. Danya cooked breakfast burritos in a little kitchen area he'd set up with a small portable stove. His food, for the most part, was quite delicious. Despite having traveled the world as a merc, he picked up more about cooking than killing, and the guy could give John Wick a run for his money, or at least according to Leon, who now sat at a foldable table, eating a breakfast burrito as he and Jia looked over the equipment they were about to use.

"One problem." He stated. "We're too buoyant. We'll just float."
"Carry a big rock to the bottom." Sequoyah replied as he sat down across from Leon, setting down a paper plate holding a burrito before him.
"I ain't got a better idea." Leon shrugged, looking toward Jia for suggestions. She shrugged in return. "Same here. Big rocks it is. So who will you be taking with you?"

Leon bit into his burrito, chewing for several moments, before swallowing. "Adelaide and... Sequoyah."
"Pick somebody else. I am not carrying big rock." The Native American informed, standing up to leave, his plate now empty.
"Fine then. I'll take Carla." Leon replied as Danya slapped a steaming burrito onto a plate held by Markus.

 

[Killerbunny the god]

As the burrito was placed on his plate, Markus took a seat with Leon, Sequoyah and Jia.
"Big rocks? Are you really sure that would work? They would get slippery and we could easily drop them and float right back up. Or we could even miss the cave. Do we have anything that will protect us from the pressure? We could survive 20, maybe 25 meters down without protection. There's a lot of factors to take into account here. Are there any streams? That could be a whole other kind of deadly. With scuba gear, there's the question about training. Because that's not just about putting it on and start swimming" he said. He realized he went on a bit of a rant so he stopped himself from going too far and possibly piss someone off. And honestly, he didn't really know too much about this so he should just keep his mouth shut. He didn't really care much about it either, so why did he speak up about it?

 

[Helios.]

Richard approached Leon in the middle of discussion. "Why would you entrust someone to carry a large rock in the middle of the sea?" He was tired and there were black bags of sleep underneath his eyes. He took a large swig of alcohol from a large bottle, then placed it down. "Why not use something more convenient, an anchor?!" He looked at them. "We should get my men in here straight away, they'll secure the area. Heck, we could use the ships to drain the damn water. We shouldn't waste time with this stupid cave, we'll probably find nothing." He said this with the blunt sword from earlier swaying in one of his hands.

As soon as Niko woke up, he went for a stroll around the hot desert. He had to strip down some of his clothing because he found it so hot. He returned to see Richard in the middle of his conversation.

"You've still got your sword?" Niko interrupted.

"You- I mean, yeah, I picked it up. It's kind of broken now, so I'll just have to use this." A pistol-like gun appeared from Richard's pocket. He had taken the time to remove his jacket and was now only wearing a white buttoned shirt which had been unbuttoned at the top.

"Why didn't you use that earlier? You could have shot me."

"Jesus, it was just a joke...earlier..."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know that..." Niko said with sarcasm.

"Let me continue..."

"First, I think you should think about your idea. If your plan is to take over Jordan using pirates and ships, you should think again."

 

[=Nightshade=]

Adelaide nodded slowly. “Well, we could always tie the rocks to ourselves...” she mused. “And I have a bit of scuba-diving experience, I had to take a course on that, my parents forced me...” A broad grin spread across her face as she realized the full gravity behind what Leon had just said. “Oh hey! Epic. Is there anything I’ll get to destroy down there? I mean, maybe if the cave’s blocked, or if I have to clear a path or something...” She continued on in unintelligible mutters, lost in thought.

Seth looked like he was about to make another “let’s-play-it-safe, it’s-never-gonna-work” comment, one finger raised, before he seemed to deflate and just look on disapprovingly. He knew that once the group had made up their minds, there was no swaying them. Plus, more than likely if he whined again, Adelaide would probably clock him upside the head. There was that, too.

 

[comic]

"Listen, Richie." Leon turned to his Survivalist Expert, brows raised. "It's a great plan and all, but there's a little problem. It sucks."
"He's right." Jia stated, refitting a salt filter on one of the outfits. "The Dead Sea is dead for a reason. No other bodies of water connect to it, it would be impossible to get any type of ship onto it without disassembling it first and shipping it in pieces through the desert."
"That takes too much time, and is a drain on resources that could be used for better things." Leon finished for her.

With that being said, Leon turned his attention to Adelaide as she trailed off, and answered one of her soft-spoken inquiries. "That's exactly why I need you down there. If Jia's correct, then we'll have a bad buildup of salt blocking our way, making things difficult. The explosives I commissioned for you should be enough to clear it, but your the demowoman, so its your input I'll need before doing anything brash."
"You two." Leon pointed at Richard, then at Niko. "I want you to stay 12 meters away from each other until we get back. You've caused enough problems as-is. Don't make me sic Danya on you."
The last part was said in a joking manner, but still, the Russian was now staring at the pair of men as he cooked another breakfast burrito, cold unblinking eyes fixed upon them.
"Gear ready?" Leon asked, standing up as he finished his burrito, to which Jia gave a nod. "They're good. Capable of withstanding about 200 feet of pressure on a good day in this ocean." She directed her words a little toward Markus' way, before continuing. "Any deeper than that and you're at risk, so don't go getting yourselves killed."

"Plenty of good rocks to carry along the shore." Sequoyah stated, leaning back on a folding chair as he folded his arms. "Great. Adelaide, Carla, finish eatin' and get ready."

 

[comic]

(OOC: Double-Post done due to community-voted timeskip. Sorry it took so long for me to get this up, things have been crazy for me.)

In no time at all, Leon had led his dive team into the Dead Sea to scope out and clear a pathway through this underwater tunnel. The others wrapped up with their breakfast, and waited, not saying much. There wasn't much to say that hadn't already been said. Some exercised on the spot, others looked through their various belongings, and some kicked back in the shade of the tents and tipped their hats over their eyes for a lil' snooze.

Leon, Adelaide, and Carla reached their destination, though the water's thickness made visual contact quite difficult. It became evidently clear that the opening wouldn't be large enough for anything larger than Adelaide to fit through, so the explosives were set.

By the time the three rose from the water, trudging to the bank, Leon was yanking off his mask, a grin on his face, an excited twinkle in his eyes. "Blew a clean hole." He announced once within earshot of everyone as the sun baked down upon them. "Big enough for Big Bertha to fit through."
"Sorry. Big who?" Cillian barked, raising his bushy eyebrows questioningly. "I knew I was forgettin' to tell you all somethin'." Leon nodded his head, stepping under the big tent and taking a glass of ice water Danya offered him, who was now offering a glass to Adelaide and Carla.
"I have- or had -a big surprise." Leon began as everyone began to gather around. "Big Bertha. State-of-the-art sub. Can fit us and a lot of our luggage inside, has the power to push through even the deep ends of the Dead Sea, and she should be arrivin' by helicopter in say..." He rolled up his sleeve, having removed the scuba gear as he spoke. "Thirty minutes. Look alive, people. Get your shit together and your butts in gear. We'll be on the way to Eden in less than an hour, give or take a few minutes."