Writers roleplay.

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"And thanks for saving my butt." Ivan half-grinned, only it looked like this grin was genuine. He poked the monster with his toe.
"Ugly bleeder, isn't he?" He stepped over it to walk down the hallway, not bothering to wipe blood of his sword or face.
Suddenly, he stopped short. The floor stopped suddenly, and the rest of the hallway was a long pit.
"Hello!" he shouted. There was no answer. It was too dark to tell how deep it was.
"What do you think, Mr. Vissy? Should we chance a jump? I, for one, think it would be a stupid idea. I have no intentions of dying, but if you're idiot enough to throw yourself down there, I might as well go with you. I might need to protect you from another monster."
 
"If the super-women were here," Vissarion remarked, "they could probably fly us across--no rude jokes, please. But maybe, just _maybe,_ we mere males CAN accomplish something even with no super-women to help us; of course, if they heard me say that, they would probably spend the rest of the day lecturing me about women being condescended to by men, adding three imaginary female grievances for every valid one. Anyway, one thing I've learned in my thirty-seven years is that sometimes you can go _around_ obstacles. While I sound these walls beside us for the thinnest place, you can do something noiseless: clean the blood off the knife I gave you. The blood of those things does promote rust if left on steel for long."

After knocking at several spots on both walls, Vissarion chose what seemed the weakest point. Hefting his pickaxe, he gestured for Ivan to move back. "This corridor is too narrow for me to get a comfortable wind-up for a swing straight across; I'll have to aim the strokes at angles, from the left and from the right." Working in this way was laborious and took some time; but at last a breach was made through which the two men could pass, avoiding the abyss altogether.

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OOC: Lonny, are you ready to take over?
 
Ivan cleaned the blood on his jacket, and followed Vissarion through the opening.
They were back in the room with food.
"Well," said Ivan, "While we're here, we might as well stop and eat something." He grabbed a piece of chicken.
 
Vissarion did his share of eating, and to bring away for later he selected items like bread which would not soon spoil. They relaxed awhile to digest, and were undisturbed by anyone or anything. "I hate to jinx it by speaking too soon," said the swordsman in almost a whisper, "but maybe by now we've killed so many of the pretty things, that the surviving monsters are getting discouraged. On the other hand, they may just be biding their time. So if we're still on our own when sleep becomes necessary, one of us will have to be awake at any given time."
 
"I knew that, Mr. Vissy," said Ivan, "I may be uneducated, but I've got some common sense. I haven't slept in a few days, actually. I never sleep long. I always get the feeling that someone's out to get me." He glanced around, nervously.
"You know what I think, Mr. Vissy? I think this is some kind of plot, and that we are being watched. I think someone is just playing games with us, to see how we react. Like rats in a maze."
 
"In that case," Vissarion laughed, "they'll be wracking their brains trying to understand _your_ responses! Keep it up; maybe they'll get so baffled that they'll appear to us directly to ask you to explain, and then we'll see whom we're dealing with!"
 
"I'll be their most intersting case. They'll never figure me out." He tilted his head and looked at where the ceiling would be if it was low enough to see.
"YOU HEAR THAT?!" he bellowed up at no-one, "YOU'LL NEVER FIGURE ME OUT!" He laughed loudly and crazily.
"That'll throw 'em off. Or attract those Monster-things. I wonder how they taste."
 
"That, I can tell you with certainty," replied Vissarion. "Once, in a really close call, I had to _bite_ into a tentacle of one of the creatures to stop it from strangling me. They taste _horrible;_ and I couldn't keep anything in my stomach for half a day after biting that monster.

"That was back in my own world." He sighed. "I hope my sweetheart Shamleth is all right."
 
"Maybe they'd be better if it was cooked." he shrugged.
"As for the girl...I'm resiting the urge to say something cruel here, so maybe it's best if I say nothing. But I can say that I hope you get back to her someday. I'm lucky. I've got no-one to miss." Again, he took the pistol out of his pocket and tossed it from hand to hand.
"If only...but what's the use? What's dead is dead. Even if it was my fault." His voice trailed off and died. He shrugged, and coughed lightly into his hand.
"Darn. I hate talking about this stuff. I get all weird and mushy. Do you think this chicken tastes funny?" He said, in order to change the subject.
 
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"Well, you saw the different sun in the sky out there. These probably _aren't_ literally chickens, but a similar bird native to this world. The texture and flavor doubtless are normal for them. I've eaten enough of the same kind in these dining rooms since I got here, if they were going to make me sick they'd have done it by now."
 
"Maybe it's not even a bird," Said Ivan darkly, "Maybe it's some poor soul that got stuck." He poked it.
"But it doesn't taste like it." He smiled nastily. He got up and began to feel along the walls.
"Maybe I'll find some sort of microphone. We're being watched. I know we are."
 
"Excuse me, whatever microphones are, we don't have them in my world. If they were something we had, the speech-comprehension force in this place, which enables us to understand each other, would feed my mind the correct word in my own Trantean language. I suppose a microphone is something belonging to a more advanced science?"
 
Ivan stared blankly at Vissarion.

"Um...what? That was just a bunch of technical garble to me. I have no idea how they work. I grew up in a bleedin' cage, Mr. Vissy. I do, however, know that somehow they pick up speech and someone else hears it."
 
"Well, do you feel like plunging farther into this maze again and trying to find the others? Or should we assume that they're likely to come where we are when they're hungry?"
 
"Fine by me. Let's go." He waited for Vissy to take the lead, and then followed him through the earlier opening. (The one made at the beginning, not the one that leads out)
 
Enough wandering about brought them by several places where Vissarion had left his marks before; but it was not until they were in a passageway unfamiliar to both men that they heard human voices not far off. They recognized the voices of the young woman Lisbeth and the young man Darron; there were many more besides.

Vissarion smiled to Ivan. "It would seem that a reunion, be it joyful or otherwise, is at hand. Let's go join them! I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find our way back to the exit, in the event that the super-women haven't already found it."
 
"Great." Ivan said. "I hate being indoors, where we can't see the sky." He looked in the direction of the voices, and dashed off in that direction.
"Hey," He yelled, "Guess what? I'm still alive!"
 
"Not on Earth at all," said Ivan, coming into view. "Where we are is not any world that any of us know as 'Earth.' Atmosphere's breathable, and food's edible, but there's a different sun in the sky."

"That's right, SKY," added the tall fighter Vissarion, coming right behind Ivan. "The two of us have been OUTSIDE. There are people out there, though we didn't get close enough to try to speak with them. I was hoping to get help for Ivan's hurt leg, but he turns out not to be as badly injured as I thought at first. And I'll have you know that he was anxious to get back and help the rest of you make it outside."
 
"Surprised to see me?" Ivan asked, "Mr. Vissy here saved me at the last minute. Twice. He's a useful fellow to have around. And, if you'll kindly follow us, we can get out of this lousy place."
 
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