"I'm afraid we are." He said with faux lament, patting her head. He had his easy smile, and despite the inherent danger, it was still business as usual for the two of them. Jocasta groaned, but pulled her bodice up in preparation. "Think of it this way, babe..." He said helpfully as she fixed her hair. "-we had to die sometime."

Her initial reassurance was dashed by the joke, and Jocasta pushed him. He laughed, trying to hold her off but she managed to get in a few playful hits. Their spirits were high at least, the fear momentarily forgotten.  Yet even their rambunctious nature couldn't keep the aura of foreboding around the entrance to this accursed ruin. Beren wondered exactly what had once been, if it was not simply carved out by the claws of demons. Sacred temples of blasphemous religions were the usual haunts of malevolent spirits and their ilk, but despite his blaise attitude, it was never easy entering these dens. In fact, he felt it was quite strange, having traveled with Jocasta and faced these things. Before he had met her, he remembered facing the yawning portal of Karybdalus, a smoking ruin if poisonous fumes that clung to the ceiling. The beasts in there did not sleep, and he barely left alive, and with no great victory to show for it except capturing one small emerald meant for a staff. He remembered facing it with trepidation, but there was a part of him that was calm, steady, very much aware he might die and not being bothered by it. There was an almost ogygian, animalistic acceptance of it. Yet with Jocasta, he wanted more than anything to live, as if the goals he had devoted himself too had taken a backseat to his desire to share all the ups and downs of life with her. 

He could not keep sharing his life with her if either of them were dead.

It did not add fear necessarily, (except maybe for her), however, he had to take things more lightly, or he would not step into it at all. As it was, the both of them readied themselves, Jocasta weaving protective enchantments on the two of them as Beren kissed his holy pendant and made a prayer to the king of gods for their victory. Together, they stepped into the darkness, and were swallowed by it. 

Almost immediately, the bright haze of the day still echoing in their vision, they were assaulted with an immense silence. Every breath was like the beating of war drums, and every step sounded like the heavy treads of a dwarven eoath (also see: dwarven military units). The inky darkness seemed a palpable thing, made even more galling by the invasive light of the wasteland. 

Beren blinked, and his vision returned. For a moment, he was confused. He had good vision at night, from his blood and his experiences in dwarven thundrims, but this was far quicker and with more clarity than he was used to. He saw the cyclopean angles of the inner corridor as if he was under a full moon with no trees on sight. "How...?" he mouthed, then looked at Jocasta, who gave him a sly wink. Despite his grin, he began to protest. "Be careful, you-" She placed a finger to his lips. 

"We can't go forward if we can't see, especially me." She whispered in a playful rhyme, and patted his cheek. He nodded. Beren had been going to say she needed to preserve her magic for whatever trials lay ahead, but this was a necessity. 

It was smart she did. The corridor fed into a chamber that seemed an unnatural, derelict shape of alien geometries, the walls a perfect square shape yet somehow slanted in a way that led the eye on for as long as one looked. Beren closed his eyes and shook his head, and Jocasta evidently had the same realization it was no use trying to make sense of it. However, what the two did not realize was that it was not shaped this way simply for its eldritch creation, but it made it harder to sense traps, even from seasoned dungeoners. Beren did not know if he placed his hand on a wall, or if he stepped wrongly, but some mechanism was triggered. There was a [i]cthoot[/i] sound that followed, almost too quiet for the ear.

His heightened senses, trained from childhood, watched as an arrow with a black head scythe through the air towards Jocasta's neck. Beren lived in that moment, the second stretching like hot wax, and the warrior monk managed to catch the missile out of the air a mere four inches from Jocasta. The arrow quivered in his hand, but the woman, and the monk for that matter, hardly had the time to register he had saved her life before another arrow struck him in the shoulder. It all happened so fast. An arrow caught and another stabbing his shoulder, and Beren hit the floor as Jocasta dived down, and further arrows struck the walls for a number of heartbeats before they were exhausted. 

Luckily, the arrow in his shoulder had hit mostly cloth, but it hurt like a bitch.