Magic and Modernity: Chapter 7

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The answer was very quick indeed. Barely five minutes after I called, Venice pulled up in her car. I hopped into the passenger's seat, and set my satchel into the foot-compartment-type-thing.
"What's the plan?" she asked me.
"Drive. Show up. Go down the hole. Hope we don't die."
"I like that plan. My favourite part is the bit where we don't die. Who do you want to pick up?"
"Chuck Norris."
"Besides him."
"Mr T."
"Be serious."
"Cthulu."
Venice sighed. "I said "be serious.""
"I am being serious. If we had Cthulu on our side, we wouldn't have to worry about anything. Regardless, let's stick with picking up Octa."
We drove off. Octa wasn't home. We kept driving. We tried to pick up other people, but with no luck. After a while, we just decided to drive on without backup.
As we pulled up to the house, Venice spoke.
"You know, I think this was just a cunning plan to get me alone in an old house at night. This is the part where you try to get me drunk."
"Gorshdangit, my clever ruse has been rumbled," I said jokingly. "We don't know what's going on down here, so we need to be careful. Serious sauce."
"Aye-aye, captain." Venice made off towards the door immediately, and I had to do that stupid little fast-walk to catch up.
We reached the door, and the entire hallway was in deep shadow. We approached the hole in the floor, and I tied some more rope around a pillar, as I had done the first time we arrived.
"Ladies first."
"Gee, thanks."
When Ven had reached the bottom, I slid down the rope in the most badass way I could manage, unable to resist showing off. Badassery, however, has its price, and I suffered some pretty bad friction burns for my trouble. I think I managed to hide the pain pretty well, burying my hands deep onto my pockets.
I was feeling relatively pleased with myself, until I heard a thud behind me. I looked up to see what had happened, and noticed Errant standing at the top of the hole, still holding the gardening shears he had used to cut the rope.