Anstat lies flat on his stomach, right at the mouth of a ventilation tunnel just barely wide enough for him to wriggle through, looking out into a vast hollow shaft, stone-lined, fifty metres across, rising another three hundred metres or so to a glassed-over roof and sunlight, descending almost bottomlessly below.

He isn't not supposed to be there, though mostly this just amounts to 'getting here was annoying and inconvenient and if he'd been spotted there would have been a FIGHT.'

The main Underworld drop-shaft is lined by a spiral staircase, and has a number of much smaller side-shafts, connected but glassed in, with elevators sliding up and down. Every twenty metres or so, there are open platforms cut into the rock, and doors and tunnels leading outward. The levels aren't, quite, all distinct; often they're sort of diagonal-to-each-other, half entangled with higher and lower platforms.

The shaft is lit, but VERY variably. Some platforms have strings of electric lights; others have optical-fibre bouquets spraying random coloured light in all directions; some have sparkly balls to reflect the glow of excessively bright spotlights. Some levels only have oil-burning lanterns, or even candles. A few are entirely dark. (The tunnel behind him, where his friends are also stretched out in a row nose-to-toes, is pitch-dark.) Some of the levels are playing music very loudly; right now the songs from above and below are almost perfectly blended together, a bizarre yet beautiful auditory tangle. 

A hiss behind him. "Did you find the eyehole." 

"Is that Aya or Nuts? I can't see your face."

Today is absolutely not a Trashfire day so it's not him. 

"s'Aya, you moron, I can't believe you've known us ten years and you still can't tell." 

Grin. "That's our Aya, all right. I found it. Pass up the supplies?" 

A giggle, sudden and high-pitched. "I'll have to pass them up your butthole to get through. Butthole." Giggles. 

"Oh, hey, Nuts. I want the one who can do logistics, though." He waits. 

From the very back, a voice whispers. "Hey, Noli, can you hear what–?" 

"They're getting the bungee." Nolita sounds kind of tense, but not horrifically so. 

This entire excursion is mainly for Nolita's benefit, which is why it's not a Trashfire time at all, and even Anstat is being pretty tame by his standards. Veth is making sure to stay median enough to keep track of that and not let the Chaos get too out of control. 

(Numeria thinks this is b O r I n G, but she's behaving about it.) 

"All right. You've got the goodies?" 

"I have the goodies. ...You're, uh, sure this'll go over?" 

"We are literally throwing candy at people, how could it not go over." 

Four bungee cords are slithered up into Anstat's hand; this requires a lot of contorting, on both Anstat and Aya's parts, eliciting more amusement from Nuts. 

Four bungee cords are firmly, thoroughly, meticulously tied to the sturdy metal loop mounted just behind the mouth of the tunnel. Anstat-Layne can't go median for this but Anstat is, by long necessity, pretty good at logistics despite being the Chaotic of the pair. He's focused and doesn't goof off at all. 

"Psst. I'm going for the drop. Goodies?" 

Goodies! She is really prepared for that part! She's been rehearsing it mentally. 

Goodies are pushed into Anstat's hand. 

The bungee comes with a clip, the really thoroughly overengineered kind that Lawful constructors use on the Surface.

Veth can take credit for that part. She reckons it was worth spending actual money to calm Nolita's nerves for today. 

Clip is clipped! 

aaaaaaand 

the DROP!!!! 

Anstat free-falls, past the overhang - they picked a spot right above a widening, for this reason, the same thrill with less risk. He squeals with glee. Manages to, with perfect timing born of long practice, start his throw so that he sprays brightly-coloured candy right into one of the sloped levels. 

Trashfire makes a brief bid to jump out right away and fall on top of him even though he said not to, because CHAOS, but Aya stomps on that. 

She follows the plan - Aya approves of plans even if Trashfire thinks they're lame - and waits until Anstat has thrown all of his candy and stopped bouncing around on the end of his tether and has managed to pull himself up to the nearest level. 

He sits on the platform, legs swinging about the depths, grinning in pleased satisfaction. 

Her turn! 

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Have candy from kids, strangers everywhere! 

Most of the candy goes where it's thrown but some of it vanishes into a rift of sparkling blue light! The rift distorts the space around it; nearby objects seem to ripple like a reflection in a wind-stirred lake. Then the whole thing turns itself somehow inside out and dumps a bespectacled man in a lab coat onto the floor.

"What the fuck," says the bespectacled man.

"Whooooooooa! That's trippy! How'd you do that, dude?" 

Aya's shout fades in and out of audibility because she's bouncing up and down on the end of her bungee leash. 

The man is lying on an uneven stone floor in what more than anything resembles a candlelit cave. There are vague Stone-age-aesthetic finger paintings on the walls, dimly lit by flickering candles burning around the periphery. 

There's also absolutely no railing or fence of any kind guarding the dropoff into what appears to be a BOTTOMLESS PIT. 

Trippy is right. Who built this place? And what sort of bizzarity is going on in it now?

"Accidentally!" He shouts back to the bouncing woman. "Where am I?'