More so than many storylines, The Sunken Cradle Part II required a lot of small scenes to put it together. We weren’t guided from one place to the next by NPCs as we expected. We had to do it ourselves. I didn’t know if that was because there were so many settings or because the plot was more of a sandbox, but when we found ourselves not being led forward, we had to come up with some quick scenes to move the plot in that direction ourselves.

On-Screen

My cameraman was at the back of the room filming our conversation. He had become a very reliable indicator of whether something was important to my personal subplot. He moved the camera back and forth between Antoine, Anna, Camden, and me, though the scene was so short it seemed a bit unnecessary.

“I knew I had heard the phrase where the sun meets the river before,” Antoine said. “It was my old mentor who always talked about it. For some reason, I didn’t put it together until I found his book and realized that was where it was from.”

He held an old dusty library edition of an academic text out for me to see and for the camera to pick up.

“Cuyara: The City of Dust by Dr. Gabriel Ibarra,” I said, reading it.

It must have been easy for them to find, seeing as it had Bones Ibarra’s name on it. All that squabbling was just for show, to let Antoine flex his knowledge.

“The city is referred to as the place where the sun meets the river because there’s a waterfall there, apparently,” he continued, “It’s the most photogenic thing at the ruins because whatever city was left behind is almost entirely gone, eaten away by thieves and erosion.”

I played my character shaken, but intrigued.

“That’s very interesting. So the man, if that’s what he was, told you about this ancient city, and you think that you need to go there?” I asked. “To what end? The chase the cradle?”

“To save my friends,” Antoine said. “I’m convinced that’s where they’re being taken, and if that doesn’t work, then for the thrill of discovery. That matters to you, doesn’t it? The mystery of Cuyara and its people is one of the oldest in the world.”

I gave Antoine a sharp eye, as if sizing him up.

“It’s a mystery right up there with Atlantis and every bit as mythical. As it is,” I said, “I’m under contract to look for answers about Andrew Hughes. My benefactor, Roxanne Hughes, isn’t going to be entertained by the idea of running around in yet another jungle unless…”

“Unless I can convince her that it will lead to answers about her husband,” Antoine said. He took a deep breath. “I think I could make that argument.”

“I’ll give her a call,” I said.

–

We stepped Off-Screen for about fifteen seconds before Roxy entered my office. Anna sat in one of my guest chairs. Without a word, Roxy grabbed her by the arm, gently lifted her, and moved her to the same side of the room as Antoine and Camden. Bobby was at the back, doing his best wallpaper impression. Roxy then sat in the chair, threw her jacket over the back, and lit a cigarette with one of those long cigarette holders Cruella de Vil was known for. Then we returned On-Screen.

Finally, we had an NPC of sorts helping set things up.

“You expect me to help you after you’ve admitted to practically killing my husband?” Roxy said. Without missing a beat, she wouldn’t look him in the eye. She didn’t even take off her sunglasses. “Not to mention that the creature that murdered poor Cassie was clearly linked to you.”

“I am trying to make that right the best way I know how. More people are going to get hurt if I don’t do something,” Antoine said. “I know that creature is tied to the sunken cradle. It told me as much back when it was human.” He put his hand to his torso. “I know this is all connected. I can feel it in my gut, and if all you accomplish is extra footage for your exposé on my supposed criminality, wouldn’t that be enough of a reason for you to fund our trip?”

She stared back at him.

“You disappoint me, Doctor Stone,” she said. “I was told that I would never find you, that you could make it around the world without a whisper and without tripping alarms, but now you need my private jet.”

“How do you think he’s always done that?” Anna asked. “He always had a friend with a private jet or a submarine or a zeppelin, and he’s always found answers. If he says that the men sent after us have something to do with the sunken cradle, you should believe him, and maybe then you can find out what happened to your husband.”

Roxy gently flicked her ashes onto the floor next to Anna.

“The more I learn about this Antoine Stone, the less I want to be counted among his friends. Haven’t you heard? They’re going missing,” she said.

“Just like your husband went missing,” Antoine said. “Somewhere in the thick tunnels leading to the sunken cradle, there are still answers to be found. Now is not the time to get cheap. The sooner we leave, the better. If I have to use other channels to continue my search, what we’re looking for could be gone. Besides, don’t you want to keep an eye on me so that I can testify about your husband’s demise? What better way to stay in touch with someone than to be their patron?”

Roxy didn’t answer for a moment. She looked over at me, and I tilted my head as if to say he’s got a point.

“Fine, but you’d best be ready to leave now because my tolerance for adventure is wearing thin, and I’d rather not be there when all things go wrong.”

She immediately stood up and began exiting the room.

All we could do was follow.

–

Another five-minute trip in the private jet, plus a change of clothes to make it look like time had passed and we were in yet another part of Carousel, a part that looked like a bayou.

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It was easy enough to get a local NPC to lead us to Dr. Ibarra’s home, and when we arrived, we went back On-Screen.

The home defied easy description, as it seemed to have been built by hand, one room at a time, over a long period, and from natural materials, giving it the look of having grown out of the earth and being part of the swamp.

Antoine stood at the front of the home, and the rest of us did our best to spread out and pose in the background.

The first thing I noticed when he answered the door was that Bones Ibarra had been aged up. He was always in his early forties or so, but now he was in his late fifties or early sixties. He was tired, having seen far too many adventures, and walked away empty-handed. The twenty-something young woman who was hanging off of him as he stood at the door, however, looked quite sprightly.

“Antoine Stone,” he said as soon as he got a look at who had just knocked. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

“You almost didn’t,” Antoine said. “Look, Bones, I need help, and you’re just the guy who can do it.”

Bones started to laugh.

“Now that is a greeting,” he said. “You may come in, and tell your friends they can come as well, but if they stay outside, to watch out for the alligators. They don’t respect anyone but me.”

There was a reason that Animal Whisperer was an adventurer trope. How else do you pull off an animal stunt without getting killed?

We all piled into the home except for Roxy and her bodyguard, who stayed outside to keep lookout, perhaps.

Bobby also stayed behind. From what I understood, if he was nearby, he could just read what we said as it appeared on the script. The thing about Wallflowers was that by nature they didn’t like to talk about how their tropes worked, so the rest of us were left to wonder.

“Can I get you a beer, my old friend?” Bones asked.

“Not today,” Antoine said.

“Good. I don’t have enough to share,” Bones responded with a charming grin.

His home looked like it could have been decorated for a themed restaurant, with all kinds of artifacts of a lifetime of exploration hanging from the walls, but with a woman’s touch too, although I expected it was a different woman than the one who still stayed attached to his hip.

The paragon himself chose to stand right next to a cabinet instead of sitting in the living room, where the rest of us eventually found a place to settle in. My cameraman filmed, and Bones kept looking at the camera, clearly uncomfortable.

“Are you shooting a movie?” he asked. “You decide to stop being a real archaeologist? The movies are where the real money can be found, not like the old holes in the ground that you and I are used to.”

“It’s a documentary,” Antoine said. “Not my idea, but they said they’d give me a ride.”

Bones started to laugh.

“That’s more like the Antoine I know. What was it, twenty years ago, exploring the jungles of the Congo, looking for artifacts while our expedition was funded by men looking for some cryptid or another? Men like you and I find the strangest bedfellows, don’t we?”

“And the youngest, it would seem,” Antoine said, glancing over at Bones’ girlfriend.

Bones laughed again but kept an intense eye contact, as if this was all just them sizing each other up.

“I spent my youth searching for treasures that were very old. Now that I’m very old, I do the opposite,” he said. “Now, what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

There was a weight in the air, and I could see Bones’ hand itching to grab something behind the cabinet he was standing next to. I had to imagine there was a gun or possibly a sword hanging there. There was no way to tell in a storyline like this.

“You know, Antoine, some policemen came around asking about you not so long ago. Brought back a lot of bad memories for me,” he said. “They told me some very concerning things.”

Antoine lowered his head.

“None of what they said is true,” he said.

“All the people from the old days haven’t been going missing?” Bones asked. “You haven’t been evading authorities?”

“Well, that’s true,” Antoine said, “but I am not behind it all. Someone’s using them to get to me, and if I recall, we both have plenty of experience in evading authorities.”

Bones smiled but kept eye contact, as if weighing what he was being told.

“So you come to warn me,” he asked, “that all your old friends are being taken? Maybe I should go into hiding, too?”

“No,” Antoine said. “Maybe I should have warned people, but that’s not why I’m here.”

He took off the camera bag that he was using as a satchel and produced the book they had shown me in the previous scene.

“You really found a fossil with this one, didn’t you?” Bones said, dropping his guard for the first time as he reached out to take the book.

He began flipping through it fondly, as if he hadn’t looked at it in decades.

“This is a library book,” he said. “You really are up to your old habits, although I remembered you stealing much more valuable things from much less accessible places.”

“I need you to take me to Cuyara,” Antoine said.

Bones looked at him, perplexed.

“You know,” he said, “it has been a very long time since anyone has ever wanted to go to Cuyara. I got one trip funded, but when I returned to them with pictures of nothing but large flat rocks and without any artifacts to put in the British Museum, it was hard to get anyone to fund my return. Why the sudden interest in that dead end of a valley?”

Antoine paused, as if deciding whether to tell.

“The people that have gone missing,” he said, “the clues led me to a phrase, the place where the sun meets the river.”

“Well, there are a lot of places that could refer to,” Bones said. “The ancients weren’t too creative when they named their homes, you know. I can think of half a dozen off the top of my head on three different continents.”

“It has to do with the sunken cradle,” Antoine said. “I was told ‘the cradle breathes where the sun meets the river.’”

This caught Bones off guard. He leaned back.

“The sunken cradle is in Peru now, you say? I thought it was in the Caribbean, or so you always told me back when you teased me about its location.”

“It was,” Antoine said, “but that entrance is closed.”

“Entrance?” Bones said, intrigued. “Are you trying to tell me that there are multiple entrances to the sunken cradle on different continents?”

Antoine clearly knew how outlandish that sounded.

“It makes more sense the longer you think about it,” Antoine said. “Why did the legend always say that the entrance was in a different place? Carthage, Mongolia, Siberia, the Yukon, half a dozen places in every great sea or ocean, a rumor that seemed to change with each person who passed it along. I don’t know if there is an entrance to the sunken cradle at Cuyara, but I believe someone thinks there is, and they’ve put the lives of a lot of people I care about at stake, so whatever the truth may be, I need you to show me where it is. I noticed you didn’t put the exact location in your book.”

Bones looked down at his old work and flipped through it.

“Anyone who desired enough to find that ancient city would have all they needed from within these pages,” he said. “I just tried to keep out the tourists.”

“I don’t just want to know the location,” Antoine said. “I want someone who’s been there before, someone who knows the ways in and out in every direction. Someone like you.”

Bones laughed.

“There is no one like me,” he said. “Not even me, these days.”

“I don’t believe that for a moment,” Antoine said.

A smile formed in the corner of the paragon’s mouth.

“You know, even if I go with you on this ill-advised adventure, we’re not going to find anything there. The ruins at Cuyara have all but sunk into the earth with time. I think I would have noticed if there was anything of importance, especially if it related to the sunken cradle.”

Antoine nodded.

“I thought that once too about the first location. Odds are you’re right. For the sunken cradle to have entrances all over the world, it simply wouldn’t be possible, and thank God, because I have no intent of ever going back there.”

Bones started to say something, but he was interrupted because, as he was talking, the sound of sirens could be heard in the distance.

I looked outside, and Roxy and her bodyguard were gone. Bobby had split too, or at least found somewhere to hide.

“It looks like the widow Hughes has decided to cash in on her life insurance a bit early,” I said.

I wasn’t exactly surprised that she had betrayed us, but it was awfully early.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep