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She waves toward the floor. "Let's do it your way."
"No explosives," Munro barks. "It's too bloody dangerous."
"No explosives," I tell Munro. "But we will need crowbars. I have two of them."
"What can I do?" Ashley asks.
"Stand over there and look bonnie." I point toward the juncture with another passageway. "Please, Ashley. Not sure what will happen if we manage to pop this cork. I need to know you're well away from it."
"Okay. But next time, I get to help you pry open the mysterious floor slab. Or any mystery slab we come across."
"It's a deal."
Munro and I get the crowbars and try to push their tapered ends into the crack in the floor. It's hard to see that crack, but it's even harder to drive the crowbars into it. With a lot of maneuvering and grunting and cursing, we finally get some leverage. The slab grinds against the surrounding rock, and we manage to lift it a wee bit, no more than a few millimeters.
"Would lubrication help?" Ashley asks.
I pause to catch my breath before responding. "Might be useful. But I don't have any grease on hand."
"What about baby oil? I have a big bottle of it in my backpack."
Munro's lips twitch upward the slightest bit. "Do I want to know why you've got an industrial supply of mineral oil?"
"A lady never tells."
I hold my hand up like a baseball player about to catch the ball. "Toss it to me."
She finds the bottle and pitches it like a pro. Everything I know about baseball came from movies about the sport, so I don't know for certain if I'm using those terms correctly. But I do catch the ball, so maybe I should take up the game.
I think I'll stick to shinty.
Munro and I pour the mineral oil into the seam along its entire length. Then we shove our crowbars into the sliver of a gap and start pushing again. Will this work? Donnae know. It's worth a try.
I lose control of my crowbar, and it flies up out of my hand, clattering onto the floor.
We try again to lift the slab.
It moves a bit more than before, and my hands don't slip this time, so we keep trying. I'm fair certain we're straining every muscle in our bodies in the effort. I can feel my crowbar has slid into position, right where I want it to be, but I can't get enough leverage in a kneeling position. So I stand up and press my foot down on the crowbar, where it's nearest to the floor, and I slam my other foot down on the highest end. The slab lifts a little more.
Munro sees what I'm doing and tries the same thing.
Now we've both lifted the slab a bit, but I realize we need another tool. "Find something we can wedge in here, Ashley."
She nods and sets about searching our bags, but after a moment, she gives up. "I can't find anything."
"No worries." My strained voice probably doesn't convince her it's no problem.
She chews on her bottom lip while watching us fight with the crowbars and the slab. Then she starts crawling around on the floor on her hands and knees.
Munro and I have taken a break so we won't die of heart attacks. I have time to ask her a question. "Ashley, what are you doing over there?"
"I suddenly wondered if there's a latch or something that pushes the slab out of the way. I mean, whoever created this place might have wanted to get back inside the chamber below us. It could be a storage room for the most important artifacts."
"Aye, that seems logical." It's as good as any idea I've got, so we might as well test her theory. "Have ye seen any latches?"
"Not yet." She keeps crawling around while exploring the floor seam with her fingers. "Sorry I didn't think of checking this first, before you guys broke your backs."
"Our backs are fine." I walk over to her and kneel beside the lass. "Can I help?"
