For the 30 Days Meme Second Semester, for the prompt “1) the story starts with the words ‘It’s going down.'”

Vas’ World has a landing page (LJ Link)

“It’s going down.” Vas watched the wicker cage slowly descend the cliff, shaking his head.

“Of course it’s going down,” Suki laughed. “It’s an elevator. What did you expect it to do? Swing back and forth wildly?”

“It’s not an elevator,” he grumbled, never mind the horse-creatures that could probably overhear him. “It’s a wicker basket and a pulley system.”

“Sounds like an elevator to me. And it sounds a lot safer than the path there… besides, it’s holding two horses and Malia, and it’s doing just fine. It can hold our weight.”

Vas was un-moved. “I’d still rather take the path.”

“With no spotter? No way in hell, Sparky. Mission parameters don’t allow it.”

“And where in the mission parameters is an alien-made wicker basket masquerading as an elevator?” The thing had stopped at the bottom of the cliff, its passengers (the third load) exiting safely. Slowly, it began creeping back up towards them. Another time, Vas would have been fascinated with its mechanism. Right now, he was too busy worrying about his impending ride down in the damn thing.

“You really don’t want me to quote chapter and verse at you, do you, Vassily? Trust me. The thing will get us down safely, and then we can continue our exploration.” She chose to ignore that their “exploration” had turned into a guided tour by giant telepathic horses; so did he.

“What I really want to know,” he muttered instead, “is who has the thumbs to build this thing.”

The List:
1) the story starts with the words “It’s going down.”

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