damned_institute | Night 64: Underground Lake

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Night 64: Underground Lake

[From here.]

Harvey almost ended up tripping, which would have put him face-first in the sand, but he managed to reorient himself just before his legs gave out on him. His hand flew to his chest as he tried to catch his breath and fight down the nausea. He didn't want to think about how much it would sting to have bile come up and wash over all the wounds in his mouth if he threw up. So that wasn't happening.

The area felt just as damp and cold as the last time, and since it was all something they'd seen before, Harvey didn't hesitate to move forward once he'd recovered. His destination was the dock, and the two torches that were set there made it easy for him to find it.

As he moved toward it, he glanced back at the other two. "So this time we don't even need to draw blood. I guess that works well enough." He would have preferred that the transition was smoother, but it definitely beat having to go through the fridge like they had for so long.

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Where Harvey's luck had landed him heads-up, Scott's was all tails. At least he was lucky enough not to have planted his rear down in the small pile of bones that sat just a foot or two behind him. Not only would it have hurt, but S.T. would have had enough material to make dry, subtle boner jokes into next week.

"Ngh, yeah, I am a fan of things that don't involve drawing blood. Never did trust those Red Cross types. Always knew they were up to something," Scott said as he picked himself up, dusting white sand off his jeans.

He gazed out in the darkness, searching for the boat that he ~~knew~~ was pretty sure would be there. Sure enough, on the opposite side of the beach, the boat floated in the faint torchlight. "Hey!" Scott called out to the bag of bones at the boat's helm, walking forward. "So do we actually get to do anything when we get across this time?" If the only thing that sailing across the lake was going to gain them was the loss of three more people, he wanted to know about it beforehand - because he wouldn't be around to know about it otherwise.

"Hey, reminder. Who was the one drawing blood again?" It wasn't a big deal. Creepy, but it only took a drop or two. "One of you is doing the sensory deprivation deal this time," he added. Not being able to smell anything was worse than the olfactory stadium-sized rock concert they'd installed.

He didn't answer Scott's question. Landel's "prizes" ranged from toys (including the weaponry) to death, dismemberment, and torture. Whatever it was was going to suck. "We could hijack the boat instead."

"Hah!" The ferryman's bark of a laugh echoed against the cavern walls as he pushed his skeleton of a body up for the small group to see. Unlike last time, his voice immediately sounded gravelly and rough, like rocks scraping against the side of a mountain. "Maybe you shouldn't drag your feet so much, Mouthy!"

He fixed his hollow eye sockets onto the three patients seeking to cross the lake. "And you could try hijacking the boat, Stinky," he chuckled, "but I don't think you can exactly afford to lose anymore people in your group."

With that underlying threat, the skeleton gestured at the men with his staff. "All right, then, what'll it be this time? We don't have all night, you know."

It was true that Sangamon was the only one who'd actually been giving up blood to make sure that they didn't have to take the long way into the basement every night, and Harvey made sure to glance over at him and nod to acknowledge that. Though he had practically forgotten about how they'd have to give up one of their senses. He was going to have to hash that out with Scott.

The skeleton made a predictable entrance by suddenly forming together from a pile of bones in the boat, and Harvey just sighed. Strange, how this had become normal somewhere along the way.

The nicknames weren't even close to clever, but Harvey had managed to avoid earning one so far. He was almost certain that once the ferryman dubbed him something, it would have to do with his dual-faced nature.

When the question was asked, Harvey looked to Scott and tilted his head slightly. "What's it gonna be, kid?"

"Oh come on! We had maybe, what, two steps with which to drag our feet before our five-minute AOL trial ran out last time?" Scott didn't carry his argument further from there. He was pretty sure that getting into arguments with skeletons would lead to some pretty nasty places. Some of which might involve chess boards and Sir Lawrence Oliver. Eugh. Shiver.

And if he hadn't stopped on his own, the ferryman's reminder about the senses would have. Scott paused where he was, tilting his head right back at Harvey. He really wanted to call "not it". Like, really really wanted to. Losing senses: did not sound like fun. All he had to do was look at Harvey, though, to remember that losing a sense was probably not the worst thing that could happen to a human body. He couldn't even imagine what it must have been like for the guy to go through... well, that. It would be the noble thing to do to spare Harvey from having to lose anything more.

Then he realized that hey, losing an easy sense now meant he might get off without giving up a tougher sense later. Cha-CHING. Suckeeeeers.

"Can't do smell again, right?... Right. Thought so. But I can do without touching stuff, too, I guess," he offered, looking back between Harvey and the living science room display.

No pain sounded like a great idea right until you put a hand on a hot burner. Or tried to walk without tripping. Next stop, Larry, Curly, and Moe. They could give up something less stupid next time.

S.T. stepped up next to Scott, ready to grab him when -- not if -- he went over.

Oh-ho! Mouthy sounded pretty nonchalant about the whole ordeal, but they'd see if he changed his tune soon enough.

"Deal!" Charon brought his staff down against the bottom of the boat, sending an ominous sound echoing across the lake. "No refunds, but you've got yourselves a ferry ride! Come on, hop aboard!"

With only three people tonight, hopefully they could get their act together and climb into the boat faster than last time.

As it turned out, Scott did the right thing and offered to take the hit this time. Harvey realized that meant it would be his turn the next time that they did this, but he could figure out what would be the best sense to give up when he got to that point. Honestly, he'd probably also go with touch -- being given a reprieve from the constant pain he was in wouldn't be bad at all.

There were downsides, though. Scott could easily end up hurting himself without even meaning to, and he wouldn't even be able to feel the boat as he sat down in it. That had to be pretty disorienting.

Still, the kid had made his choice and it was done now, so Harvey just nodded to him in thanks and then moved forward to enter the boat first. He sat down at the very front, knowing that they would need to distribute their weight evenly to make sure the thing didn't tip over and toss them into corpse-infested waters.

S.T. was strong with the Force tonight, having predicted exactly what would happen once Scott lost all sense of standing on the ground and putting one foot in front of the other. Taking a step toward the boat was like walking with both feet asleep, only with the tingling replaced by a strangely palpable sense of nothingness. He got maybe two steps before he had to rely on S.T.'s prescient precaution. Man, not even being able to feel it when someone stopped you from falling over, while still having the sense of gravity pulling you forward — weeiiiiird.

"Oh mah gah' touthsh isth mo' i'por'ant than I 'hoooought, whyyyyyy," said Scott, trying to get a handle on forming words when he couldn't feel his lips or tongue. Somehow he managed to get into the boat with S.T's help. Again, he could feel the tipping side to side as they sat on the water, but not the wood beneath him. It was like sitting in the Wonder Woman jet. Only you could see it. And it was a boat. ...Okay, not the best analogy, but dang it, it was all he had to compare this to.

"A'ight let'sth go already," he said once they were all set, pointing out in the great dark beyond.

S.T. was used to compensating for people who didn't know how to move with a boat. Getting Scott in without dumping them all in was way easier than tilting pretty reporters into his arms and making it look like their fault. Not that he'd ever done that. He was willing to suspect they'd both had the same idea, that time, but asking would ruin the magic. Also, if she printed anything along those lines, Debbie would make faces at him over dinner for weeks. Possibly months. Or possibly not ever again.

He went to reach a hand down to trail in the water, and then thought better of it. Sure, the water didn't smell like anything on S.T.'s short list of poisonous aromatic compounds, now that he could smell it, but there was always magic. Like the talking skeleton driving this rig.

"Any hints on what we've bought here?" Anything he said would probably be more vague Landel-style mystic shit, but turning it upside-down might shake a few true things loose.

Charon snorted at Mouthy's dramatics. He didn't even have a tongue, and no one saw him carrying on like that! Sheesh, what a baby...

Well, at least they didn't waste much time in climbing into the boat. Once everyone was situated, the ferryman traded out his staff for a paddle, and he pushed themselves off of the dock. As they moved, the boat cut neatly into the dark lake's water, sending small waves across the surface.

"You just bought one trip across this here lake," he gruffly answered in response to the question. "Nothing more, nothing less. Even if I was stupid enough to explore the other side, there's no guarantee I'd see the same thing as you three. Tricky place, these caverns, heheh. "

The skeleton continued paddling, staring out onto the approaching shore. "And I'd keep my hand inside the boat if I were you, Stinky," he added without looking at him. "Not unless you wanna say hi to the lovely people who live in it, anyway." He was, of course, referring to the lifeless faces peering at them from the deep waters, but Charon barely paid them any mind.

Right. It wasn't like Scott could feel his mouth, either. Harvey raised an eyebrow as he watched the kid stumble into the boat with Sangamon's help and was relieved that he hadn't been picked for that job. Still, even with that in mind Harvey thought touch was the better choice over hearing or vision.

The boat took off and Harvey glanced toward their ferryman as he explained what they were in for. All this got them was passage across, and it sounded like once they reached the other side they'd be on their own. The skeleton didn't seem interested in offering them any more information than that.

After the cryptic statement made about the water, though, Harvey had to look over, and what he saw was a grouping of moving corpses -- not quite like the zombies, these ones were waterlogged and graying, with blank eyes staring up at them. He pulled back sharply and kept his gaze on the other occupants in the boat instead.

"So what's your stake in this?" he asked the ferryman, trying to ignore the bizarre fact that he was chatting with a skeleton. "Borrowing one of our senses for the night doesn't really seem worth the trouble. Unless Landel's got you on a leash too?" Or this was all for the sake of atmosphere. Just like the sphinx, this ferryman seemed more like a distraction than anything else.

"Thtupid is as sthtupid does," Scott grumbled in response to Skeleton Man. Maybe they were all stupid for coming here, but when the smart option was staying in your room and alternating between cowering and moping? Yeah, Scott was pretty tired of being smart.

As they made their way across the lake, S.T. and Harvey asked questions, and Scott shuffled around a bit where he sat, trying his best to get used to this all-encompassing numbness. If he was going to have to work with this for the whole night, he had to get used to it as fast as possible. He wasn't going to let this fail just because he had been doused with industrial strength anesthesia. Granted, that probably would be a pretty good excuse if they did fail. No one would blame him. Though, all the same, trying not to fail was probably the better option here.

"Yeah, you enjoying my touchinessth there or what?" Scott asked after Harvey spoke, squinting as he tried to get a better look at the approaching shore.

The dead bodies were freakier than the usual dead-two-headed-fish and soda bottle crap S.T. usually saw when he looked down, but the scary shit wasn't visible. As long as they didn't all decide to get up at once, it wasn't bad. They were making good time across the lake.

"Leash, definitely. Bet we can't persuade you to play hooky and come along." He didn't really want a bitchy talking skeleton sidekick, but the answer might tell them what Landel had over the guy. Maybe just the same one they all had. Wake up back here. Stolen senses instead of bacon and pancakes. Temporary pleasures.

Stinky wasn't the worst nickname he'd ever picked up, but he couldn't just let that stand. He smirked at Scott, and then leaned back, closing his eyes. He pulled a pen out of his pocket. Then spun it over one knuckle with an ease that could -- and had -- hijacked the attention of an entire Fortune 500 board meeting. Second verse, same as the first.

The fifth time, it flipped off his hand and went straight for Charon's collarbone, aiming to play xylophone from the inside on the ricochet.

"Trust me, when you've been dead as long as me, you become less concerned with going on crazy adventures and more content with just rowing a boat, playing cards with your spider pals, and scaring hapless slack-asses with someone else's voice every once in awhile," he told them. Having been reminded of Scott's payment, he scraped what was left of his bony fingers against the side of his skull, scratching an itch.

"It's a simple life -- er, unlife!" he added with a bark of a laugh. "Guess you could say I work here, but it's not exactly work when you're basically doing what you always do, am I right?"

Of course, then Stinky had to flick a pen right down his ribcage, until it got lodged against one of his pelvic bones. "Nice," he said with a hollow smile aimed at shot's source. "By the way, I've got the sweetest pet for you to meet sometime -- if you're not allergic to sea beasties, anyway. You'd love her. She's a riot at parties."

Finally, they reached the dock at the other shore, and the small boat came to a halt. "Looks like we made it!" he announced. "Can't guarantee safe passage every time, but, hey, that's life. Just try not to die tonight, yeah?"

Edited 2012-07-12 03:14 (UTC)

So basically, what the ferryman was saying was that he didn't care too much about the fact that he was stuck down in these caverns because he was dead and wasn't that interested in much anyway. But... playing cards with spiders? Harvey could only imagine that was meant to be literal, but he didn't want to ask.

Harvey was startled by the sound of Sangamon's pen bouncing against the skeleton's ribcage, and sent a sharp glance toward the man. Pissing off the guy who was giving them passage across a lake packed with hungry corpses and who knew what else? Not the best idea.

Luckily, it looked like that little act of rebellion hadn't upset the ferryman enough to make any drastic moves, and they reached the other end of the shore without a hitch. Harvey got off as quickly as he could and then nodded to the skeleton. "Don't worry, I'm pretty sure none of us are interested in doing that." They'd lost enough of their group already, although with any luck Jones and Peter weren't actually dead.

While Scott had been able to (mostly) ignore the corpses in the lake in favour of becoming more at ease with his new state of being, it was a lot harder to ignore the ones that littered the gray-black sand when they landed on the opposite shore. Mostly because a few of these ones stunk more. Not so many bleached skeletons on this end; these bodies were juicier.

"Blugh," said Scott, making a better effort of getting out of the boat than he had getting into it. If he got more used to letting his sense of gravity guide him rather than his sense of touch, he could move around a little bit easier. "'f anything imma not die just so I don't leave my body lyin' 'round here. Littering: don't do it, kids."

Aside from all the bodies, the most noticeable thing on this shore was the giant cliff face covered in funky symbols. In the rock were four thick, bloody doors that didn't look the slightest bit intimidating at all, oh no sir-ee. All four bore the same warning: "Three must enter, Three must leave."

"Y'know, I like this place more all th' time. First the sthkeleton tells us not to die, and now the doorsth too. It's like they're kinda sorta cheering us on," he said as he approached the wall.

He took a sidelong look at one of the bigger blood stains. "Or whatever."

S.T. grinned at Charon's attempt at a comeback. Wouldn't be the strangest thing at one of his parties. Or the only man-eater, though he knew better than to say that out loud even in the absence of any girls. Especially not Kraken-Jaws-Cher-Mermaid hybrids lurking just under the surface. All supposition, but around here, worst-case scenarios and flights of fancy tended to come true.

So he just climbed out of the boat and waited for Scott to finish his dramatic inscription reading. "Beats a guaranteed death match." The last few words were said through clenched teeth. He could only get so many words out without taking another breath. Why couldn't they have hit this side first when he'd lost his sense of smell? Putrescine was bad enough when he was in charge of the stinkbombs.

"Hey, Boney. Want--" Nope. He wasn't getting through the entire offer. No freebies for Bonehead. Then he leaned over and vomited. Half-digested steak blended in with the scenery. Between heaves, he looked up at Harvey and waved a hand at the doors. "Pick one."

The smell of rotting corpses was impossible for him to ignore, and while dealing with those zombies had prepared Harvey for that somewhat, these ones had probably been left to ferment for a while longer. He wrinkled his nose as he moved across the sand, noting one body that was clearly not human. So the monsters that got offed were dumped here, too?

Though that brought up the question of how it was decided whether someone's body ended up here or in the morgue. Maybe all of the bodies here were just for decoration, but unlike the skeletons, it was clear that these ones had been killed fairly recently.

It wasn't something that Sangamon had the stomach for, apparently. Harvey made sure to direct himself far away from that puddle of puke, although that almost caused him to stick his foot into one of the corpse's torsos. "Hey, hold it together, all right?" They couldn't really let the sight of some dead bodies throw them off, though the smell was pretty atrocious.

Harvey directed his attention to the doors. All four of them were decorated in a similar way (that is, carved into and blood-smeared), which meant that it was hard to pick between them. Did it even matter? There was no way to know the "right" answer here, so he was just going to have to choose at random.

The one closest was slightly to the left from the docks, and it seemed like as good a choice as any. "Let's pick door number two, I guess," he said as he started toward it. Was it just going to open for them once they got close enough? Harvey figured that was most likely, based on how everything else had worked here so far.

"Classy," said Scott, feeling his own stomach churn watching S.T. empty his on the beach. He didn't throw up himself, though, if only because throwing up and not being able to feel it would be super weird.

It looked like Harvey had the same idea he did. All four doors had the same warning, the same bloodstains, the same ominous overtones — why be picky? The second door was as good as the first as good as the third as good as the fourth. Either way, a lot of choppy stabby smashy stuff probably awaited them. Hopefully not death. Death was... Not good... And things.

"I guess yes," said Scott, unconsciously gulping as the three of them approached. Sure enough, the door opened with surprising ease once they got close enough. Getting back out once they were inside, however...

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Night 64: Underground Lake

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Sorry for the wait. ;A;

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