Rita Mordio (
overlimit) wrote in
damned_institute2012-08-20 10:07 pm
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Night 65: Library
[from here]
Rita practically threw herself into the Library, waited for Skulduggery to follow, then slammed the door shut behind them when both were safely inside. She remained there for several moments, her hands pressed against the door as if to hold off a great force... but nothing of the sort came.
"Did we lose it...?" she wondered as she finally allowed herself to catch her breath. There was no sign of the creeping strands of hair, of the corpselike girl who appeared to control it... Maybe they were safe.
Rita practically threw herself into the Library, waited for Skulduggery to follow, then slammed the door shut behind them when both were safely inside. She remained there for several moments, her hands pressed against the door as if to hold off a great force... but nothing of the sort came.
"Did we lose it...?" she wondered as she finally allowed herself to catch her breath. There was no sign of the creeping strands of hair, of the corpselike girl who appeared to control it... Maybe they were safe.
no subject
"I don't think it was there," he answered, glancing at the door. "I heard that same sound a lot earlier today. Hallucinations. Lingering effects, most likely. If anything strange happened to you during the day, that would be why."
With his breathing at least marginally back under his control, Skulduggery began searching for the sticking book. "We made it into the library this time," he tossed back over his shoulder. "I'd call that progress."
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Well, that wasn’t what was important right now. Skulduggery was already scanning the shelves for the book, and Rita wasn’t going to trail behind. She walked over to join him, looking over the rows of books in case she spotted it before he did. “You remember where it was?” Of course, Rita had a good idea as to where it was, but it was more convenient to wait for the old man to find it first.
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Rather than respond to Rita's - frankly offensive - question, Skulduggery reached out and tried to pull the thick tome off the shelf. Just like the other day, the book slid out only halfway and stuck. Unlike the other day, the book triggered a rumbling sound rather like stone moving against stone, and the wall at the other end of the aisle started sliding open.
If Skulduggery could smile, there would have been a self-satisfied smirk on his face. As it was, the satisfaction was only evident in his tone. "Would you look at that? You really should have more faith in me."
no subject
Most of the enormous snakes that the institute housed remained outside in the fields, their bodies too long to work effectively in the narrow halls of the institute. But this wasn't any normal snake, even by Landel's standards.
Only one eye stared out from its head as the kida, colored a dark, blood red in color, started towards the pair. While it didn't seem to offer any immediate threat -- no fangs protruding from its mouth -- there was a different sort of danger hidden under its skin.
[Court]
no subject
As Skulduggery located and pulled down the book, Rita was still skeptical. There wasn’t any reason to expect that anything extraordinary would happen… but then it did. The wall moved with a rumble, revealing empty space behind it. A hidden room, or perhaps a secret passage… but before they could investigate further, something slithered out through the opening.
“Looks like you were on to something after all,” Rita had to admit, though neither she nor that monster was going to allow the old man much time to gloat over it. The mage unhooked her weapon from around her waist, brandishing her sword whip before the unusual-looking serpent. Whatever that hidden door led to, it looked like they were going to have to fight their way there.
no subject
He slowly turned to face the snake, noting its lack of fangs, as well as how the knowledge wasn't a great deal of comfort. If anything, it put Skulduggery more on-edge. He flashed the light behind the snake, making sure there was only one, and noticed an equally-worrying stream of something black behind it.
"Whatever's in there," Skulduggery told Rita quietly, "someone doesn't want us to find it. Also," he quickly added as the deep red color of the snake glinted in the flashlight's beam, "try not to touch it." The black substance it was oozing could very well be poison.
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Without fangs, there was really only one way that the snake could try to hurt them, and that was through constriction. Of course, its true purpose wasn't to win or survive at all, but that didn't stop it from moving toward the smaller target, Rita.
Once it got close enough, the snake reared up, intending to snap itself forward so that it could begin to wrap itself around the girl's slight form.
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The snake was approaching, and appeared to be in a striking position. Rita wasn't going to waste time - she struck first, lashing out with her whip. She didn't know how fast that creature could move, but she hoped her own strike would land before it could bite. At least, a bite was what she expected.
no subject
That didn't stop the detective from pulling another thick book off the shelf, keenly aware of his lack of any sort of weapon. And in the few moments he had time to plan, Skulduggery quickly assessed the potential of a knocked over bookshelf. Probably not lethal, but damaging enough that they could perhaps stun it and slip past. It was certainly worth a try if a close-up attack didn't work.
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But it was made for this, to give itself up to the fight for what would in the end be a much greater threat. There was some blood dripping from its toothless mouth, but that was ignored in time.
It slid forward again, with greater speed, to try and work its way around Rita's ankles. She would be much easier to wrap up if she was laying down.
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But even more unexpected was its quick recovery. It darted at her feet and wrapped around her ankles before she could react. The moment she felt it touch her skin, she remembered the black ooze, and realized she needed to get it away as quickly as possible. That could be poison!
"Get it off of me!" she cried, moving to shake the creature off... but with both of her ankles entangled in the serpent's long body, the movement only served to throw her off balance. She toppled to the ground, giving her legs a few sharp kicks, thrashing them against the ground to hopefully hurt the monster further.
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Without waiting to see if the blow had landed - or even if it had missed entirely and come down on Rita's ankle instead - Skulduggery dropped both the book and the flashlight and gripped Rita's arm, pulling her back along the floor. At the same time, he snapped his other hand up and whipped as much air as he could manage towards the snake. The creature was even less visible now that Skulduggery's flashlight was rolling along the floor, but enough light bounced off the mahogany shelves to illuminate the deep red color of its skin.
The detective's control of air might not be as powerful as normal, but the snake looked light enough that it might be sent flying. Either way, Skulduggery was ready to hoist Rita to her feet and run.
no subject
While the shelf shuddered and a few books came raining down among the monster, the shelf managed to stay standing. Still, the snake itself was dazed from the barrage of attacks, and was more than open to further assaults. The question was, would the two quit while they were ahead and run, or would they be tempted by the chance to down one of the institute's creatures?
no subject
Wind magic... Even in the confusion of battle, Rita took a moment to observe her companion's use of magic. It really was different from any technique she knew, though there were some familiar aspects.
The moment she was able, the mage scrambled back to her feet. The creature appeared stunned, but Rita took a few steps away to create some distance between them. She looked down at her ankles, where the creature had touched her, tugging her pant leg up to get a better look. "Damn it... is that thing poisonous?" There was no pain and no swelling, at least not at the moment, but she didn't want to take any chances. Washing the area was going to be her top priority - once that monster was out of the way, anyway.
no subject
No fangs meant, predictably, no bite. But there were plenty of snakes with poison in their skin, and the symptoms of those could be just as dangerous. "Is it feeling numb?" he asked. "Any difficulty breathing?"
He kept a wary eye on the snake. Still though it may be now, incapacitating it had felt much too simple, especially in light of what happened last night. As reluctant as Skulduggery was to retreat when they could now see the staircase beyond the sliding wall, a positive response to either of those questions meant getting to a sink, and possibly making a tourniquet.
no subject
While it was hesitant to go for a direct attack when it was clear that these two targets had firepower of their own, running was not part of its vocabulary. It either killed, or it died.
But the unstable shelf had certainly given it an idea. Not completely mindless, the kida backtracked and started to move down the aisle directly parallel to the one that the two patients were situated in. If it was able to reach the other side of the shelf and ram it hard enough, it might be able to knock it down onto them.
no subject
Instead of preparing for another strike, the creature slithered away in the opposite direction, seemingly retreating. “Looks like it gave up,” Rita commented. She just hoped it wasn’t going to attempt a sneak attack later on. For now, she had a moment to tend to her leg. The nearest sink was too far to bother; she could just use a water spell to rinse the skin.
Unknown to Rita, however, she was beginning to experience symptoms of the poison – just not the sort she was expecting. Before she could begin to cast, a voice audible only to her echoed through the library, its words not quite clear, though there was something familiar in the tone. Immediately, she stiffened, and began to look around. “Did you hear that?” she asked Skulduggery. “Someone’s here.”
If there was someone else in the library, they’d have to warn him or her about the monster. Hopefully that snake’s retreat wasn’t just a change in targets…
no subject
The air currents, however, were mostly still, disturbed only by the snake's current and past movements. The area over where Rita had tried to kick it off her ankle was still settling, as was the path Skulduggery had dragged her along. But there was nothing else in the library.
"Apart from us and the snake," he replied, turning to face where the creature was moving on the other side of the shelves, "there's nothing here. What did you hear?"
Were hallucinations a side effect of snake poisons? That, Skulduggery did not know. But it was possible the snake had retreated not because it was a diversion, or giving up, or planning a surprise counterattack; maybe its work was done. It wasn't hard to imagine life-threatening hallucinations in a place like this.
no subject
Not giving its own physical state any consideration, the snake started to slam itself bodily against the shelf, which sent long, echoing banging noises throughout the library. The shelf itself started to shudder in place, sometimes teetering when the snake hit it particularly hard.
If it found the right spot, or hit it with the right amount of force, it might just be able to knock the shelf onto them. As things stood, some more books were already raining down from the impact.
no subject
"A voice. It was kind of hard to make out, but--"
"Rita? Is that you?" This time, she heard it loud and clear. And that voice, it could only be...
"Estelle!?" Eyes wide, Rita scanned the room, looking for some sign of her friend. The voice sounded close... Somewhere in these rows of books, Estelle was there!
Of course. It should have been obvious. If Estelle were to also be a prisoner of the institute, the first place she'd go would be the library. She must have heard Rita's voice while looking at the books. It all made sense.
A nearby shelf began to rattle as something banged against it. Was it that monster...? If Estelle was around, it might have decided to attack her instead. Rita had to find her! "Estelle!" she called out in alarm. Without further warning, she broke into a run. Somewhere around these shelves... she had to find her!
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Hallucinations it was, then. Skulduggery would have to be careful not to touch the snake's skin himself.
Weakness from hunger was finally starting to catch up to him; Skulduggery wasn't able to get out of the way in time before one of those books caught him on the head. He stumbled back against the opposite shelves in a daze, the pain so much more intense than he remembered, before dragging himself together and getting out of the aisle.
The creature would be in the aisle parallel to where they'd just been. Skulduggery grabbed another book off a shelf on the way and set fire to its pages, trying to ignore the throbbing hum in his skull. The flames combined with the blunt impact might be enough to kill the thing.
no subject
If the timing was right, it could catch him as he rounded the corner, and constrict him while there wasn't anyone else around to help him get untangled.
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"Rita! I'm so glad to see you," she said as she took Rita's hands into her own. The gesture was so familiar, and yet Rita could barely believe it.
The mage was speechless for a moment, and could only manage an awkward "Yeah, um... me too," in reply. Could this really be happening? Rita had feared that Estelle, and everyone on Terca Lumireis, would perish before she could return to help them. But Estelle was right here, and for a moment, nothing else mattered. Even if their whole world was doomed, or if Rita could never go back, at least Estelle was safe.
Skulduggery, the snake, and the smell of burning pages couldn't have been farther from her mind just then. None of it even registered.
no subject
As the last few books rained down onto the floor behind him, Skulduggery crouched next to the shelves, just outside the parallel aisle, put the burning book on the ground, and waited with a hand outstretched, feeling the air. It was difficult to concentrate with the headache and the slight haze enveloping his mind, but Skulduggery could still make out enough to tell when the snake would be coming around the corner. Any second now...
There.
He shoved the book out into its path, hoping to catch the snake off-guard.
no subject
The burning of the book hadn't alerted it, as it had no way to smell, and so the makeshift weapon slid right into its body before it could react. The snake started to burn up as well, and while it didn't screech or make any pained noises, the way its body thrashed showed that it was most certainly in agony.
Death would be coming soon, and with that, the patients would have a new threat to contend with.