Night 65: Courtyard

[stellarregions]

[From here]

From his perch on the top of the wall, Gren had a pretty good view of the courtyard as a whole. It had been weeks since he'd been out here at night, but it looked about as unsavory as he remembered, if not intrinsically dangerous. Thankfully, the door to the cafeteria was within easy reach and didn't require crossing much of the yard itself.

"Looks safe," he called back to Hakkai, waiting to drop down onto the other side of the wall until he was sure the other man could make it over on his own. No point in scaling the same wall twice if he could avoid it.

Comments

[vinesofregret]

It took a little more effort than Hakkai would have liked to admit to get on top of the wall, but after one false start, he managed to haul himself up, perching carefully on the narrow width of the top, one hand gripping the edge below him. The courtyard looked... different at night. He couldn't quite pinpoint how or what, but it seemed more... sinister. But there wasn't any movement he could see, which was a good sign.

He gave Gren a small, quick smile. "Ready?"

[stellarregions]

"Yeah." He waited a moment longer, then let himself drop down into the courtyard. It was still quiet... if there was anything lurking around, they hadn't caught it's attention. And they were only a few yards from the cafeteria door. He waited for Hakkai to hop down from the wall before starting off in that direction.

"It's probably locked, but I know it can be forced open." He and Edgar had managed it once, he didn't think it'd be terribly hard to do it again.

[vinesofregret]

Hakkai followed, keeping his flashlight low to the ground - enough that he could see where he was going, but hopefully not enough for anything to spot them. He looked at the door, daring to shine is flashlight a little closer to the lock. It looked simple enough - if he had something to pick it with.

"Do you have anything I could use to pick this?" he said, keeping his voice low. "Otherwise I can force it easily enough, but that's probably noisier."

Though tonight he felt like anything that bled off a bit more of his power might be good, tonight.

[stellarregions]

"I don't, sorry. I don't have any experience picking locks." He'd never needed to, back home, and here, smashing them in seemed to work well enough.

"The shovel could probably take care of it, if nothing else." It would be noisy, though, and there was a chance he could mangle it without actually breaking the lock, thus ruining this particular avenue into the cafeteria. If that happened, they'd be out of luck, because there was no way he was going back into the Sun room.

[vinesofregret]

"Mm. I keep meaning to find something that'd work, and then getting distracted by other things." The comment was somewhat absent-minded, as he focused his attention on the lock. Normally Gojyo or Sanzo would just kick a door like this in - but they usually wanted to attract trouble, not avoid it. If he just used a little bit of energy, directed right at the lock...

He placed his hand flat against it, conjuring a bit of his power - and it was harder to do than usual, but somehow he managed - and sent it forward. He knew doing this at such close range was going to sting, though he still winced a little as the power backlashed against his hand. There was a very small, muffled explosion, and then he pulled his hand back, shaking it to try to make the stinging feeling go away. It had worked, though - there was a chunk of door the size of his palm missing, right on top of the lock. Despite everything that had gone wrong today, he couldn't help but smile a little at that accomplishment.

"There. Let's go." He pushed the door open just enough to step inside.

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