Night 73: FITNESS/WELLNESS CENTER (THIRD FLOOR)

[lighthearted]

[From here.]

After stepping through the door, Sora didn't immediately find himself in another room. There was a few seconds where he felt like he wasn't really anywhere, or in some in between place, before he staggered out into...

Some kind of gym?

He blinked his eyes a few times, trying to dispel the dizziness. Sora had traveled by unorthodox means before, so he wasn't as thrown off as he could have been. Besides, the institute had decided to warp them around before, so this wasn't exactly new.

"So this is the third floor?" Somehow he'd been expecting something more... intense. Not an empty gym. But Landel probably didn't want them to arrive anywhere close to his actual location, so it kind of made sense.

He glanced back at the pad that they'd stepped off of, which glowed with a purple light. "So we have to find more of those, I guess." But for now, there were some doors they could go through, and that was really the only path available to them. Seemed pretty straight-forward.

Comments

[his_legacy]

Link managed a small smile when Sora so vibrantly described the residents of the 'Hundred Acre Wood' as he called it. And Tsurugi could travel forward in time? Link had never heard of anything of the sort. All of the legends of Hylian time travel had to do with returning to the past.

He pushed those musings from his mind, however, as the group emerged into the fitness room. Link himself couldn't guess what the odd machines were for, but he was satisfied in the fact that they seemed to be alone.

"That seems to be the case." He moved quietly throughout the room, looking for more similar panels.

"Though it looks like we will need to exit into the hallways to find them."

[knightspirit]

Kyousuke wasn't particular disoriented by process of teleporting. Not that he was entirely used to it, but Saint Elder City had pads like these, too. The only difference was, those had set locations, and apparently, these didn't.

"So it was a group of forest animals?" Kyousuke asked in surprise, though it was mild at best; he'd seen similar things. "I've never seen anything like that, but I do know an android that looks like a talking blue bear. I've seen dinosaurs, too, and in the world of the story there was a talking dragon."

He smiled faintly as he talked about. With each new place they went, they made new friends, new connections, and through them, discovered more about themselves. It had been a difficult journey, to be sure, but in the end, the good outweighed the bad.

But they couldn't stand around reminiscing here. They had a job a to do. The boy pushed open one of the doors, leading the way into the hallway.

[ to here ]

[fourstonewalls]

[from here]

At the top of the escalator, everything lurched. Just like it had when the doors had gone haywire. Lana swallowed, hard, and kept her dinner down. None of her associations with that sensation were good ones, but she knew she was being irrational. Instead, she looked around.

They were standing on a glowing platform, in the middle of a small, nicely-appointed fitness center. It was about the same size as the library, but until they made it out of the doors, she wasn't confident that their location would match the map. Random teleportation would fit Landel's modus operandi, and it would make this a lot more difficult.

"Well, we're not going to find anything here. I don't know enough about electronics to try anything with this device," she added, stepping down from the platform, "so unless you're actually an expert in teleportation devices, I think we should keep moving."

[ryuuzaki]

"Ha." His laugh was short, dry, and bitter; it couldn't be mistaken for anything but ironic. If he had been allowed to address this situation from the outside, with his usual resources, he might have made short work of it. "No. No, I'm not. You're all right?"

He glanced around the room as he stepped down from the platform. It appeared to be nothing but a normal exercise area, the kind you might find in any hotel or office. Next, he retrieved the gun from its holster.

The presence of the pad itself, as part of an implied series, was interesting, though. Was this how the ordinary users of this level of the Institute were expected to travel? That seemed counterproductive, but security measures were often inconvenient. The task force members had sometimes had trouble with his own security at headquarters. So, were the pads a security measure, or were they there merely to make things more difficult for any patients who were able to find their way to this level? It had taken long enough. If it had depended on his own interest in English poetry, it might have taken forever.

What had happened at the top of the escalator had felt just like using the rings, something he never enjoyed. Was it possible that the rings themselves were a sham--that they only triggered hidden pads? The technology was very advanced, and it was easy to think of a few ways to extrapolate the concept so that it explained their earlier experiences of teleportation.

The problem with this theory, he thought, was that when it involved doors, you could assume that something was hidden under the threshold or in the frame, but when it involved any random location, you had to assume that the entire floor of every location in the Institute, as well as the ground in Doyleton and in some other places outdoors, was pressure-sensitive and concealed a similar apparatus. It didn't seem likely.

"I don't know any more than you do. We're looking for more pads like that one, some kind of device that will shock us if we're carrying metal, and eventually, some kind of security system. I don't know if we should take the first pad we come to, or if there's a specific sequence, but without any further direction...." He finished with a small shrug.

As they moved through the door on the right, he didn't say anything else.

[To here.]

[rebonding]

[From here]

Well, this was decidedly anticlimactic.

Korra was tense at first, eyes and flashlight darting around the room for a sign of anything out of the ordinary. The only strange things were the various machines, and they weren't even dangerous. The tension in her shoulders eased.

They seemed to be in the clear, for now.

[thecamellia]

It was true they would were almost guaranteed to end back up in bed when their time ran out, but that didn't exactly help them map out the floor plan any easier. If they happened to step on a teleportation device and ended up in some random place, what if they couldn't find their way back?

At the very least, they could help add to the map other people were making. Hopefully...

"We'll just have to do our best," she ventured as they made their way to the door at the top of the escalator. Passing across the threshold left her with the same feeling she'd felt using the rings, which she wasn't expecting, not just from walking through a door.

Urgh... was this a warp pad at work? When she looked down, she realized it had to be true.

"Did it... did we already go somewhere?"

[rebonding]

"I don't know..." Korra glanced back, frowning. She wasn't going to worry too much about it now, but it might come up later, too.

"There aren't any more in here, though." She crossed the room, trying one of the doors. "Unlocked."

[thecamellia]

"That's strange... Maybe that's why no one's ever found any proper stairs leading up to this place."

Gingerly, she stepped off the pad, looking around the room. It looked like some kind of workout room, not unlike the kind a person would normally find in a hospital or some kind of rehabilitation wing. Unremarkable, for basically being the front door leading to a whole new level of the building.

Tsubaki felt vaguely uncomfortable, like the other shoe was dangling over there head, ready to drop. "Do you see anything?" she asked, coming closer to where Korra stood.

[rebonding]

"Could be." She took another look around, still suspicious.

"I don't think so... I'd like to think something would have jumped out at us by now, but... You ready to move forward?" There were two doors in this room; did they go to the same place? If not, they'd have to turn around and check the other.

[thecamellia]

There was always a "but," wasn't there?

"According to the picture someone left on the bulletin, we should almost be exactly over top of the library. From what I remember, they said the next two rooms on our right are empty," Tsubaki said, speaking quietly.

At least she now understood why they'd drawn arrows connecting the door to a warp pad...

"I'm ready," she added for Korra's benefit. "I'll follow your lead."

Splitting up wasn't a safe choice with how much of an unknown the third floor still was, and she didn't have any particular direction in mind worth suggesting. If Landel's office was up here, she couldn't remember how she'd gotten to it. One minute they'd been on the second floor, and the next Landel's teleport powers had taken them straight there...

[rebonding]

Once again, Korra only nodded, and she pulled open the door to reveal the hallway. Splitting up hadn't even crossed her mind. If they were going to be bouncing around up here, there was no way she was leaving Tsubaki alone.

[To here]

[firewhichrefines]

[[from here]]

It was the same faintly sickening sensation as the ring's teleportation, and Sasuke had to be grateful that it hadn't gotten any worse than the last time they had used it. He was much less pleased with the glowing purple ground beneath their feet, though -- like a shining target to alert any potential aggressors -- and leapt off it nearly as soon as the room steadied, senses alert.

Said room appeared to be an empty workout room, thoroughly unthreatening and without any further shining purple pads.

"It felt exactly like the ring," he muttered, turning a frown on Aidou that was less directed and more a general expression about the situation. "But there was no blood sacrifice. Is this kind of technology common?"

[idolism]

Resetting the ring to their newest location was a logical conclusion (that is, of course, if they encountered something worthwhile to justify it), but Aidou wasn't quite ready for blood to perfume the air right beside him; he turned toward Sasuke, inhaling, before the boy made contact with his arm and the doorway loomed ahead of them.

No way of turning back now. Whatever would happen would happen, the cost of risk and benefit.

He closed his eyes as they crossed the threshold, not to blind himself out of fear but more to let his other senses draw a picture for him. The sharp, sweet smell of blood let him know exactly what Sasuke had done the moment the uncanny shiver in his gut ceased, and he opened his eyes to find an unoccupied room and his feet centered on something that certainly didn't belong in the natural world.

The vampire stepped off of it with about the same level of displeasure, eyes narrowed. For the moment, the symbol was of far more import than where they had potentially ended up. The person who had left the drawing on the bulletin had depicted the pad in the exact same way, in the exact same spot, but confirmation of its existence wasn't exactly reassuring.

As he circled around the teleportation pad, almost glaring with the intensity of his stare, he snorted. "Not where I'm from. This should be outside any human power."

[firewhichrefines]

Aidou's sudden tension didn't go unnoticed, but the reason wasn't clear until he commented on human powers as if they were utterly separate from him -- which, to be fair, they were. It was easy to forget that Aidou was something that required blood to function in a way completely different from humans; Sasuke could only assume that he'd been taking care of it without compromising their goals.

Not that this room made their goals any clearer. He eyed the glowing pad again once it was clear that the room was empty. "It's possible in my world, but it needs summoned animals to work."

And no average summons, either, but this likely wasn't the time for a detailed explanation of kuchiyose. He circled to the other end of the room, avoiding treadmills and weight racks by the dim glow of the pad.

"There's nothing unusual here beside that pad," he said finally from the other end of the room, turning instead to the door. "Did you figure anything out about it?"

Implied: if not, then they should move on.

[idolism]

Though the power that granted the rings and the devices their teleportation capability was unfamiliar to him, the noble could make some educated guesses. He supposed if these ones were connected to set destinations and not merely compelled to send people any which way, then stepping back on the pad might take them back to the escalator...

It was all a bit too easy. Another game to be played.

He looked up with a sniff. "Your vampires must be very different creatures." Summoned animals were familiar to him as well, but they usually fell within the realm of vampiric power, too. Being so long in Landel's Institute kept him from being so horribly offended by the implication that others could intrude on their circle of influence that he wanted to pick a fight about it, however. They had another whole floor to think about.

Satisfied that they had both surveyed the room, he strode over to where Sasuke stood. "Only that it's an aggravation," he answered. "But since we ended up in the same place the others did, I expect that one must lead in only two directions at the most. Hard to say with the others. I hope you're ready to be catapulted into any odd place Landel decides?"

[firewhichrefines]

"... there are no vampires in my world." Sasuke gave Aidou a sidelong glance, torn somewhere between amusement and irritation that the assumption ran so completely to a human lack of ability. Orochimaru was the closest thing to a bloodsucker that Sasuke had encountered, and even he didn't literally drink blood, despite his tendency to bite members of his village. "Summoning contracts are signed by shinobi."

And honoured by the animals in question with varying degrees of respectfulness. Manda lacked any, even for his main summoner, but there were plenty of snakes in the power structure that were more reliable.

In any case -- summoning was well out of range of the miniscule amount of chakra he had available to him here. More important was the confirmation that the pads were as likely to work like the ring as they were to work like the time the Institute's doors themselves had lost all sense of time and space, pitching them into places at random.

Still -- "Hasn't that been happening all along? We'll handle it."

Tone dry, he pushed the closest door open.

[[to here]]