damned_institute | Night 55: Entry Room

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Night 55: Entry Room

[From here.]

Even with the change in staff, the Entry Room looked the same as it did during his first nighttime visit, save for the lack of Mele and her conjured fire. Oh, thinking about her brought back a twinge of guilt- knowing how the town was at night, she surely wouldn't approve of his heading there, even if he was in good company. Well, he couldn't sit in his room forever, and there was no guarantee the rooms were safe- after all, that was where the nurses collected people for the Sleep Studies. Besides that, he'd not been outside of the Institute's walls at night on his own volition. It was high time he changed that.

He frowned to himself in the darkness. Now that he had his body, what would he do with his time at night? He was still no closer to rescuing Dorothy or any of his friends from Wizard Landel's brainwashing, and the General had hinted that things would only get harder from there on out. He knew they had to be stopped, but how? And what could he do? He wasn't a fighter like Depth Charge, or a witch like Mele; he was not a doctor or professional or even someone with a working brain. The fact that he was seemingly useless was what grated on him the most. However, if there was anything the Scarecrow knew, it was that he couldn't give in. Even if it took him forever, he'd think of something. He had to!

The Scarecrow swept the room with his light before heading in, trailing along the wall for safety's sake. "So you've been to town at night?" he asked. "Aside from the time we were left there?" There was also the time the doors were enchanted, but there was a chance not everyone had ended up there that night.

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The two men weren't alone for long. There was a movement in the shadows near the front entrance not long after they started into the room, from one of the corners the flashlight had missed. From out of the shadows stepped Sam - though, at first glance, he didn't appear to be much of a threat. It was hard for a man in a frumpy black teacher's jacket to look that threatening.

He did look rattled, though. He was not looking forward to doing his job tonight, especially not with someone new calling the shots. To say that he was a little worked up with the stress was an understatement. Sam could already feel his blood threatening to boil - literally.

Which was why he wasn't going to have much patience for these patients if they didn't turn straight back around. "Hey!" he said with a slight hiss in his voice, holding up both hands. "What are you guys doing here? Do you know how dangerous it is out this way?" His wide grey eyes were half pleading, half filled with frustration. "You're gonna get yourselves hurt real bad, or worse." The emphasis seemed to fall heavily on the "or worse" part.

Here was hoping these clueless-looking idiots would actually take his advice. Otherwise, he wasn't going to be held responsible for whatever happened to them.

"No, I wasn't around for that. I had one of those rings--" Carter was cut off by another man suddenly appearing in the darkness. He wasn't wearing the traditional (well, the new traditional) Landel's costume but that was all right, he knew some people had other outfits too. He seemed like a nice guy, trying to warn them off, but Carter wasn't some greenhorn private.

"Don't worry, we've been out there before." He displayed his crowbar proudly. "And we've got protection. It's real neighborly of you, but we'll be fine." He tried to walk around the black-coated man, assuming he wouldn't do anything but complain in order to stop them.

Oh, so his ring actually did take him to town? The only time the Scarecrow had seen one of the rings used was when he'd broken one himself- Depth Charge's- but it hadn't taken them anywhere. Well, it might have, but as far as he could recall, he'd found himself in bed immediately after shattering the jewel. Maybe it wasn't a fault in Depth Charge's ring at all- maybe they did work as promised, but he'd broken it too late. That did make sense, even if the timing seemed oddly coincidental.

As the Scarecrow filed that tidbit away as something to mention to his roommate later, a man stepped from the shadows. Another patient? He wasn't dressed like one, but he certainly didn't look like one of the guards or a witch, either. His warning seemed friendly enough, though. "Yes, that's awful kind of you to worry," the Scarecrow agreed, following Carter's lead around the stranger. "We know there are risks out there, but we'll be careful. Honest."

Sam could have laughed at their answers. In fact, he did - in a breathless, disbelieving kind of way.

Were these two for real? He was clearly very agitated about this danger he was warning them of. Even if they felt like they could face it, the least they could do would be to act like they were worried about whatever the danger might be. But no. No, these two were ready to just waltz into whatever Sam the Good Samaritan (for all they knew) was so intensely worked up about with smiles on their faces and thoughtless reassurances falling from their lips. They didn't even know. They didn't even know.

Well then, Sam supposed he had no choice but to enlighten them.

"Oh I really don't think you've got protection, friend." As the man with the crowbar passed him, Sam made a subtle move with his hand, bringing it into range of the crowbar. If he got it just in range enough, a spark would leap from the end of Sam's finger to the bar, then creep up through the metal and into the man's hand. The unarmed man wasn't quite in range yet, and so Sam sent him a psychic projection instead, hoping to hit, but knowing the distance attack was less accurate.

In combination with his stress levels, Sam's attack attempts set off a bright, smoking "KKRAK" from the back of his elbow, causing him to flinch sharply and barely hold in a shout. The flare was gone quickly enough, thankfully, but damn if it didn't still feel like it was burning.

Regardless of his own pain, there was guaranteed to be a reaction from the men now, whether it was to their own pain or to the flare from Sam's body. He flashed them an unstable grin.

"Still think you know the risks, guys?"

[OOC: If you choose to have the described attack work on your character, you get to pick which body part to ignite on your character's body (except feet; don't ask).]

Right as the man in black was reaching out to him, Carter swung the crowbar back onto his shoulder, unwittingly protecting himself from a direct attack. The loud crack made him jump and scurry back several steps, taking himself further out of accuracy range.

"Hey! You're on fire!" The flare was gone before Carter could do more than gape. The man seemed surprisingly calm about the fire, even a little gleeful. Carter had set himself on fire dozens of times and he still tended to react with far more screaming and panic when flames began to dance at his sleeves.

An odd being standing around guarding an important area, sparking from odd places and making strange noises...Carter's mind worked uncharacteristically fast and abruptly came to the only logical conclusion. He pointed his finger at the man and dramatically declared, "You're an evil robot!"

[Totally rolled a d7 to see if he'd been set ablaze. You got lucky this time, strawman.]

As intentional as it might have seemed for the Scarecrow to dodge Carter's scurrying by falling on his rear after a few steps backward, it was simply a startled reaction to the sharp crack from the newcomer. Wait, had that been a spark? The flame was gone before the Scarecrow could be sure, but it had certainly looked that way.

He blinked- no, he was definitely seeing things. What he wasn't imagining was the way the stranger was talking, which seemed more threatening by the second. The thought that he might have been bewitched just as Mele had crossed his mind, but was interrupted as Carter declared him to be a robot- not just any robot, but an evil one. The Scarecrow knew very little about robots, aside from that it was a term used to describe mechanical beings like the Tin Man. The stranger looked human enough, though. Perhaps it was a human skin, much like his own.

"He certainly doesn't look like a robot," the Scarecrow said, gathering himself from the floor and moving to Carter's side. "He might be one of the brainwashed patients, though."

Though Sam knew he had gotten a reaction from just his own flare-up alone, he was still frustrated at having missed both his marks. And now they were calling him a robot - a robot? Really? Who were these people? Maybe they really were mental patients, regardless of what Landel had explained.

In any case, the frustration caused another brief flare, and this one did cause him to grunt louder this time as it blasted from his lower left arm and out the end of his sleeve. Again, the flare was easy enough to get under control while it was still small, but it did leave some nasty burns on his arm and hand.

"I'm not brainwashed!" Sam snapped at the unarmed man, his good cheer seeming to snap away like the snuffing of a candle. With a growing snarl, he added: "And I'm not a robot. Just very, very easy to piss off." And unfortunate enough to have a way to manifest that feeling physically.

And with that, he ran at the unarmed man, hoping to get close enough for a guaranteed hit this time. "Just leave the fuckin' room the way you came! That is all you have to do! How hard is that?!" he shouted gutturally, reaching for the man's hand and preparing a spark. If that failed, he was already preparing to channel his next flare-up through his hand, at least wanting to singe the man if he couldn't set him ablaze.

The robot's furious claims just made Carter more certain of his accusation. Miss Aigis was almost identical to a human and she acted just like one. She even had a human girl's personality and made Carter question the boundary between real people and really good imitations of them. But he had no such qualms here. This was a real robot, and apparently one that was breaking down pretty badly if those fires were any indication.

Also he was attacking Carter's new friend. That wasn't good. As the robot ran at him Carter ran after it, crowbar raised to strike. The head looked like a pretty good target, he could smash its robot brain and stop the rest of it from moving.

After all, it was just a robot. You couldn't kill a machine. You could just break it.

Before the Scarecrow could even react, the stranger had completely lost all of his cordial appearance, snapping menacingly as he took offense to what had been said about his being either a robot or brainwashed. Stunned, the Scarecrow failed to react quickly enough as the man lunged toward them- he found his hand grabbed. What came next was even more of a shock.

First was a painful sensation (and he was sure it was pain this time), then his right arm burst into flames. Fire! But how? He was fairly sure that human bodies didn't burn the same way one made of straw would, but there really wasn't time to dwell on it when the blaze was crawling along his lower arm. It was one thing to be unfeeling, knowing his body was burning but only because he saw it doing so; it was something else- something far more terrifying- to be able to feel the flames eating through him.

After that, there was unbridled panic. "I'm on fire!" the Scarecrow shouted, pulling away from the conjurer as he flailed. "Help, I'm on fire!"

"Kinda the idea!" Sam growled as the (soon to be literally) unarmed man shouted in pain. Just as he pulled away, however, the other man caught up with him. Not being a trained fighter, Sam couldn't avoid the blow fast enough, especially not from behind. The crowbar slammed across his back and skull, causing some major hurt and possible cracking of bone.

Sam was stunned big time, and with the loss of control over himself and his motor functions, he thus could not control what the stress and anger were bringing out in his body. Sam breathed hard and coughed, trying to fight the burning as he tasted blood in the back of his throat, but he couldn't. He let loose a room-shattering cry then as his fire blazed brightly from both hands and his torso, shooting out from his sleeves and the collar of his shirt. His attacker wasn't likely to be singed from that angle, but damned if he wasn't going to be scarred by the sight of melting, sizzling flesh, unless he had a particularly strong stomach.

A direct hit! Yeah, boy! Carter was about to try another strike when Frank's arms burst into flames and the thrill of triumph vanished.

"Roll on the ground! You have to smother it!" he called out, running over to try and help Frank put himself out. He'd been so concerned about hitting the robot that he'd totally forgotten about its laser eyes.

Carter tried to get Frank down and slapped at the flames on his arm, far less concerned than his friend. He was a brilliant demolitions man but he was also kind of an airhead, which led to many instances of 'wait, did that say -ene or -ane on the bottle?' or sticking his cuff into a bunsen burner. Compared to evil robots putting out a self-immolation was a relatively soothing task.

He didn't notice the black-clad being's meltdown until he was overwhelmed by a horrible, yet depressingly familiar scent. That wasn't the smell of metal and oil on fire. Burning metal was sharper on the nose and Carter actually enjoyed it, since it meant he'd done his job right. This smell was acrid, slightly sweet yet nauseating, and one that Carter had only found in brief moments before he'd turned his face away from the destruction he'd wrought and fled off into the darkness.

It was the smell of burning flesh.

Carter stared and felt a growing wave of sickness well up inside him as he watched the robot...the man...burn himself down like the end of an old candle. What was happening, what was this person? What had he done?

In his panic, the Scarecrow hadn't thought to try smothering the fire or looking for a stray bucket of water- his mind had only been on the fact that he was burning and feeling it. Luckily, Carter was there to help, taking down the wizard before running to the Scarecrow's aid. Even with both of them trying to slap out the fire, it continued to burn. Was this how he was going to die? It seemed like a cruel joke for him to be a vulnerable man of flesh-and-blood, only to meet his end in one of the few ways that could truly ruin him in his straw form.

There was a sudden moment of clarity for the Scarecrow as the horrible smell filling the room was gone, the pain in his arm no longer noticeable, even though it was clearly still ablaze. He blinked- the clever little thing! It was odd to think of something that robbed him of his senses as useful, but it had chosen to activate at just the right moment. The Burning Man was down- now was their chance to make a break for the door!

The Scarecrow leapt to his feet, giving Carter's arm a tug. "Let's go!" After a short sprint around what was left of the Burning Man, he reached the door, giving the knob a try. "Drat! Locked!" Unlike the ones in the hallways, a few hurried hits to the lock with his flashlight got no results. The entrance was clearly made of tougher stuff.

Worried their attacker might recover at any second, the Scarecrow headed for one of the exits to the side. "Come on! This way!"

[To here.]

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Night 55: Entry Room

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