damned_institute | Day 56: Intercom, Late Evening

Despite the rough start and the heavier snowfall, the buses managed to stay on route and on schedule. With minutes to spare, they arrived at the gates of Landel's Institute, back to the waiting arms of the military. All pretenses seemed to drop at this point, and the soldiers again took on their patented gruff exteriors. Patients were filed out of the buses in an orderly manner, eventually being escorted to their rooms for dinner in much the same. There, as promised by the personnel, well-behaved patients found their purchases among their returned possessions. A few even found new faces, though whether they brought as much joy as bought goods remained unseen.

The woman manning the intercom seemed to have missed the notice about the day's trip as her announcement remained no different from the usual. "Attention all subjects and personnel," she said. "Lights Out will commence within the hour."

A pause.

"I repeat, Lights Out will commence within the hour. All personnel: please report to your stations. The General will begin his address once preparations are underway. Thank you."

The intercom clicked off.

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A trip almost entirely without note in terms of danger or new oddities, with safe passage at the end. Lunge made his way back to his room in a quiet reverie, brow furrowed as he re-ran his memories of the day and combed through them for anything of note: there was the book store to consider of course, but other than that it had been a largely fruitless day. Which didn’t sit at all well with Inspector Lunge, of course. Time wasting was a terrible habit to get into.

The book store, though- that was something he should have noticed more quickly. He’d anticipated a lack of local history books and, as Jones had noted, national newspapers- not an entire section. No general history books, travel books, nothing that would give away so much as a hint towards the context of Doyleton and the world they’d fallen into. Did they even know what year it was here? What decade? Or, more chillingly, did it even matter?

‘Artificial’. He’d resisted the idea at first, but now he was having trouble seeing Doyleton as anything but false. In that case, what kind of an illusion was this place? Was it all real in the sense of it almost being like a film set, with actors in the role of townspeople? There was also a good chance that it was all created from that mysterious computer on the third floor they’d heard, too, though Lunge disliked entertaining that possibility for too long. There was still so much more he needed to know before he could start making decisions about methodology, particularly when it potentially was so far-fetched.

When he arrived at his room, Dent was already lying on the bed- a strange choice, considering he'd been upright most every other time he'd arrived. Lunge considered it for a moment, then took a seat. "Were you injured last night or today?" That would be a reasonable conclusion to draw.

Not much time passed before Lunge arrived, not even enough for Harvey to pretend to doze. More than that, the man didn't assume that he wanted to be left alone, instead jumping into a conversation right off the bat. It was a marked changed from how their interactions had originally been, but Harvey realized that that was a good thing. He didn't really need the sleep in the end, since this place took care of that in its own unexplainable way, so he might as well respond to him.

"Last night," he replied, as he'd thought that was pretty obvious. How the hell would he have gotten himself so badly injured on the trip? It would have had to be through something accidental or a case of bad luck, and he wasn't that uncoordinated.

"We're still working on the basement," he said as he shifted his position, tensing his jaw when a twinge of pain ran through him. "We're almost at the end of it all, I think, but tonight's a rest night." A very much needed one, at that.

The more obvious of the two, then. The crease in Lunge's forehead deepened a touch as Dent explained his injuries further. Almost at the end of it... did that mean they hadn't yet passed through those enormous marble doors, with their careful engravings and indentations waiting to be filled by shield and, presumably, by sword? It would make sense if they were still facing the basement's challenges, given how many doors there were- and in spite of himself he found himself toying with relief at the prospect of having been brought halfway by pure chance, without having to suffer the injuries that Dent obviously was struggling with now.

"That seems a sensible idea," he agreed, nodding thoughtfully. "You don't know what you might find at the heart of it all. Be sure to tell me what you find, when you get to the end- I'd like to take a look in person, of course, but it sounds as though you're far closer than I am." That, and it would be helpful to know what they would be walking into when the time came; Lunge trusted his roommate's testimony to be solid and detailed enough for his liking, in that respect. "Do you have what you need to open the marble doors?"

In the end, Harvey ended up on his back, seeing how it was mainly his side that was sore and that way he could also rest his injured hand on his torso. Staring up at the ceiling, he continued to listen to Lunge's words, fully aware and yet physically fatigued after heading into town while bruised and burnt. "Yeah, I'll let you know," he responded. He didn't think it was going to be anything good in the end, but he wasn't cruel enough to keep the information to himself and then force Lunge to have to go through the same torture session.

Though from what Harvey knew of his roommate, chances were he would look into it even if he knew that there was life-threatening danger involved. The man seemed like the sort who paid attention to detail, and in this place that could get you killed. Granted, he was more or less the same way. Despite that, he took some satisfaction out of the fact that he'd made it through the basement faster than Lunge had. It was petty and pointless, which was why he kept the thought to himself.

"Yeah, we've got the sword and shield. I'm pretty sure Jones has them both." After himself, Jones was the one Harvey trusted most to keep those safe, so he was fine with that. He was curious about whether or not the man would be going to the meet-up tonight, but he'd find out soon enough. "And what did you have planned tonight?" Seeing how Lunge seemed to have put the basement aside for the moment, Harvey was curious to know what he had been up to.

Day 56: Intercom, Late Evening

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