Night 58: Janitor's Closet

[threepwood]

[From here.]

The door creaked open ominously, completing the perfect picture of potential peril Guybrush had imagined the storage room would be. It wasn't until Maya's light hit the inside of the room that his fears were set aside temporarily, his curiosity piqued: revealed in the beam were the contents of the room, everything only illuminated for a moment before being swept into the darkness again. Though visible for only a second, several things had immediately caught his keen eyes. Oh, if only his pants worked.

"I'm excited even if this isn't the room we're looking for," Guybrush said with a grin, tantalized by what he'd seen. He got to his feet and wandered in, despite the fact he didn't have a light. He found out almost immediately that it wasn't his best idea: his foot hit some of the clutter in the floor, sending the Mighty Pirate™ downward with the grace of a sack of fake doubloons being tossed across a cabin.

His fall was interrupted by the intercom, which buzzed to life in the hallway in a similar way to the radio. Also like the radio, it held no good news: the military apparently had a traitor among them, and the patients who had been forced to work for Landel were refusing to do just that. If they had a name, they could turn it in and be rewarded; otherwise, they'd face the consequences- probably not just those not turning in the name, either.

"I wonder what other good news we'll get tonight," Guybrush said grimly, picking himself off the floor.

Comments

[selfnighted.livejournal.com]

Excited? What—

... "Be care—" The rest of whatever belated warning she had been about to vocalize was drowned out by the interruption from the good general. Just as well, really; words couldn't have prevented Threepwood from falling, could it?

Interesting, all the same, Maya thought as she slowly approached Threepwood to check him over for injuries with the flashlight while she listened. One, Threepwood seemed to be fine. Two, it appeared matters were breaking down for the poor general. Oh, how her heart wept. Typical of him to word what he wanted to accomplish in the vaguest of terms. On the other hand, he might simply have been talking to the alleged traitor, and not to the patients at all. Maya had, after all, deduced earlier this evening that the staff had no handheld communicators with which to receive their orders.

"That the runaway has opened an escape route, perhaps," Maya suggested in response. "Getting slovenly, are they not? Are your batteries here?"

[threepwood]

"That actually would be good news," Guybrush said, starting to look around for the batteries. Amidst the stray rags and bottles of cleaner were several items he considered as potentially useful, more than he could ever hope to carry in his sash: several signs, a step ladder, cans of paint, lengths of pipe, and—

"Hah! And Elaine says wandering blindly isn't a practical method for solving problems." He was talking more to himself than to anyone in particular- 'anyone in particular' being Maya, given that she was the only other person in the room. The batteries sat collected in a box on the shelf nearby. Tucking three pairs into his pockets, he started to unscrew the end of his flashlight, only to catch sight of two new ones sitting near the battery box. He smiled, taking one as he tossed his old light behind him; it landed unceremoniously in the cans on the floor, the metal of the flashlight clanging loudly against the containers. "You know, my old one had a dent in it, anyway. Better upgrade while I can."

Mission accomplished, he put a few things into his pillowcase bag for good measure: a roll of duct tape, an extension cord, a can of WD40, and a hammer. He had only a vague idea how he would use them— though what of them were actually used for was lost on him— but he followed the mantra that it was better to take something and not need it than leave it behind, only to discover it was the one thing he could have used in a very specific situation, and that he'd have to walk all the way back to get it. When walking back meant trekking through hallways in a spooky asylum at night, his decision seemed even more sound.

Treasures hoarded away into his sack, he turned back to Maya. "Well, I got what I came for. And then some. What's our little game of chance got in store for us, now?"

[selfnighted.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Perhaps Maya could do with a few of the batteries herself. She stepped up to liberate a few—only so much could fit into her trouser pockets; a pity, but she didn't imagine needing any more in the immediate foreseeable future. It would have been a pleasure if she didn't need to come back here for a time, but she would just have to make do.

When she turned around, she found Threepwood putting things into a pillowcase. She'd have to keep that little trick in mind, it seemed, if she had need of carrying something larger than a little battery. "Were you looking for a few things in particular?" she responded.

This closet did seem to be a small storehouse of sorts, but she couldn't imagine pulling things willy-nilly off the shelves without a plan for what to do with them. She hadn't seen what he'd put into the pillowcase bag, but he seemed glad to have them— "Building something? We can look for other rooms to pillage."

[threepwood]

Anything in particular? "Well, I did meet a guy earlier claiming to be a voodoo doctor. And judging by his exotic accent, he probably was." After all, the Voodoo Lady had one, as did LeChuck, though the latter's might have been more connected with piracy than voodoo prowess. And French didn't count as exotic.

With the thought of pillaging other rooms putting him on auto-pilot, he headed out the door mid-anecdote.

[To here.]

[dualistic]

[From here.]

And they'd made it. Fitting into the cluttered room when there was three of them was going to be a bit of a challenge, but Harvey figured they would manage. Realizing that he needed to make rooms for the others, he retreated as far into the room as he could without tripping over anything.

"Here it is. Not as exciting as it sounded, I'm guessing," he said as he rubbed at his good eye. It seemed the the other was too dried out for it to keep watering, but that didn't mean that it didn't still hurt.

There was a lot to pick from here, though the usefulness of items definitely varied. As for Harvey, he was most interested in a stray flashlight. His current one was doing just fine, but he was sure that the batteries would run out on him soon enough. He grabbed for the extra one and held it in his free hand, waiting for the others to take stock of the place.

[believein0.livejournal.com]

Zero noted Ema's comments about the irritant and the water at night. He wasn't very knowledgeable about humans and the ways their bodies worked, but if it was true that whatever this irritant was would be simply 'flushed out' by the body over time, then that was fine. The discomfort would only be temporary and they'd recover from this. In the meantime, he would try to ignore the burning sensations as much as he could.

That aside, he felt more relief when the group stepped into the janitor's closet at last. Finally. They'd made it (and in one piece, too). Zero took a moment to visually check his surroundings for any sign of danger as he entered the tiny, cluttered room - he even remembered to look up at the ceiling in case another giant spider from hell happened to be up there - but it appeared to be all clear. Good, good. Now to accomplish his mission for the night.

Someone else really had gotten in here before them, unfortunately, but there were still a lot of items to be found in here. Mr. Dent's obtaining a flashlight reminded Zero that he needed to replace his own, so that was the first thing he began to search for. However, he ended up finding the metal pipes Dent had mentioned at the start of their journey first. He picked one up and took a test swing at the wall. Rather sturdy. Good enough for a makeshift weapon. Swapping the test pipe for the longest pipe out of the bunch, he then resumed his search for a new flashlight.

As it turns out, there was one on the floor near some cans for some reason, although it refused to turn on and even had a dent in it. Zero played with it, trying to figure out how to make it work again. Normally he'd have used the energy from his own body to power objects like this, but obviously that method wasn't going to work anymore now that he was human. So did it need electricity, batteries, solar power (as unlikely as that was for a flashlight), or something else? Maybe Ema or Mr. Dent would know?

"I found a flashlight here, but it won't turn on." He held it up - and also took a moment to cough between sentences. "What kind of power do these run off of?"

[scientist-skye.livejournal.com]

Despite Mr. Dent's suggestion otherwise, the janitor's closet was about what Ema expected. Well, almost--it was a lot less tidy than she had hoped, which proved to be an unexpected obstacle for a girl who was mostly unable to see. Between this and the still-irritating burning in her eyes, sinuses, and throat, it was just not her night. Well, at least they hadn't been attacked along the way. Ema was okay with unpleasant as long as it didn't become dangerous.

She inched into the room and began squinting at the contents on the first shelf she came to. A sturdy garden shovel--slightly larger than the average hand spade--seemed like as practical a self-defense weapon as any, so she picked it up and shoved it into her bag. A pair of gardening gloves also caught her eye. It wasn't perfect armor, but it was better than nothing; she began trying to pry them out from under some other items on the shelf.

Zero'a question was easy enough to answer while distracted. "Oh. Flashlights run on--ahhh!" In trying to get the gloves out from the rest of the clutter on the shelf, she ended up taking most of the shelf's contents with it. Unfortunately, in trying to pick it all up she lost her footing in the darkness around her feet (did she trip over something? likely) and went down with it.

When all of the noise settled, all she could manage was a sheepish, "...ow." Not her night at all.

[dualistic]

It didn't take long for Zero to find one of the pipes that had been their whole reason for coming here. Harvey was somewhat relieved for that -- not because he cared whether or not the man got himself armed, but because it meant that they hadn't come all this way and endured whatever had set off the waterworks for no reason.

The question Zero was asked next took Harvey by surprise, though. How could he not know what flashlights ran on? He realized that some people were oblivious, but he was pretty sure just about anyone -- especially someone who looked as old as Zero did -- knew how a flashlight worked.

Ema was clearly the kinder one out of the two of them, seeing how she'd been ready to respond almost immediately, but that didn't end up happening since she sent a whole shelf full of items tumbling to the floor and then followed them down.

Okay, that had sounded pretty painful either way. Holding back a sigh, Harvey waded through the mess on the floor and extended a hand down to her. "C'mon, you'll be all right." If she wasn't bleeding or unconscious, it couldn't be too bad.