Night 66: M71-80 Hallway

[dividedby]

Surprisingly, tonight's late night broadcast by Landel wasn't interrupted by a strange but helpful message. No new clues? Disappointing. Well, then again...if certain notes on the bulletin board were to be believed, then perhaps the prisoners here didn't need any more clues. Some had already found out how to be cured - or better yet, a few already had been cured. That meant searching for more answers was no longer necessary, right?

Regardless. Tonight's broadcast felt too...uneventful without an expected interruption. Landel's only threat was 'watch your back'. Was that it? Maybe the mundane nature of the broadcast was a sign that something else would happen later... But there was no use worrying about it. Zero would simply take Landel's advice to heart, just like he tried to do every other night here. (It had to be working if he were still alive.)

First thing's first: find his friends. Thanks to being attacked and perhaps also stopping to take care of wounds, the group hadn't made it to their destination last night...so X and Harpuia remained ill-equipped to deal with threats on their own. As long as they were unarmed, Zero would not feel comfortable leaving them to do as they pleased without him. The sooner he headed over to them now, the better. Trying not to waste any time, he collected his usual things - gun, extra ammo, boots, set of maps...

.... Ciel's coat...

No, he wasn't expecting to go outside into the noticeably loud thunderstorm, but just in case... It did give him extra pockets, after all... He'd spent all of dinner just questioning why it was here, not even bothering to touch his food...would be a shame to just leave something useful like this behind...

...A moment later, the coat was on, the first aid kit and gun slipped into the pockets. Now, after throwing a 'take care' at Gabe, he was ready to run out the door.

[To here.]

Comments

[complicatedliar]

Loki dressed himself carefully for the night, taking up all of the scalpels, the two little throwing daggers that had been put showed up in his box.

The little thing he'd removed from Soma's stomach was still there. He'd need to decide if he'd pretend it vanished. Later.

Tonight, he'd need to do a bit of hunting. But first, he had told Soma he'd try to bring her a book or two, and not medical texts. He wasn't certain about making it to the patient library, however, since it was through the Sun Room and that seemed a dangerous place often. Just in case, he tucked the emergency medicine book under his arm. Of all of them, that was at least useful, and the most interesting to read.

He headed out.

[to here]

[impudentsongbird]

Without the urgency of meeting someone to drive him, Gabriel chose to take a few moments longer about leaving than Zero. He echoed the other man's 'take care', but lingered, scanning the room until his gaze rested on the banjo. Despite the circumstances he smiled involuntarily. Surely the instrument was proof that his Master was watching. Gabe only wished he still had the means to imbue music with power, but since he didn't, the banjo would only be a hindrance.

The Archangel had torn a page out of his journal to write a list of things he wanted in particular, though he would take whatever he could find there.

Leanne, he owed a Shield Knot, but there were other things he could make, if others wished.

Gabe took with him that page, pens, his radio and his torch, and the aloe vera leaves he'd picked. When he had the chance, he ought to see if he could get more from the greenhouse as well. The Archangel made sure that Skulduggery's rosary was around his neck and then slipped out the door to make for the hall at the end, as prepared as he could be.

[to here.]

M73

[ryuuzaki]

As it turned out, the coffee didn't make L feel any worse... but apart from its warmth, and the tentative pleasure he took in drinking it, it also didn't make him feel much better. Eating was uncomfortable, due to the cramps, but still feasible, so he'd taken delicate bites of the tempura and ignored the pain as much as he could. The lollipops that had accompanied most of his meals for the past week helped in the same way that sucking on hard candy helped with nausea. (Could that have been why the lollipops had been provided?) The one he rolled around on his tongue and popped into his cheek after eating was creme soda flavored.

Was all this pain and discomfort really due to a small foreign object in his stomach? One had ostensibly been in his head for several weeks and had caused nothing but the annoyance of crashing headaches. It shouldn't work the way it did, and he suspected that it sometimes didn't work at all. There was a question of how and when any of them had been given the stomach bug, and the exact process related to it, the progression of the illness. Did they all have them, or only some people? Did the symptoms come immediately upon implantation, or was it something that had been placed in each person upon abduction and only activated in some, and only to certain degrees?

When the doors unlocked, Lingormr hadn't lingered.

L's preparations for leaving were similar to what they had been the previous night, altered mostly in light of the fact that he'd be out in the rain for an indeterminate amount of time—if he'd been tempted to take the brush axe, the possibility of it becoming a de facto lightning rod would have discouraged him. Walking across a field during a storm was already a bad idea; it would be a wet, muddy, treacherous slog, and while he had a general area in mind as a destination, he had no more precise guidance than that. His day of rest had helped, in that he felt no worse than he had the day before, but he wouldn't be making the journey if he felt he had any other real choices. If he had any success at all, for him and for Lana and maybe for others by extension, it would be due to a combination of guessing and luck and, if they could be trusted, Harrington's contributions. In a best-case scenario they would be able to stop the deaths, but curing himself and then his own allies, if it could be done, was L's primary objective.

He considered putting his jeans on, then discarded the idea. Ultimately, they weren't any warmer than the sweatpants, and they'd be much more uncomfortable than sweatpants when wet: jersey would keep its pliability instead of becoming stiff and heavy. His shoulder wasn't yet doing well enough that he could go without the sling, so he had to take it off, put on the coat, and then replace the sling over the coat. That took a while. The gun could be holstered at his waist, but it would be less accessible there than in the pocket of the coat, so the pocket it was. He put a first aid kit and an extra roll of gauze in the other pocket and, reluctantly, also took the military beret, rolling the gloves in it and tucking them all into the sling. The hat was uncomfortable—itchy—but it would help keep his head warm and dry.

After making sure that everything was as stowed as possible, he locked his drawer and put the keys in one of the pockets of the sweatpants. Then he put the flashlight in his left hand with his right hand, and left the room.

[To here.]