NIGHT 67: CHAPEL

[ever_loyal_dog]

[from here]

When Lingormr had mentioned that they were heading out to get medical supplies, surgical ones, to be specific, he'd expected the place to look a bit more like a doctor's office and less like some kind of chapel. There were benches neatly placed, and a podium of sorts, along with other things one might expect at a place of worship, rather than any sort of medical office.

Soushi finished sweeping the room with this light and looked questioningly to Lingormr. Had he walked into some kind of trap? Did the man already suspect something?

"I don't think this is the right one," he said quietly, his tone a mixture of uncertainty and reproach, as any child might be when an adult has made a mistake. It was possible he'd simply picked the wrong person to follow and Lingormr had no more clue of where he was going than Soushi did. But the man had seemed fairly sure of himself. He tilted his head curiously at the other and waited to see if there would be some kind of explanation.

Comments

[complicatedliar]

"I know not if everyone has some sort of mystical power," Loki shrugged in answer to that question. "Though I imagine the ordinary would make poor choices for that sort of activity."

...and then yes. This really wasn't where they wanted to go. Loki frowned accusingly at the chapel, eyes narrowing. Were his senses really so dulled that he hadn't noticed the presence of a teleportation spell?

But he trusted this not at all.

"No," he said, voice careful and controlled. "This is not where that door leads. We're not even on the correct floor."

[ever_loyal_dog]

If they were already going so far as to control their patients, experiment on them, and worse, were there any here without power? Were the experiments meant to give them that? Pit them against real demons perhaps? Putting that aside, the more immediate problem became finding out where they'd ended up and why.

Soushi's trust was limited, even on the best of days, so he wasn't entirely sure if Lingormr was as confused as he appeared to be about this room or if the man simply had no sense of direction. Why bring them both to a chapel? And if it was true that Lingormr hadn't meant for them to arrive here, who did?

"Why would someone want us to come here?" he asked, taking a few cautionary steps into the room. Though it was a place of worship, he couldn't place which denomination it might be. Was there something here they were meant to see? To find?

[complicatedliar]

"I haven't the foggiest," Loki said, sounding annoyed. He untucked his notebook and rechecked his maps, even though he'd memorized the things days ago. "Indeed. Lovely how a door on the first floor has dumped us on the second. Bloody wonderful."

He shut the notebook and turned to regard the doors from the chapel with a great deal of suspicion. He began to pace a line back and forth in front of it. "Is there anything odd about?"

[ever_loyal_dog]

If someone who'd been here longer than he had was confused, it didn't bode well for either of them. He watched the man check through several papers, the rustling oddly loud in the still night air.

"Is it really real?" he asked quietly, fingers moving over the end of one of the pews as he walked further into the room.

It was possible this was some kind of illusion. There were plenty of different demons that specialized in making travelers lose their way, or worse. If it was something as simple as that, it was just a matter of finding the source and destroying it so that they could move on.

"Mm... I don't know if it's odd or not. I've never been here before. Not in this room, not in this building at all."

[complicatedliar]

"If it is an illusion, 'tis far more clever than any I've seen." His tone implied that was plainly impossible.

"You may trust this is very odd, no matter how new you are. We are on the wrong floor and the opposite side of the building. I didn't notice us going up any stairs." Loki went to the doorway and ran his hand over the frame, as much as he could reach. "Nothing I can detect..."

[ever_loyal_dog]

True, if it was an illusion, it was no simple one. Why then, send them so far from their goal? He could only think of two options. Either there was something they were supposed to find, or this was some kind of wholly elaborate trap.

Though it all seemed innocent enough; this chapel seemed far more like a sanctuary than any kind of prison, he wasn't about to trust it so easily. "Maybe we should go then."

If Lingormr already recognized it as another place in the building, they could always revisit it, should there be a reason, but being forced into this mysterious room with no clue as to why? The more he thought on it, the more he felt like a cornered animal. What if they were trapped here?

[complicatedliar]

Loki nodded. There really wasn't anything else for it. Nothing unusual was in the room, and he hadn't found anything about the doorway. Either they would have to stay here fo the rest of the night (boring an a waste of time) or try to leave by the door and hope that it would function as a normal, proper door.

"All right." He was very glad he had weapons with him, however. He opened the chapel door.

[ever_loyal_dog]

Soushi was only a few steps behind as they continued, casting one last look behind at the empty room. He supposed he should be grateful that their detour hadn't led them to more bodies or blood or worse things that might be out there, but he was still no closer to finding Ririchiyo or the others, or even to finding where his belongings might be.

He kept his flashlight trained on the darkness ahead and walked through the door.

[to here]