Night 73: East Wing, Residential Hall (Third Floor)

[lighthearted]

[From here.]

Instead of the door leading into another room with another teleportation pad, they were instead let out into a hallway that was lined with doors. Well, that was just great.

Sora let out a sigh and glanced back at Tsurugi and Link. "Guess we should try all of them, huh?" He stepped up to the first one on his left and attempted to turn the knob, but the lock was sticking. There was enough give that he was pretty sure he could break it, but were all of them going to be like this?

"Looks like you might need to use some of your soccer skills here, Tsurugi," Sora said with a small smile as he lifted a leg up and kicked at the door. At least his shoes were hardy enough that he wouldn't hurt himself doing that, but he might end up throwing himself against the door before long.

Comments

[his_legacy]

What was by far the most frustrating about this was that Link had absolutely no sense of direction. Where was this hall in relation to everything else? It had plenty of doors branching off... He tried to compare it to the other floors; architecture was often similar from floor to floor in places like this, right?

Link began checking the other doors, carefully inspecting their locks. Most were rusted, except the one at the end... He frowned, pulling his key out of his hat and trying the door with it. Nothing. And all of their keys were the same, so there was no luck there.

"This lock is more solid than the others," he called down the hall. "Perhaps try to break this one first?" Whatever was in there was probably more important, and Link had seen Tsurugi's abilities in action, strange as they were.

[knightspirit]

"My skills?" Kyousuke repeated. He wasn't sure why he was surprised—it was normal enough for people to rely on him back home. .... Though maybe not so much here. But the boy shrugged, undeterred from the thought. ".... Sure. It's easier than trying to smash all the doorknobs." Quicker, too. But there were a lot doors here, so the trick would be finding the right one as quickly as possible.

Link had a suggestion, but it wasn't one that he agreed with, and he ended up frowning. "That's no good," he explained. "The doors like that are... protected, somehow. I'm not sure why, but you can't even leave a dent in them. Apparently, lock picks don't work either." Or at least, that had been his experience on the second floor. It was entirely possible Lloyd had been a little clumsy with that pick, but considering Kyousuke had been using more than enough force to break that particular door, he wasn't sure he could write it off as a fluke. It seemed that there were just doors Landel didn't want them in.

For now, he guessed he'd just start with the closest door on the right. He stood at an angle from it, taking a small moment to focus before using the top his foot to send the soccer ball he'd been carrying hurdling into it with a decent amount of force, aimed perfectly just underneath the doorknob. The door burst open immediately and swayed dangerously on its hinges for a moment, before finally coming undone completely and crashing to the floor. ... That went about as well as could be expected, he supposed, though maybe he overdid a little. He stuck his head inside the door and retrieved the stray ball, but as far as he could tell, there were no glowing purple pads.

".... Looks like it isn't this one," he said. He kept a smooth face, but the real truth was, that felt pretty good. He didn't get to use his kick power nearly enough around here.

[lighthearted]

Sora had to agree with Tsurugi when it came to that door at the end of the hall. It made sense that Link didn't necessarily know about it, since he hadn't been here as long as some of the other patients. "Yeah, there are some doors here that won't budge no matter what you do. We've gotta focus on the ones that at least give a little bit when you try to force them open."

As for those soccer skills, Tsurugi didn't really hesitate to make use of them, and it was definitely impressive the way he was able to break a door off its hinges with his kicking power alone. It was sort of like Wakka and his blitzball, except he'd usually thrown that, and it worked best underwater.

Still, pretty cool! Sora grinned at Tsurugi and gave him a thumbs up, but then remembered that he was supposed to be working on his own door. He turned back toward it and after one more kick and a body slam against it, he broke the lock and the door swung open.

"Hmm, nothing here either." They didn't have the time to search all these rooms, but one of them had better have a teleportation pad in it. With a sigh, Sora moved down to the next one and started all over again. He was going to be sore by the end of this.

ugh, sorry for lateness!

[his_legacy]

Well, it's still worth a try, is it not? Link bit back his retort when Sora chimed in. He left the heavily locked door, starting in on a different one; the door located the most southwest in the hall. He smashed the lock with the butt of his sword.

Empty. He moved up one door, bashing the lock similarly. This time, they were in luck.

"Here." Link didn't wait on a response. He pressed forward into the room that contained another warp area.

[To here]

[forsworn]

[from here]

And here they were, in the very same position that he and Castiel had found themselves the previous night. "There's nine or so doors," Kratos said. "Let's split up and each take three to check."

He walked to the end of the hallway and tested the one at the very back. Naturally, it was locked, but not so weak that he could snap it as he could some. The one next to it, though, proved more promising. A few hits with the back end of his flashlight was enough to snap the lock, and Kratos opened the door just enough to take a peek. There was no immediate purple aura, and a quick sweep with his light didn't turn up any inert pads either. He shut the door with a sigh and moved on to the next one.

[freewill]

While Kratos started at the end, Castiel tried one of the doors closet to the door they'd just come through, and in theory Lloyd could take the middle. It didn't really matter which order they went in, as there was clearly no logic to where the pad would be placed.

Castiel flipped his blade around in his hand, holding it carefully on the bladed side so that he could use the handle as a sort of club. He worked at the lock of the door and then gave it a final shove with his shoulder, which caused it to break and give in.

He switched to his flashlight and poked his head into the room, but there was nothing of interest to be found there. A bed and some other furniture, as if it was meant for someone to stay there, but no purple light.

With a sigh, he moved on to the next door.

[redcladidealist]

With Kratos at the end and Castiel taking the doors at the beginning, the middle felt natural enough to Lloyd for him to head to a door without prompting. Skipping the first door on his right, he checked the knob on the next one. Locked. With a quick adjustment of his grip on his sword, concentrating to make sure he had a good grip despite the lingering numbness in his fingers, he raised his sword and struck the door knob hard with the hilt. It took him two strikes to break through.

The room beyond looked like someone's bedroom, or maybe a small apartment room. Lloyd poked his head in, shining his flashlight around for any sign of a warp pad or the archives they were trying to find. Nothing was immediately visible, though. Lloyd frowned, debating whether to step inside and search every corner, then shook his head. So far, the warp pads had all been plain to see. They could always come back and search deeper if none of the other rooms seemed promising.

The next room, once he'd broken the lock, looked pretty similar to the first. This time, though, the light from his flashlight reflected off a clear and familiar circle raised on the floor in the corner. Lloyd pulled his head back and raised his voice as loud as he dared.

"Kratos. Castiel. In here!"

He waited only a moment before heading in.

[To here.]

[ryuuzaki]

[From here.]

It was, but more distractions waited. Nine doors, about half of them opened, mostly nearby but one far down the corridor, and a tenth, closed door at the end. They had no information about what awaited them after this point; they would have to deduce, if they could do it quickly, or guess, or be methodical until they found what they wanted.

They could check in each room to see if something was going to follow them as they passed, but if it was, they would be trapped here either way. Their choices would to rush back to the previous pad to escape, if that would even work, or to find the next one.

Yet it was obvious that someone else had already been through here--the locks of the nearest doors had been broken as if the doors themselves had been kicked in. There was nothing to indicate that the people who had gone through before them (probably Castiel and Kratos at the very least) had run into trouble. And the logical progression of movement was from the door he and Lana had just exited, towards the one at the end of the corridor, so--

"The last open door on the left? We can work back from there if that isn't it." It was a little more than halfway down, and he was already moving towards it, gun in his hand, back turned a little towards the wall. Their position was extraordinarily vulnerable; he'd rather be in a room than in an unknown corridor lined with doors. If the exit was through the door at the far end of the hall, the doors on either side of it would probably have been broken open, but they hadn't been.

[fourstonewalls]

"You take the left, I'll take the right." It wasn't a question. She did agree with working backwards -- the logical progression was clear. Besides, there was no good reason to countermand his order.

They were both used to being the one giving the orders; that much had been clear for quite a while. He was a bit of an enigma, this man, and in better circumstances she might have been suspicious. She didn't have time for it, and he had never tried to control her. Bark orders, in the idle manner of someone used to having them followed, but he'd never shown any interest in forcing anyone to do his bidding. If anything, he seemed apt to step back and watch them suffer, and even now he was getting his hands dirty.

Metaphorically, at least, since they were likely not going to need to break down any doors themselves. She reached the first door and slipped through it, as Ryuuzaki investigated the one opposite.

[to here, and she's calling out into the hall from there]