damned_institute | Nightshift 32: The Grand Ballroom

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Nightshift 32: The Grand Ballroom

[from here]

Into the depths of darkness, Archer descended the staircase. Their trip took longer than he thought, in total silence, which wasn't actually that troubling for Archer. His flashlight was of no help at all, except for illuminating the steps. It couldn't even begin to pierce the darkness around them, almost as if they really had stepped into the abyss. After awhile, Archer noticed a light at the bottom of the stairs; upon reaching the bottom, he stepped into the impressively large room.

"Wow, so this is where all the money's going," Archer whistled, not really surprised as far as the list of things he'd seen before. "This is nice setup they've got here."

He took a moment to appreciate the place, looking around and soaking in the immaculate beauty of it all. Ornate fountains produced crystal blue water near the ceiling, vanishing into the floor. Turning around, he could see the massive pillars supporting this underground cavern. At the top was a expensively, tasteful chandelier, decorated with candles There were also candles along the walls, held in silver holders. Besides that, there didn't seem to be anything else in the room of importance.

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"Ostentatious, isn't it?" Mark commented, following down. "Particularly for an area accessed via a tile in a freezer. I wouldn't say it's to my taste, but no one asked me when they were building it."

The comment about where the money was going sparked Mark's idle curiosity, if he had enough money (if it weren't mostly sunk in non-liquid assets to avoid waste, of course) to build something large and grandly tacky like this back home. Probably. Maybe not on Beta Colony, but Barrayar might go for it, even the bloody tapestry scenes in the hallways. Then again, where was the money coming from? Something like this required labor, no matter what sort of odd time traveling or dimension traveling technology (or... other resources) was being used to run this place. Nothing in the world was free, no matter what world it was.

He kept his mouth shut after that, 'enjoying the view' and trying to keep his breath down the overly long staircase. Definitely a work of sadism, that...

The Grand Ballroom was no less impressive the second time around. Leon looked around for a few moments, then gestured at the eastern half of the room. "We're supposed to be investigating this side, right?" he asked. He moved to the wall and grabbed one of the candles, being careful to keep it from blowing out. Leon nodded at Archer's flashlight. "We can use these, for a while, to save the batteries," he suggested.

"That's right," he replied to Leon.

Unfortunately Archer couldn't carry anymore. With his bat and sword occupying his hands, and a flashlight in his coat pocket, he didn't have anywhere left to hold the candle.

"Good idea," he said, complimenting Leon's resourcefulness.

Archer had already come to the same conclusion, seeing as the candle holders were low enough that they could reach it.

He moved on towards the large, double brown doors that Leon had pointed out, decorated with both angelic and demonic art, trying to open it, but that didn't seem to work. At first he tried to push it open with one hand, but when that didn't work he tried both. Now, Archer wasn't a slouch in terms of athletic capability, even in his human form, yet he was struggling with these doors. Fortunately, he wasn't that prideful that he couldn't ask his for help.

"Guys," he said gesturing to his team. " I think I need a little help over here."

"This is becoming a theme." Mark commented to Archer, before adding his weight to the push, more reasoned this time and less of a frantic struggle. He did push with the unbruised shoulder, since he didn't think putting unneeded extra pressure on his hurt shoulder would be a good idea. What was the door made of, solid iron?!

"Leon, you help with the other door?" Something about carrying a candle around was oddly romantic, but also sounded a little painful, if he held the candle the wrong way. Mark supposed offering a suggestion of not dripping wax on himself would be stating the obvious, though, and it did save batteries. Not that they needed them in this room, but who knew what was coming up? Maybe some kind of monster that could be set on fire?

Leon winced, and shifted the candle to his other hand. He leaned his shoulder against the door, pushing against it as best he could while balancing the candle and the bat tucked under his arm. He felt the door start to give under their combined weight. "Almost got it," he muttered. He sincerely hoped that the door wouldn't suddenly swing open and throw all three of them to the floor.

"Almost there! Got it!" Archer grunted, pushing with all his might.

With their combined force, the doors slowly opened, groaning out almost grudgingly in the end. When the doors were completely open, they stayed that way. Archer was thankful the doors didn't swing back at them; he would've been severely pissed off if that happened.

Archer rolled his shoulders. The pain in his shoulder was mostly gone by now. He had only hit the cafeteria door once, timing it with Mark to distribute the weight, so his shoulder didn't hurt as much as his teammate's.

Picking up his weapons, tucking his bat under the arm again, Archer paved the way with his flashlight.

[from here]

It looked clear, much to Renji's relief. And whoever had gone down to the basement before them had already moved deeper inside; he didn't hear or see any sign of them.

Renji headed down the stairs, over to the doors where the strange sword apparently went, to look at it again. It wouldn't hurt, since he'd brought the damn thing along just in case. He didn't have the best visual memory in the world, after all.

"Does the sword fit?" Max asked, following him curiously over to the large doors they'd found the night before."

Her crowbar was perched comfortably over one shoulder as she kept a wary eye on their surroundings, watching for anything dangerous that might be lurking in the shadows.

Thursday eyed the sword. Renji had been right; it looked pretty flimsy, from her limited experience.

"I don't think we'll be able to get the doors open without that shield," she said to Renji. "I told Max this before you came, but I spoke to the fellow whose group found the shield and he said he'd speak to them about it. He looked a little doubtful, though, if you ask me."

Renji examined the sword and the door, then nodded. "Yeah, it fits perfect," he said. He slung the thing onto his back again.

He nodded at Friday's comment. "Yeah, I wouldn't expect so," he said, then made a rude noise. "Fucking lot of good a useless shield's gonna do for them. They're morons if they just want to sit on the fucking thing and do nothing." Which didn't help anyone in the least, which annoyed him. He had no idea why people would have a problem with getting the things together and trying the door. He'd be ready and eager if they'd approached him about the sword. It wasn't like he wanted to take it away from anyone or leave them out of the fun.

He shook his head. "Dunno why people are so fucking paranoid about each other, or possessive about shit. Don't do anyone a damn bit of good."

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/376272.html?thread=30304208#t30304208)]

There were already a couple of people down here. Peony frowned, not really wanting to go with them. He'd seen the redhead guy around, although there was a cute little thing with him, or at least she was from the sound of her voice. Not wanting to risk the redhead getting butthurt, he decided to stay alone.

The place was huge - bigger than he'd expected would be underneath the Institute - and utterly creepy. This didn't really belong here, did it? He looked around, shining about his flashlight and smiling to himself.

A great place for an adventure.

Turning back to Haseo, who was sure to follow behind him, he smiled. "This is what I'm talking about. I bet there are things down here you can kick, too."

[ D:? ]

It looked different beyond the trap door in comparison to the basic institute up above. Maybe stumbling down here was a good thing--the secret door probably wouldn't be on his map and he did need to go exploring in different places if he ever wanted some answers. Haseo looked around; a couple people scattered around, dark, cold--the place didn't remind him of any field he'd ever been to.

A great place to kick things? Where would Peony even---Oh right. The last time he'd adventured with the guy, he'd attempted to see if some things were like treasure chests in The World, which had to be kicked in order to open. When Haseo did kick the cabinet, the doors had opened and Peony made off with a lot of stuff that he seemed to like. Haseo grumbled, "You just want me to kick things so it'll get you more stuff." Not that he cared about putting fourth the effort, but if that was the only reason that Peony had went through all that trouble it was a little bothersome.

The rogue crossed his arms, and moped a little.

[lolll everything's fine again and am ..back at home and not on vacation anymore \o/]

Ahh! He'd been found out. Haseo had discovered that Peony mostly wanted stuff. Useful stuff, stuff that he could show Jade and Guy. Stuff that would surprise them, even. He had to keep reinventing his image as stylish Emperor!

"And what's wrong with wanting more stuff? I collect weapons, you know..." He outstretched his arms, staring up at the ceiling and turning around. "Pretty wide place, though. Why don't you pick where to go from here? I want to test out your navigation skills," he laughed.

"It's not like you don't get to keep your share of the stuff, anyway," he muttered to himself, as a little self-defensive afterthought. Stuff was useful here, too! Guy's little friend Claude had seemed to think stuff was useful, anyway, and he'd just given him all his flasks and some more loot from the other night.. Had Haseo gotten any at all? Maybe Peony could at least share a scalpel...

[ :D. I don't know if the west hall has a thread. Um..? ]

One of those item hunters, huh. There were quite a few people that went around trying to hunt rare and unusual items, but the things that Peony had gotten last time were just junk. Some weird medical tools or whatever and that was worth collecting? It seemed like Peony was just an old packrat--not a collector of any one special thing like weapons.

Though he still didn't look to impressed at the admittance of being used for items, the rogue had to agree in an exasperated way. "Fine. I guess if we're hunting for items, at least we're moving around." Better to move around with someone else than alone. If they found things along the way they could deal with that as they went along; Haseo was never much of an item gatherer himself, so he wasn't going to worry about that too much.

It was a pretty wide area.. looked like some kind of ball-room or concert amphitheatre. Haseo took a good look around at the various exits, eventually poiting to the one on the west side of the room. "Let's try that way first."

[ahahha it doesn't but we can't get in cause it's only for 3+ people to open D:]

"Okay," Peony said, walking up to the doorway to the west, then pulling on it gently. Nothing happened. ...What kind of door was this? It had angels on it, and demons and stuff... Kind of heavy stuff to be carved on a door, and the wayward emperor got the feeling that there was something huge beyond it.

"Uhh, it's not opening." He bent, shining his flashlight all over the handles and locks. "Won't even budge."

Gailardia could probably figure out a way to open it, Peony realized. He knew about the other blond's love for fontech and all things mechanical. Perhaps Peony could issue an order, emperor's order or whatever, to get him down here the next night.

"Maybe pick another one, then."

Doors with locks, huh? Haseo looked around at the enclaves in the room, almost expecting to see some nervous sphere of blue and white (chim) to be running around therein. Locked doors like this were kind of common in The World and they usually required energy spheres called "Chim Spheres" to open the locks. He didn't exactly expect any to be around, but it was by sheer habit that he looked around for them. (One could only imagine what kind of time Peony would have running around trying to kick Chims--the mental picture was somewhat horrifying.)

So much for luck with navigational skills. "Tch." Since that one wouldn't open, the rogue started off in another direction, the nearest door which was almost in southmost part of the area. They'd just have to go through the doors one at a time and see which ones would open and which wouldn't since they didn't have a key. "Fine. Let's just try this other door." Upon a yank of the handle, the door opened with a little bit of a creak. Not so bad.

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/382151.html)]

Leon pushed open the heavy doors, bracing himself for yet another room of element-based horror. He blinked in surprise as he found himself back in the ballroom. It was shockingly cool, and quiet, compared to the rest of their journey. It seemed like a few other groups had made it down here as well.

He stayed close to the doors as his teammates came through. "Archer, hide the sword," he muttered. He wasn't quite sure who these other patients were, and if they were trustworthy, and he sure as hell didn't feel up to fighting them off.

Leon kept his attention focused on the rest of the ballroom. "Do we want to try reaching M35, or just wait out the night somewhere?" he asked. "I think we should just wait... none of us are in mortal danger, and we'll stay that way if we don't do a lot of exploring." He didn't much care for the idea of hiding, but with the way he was feeling, Leon rather doubted he'd make it to M35 in one piece.

Even before Leon had mentioned anything, Archer was already on it, covering the small sword with his overcoat. It was fairly easy for him to fashion it into a small, one armed backpack, slung over his uninjured shoulder.

Stepping through the door, he saw the source of Leon's concern. Strangers were beginning to flood into the ballroom. None of them seemed threatening yet, but it was best not to take any chances.

He took both Mark and Leon's suggestions into account and analyzed the team's status. After he healed Mark, none of them seemed to be in any mortal danger, and there was no telling what they might encounter on the way to the clinic.

"You both bring up good points," he said, coming to a conclusion. "We'll wait the rest of the night out here. There's no point in expending more energy in our clearly, exhausted state, and with all these people here, the chances that we'll run into any more surprises seems low." Leaning against the wall, he casually joked, "I don't know about you guys, but I could use a rest after those deathtraps."

Although now that he had regained his breath, Archer was probably doing a whole lot better than Mark, but give him a few minutes and the Heroic Spirit would be recharged.

A bit surprised that the others had agreed, but pleased, Mark leaned against the wall, then eased himself down to a sitting position. With the weight off his legs, it wasn't that bad at all. True, he'd be in a wheelchair and possibly bedridden come morning, but considering all he'd run through, he didn't think it was unusual.

"We should probably mention to Hitsugaya that this particular area is better suited to those in a certain sort of physical fitness." As in, not short fat people, no matter how much muscle or skill they were hiding under all of that. "Or better, that this particular area should be avoided at all costs unless there's someone he really wants to be rid of." That was a possibility, and a faintly unnerving one, but something to be put to the side for now. He could ask around later, find out if any Arts and Crafts groups had gone through that gauntlet before.

"I don't think I was meant to be an action hero," Mark commented ruefully. "Jumping from falling platform to falling platform and all that just isn't in my realm of experience." Whereas it was apparently not that odd for Leon, and Archer at least didn't seem so startled by what they'd passed. "Whoever built those rooms probably got his or her entertainment's worth, at least.

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Nightshift 32: The Grand Ballroom

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