Nightshift 43- East Hall (Basement)

[31st-of-china.livejournal.com]

[From here]

The door opened into a narrow hallway, lined with matching candle holders. It was darker in here - compared to the ballroom - and there wasn't much in here, aside from the hanging tapestries. The monk glanced at one as he entered the hallway. A war scene was depicted on its surface, violence seeming to explode across the fabric surface, every bit captured in graphic detail.

A scan of the rest showed that they were all pretty similar.

So the Head Doctor had a twisted sense of art. Or twisted sense of humor. Both, most likely. It might account for the ballroom underneath the damn place.

Sanzo lowered the gun, after a few more moments. Other than the tapestries, the hall looked empty.

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[qui-gonjinn.livejournal.com]

Qui-Gon followed shortly after Sanzo, keeping a watchful eye on the monk. With the flickering candles, his Earthian glowrod wasn't necessary; the Jedi Master switched it off in order to conserve its power, surveying the long, but narrow hall. It seemed to be empty, but he didn't need the Force to tell him the darkness radiating from this place. Tapestries lined the walls, hanging down and silent and still. Upon closer inspection, he could see the scenes were of a violent, macabre nature, depicting a war between unknown factions. The maimed and the dead stood out in stark relief in the candlelight to Qui-Gon.

Frowning, he stepped away, taking one, two and three strides to catch up to the shorter man. "What do you hope to find here?" he asked, voice low.

[givemeoblivion.livejournal.com]

Callisto flipped off her light stick as well. This place was beginning to feel more like home now. Maybe she'd find her answers here after all.

The decorations didn't matter much to her. She'd seen plenty a king or warlord's decor, and it was sheer bravado to have tapestries made of any battles they might have participated in. She didn't recognize any of the armor depicted in any of the scenes. As far as she knew, she wasn't familiar with any of the battles. Not that it mattered. If Martin Landel was a warrior, then his real prowess wouldn't be seen until she faced him in combat.

If these were meant to scare, they needed a better target than her. "You'd think if he didn't want others coming here there'd be guards. Looks to me like he's just showing off."

[31st-of-china.livejournal.com]

"Something they stole from me," Sanzo's voice was low. "A scroll; white with green bands and backing, sacred text on one side."

There were enough scriptures, religious artifacts floating around China and India that the sutra itself didn't stand out that much to the outsider's eye. Not unless he was wearing it. The description was enough to identify it, but not enough to tell its true nature.

His vision went gray, sparks swimming across his eyes.

Sanzo had to lean against the wall with one arm, head bowed a little, eyes closed to shut out the sudden wave of dizziness.

He took a few deep breaths, trying to force the weakness away by just sheer will.

The monk straightened, slowly and painfully, and shot a scornful glance at Callisto. "That man in the Sun Room was the guard." It wasn't like it'd been easy to get here.

[qui-gonjinn.livejournal.com]

Qui-Gon stopped when he saw the blood drain from Sanzo's face. It'd been expected when he was pushing himself this far, but Qui-Gon hovered unobtrusively at the monk's side when he noticed him stop and lean up against the wall, gathering himself again. He would be ready to steady him if he looked like he would fall - but until then, he hung back, knowing Sanzo wouldn't accept the help until there was absolutely no choice and not until then.

He glanced at Sanzo to make sure he wouldn't collapse and then back at Callisto. The young woman had followed them in, perhaps sensing a certain kind of safety in numbers and was looking around at the narrow hall, at the morbid tapestries. She didn't look too impressed.

"If only it were that easy," Qui-Gon said. If it was just showing off his power, Martin Landel would be easy to deal with if you could appeal to his greed, his lust for control. But the man was unpredictable, his highly unusual effect on the Force aside, and it'd be underestimating him to write him off as a show-off. "This looks fairly old to me, but well-maintained," he added, glancing around again at their surroundings. "It's possible this was in place before the Institute - perhaps it was built over."

[givemeoblivion.livejournal.com]

"See, that's what I figured at first." Callisto bit a fingernail in thought, still looking around. "But the little beast said he wasn't guarding anything. Of course he could be lying... but then why not follow us in and stop us? Why stay in the room he was stationed at? No." She shook her head. "If there are any real guards for this place, we've yet to meet them."

As sanzo stopped, she leaned against the wall and watched him with some mild curiosity, as though placing a mental bet on when he would collapse.

"Think it might be a treasure chamber of sorts?" she asked Qui-Gon in a bored tone. Gold and jewels meant nothing to her, but the greed of others was always something to be taken advantage of.

[31st-of-china.livejournal.com]

"As if you can trust a word one of them says when they're brainwashed by the Institute," Sanzo shot back. For all her bluster, acting as if she had all the answers, she was actually taking an opponent's words at face value. "He didn't follow us in because I shot him."

Maybe he'd somehow gotten up, but that bullet had been enough to put him out for a good several minutes. There was a good chance that there'd been more patients arriving just in time to distract him when he did get up again.

The monk's face might as well have had a clear 'Are-you-fucking-serious?' at her question. Of all the people they had trailing after them, they had to get some low-life thief. Nice to know she had her priorities in order.

[qui-gonjinn.livejournal.com]

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