Nightshift 43: Basement, East Hall

[godforsaken]

[From here.]

Despite having prepared himself for what was to come, Sync could only blink when something clicked from behind him the moment the doors closed. He turned around, frowning slightly when the obstacles refused to budge before shaking his head.

It looked like they had no other choice but to move forward.

"Sorry, I should've wedged something there to keep it open," He murmured, but before he could urge the other two to go the sight before him caught him off guard.

Sync hadn't noticed it at first, having been preoccupied with getting the other two in, but it wasn't long before he spotted the brutal scenes that lined the walls of the hall. The God-General was no stranger to war and death, and so he eyed the tapestries with a fascinated expression.

Comments

[dahliahasthorns.livejournal.com]

Ah well. Like the ballroom as she may, it only figured their leader here wouldn't let them stay there all day. That would have been nice. So she followed the shrimp as they moved onto the next hallway, keeping her comments to herself aside from the occasional vapid giggle and nod of agreement to Annie.

Click.

Dahlia turned her head and watched Sync fumble with the doors in vain. So they were locked in here now? Great. Just what she wanted.

He owed her for this.

It took more effort than usual not to roll her eyes and huff as she retrieved her flashlight from her knife bag and flicked the switch on. And my, what wonderful decor this room had. All the better to disgust her with. Dahlia let out a little shriek of horror and averted her eyes to the ground, groping in front of her to grab onto Sync's hand and trail behind him like a lost little lamb. "How... how horrible!"

[gald_digger]

"Boooo! I'm already cute and charming enough to be a head turner," Anise argued with a pout. Even if he was putting on an act, it felt weird to hear Sync say anything about his future. Back on Auldrant, he always acted like he didn't plan on having one.

She followed the God-General into the next hall and jumped when she heard the lock click behind them. "Aah! Now we're trapped..." If the next room looked too dangerous, or if Sync decided to turn on them, there would be nowhere to run. Anise tried not to let that realization weigh her down, but it sure bugged her.

It didn't bug her for long, though, because Dahlia's shriek soon pulled her from her thoughts. Anise whirled around quickly, thinking maybe they were under attack, but it turned out their little princess was just too delicate to handle the sight of... Well, okay. The art was in pretty bad taste, now that Anise looked at it. She wandered over to get a closer look, and groaned at the gruesome imagery. It wasn't anything to scream about, but it was definitely unsettling. Anise had been on a few battlefields before, but that didn't make her comfortable with them. It was almost as bad as the bloody statue in the Chapel. Did the Head Doctor like this kind of stuff? What a sicko.

"Let's just keep going," she suggested, since it didn't look like Dahlia could stand the decor for much longer, and she didn't really want to look at it either. Anise walked to the far end of the hall, stopped, and looked over both of the doors. One looked just like the door they came in through. Since the whole excursion was Sync's idea, she supposed he'd be deciding which way they went.

Hopefully the gross-looking pictures didn't have anything to do with what was ahead.

[godforsaken]

Like Anise, Sync only looked away from the tapestries when he heard a shriek, feeling Dahlia take hold of his hand moments after. The God-General refrained from rolling his eyes, instead watching the redhead with worry.

"Just stay close and you'll be fine." It wasn't like blood was going to start pouring out of the pictures, but whatever. Sync carefully tugged the redhead along as he followed Anise further down the hallway, stopping right behind her once the two other sets of doors came into view. He took a moment to examine the two different styles, rubbing his chin in thought before deciding.

"Right would be right, I guess." The door looked very similar to the one that led them there, which meant that chances were good it'd lock the second they closed it. However, he could only theorize that they'd stumble across something grander than if they took the other.

And so, without further delay, Sync pulled open the door for the other two before following suit.

[To here.]

[falseblack]

[From here.]

With an entirely new hallway in view, Nigredo remained standing, suppressed shock creeping into his countenance. So much for not being disruptive.

"...Sorry."

[udo-retrovirus.livejournal.com]

The redhead had partially expected Albedo to react worse than he had, to fight back once he realized it was his twin that had approached. Being pulled into the door was a pleasant surprise compared to that, and he'd sat there for a moment, letting Albedo cling to him.

Until the door opened and they both went tumbling through, with Junior landing on his shoulder. "Ow!" he yelped, and almost glared up at the youngest when he heard the apology. "What did you touch, Nigredo?"

[purgatio]

The spinning loss of reality was almost accepted, so far was the middle Variant gone. Albedo's head cracked into the floor loudly, black spotting in front of his vision. For a moment, he stayed there, hands still partially clenched in Rubedo's shirt.

It was the extreme familiarity of the circumstance, something bittersweet and much too well known that prompted his eyes to open, clearer than before. Nigredo apologizing, and Rubedo sounding mad, and the feeling of being somewhere new, somewhere they hadn't been before and might not supposed to be. Albedo blinked, shifting upwards and reluctantly detaching from Rubedo to rub his hands against his head. The headache he had been nursed was now twice as strong, and here was another instance of priorities resettling. He watched the two through his fingers, almost curious, as if it was something unseen for a long time. And it was. In a way.

The boy stood cautiously, getting his feet under him before straightening. No concussion. That was well at least. With an almost longing look at his brothers, Albedo moved the flashlight to the other end of the hallway, illuminating two doors in addition to tapestries of turmoil. These, Albedo showed little surprise in, merely taking a step closer and running fingers across the texture. It was quaint, and slightly suited his tastes, and Albedo had a crossing thought to take one down and bring it with him, but the entirety of him was, once again, centered on his siblings. He glanced back, almost congenial, another shift in this night's emotional and mental states. "Are we going this way?"

[falseblack]

Nothing, Nigredo nearly claimed before thinking better of it. "Just the door." Just the door that opened on its own when he grazed a finger across it. That had to be a coincidence.

He dropped a hand and stepped through the threshold, sidestepping the closed sister door and the twins sprawled on the floor. Much like the adjacent room, the hallway was seeped in an ancient air, though it appeared far more revealing in its origins. The child stared for a long minute at the tapestries, something unreadable in his features.

When he responded, Nigredo had yet to move. His voice, however, sounded lighter. "That's up to Rubedo," he answered. "He seems to know where he's going."

[udo-retrovirus.livejournal.com]

The door? Must not have been as sturdy as it looked from the floor angle if it just fell open like that when Nigredo touched it. Unless he'd been planning on shoving it open so they fell. The youngest had always been pretty sneaky about stuff like that.

"Yeah, just shove it all on me, why don't you," Junior shot back, though he had a more laid back expression on his face than he'd had for a good portion of the night so far. The atmosphere had changed significantly between the brothers, which put the redhead more at ease.

When Albedo finally let go, he pushed himself up with his other arm, then rubbed at the injured one as he looked around the hall. He blinked several times before his eyes finally started adjusting to the lighting difference, but when they did, he spotted the tapestries.

"Man, this place is pretty cool!" Really, he thought it was creepy as hell, given the subject matter, but it wasn't like pictures of war scenes were worse than the actual thing. Saying it was cool helped take away that feeling that something was going to jump out at them any second now. Besides, this was real, ancient (or not-so-ancient, perhaps) tapestries in a giant underground basement! Paying for stuff like this back home would've cost a fortune and a half. Nigredo wasn't old enough to complain about it coming out of his wallet, either.

As they all proceeded further down the hall, the redhead could hear the door that they'd fallen through creaking shut and locking. What the hell!? came a panicked thought, but there were still more doors to go through. There had to be a way back out.

Something shiny caught Junior's eye further down the hall, to the left. He wondered briefly if it was just a trick of the light, but upon approaching it closer, he could make out some large golden doors. "Let's go through here!" he called back to the other two, going up to one of the doors and running a hand over the knocker before pushing it open.