damned_institute | Night 49: Basement

Entry tags:

Night 49: Basement - Grand Ballroom

[from here]

He somehow managed to fight back a sigh, though his exasperation was probably pretty obvious. Matt wasn't stupid, and he wasn't patient; he knew that something was up, something Mello obviously didn't feel like sharing at the moment. However, he wasn't the type to just roll over and accept bullshit - especially when his radar for it was going off like mad.

Instead, he figured he could press some of Mello's much more obvious buttons, until the prat decided to 'fess up. Taking a deep breath, he darted around Mello, slipping right past him as he opened the door and stepped through it ahead of him again. As he did, he made sure to pay close attention to his reaction - well. As close as he could, considering the mostly debilitating disorientation, no matter how brief it was.

When he stepped back out, blinking furiously as he fought back more nausea, Matt took as quick a look around as he could manage. Swallowing another cough, his eyes widened at the sheer enormity of the room laid out before them, and the sheer shininess of it. The ceiling was so high that it seemed endless, and the beam of his flashlight bounced off the dark, reflective flooring, seeming to light up the rest of the room rather effectively. He had to wonder, really, where they were now, because this didn't seem like a room that could fit in the Institute.

"Uh, Mello," he said; it was weird how his words seemed to echo ever so slightly. "We're not in Crazyland anymore." Or are we? Hard to tell, with all the jumping around they'd been doing; Matt was starting to notice symptoms of whiplash.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mello gave a frustrated, annoyed huff when Matt stole the lead for the second time tonight. "Will you quit--"

Then his head was reeling again, and the whole huge, ornate room wavered until he blinked hard, and this did not look like the Institute. He touched the pocket where his gun was, not realizing he was doing it.

"--that," he finished, stubbornly, but much more quietly. "Holy shit." He doubted this was as bright as an electrically-lit room, but it was blinding after all the dark rooms they'd been tossed into, and so huge and empty that he felt paradoxically claustrophobic. With his bad peripheral vision, he had an irrational fear that he wouldn't see anything that came after them.

"I don't know where the hell we are," he admitted. He turned a slow circle, shining his light around, noting wooden doors with carvings on them, and the white marble ones at the far (very far) end of the room. He'd got so turned around with all this jumping, he had no idea where they were in relation to anything. He headed for one of the closer doors, a bronze-trimmed wood one, to inspect it more closely.

Mello's protest fell on... well, not deaf ears, but Matt sure as hell wasn't paying attention to the blond right that moment; instead, he was off looking over the other side of the room - which was surprisingly ornate, and very big. He chuckled at that, giving the room a quick once-over with the beam of his flashlight. If we ever get outta here, we could be "Understatements R Us," he thought with a cheeky grin. Or... something equally sarcastic.

The sarcasm was helping keep the full effects of the night at bay. He found madhouses creepy as they were, but madhouses that actually went mad at nightfall? Not helping his mood.

"Shit," he murmured, looking up and down another magnificently crafted door, this one on the opposite end of the room from where they entered. Matt glanced over at Mello. "D'you think we're even still in the right time?" One just didn't find this level of decadence anywhere in the modern day.

"Of course we are," Mello said. "Life isn't a fucking science fiction novel, Matt."

Not that he'd have known it, from the last few days of his life, and Matt did have a point, of sorts. This was all very Old World, with the angels and devils, and as unsettling in its own way as the empty city had been. It was difficult not to feel dwarfed by the immensity of the room. Mello stood up straighter, in deliberate response to it. He wanted a look at those white doors that seemed so far away, too. They gave him a strange feeling, like a concentrated version of the unwilling awe the entire room imposed on him. He felt... challenged, and he didn't like it. Which meant he had to go over there. Obviously.

"Come on, I want to check those out." He started across the expanse of floor, footsteps echoing, not looking back to see if Matt would follow.

"That's not what I was even referring to!" Matt snapped, then thought better of it. Would admitting that I had a video game in mind make me less of a dork? Probably not - even though Eternal Darkness wasn't all that dorky of a game. This place reminded him of that mansion an awful lot, that was certain, and the goings-on of the entire night had his sanity meter running a bit short. Who knew - maybe the next door they passed through would have Matt and Mello walking on the ceiling.

...that's not a bad idea, actually.

Shaking his head, he returned to reality at the sound of Mello's semi-command. "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming," he grumbled, wishing like hell he had pockets to stuff his hands into; instead, he just tightened his grip on his flashlight, crowbar, and edible goodies, following after Mello.

Edited 2010-06-03 02:58 (UTC)

The Institute was playing some fucked-up game with them, and, as usual, they weren't privy to the rules. They'd been sent around within three distinct places so far, and this was looking like a fourth. Mello had the sense they were underground, because of the lack of windows, but there wasn't much to go on.

By the time he finally got to the doors, his feeling that there was a purpose to this room, one he should've been able to figure out, was stronger than ever. He reached out and ran a hand over one of the strange recesses in the door. "It's a puzzle." Games within tricks, and even if you solved them, you wouldn't get anywhere. Mello scowled, and for the first time, he considered simply giving up. Not as a real option, no. Just looking at it from the outside, wondering what it would feel like. To stop lying to himself, to accept that he had to live in the world as it was, not the way he wished, and tried to believe, it was. To quit fighting so hard, all the fucking time, in a race against time he'd already lost by now, in a war against Landel he suspected was unwinnable. To let all that go, and rest.

It was horrifically tempting.

Then he blinked, and thought, For fuck's sake, are you Mello or aren't you? This time it worked better, and he let out a breath he managed to turn most of the way into a laugh, ignoring for all he was worth how his heart was still pounding from how close he'd come to stepping off the ledge. He flattened his hand against the marble, ready to push, and gave Matt a smirk.

"But you know me. Cutting the Gordian knot's the first thing I would've tried."

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/914958.html?thread=69913614#t69913614)]

Edited 2010-06-04 04:09 (UTC)

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/888499.html?thread=69843123#t69843123)]

The first thing Mori noticed was a sudden feeling of vertigo. It was like he had just gotten up too quickly, his head going fuzzy, his stomach dropping like a stone and he nearly stumbled if not for a quick double step and an absolute fear of dropping Mitsukuni. Squeezing his eyes shut, the taller teen took a deep breath and that was when he noticed the next thing - the smell was wrong. The air was chilled and old, stale and the sense of space was far too big. Cracking an eye open, Mori shook his head as he tried to clear it of the strange fuzziness and then stopped dead in his tracks.

This wasn't the Sun Room. There was no sound of rain or the lingering scent of cat hair and sofa cushions. It was a giant...hall? So huge that no light seemed to be able to pierce the darkness that stretched into forever and so tall and even as Mori glanced up, he couldn't tell where it ended.

Where were they? And how did they get here?

One moment he'd been playing with Windy, trying to reach the paper balloon that always seemed to hover just out of reach, the next, they were in a huge room! Takashi was disoriented and even Honey took a moment or two longer as he sat up, blood rushing away from his head now that he was right-side up.

"Uwaaaaaaaaa," he breathed in quiet awe as he looked around the room. It definitely wasn't the Sun Room. And it couldn't be that Takashi got lost. The Sun Room was super-easy to find! But this definitely wasn't it. It wasn't anything close! It was like they'd somehow hopped into Doraemon's front pocket and been spit out somewhere completely different!

"How'd we get here? Where are we?" he asked, not actually expecting an answer, but feeling the need to voice it anyway. At least it was large and not cramped. That would've been even worse! But really now, where could they have ended up?

Now this was definitely new and interesting, and the sylph darted about curiously, her delighted giggles taking an almost eerie tone as they echoed repeatedly off the walls of the large room. She darted about the chandelier, examined the candles on the walls, and swirled about each pillar in turn, seeming to completely forget her companions for the moment.

At least one of them seemed enthralled with this place. Windy-chan took off, causing the chandelier to tinkle as she whizzed around it, taking her time to explore this new environment, and apparently thoroughly enjoying it all. Meanwhile, Mori felt like his heart had decided to swallow a rock and had plunged to the bottom of a sea trench. An unknown place meant unknown dangers and although he could hear others up ahead (or, at least, catch hints of human scents that lingered fresh in the air), he couldn't see them and he had no idea if they were hostile or monsters or just other lost travelers.

Mori felt the hackles raising on the back of his neck, but Mitsukuni's questions brought him back to reality. There was no way he could have gotten lost on the way to the Sun Room. Not a single wrong turn could have happened, especially not when he'd had his hand on the door. Craning his neck up again, he tried to get a glimpse of the ceiling only to be confronted with more darkness. That eliminated the more plausible trap door theory then. Falling all the way down here would have ki-- Unless it was a slide. Like, an instantaneous slide. Or something. Okay, dumb idea.

"...don't know," Mori said to answer both of Mitsukuni's questions. Taking a hesitant step forward and almost believing the floor would open up and drop them through to another level of dungeon or something, Mori began walking after Windy. Actually. That kind of made sense. Maybe they were in a dungeon. It was too bad this dungeon seemed kind of boring though. Nothing but candles and darkness and-- "Whoa."

A really big door. A really big, bronze and wood door that seemed to invite them going through it, or maybe to turn and go the other way and keep searching for another way out. Mori wasn't sure and he glanced up at Mitsukuni, tapping his knee with one finger. "What do you think?"

Windy seemed excited about the new room, but she was probably the only one. Even if it wasn't dangerous, it was worrisome that he had no idea how they'd gotten there. They ought to be in the Sun Room. Well, unless they'd managed a really fast remodeling. Which even Honey had his doubts on.

At Takashi's subdued exclamation, Honey turned immediately, observing the same giant door, his small and cherubic face the picture of surprise. Giant doors were usually really good or really bad. But doors like this had to be significant, didn't they? Why else would they make them so big? Maybe this was the exit! Maybe it led to a monster... But both were equally possible in his mind.

"We should try," he said finally, determination shining in his large brown eyes. "Even if it's a bad place, we can warn people about it! And if it's good, maybe we can find the way out!"

One of the candles from the chandelier made a fun toy and kept the sylph distracted while the boys talked, but shortly she realized that they didn't seem to be paying attention to her. She darted back over to see what they were interested in now, but it was just a door. Doors weren't any fun, unless they went somewhere. Impatiently, the sylph dropped the candle she'd been playing with at Mori's feet and rattled the door's handle.

Well, there was the decision. They were going to try this huge, rather ominous looking door even if Mori had no idea how they got down here in the first place. Even the ghost seemed interested in the thing, dropping her candle at Mori's feet to tug on the door handle. Kneeling down, Mori picked up the candle and handed it up to Mitsukuni. He had no idea why, but he figured if Windy liked it now, maybe keeping it around was a good idea.

Whether the door was a good thing or a bad thing was about to be revealed. Shifting the closet rod in his free hand just in case it turned out to be a bad thing, Mori reached out and grasped the handle. He didn't like not knowing what was beyond a door this large when experience through books and movies said either very good things or Extremely Bad Things generally lurked there. Still, no gain without risk, right?

Turning the handle, Mori pushed the door open with all his might and stepped across the threshold.

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/910883.html?view=69997603#t69997603)]

[From here]

Going through the door again made Utena feel sick to her stomach and dizzy again, just as she had felt going through those first two doors. Maybe that had something to do with the "how" that Ruby was interested in? The feeling was accompanied this time, however, by unexpected light around them. It wasn't much, but it was a lot more than had been in the building so far. Utena squinted, adjusting to the new lighting levels...

...and her jaw dropped.

"Ehh?! What in the—" Where the hell was this? She hadn't heard of any place like this in Landel's or Doyleton or anywhere! How could a place so big and ornate exist in the Institute? Were they even in the Institute anymore? She could only assume they had to be there, or at least somewhere nearby. Where else would Landel want them to go? "Have you ever been been in here before?" she asked as she looked all around in awe, gulping when she heard a faint echo of her own voice bouncing back off the impossibly high ceiling. This was feeling almost like walking into the arena the first time had. That same overwhelming sense of "this shouldn't be here" was billowing through her veins, forcing a shiver out of her.

“No way.”

Ruby stared up at the vaulted ceiling, wondering how the hell they’d managed to get down here. Well, the vaguely magical but not actually magical portal things were how the hell they’d managed to get down here, but where was “here”? The other places they’d ended up had realistically been within the scope of the evil haunted mental hospital, but suddenly they were in a Disney Princess ballroom, complete with candles and massive chandelier. Or it would have been, if not for the jet black marble and the creepy way their footfalls echoed in the massive, domed room. The doors on the other end were nothing if not imposing, as well.

This was, without a doubt, the weirdest place yet.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” she said needlessly, walking over to one of the candelabras on the walls but not touching anything. She hadn’t quite shaken the ‘this could all be a powerful illusion’ thing yet…plus, touching things in strange and improbable rules was a very fast way to get yourself offed. Magic and the supernatural aside, countless bad teen slasher porn movies had proven that rule. You didn’t walk willingly into a haunted house or touch random cursed objects.

The demon kept her knife at the ready. “Unless Prince Valiant is waiting behind the next pillar, we get the hell out of here as quickly as we can. Got it?”

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/898189.html?thread=70046093#t70046093)]

Now that they'd turned up both all over the Institute itself and a couple of places in town, Indy hadn't thought he could still be surprised by their landing sites. He'd been dead wrong.

The room he found himself in now was circular and significantly larger than any of the others they'd been in so far, with a high, domed ceiling. The floors and pillars were marble(!). Most of the space looked empty; the dominant furnishing was the heavy-looking chandelier overhead. He heard the sound of water coming from nearby, and it took a few seconds to locate the source: two fountains, right by the entrance they'd come in through.

Indy tried to think where the hell a room like this could be--Doyleton somewhere?--until Pilgrim's description from earlier came back to him. A gigantic ballroom. Fancypants chandelier. The first room in the basement.

He had a bad feeling about this.

"Remember that fire extinguisher?" Indy asked Dent in a low voice that still echoed uncomfortably loudly in the open room. "I think this is where that monster's supposed to be."

There was a lot of food for thought produced by what they'd just seen, but most of it he'd gone through three times over by now. Jones was right; they couldn't make any claims without more evidence, and they just didn't have access to enough of it. Nothing was going to hold up unless they had a means of proving it, but with the way they were tossed around (in this case, quite literally) and made to only see the aftermath of whatever Landel was up to, the odds were not in their favor.

Harvey had been eager to get out of the pet shop, but where they ended up next was on the very bottom of his list of possibilities, with only Gotham below it. He took in the lit ballroom and its expanse with one wide eye, feeling as if he'd just been shoved into the past. Equipped with fountains, torches on the walls, and an impressive chandelier overhead, this was about as out of place as it could get.

Before he could make any guesses or ask the other two any questions (maybe Mr. Smart Alec would have an explanation for this, if he'd seen so much), Jones provided some surprising information.

"This is the basement?" he shot back before sending an inconspicuous glance around the room. He didn't see a fire-breathing monster around, but maybe it only came out on certain nights -- or maybe it'd fallen through a door itself. That would be a surprise to whoever it ended up finding.

Still, the room itself didn't hold much, despite how impressive it was. The only way they'd get to see more was if they went through a door, and those clearly weren't functioning normally tonight. "Too bad we won't get the chance to check it out," he griped.

He'd almost hoped for them to turn up in another room in Doyleton except that he was fairly sure that their luck would have run out and they'd have been dumped in the middle of zombie barkeeper vs patients mark two and he never needed to see a room spattered with exploded zombie brains again. Or any kind of brains for that matter. From now, on brains should stay firmly inside craniums. Instead there was the sound of running water which would have been soothing except for the eerie way it echoed around the room.

The very very big room.

"The basement?" he asked, glancing over at them with a shudder and remembering Fai and Yue and screaming and that little girl slowly bleeding in his arms and only one can survive and Landel's smug, satisfied expression.

Still, this wasn't the Coliseum, and it was impressive, unlike anything that he'd ever seen. it would have been beautiful if everything hadn't seemed quite so warped. "That's probably for the best," he replied. "I've not heard of anything good coming from down here."

"Hard to be sure, but it fits the description," Indy answered warily. Not much chance there were two places around here with chandeliers like that.

He wanted to ask the younger man what exactly he'd heard about the basement, but right now he was more interested in getting out of it. Just like in town, there were no obvious signs that anything else in here was moving besides them, but the longer they stood around, the more likely they'd find out the hard way if they were wrong. And he never had run across that damned fire extinguisher.

The flashlight illuminated a number of doors; Indy arbitrarily headed for the one at three o'clock and went through it. The choice probably made no difference anyway.

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/926342.html)]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Night 49: Basement - Grand Ballroom

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject