Night 54: Basement - Grand Ballroom

[its_the_mileage]

[from here]Indy descended the stairs cautiously, listening for any sound other than the usual fountain noises. He didn't catch any. This time, though, he did grab the nearest candle from the wall as they entered the room. As far as illumination went, it wasn't much, but it was better than stumbling around in the dark

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[unheroed]

They had made it this far, but in many ways this was only the start of the battle. Harvey didn't have much of an idea of what laid behind these doors, just vague hints. It seemed like anyone who came down here decided to keep their mouth shut about it, which both intrigued him and worried him.

But that wasn't enough to stop him from indulging his curiosity, and so he followed Jones down the stairs without the slightest hesitation. A glance at the fountains reminded him of the way the other man had had to wash off his burn wound the night before, and the memory caused his stomach to clench. But they weren't here for that now.

In the end, Jones headed right for the door, having been smart enough to obtain another way to light their path. It was well-lit here, but he wouldn't be surprised if it got dark the moment they got through one of these doors.

If they got through.

Harvey turned off his flashlight and glanced at Jones when the question was asked. "People were vague, so I'm not sure... but yeah, we definitely needed more than two." He sure as hell hoped that three was enough and that their decision to leave without Scott wasn't a mistake. There was only one way to find out, and so he pulled closer to the door.

[toxicspiderman]

A tile had slid aside like a piss-poor manhole cover.  They were round for a reason.  A quarter and a piece of paper with a hole in it could show that one.  Why he felt such a resounding comfort with dropping into a dark hole was, conversely, a great mystery.  He remembered claiming to be a biochemist and an Eco-activist, but where did the urban spelunking habit fit in?  Boredom?  World's worst commute?

Either way, he had a basement to see.  The stairs wound down and down.  No cramped quarters here, and the sound of running water did not bring along the stench of unprocessed human waste.  Double weird.  He sone the flashlight around.  So this was the spare ballroom.  Maybe this place had been a school?

He found Harvey and Indy by sound before his searchlight sweep made it to the three-man door.  Good thing, too -- it meant they'd seen him only as a beacon as he stopped and stared at Harvey's face.  Bare tendons stretched across bone.   How the guy wasn't in bed with a fever hot enough to start slagging proteins into amino acid soup was beyond him.

Old injury, kept grotesque to end up on the comfortable end of a criminal malpractice suit? Radical future fashion plastic surgery? Forget tattooed skulls, show off your own?  Too bad Spider wasn't here.  He!'d laugh at the savage who though ear piercings in men were still edgy and S.T. wouldn't be standing here trying to wipe his first reaction from his face.  Figuratively, that was.  His gut seemed unfazed.  Maybe he'd been in forensics?  That didn't fit any better than they did in their mismatched clothes.

"No one told me I should bring my three-piece suit.  What do we do, all touch the door at once and recite a magic incantation?"  He walked up on Harvey's good side, the light unswerving from the door.          

[its_the_mileage]

"Surely not," Indy half-scoffed, but if he was honest, it wasn't such an absurd proposition. Who knew what opened doors around here.

Only one way to find out, though. He reached out and gave one side of the heavy double doors a strong push. The door swung open so easily that the force of the motion almost sent him tripping forward along with it.

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