Nightshift 49: The Bookworm

[chainsaw_royal]

[From here]The dark looks the same, no matter what, but the moment Hime's flashlight beam ghosted over rows of books, she knew something was odd. When a flash of lightning illuminated the darkened bookstore, it was confirmed

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[scalyfishman]

The smell was all wrong. Depth Charge realised it at soon as they walked through the door. Manta rays were hardly renowned for their keen olfactory senses, but even he could tell that the hallway wasn't supposed to smell of dust and paper. It was only in the instant that a sudden glare from outside lit up their surroundings that he finally made the connection.

They were in the book store in Doyleton. What the slag? How the Pit was that even supposed to work? They'd been in the Institute barely a nanoklik ago, and all they'd done was open a-

Click. The door closed neatly behind them, just as he finally realised why Hime's tone had been so urgent. There went the hallway, and the rest of the Institute. Depth Charge stood in shocked silence for a moment, still trying to bend the concept around his logic core, before he managed to speak. "What in the Matrix is going on? How did we end up here?"

From somewhere in the distance there came a roll of thunder.

[chainsaw_royal]

Hime glared at the Depth charge, or more accurately, right through his chest at the door behind him. This was going to be problematic, to say the least.

"So, that's the kind of game he's playing," she said in an annoyed tone. So it was this kind of spell. What was the purpose, though? It would common enough if they were trapped within the institute, but in this case, they were anything but. Besides, trapped within the institute was their default state. So had Landel set up the spell encompassing all of this little world he'd created? What was the point, considering that was all they could reach in the first place? She wanted to investigate the door, but first she needed to secure her surroundings. Unlike the mansion, this was unknown territory for her

[scalyfishman]

Hime sounded pretty slagged off, and really he couldn't blame her. What kind of a cheap joke was this, anyway? "Looks like it," he answered, giving a sigh and lowering his crowbar again. "I wouldn't call this 'renovation', but

[chainsaw_royal]

"So it would seem," Hime observed blandly, stepping around a fallen pile of paperbacks. Her flashlight moved quickly at the sound of something tapping, only to reveal a leak in the roof dripping water droplets onto a discarded hardcover. Other than that, it seemed the building was entirely silent besides the constant patter of rain and the occasional thunder.

"Nothing," said Hime, coming back to the front of the store with a book in hand. It was a waterlogged tome labeled "The Necronomicon", but as she flipped through its pages, it revealed itself to be a collection of short stories. Clicking her tongue, the Royal tossed it aside. "Anything on your end?"

She began wandering towards the counter, looking for anything of use. The most she turned up was a pair of scissors which, frankly, were even worse than the knife she'd stolen from the kitchen. She left it where it was.

[zack_fair]

[From here.]The increased sound of the rain was a quick clue as to their location. Back in the town, huh? Zack staggered toward the counter as he tried to overcome the vertigo that came every time they stepped through a door, and he only barely avoided dropping the materia that he was still holding on to in case something happened

[thatdamnedninja]

"Nothin' wrong with being light-hearted," Yuffie countered casually, following Zack to the door. "Or honest."

She'd give as good as she got. He wanted to treat her like a kid? It'd only come back and bite him in the end; she'd make sure of it.

Unfortunately, the only thing getting bitten right now was her. Vertigo ripped its nasty, greedy claws into her as she stepped through into the new location-whiplash dizziness sent her head spinning, her stomach rioting, and her knees crashing to the floor. It was no worse than all the other teleport-whatevers had been, but- "U-Ugh," groaned Yuffie, catching herself on the palm of her free hand before she could topple any further. The room dipped and wavered around her.

But, a little eventually added up to a whole lot.

Yuffie, breath catching unsteadily, scrambled back to her feet. She was fine. Would be fine. Very soon. And if the rain outside and the mess inside were any indication, the finer she was, the better off she'd be, in more ways than one. There weren't any zombies lurking

[notthistrain]

Cloud had started closing his eyes before stepping through doorways. While not the safest thing to do, it was somewhat easier on his stomach and he had two other pairs of eyes to warn him of danger in the event that they appeared directly in the middle of it. At least he looked to be handling the teleporting better than Yuffie was

[zack_fair]

It looked like Yuffie was still taking the weird warping feeling pretty badly, but Zack only eyed her for a second before turning his attention to the room and the window. She'd said she didn't want to be treated like she was only in her single digits still, so he was going to abide by that as much as he could. If she didn't want a hand up, that was her decision.

So none of them seemed sure of when this damage had been caused, but either way, it made it pretty clear that this place was far from safe. The spa had been in pretty good order in comparison, though that had been a bit earlier on in the night. Zack nodded to Cloud, figuring that his guess was probably the right one.

He went and joined his friend at the window, taking note of the fact that it had been broken from the inside out. There was no shattered glass on the floor, after all. "Looks like someone else tried before us, but who knows if it worked or not," he said with a shrug.

Did they really want to end up outside, though? It seemed like the town was a pretty bad