Log: Stores Cleanup
Who: Aleudre, Amerie, Carisandra, Jaeni, Laylia, Louvaen, Lujayn, Milani, Niena, Viviana
When: Afternoon, day 21, month 6, turn 15 of the 10th Interval
Where: Stores, High Reaches Weyr
What: The Candidates get roped into cleaning up one of the dirtiest, dankest, foulest back of the back Store Rooms at the Weyr. Spinnerwebs, snakes, shaky shelving and other shenanigans abound.
Thank you so much to everyone who came to participate in the scene. I hope it was fun and generates further RP throughout Candidacy! Please note that this version of the log is the full start-to-finish version if anyone would like to grab it for their LJ/files.
Word ran through the Barracks earlier that Hayda was really on the war path and collecting anyone remotely at loose ends to come help clean up the direst, dankest of the back Store Rooms. Milani of course got drafted to help execute this mission and so it is that she stands in the corridor outside the door with a group around her. "All right everyone. It's pretty bad in there. There's a huge pile of .. .junk in the middle of the room that has to be sorted through and anything worth keeping set aside, and stuff that's not tossed. The shelves are in bits, anyone good with a hammer, help Oson and Nibren here, our handy handymen to tear down what's there and put up new, but we gotta take whatever's on 'em down first and it's just not /pretty/." Millie takes a deep breath. "So ... grab your glows and your courage and let's go, Hayda wants this one sorted out by the end of the seven!" So saying she puts the key to the door, unlocks it and swings it open with an ominous groaning of hinges and flame it if it's not a horrid mess indeed, with spinnerwebs all over the place and snake skin droppings here and there.
Niena shudders and says, mostly to herself, "Tunnelsnakes I can handle, but why did there have to be spinners?" Still, she steps into the room, flailing at the webs.
Amerie is near Milani as if she might use the lighter girl as a shield - not from the room, but from the candidates. Perhaps not drafted, she's still along, though it looks as if her role is entirely supervisory. As in, not touching anything. To the other assistant headwoman, "I thought there weren't any more of /these/."
Carisandra stifles a sigh and walks resignedly towards the storage cavern and right on into it. She's a few people back from Niena and doesn't have to contend with any spinner webs yet. "And lots of dust." she mutters to herself, looking around the cavern.
"See," Aleudre directs to one of the candidates beside him as he dons a pair of gloves, "I do work." He winks and then steps towards a large pile of boxes. "Wonder what's in here," he muses, opening it and letting loose a wave of dust. Coughing, he waves his hand in front of his face and steps back. "Bad idea."
Glow in hand, Lujayn follows the unfortunate group into the storeroom. "Where are some brooms?" She turns to find those toting supplies, already at odds with the spinnerwebs in her hair and not pleased about it. Taking one, she immediately sets to battling the wispy nests. "Watch out, bugs," She forges a clear way ahead, keeping an eye out for any live ones that might come her way.
Niena brushes the spinner webs from herself, as well as a few live arachnids on which she proceeds to stomp. "I hate these things -- can't see them until after they've stung the babies." Following Lujayn's example, she grabs a broom and begins tackling webs on the other side of the room.
Milani ducks around the big old pile of junk with a grimace. "It's the last one, Amerie," she notes with a sigh and looks around, lifting her own glowbasket high. "Shells what a mess." She stands in front of a rickety shelf now and looks over her shoulder as Aleudre sets free that cloud of dust. "And Faranth only knows what /that/, is" she points at dark lumpy ... things on the shelves. Ugh. Dust bins? Who's got them?" calls out the assistant headwoman looking back towards the open door.
Jaeni is following along in the tail end of the group, eyeing the cobwebs and dusty shelves. She eyes the brooms and the girls battling spiders, and instead seems to decide that she's better off doing something else. Changing direction she heads towards the shelves and starts pulling things off them and placing them carefully on the ground. She pulls one box off, curiously peering inside. "A box of socks?" She sounds disappointed at the find and also a touch confused.
Louvaen hangs at the back of the group as he listens to Milani, features grimly set against what awaits them all. As she finishes, his chin drops in a little nod as his eyes go to the door. Watching the other candidates begin to file in, his top lip begins to curl upwards as their comments filter back. Finally, with a sigh, the young man's fingers tighten around the handle of his glow basket and he hesitantly ventures forth into the room. His eye catching on the broom-wielding Lujayn first, he slides into step behind her to take advantage of the path she makes. "If you can clear a way to those shelves, I suppose I'll get started on what's up there," he notes in a weak voice, swinging his glow basket to indicate the stand of shelves sagging against the far wall.
Laylia is a little behind the crowd, having her hair pulled back into a cloth to keep the cobwebs from getting stuck all in it, and with an apron on in front of her dress to keep it from getting too terribly dirty. "I have a couple dust bins with me, ma'am." She offers, and nudges Louvaen with her glows basket who appears to be less than eager to join the cleanup in the dark place. The small dust bins she has with her are tucked under her other arm, and she appears not entirely eager to clean the room but definitely willing to.
Shaking down a fair share of dust along with the webs, Lujayn is relieved by the call for bins. "Here," She swings her broom around to wipe off the mess collected on its bristles, all the fiber and dust wound around the long tail. "Thanks for the light. Let's go." Another relieved greeting to Louvaen, beginning a new campaign towards the shelves now that another glow shows her what still hangs from the ceiling. "I thought I looked busy enough to get out of working down here..."
Aleudre pulls the box out further into the glowslight, opening it more carefully this time. "Hm, this one's sheets. Looks half-eaten, at that." He reaches one gloved hand in and lifts up one of the near thread-bare sheets to look at further. "Where's that garbage pile again?" he asks Milani, who seems to be closest. Not waiting for a answer, he starts to pull the box over to the pile Jaeni's making. "Here. Let's make this the toss out group, hm?"
Sourly, "I've heard that before." Amerie follows Milani in despite generally bad humor over this 'last' room; wrinkling her nose at the general decay, and the lumpy things... But then, Jaeni's said something interesting. With a blink, a flick of dark eyes towards the candidate, "Socks?" Said casually. "How old?"
Carisandra is wandering into the back of the chamber. She's picked up and old broken broom that was laying against the other side of the boxes Aleudre started working on. She uses the handle mostly to bring down the spinner webs and tromp the spinners that land on the floor and jumping back to keep them from falling on herself. Not that she's very successful keeping them off. "ack"
"Oh thanks Laylia! Bring those over here!" Milani calls over to the Candidate. "That we can just ... pull this pile of ... whatever right down into them and ... deal with sorting it later. All these have to come down." She eyes the shelves suspiciously. "Be careful of bumping them too hard!" A turn of her head Aleudre's way and she shakes her head. "I don't really know, it has to be all separated out. Looks like there's even scrap wood in there. And who knows under that tarp." The pile in question looks like some long misshapen dragon, old and toothless, a mishmash of furnishings, scrap wood, boxes, barrels and who knows what else, with the tarp slung over one end hiding ... stuff.
Niena is still working on the webs when suddenly she jams the broom handle onto the floor, hard. It doesn't sound as loud and sharp as it might seem it should, and the reason soon becomes clear -- she just neatly broke the neck of a tunnelsnake crawling out of one of the corners. "Watch out -- it's not just skins." she calls to the others.
"How old? Well, they're... dusty?" Jaeni pauses by the proclaimed 'toss out group' by Aleudre, to examine her find. Hesitantly she sticks her hand inside and pulls a few out. "Well, they're totally gross and dirty but they aren't falling apart?" The blonde looks over Amerie, holding them up. Then she drops them back into the box. Niena outright killing the tunnelsnake causes her to wrinkle her nose and stare at the animal out on the floor. "Ew."
Louvaen skips forward more rapidly at Laylia's prodding, turning a half-grin back over his shoulder at the other candidate. Glancing back forward, he rocks back to stay well clear of the broom that Lujayn swings around. Coughing lightly to get the dust out of his lungs, he nods at the younger girl. "Certainly. After you." Reflexively ducking his head down, he follows her progress towards the shelves, chuckling wryly at her final words. "I supposed I was doomed today, as it was obvious that all the prep work I could help with in the kitchens was done." He turns his head back to look at what the others are doing, blanching as he hears Niena's warning of tunnelsnakes. A quiet 'shards' is whispered under his breath, and his glowbasket is held lower as he scans the area in front of Lujayn's feet. "You don't see anything moving, do you?" is asked nervously.
With a sympathetic glance, Amerie waves Jaeni and the box of totally gross socks away. "It's likely all trash," she says, generally. Though she's with Jaeni on the ew - looking Niena's way with a grimace, she begins to back towards the door a little. "Milani," she calls, "I'm just going to be over here. Let me know if you need me to go get anything."
Aleudre stares at Niena. "I can't believe you just -killed- that thing without so much as flipping." He looks fairly uncomfortable at the act, though he hides it as best he can by assessing Jaeni's socks. "Yeah, that's just trash to me. I don't want to mend them." He nods to Amerie, "see?" His own box of haphazard pieces of wood and sheets is discarded as he steps around to go and start looking through some of the shelves. Cautiously.
Lujayn looks over her shoulder, hearing the plight of another candidate with the webs. "You okay, Carisa? Spinners getcha?" She keeps on towards the shelves, brushing the old structures heartily with her broom once the way is clear. "Nothing down her but dirt, and looks like some boxes too." She replies to Louvaen, but starts sweeping vigorously at shadowy corners - just in case.
Laylia heads over towards where Milani called out to her, and rather than asking, she just starts collecting things into the bin that seems like it could be garbage - or very large dustbunnies. The other candidates are listend to, though not entirely commented about, except when Niena makes that large crunching noise which causes her to turn around quickly, and wonder, "What was /that/?" She then notes the dead carcass and scrunches her nose. "Oh, it's one of those."
From the deepest, darkest corner of the stores comes the dulcet, sweet tones of Viviana. That is, if high-pitched shrieks could ever be regarded as dulcet. "Get that thing away from me, it's disgusting, it's dead and it's got no head!!" Yes, Vivy had been trying her best to be on her best behaviour but a girls got her limits. "And where is the head, anyhow---- ewww get that away from me, it's dripping!"
"More dust cloths," Milani says firmly as she eyes the veritable clouds of the stuff lifting up into the air, to Amerie with a grin and then shakes her head a little about the tunnelsnake killing. "There's probably more where that came from," she notes briskly and then steeling heself, starts to pull the dark mounds of stuff off the shelves right into one of the dustbins from Laylia. "Oh ... oh foul. Rotting, buggy ... eeek!" Some creepy crawlies go skittering every which way, a few winged, taking off out of what was probably formerly a pile of woollen sweaters.
Niena says wryly "It's rare one of these gets into the nurseries, but when they do, it's a matter of killing them as soon as possible so the babies don't get hurt. In a way I prefer them over spinners since you can actually see them coming."
"Your master mending skills won't fix this sock?" Jaeni asks him, stooping down long enough to find one with a huge hole in it to show him. She giggles and then drops it, trailing along back to the shelves. The next thing she grabs, a jar. With something liquidy in it. She presses her face up against the glass of the big, staring inside, "I don't think this can be saved." Viviana's shrieks startle her enough that she tosses the jar up in the air and has to scramble to get a hold of it again before it drops to the ground.
Carisandra spins around at the tunnelsnake warning. She stares at Niena for a few seconds then looks down at the floor around her. Nope. No snakes there. No shadows zipping about either. At least, not that she can see. "Not yet." she calls back to LuJayn. Reaching one of the old shelves in the very back she eyes the stuff on it but before she can see what it is, a good sneeze rocks her back on her heels. The sneeze sends a spinner that was resting on the shelf scuttling into the back against the wall. "Niena, I'm going to stick by you from now on. Deadeye."
Shrieking abounds it seems with so many teenaged girls in one disgusting, creepy space. Milani brushes a crawlie off her arm and stoically shoves the rest of the decomposing sweaters into the dustbin. "Thankfully, we shouldn't have to do this /again/ once it's /done/. We'll make sure to keep these clean from here on." Jaeni's tossed jar earns a cringe though. "Oh shells ..." she murmurs eyeing its arc but too far off to really do anything about it.
"Dust cloths. Excellent." Amerie is pleased with that task, though her expression shades towards a smirk as she hears Viviana shrieking. In a voice that carries, "Good luck, Vivy. If you kill anything, please don't bring it my way?" And the dark girl ducks out into the corridor again, on a mission.
"Right." Louvaen swallows hard, nodding again as Lujayn fails to see anything moving. As she brushes down the shelves, he moves into the cleared space. "I'll look through these boxes," he volunteers reluctantly as the girl carries on with her sweeping. The shelf creaks and cracks threateningly as he slides one of the wooden boxes forward, then lifts it quickly down to the ground. Steeling himself with another breath, the young man squats beside it and pries the lid off. "Ugh, ick, eww," he exhales, turning his face away from the desiccated decay lying at the bottom of the box. "I think this one used to be tubers, or something." Standing, he eyes the next box warily before reaching to bring it down, too.
Vivy appears from the shadows, looking prematurely grey as her usual black hair is throughly covered with dust and spinner-webs. Glowering at her fellow work crew who wisely stay within the darkness, she sniffs. "Rude, obnoxious, evil little t.." Oh, hello MIlani!" Her smile is as sweet as ever. "I think we got that corner cleared." She peers over at Louvaen and laughs. "Too bad the vintners weren't here, they could make wine out of that?"
Niena resumes clearing cobwebs in her corner and neatly sweeps the tunnelsnake corpse in with the skins and dust already there. Not seeing any other snakes at the moment she begins sweeping in general, smiling gratefully at Laylia as she sees the dustpans in the other candidate's hands.
Laylia can't help but snicker a little as even the men of the group start sounding like girls trapped in this filthy workspace. She doesn't make a big deal about it though, simply goes about plucking out things that are surely trash, and tossing them into the dustbin. "Once you've cleared out rooms like these before, it doesn't seem so bad. You should see the back of the stables back at home, some of those got nasty.." She muses, heading towards Niena to use the bin to dispose of the tunnelsnake corpse along with the dust she'd gathered up.
Lujayn clears her dusty throat, eyes watering from the clouds of dust rising from every which way. "Careful.." She eyes the shelves for a moment before carrying on, mistrustful of the rickety things. "A box of tubers?" Is her echoed confusion before silent, furious sweeping commences. All too soon, it's ended by a cry of her own. "Oh! There it goes! Get it!" Sounds like she has a tunnelsnake on the run, or rather the slither. Multiple thwacks of Lu's broom echo from the floor as she races after the swiftly moving shadow, single-minded.
Jaeni barely manages to get a hold of her jar, sighing with relief when it doesn't smash into a million pieces on the ground. Holding it tightly in her arms she walks over to the pile and places it down. "Sharding screaming girls... think they'd never seen dirt and bugs and moldly food before..." She mutters, looking as if she's becoming disgruntled.
"Huh?" Carisandra spins around, her back to the shelves as she looks at the floor around her, then tries to spot Lujayn. "What? Where?" Finally she spots Lujayn across the cavern from where she is, which sends her eyes back to the floor again to see if she can spot any odd shadows moving where they shouldn't be. "Which way?" She's gradually edging back towards Niena.
"Oh you know, that looks like the preserved pears we lost last winter!" Milani says with a hint of forced brightness as she looks at Jaeni's jar more closely. "Here, those should actually be okay, put those in um ... that box there?" An empty one nearby that looks mostly still in one piece. "There should be more of those Jaeni," notes the assistant headwoman confidently then she turns at Vivy's approach. "Oh good. One corner down ... how many more to go?" And she looks around with a roll of her eyes. "Everyone okay back there with the snakes?" she calls out more loudly.
Louvaen twists to cast a glance over at Viviana as he sets the next box on the floor. "I don't think I'd like any wine that came from this," he notes flatly. The second lid is pulled off, revealing more of the same as the first box. But before he can pull down another box, Lujayn's cry sends a shock through him. With an undignified yelp the young man leaps for the shelves. "What!" His voice is high and frightened. "Where? Have you got it?" The old wood creaks under his weight, the bottom shelf snapping under his feet and dropping them back to the ground.
Returning with a basket of dust cloths, Amerie can't exactly hear what Milani's being a little too bright about, but she can hear that something's off - drifting through the dirt and people to the other assistant headwoman, she offers smoothly, "Dust cloths?" It's in the same tone and cadence as one might ask, 'What's up?'
Viviana scowls as she overhears Jaeni. "I wasn't screaming at bugs and mouldy food is disgusting but dead, dripping tunnelsnakes are scream-worthy in my mind." Wiping off her mouth after taking a drink from a waterskin, she looks about for a new project, in better lit areas. Grabbing a dustrag, she busies herself dusting an area already dusted, making sure to get all the deeper corners. Muttering to herself, she vows. "No one is getting me down there, no way no how." Clearing her throat, she answers Milani. "Oh, they are crowded back there, lots of workers, lots of snakes, lots of gore, they've got it covered. Pears? Are pears supposed to bubble like this?" She brings out a jar for inspection, grey moldy blobs floating in a murky brine. "Good thing we don't get those back home."
Milani beams all the more brightly at Amerie as she arrives. "Oh thank you so much Amerie. Those'll help immensely with getting the jars of /pears/ dusted off so we can see if they're still good." There's a covert little widening of her eyes at the other assistant headwoman and a tiny nod towards another row of the jars, a different set from the ones Viviana's dealing with that actually look to be in good shape under the dust.
"Well they're dead, it's not like they're going to put their slimey heads back on turn and totally, like, eat you or something." Jaeni responds. She glances down at the jar and then at Milani. "Oh, so those other jars are pears too?" Her eye find their way back to the shelves. She picks up the preserved fruit, lugs it over to the other box and places it gently down. That done she redirects herself again and goes back to the jars, picking them up and staring inside the contents dubiously.
"Some tunnelsnakes are poisonous though, I hope none of the ones in here are.." Laylia muses, as she picks up random garbage from the corners of the rooms. She even lifts the tarp to check what's underneath there, then drops it the moment after. "I have /no/ idea what that is, but if someone else does.." She says, arching her brows and looking quite skeptical of the finding before walking off from that to gather more garbage for her bins.
Niena finally sees the fleeing tunnelsnake and heads for it, broom ready. With an efficient snap she breaks this one's back, the kill as bloodless as her first. Again she sweeps the carcass as well as the shed skins and other miscellenea into a pile and begins tackling another section of the floor.
Lujayn nearly trips over one of the boxes of tubers in her haste to get after the serpent (thwack!), but dodges aside with a fierce strike of her broom. "Here," (thwack!) "over here," She responds to those who ask, none too specific, though her shouts are out of excitement - a thrilling chase - rather than fear. There's a final-sounding thud, and Lu twists to see exactly where she's ended up. "Got it!" A cheerful call, sweeping the deceased thing towards the growing rubbish pile. "Lou, come down - oh, nevermind," She can't help but chuckle, seeing the broken shelf.
Amerie looks the way Milani indicates and Jaeni goes to investigate - and in an unusually candid moment, the dark girl just sighs. Of course. It takes but a moment for her to recover, nodding Viviana's way. "Perhaps they're just better preserved than the other lot?" she supposes, though not very certainly.
Carisandra returns to the doorway to grab a couple of rags before trudging back to the shelves that are mostly empty. Only the lower shelf is full of- stuff. Looks like some old broken toys from the nurseries. Or just bits and bobs that were sitting there collecting dust? Whatever. "Wow. A double kill. I hope that's all of them." she looks between Lujayn and Niena before returning her attention to the dusty shelves again.
Viviana doubtfully glances at the three or four jars that she discovered, in the shelving until two away from Jaeni's work station. "These don't look like pears, but then again, I've only had fresh pears here and these look a different type of jar? I'm no cook..." An evil, petty little grin crosses her lips. "But Carisandra is, maybe she can check it out?"
In his eagerness to get away from the snake, Louvaen doesn't heed the warning given by that first shelf breaking nor Lujayn's call that she's got it. Still in fearful flight mode, his feet scramble higher, seeking purchase on the second board. His arms flail to get a better hold on the nearest vertical support beam. All seems well for a moment... Then there's a loud snap of breaking wood, followed by the complaining creaks of stressed nails and cracks of further splitting wood. A scared, squeaky, wailing noise comes from Louvaen's throat as the whole stand of shelving starts to tip. Boxes slide and crash first, followed by the splintering boom of the old wood exploding against the floor.
"Oh I don't think we need to open them, but it sure does explain where they got off to." Is Milani actually admitting to /not/ knowing where something in Stores was? Imagine that. "All right then, we can just pack any that look all right off to the kitchens then." Brisk again and she leans around to look Lujayn's way. "Good shot!" she calls over and starts to reach up with a cloth to dust just as the stand of shelves starts to sway alarmingly and comes crashing down. Her arms fly up over her head as dust and stray bits of wood go flying. "Oh shells! Duck everyone!"
"Carisa hates working in the kitchen just as much as /I/ do, Viviana." Jaeni calls over to the younger girl, her tone all knowing as she picks another jar up. "And really you've nev-" This is cut short when the blonde lets loose a high pitched screach of her own. Her hands go to cover her head as she ducks down, and what does that mean? It means that the "pears" she /was/ holding go crashing to the ground, exploding and leaking ooze everywhere that they land.
Skidding to a stop at the sound of her name, Carisandra turns and looks at Viviana? "What can I check?" she sees the jar she's holding and her nose wrinkles. "Right. Risa can't tell one end of a knife from the other according to the cooks and has been banished from the kitchens and- " her voice trails off as the snaps and cracks of the old wood and a weird squeaky wail catches her attention. Milani's call to duck has her spinning around and doing just that, disappearing from sight as the shelves come down.
Niena was across the room from Lujayn and Louvaen, but she ducks reflexively. After a few seconds she sees the source of the creaking and cracking wood and straightens up. Then she sighs as a jar drops and liquid -- sticky liquid at that -- splashes all over the place.
Lujayn is just turning back towards Louvaen and the shelves, sweeping as she goes, but freezes in her tracks at the ominous creaking. "Huh?" She pales to see the structure toppling, motionless for a moment before her reflexes take over. "Shells!" The runner ducks to the ground, clutching her broom tightly.
As shelves and jars come crashing down, Amerie's mood is just getting better and better. With a purse of lips, she mutters something that sounds like 'disaster'. Eyeing the seeping mess, her lips purse, but she manages to make herself call out, "Everyone all right?" The shelves get a dubious, almost worried glance.
Viviana blinks, all innocence. "Oh really? I must have understood, Carisandra earlier, oh now that you mention it, Carisa, I do recall you saying that you are hopeless in the kitchens, never mind..." Continuing her dusting, she reports. "No more jars here.." As she's practically 'in' the shelf she is dusting, she's safe for now from flying wood. "Oh my..." Peeking out just as the jar smashes nearby she can only repeat. "Oh my..." as she flicks away a bit of liquid off her nose.
Laylia managed to be out of the way of the falling shelving, as well as the mess that's oozing all over the floor. "Does anyone have a mop?" She asks, figuring as much as dustpans and such were wonderful, that the gooey mess wouldn't be cleaned up by those things alone.
Coughing from the explosion of dust that blasted into her corner, first from the boxes tumbling off the broken shelf, then from the shelves themselves, Carisandra straightens up, waving a hand in front of her face to try to find some dust free air to breathe. She's covered in dust from head to toe. "Louvaen? Where are you?"
Louvaen, of course, does not have the option of ducking. Though he remains clinging to the shelves the whole ride down, somehow he manages to throw one of his arms up to curl protectively behind his neck and head. His landing is thudding enough to knock the wind out of him, but at least none of the boxes fall on him. Still, he doesn't try to jump up right away, instead melting in a mortified puddle on the floor with a quiet moan. "Nugh..." is his first try at vocalizing when Amerie calls over. "Uh huh." Refilling his lungs, the young man starts shifting his arms to push the broken shards of wood off of himself. "Here," is answered with a grunt to Carisandra. Then, "Lu, you okay?" he asks shakily after the girl who'd been nearest by.
Viviana crawls out from the shelf, balancing herself on its ledge until she can hop across, missing the pool of sticky stuff. Surprising even herself, she's off to find a mop and a bucket of hot sudsy water, dragging it back to the scene of the crime. "Better make sure there are't any splinters, Louvaen, they can smart, trust me."
Toppling shelves are definitely too close for comfort, but flying debris either misses Lujayn completely or piles around her. The few things to strike her bounce harmlessly from her back and shoulders. Her broom is the first thing to emerge after the falling of the sky, prodding splintered wood and the contents of upended boxes away from her. "I'll be all right," Is her shocked reply, straightening. A look around and a sigh- "We were going to have to rebuild them anyhow..."
"Oh .... shells n' shards ..." Milani makes big eyes at the mess, then gives herself a little shake, and steps over to offer Louvaen a hand up. "You okay? Everyone?" And she's looking around to assess the overall damage, the broken jars perhaps more of a problem than the fallen shelf. "Well. That's one less to pull down deliberately," she tries to put a brave face on it.
Niena sees Vivy handling the mopping and begins helping to empty one of the currently-still-standing shelves. She grunts once or twice at heavier boxes but doesn't even try to see what's in them; just gets them off of the shelves so the handymen can take the shelving down.
"Splinters?" Louvaen echoes Viviana, still sounding a bit dazed. He stops pushing away debris and holds his arms up in front of his face, turning them this way and that as he squints at them. His eyes turn up to look at Lujayn as he hears her voice, and then there's Milani coming into his field of view. One of his hands is lifted further in order to accept the assistant headwoman's help up. Scootching and sliding, he works his legs free and is soon up on his feet, though swaying a little bit. Milani's last words bring a lopsided smile to his face. "See. I was just helping out," he offers lamely.
Viviana nods sagely. "Splinters. They can hurt and if you don't get them out, they can get all infected and knowing how gross it is in here, who knows what infections are just lying about to attck poor, handsome young candidates like yourself?" Mop in hand, she sashays toward the lad. "I could check you over, if you like? I'm good at details, aren't I Niena?"
The handymen indeed prove useful, moving in to help move aside broken wood, then move on to a set of shelves that were already emptied and start to pull those down in a more controlled fashion than the Louvaen method. "Sure went faster than it might otherwise!" says Milani with a bright laugh to Louvaen. "Just so long as you're okay and everyone else too." She looks around again then clears her throat. "Okay, everyone be really really careful around the shelves. Get the stuff off as quickly as possible and then we can let the guys here get them knocked down." She turns slightly towards the pile of trash that was being dealt with. It's about half sorted, a pile of keepsies (very small) and the actual trash being hauled out piece by piece. "Oh I sure hope no one has splinters!" And she makes big eyes around at the group.
Dryly, to Milani, "Always finding the bright side." Amerie surveys the damage, then turning toward the other assistant headwoman again, she tells her, "I'll go see about where the wood should be taken." Glancing over to Louvaen, Lujayn, and Viviana, she notes shortly, "Good to see you unharmed."
From her corner, Carisandra giggles. "Got some fire- firewoCHOO!" Another sneeze that rocks her back on her heels and causes a lot of the dust that was stuck to her to poof out in a gentle cloud around her head and shoulders. A cautious sniffle to see if there's another sneeze lurking. Nope. Taking a somewhat cautious deep breath. Nope, no new sneezes trying to sneak up. She gets back to work.
Jaeni slowly gets up from her ducked position, eyes all wide as the dust is settling. She looks over the shattered, old shelves and then down at the mess made from dropping her jar. Then her eyes go really wide as she notices that the goo is all over her skirts and shirt. "Oh, ew! Seriously!" She sighs, rolls her eyes up the ceiling and shakes her head. When Milani's instructions are issued forth she sighs one more time for good measure and goes back to hauling things off of the shelves as quickly as she can.
"Er, you too," Lujayn replies to Amerie, abandoning her broom at long last for the work of clearing shelves. "How long has this room been left to itself, exactly?" She asks out loud, lifting a bulky box to the ground. The coughs that occur shortly after Viviana's claims may not be entirely caused by dust, but Lu isn't adding any comments.
Niena finishes lifting boxes down and politely calls Nibren and Oson over to tear the shelves down. As they do so, she begins opening the boxes and going through them. Or at least some of them. Others she opens and immediately puts in the dedicated "To throw away" pile.
Louvaen nods to Milani, his smile evening out in light of her cheer. "Yes, I am," and his eyes shift over to Amerie as she extends a similar sentiment. "Thank you." But even as Milani raises her voice, it is Viviana who claims the young man's attention. His eyes sweep over her, taking in the sashay, and he swallows. There's something bashful about his eyes as he shakes his head. "You're too kind. I'm sure I can take care of it myself, when I wash up tonight." His eyes flick over to the workmen. "I should probably help lift things down," he reasons. A foot edges a scuffling inch towards a set of still-loaded shelves.
"Oh a couple of turns," Milani offers over an answer to Lujayn and stands back once she's sure Louvaen is okay and resumes efficiently removing stuff from the shelves. "Good idea, Louvaen," she nods approval, sending another bright smile his way. "All right then, how many more shelves ..." and she counts three still uncleared stands. "These were just sort of ... dumping grounds," she continues explaining. "Stuff that didn't go anywhere else in particular. But Hayda wants everything all cleaned up and thoroughly catalogued, no more dumping grounds at all. So you know Jaeni, those reuse ideas you were telling me about earlier, I'll bet she'll be interested actually."
Viviana tsks, pouting. "Come now, it's never a mistake to be cautious about such things - maybe I check things out when we all wash up after this, in the water caverns? But I'm sure you are more than capable of taking care of yourself.. strong and self-assured as you are.." A snorting stores worker, abruptly brings Vivy back to reality by shoving her towards the mop and water. "Fine, fine. how more dirty can one person get?" Despite her grousing, Vivy actually does a quick job cleaning up the immediate floor space and she's off to fetch clean water.
Lujayn's coughs turn into small laughs when Viviana sashays out of earshot, but there's nothing funny about a box of old boots apparently worn by people mucking out the stables - the jollity fades quickly after that particular discovery. "What's that?" Lu looks back to Milani and Jaeni, ears still open. "Reusing this stuff?"
"Really, we're going to save the sand, Milani?" Jaeni asks in a voice the just drips with cheerfulness. "That's great! I hope we can, I'll be the first one there with the shif- I mean sifters! I bet that'll be safer than these shelves..." She comments, eyeing the wreckage. Lujayn saying anything in her direction results in the blonde giving her a critcal lookover. "Wait! Are you Lujayn? Can I see your feet, please? I swear I'm not trying to be creepy, this is all very scientific."
"I think so, Jaeni. Though of course we're going to need some /in here/" and she nods at some of the mess on the floor. "And all new shelves, better ones yes, and -- " she breaks off and bursts out laughing at Jaeni's remark about the feet. "Yes, that's Lujayn and ... oh goodness me." Her head ducks as she laughs all the more, then starts coughing from dust inhalation.
Turning his head to return Milani's smile gives Louvaen brief respite from Viviana's onslaught. Looking back down to the jet-haired girl, her following words ensure that the color doesn't drain from his ears. Total wherry under a dragon's shadow. It is perhaps with some relief that he watches her leave with the mop. Hearing Lujayn's laughter, he turns towards her with a sheepish smile and gives a little cough. Starting to move off to help unload one of those three remaining stands, he twists a curious look back over his shoulder as Jaeni asks about the runner girl's feet and Milani starts laughing, too.
Moving odds and ends away so the handymen will have better access to the remaining shelves, Lujayn eventually makes her way nearer to Jaeni, confusion masked by curiosity. "What's this about?" Glancing between the intense candidate and the laughing Milani, she waits, at a loss.
"I need you to show me your feet! Or at the very least one of them! It's very important, the information I gather from your fe- er, foot, will be written down and sent off to the healers. This is ground-breaking stuff. Your foot is essential to my research." Jaeni informs Lujayn, not even bothering to introduce herself to the other candidate. Far off in the background, someone calls her name. "What?" She calls back. More shouting. "What? No, shards no, I didn't lose that in the-" She looks torn now between going after that person and attempting to persuade Lujayn to take her shoes off.
Rather suspicious of having something pulled over on her, Lujayn finally complies and wiggles one foot out of a well-used boot and plies off her sock. "What are you doing?" She repeats the question. Unwilling to step barefoot /anywhere/ in the dirty cavern, she wobbles upon her other foot, arms reaching out for balance. "Have you measured everyone else's feet, too?"
"It - we were comparing feet earlier and there was mention of muscles ..." Milani gasps out and waves one hand in front of her face to clear the dust. She steps over to offer Lujayn a balancing hand to hold herself up with. "It's ... hard to explain."
"Oh no! Your foot isn't buff and muscular!" Jaeni looks absolutely dismayed. Her hand covers her mouth and she stares at Lujayn in a 'how can this be?' expression. Her name is called again in the background and she huffs. "Can't you tell when a girl is doing some serious research down here!" Whoever it is, they've mentioned to distract her and she hurries off to find them.
Lujayn peers down at her narrow foot, its long toes, and up again to a thin, bony ankle. Runner feet. "I'm sorry?" She manages to eke out before Jaeni dashes off, throat constricted with dust and bewilderment. "Thanks," She balances herself with Milani's hand and quickly gets her foot back into its sock and boot, once again in good balance. "I don't know any muscular feet."
As Jaeni runs off Milani gives Lu's hand a little squeeze, "Don't worry about it much, she was just betting that a runner would have very strong feet from all the running. Unlike you know, most people's. My feet are pretty skinn, Jaeni's are plump. Leova didn't take her shoe off." The assistant headwoman provides all this as helpful information, then releases Lujayn's hand when she's safely got both feet shod, on the ground. In this little pause, work progresses, more things getting taken out, and another set of shelves comes down, empty.
"It's the legs that get strong and muscular, even though you run on your feet," Lujayn reasons, taking full advantage of the pause in work to tighten her bootlaces. She looks around, taking care to stay well away from the shelves in the process of coming apart. "What next? Should I get something to drag the rubbish out in?"
Louvaen has been working at the shelves while the three girls look over Lujayn's foot, finding a few bolts of rotted and moldy leather to add to the sorted piles. As he walks back with a glowbasket, he catches a glint of something from under a bottom shelf. Warily hunkering down beside the stand, he peers under with a wrinkle between his brows. When no tunnelsnakes leap out at him, he reaches a hand out and tries to tug at the object. It barely budges, so he sets down the glow basket so he can use both hands. There's the sound of metal scraping heavily against the stone as he pulls a tank halfway out into the light.
"Oh, yes please," Milani refocuses on the task at hand, nodding at Lujayn's offer then turns about to get back to what she was doing, picking up the abandoned dustbin and moving along shelves. She starts to sing a little off-key, something cheery as she works, though there's more sneezing and dust-induced coughing along the way. The scrape of metal lifts her head and she looks around for its provenance. "What in Faranth's name is that?" she calls over to Louvaen, peering through the dark arch of moldering shelves.
Louvaen looks up to find the source of the question, head weaving until he finds Milani's eyes. "I think it's a tank," he answers. A little frown forms on his features as he looks back down, pulls it out a little farther. "It sort of looks like what the guys on groundcrew use I think there are a few down here." There's a pause as the thoughts settle in his mind and he stops pulling. Scrape of metal is replaced by scrape of shoes as he stands. "You don't think they could be dangerous, do you?"
Laylia was sent out to get some more supplies for cleaning, and to empty some of the dustbins presumably, for she returns with empty bins to start collecting what has to be the remnants of the last things that are lurking around. "What's dangerous?" She asks, picking up only the last second of conversation on her way back to the darker recesses of the storage caverns.
"I dunno Louvaen," Milani is saying to the Tillekian, wiping her hands on a cloth and coming around to eye the tank he's dragged out. "Maybe if it's still got stuff in it." Her head tilts to the side slightly observing the flamethrower container. "I mean, shells that's all we need now too. To explode Stores." A little nervous laugh leaves her and she turns to look over her shoulder at Laylia, pointing. "This."
Louvaen takes a couple of steps back, making room for Milani as she comes over to the tank. He apparently forgets the dirtiness of his hands, for he brings one up to rub at the back of his neck as he stares down at the tank. At Laylia's question he looks up at the other candidate, a smile appearing briefly on his lips while Milani answers. "I've not been sent here to destroy the Weyr, honest," he says with weak humor. Puffing a breath through his cheeks, the young man looks back down to the flamethrower. "Should we leave them here, and have a Smithcrafter take a look at them?"
"Better to deal with it sooner than later. Do you want me to take it outside or somewhere else?" Laylia asks, setting down the bins and wiping her hands off on her apron that she's still wearing - that by this point is completely utterly filthy. She gives a brief flickering smile to Louvaen, but waits to see what Milani thinks should be done with the old container. She looks around to assess what's left to be done around the area, and what might need to be dusted or otherwise.
"Well I didn't think you /had/," Milani answers with a grin and runs a hand over her hair. "But you know, accidents /do/ happen." And she puffs out a little breath eyeing the tank again dubiously. "I think actually, asking the Smith might be a good idea. Make sure ... that the stuff isn't going to set the whole place on fire if we move the tank." There's still two shelves that need clearing and the steady progress of junk out the door is on-going. There's also further sounds of snakes being headwhacked and sweeping throughout the space.
Louvaen ducks his head sheepishly at Milani's answer, but there's a grin on his face nonetheless. Eyes peek sideways to Laylia as she offers to take the tanks out, catching on her hands and her dirty apron. This seems to remind him of the likely state of his own hands, as his arm drops back down to his side. Gaze sliding back to the assistant headwoman, he nods as she takes up his idea. "Okay," he answers, and then lapses into uncertain quiet. "I haven't had to find a Smith here... should I go for one, or is there someone..?" he glances out at the other workers bustling about the cavern as if he could glean their affiliation with Smiths by the looking.
Looking around, Milani thinks for a minute. "Well, Nibren might know actually. He was training to be a Smith but never finished," she explains and puts her shoulders back, strides off after said handyman and comes back, increasing the little crescent of people standing around the tank. "Hmm. Let's see the indicator," the handyman says and approaches the tank, looking at it for a second. "Nope, looks like it's empty so it should be fine t'move." Milani's smile flashes bright and sincere at the man. "Oh thank you so much. Okay. Well then. Guess we can shift it." And she stands there eyeing the heavy tank for a little while longer. "I wonder why that got put back /here/," she murmurs after a moment.
Louvaen fidgets when Milani leaves, shifting on his feet as his gaze stares down at the tank. After a quiet few moments he lifts a tired smile up to Laylia. "Silly. I kind of feel responsible about it, now," he notes as a hand gestures to his questionable find. When he notices the assistant headwoman coming back with the handyman, he looks over with a smile for Nibren. A nod is given as the other man asks to see the indicator, and Louvaen backs up a few strides to give Nibren more room. "Yes, thank you," he adds to the handyman. Once the tank is proclaimed safe, the young man steps forward to go about carrying it off. Though it's heavy, it also is made to be manageable for one person. "You haven't had a shortage of these, I hope?" he asks through closed teeth as he shifts the tank against his shoulder and lifts with his knees. One arm sliding under the base and the other hugging around it, he gets it into position as if he's burping a large metal baby.
"No not that I know of," Milani answers the question, but slides a hand up over her mouth at the humor of that particular position. "Well, that should go to the tank storage then, I guess. Or rather, the Smith's quarters for a closer look. Probably needs cleaning or something before it's usable and -- " she breaks off as Hayda steps into the room and looks around, expression placid, sharp eyes taking in the space. "Milani, please come with me," the older woman asks calmly and nods to some of the others in the room. "Progress looks good, but we need to discuss those shelves." Huffing out a breath, Millie sets her hand briefly on Lou's shoulder. "I need to scoot, thank you so much for your help." And with that she's off to join the Headwoman, trying to futilely brush dust off.
When: Afternoon, day 21, month 6, turn 15 of the 10th Interval
Where: Stores, High Reaches Weyr
What: The Candidates get roped into cleaning up one of the dirtiest, dankest, foulest back of the back Store Rooms at the Weyr. Spinnerwebs, snakes, shaky shelving and other shenanigans abound.
Thank you so much to everyone who came to participate in the scene. I hope it was fun and generates further RP throughout Candidacy! Please note that this version of the log is the full start-to-finish version if anyone would like to grab it for their LJ/files.
Word ran through the Barracks earlier that Hayda was really on the war path and collecting anyone remotely at loose ends to come help clean up the direst, dankest of the back Store Rooms. Milani of course got drafted to help execute this mission and so it is that she stands in the corridor outside the door with a group around her. "All right everyone. It's pretty bad in there. There's a huge pile of .. .junk in the middle of the room that has to be sorted through and anything worth keeping set aside, and stuff that's not tossed. The shelves are in bits, anyone good with a hammer, help Oson and Nibren here, our handy handymen to tear down what's there and put up new, but we gotta take whatever's on 'em down first and it's just not /pretty/." Millie takes a deep breath. "So ... grab your glows and your courage and let's go, Hayda wants this one sorted out by the end of the seven!" So saying she puts the key to the door, unlocks it and swings it open with an ominous groaning of hinges and flame it if it's not a horrid mess indeed, with spinnerwebs all over the place and snake skin droppings here and there.
Niena shudders and says, mostly to herself, "Tunnelsnakes I can handle, but why did there have to be spinners?" Still, she steps into the room, flailing at the webs.
Amerie is near Milani as if she might use the lighter girl as a shield - not from the room, but from the candidates. Perhaps not drafted, she's still along, though it looks as if her role is entirely supervisory. As in, not touching anything. To the other assistant headwoman, "I thought there weren't any more of /these/."
Carisandra stifles a sigh and walks resignedly towards the storage cavern and right on into it. She's a few people back from Niena and doesn't have to contend with any spinner webs yet. "And lots of dust." she mutters to herself, looking around the cavern.
"See," Aleudre directs to one of the candidates beside him as he dons a pair of gloves, "I do work." He winks and then steps towards a large pile of boxes. "Wonder what's in here," he muses, opening it and letting loose a wave of dust. Coughing, he waves his hand in front of his face and steps back. "Bad idea."
Glow in hand, Lujayn follows the unfortunate group into the storeroom. "Where are some brooms?" She turns to find those toting supplies, already at odds with the spinnerwebs in her hair and not pleased about it. Taking one, she immediately sets to battling the wispy nests. "Watch out, bugs," She forges a clear way ahead, keeping an eye out for any live ones that might come her way.
Niena brushes the spinner webs from herself, as well as a few live arachnids on which she proceeds to stomp. "I hate these things -- can't see them until after they've stung the babies." Following Lujayn's example, she grabs a broom and begins tackling webs on the other side of the room.
Milani ducks around the big old pile of junk with a grimace. "It's the last one, Amerie," she notes with a sigh and looks around, lifting her own glowbasket high. "Shells what a mess." She stands in front of a rickety shelf now and looks over her shoulder as Aleudre sets free that cloud of dust. "And Faranth only knows what /that/, is" she points at dark lumpy ... things on the shelves. Ugh. Dust bins? Who's got them?" calls out the assistant headwoman looking back towards the open door.
Jaeni is following along in the tail end of the group, eyeing the cobwebs and dusty shelves. She eyes the brooms and the girls battling spiders, and instead seems to decide that she's better off doing something else. Changing direction she heads towards the shelves and starts pulling things off them and placing them carefully on the ground. She pulls one box off, curiously peering inside. "A box of socks?" She sounds disappointed at the find and also a touch confused.
Louvaen hangs at the back of the group as he listens to Milani, features grimly set against what awaits them all. As she finishes, his chin drops in a little nod as his eyes go to the door. Watching the other candidates begin to file in, his top lip begins to curl upwards as their comments filter back. Finally, with a sigh, the young man's fingers tighten around the handle of his glow basket and he hesitantly ventures forth into the room. His eye catching on the broom-wielding Lujayn first, he slides into step behind her to take advantage of the path she makes. "If you can clear a way to those shelves, I suppose I'll get started on what's up there," he notes in a weak voice, swinging his glow basket to indicate the stand of shelves sagging against the far wall.
Laylia is a little behind the crowd, having her hair pulled back into a cloth to keep the cobwebs from getting stuck all in it, and with an apron on in front of her dress to keep it from getting too terribly dirty. "I have a couple dust bins with me, ma'am." She offers, and nudges Louvaen with her glows basket who appears to be less than eager to join the cleanup in the dark place. The small dust bins she has with her are tucked under her other arm, and she appears not entirely eager to clean the room but definitely willing to.
Shaking down a fair share of dust along with the webs, Lujayn is relieved by the call for bins. "Here," She swings her broom around to wipe off the mess collected on its bristles, all the fiber and dust wound around the long tail. "Thanks for the light. Let's go." Another relieved greeting to Louvaen, beginning a new campaign towards the shelves now that another glow shows her what still hangs from the ceiling. "I thought I looked busy enough to get out of working down here..."
Aleudre pulls the box out further into the glowslight, opening it more carefully this time. "Hm, this one's sheets. Looks half-eaten, at that." He reaches one gloved hand in and lifts up one of the near thread-bare sheets to look at further. "Where's that garbage pile again?" he asks Milani, who seems to be closest. Not waiting for a answer, he starts to pull the box over to the pile Jaeni's making. "Here. Let's make this the toss out group, hm?"
Sourly, "I've heard that before." Amerie follows Milani in despite generally bad humor over this 'last' room; wrinkling her nose at the general decay, and the lumpy things... But then, Jaeni's said something interesting. With a blink, a flick of dark eyes towards the candidate, "Socks?" Said casually. "How old?"
Carisandra is wandering into the back of the chamber. She's picked up and old broken broom that was laying against the other side of the boxes Aleudre started working on. She uses the handle mostly to bring down the spinner webs and tromp the spinners that land on the floor and jumping back to keep them from falling on herself. Not that she's very successful keeping them off. "ack"
"Oh thanks Laylia! Bring those over here!" Milani calls over to the Candidate. "That we can just ... pull this pile of ... whatever right down into them and ... deal with sorting it later. All these have to come down." She eyes the shelves suspiciously. "Be careful of bumping them too hard!" A turn of her head Aleudre's way and she shakes her head. "I don't really know, it has to be all separated out. Looks like there's even scrap wood in there. And who knows under that tarp." The pile in question looks like some long misshapen dragon, old and toothless, a mishmash of furnishings, scrap wood, boxes, barrels and who knows what else, with the tarp slung over one end hiding ... stuff.
Niena is still working on the webs when suddenly she jams the broom handle onto the floor, hard. It doesn't sound as loud and sharp as it might seem it should, and the reason soon becomes clear -- she just neatly broke the neck of a tunnelsnake crawling out of one of the corners. "Watch out -- it's not just skins." she calls to the others.
"How old? Well, they're... dusty?" Jaeni pauses by the proclaimed 'toss out group' by Aleudre, to examine her find. Hesitantly she sticks her hand inside and pulls a few out. "Well, they're totally gross and dirty but they aren't falling apart?" The blonde looks over Amerie, holding them up. Then she drops them back into the box. Niena outright killing the tunnelsnake causes her to wrinkle her nose and stare at the animal out on the floor. "Ew."
Louvaen skips forward more rapidly at Laylia's prodding, turning a half-grin back over his shoulder at the other candidate. Glancing back forward, he rocks back to stay well clear of the broom that Lujayn swings around. Coughing lightly to get the dust out of his lungs, he nods at the younger girl. "Certainly. After you." Reflexively ducking his head down, he follows her progress towards the shelves, chuckling wryly at her final words. "I supposed I was doomed today, as it was obvious that all the prep work I could help with in the kitchens was done." He turns his head back to look at what the others are doing, blanching as he hears Niena's warning of tunnelsnakes. A quiet 'shards' is whispered under his breath, and his glowbasket is held lower as he scans the area in front of Lujayn's feet. "You don't see anything moving, do you?" is asked nervously.
With a sympathetic glance, Amerie waves Jaeni and the box of totally gross socks away. "It's likely all trash," she says, generally. Though she's with Jaeni on the ew - looking Niena's way with a grimace, she begins to back towards the door a little. "Milani," she calls, "I'm just going to be over here. Let me know if you need me to go get anything."
Aleudre stares at Niena. "I can't believe you just -killed- that thing without so much as flipping." He looks fairly uncomfortable at the act, though he hides it as best he can by assessing Jaeni's socks. "Yeah, that's just trash to me. I don't want to mend them." He nods to Amerie, "see?" His own box of haphazard pieces of wood and sheets is discarded as he steps around to go and start looking through some of the shelves. Cautiously.
Lujayn looks over her shoulder, hearing the plight of another candidate with the webs. "You okay, Carisa? Spinners getcha?" She keeps on towards the shelves, brushing the old structures heartily with her broom once the way is clear. "Nothing down her but dirt, and looks like some boxes too." She replies to Louvaen, but starts sweeping vigorously at shadowy corners - just in case.
Laylia heads over towards where Milani called out to her, and rather than asking, she just starts collecting things into the bin that seems like it could be garbage - or very large dustbunnies. The other candidates are listend to, though not entirely commented about, except when Niena makes that large crunching noise which causes her to turn around quickly, and wonder, "What was /that/?" She then notes the dead carcass and scrunches her nose. "Oh, it's one of those."
From the deepest, darkest corner of the stores comes the dulcet, sweet tones of Viviana. That is, if high-pitched shrieks could ever be regarded as dulcet. "Get that thing away from me, it's disgusting, it's dead and it's got no head!!" Yes, Vivy had been trying her best to be on her best behaviour but a girls got her limits. "And where is the head, anyhow---- ewww get that away from me, it's dripping!"
"More dust cloths," Milani says firmly as she eyes the veritable clouds of the stuff lifting up into the air, to Amerie with a grin and then shakes her head a little about the tunnelsnake killing. "There's probably more where that came from," she notes briskly and then steeling heself, starts to pull the dark mounds of stuff off the shelves right into one of the dustbins from Laylia. "Oh ... oh foul. Rotting, buggy ... eeek!" Some creepy crawlies go skittering every which way, a few winged, taking off out of what was probably formerly a pile of woollen sweaters.
Niena says wryly "It's rare one of these gets into the nurseries, but when they do, it's a matter of killing them as soon as possible so the babies don't get hurt. In a way I prefer them over spinners since you can actually see them coming."
"Your master mending skills won't fix this sock?" Jaeni asks him, stooping down long enough to find one with a huge hole in it to show him. She giggles and then drops it, trailing along back to the shelves. The next thing she grabs, a jar. With something liquidy in it. She presses her face up against the glass of the big, staring inside, "I don't think this can be saved." Viviana's shrieks startle her enough that she tosses the jar up in the air and has to scramble to get a hold of it again before it drops to the ground.
Carisandra spins around at the tunnelsnake warning. She stares at Niena for a few seconds then looks down at the floor around her. Nope. No snakes there. No shadows zipping about either. At least, not that she can see. "Not yet." she calls back to LuJayn. Reaching one of the old shelves in the very back she eyes the stuff on it but before she can see what it is, a good sneeze rocks her back on her heels. The sneeze sends a spinner that was resting on the shelf scuttling into the back against the wall. "Niena, I'm going to stick by you from now on. Deadeye."
Shrieking abounds it seems with so many teenaged girls in one disgusting, creepy space. Milani brushes a crawlie off her arm and stoically shoves the rest of the decomposing sweaters into the dustbin. "Thankfully, we shouldn't have to do this /again/ once it's /done/. We'll make sure to keep these clean from here on." Jaeni's tossed jar earns a cringe though. "Oh shells ..." she murmurs eyeing its arc but too far off to really do anything about it.
"Dust cloths. Excellent." Amerie is pleased with that task, though her expression shades towards a smirk as she hears Viviana shrieking. In a voice that carries, "Good luck, Vivy. If you kill anything, please don't bring it my way?" And the dark girl ducks out into the corridor again, on a mission.
"Right." Louvaen swallows hard, nodding again as Lujayn fails to see anything moving. As she brushes down the shelves, he moves into the cleared space. "I'll look through these boxes," he volunteers reluctantly as the girl carries on with her sweeping. The shelf creaks and cracks threateningly as he slides one of the wooden boxes forward, then lifts it quickly down to the ground. Steeling himself with another breath, the young man squats beside it and pries the lid off. "Ugh, ick, eww," he exhales, turning his face away from the desiccated decay lying at the bottom of the box. "I think this one used to be tubers, or something." Standing, he eyes the next box warily before reaching to bring it down, too.
Vivy appears from the shadows, looking prematurely grey as her usual black hair is throughly covered with dust and spinner-webs. Glowering at her fellow work crew who wisely stay within the darkness, she sniffs. "Rude, obnoxious, evil little t.." Oh, hello MIlani!" Her smile is as sweet as ever. "I think we got that corner cleared." She peers over at Louvaen and laughs. "Too bad the vintners weren't here, they could make wine out of that?"
Niena resumes clearing cobwebs in her corner and neatly sweeps the tunnelsnake corpse in with the skins and dust already there. Not seeing any other snakes at the moment she begins sweeping in general, smiling gratefully at Laylia as she sees the dustpans in the other candidate's hands.
Laylia can't help but snicker a little as even the men of the group start sounding like girls trapped in this filthy workspace. She doesn't make a big deal about it though, simply goes about plucking out things that are surely trash, and tossing them into the dustbin. "Once you've cleared out rooms like these before, it doesn't seem so bad. You should see the back of the stables back at home, some of those got nasty.." She muses, heading towards Niena to use the bin to dispose of the tunnelsnake corpse along with the dust she'd gathered up.
Lujayn clears her dusty throat, eyes watering from the clouds of dust rising from every which way. "Careful.." She eyes the shelves for a moment before carrying on, mistrustful of the rickety things. "A box of tubers?" Is her echoed confusion before silent, furious sweeping commences. All too soon, it's ended by a cry of her own. "Oh! There it goes! Get it!" Sounds like she has a tunnelsnake on the run, or rather the slither. Multiple thwacks of Lu's broom echo from the floor as she races after the swiftly moving shadow, single-minded.
Jaeni barely manages to get a hold of her jar, sighing with relief when it doesn't smash into a million pieces on the ground. Holding it tightly in her arms she walks over to the pile and places it down. "Sharding screaming girls... think they'd never seen dirt and bugs and moldly food before..." She mutters, looking as if she's becoming disgruntled.
"Huh?" Carisandra spins around, her back to the shelves as she looks at the floor around her, then tries to spot Lujayn. "What? Where?" Finally she spots Lujayn across the cavern from where she is, which sends her eyes back to the floor again to see if she can spot any odd shadows moving where they shouldn't be. "Which way?" She's gradually edging back towards Niena.
"Oh you know, that looks like the preserved pears we lost last winter!" Milani says with a hint of forced brightness as she looks at Jaeni's jar more closely. "Here, those should actually be okay, put those in um ... that box there?" An empty one nearby that looks mostly still in one piece. "There should be more of those Jaeni," notes the assistant headwoman confidently then she turns at Vivy's approach. "Oh good. One corner down ... how many more to go?" And she looks around with a roll of her eyes. "Everyone okay back there with the snakes?" she calls out more loudly.
Louvaen twists to cast a glance over at Viviana as he sets the next box on the floor. "I don't think I'd like any wine that came from this," he notes flatly. The second lid is pulled off, revealing more of the same as the first box. But before he can pull down another box, Lujayn's cry sends a shock through him. With an undignified yelp the young man leaps for the shelves. "What!" His voice is high and frightened. "Where? Have you got it?" The old wood creaks under his weight, the bottom shelf snapping under his feet and dropping them back to the ground.
Returning with a basket of dust cloths, Amerie can't exactly hear what Milani's being a little too bright about, but she can hear that something's off - drifting through the dirt and people to the other assistant headwoman, she offers smoothly, "Dust cloths?" It's in the same tone and cadence as one might ask, 'What's up?'
Viviana scowls as she overhears Jaeni. "I wasn't screaming at bugs and mouldy food is disgusting but dead, dripping tunnelsnakes are scream-worthy in my mind." Wiping off her mouth after taking a drink from a waterskin, she looks about for a new project, in better lit areas. Grabbing a dustrag, she busies herself dusting an area already dusted, making sure to get all the deeper corners. Muttering to herself, she vows. "No one is getting me down there, no way no how." Clearing her throat, she answers Milani. "Oh, they are crowded back there, lots of workers, lots of snakes, lots of gore, they've got it covered. Pears? Are pears supposed to bubble like this?" She brings out a jar for inspection, grey moldy blobs floating in a murky brine. "Good thing we don't get those back home."
Milani beams all the more brightly at Amerie as she arrives. "Oh thank you so much Amerie. Those'll help immensely with getting the jars of /pears/ dusted off so we can see if they're still good." There's a covert little widening of her eyes at the other assistant headwoman and a tiny nod towards another row of the jars, a different set from the ones Viviana's dealing with that actually look to be in good shape under the dust.
"Well they're dead, it's not like they're going to put their slimey heads back on turn and totally, like, eat you or something." Jaeni responds. She glances down at the jar and then at Milani. "Oh, so those other jars are pears too?" Her eye find their way back to the shelves. She picks up the preserved fruit, lugs it over to the other box and places it gently down. That done she redirects herself again and goes back to the jars, picking them up and staring inside the contents dubiously.
"Some tunnelsnakes are poisonous though, I hope none of the ones in here are.." Laylia muses, as she picks up random garbage from the corners of the rooms. She even lifts the tarp to check what's underneath there, then drops it the moment after. "I have /no/ idea what that is, but if someone else does.." She says, arching her brows and looking quite skeptical of the finding before walking off from that to gather more garbage for her bins.
Niena finally sees the fleeing tunnelsnake and heads for it, broom ready. With an efficient snap she breaks this one's back, the kill as bloodless as her first. Again she sweeps the carcass as well as the shed skins and other miscellenea into a pile and begins tackling another section of the floor.
Lujayn nearly trips over one of the boxes of tubers in her haste to get after the serpent (thwack!), but dodges aside with a fierce strike of her broom. "Here," (thwack!) "over here," She responds to those who ask, none too specific, though her shouts are out of excitement - a thrilling chase - rather than fear. There's a final-sounding thud, and Lu twists to see exactly where she's ended up. "Got it!" A cheerful call, sweeping the deceased thing towards the growing rubbish pile. "Lou, come down - oh, nevermind," She can't help but chuckle, seeing the broken shelf.
Amerie looks the way Milani indicates and Jaeni goes to investigate - and in an unusually candid moment, the dark girl just sighs. Of course. It takes but a moment for her to recover, nodding Viviana's way. "Perhaps they're just better preserved than the other lot?" she supposes, though not very certainly.
Carisandra returns to the doorway to grab a couple of rags before trudging back to the shelves that are mostly empty. Only the lower shelf is full of- stuff. Looks like some old broken toys from the nurseries. Or just bits and bobs that were sitting there collecting dust? Whatever. "Wow. A double kill. I hope that's all of them." she looks between Lujayn and Niena before returning her attention to the dusty shelves again.
Viviana doubtfully glances at the three or four jars that she discovered, in the shelving until two away from Jaeni's work station. "These don't look like pears, but then again, I've only had fresh pears here and these look a different type of jar? I'm no cook..." An evil, petty little grin crosses her lips. "But Carisandra is, maybe she can check it out?"
In his eagerness to get away from the snake, Louvaen doesn't heed the warning given by that first shelf breaking nor Lujayn's call that she's got it. Still in fearful flight mode, his feet scramble higher, seeking purchase on the second board. His arms flail to get a better hold on the nearest vertical support beam. All seems well for a moment... Then there's a loud snap of breaking wood, followed by the complaining creaks of stressed nails and cracks of further splitting wood. A scared, squeaky, wailing noise comes from Louvaen's throat as the whole stand of shelving starts to tip. Boxes slide and crash first, followed by the splintering boom of the old wood exploding against the floor.
"Oh I don't think we need to open them, but it sure does explain where they got off to." Is Milani actually admitting to /not/ knowing where something in Stores was? Imagine that. "All right then, we can just pack any that look all right off to the kitchens then." Brisk again and she leans around to look Lujayn's way. "Good shot!" she calls over and starts to reach up with a cloth to dust just as the stand of shelves starts to sway alarmingly and comes crashing down. Her arms fly up over her head as dust and stray bits of wood go flying. "Oh shells! Duck everyone!"
"Carisa hates working in the kitchen just as much as /I/ do, Viviana." Jaeni calls over to the younger girl, her tone all knowing as she picks another jar up. "And really you've nev-" This is cut short when the blonde lets loose a high pitched screach of her own. Her hands go to cover her head as she ducks down, and what does that mean? It means that the "pears" she /was/ holding go crashing to the ground, exploding and leaking ooze everywhere that they land.
Skidding to a stop at the sound of her name, Carisandra turns and looks at Viviana? "What can I check?" she sees the jar she's holding and her nose wrinkles. "Right. Risa can't tell one end of a knife from the other according to the cooks and has been banished from the kitchens and- " her voice trails off as the snaps and cracks of the old wood and a weird squeaky wail catches her attention. Milani's call to duck has her spinning around and doing just that, disappearing from sight as the shelves come down.
Niena was across the room from Lujayn and Louvaen, but she ducks reflexively. After a few seconds she sees the source of the creaking and cracking wood and straightens up. Then she sighs as a jar drops and liquid -- sticky liquid at that -- splashes all over the place.
Lujayn is just turning back towards Louvaen and the shelves, sweeping as she goes, but freezes in her tracks at the ominous creaking. "Huh?" She pales to see the structure toppling, motionless for a moment before her reflexes take over. "Shells!" The runner ducks to the ground, clutching her broom tightly.
As shelves and jars come crashing down, Amerie's mood is just getting better and better. With a purse of lips, she mutters something that sounds like 'disaster'. Eyeing the seeping mess, her lips purse, but she manages to make herself call out, "Everyone all right?" The shelves get a dubious, almost worried glance.
Viviana blinks, all innocence. "Oh really? I must have understood, Carisandra earlier, oh now that you mention it, Carisa, I do recall you saying that you are hopeless in the kitchens, never mind..." Continuing her dusting, she reports. "No more jars here.." As she's practically 'in' the shelf she is dusting, she's safe for now from flying wood. "Oh my..." Peeking out just as the jar smashes nearby she can only repeat. "Oh my..." as she flicks away a bit of liquid off her nose.
Laylia managed to be out of the way of the falling shelving, as well as the mess that's oozing all over the floor. "Does anyone have a mop?" She asks, figuring as much as dustpans and such were wonderful, that the gooey mess wouldn't be cleaned up by those things alone.
Coughing from the explosion of dust that blasted into her corner, first from the boxes tumbling off the broken shelf, then from the shelves themselves, Carisandra straightens up, waving a hand in front of her face to try to find some dust free air to breathe. She's covered in dust from head to toe. "Louvaen? Where are you?"
Louvaen, of course, does not have the option of ducking. Though he remains clinging to the shelves the whole ride down, somehow he manages to throw one of his arms up to curl protectively behind his neck and head. His landing is thudding enough to knock the wind out of him, but at least none of the boxes fall on him. Still, he doesn't try to jump up right away, instead melting in a mortified puddle on the floor with a quiet moan. "Nugh..." is his first try at vocalizing when Amerie calls over. "Uh huh." Refilling his lungs, the young man starts shifting his arms to push the broken shards of wood off of himself. "Here," is answered with a grunt to Carisandra. Then, "Lu, you okay?" he asks shakily after the girl who'd been nearest by.
Viviana crawls out from the shelf, balancing herself on its ledge until she can hop across, missing the pool of sticky stuff. Surprising even herself, she's off to find a mop and a bucket of hot sudsy water, dragging it back to the scene of the crime. "Better make sure there are't any splinters, Louvaen, they can smart, trust me."
Toppling shelves are definitely too close for comfort, but flying debris either misses Lujayn completely or piles around her. The few things to strike her bounce harmlessly from her back and shoulders. Her broom is the first thing to emerge after the falling of the sky, prodding splintered wood and the contents of upended boxes away from her. "I'll be all right," Is her shocked reply, straightening. A look around and a sigh- "We were going to have to rebuild them anyhow..."
"Oh .... shells n' shards ..." Milani makes big eyes at the mess, then gives herself a little shake, and steps over to offer Louvaen a hand up. "You okay? Everyone?" And she's looking around to assess the overall damage, the broken jars perhaps more of a problem than the fallen shelf. "Well. That's one less to pull down deliberately," she tries to put a brave face on it.
Niena sees Vivy handling the mopping and begins helping to empty one of the currently-still-standing shelves. She grunts once or twice at heavier boxes but doesn't even try to see what's in them; just gets them off of the shelves so the handymen can take the shelving down.
"Splinters?" Louvaen echoes Viviana, still sounding a bit dazed. He stops pushing away debris and holds his arms up in front of his face, turning them this way and that as he squints at them. His eyes turn up to look at Lujayn as he hears her voice, and then there's Milani coming into his field of view. One of his hands is lifted further in order to accept the assistant headwoman's help up. Scootching and sliding, he works his legs free and is soon up on his feet, though swaying a little bit. Milani's last words bring a lopsided smile to his face. "See. I was just helping out," he offers lamely.
Viviana nods sagely. "Splinters. They can hurt and if you don't get them out, they can get all infected and knowing how gross it is in here, who knows what infections are just lying about to attck poor, handsome young candidates like yourself?" Mop in hand, she sashays toward the lad. "I could check you over, if you like? I'm good at details, aren't I Niena?"
The handymen indeed prove useful, moving in to help move aside broken wood, then move on to a set of shelves that were already emptied and start to pull those down in a more controlled fashion than the Louvaen method. "Sure went faster than it might otherwise!" says Milani with a bright laugh to Louvaen. "Just so long as you're okay and everyone else too." She looks around again then clears her throat. "Okay, everyone be really really careful around the shelves. Get the stuff off as quickly as possible and then we can let the guys here get them knocked down." She turns slightly towards the pile of trash that was being dealt with. It's about half sorted, a pile of keepsies (very small) and the actual trash being hauled out piece by piece. "Oh I sure hope no one has splinters!" And she makes big eyes around at the group.
Dryly, to Milani, "Always finding the bright side." Amerie surveys the damage, then turning toward the other assistant headwoman again, she tells her, "I'll go see about where the wood should be taken." Glancing over to Louvaen, Lujayn, and Viviana, she notes shortly, "Good to see you unharmed."
From her corner, Carisandra giggles. "Got some fire- firewoCHOO!" Another sneeze that rocks her back on her heels and causes a lot of the dust that was stuck to her to poof out in a gentle cloud around her head and shoulders. A cautious sniffle to see if there's another sneeze lurking. Nope. Taking a somewhat cautious deep breath. Nope, no new sneezes trying to sneak up. She gets back to work.
Jaeni slowly gets up from her ducked position, eyes all wide as the dust is settling. She looks over the shattered, old shelves and then down at the mess made from dropping her jar. Then her eyes go really wide as she notices that the goo is all over her skirts and shirt. "Oh, ew! Seriously!" She sighs, rolls her eyes up the ceiling and shakes her head. When Milani's instructions are issued forth she sighs one more time for good measure and goes back to hauling things off of the shelves as quickly as she can.
"Er, you too," Lujayn replies to Amerie, abandoning her broom at long last for the work of clearing shelves. "How long has this room been left to itself, exactly?" She asks out loud, lifting a bulky box to the ground. The coughs that occur shortly after Viviana's claims may not be entirely caused by dust, but Lu isn't adding any comments.
Niena finishes lifting boxes down and politely calls Nibren and Oson over to tear the shelves down. As they do so, she begins opening the boxes and going through them. Or at least some of them. Others she opens and immediately puts in the dedicated "To throw away" pile.
Louvaen nods to Milani, his smile evening out in light of her cheer. "Yes, I am," and his eyes shift over to Amerie as she extends a similar sentiment. "Thank you." But even as Milani raises her voice, it is Viviana who claims the young man's attention. His eyes sweep over her, taking in the sashay, and he swallows. There's something bashful about his eyes as he shakes his head. "You're too kind. I'm sure I can take care of it myself, when I wash up tonight." His eyes flick over to the workmen. "I should probably help lift things down," he reasons. A foot edges a scuffling inch towards a set of still-loaded shelves.
"Oh a couple of turns," Milani offers over an answer to Lujayn and stands back once she's sure Louvaen is okay and resumes efficiently removing stuff from the shelves. "Good idea, Louvaen," she nods approval, sending another bright smile his way. "All right then, how many more shelves ..." and she counts three still uncleared stands. "These were just sort of ... dumping grounds," she continues explaining. "Stuff that didn't go anywhere else in particular. But Hayda wants everything all cleaned up and thoroughly catalogued, no more dumping grounds at all. So you know Jaeni, those reuse ideas you were telling me about earlier, I'll bet she'll be interested actually."
Viviana tsks, pouting. "Come now, it's never a mistake to be cautious about such things - maybe I check things out when we all wash up after this, in the water caverns? But I'm sure you are more than capable of taking care of yourself.. strong and self-assured as you are.." A snorting stores worker, abruptly brings Vivy back to reality by shoving her towards the mop and water. "Fine, fine. how more dirty can one person get?" Despite her grousing, Vivy actually does a quick job cleaning up the immediate floor space and she's off to fetch clean water.
Lujayn's coughs turn into small laughs when Viviana sashays out of earshot, but there's nothing funny about a box of old boots apparently worn by people mucking out the stables - the jollity fades quickly after that particular discovery. "What's that?" Lu looks back to Milani and Jaeni, ears still open. "Reusing this stuff?"
"Really, we're going to save the sand, Milani?" Jaeni asks in a voice the just drips with cheerfulness. "That's great! I hope we can, I'll be the first one there with the shif- I mean sifters! I bet that'll be safer than these shelves..." She comments, eyeing the wreckage. Lujayn saying anything in her direction results in the blonde giving her a critcal lookover. "Wait! Are you Lujayn? Can I see your feet, please? I swear I'm not trying to be creepy, this is all very scientific."
"I think so, Jaeni. Though of course we're going to need some /in here/" and she nods at some of the mess on the floor. "And all new shelves, better ones yes, and -- " she breaks off and bursts out laughing at Jaeni's remark about the feet. "Yes, that's Lujayn and ... oh goodness me." Her head ducks as she laughs all the more, then starts coughing from dust inhalation.
Turning his head to return Milani's smile gives Louvaen brief respite from Viviana's onslaught. Looking back down to the jet-haired girl, her following words ensure that the color doesn't drain from his ears. Total wherry under a dragon's shadow. It is perhaps with some relief that he watches her leave with the mop. Hearing Lujayn's laughter, he turns towards her with a sheepish smile and gives a little cough. Starting to move off to help unload one of those three remaining stands, he twists a curious look back over his shoulder as Jaeni asks about the runner girl's feet and Milani starts laughing, too.
Moving odds and ends away so the handymen will have better access to the remaining shelves, Lujayn eventually makes her way nearer to Jaeni, confusion masked by curiosity. "What's this about?" Glancing between the intense candidate and the laughing Milani, she waits, at a loss.
"I need you to show me your feet! Or at the very least one of them! It's very important, the information I gather from your fe- er, foot, will be written down and sent off to the healers. This is ground-breaking stuff. Your foot is essential to my research." Jaeni informs Lujayn, not even bothering to introduce herself to the other candidate. Far off in the background, someone calls her name. "What?" She calls back. More shouting. "What? No, shards no, I didn't lose that in the-" She looks torn now between going after that person and attempting to persuade Lujayn to take her shoes off.
Rather suspicious of having something pulled over on her, Lujayn finally complies and wiggles one foot out of a well-used boot and plies off her sock. "What are you doing?" She repeats the question. Unwilling to step barefoot /anywhere/ in the dirty cavern, she wobbles upon her other foot, arms reaching out for balance. "Have you measured everyone else's feet, too?"
"It - we were comparing feet earlier and there was mention of muscles ..." Milani gasps out and waves one hand in front of her face to clear the dust. She steps over to offer Lujayn a balancing hand to hold herself up with. "It's ... hard to explain."
"Oh no! Your foot isn't buff and muscular!" Jaeni looks absolutely dismayed. Her hand covers her mouth and she stares at Lujayn in a 'how can this be?' expression. Her name is called again in the background and she huffs. "Can't you tell when a girl is doing some serious research down here!" Whoever it is, they've mentioned to distract her and she hurries off to find them.
Lujayn peers down at her narrow foot, its long toes, and up again to a thin, bony ankle. Runner feet. "I'm sorry?" She manages to eke out before Jaeni dashes off, throat constricted with dust and bewilderment. "Thanks," She balances herself with Milani's hand and quickly gets her foot back into its sock and boot, once again in good balance. "I don't know any muscular feet."
As Jaeni runs off Milani gives Lu's hand a little squeeze, "Don't worry about it much, she was just betting that a runner would have very strong feet from all the running. Unlike you know, most people's. My feet are pretty skinn, Jaeni's are plump. Leova didn't take her shoe off." The assistant headwoman provides all this as helpful information, then releases Lujayn's hand when she's safely got both feet shod, on the ground. In this little pause, work progresses, more things getting taken out, and another set of shelves comes down, empty.
"It's the legs that get strong and muscular, even though you run on your feet," Lujayn reasons, taking full advantage of the pause in work to tighten her bootlaces. She looks around, taking care to stay well away from the shelves in the process of coming apart. "What next? Should I get something to drag the rubbish out in?"
Louvaen has been working at the shelves while the three girls look over Lujayn's foot, finding a few bolts of rotted and moldy leather to add to the sorted piles. As he walks back with a glowbasket, he catches a glint of something from under a bottom shelf. Warily hunkering down beside the stand, he peers under with a wrinkle between his brows. When no tunnelsnakes leap out at him, he reaches a hand out and tries to tug at the object. It barely budges, so he sets down the glow basket so he can use both hands. There's the sound of metal scraping heavily against the stone as he pulls a tank halfway out into the light.
"Oh, yes please," Milani refocuses on the task at hand, nodding at Lujayn's offer then turns about to get back to what she was doing, picking up the abandoned dustbin and moving along shelves. She starts to sing a little off-key, something cheery as she works, though there's more sneezing and dust-induced coughing along the way. The scrape of metal lifts her head and she looks around for its provenance. "What in Faranth's name is that?" she calls over to Louvaen, peering through the dark arch of moldering shelves.
Louvaen looks up to find the source of the question, head weaving until he finds Milani's eyes. "I think it's a tank," he answers. A little frown forms on his features as he looks back down, pulls it out a little farther. "It sort of looks like what the guys on groundcrew use I think there are a few down here." There's a pause as the thoughts settle in his mind and he stops pulling. Scrape of metal is replaced by scrape of shoes as he stands. "You don't think they could be dangerous, do you?"
Laylia was sent out to get some more supplies for cleaning, and to empty some of the dustbins presumably, for she returns with empty bins to start collecting what has to be the remnants of the last things that are lurking around. "What's dangerous?" She asks, picking up only the last second of conversation on her way back to the darker recesses of the storage caverns.
"I dunno Louvaen," Milani is saying to the Tillekian, wiping her hands on a cloth and coming around to eye the tank he's dragged out. "Maybe if it's still got stuff in it." Her head tilts to the side slightly observing the flamethrower container. "I mean, shells that's all we need now too. To explode Stores." A little nervous laugh leaves her and she turns to look over her shoulder at Laylia, pointing. "This."
Louvaen takes a couple of steps back, making room for Milani as she comes over to the tank. He apparently forgets the dirtiness of his hands, for he brings one up to rub at the back of his neck as he stares down at the tank. At Laylia's question he looks up at the other candidate, a smile appearing briefly on his lips while Milani answers. "I've not been sent here to destroy the Weyr, honest," he says with weak humor. Puffing a breath through his cheeks, the young man looks back down to the flamethrower. "Should we leave them here, and have a Smithcrafter take a look at them?"
"Better to deal with it sooner than later. Do you want me to take it outside or somewhere else?" Laylia asks, setting down the bins and wiping her hands off on her apron that she's still wearing - that by this point is completely utterly filthy. She gives a brief flickering smile to Louvaen, but waits to see what Milani thinks should be done with the old container. She looks around to assess what's left to be done around the area, and what might need to be dusted or otherwise.
"Well I didn't think you /had/," Milani answers with a grin and runs a hand over her hair. "But you know, accidents /do/ happen." And she puffs out a little breath eyeing the tank again dubiously. "I think actually, asking the Smith might be a good idea. Make sure ... that the stuff isn't going to set the whole place on fire if we move the tank." There's still two shelves that need clearing and the steady progress of junk out the door is on-going. There's also further sounds of snakes being headwhacked and sweeping throughout the space.
Louvaen ducks his head sheepishly at Milani's answer, but there's a grin on his face nonetheless. Eyes peek sideways to Laylia as she offers to take the tanks out, catching on her hands and her dirty apron. This seems to remind him of the likely state of his own hands, as his arm drops back down to his side. Gaze sliding back to the assistant headwoman, he nods as she takes up his idea. "Okay," he answers, and then lapses into uncertain quiet. "I haven't had to find a Smith here... should I go for one, or is there someone..?" he glances out at the other workers bustling about the cavern as if he could glean their affiliation with Smiths by the looking.
Looking around, Milani thinks for a minute. "Well, Nibren might know actually. He was training to be a Smith but never finished," she explains and puts her shoulders back, strides off after said handyman and comes back, increasing the little crescent of people standing around the tank. "Hmm. Let's see the indicator," the handyman says and approaches the tank, looking at it for a second. "Nope, looks like it's empty so it should be fine t'move." Milani's smile flashes bright and sincere at the man. "Oh thank you so much. Okay. Well then. Guess we can shift it." And she stands there eyeing the heavy tank for a little while longer. "I wonder why that got put back /here/," she murmurs after a moment.
Louvaen fidgets when Milani leaves, shifting on his feet as his gaze stares down at the tank. After a quiet few moments he lifts a tired smile up to Laylia. "Silly. I kind of feel responsible about it, now," he notes as a hand gestures to his questionable find. When he notices the assistant headwoman coming back with the handyman, he looks over with a smile for Nibren. A nod is given as the other man asks to see the indicator, and Louvaen backs up a few strides to give Nibren more room. "Yes, thank you," he adds to the handyman. Once the tank is proclaimed safe, the young man steps forward to go about carrying it off. Though it's heavy, it also is made to be manageable for one person. "You haven't had a shortage of these, I hope?" he asks through closed teeth as he shifts the tank against his shoulder and lifts with his knees. One arm sliding under the base and the other hugging around it, he gets it into position as if he's burping a large metal baby.
"No not that I know of," Milani answers the question, but slides a hand up over her mouth at the humor of that particular position. "Well, that should go to the tank storage then, I guess. Or rather, the Smith's quarters for a closer look. Probably needs cleaning or something before it's usable and -- " she breaks off as Hayda steps into the room and looks around, expression placid, sharp eyes taking in the space. "Milani, please come with me," the older woman asks calmly and nods to some of the others in the room. "Progress looks good, but we need to discuss those shelves." Huffing out a breath, Millie sets her hand briefly on Lou's shoulder. "I need to scoot, thank you so much for your help." And with that she's off to join the Headwoman, trying to futilely brush dust off.