Night 59: Main Hallway 2-Center (Includes Sun Room halls)

[bastard_sadi]

[Coming from here.]Upstairs was dark and silent, although to Daemon, the faint pink glow that coated all the surfaces since the alarm went off seemed more concentrated here. Was it stronger, perhaps? Or was there just more to hide? He brushed his fingers against it curiously as he stepped out of the stairwell and into the corridor above, his senses

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[stray_shinigami]

Renji stepped into the hall, listening intently. It didn't really look any different from the last time he'd been there, but it felt different. "Nothing in the immediate area," he said. "You have a point of attack in mind for the third floor?" He'd been more interested in the basement himself, hadn't worried so much about the upstairs.

He brushed one hand against the wall, frowning at the feel of it.

[bastard_sadi]

Daemon set a ball of witchlight burning just above them before turning out the copy of the map he'd scribbled earlier in the day. "There's locked doors up here. Several areas of them. We need to find a way upstairs." Which reminded him...

"Did I tell you what I found out just before I... slept?" he asked, glancing over at the redhead curiously, trying to remember if he'd passed on word of the tangled web or not.

[stray_shinigami]

Renji looked at thee map and nodded. "Start trying the doors you want. I'll watch your back."

He went quiet at Daemon's next question. "You said you had an idea," he said. "That was it. You'd tell me about it later. That was the last I ever heard from you. Next day your spirit was goner." His tone was matter of fact. There was no need to blame Daemon got something that wasn't his fault.

[bastard_sadi]

"Yes, convenient, that," Daemon drawled, tone dry as he moved to his right to the series of doors that led off into parts unknown. There were several sets of areas upstairs that no one had gotten into yet, but this was the closest. It seemed as good a place to start as any

[triplecrossing]

[From here.]

As Lydia stumbled through the door, she quickly shut it behind her to make sure none of that smoke got out. She wasn't able to keep it out of her lungs completely, though, and she ended up coughing a few times before rubbing at her eyes.

She glanced to the side and noticed that most of the hall to their right was drenched in blood. It looked like both the monsters and some of the patients had made it up here already, which meant they were going to have to be even quicker and quieter. Plus they were going to have to walk through that. Lydia had seen worse, though, and so she started toward it.

"The quickest way out will be if we jump off the patio," she explained, suddenly all business. She couldn't afford to be anything else right now. "If something attacks us, you're good to burn it to a crisp, right?"

[damned_soldiers]

Classy aptly describe that escape, more so for the fact that she'd pulled his wrist along without stopping to consider how open Claude was to this type of 'moseying'. Or the smoke. In the end, he simply bore the effects with a blank expression, pausing outside the door to laugh and cough simultaneously. "Yeah," he exclaimed heartily between spasms, "our friends sure love us now

[triplecrossing]

Claude had a point, of course. Running off without answering many questions and leaving a cloud of smoke for the patients to deal with wasn't exactly the best way to earn their trust or approval. Lydia didn't have the luxury for any of that, though. She could only hope that they would feel some sympathy toward her for what she'd been forced to deal with while under Landel's thumb

[age_of_kings]

[ from here]

"Not exactly on purpose," he went on, finally reaching the top of the stairs. "But when you find yourself in the middle of nowhere running through some ancient, abandoned temple...."

The hallways up here proved to be just as bad as downstairs. Perhaps it was some form of psychological torture. Make the hallways so stomach-turning it would jar their sanity? Maybe. He couldn't believe that people were just leaving this mess...

"We're back into a bloodbath," he called over his shoulder to Locke. "My shoes are never going to be the same."

[kings_thief]

"Sometimes it's only a matter of opportunity..." Locke finished climbing the stairs and looked around at the gore, sighing. "I don't like this. It's like a battlefield. Whatever caused this could still be around..." And that scared him more than the gore. Whatever it was, man or creature would surely be stronger than whatever they had faced before. It might take more than a few measly thunder spells to take care of it and he could feel his power wasn't the strength it was before; more than likely his stronger spells were still out of reach.

"Maybe we'll be lucky and get new shoes in the morning. This place likes to 'reset' things, maybe it'll do us that favor, at least." Not that he was betting on it, but it was about as much optimism as he could muster at the moment.

[age_of_kings]

"It's just like a battlefield," Tolten agreed. He paused a moment and looked over his companion as critically as he could manage. "You've much experience with them? I don't mean to pry, you simply...don't strike me as a soldier. And I mean that as a compliment!"

But men who weren't soldiers saw battle as well. For god's sake, Tolten had gone against armed forces with a pair of children at his side. And he, despite all his military training and royal knight titles, had been thrust into battle long before he'd been actually ready. Things happened. And he was curious as to how and why Locke the Treasure Hunter had found himself with intimate knowledge of battlefields.

At least he had another chance to check his map and make sure they were going the right way. Everything looked as though it should, according to the descriptions from the board.

"Ah...I believe we simply need to go up this hallway, out onto a balcony of sorts, and then back inside to the kitchen."

[kings_thief]

Locke looked at the map as well, taking in the details and nodding. "All right, almost there, then." Starting off down the hall Locke's smile turned a little bitter as he thought of the war only newly ended back home.

"Where I come from, the empire that ruled the land was run by this power-hungry bastard who wanted to harness magic to control the world. Consequently, there was resistance and, like what usually happens when there's a resistance, there was fighting. I wasn't part of any official army or anything, but I was part of a group called 'The Returners' who did what they could against the Empire.

Part of my job was infiltration, fact gathering, and sabotage...let's just say nothing about the capital has ever been roses and sunshine." He paused, placing a hand on the door handle, fully expecting it to be locked, when it turned and opened with no problem he shot Tolten a surprised look.

"Either we're in luck or we're not the first ones through here."

[To here]

[selfnighted]

[from here]

Surprisingly bloody out here, wasn't it? Perhaps she should have kept the hat.

"Our destination?" she asked as she stepped aside for the others to come through. "In that vein, what is our plan?"

Did they have one? Maya was certainly at a loss as to what to do next. Chasing the once-soldiers seemed out of the question; Maya did not know where they had even gone. Returning to their bedrooms was ill-advised and defeated the purpose of leaving the room in which the meeting had taken place to begin with.

And what was the pink glow? Sinister or innocuous? Maya couldn't tell.

[madeinthehrl]

It looked like a small massacre had taken place in the outside hall. As far as Soma could tell, none of the dismembered corpses lying in the halls were human--she supposed that was a good sign--but many of them had been mangled beyond recognition, and only a few limbs and teeth here and there suggested that the creatures here had been necrits.

But...that made sense, in a way. If everyone's abilities were back...

"Aguilar can't keep a lid on our powers tonight, at least for the time being," she said, half thinking aloud. "We should take advantage of the situation while we can. I have weapons in my room I'd prefer to have right now, if we've got time for it, and then..."

She trailed off, thinking. What could they do? Everyone said the way to Landel had been the third floor, and it stood to reason the same applied to Aguilar. Could they get up there tonight? End this once and for all? She wanted to think so, but it wouldn't do to get too worked up about it.

[poorexample]

While these two female humans (or was the pale-haired one something more than human? Castiel couldn't tell) were more or less unknown to him, it quickly became clear that they were capable. They'd both handled that situation with a decent amount of composure and they were getting down to business now, which Castiel approved of

[selfnighted]

Ah... Weapons. Maya had forgotten, but in a situation such as this, it would be more prudent for Maya to run rather than fight. But for a fighter...

"Have you fought all creatures that are likely to appear?" Maya asked as she began walking. The other direction dead-ended into the chapel, so Maya didn't think they'd be going that way, regardless of whether they were making a side-trip to the bedrooms after all. "It's your decision, though," she said over her shoulder while keeping an eye out.

How unpleasant it was, stepping over the carnage. The least the perpetrators could have done was be thorough, Maya thought, but in honesty, Maya wanted to get away from this hall. It was quite disconcerting, as well as...smelly. At least Fangire didn't leave behind malodorous residue when they died.

[36_24_35]

[To here]

The further down the hallway she went, the thicker the puddles under her feet became. The hallway beyond was clean and Tifa couldn't wait to get over there. In fact, she was a little too impatient for her own good. As she walked briskly, her boot caught some kind of innards that slid like gelatine over the wet tile.

Her weight shifted back and back until her other leg finally caught her. That long hair wasn't so lucky, though. It was going to be caked with stinky monster blood for the rest of the night, she wouldn't be able to comb it in the morning, not to mention what they could attract from the terrible aroma.

"How is this even possible?" she marveled at the amount gore she was practically swimming in. "I mean I have splattered my share ofbodies, but this is... I think I'm a little jealous."

[zack_fair]

It would have been better if Tifa hadn't worried over him like this. Zack didn't want to make it seem like he couldn't handle himself, and more than that, they were going to end up wasting time dealing with the wound. Then again, Tifa probably needed the same treatment herself, and he had to admit that the amount of pain from the burn was pretty alarming. Just what had that monster been equipped with

[36_24_35]

Tifa nodded at Zack's assessment and then realized he couldn't really see it. She turned her head back and beckoned him onward instead.

"We keep going straight. It'll be in a closet down the last left in this hallway." Thankfully, she had been completely level-headed and observant before running into that damned nurse just outside the closet. The run back had been mainly a blur, prioritized by pain and the feeling of her heart thumping against her rib-cage like a captive bird.

[36_24_35]

[To here]