The Sub-Basement Boiler Room, Saturday Late Afternoon.
[ooc: Following directly from here. You might want to read that first.]
Cally hits the bottom of the shaft she had fallen in mere moments before, which thankfully came to a safe incline and she merely tumbles sideways until her momentum is stopped by a stack of large sacks. About the only injuries she sustains are the soreness from tumbling over the various things in her toolbelt. She shakes her head and tries to get her bearings on where she has ended up.
She stands up, taking in the surroundings. She appears to be on an upper ledge, looking out over an extensive system of large pipes, enormous valves, and some rather impressive yet antiquated boilers. Something seems out of place, however, but Cally is unable to take in exactly what, as her recon was about to be interrupted...
And that would come in the form of her boyfriend, who, while usually a fairly welcome interruption, has momentum and gravity working to take the "welcome" part right out of this particular interruption and replace it with a fairly hearty "ow" instead. Anders comes tumbling out of the shaft, hits the sacks, and sort of bounces off them to land in a slightly stunned heap at Cally's feet.
And yes, cue the hearty "ow" right about . . . now.
"Champ?" Cally chews her lower lip. "Hey, you okay? I mean, I guess the ow would kinda mean not so much, but you should probably get up. Cause I think it wasn't just us that fell down the shaft," she says. Of course, she's right. Because it was just about time for the next person to arrive at the bottom.
This is so not as fun as the waterslides at Wet Willie's and dear god why does it have to occur to Xander right now what a hideously bad name-choice that was for an amusement park?
Luckily the accompanying mental image is bashed away by the *oof* of tumbling out of the airshaft, though at least with his hands out before him Xander can sort of grab the lip and not completely flop on top of Anders like a ton of bricks.
"...hi?"
Okay, maybe not a ton of bricks, but at least a small palletload. This is grounds for a second hearty "ow."
Anders grunts. "Hi yourself, Harris. You, uh, wanna get off there?"
Of course, if the laws of gravity are any indication, that might not even be an issue any second now.
And then Zero landed on top of Xander and Anders with an, "Oof!"
Krycek was a not inconsiderable weight to be dropped on a growing pile of people, and he landed with a sound halfway between "oof" and something not-English that still managed to sound particularly rude.
Zero responded in rather vulgar Zero-speak.
Xander responded in "Ow" and followed that up by trying to crawl out from under Zero and Krycek, and off of Anders.
Hamlet tumbles out shortly after Krycek and falls onto the ever-growing pile of people. The side of his face hits someone's shoe, and starts to bruise just a little. He mutters something that's probably pretty vulgar in Danish as he tries to pull himself up.
"Well this is certainly more interesting than the common room, but where exactly are we?"
The Danish prince's attempt to pull himself to his feet is, of course, cut short by a tumbling Scotsman. A tumbling Scotsman who manages somehow to stop the worst of his fall with his arms out in front of him and a bit of a total stroke of good fortune somersault down the growing pile of teenagers.
At the foot of the pile sits Macbeth, rubbing his bottom and looking about with wide eyes.
This was so very not the hallway anymore.
From the bottom of the pile comes a very muffled "Mmmph mmmph mrrrrrrrph!"
It's quite possible that Anders said something that might, had he not been buried under several other students, have enlightened them as to their whereabouts.
Then again, it's even more possible that he just made an impassioned plea for everybody to get the frak off of him.
Krycek carefully rolled off of Zero and onto his feet, not bothering to ask if anyone was all right as he glanced around the room. "Just great. A basement."
Cally waves a hand. "Shhhh," she says, peering over the ledge and out to the boiler room floor. "I think... I think we're not alone down here."
She looks more carefully, and sure enough, there is something going on below them.
Below our errant students, several figures are clustered around one of the largest boilers. It is impossible to tell how many there are right now as they look all hunched over and are huddled together. Their similar coloring makes it impossible to distinguish one from another, making an accurate count even harder.
Zero scrambled to her feet. "Well that's just lovely," she grumbled, rubbing her back, now sore from a few hundred pounds of boy landing on it. "I left my mallet in the hallway. Maybe they're friendly?"
Anders finally struggles to his feet, feeling the pain from gods only know how many elbows, knees, and other pain-inflicting body parts.
"Hope so," he mumbles groggily once he finally follows to where Zero's looking. "'cause I got nothin' otherwise."
"It's been my experience," Macbeth said, pulling himself to his feet and looking down into the boiler room alongside the girls, "that when dozens of wee little peons are mulling about together around something that looks potentially dangerous, there's a good chance that they'll not be friendly."
He paused, squinting down at the little horde of figures around the boiler. He had no idea what most of the things down there were, but he certainly didn't like the milling and the mulling and general clustering. It reminded him too much of subjects revolting.
"And you have experience with this sort of thing, do you?"
"Well, not this sort of thing," Macbeth said, gesturing with one hand to the little mass of lumpy things by the boiler, "But I do have MUCH some experience being beheaded by dealing with plotting peons. Not to say that these are peons. Or plotting. But that just isn't normal." Again he gestured to the cluster of something-or-others.
"I'm pretty sure they don't work here, anyway," Xander puts in, peering down at them. "I mean, they'd have told us if all the maintenance work was being done by... whatever those things are, right? Just so people didn't go hunting for gremlins and end up with janitors."
"You probably jinxed it now, dude," Anders comments, still grimacing, then nods at Macbeth. "Besides, it's not like anything is normal around here anyway, right?"
"At this school, I'd tend to be more surprised with normalcy than with things being odd.
He tries to peer at the figures.
"Just what are they doing over there, anyway?"
Cally waves her hand again. "Shhhh," she whispers. "I think one might be saying something."
A slightly taller figure stood up from the middle of the huddle and took a few steps back from the boiler. Along with his height, he was wearing a metal hat, which none of the other figures were, and a long coat of slightly better quality than the rest.
"Behold, my Mole Men!" he said and flung out one arm out toward the base of the boiler. "The bomb that I, the Underminer, have created to bring the surface dwellers to their knees is finally in place!"
There was much cheering from the group.
Cally's eyes bug out. "Bomb?"
Krycek has a sudden sense of deja vu. "Bomb?"
Hamlet's breath catches in shock. "Bomb?"
Anders's eyes go even wider and he grabs instinctively at Cally's arm. "B-bomb?"
Xander blinks, because, um. Yes. Deja-vu∞. "Bomb?"
Zero is also feeling the deja vu. "Bomb?"
Macbeth has no idea what a bomb is.
"Knees?"
"But, boss," said a voice from within the group, "isn't that a school up there? They're just kids."
The Underminer glared at the group as a whole. "Kids who will grow up to be surface dwelling adults! They don't matter. They are just small child-sized dirt clods in our tunnel to ultimate power! We may dwell beneath them, but nothing is beneath us!"
There was much cheering from the others.
"Now," the Underminer went on, "once I set this timer, we will have only fifteen minutes to get back to the safe tunnels. Is everybody ready?"
[OOC: Oh noes! What ever will our intrepid heroes do? There is danger! And they are but normal people. Can they possibly save the day? Stay tuned... (No IC interaction possible, OOC commentary welcome, etcetera)]
Cally hits the bottom of the shaft she had fallen in mere moments before, which thankfully came to a safe incline and she merely tumbles sideways until her momentum is stopped by a stack of large sacks. About the only injuries she sustains are the soreness from tumbling over the various things in her toolbelt. She shakes her head and tries to get her bearings on where she has ended up.
She stands up, taking in the surroundings. She appears to be on an upper ledge, looking out over an extensive system of large pipes, enormous valves, and some rather impressive yet antiquated boilers. Something seems out of place, however, but Cally is unable to take in exactly what, as her recon was about to be interrupted...
And that would come in the form of her boyfriend, who, while usually a fairly welcome interruption, has momentum and gravity working to take the "welcome" part right out of this particular interruption and replace it with a fairly hearty "ow" instead. Anders comes tumbling out of the shaft, hits the sacks, and sort of bounces off them to land in a slightly stunned heap at Cally's feet.
And yes, cue the hearty "ow" right about . . . now.
"Champ?" Cally chews her lower lip. "Hey, you okay? I mean, I guess the ow would kinda mean not so much, but you should probably get up. Cause I think it wasn't just us that fell down the shaft," she says. Of course, she's right. Because it was just about time for the next person to arrive at the bottom.
This is so not as fun as the waterslides at Wet Willie's and dear god why does it have to occur to Xander right now what a hideously bad name-choice that was for an amusement park?
Luckily the accompanying mental image is bashed away by the *oof* of tumbling out of the airshaft, though at least with his hands out before him Xander can sort of grab the lip and not completely flop on top of Anders like a ton of bricks.
"...hi?"
Okay, maybe not a ton of bricks, but at least a small palletload. This is grounds for a second hearty "ow."
Anders grunts. "Hi yourself, Harris. You, uh, wanna get off there?"
Of course, if the laws of gravity are any indication, that might not even be an issue any second now.
And then Zero landed on top of Xander and Anders with an, "Oof!"
Krycek was a not inconsiderable weight to be dropped on a growing pile of people, and he landed with a sound halfway between "oof" and something not-English that still managed to sound particularly rude.
Zero responded in rather vulgar Zero-speak.
Xander responded in "Ow" and followed that up by trying to crawl out from under Zero and Krycek, and off of Anders.
Hamlet tumbles out shortly after Krycek and falls onto the ever-growing pile of people. The side of his face hits someone's shoe, and starts to bruise just a little. He mutters something that's probably pretty vulgar in Danish as he tries to pull himself up.
"Well this is certainly more interesting than the common room, but where exactly are we?"
The Danish prince's attempt to pull himself to his feet is, of course, cut short by a tumbling Scotsman. A tumbling Scotsman who manages somehow to stop the worst of his fall with his arms out in front of him and a bit of a total stroke of good fortune somersault down the growing pile of teenagers.
At the foot of the pile sits Macbeth, rubbing his bottom and looking about with wide eyes.
This was so very not the hallway anymore.
From the bottom of the pile comes a very muffled "Mmmph mmmph mrrrrrrrph!"
It's quite possible that Anders said something that might, had he not been buried under several other students, have enlightened them as to their whereabouts.
Then again, it's even more possible that he just made an impassioned plea for everybody to get the frak off of him.
Krycek carefully rolled off of Zero and onto his feet, not bothering to ask if anyone was all right as he glanced around the room. "Just great. A basement."
Cally waves a hand. "Shhhh," she says, peering over the ledge and out to the boiler room floor. "I think... I think we're not alone down here."
She looks more carefully, and sure enough, there is something going on below them.
Below our errant students, several figures are clustered around one of the largest boilers. It is impossible to tell how many there are right now as they look all hunched over and are huddled together. Their similar coloring makes it impossible to distinguish one from another, making an accurate count even harder.
Zero scrambled to her feet. "Well that's just lovely," she grumbled, rubbing her back, now sore from a few hundred pounds of boy landing on it. "I left my mallet in the hallway. Maybe they're friendly?"
Anders finally struggles to his feet, feeling the pain from gods only know how many elbows, knees, and other pain-inflicting body parts.
"Hope so," he mumbles groggily once he finally follows to where Zero's looking. "'cause I got nothin' otherwise."
"It's been my experience," Macbeth said, pulling himself to his feet and looking down into the boiler room alongside the girls, "that when dozens of wee little peons are mulling about together around something that looks potentially dangerous, there's a good chance that they'll not be friendly."
He paused, squinting down at the little horde of figures around the boiler. He had no idea what most of the things down there were, but he certainly didn't like the milling and the mulling and general clustering. It reminded him too much of subjects revolting.
"And you have experience with this sort of thing, do you?"
"Well, not this sort of thing," Macbeth said, gesturing with one hand to the little mass of lumpy things by the boiler, "But I do have MUCH some experience being beheaded by dealing with plotting peons. Not to say that these are peons. Or plotting. But that just isn't normal." Again he gestured to the cluster of something-or-others.
"I'm pretty sure they don't work here, anyway," Xander puts in, peering down at them. "I mean, they'd have told us if all the maintenance work was being done by... whatever those things are, right? Just so people didn't go hunting for gremlins and end up with janitors."
"You probably jinxed it now, dude," Anders comments, still grimacing, then nods at Macbeth. "Besides, it's not like anything is normal around here anyway, right?"
"At this school, I'd tend to be more surprised with normalcy than with things being odd.
He tries to peer at the figures.
"Just what are they doing over there, anyway?"
Cally waves her hand again. "Shhhh," she whispers. "I think one might be saying something."
A slightly taller figure stood up from the middle of the huddle and took a few steps back from the boiler. Along with his height, he was wearing a metal hat, which none of the other figures were, and a long coat of slightly better quality than the rest.
"Behold, my Mole Men!" he said and flung out one arm out toward the base of the boiler. "The bomb that I, the Underminer, have created to bring the surface dwellers to their knees is finally in place!"
There was much cheering from the group.
Cally's eyes bug out. "Bomb?"
Krycek has a sudden sense of deja vu. "Bomb?"
Hamlet's breath catches in shock. "Bomb?"
Anders's eyes go even wider and he grabs instinctively at Cally's arm. "B-bomb?"
Xander blinks, because, um. Yes. Deja-vu∞. "Bomb?"
Zero is also feeling the deja vu. "Bomb?"
Macbeth has no idea what a bomb is.
"Knees?"
"But, boss," said a voice from within the group, "isn't that a school up there? They're just kids."
The Underminer glared at the group as a whole. "Kids who will grow up to be surface dwelling adults! They don't matter. They are just small child-sized dirt clods in our tunnel to ultimate power! We may dwell beneath them, but nothing is beneath us!"
There was much cheering from the others.
"Now," the Underminer went on, "once I set this timer, we will have only fifteen minutes to get back to the safe tunnels. Is everybody ready?"
[OOC: Oh noes! What ever will our intrepid heroes do? There is danger! And they are but normal people. Can they possibly save the day? Stay tuned... (No IC interaction possible, OOC commentary welcome, etcetera)]