antumbrac | WEEK 6

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Five weeks. It's been five weeks, and twenty-seven has now dwindled down to eleven. And while only two passed this week, this trial may have been the most devastating in its own way, as threads of patience frayed and fragments of trust fractured. Nevertheless, if The Lady is to be believed, that may very well have been the final set of sacrifices that she was waiting for, so perhaps the end is in sight.

Of course, the fact that everyone is still stuck in Krakow means that it's not over yet, and who even knows what's happening over in the Twilight?

And so, some more changes are in store for this week, even if it may not be the same ones that you've gotten used to. For one thing, the fog stays put and no new areas of the city are revealed under the light of the lampposts. Secondly, The Lady is nowhere to be found in the city, with her bookstore office vacated and abandoned with nary a trace as to where she went. And third, the clock tower will no longer operate, which-- well. Actually that's not new at all, but it certainly may make it difficult to keep up with the facade of passing days. At least the moon still serves as a reminder of that, gibbous phase waxing into something fuller over the course of the week even if the color looks a bit off.

It may not be a fresh new start, but it's not time to give up yet, is it? After all, you are all Survivors.

[[Welcome to Week 6! Note that there are no new locations this week, but feel free to make top levels at your discretion, and remember to note it in your header if you plan on investigating any locations. As alluded above, The Lady will be unavailable, while Rembrandt will still be around on Monday and Tuesday before disappearing for the rest of the week.]]

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[ Rideaux watches as Dazai makes his way up, taking one of the knives from his pocket and rolling up a sleeve as he walks alongside the building.

Hm. Well, that didn't seem so bad. In fact, it almost seems a little too easy, but he'll take it. Anyway, Dazai's going first, so if anyone dies it'll be him, and no one will be too disappointed.

He waits below the open window for further information... and there it is.

...That seems a little iffy, actually, but as long as they hold until he gets up there, he supposes. ]

Got it.

[ With that, he gives his forearm a good slice, and after a moment, a long, thin tendril of blood snakes its way up the wall, in through the window, and through the curtain hooks, and he manages to scale the wall using the blood as a makeshift rope.

Finally, he lands inside the window.

The curtains have arrived. ]

[ He has to be fetchingly draped up- no okay.

Dazai will give him space to climb in. So we are up here. Is there anything in the ballroom to check out. ]

[Welcome you both to the hotel. This is going to be quite the trip, Rideaux, Dazai, so let's get started!

The ballroom seems to be mostly barren. The few pieces of furniture here got moved aside, the place is generally clean...but it seems there's something off about the floor here! Gotta take a close look!

There's a way to exit the ballroom, leading to the third floor hallway. The stairway that leads to the second floor is visible from where you are, too]

[ Hm... ]

Shall we each take a floor, or...?

[ It might be more prudent to stick together since they don't know what they're going to encounter here, but he's not particularly excited about the idea. ]

[ Let's see what is off about the floor here. ]

We should stick together to better watch out for traps.

[ So far they just have the wire traps, but who knows what else she's done to this place. ]

[Wise choice, all things considered. Who knows what dangers lurk in the depths of this luxury hotel the masterminds turned into a mortal deathtrap.

I love that's something I just typed, roleplaying is great.

Anyway! Take a look at the floor, Rideaux, Dazai. There's plenty of ballroom to check, and this spans almost all of it: there are marks on the floor, like scuffle marks. Judging by the shape, these are from the legs of furniture -- furniture that doesn't match anything in the ballroom. The ballroom has chairs and a couple tables, yet many marks on the floor can be linked together in your head to form the outline of some sort of large, rectangular object.

That pattern repeats often, many times, all over the place]

[ Shrug; fair enough, he won't argue. ]

Looks like they moved a lot of furniture out of here. Beds or tables?

[ ...Exam tables, maybe, since this certainly isn't how one would arrange tables in a ballroom. ]

[ Looking at the spaces between each of the marks. ]

If she was doing her work here originally, then it might be medical tables.

[ Make shift ones or real ones. Do they look spaced out enough to be medical or exam tables? Anything else in the ball room? ]

[They do look spaced enough to be that, indeed. No way to know from looking at the marks, but it's indeed a possibility.

There's a few objects more in the ballroom, but none that are related to the investigation, really. Looks like you have cleared the first area!

So, this is how the rest of the hotel goes: there's the second floor, the third floor, the fourth floor, and a suite in the fifth floor. Good thing there are two people here to check everything!]

I would have expected those experiments to have been done in the individual rooms, but this would be a much more efficient way to monitor everything, if that's what was going on.

[ A quick sweep of the room to make sure there's nothing else notable here... all right. ]

Let's check out the rooms on this floor as long as we're here, and we can go from there.

[ Into the hall we go! ]

This could have also been a makeshift hospital. Earlier, I found a notebook with a mention of people falling into comas.

[ Hallway to hell~ Hallway to hell. Once they are out there, he will be looking to see if there's any kind of map of fire exits or something on the wall. ]

[There indeed is a map of fire exits! Well, more like it's a map of absolutely everything. All fire exists are on the first floor, though, so...yeah, this must break some sort of regulation.

The map does show that most of the floors are full of rooms. More than three hundred in total, counting all five floors. There's also a big suite on the fifth floor. Nice!

Oh, careful while walking, Rideaux. While Dazai is checking that map, you may stumble upon a gurney, placed to a side of the hallway]

Edited 2020-02-11 02:07 (UTC)

Like on that note or whatever it was on the bridge? Where did you find that?

[ Thankfully, he is watching his step very closely, so no gurney surprises today. But okay, that might give credence to the hospital theory. Is there anything on it? ]

...Actually, I'm a little surprised we haven't found a real hospital here yet. The gardens are supposed to be part of some university, right?

In the spa room down stairs. Rean had the key so we went checking it out this morning.

[ He'll take the map. Oh there's a gurney. ]

I can push you if you get on~

[ Is he serious? Who knows. ]

Yeah, it's supposed to be. The fog may have cut access off from it and the actual hospital.

[ So either they are at Fog City Hospital or Experiments R Us. What do we have on the rest of the third floor? ]

[The gurney is empty! And...very neatly made, it seems, but on the frame, on a few places, there are very notable friction marks. So much friction the metal is full of scratches, the outer layer of ceramic gone. That was a lot of friction or a lot of strength. Or both.

So, Dazai, the rest of the third floor has a couple other gurneys around, in a state similar to the one Rideaux is examining. One of them has a short piece of rope on it, very frazzled and useless now.

Looks like that's all on the hallway. The hotel rooms themselves seem to be the last thing left around]

I don't think so.

[ Frowns... ]

Well, something did a number on these.

[ They can probably hazard a guess...

Anyway, all right, let's... approach a door. Anything notable from the outside? ]

[ I could make a joke about rough sex but

Yeah it was probably lizards or something struggling against them.

He'll just follow behind Rideaux, keeping an eye out. ]

[You guys have no idea how many BDSM jokes about the masterminds have been said, let me tell you.

Be careful, Rideaux, this room is real full of traps. From the red-tinted light outside, the very, very faint outline of tripwires can be seen on a very small section of the floor. There have to be a lot more in the darkness -- looks like the person who set this stuff engineered it so the tripwires would be invisible in the dark.

Stepping inside is unwise, really.

Not too far from the door there's a clipboard stuck to the wall. It's reachable from the doorway, but...you're going to have to extend your arm so much there's a risk of losing your balance. Careful if you want to retrieve that, guys]

[ If he opens up that cut again, can he just like... extend a blood tendril around the door frame and hook it through that hole in the clip part of the clipboard... ]

Whoa~ Looks like she really didn't want anyone coming through the windows.

[ If he uses a glow stick, can he see a way to even disconnect any of the traps? Not that he's going in there further. Just sticking to the door to let Rideaux do his thing . ]

[Totally! Who'd have thought blood was so useful?

Ah, looks like it's a report. Seems like it was written by someone with a lot of biology knowledge, with a lot of detail. The descriptions of tissues, things growing, and changes on this subject's body are...grisly. Augh.

The first page has what may be considered a summary about the content, and thankfully it's easily understood!

Hey, Dazai, the map you have would mention the floor you're on right now covers #72-150. The number on the door and the number on the summary match, by the way!

Also, about the traps, looks like they extend towards some dangerous-looking contraptions not only on the windows, but on the corners of the room too. The cables even go into the adjacent room -- like the contraptions in each room form a wide, wide net of danger. Geez]

[ Blood is great. And thankfully he can understand the complicated stuff too. Clearly he was the right man for this job!!

Holding it over so Dazai can check out the summary, and using his GHS flashlight to light things up better than a glow light. ]

Hm... I wonder if this is the one who carved that message into the tram.

Might help if we find the first room on this floor... seems a bit overkill.

[ Musing out loud as he sees the wire goes through the wall. ]

Let's grab all the reports on this floor. There should be about seventy seven rooms to check.

[ How many reports can two people hold? Dazai is scanning the page to get it memorized. ]

This one of any of them really. That was probably their dumping ground.

[The reports on the floor seem to show a progression: the #72 starts with a musing on possibly using copper and zinc framing on bones to strengthen the body in preparation for powers. A few reports later, a different modification is done. All in all, there's a series of wild procedures that seem to be directed towards increasing the odds of survival, with varying results.

Oh! Now this is fun! Looks like there are a few familiar names here, most of them close to the #150 number! Sorely lacking with useful information, sadly -- it lists information they already know, such as powers and anything about skills and theories about how the new powers impact them -- but they're there. Teru Mikami, Dist, Shin, Raven Branwen...

...there's one that may be of interest, though, because it marks the start of you all's plight by showing the first subject. Thankfully this report says there were no physical modifications on anyone to increase the odds of survival, so at least everyone in Antumbra can rest easy on that regard.

Report #089]

Edited 2020-02-11 03:35 (UTC)

[ ...Well. Dazai can hold onto that one.

It's not at all surprising at this point that they were among the subjects here -- the 300 rooms match up with their estimate of what their original group size must have been, even -- but it's still unnerving.

And he's definitely frowning at those modifications, even if those particular things weren't done to him. There's not any question that she knows about him, and it's not out of the realm of possibility to think that she could have figured out the codes just like that grunt at Spirius had managed to.

...So. Moving on. ]

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