ARRIVAL LOG 012

[larkers]

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: A research outpost not far from New Amsterdam proper
WHEN: November 22
WHAT: The twelfth arrival
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Body horror, general horror, experimentation on animals and humans, violence, etc.

> ARRIVAL LOG #012

Awareness comes to you in blurred snatches, cloudy fragments of sound and light, color, sensation. Hazy and difficult to grasp on to, but slowly aligning into focus. A series of regular, rhythmic beeps. A medicinal, astringent smell. Murmuring voices saying indistinguishable words. There's fleeting memories of something else, too: an accident, and the pain that followed. Chaos, the echoing noise of gunshots overhead, and the cold sensation of your body going into shock. None of it can be grasped onto in any detail, the flashes of memory more like a fading dream than any real recollection.

When you fully awaken, you'll find your movements to be weighed down and heavy, your body struggling to respond the way that you want it to. Your hair is grown out, perhaps even past its usual length, but not maintained in any way, and you're wearing a hospital gown. The room around you is small and sparsely furnished. There's a bed, the one you woke on, along with a desk pushed against the adjacent wall, but no other distinguishing features. It feels, somehow, that you have been here for a while -- even if you can't put any of the memories together.

As soon as you leave the room, you'll find that your sense of something being very wrong is proven correct. You exit into a dark hallway. There are other doors lining said halls, most of them leading into rooms similar to the one you just left. The area you're in seems to be some sort of dormitory wing, intended for the people who work here, though for now none of those people can be found. Sometimes lights will flicker up and down the maze of halls, but the facility remains dark, and for the most part, quiet. Is it the middle of the night, or is this place completely abandoned? Soon enough you'll come across others like you: wearing only a hospital gown, confused, lost, barefoot.

Unfortunately, it turns out that you're not the only ones here. There's a loud blaring noise that rings through the halls, and somewhere in the facility, a door is unlocked and the proverbial floodgates are opened. At first it won't be clear what happened, but then you'll hear them: scrabbling claws, guttural growls, the thundering approach of creatures that want nothing more than to feed.

They might round a dark hallway and leap, claws extended, or burst out of the vents to wrap around you, fangs ready to sink in. They're twisted, grotesque creatures, but one thing that all of them have in common is their golden glow and eyes. It will take smarts, strength, or speed to survive. Killing them is an option, but without any weapons or your usual powers, it might not be as simple of a task as it once was. Running and hiding is an option, too. There is a new power you've been granted — maybe the stress of the situation will allow you to discover it sooner rather than later. Or maybe with enough teamwork, you can all find a way out.

But don't worry: help is on the way.

> INTO THE WOODS

Instead of the usual head's up from El, the Displaced receive a very different kind of message to tell them of a batch of newcomers who need their assistance:

@100342
Well, well, well, I'll save the trivial "nice to see you again" for later, as it's time to put yourselves together and go. Funny story, a bunch of your pals have been located somewhere outside the city. I know what you're going to ask: How do I know? Let's just say I have some access to points that usually lay beneath the radar to keep it friendly.
Since I was feeling generous, I left you a gift to bring them back. The best part is that you don't have to drive, the worst part is that if you miss it, it'll be gone and you'll be SOL.
Don't be late, or there won't be much to salvage.

Along with the message, all of the Displaced will receive a GPS pin and a warning that they're on the clock. They'll need to reach their destination before 1900 hours or they'll be left behind, and when they arrive at the place in question, they'll see why. It's a boarded-up entrance to a subway station, one that seems to have been out of commission for some time now. Once they break their way in and walk down the stairs into the abandoned station, they'll find that there's a train waiting for them.

How did it get here when most of the public transit is still down? How is it functional? Why hasn't anyone noticed this on a map before? Who knows, but the Displaced will be able to board, and as soon as it hits 1900 hours the train will shudder into movement. There are no announcements to let them know where it's going, so they'll simply have to wait it out.

As it turns out, the train takes them all the way out of the city. When it reaches the city gates, it's let through with no incident, and then it continues on its journey, winding a path through the wooded area that at least a few of the Displaced have explored before. When it finally comes to a stop about an hour and a half later, they'll be let off at an outpost. They're miles out of the city now, too far to easily walk back, and before them lies an unmarked building. On top of that, the train keeps going without them. For the moment, everyone's stranded.

They'll be able to get inside the building with little trouble, as it's from this research outpost that the new set of Displaced will need to be collected. By the time that they arrive it's late into the night so it might not be surprising that the place feels abandoned, but it won't take long to realize there's a commotion. A pack of genetically altered animals have been unleashed on the Displaced who woke up here, so they'll need to help everyone get out in one piece and then figure out a way back to the city.

Some notes about the research lab and these monsters:

◉ The building is six stories tall. The first floor has a lobby/waiting area, a cafeteria, and some office spaces. The second floor is the dormitory floor, which is where the employees would usually sleep if they chose to stay at the facility while working rather than returning to the city in between shifts. This is where the new arrivals woke up. Floors three through five are dedicated to lab spaces, which is where the actual research work is usually done. Most of these laboratories are going to be locked, but that won't stop Displaced from breaking into them if they want. Some of the lab rooms also have exam rooms, rooms with gurneys, stacked and locked cages (some even holding sedated monsters), and other evidence that both people and animals were being experimented on here. Displaced will be able to swipe lab equipment and medical supplies, such as syringes, vials/beakers, first aid supplies, scalpels, bandages, multi-lens microscopes, etc. The top floor is dedicated to offices for higher-ranked scientists, so think of it as the C suite. All floors also have bathrooms, of course, and the dormitory wing also has showers.

There are also a few rooms which might be of interest to the Displaced. These will all be locked tight and will have to be opened through brute force, as they won't respond to any of the Displaced's implants. Of course, a locked door doesn't always mean that there's no way through, especially for this bunch — breaking the locking mechanism, brute force, or even finding a control mechanism are some ways the Displaced can get inside. As for what's beyond these doors:

◈ An operating room. It's clean and emptied out, but the consoles, surgical tools, and lighting make it obvious that surgeries are performed here.
◈ A room that holds in-progress experimental subjects. Some of the animals look almost normal, while others are further along in their mutations, but all of them are sedated and either held suspended in fluid pods or kept in cages. It's possible they could be woken up with enough effort, but why would you?
◈ A morgue. This is where all of the discarded animals and yes, even scientists are kept. It's essentially a dumping ground for failed experiments. The corpses are in sliding drawers as you would expect from any morgue, but opening these drawers will reveal disturbing monstrosities. Some of them are humans, but only barely recognizable given that they've been ripped limb from limb. Others are various animals twisted into impossible positions, or with added appendages/defects. These are experiments where the mutations didn't enhance them, but made it so they could no longer survive.

◉ The monsters who are attacking have the same golden glow and eyes that some of the Displaced have already seen, but they are not the same ones. They look like different kinds of animals that have been spliced with monster DNA, and that DNA has warped them into different forms. Here are a few examples of the monsters, though you are also welcome to come up with other types based off of what we've already outlined:

◈ A large snake, except that it also has four small legs (two near the front of its body, two near the back) which allow it to skitter around rather than slither, making it much faster than any snake has a right to be. It's large and strong enough to strangle its victim, making it difficult to remove by a single person. Don't let it unhinge its jaw, it's got way too many teeth.
◈ A hyena-creature with impressive amounts of agility, due to the fact that it seems like almost all of its joints are double-jointed. It can turn its head almost completely around as well, making it an extremely skilled hunter. Its fangs protrude from the top of its mouth in rows of three like a shark. Even if it's disemboweled or it loses a limb, this creature will still continue to attack in a frenzy.
◈ A stag beetle, except that it's the size of a medium-sized dog. It's still able to fly and its pincers can do damage if it's allowed to get too close. Worse than that, they tend to move in swarms of three or four. Beneath the hard shell are human-like eyes with dilated pupils that follow shadows and light.
◈ A humanoid creature that stands on two legs. Its eyes glow in the dark, catching bits of light from a distance. Upon closer inspection, the creature has snake-scale skin, a long, flickering tail, and claws for hands. These scales are incandescent in nature, shimmering whenever they're underneath enough light.
◈ A sloth-like mimic that cries from a distance for help from hidden, high places. Once it hears a voice, it can mimic it, drawing someone in toward it due to it sounding like another Displaced. Getting too close will leave them within reach of the creature that's all arms and little else, leaving a toxic and poisonous trap to weaken its prey. Its hiding places include the rafters, where it may drop on those looking for their friends. Under certain lights, the slothly creature's eyes are humanoid in appearance, sharp and aware — yet still gold.
◈ Humanoid creatures that give off a thick, putrid smell of decay. Not unlike zombies, they move sluggishly, but upon closer inspection, it appears that something is off about these people. They have claws, sharp rows of teeth, and skin that flakes off with every shuffle of their feet. Potentially some early or later stage experiment of the snake-skinned humanoids. They're highly aggressive and will follow someone with the intention of attacking until they're incapacitated.
◈ A cross-breed insect that looks like a mix of a wasp and a mosquito, but is only the size of a dime. Its sting can draw out a large amount of blood, sedating the individual. The toxin that they inject will leave large, red welts, depending on the efficiency of the immune system. They're blotchy and painful. Once they have found a target, they will swarm around that individual all at once.
◈ A naked creature resembling a dog with a reptile's body, with patches of hair. This creature has long rows of crooked fangs protruding from its lips, mouth and tongue, with a large, dilated eye. It has sharp scales on its back to keep it from being touched, but it has a thirst for blood. This creature will attempt to surprise its prey from around corners, jumping onto someone's shoulders with hopes of sticking to them and drawing blood like a reptilian tick.

◉ These monsters will move through the vents in the building and up and down the stairwells, but they can be killed like any other creature. Or hidden from, if you want to go cry in a bathroom stall or something.

Once the newbies have been collected and taken outside, the Displaced will have to decide if they want to try and get back to New Amsterdam on foot or wait to see if a train arrives back at the stop. The train will return 24 hours after it originally dropped the Displaced off to return everyone to the city, though they won't get any indication of that other than a cryptic hint from Cassius.

Have fun camping, hiking, waiting it out in the building barricaded somewhere, or whatever else you decide to do!

A final note for characters who have been in Meadowlark from the first arrival log (Bobbi Morse, Clarke Griffin, Kylo Ren, Loki, Ojiro Sniper, Rey, Stephen Strange): You are free to have your character recognize any of the newcomers as having been on the bus crash during that first log, if you want! Have these characters been kept in this facility all this time?

For new characters, all of your characters were "present" during the very first log, but either injured to the point that they couldn't trail after the first bunch to the safehouse, or killed during the initial crash and resulting fire fight. We'll leave whichever it is up to you, though your character will not remember the circumstances beyond the vague recollections alluded to at the start of this log. For now, all signs point to them being in captivity after that first crash was cleaned up and swept under the rug.

> NEW AMSTERDAM

Eventually, the Displaced will all make it back into the city one way or another. What the newcomers will find is a city that is very much in recovery mode. There was a recent disaster that has left the city badly damaged and killed people in the hundreds of thousands. For their first few days the new characters will be confined to the safehouse (more on that below), but after that they'll be let out to explore the city as they wish.

◉ Relief efforts. Given that the city is still trying to rebuild and will be for some time, many of the Displaced have already thrown themselves into helping, whether through their normal jobs or by pitching in with the relief organization called PRESERVE. Everyone can pitch in with delivering supplies, escorting people who've lost their homes to relief centers, furnishing and repairing shelters, and so on. Unfortunately, only a few trains are in working order, so getting around is going to be more difficult than it would be normally. Hope you don't mind walking!

◉ Golden-eyed animals. While they're not like the monsters in the research outpost, there will be animals with golden eyes who've somehow found their way into the city. This is noteworthy given that animals are very rarely seen in a megacity. They're not aggressive, and if anything they seem sickly. Some of them look like strange chimeras, like two or three different animals mashed together. Others have too many limbs or eyes. Either way, they will die within a few days of arriving, so it's also possible to stumble on strange corpses scattered around.

◉ All Star game. It's not all doom and gloom, thankfully. The city is trying its best to pull itself up by its bootstraps and carry on despite all the tragedies, which means that the annual soccer All Star Game is still on. Near the sports stadium there will be stalls selling food and merchandise, bands performing, and so on. It's not a full-blown festival the likes of which New Amsterdam is known for, but it is a place to swing by if anyone needs a break.

Please refer to the Setting and Locations posts for more ideas of what the city has to offer, and you can also check out the Aftermath Post from the last event and the July Calendar if you want a better idea of what's going on in New Amsterdam!

> SAFEHOUSE

Located under an abandoned hover-bike garage, access to the safehouse is a hatch in the floor beside a rusted set of metal shelves that used to hold tools and supplies. The immediate area is similarly abandoned: full of rundown and dilapidated warehouses and forgotten businesses, where numerous people squat in hopes of having some stability because they can't afford a place themselves.

◉ The safehouse is a large space with multiple rooms for storage, with the largest of the rooms filled with rows of basic cots set up to sleep a large amount of people. Basic, but outfitted with everything necessary for daily life. A few doors lead to back rooms for storage, medical care, and a large communal bathroom, and past the long rows of cots there is a communal kitchen, fully stocked, and an eating area. Privacy is at a minimum.

◉ New characters will be asked to pick their beds, and provided with a change of (second-hand, mismatched and somewhat threadbare) clothes and basic toiletries.

◉ There is a mini-bar set up in the kitchen. The quality of the alcohol inside is akin to what someone might get from the well, but it's well-stocked.

◉ It can be assumed that new arrivals will be told that any requests or queries can go through El for the time being; Gaby is currently not available.

◉ New characters will be given rudimentary access to the network upon arrival in the safehouse, whether they had their ID set up by Cassius or they still need it set up by El. They will be able to make posts and replies, but their messages will be anonymous and they do not have inboxes yet. El will restrict widespread internet access while ze reviews everyone's preset backgrounds or reviews what's already in place. Once El has set up IDs — or revised/retained Cassius's work, the newbies will be free to go. See the comment below to learn more about this!

◉ New characters will not be allowed to leave the safehouse until NOVEMBER 26 (JULY 21). These 4 days are for them to adjust, learn about the world they've arrived in from their fellows, and for El to speak with them and work on setting up their IDs — or review the ID that was set up by Cassius. We have another option for IDs this log which will be explained in a comment below; it's opt-in!

> FINAL OOC NOTES

Welcome to Meadowlark, newbies! You're now free to post to the network and logs comms. To reiterate, your characters will not be allowed out of the safehouse until NOVEMBER 26 (JULY 21). At that point it's expected they'll have gotten a good idea of their new situation from their fellow characters, and will have discussed their background and had job potentials reviewed with El in order for their false IDs to be set up.

If you would like your character to have a wildly inappropriate background or incredibly unique setup by Cassius, please comment to the background review below! Since Cassius has a different set of accesses and resources available, he'll be able to provide a different path for your character. This background does not need to be accurate to your characters' skill set — in fact, it's more likely that it wouldn't because Cassius is a troll that way. El will try to revise it into working order, but ze can only do so much.

If you have any questions or ideas about how you'd like to get your character involved in the world, please head over to the plot engagement post and drop us a comment! For questions specific to this log, there is a thread below.

Please check out our July calendar rundown for a look at things happening this month, as well as some additional notes from the mods.

As a reminder, AC for new characters accepted in July will be 10 comments across 2-4 threads, while current characters will need to provide the full AC of 20 comments across 2-4 threads. AC will be posted on August 1 at 12 AM UTC and close on August 8 at 12 AM UTC. If you do not reply to AC, you will be considered idled and dropped from the game. We will not post a warning list.

> NAVIGATION

Comments

[hierophante]

They don't need to be here to watch us if they've got good enough locks.

[Of that she's absolutely certain, because she's lived it. Maybe there's a hint for Dante in that certainty, some indication as to why she cowers, and why she knows she can keep pushing: she's lived something like this, and recently enough from her perspective that she still feels the aftershocks.]

And who knows what's waiting.

[On the other hand, she survived what came before, more or less. She can survive this. It doesn't have to be done gracefully.

That thought steels her a bit, as does the company; she moves steadily in the direction he's indicated, picking her way along the darkened hallway towards the door at the end. She's not, at first, in any great hurry: there remains the chance that what they're walking into is far more dangerous than what they're walking away from, which certainly can't be called innocuous but at least isn't actively threatening for the moment.

The first distant sounds change that assessment. It's impossible to tell what they are, muffled as they are, warped by echoes. Clangs, rasps, what might be a growl; what they aren't is reassuring. OA cranes her neck about, trying to pinpoint the direction of their source. Not ahead. Not as far as she can discern. That's going to have to be good enough.

She glances over at Dante, wide-eyed.]

Maybe we should move a little faster.

[redload]

Keep walking, lady.

[dante noticed, too, the sounds—the definite warning of danger incoming. he doesn't look half as bothered as she does, however, more than familiar with this kind of ominous danger lurking just around the corner.]

If they catch up, I'll just hold them back. Think about yourself.

[that's hardly reassuring—but the door is reached after they hurry their steps.]

[hierophante]

[The look OA shoots him isn't exactly withering, but it's only a few shades off. The quirk of her brows says really? Doubt is healthy, though she's not discounting out of hand the idea that he can handle himself. What she is challenging is the implication that she's the sort of person who could simply leave someone behind if it's in her power to do otherwise.]

OA. My name is OA.

[That's not information he needs, but it's better than being called 'lady'.

Still, despite the moment of rancor, she's more than happy to do as she's told. The more distance between them and whatever it is that's making those noises, the better.

It's a relief to find the door at the end of the hall unlocked, to see that it does indeed contain a stairwell, though she pauses for just a moment on the landing, tilting her head to try to gauge whether or not the sound of the door opening has attracted any kind of unwanted attention. Either way, the sounds seem to be getting louder. She'll have to make a choice. Up or down? Are they underground, or above it?

Down. Down makes sense.]

You don't seem surprised by any of this.

[That should make her suspicious -- does make her suspicious, to an extent -- but she gets the impression it might just be how he is, which begs the question of why.]

Do you wake up in a lot of strange places?

[She doesn't sound judgmental, simply curious.]

[redload]

Let's say I've seen some shit.

[her name is duly noted, no intent to share his own. there is nothing to tell him there will be a meeting with any of the people in this place past this moment. he can be proven wrong later.]

[down makes sense, and so dante follows along.]

Hellish monsters, unknown buildings, a constant sense of doom and gloom? Been there, done that.

[he's keeping a few steps behind her, down the stairs, keeping alert.]

Experience has proven that there's always an exit.

[hierophante]

There is.

[It's just that sometimes it's outside of a person's power to reach. OA doesn't say as much, though. She's not particularly worried about how dismal it would sound -- his confidence doesn't seem so easily shattered. She just doesn't want to give him a reason to poke at that particular wound, intentionally or otherwise.

Besides, he's said something more interesting -- she glances back up at him as she descends the stairs.]

Monsters? I've only met the human kind.

[Not that she's discounting the idea of the more literal kind of monster. She's asked people to believe stranger things. Besides, the quality of the sounds, increasingly dispersed and therefore increasingly worrisome, certainly does nothing to discount the possibility.]

[redload]

No kidding. Humans are the worst.

[it's dismissive, like what she says is a truth that dante is fairly familiar with. there's no reason to discount it or try to speak otherwise to what she mentions.]

[it's on a landing at the stairs, taking a turn to keep going down another floor, that dante stops. he puts a hand around her arm—the blue glow in their chests rising, a shared connection of their emotions, dante's forceful confidence and courage despite the unknown seeps through to her—ultimately stopping her before she takes another step.]

[a door opens, the sound of it eerie in the silent, dark stairs, below them. it closes just as slowly, a loud metal sound ricocheting on the walls.]

Stay behind me.

[the blue glow is not something that concerns him so much as the imminent threat; he spares her a glance, letting go of her, and descending further, rotating his arms as if warming up.]

[hierophante]

[OA doesn't like being touched. It's profoundly strange, the intermingling of that confidence she can't identify and the way that abrupt contact makes her skin crawl. The former keeps her silent, the latter freezes her in place just as effectively as the sound of the door had. The blue glow is no less alarming for its wrongness, but it's far less pressing than whatever it is that lies ahead. For a moment, that's what bleeds through: fear, a faint, reflexive rush of anger, intermingled with guilt at that anger -- and then she takes in a slow, deep breath and the roar of them fades to a whisper.

Fear is useful. OA has learned to trust it. Like most useful things, though, holding onto it too tightly diminishes its usefulness.

Dante looks back at her and she nods -- if he thinks he's equipped for a fight, so much the better. OA knows her own limits well enough to know that she might not be.

She follows him as he descends, one hand on the railing and the other pressed to her sternum, head tilted to angle an ear towards the lower landing.]

[redload]

[dante speaks no further, his steps down the stairs faster, following the sounds of footsteps below, ever closer.]

[what greets him isn't quite the monster he was expecting, but it's oddly not too dissimilar from what he's used to. a creature standing on its two legs, humanoid-looking, eyes that glow staring at him from the intermittent dark.]

What the fuck are you supposed to be?

[dante pauses in his confusion, rhetorical question thrown about as the creature steps into the dark—snake-scale skin, long tail, claws for hands. it comes to a stop when it sees dante and, for a moment, the devil hunter can't really put together how to go about this.]

[that lasts for a moment, before he's grinning.]

[it lounges over to him, arms stretched out to reach at him with the claws, but dante easily dodges. it looks like it has opted to go up the stairs, towards dante's companion.]

Not so fast—!

[but it barely manages to reach OA, dante's quick thinking resulting in his grabbing the creature by the tail, keeping it restrained.]

Ugly fucker, isn't it? Looks like it wants a hug.

[hierophante]

[OA scrambles further out of reach of the thing, stumbling on a step but managing to remain upright with the help of the railing.]

Fuck!

[She can't tear her gaze away from it, this unreal thing made desperately real, all mismatched parts and malice. Monster is an apt term -- though even beneath the reflexive rush of horror she can't help but wonder what it really is, how it thinks, what it wants. They're more useful questions for the long term. Right now it seems more apt to concentrate on staying out of the reach of those vicious-looking claws.]

Jesus!

[She looks past it at Dante, uncomfortably aware of how much trust she's having to invest in him right now. If his grip fails, or if he lets go, she's not sure how much of a chance she'd have.]

I think I'll pass on the hug.

[It's a small miracle that the words come out with only minor fumbling.]

[redload]

Smart call.

[his grip on the creature's tail tightens. allowing it to sweep past him was a way for dante to both measure its strength and to know what exactly he's dealing with here. it looks like nothing he's seen before—but it's also nothing too different from the norm, for him.]

[he thinks it would take away the edge of fear, otherwise, knowing what they're up against.]

[with one strong pull, dante's swooping the creature back and slamming it behind him against the floor. it's all meat and muscles under the skin, and dante's sending a swift punch to its head, stunning it into a daze as it crashes back into the nearest wall. without his powers—it might just be the best he can do right now.]

Keep on going, missy.

[down the stairs, he means.]

[hierophante]

[OA moves without hesitation, scrambling down the stairs towards the door, giving that thing as wide a berth as possible. She wants more time -- time to process, to reconstruct a world in which creatures like that are possible. A world in which, more fundamentally, she's present under these circumstances; everything she knows has the potential to be wrong and that sets her on dangerous footing.

There isn't time, though. Now is not the time for abstract thought. She can let it go; that isn't the problem. The problem is that it feels as wrong as everything else.

OA opens the door as quietly as possible in her haste, mindful of the possibility that where there's one of those things there could easily be more, but nothing -- nothing except more of those noises, the sounds of things unseen moving in distant spaces -- seems immediately threatening. She slips through it, holding the door open for Dante to pass through. He's impressive in motion, enough so that she can see now why he's so confident in this situation. She's stronger than she looks, tougher too, but she couldn't begin to match him. Even so, she has no intention of leaving him behind to save her own skin.]

It looks clear for now; come on!

[She stands, pale and frightened but ready to wield the weight of the door against the... whatever it is, should it decide to pursue them.]

[redload]

[dante's gaze lingers on the dazed beast, lying confused, torn between wanting to stay back and kick some ass—but also at the very real and reasonable option of moving on. it won't be worth his time and energy, and there are bound to be more about.]

[finding an exit is the most prudent option, as much as dante doesn't do prudent.]

[so out he goes, following after oa, allowing her to close the door behind him if she so wishes to put a distance between themselves and the ugly gremlins crawling about.]

Not as bad as I thought. Are we still gunning for that exit?

[hierophante]

[The door clicking shut on the dazed creature isn't as reassuring as it could be, given the thing had been able to navigate it in the first place, but OA is going to take whatever distance she can get. That's the instinct: keep moving, find an exit, get out. Whatever's out there can't be as bad as what's in here.

Except... that's not really a safe assumption, is it? Dante's question is a fair one, and OA gives it due consideration, wrestling with her desire to be gone from here. In some ways it's a rational want, but in plenty of ways it isn't, and picking the two apart is no easy task.

Eventually she nods, aiming for confident and landing somewhere adjacent to it, uncertain but decided, determined.]

Yeah. Yeah, let's get out of here. It'll be easier to figure out what's going on if we're not dead.

[And being dead doesn't mean being beyond caring, not if one has the will to the alternative. This doesn't, moreover, seem like the kind of experiment one can get out of by getting into. OA gets the impression that in this case that would just entail getting into something's belly.]

[redload]

[dante's been in a belly before and survived, but it was still a bit of a nasty experience. and he had a sword with him at the time, so perhaps it is in their wisest interest to try and head out to survey their circumstances before making any decisions on whether investigating is in order.]

I like being not dead! Let's go.

[but, as usual, it all sounds like dante's finding this to be a joke.]

[he starts leading the way, then, towards the end of the hall, confidence in his steps now that he knows what these creatures are; they're not to be trifled with, but they're also not as threatening as he expected them to be.]

[eventually, at the end of the hall, they will find a window.]

[dante turns back to OA, and gestures towards it with a questioning expression on his face.]

[hierophante]

The alternative gets old.

[She mutters it more to herself than to Dante, a statement made in a moment of pique. It isn't really true, anyway. Her forays across that particular boundary, though, have never been the sort of bloody and irreversible that she suspects death at the claws of that thing in the stairwell would have been.

Then again, she could really use some guidance right now. Dante is strong. He could probably cut off her air just as easily as any drowning machine... and what then? Would anything be waiting for her on the other side? Would he be able to bring her back? Even if they had more time, it wouldn't be worth the risk. In spite of everything, she's not as desperate now as she was that day on the bridge.

These morbid ruminations are cut short by the discovery of the window and Dante's silent inquiry. OA gives him a steady look followed by an eloquent shrug. It'd work as well as anything if they can get it open.]

Might be reinforced. Hang on.

[Breaking it might still be worth a try, just... maybe not with anything as breakable as their bodies. She turns, picks a door to push cautiously open on a room which she can see enough of in the dim light to assume it's some kind of office, though OA doesn't recognise any of the equipment, a fact she pushes aside for now. What she's really after when she slips quietly into the room isn't high technology anyway. All that matters is that it's heavy and nobody's going to care much if it breaks.

Like the chair she hefts and carries back out into the hall, pausing to give Dante an inquiring look of her own. Think this will do?]

[redload]

[when OA returns, dante's expression shifts into a grin—there's amusement in his expression, too.]

I'm liking this silent conversation we're managing to have.

[it's unexpected but also enjoyable in the sense that he doesn't have to be overtly obvious to communicate what he wants. assuming that she would want him to be the one in charge of breaking the window, he takes hold of the chair with ease despite its heaviness.]

You might want to step back.

[he hefts it up in his hands, focuses his weight on his feet, and vaults towards the window chair first. the glass is definitely reinforced—more so than just glass, at least, but there's a clear crack forming in the center, after dante throws the chair a fourth time against it, stepping out of the way and leaving it on the floor to rotate his shoulders.]

Man, I'm all stiff.

[but it's progress, nonetheless, one that he recognizes as he—without warning—slams a heavy fist into the center of the crack. it spreads in web-like lines on the window, its foundations weakened.]

—that should do it.

[hierophante]

[The wordless conversation is nice, circumstances notwithstanding. They are, clearly, very different people, but they're both here. They share, just as clearly, some common ground, a bodied something that allows them to make harmonious assumptions. It's fumbling and incomplete in a way that makes her miss Homer all the more desperately, underneath the far more pressing concern that is keeping watch to ensure all the noise they're making hasn't attracted more unwanted attention -- or rather, given the inevitability that it has, that none of that unwanted attention is an immediate danger.

Still, the companionship is still appreciated... at least until he punches the window like that. OA sucks in a breath through her teeth and shoots Dante a look that is, in spite of all her attempts to prevent it, a little reproachful.]

I think you only get one of those.

[She nods in his general direction: one body.]

There are lots of chairs.

[A loud clang sounds from not nearly far enough away and OA turns her head sharply in its direction, only shooting Dante another look -- this one mollifying -- once it's clear nothing is barrelling down on them just yet.]

Eaten's worse. Anything I can do to help?