smash_logs | It is pitch black.

Entry tags:

It is pitch black.

Who: Sheik, Garrett, Pit, Yarne, and special guest star Soryk (for snooping purposes only).
What: A BUNKERVENTURE
When: FORWARD DATED A WHILE. Let's say March 22nd or something.
Where: Those weird bunkers underneath the school.
Warnings: Probably gonna fight some guys. Probably some weird stuff. No tagging order, everyone's gonna go wild.

As promised, Sheik had assembled the interested parties, and the intrepid group of explorers was quick to meet and form their plan. The mysterious ninja boy leader wasn't entirely sure what they were looking for, exactly, but if they could find the strange room full of "figurines", as Yamada had said, she'd consider it a win.

Since there was no existing map, there wasn't much to go by, but at least she knew where some of the entrances were. They could start from there, and leave markers to find their way back. Pit had been there before, and Garrett and Yarne seemed capable of holding their own--she hoped, anyway.

Soon enough, they found themselves inside the bunkers, where Sheik found it pertinent to address the one of their party who had ventured into their depths before (read: Pit).

"Does any of this look familiar?"

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"Oh yeah," replied the veteran bunkerventurer. "Just up ahead in that corridor over there," he began with a finger aimed in that direction, "it'll start to look a lot shabbier. And smell a little funnier. There will be these boards on the ground in front of a hole in the wall. That hole is the tunnel entrance." He began to step in that direction, expecting everyone to follow. "From there on, we can either go left or right. But once we hit the tunnels, it's crawling with creepy creatures, so we have to be on our guards."

"C... creepy creatures?" Yarne shrinks away a bit at the mention of that. He'd been a bit unsettled by going underground into a strange area in the first place, and this wasn't helping. Nor was the fact that he was working with someone that he has the (likely false) impression that they'd kill him without a second thought.

"Like, what kind of creepy creature? Like, rats and spiders, things that people are just kind of afraid of, or... something worse?"

"More like ghosts and zombies," he replied. "But don't scream just yet! I know the trick to beat them. And with four of us here, we'll send THEM screaming. Right?"

"I could've sworn this wasn't supposed to be dangerous..." Yarne groans a bit, and starts reluctantly following a fair distance behind Pit. "I'm not too sure about ghosts, but I know I can handle zombies at least."

"We'll be fine," Sheik assured, mostly to stop Yarne from being so nervous--she could only hope that his described abilities could pinpoint danger before it even became an issue.

Pit's instruction, however, was welcomed, and she set off in that direction, looking for the boards he described.

"I'll go first, if that helps."

"Undead aren't dangerous if you know how to deal with them." Garrett had been mostly silent until now, but piped up as he noticed Yarne start to fall back. "They're slow, and stupid. Unless this place is especially cramped they won't be more than a nuisance."

"I think maybe we're familiar with different kinds of undead..." Yarne knew firsthand just how fast Risen could be. He's certainly not going to complain if they have to deal with something much weaker, though. Either way, he's staying on the lookout for the familiar scent of rotting flesh, or anything else unfamiliar.

Pit let Sheik move to the fore of their assembly. "I don't know what the 'ghosts', are, but I do know what the zombies are called," Pit added. "They're Redeads. They stand still like statues making groany noises that freeze your bones- literally. Well, actually, it's the screamy noise they make that causes you to freeze. That's so they can advance on you and suck the life force out of you before you can get away."

Oops, that was probably not very reassuring. Pit realized this in retrospect. "...But there's four of us, so we should be good!"

"It's fine," she emphasized again, sounding a bit more impatient as she continued down the corridor. Obviously, Pit's experiences with the monsters that lived deep within the bunker system was valuable, and she filed the information away, but it wouldn't do them any good to get worked up before they even found what they were looking for.

"They might even be scared off by the size of our group. Here."

They'd come to the place Pit described--boarded off, with a few of the boards out of place. Sheik was quick to wrench the wrest of them from the doorway.

"Tread carefully."

"R, right, we probably won't see a thing... Heh, hehe...!" Yarne is clearly desperately trying to reassure himself, just short of huddling up in a corner out of fear.

"I'll uh, stay quiet as I can, just in case." He probably wasn't helping that claim with his apparent inability to whisper or speak quietly at all.

Pit assessed the right path and the left path for good old memory's sake. "I think the place we found the coin thing was to the right, where the floor caved in." He peered into the dark tunnel ahead, feeling like he was traversing backwards in time. It gave him a delicious chill up his spine that was both enjoyable and gave him the creeps. "So we could either go that way or try the less-traveled path." He cranked his neck around to peer into the blackness of the other direction.

"I don't suppose splitting up is an option, is it?" Garrett hoped it was, and that he wouldn't get stuck with the scaredy-cat. Rabbit. Whatever.

"I don't think it's wise, at this point."

Mostly because they didn't know what awaited them, and she didn't want to risk any unnecessary reduction of firepower (read: splitting up). As she pressed further into the darkened corridor, past the boards, it all seemed so far, so good.

"Do you recognize anything, Pit?"

"Yeah. But there's nothing to see right here. It's just your generic underground tunnel. Like I said, if we go that way," he informed, pointing to the right, "it'll seem more familiar to me. But if we go the other way, it'll be uncharted territory. Then I can't be the tour guide. So I'm guessing that means we want to go right, right?"

Edited (capitalization) 2014-03-12 03:16 (UTC)

Sheik nodded. "It's our best bet so far. I'm assuming you turned back at some point." Right it was, and she led the group onward.

And Pit had mentioned finding one of those gold disks--the same disks that Yamada said were the bases of the figurines. With any luck, they could follow the evidence to the room he described.

Even in the dim light, it wasn't difficult to see that the further they went, the more decrepit the walls and ceilings became, until the tunnel was less bunker and more...actual tunnel.

"Strange..."

"Yeah, I'm all for taking the familiar route and NOT splitting up." Yarne follows behind them, getting noticably more nervous the further in they get. Right up until he suddenly gets right behind Sheik, hiding behind him for cover and looking over his shoulders.

"W-WAIT, HOLD UP!! I think I heard something!!! It's... it's..." A few moments pass, as Yarne starts to blush embarassedly. "...Just, the wind I think. There must be like, a hole to the surface or something..."

"Heeeeh... Uh, carry on!" He tries to play things off with an awkward chuckle, but he's pretty sure everyone's already thinking he's a total idiot...

Sheik, on the contrary, appreciated the warning--it was part of the reason why she'd brought him along, after all. An opening to the surface would make sense, though she doubted it was that simple. Better to be paranoid than in the middle of a fight with ghost-monsters.

"We can't be too sure. What direction? Do you know?"

Yarne nods, resting a hand beneath one of his ears and lifting it up a bit to try and detect where the sound is coming from. "Sounds like... it's coming from somewhere deeper inside."

"Only one way to find out," said Pit. "Let's move forward!"

And move forward they did, towards the apparent source of the noise, though at a downward angle which added to the overall strangeness of hearing an opening to the surface. Though it wasn't out of the question, they were going deeper, so it seemed more and more unlikely. Vents to help air reach the depths of the bunkers, perhaps?

Sheik stopped in her tracks at another noise, a groaning, howling, echoing off the tunnels, most definitely not the wind.

"Pit," she said, training her gaze on the dark hallway in front of them, "you said you knew the effective way to stop some of the creatures."

With their footsteps no longer echoing off the walls, the familiar sound filled his ears. Even after years had passed by, how could he forget a sound that throttled his brain so hard? Or, at least, one that was associated with such an aural power.

"Those are the ghostlike enemies I mentioned," said Pit on a low breath. "Once you engage one of them, you can't stop hitting them. If you do, they'll just regenerate back to full health. So that's why the best strategy is to go as hard and fast as you can and never let them have their opening for recovery!"

The groaning in the distance reached a crescendo, and numerous pairs of glowing eyes swarmed toward them like angry red bees. Pit readied his body and his blade, which looked like a splash of water stuck frozen in place against a hilt.

"They're coming..."

Yarne's definitely starting to pick up the sound now, and as they approach it he gets noticeably more and more terrified. He has no idea what it actually is, but he doesn't really need to, to know that whatever's making a noise like that is definitely not friendly.

Then he actually sees all those eyes staring at him, each one some kind of hideous regenerating monster that wants him dead, he has to resist the intensely strong urge to turn around and flee right there.

"I uh, don't suppose we could just leave now, could we...?" Of course, he highly doubts they'd actually go along with that, retrieving his beaststone from one of his pouches and holding it at the ready.

"Feel free to walk all the way back in the dark by yourself." Garrett said, flatly. A simple 'no' would have sufficed, but he was a jerk.

The noise didn't bother him much. You've heard one ghostly wail, you've heard them all. He didn't much like that it was difficult to see what exactly they were up against, but their glowing eyes would make do for a target.

Slowly, he reached for an arrow and notched it to his bow. The tip glowed like a burning coal, small embers leaping from it. The light was enough to illuminate the four of them, but the monsters already knew where they were, so there wasn't much point in trying to hide anyway.

Sheik seemed completely unintimidated, in part because she knew that someone needed to hold this team together. Pit knew how to beat them--he'd done it before, so they'd do it again, and it would be much easier with four people.

At the very least, it meant they were getting close.

The Floow were swift to overtake the group, and Sheik sprung instantly into action, unleashing a barrage of needles onto the approaching ghosts.

Yarne's half-tempted to just stand back and let the others handle it, but he can't very well just leave them to fight on their own... especially when they're outnumbered like this.

He hops onto all fours, and activates his beaststone, becoming enveloped in a barrier of stone for a moment, before bursting out, having taken on the form of a giant rabbit monster. Then, the Taguel rushes into battle with a terrified scream, going up to the nearest one and turning around, to deliver a powerful kick with his hind legs.

Pit weaved around the groups that were forming so he could take on the cluster of enemies spread out a bit further up ahead, starting things out with one charging aquatic blast attack summoned with a grand sweep of his blade. All but one of the four vanished like puffs of smoke. Their sudden death surprised him so much that he had to double-check to see if they had actually just moved somewhere else, but he didn't have the luxury to spend much time doing that because his final foe moved in to attack.

Sheik, having made quick work of one of the Floow, turned her attention to assisting her teammates. Yarne totally had this. Heck yeah.

Pit in particular, however, seemed to be getting swarmed, and keeping in mind that the only way to defeat them was to hit them over and over again, she launched herself towards the angel, chain whip flashing as it struck the ghostly forms almost faster than the eye could see.

With their numbers quickly dwindling, the Floow seemed to understand that this wasn't a fight they were going to win--and retreated further down the corridor, almost beckoning the intrepid group of adventurers to chase them down.

Edited 2014-03-23 07:19 (UTC)

Garrett managed to explode one of the retreating monsters with a fire arrow, then quickly slung the bow over his shoulder and started after them. Rule number one: don't let anyone (or anything) see you. Rule number two: if you are seen, make sure they can't do anything about it until after you're gone.

"Let's not let them regroup."

Yarne had been putting his Taguel strength and speed to good use, taking out a decent amount of the Floow before they began to retreat, relief flooding into him... At least until he notices Garrett running after them, anyway, reluctantly starting to follow behind him, as a disembodied, slightly distorted voice emanates from the large rabbitmonster.

"We don't really HAVE to, do we? I mean, we won! Shouldn't we just, get out of here and not follow the monsters back to their home that's probably full of more monsters?

"That's not the point!" protested Pit as he moved his legs to keep up with the quickly advancing group. He was still getting over the slight embarrassment associated with his hesitation in fighting the Floow that coerced Shiek to help him out. He now knew he could beat them in one hit with his weapon. "We're here to discover stuff, not just beat up monsters for the sake of beating up monsters!"

The very fact that they'd encountered the monsters in the first place meant that they were close, and the last thing Sheik was going to do was stop, casting a glance back at Yarne.

"You're welcome to wait here, but I doubt you'd want to be left alone."

There was little to do, anyway, but press on--the corridor gave way to a larger room, not quite cavernous but at least part of the way there, the side walls lined with dusty shelves and--

"This is it."

Perhaps not the room full of figurines she'd been seeking, but a quick inspection of the grimy contents of the grimier shelves was at least a clue.

"Look," she said, holding up a large gold disk marked with the school's emblem.

Pit was quick to respond to Shiek's discovery. "That's it! It's one of the coin thingimajigs!" He scrambled closer to get a better look. "It's just like the one we found last time. How long has it been collecting dust down here, anyway?"

"What are these things supposed to be?" He had some ideas, all of which amounted to skeletons in the closet. Something with the school's logo emblazoned on it, stashed underground and forgotten? Nothing suspicious about that.

Yarne reluctantly followed behind, reverting to his normal form in a brief flash of light. "So... that's what we're risking our lives down here for? A big disk thing?"

The Taguel had a talent for imagining all the possible ways something could go horribly wrong and result in horrible death, but even he was having trouble seeing what could be so bad about this thing. Maybe someone could chuck it at his head, but that didn't exactly make it anything special. "Maybe it's just an old decoration or something that was left in the basement, and the haunting was just a coincidence? That'd explain why it has the school's logo, anyway."

"Then why do we keep finding them all down here?" asked Pit. "There's gotta be something more to them. If they're related to those figurines Hiffiny found, then they're more than just decorations!"

Hiffiny, if you weren't aware, was Pit unintentionally butchering poor Hifumi's name.

"We should take it with is," she replied, inspecting the remaining contents of the shelves and finding more. "Whatever they are, they've been here for some time, it seems."

Sheik continued down the length of the room, past more shelves, onto what she hoped was an unlocked door. "Hifumi described the bases of the figurines he found as gold disks with the school's logo."

A perfect descriptor of the item she was currently holding--and there it was, a door.

"It's stuck," she said finally after giving it a good shoulder-check.

"Let me handle this." Garrett said, and approached without waiting for a response. He checked the handle, then produced his lockpicks and went to work. There was the sound of metal scraping against metal for a moment, then a loud click, and the door swung open.

"Now it's time to see what's behind door number one."

Were Sheik a bit more emotive, she would have certainly grinned in satisfaction. Instead, she remained largely stone-faced in the face of the open door in front of them.

The monsters that had pursued them this far seemed largely absent, and she ventured to take a few steps inside, feet echoing in the chamber. Despite the fact that it was dark, she could already tell this room was much bigger than anything they'd found so far.

"This is it," she said, making out the forms of the almost life-sized figurines that Yamada had described. She knelt at the base of one, making an obvious comparison to the gold disk she was already holding.

Pit guided his eyes all around the chamber, picking up as many sights as he could in the limited lighting. He stepped in after Sheik and glanced down at the base of the figurine she was examining. "Yep, that's the one!" he also confirmed. He stopped there for a moment and kept glancing around the room because there was so much to take in. More fascinating than anything were the forms of the statues- he could recognize some familiar species, like Bulbmin, Chao, Paratroopas, Jigglypuff... He took a stroll that way to squint at more of this treasure trove. That's when it got even more interesting.

"Hey, there's a statue of Knuckles over there!" he piped, pointing at the aforementioned echidna who had left the school recently. ~~"Why is he so ripped?"~~ "And there's Midna!" He dashed over toward the two new trophies he discovered, skidding to a quick stop so he could admire the detail put into the work. "They're so lifelike... I feel like I could bring them to life with just a touch." He reached his hand out as though he meant to touch Midna's impish face, but contact was never made. It was so reminiscent of something. He couldn't quite put a finger on it. The feeling creeping down his spine was probably just the ancient memory of all those centurions being turned to statues. If only he'd brought a few of those old mallets! But as lifelike as they seemed, they couldn't actually be the people they represented, could they? What were these for?

Edited (grammatical farting) 2014-04-14 21:19 (UTC)

Sheik was having similar thoughts, and did reach out a hand to touch one--though it remained motionless.

Seeing Midna in particular jarring, and it brought about some incredibly unfortunate implications, especially when she recognized other faces in the rows of statues. What this meant, exactly, she couldn't say.

"We should...tell the school about this. Some of these statues are our friends."

"Someone's made statues of, what, students at the school?" Garrett mused. "A stalker with a knack for art seems a little mundane for this town."

He scanned the silent figures, noticing a few faces he had seen around the campus but nobody he knew personally. As he paced between them, he was unable to place just what kind of material they were sculpted from, or how anyone could have carved something so lifelike.

"There's got to be dozens of these things. Whoever's responsible for this has been at it for a long time."

Having so many large, lifelike statues all over the place, almost feeling like they're staring at him was more than a bit unnerving for Yarne, the large rabbit-boy taking a step or two away, unable to stop thinking that they might come alive if he happens to get too close.

"O-okay, so... Bunch of weird statues. What do we do with them?"

"We can't take them all back, that's for sure," replied Pit as his course wove him through more statues, more and more of them recognizable as someone he once knew. It never stopped being strange, like walking through a museum of memories, but the momentary arrow-to-the-heart astonishment was starting to wear off after the first three or so friends he met in stone. "There's just too many of them... Whoa! What's that?!"

Pit's eyes landed on a sculpture that resembled someone he was intimately familiar with. It was shaped like him, after all. He raced toward it without delay.

"That's... me!"

"But we know where this room is, now. We can come back." For further investigation, of course. To see if anything had changed.

Sheik paused in her tracks at Pit's exclamation, and she was at his side in a flash.

"Are you sure?"

"How could it be anyone else? See?" He stood right next to the still figure and mocked its pose, the proportions matching up precisely. They were like twins, except one of them had been turned into a statue. "He's got my face and everything! But I sure look like I'm having a bad day." Then, Pit's face changed into one of startled realization. He swerved back around to study his features a little more closely.

"Wait a second... That's right! It could be one other person besides me." He felt his heart speed up as he gazed upon this familiar face. Slate gray as he was, it might be nearly impossible to tell the difference in the dark here without color coding, but Pit just knew. "It's Pittoo!"

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