Night 50: Main Hallway, 1-Center

[perfectrecord]

[From here]Unlike the western section, the central portion of this hallway was completely deserted. On any other night, von Karma would have used this to his advantage to arrive at one of the upstairs locations before anyone else did. The Janitor's Closet, for one, contained a large cache of metal that he could use to compensate Mr. Geeste for

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[its_the_mileage]

[from here]

Indy swept the light around as he approached the center of the main hallway, making a slow, careful arc, but it didn't pick up anything moving or any shadows that shouldn't have been there. Looked like the coast was clear then, at least for now.

He moved as quietly as possible over to the Sun Room doors and listened. If there was anyone--or anything--in there lying in wait for hapless would-be adventurers, they were being quiet about it. An easy trip might be too much to hope for, but you never knew; maybe they'd get lucky. In fact, now Indy wondered if the bigger problem wouldn't be getting all these people to pay attention, get along with each other and not do anything stupid.

He took a few steps back to stand by the wall next to the doors, on the side nearer the patient blocks. Then he waited.

[vsyourface]

[From here]

Between the 1-B halls and the main one, Scott had done his best to beat down his nervousness to a bloody pulp. Somehow, like a veritable cockroach of inner terror, it still survived, but he had managed to wipe (most) traces of said nervousness off his face, at least. Good, too, because there was the first of his partymates up ahead by the Sun Room door. It wouldn't do well to go up to Indy and say "Hi! I think I might have made a huge mistake and am going to die tonight! So how's things?", now would it? He shook his head in answer to his own question. So, again, Scott forced himself not to think that way. Their group was going to be big; tonight was going to be okay. No, it was going to be epic.

Probably.

Scott summoned a grin and waved ahead. "Hey, Indy! Fancy meeting you here," he called out as he ran up in approach. Again, the limp was still apparent in his stride, but Scott was managing well enough. "Ahhh, is it ever good to see you back in The Fedora. That Yankees hat didn't suit you at all, dude," said Scott once

[its_the_mileage]

Pilgrim was the first one of the group to arrive, with a metal baseball bat and his usual enthusiasm in tow. Indy noticed another thing about the kid immediately: the limp was better than it had been but still not gone. Damn. If the leg was slowing him down, Pilgrim would probably be better staying out of a fight and trying to get across to move farther into the basement. At the same time, though, the thought of letting Scott Pilgrim, mighty vegan-killer, lead the charge into the unknown almost made Indy want to contemplate hanging up his hat and pulling the covers over his head. If Indy didn't go with that group himself, he'd have to rely on the cooler heads of Ryuuzaki or Lunge to keep the younger guys in check.

"Er, thanks," Indy replied, and then added, "dude," just to yank Pilgrim's proverbial chain a little. He had to think about the question, actually--was he excited? Yeah, maybe, he decided. Certainly he felt that old sense of anticipation stirring, the one that always hit him right before he set off on an expedition. He had

[vsyourface]

Scott swore: every time Indiana Jones uttered or wrote the word "dude," his soul was split between dying of glee and dying of "this is so wrong."

Regardless of which feeling came out on top, his grin became a bit less put on at that. If Indy was actually excited, that gave Scott a bit more of the real excitement he needed. "Oh yeah, totally! Completely. We've got this by the balls, man. I think we're gonna make some major progress," he answered. With any shred of luck, Scott hoped to be right. With a good, healthy serving size of luck, he hoped to be right without getting pulverized down to his very last piece of heart again.

"So, I lost count on the board. How many do you think we're expecting total before we get going?" he asked, deliberately resting the bat over his shoulder in a very casual manner.

[its_the_mileage]

Indy shot Pilgrim a glance. He couldn't tell if that was genuinely how the guy showed enthusiasm or if he was protesting too much. In either case, Pilgrim didn't have any better idea than Indy himself did of how well they might do or how much actual concrete progress that would mean. Nonetheless, Indy figured excitement about doing this was better than utter reluctance and terror, which seemed to be another common reaction among people who went exploring with him.

"Well, just don't get carried away," he warned. "We don't know what's down there, so we're going to have to watch our steps." Literally and figuratively. "As for who's coming, I'm not sure. I mentioned it to a number of people, including your friend Logan, but the only ones I'm sure of are you and Peter Parker. Could be just us, or as many as eight." Indy did a quick mental tick-off: yeah, that was right.

[unheroed]

[From here.]And there was Jones, equipped with that knife he'd grabbed the night before, and standing with a kid. The guy hadn't been lying about working alongside a bunch of younger patients, though that was mainly what they had to choose from. At least the stranger looked to be in his twenties, rather than still in his teenage years. That was when it got really odd

[vsyourface]

Scott nodded in affirmative, though he still didn't know how they were going to decide when to get going, in that case. Not knowing exactly who they were waiting for kind of made things awkward and uncertain. It was like showing up early to a non-RSVP party - it could either turn into the biggest, loudest thing the cops broke up that week, or it could end up being just two guys staring sullenly at each other from opposite-facing armchairs, red Solo cups in hand and "It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I Want To)" playing quietly in the background. Sometimes you could just never tell how committed random strangers were to hastily-made plans

[its_the_mileage]

Dent was early, wearing his coat (to carry things? Not much need for the insulation in here, and it wasn't much of a fashion statement by Indy's lights) and carrying a metal pipe. Evidently the note'd been enough to entice him to come along. Once again Indy didn't see the gun anywhere, but he wasn't sure how big it was; there was always the possibility it was concealed under the coat. He'd better find out before they got down to the basement

[unheroed]

Maybe the stranger hadn't said anything, but with the look that was on his face, he may as well have. Sure, people walking around with half their faces burned off weren't exactly common, but Harvey would have figured they were slightly more so in this place. He glared at the kid (even if he was in his twenties, he was scrawny enough that he was still a kid to Harvey) and then turned back to Jones. The way the kid was eyeing him was starting to border on creepy.

"Nah. The kid must have gotten it," he said with a shrug. There wasn't much they could do about it, but it sounded like so far all of them were empty-handed. Some luck that was. Maybe Landel had been lying about things to confuse them further? It seemed like a stupid way to go about it, but there were three of them and the odds were starting to seem unfairly stacked. He was pretty sure Jones was going to be disappointed, what with his wishful thinking.

Before he could say any more than that, another voice called out behind him and Harvey turned to regard someone who really

[quarter_english]

[From here.]A group of people waited in the hall ahead; L could see the beams of their flashlights and, as he approached, he could hear murmured conversation. There was Jones, Keman and the strange orb of light that followed him, another man--young, not far out of his teens, carrying a metal bat--who L didn't recognize, and Dent, who clicked off his flashlight just as L approached

[vsyourface]

Scott "ulp"ed silently at the sharp looks from Indy and Two-Face Wannabe. He never had been too good at hiding his reactions to things. His face was an open book a lot of the time; sometimes that won him sympathy with his big, cartoon puppy-dog eyes, but just as often, that only landed him in trouble. He supposed he ought to just be glad that someone hadn't threatened to punch him in the balls yet.

Thankfully, distraction came in the form of Keman, some kind of glowing thing over Keman's shoulder (Navi? Is that you?), and a dude who looked like he hadn't slept in a good ten weeks or so (and also looked, quite frankly, okay with that). He winced slightly when Keman said something about having worrying things on his mind. That hadn't been his fault, had it? He had said a few kind of dick-ish things to Keman in Doyleton. The guy had seemed okay about that at the time, but who knew? Maybe the remarks just hadn't all sunk in at once. At least whatever it was, the elf was feeling better now

[herr_inspektor]

[From here]

Through more silent corridors then out into the main hallway, which seemed to have filled up in the time he'd taken to reach it. Most people seemed to be heading upstairs, though; the middle of the hallway was clear enough that it barely took a second for Lunge to spot the rest of the group.

From a way off, he paused to count the faces he saw ahead of him- one, two… six people, and not all of them unfamiliar. He could see Jones, of course, and L there, but standing with the group was Dent as well- unsurprising in hindsight, but if he’d thought to ask during dinner… but now wasn’t particularly the time for self-admonishment. Better to move on. The others he didn’t recognise. Three young men: one tall with curls who appeared to have some sort of glowing light with him (?), a second who had apparently already run astray of Dent, a smaller, younger third whom Lunge at least had an excuse for not knowing at all, given that he was in costume. Hmm

[its_the_mileage]

A number of things happened all at once then: Ryuuzaki arrived and started asking questions (no surprises there), Pilgrim looked appropriately chastened, Keman explained his "mage fire" (Jesus, Indy was relieved that there was enough else going on that all he needed to offer in response was a wide-eyed nod before he shoved the impossibility aside to deal with later), and Peter turned up. In those clothes. Indy could have smacked himself in the forehead. He already had enough credibility at stake bringing all these people who didn't know each other together; why the hell had the kid felt compelled to show up in his Halloween costume? Repressing the urge to heave an exasperated smile, he reminded himself that that was supposed to be what Peter wore to fight crime; he probably thought of it as a professional uniform of sorts. Indy readjusted his own hat with a sudden twinge of self-consciousness