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With the massive amounts of students and admin present and living on campus, it was no wonder that Amityville Academy came with an equally massive laundry room. Gnomes clad in smocks rushed to and fro, some gathering in teams to shift the heavier baskets of clothes before tossing them into the washing machines. The far side of the room even had gnomes sorting out clothes that were accidentally thrown together, stopping to occasionally giggle immaturely at the selection of underthings held between their hands before sling-shotting it at one of their companions.

But the students today don't get the easy tasks. Some ninja gnomes tiptoed out of the darkness to surround the students and usher them further on into the laundry room. "All right!" Professor Red said too happily, "This is where you guys'll be working today. Hellma has arranged for you guys to do some community service."

Before the students was a mountain of blankets. Not just any blankets -- THESE particular blankets came from the School for Gifted Youngins, a school dedicated to the younger citizens of Halloween. The school itself doubled as an elementary school, orphanage, and daycare -- it was basically where young boils and ghouls go to play, have fun, and learn all the basics of Halloweentown.

Except little monsters also had trouble controlling themselves. The good blankets were ones with identifiable paint and gak on them. The unidentifiable ones were crusted hard to the point that they could have made a reinforced wall look weak, covered with substances that made those with a weaker heart attempt to throw up. In fact, there were several empty buckets nearby just for that purpose.

Aside from the mountain of blanket terror, there were several huge cauldrons. A gnome with a Rather Impressive Hat that made them look Important approached. Students could see other gnomes milling about, looking relieved. "Hiya!" The Impressively Hatted gnome greeted, "Welcome to the laundry room! Some of the cauldrons have water -- it's hot, mind you, and getting burned won't excuse you! Some have soap, and others are filled with bleach. We'll need some of you to grab some of these blankets to toss into the cauldrons, and others to stir them, and others to carefully move them from cauldron to cauldron, and still others to hang'em up to dry! If there's a stain that won't come out, just chuck it in the bleach, mmkay?"

Red flashes the students a grin. "Well, what're you waiting for? Get to it!"

OOC: Quick confession from me, I am horrible at keeping up with ORPs and given how fast some of you RP, please expect me to reply/make a post every 24 to 48 hours depending, 'kay? |3 If you talk to Red, I'll -try- to tag back, but please expect delayssssss.

And with that out of the way, welcome to detention!

When Red asked the student to follow her, Tess quickly grabbed Lizzy and Amrita by the hand for strength and support. She couldn't not imagine what the Battle instructor had in store for them. Seeing what they were tasked with, Tess thought it didn't seem as bad as the Other Bathroom. She supposed provided that she never actually got to touch the blankets before they were cleaned and ready for drying, this might simply take a long time. And yet, she couldn't help but feel uneasy about the whole thing. Once Riley spoke up, Maritess knew there were only so many of them who would be allowed that task. "I'd like to hang clothes as well. I can reach any of high-up clotheslines if we have them!" she declared, flapping her wings as if justifying her choice. She glanced to Lizzy and Amrita as if to ask what they were going to do. Oh Jack, please, please, please let there be no soap dragon or bleach behemoth or hot water ravager this time, Was her silent prayer.

She smiled when Tess grabbed her, wiggling her hand till they were holding hands, feeling rather relieved that she would have company at detention. She took a side-glance at Amrita to make sure that she was fine (well, as fine as one can look, on the way to detention) before following Red out of the office and into... A laundry room? They were going to do laundry?

She cracked a small, relieved smile; that actually don't sound too bad! The whole 'putting it into giant cauldrons, stirring it, removing it and hanging it up' thing sounded like when she had to help her mother dye some cloth... Her smile remained on her face until she was introduced to the mountain of disgusting, filthy... Things.

"I-I'll stir, sir... Um, the bleach cauldron..." She half-raised her hand to grab the gnome's attention before letting her arm fall down to her sides; its not like she was tall enough to hang them up or strong enough (in this form) to carry the blankets... Then, she gently prodding Amrita, prompting her to quickly make a choice; she was sure that the ghoul would not be a good candidate for carrying the blankets! Best to grab a better 'task' before someone beats her to it...

Tess' hand was comforting; this whole being in detention thing was already stressful and they hadn't even DONE anything yet! It was terrible! She'd never had detention before! She'd...she'd never been in trouble before now either! This was bad! Very bad. The instructions were listened to, but after that she was too busy just staring around the place to really choose a job.

Well, until Lizzy poked her.

With a bit of a cry she snapped back to attention, looking around before pointing to a cauldron. "I'll...stir one too!" She decided, walking to one of them, then looking over at Raziel to see how he was doing it.

"Oh, is that how?" She questioned him, taking hold of a big stick and stirring like he was.

Raziel watched as some of the other students began to pick up tasks and get to work as well. A vast majority seemed to be having a slow moment and were just standing around with a dumb look on their faces. As the smaller ghoul with the backwards knees stepped up to stir a cauldron, Raziel was somewhat concerned with whether she'd be able to keep up with the task or not.

In response to the ghoul's question, Raziel answered, "Well, they didn't show us another way, so I guess so... By the way, what's your name? I'm Raziel, I don't believe we've met before." A small grin spread over his face, it was difficult to be remotely happy when you were in a forced labor laundry room.

Thinking to himself, Raziel looked annoyed that other students hadn't started working. Pretty soon the first blankets that had been placed into his cauldron would need to be moved to the next cauldron.

Barth returned from the guidance counselor with a stack of paperwork under one arm, looking depressed.

At the sight of the laundry room, his misery increased.

"You want us to....w-w-work?" He whispered. His expression was like a convict facing the gallows. He went immediately and incredibly still, then slowly began to back out the way he'd come.

As usual, the tactic was ineffective.

He shouldn't have whispered. A gnome caught his eye.

He was clearly trapped without any chance of escape. Alright. Alright, think. The....the tasks were divided up. One of them had to involve less work, right? The last three meant moving around wet, heavy laundry. He was not fooled into thinking stirring meant something other than breaking his back. Dragging his feet, he made his way to the initial station, handling the dirty laundry.

He'd have to throw out his gloves when this was over.

And maybe his reputation. If it got around that Sloth Demons were doing laundry...

He'd done labor before. He'd caught fish, made dinner, pull out biting razor-weeds from the front yard, and washed clothes – but he usually washed clothes in the river, against a rock, and usually naked. (What?! It saved on cleaning the outfit he was wearing.) This looked miserable, but as far as the blankets went, the rest of the laundry room was clean and heavy with the smell of cleaner. Not in the way the Other Bathroom forced them to use tile and toilet cleaner, but this had a heavy thickness of dryer sheets, bleach, and detergent. Ugh. Could they go to one place that didn’t make him hate soap?

Stepping in, he looked around and then stopped. Whatever dumb face Raziel thought the students had, Calder was not deciding on what to do, but had his eyes set on the great, big cauldrons of water. Big vats of swirling water, dark and welcoming, and plenty of students walking about. Tilting his head, he figured he could push in two bodies tightly while still having room for the water to properly drown them. Even the idea of holding someone's head under while their arms flailed and their legs kicked against the laundry tile made his tail swish quickly and his green eyes darken to a swamp-bottom murky.

Slowly, he moved over to the vats, silently declaring he would be doing something around them. His eyes looked down into the water, not phased in the least by the smells of soap now, and stared deeply in.