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Mac had given the wheel one final heave; if this didn't work, he was going to suggest going elsewhere. Luckily though, his constant efforts paid off and the wheel becan to turn; so suddenly, in fact, that he nearly fell off the ladder as it gave way. After his excited call to the other two, he pushed the door open and crawled out onto the main level...just in time to see the people from the ceiling crash through and land on the people who had gone through the window.

...Hah.

He had clapped Charlie on the back and expressed his gratitude for dragging him through that disgusting basement, and then settled in to get a breath of mostly fresh (but still dusty) air, feeling like a man in the desert stumbling upon an oasis. He listened to the group talk; the bases were covered, he had no idea what the moonlit mask was, but they were working it out, and Mac did store away all the information he heard.

"We all stink." Was his correction to Lizzy, leaning over to make a show of sniffing and being disgusted by the smell of her hair. It was her fault, she insisted on clinging to him! He knew he didn't smell good either; they all smelled like stink spirits now, he was sure of it. He froze, of course, when he too spotted the robed figure on the stairs. On instinct he tensed; was this an illusion, too? That figure had been watching them earlier...what was he (or she) waiting for...?

"...." Black eyes watched Jericho charge after the figure on the stairs, and then that tentacled demoness stand...upside down? What? How did that...just...ah?

He wanted to do it now, too!

"C'mon, there's nowhere else to go!" He urged, reaching past Lizzy to tug on Charlie's sleeve (near the shoulder; like hell he was going to touch those rot-stained patches), he pointed to the stairs. "Look, buddy! Impossistairs!" They had to keep light of it, right? The voices were leaving him alone, and they'd get nowhere if they wallowed in depression for too long.

"I don't think so, no." Mac answered aloud for Lizzy, seeing as he was a Reaper and all. "They might be from Halloween?" He suggested, scratching his cheek. "I mean, we're all from Halloween so we're all made of FEAR; maybe they're from Halloween and are also made of FEAR, but on this island..." He trailed off for a moment, not sure how to continue. "Well, maybe we're radiating FEAR and their lacking FEAR is syphoning off of ours? Like a magnet, I guess." It was a lame comparison, but he felt it worked; the transfer of energy and all that. The only thing that didn't work in his favour was what Lizzy had explained to him earlier in the trip; something similar happened in Halloween, on a FEAR-filled turf...

"If I'm right...no wonder they need FEAR batteries." Mac murmured to Lizzy after, still standing closer to her from his attempt to get Charlie's attention. "If this is that guy's FEAR, it's too impressive to do on this island for long." This place was definitely not Halloween, after all.

"All of the instructors have vanished, along with the trick or treaters."

Thinking about it now, he realized he had seen neither Red nor Desu-chan since the ship sank. It was obvious at this point that all of them had vanished before the students ever set foot on the island. "Vanished', heh, more likely they were hiding...

"And since some of us were brought here unwittingly through a portal rather than the ships, I think it's safe to assume either something has happened at Ammityville, or the instructors knew far more about this island than they led us to believe."

He had gestured to Petro mid sentence, remembering what the equine had said previously. Or, his theory was correct in assuming the staff had been behind it all from the beginning. Perhaps not all of the staff, it was possible some of them had been fooled as well (though he was doubting that by now), but there was -someone- at Ammityville behind it all, he was sure of that.

The dragon began his own ascent up the stairs, eyes fixed on the robbed figure, tail twitching in suspicion, until he realized he wasn't getting any closer. What the--looking around the room he could see no end to the stairs, no bottom either, wait, was that Riley standing on the -backside- of the stairs? What was going on here? An illusion? Hmm...

Wings spread, Sheridan stepped off the side of the staircase only to find himself hovering in midair. How was this possible? His wings remained still, and yet...he was floating.

"A twist in time and space?"

Time in the fog had seemed to flow differently, was it the same here as well? Did the robbed creature have the ability to distort time? Impressive if such were the case.

"Who knows? Maybe they like the thrill of the hunt" sneered Jericho at the thought of being considered some prey creature. HE was the predator. Or at least he was supposed to be. With a huff, he looked back towards Lizzy and Sheridan.

"If they wanted to target us, it'd make sense to separate the ones that are more experienced. Or maybe they were taken first since they have more FEAR than we do," he murmured, "But Lizzy might have a point with their weapons being tuned to reap us instead of souls."

Thinking on that for a moment, he looked towards Mac, "I don't suppose you're able to call out your weapon are you? Maybe you could try to figure out what the Jack they're doing with their weapons."

Grumbling to himself, he tried going up the stairs some more to no avail. He saw what happened with the Celestial dragon. The red wasn't about to go floating in the middle of nowhere. At least this way he can get the idea that he's getting anywhere.

"The paper we found in the refrigerator suggested that the author was, again, a student - and a non-monster student of a wingless and non-flying race. Said student also saw a gargoyle-like creature, which it assumed to be a gargoyle and a fellow student, which crashed and was dragged away by an unknown person or persons." The plague doctor shook its head, peering at the new note. "I had hypothesized that the student might have become one of the very reapers we encountered, but..."

The new note had some information that opened up other possibilities. "A single student - perhaps two, counting the 'gargoyle'. If there was a mass excursion to this place, the author was not aware of it. It certainly was not a school field trip." Those last words were said with withering disapproval.

Its gaze narrowed at the mention of the Reaper who had drained their FEAR at Amityville itself. Until this moment, it hadn't connected that occurrence with this island, but now... it both made too much sense and no sense at all. "If they can travel to Halloween, why not simply remain there if they require FEAR? Stil, I think that from now on we should be very wary of using our FEAR, even to charge our weapons. We should avoid discharging it as much as possible."

That said, Malodore padded over to the door and peered through it. The stairs seemed very normal at first, and it, too, glared at the figure high above... and, as it started up the stairs, it too saw the staircase shift and twist into a bizarre, physically impossible mess. It was safe to assume from the actions of the others that, if this was another hallucination, it was at least shared.

Wonderful.

(( HP: 23 ))

Ouch. Clambering off of the floor, not even sure what had landed on him, Sharra eyed himself in a rather long-suffering fashion, noting that he'd acquired yet more bumps and bruises as the ceiling above them had given way. Splendid, utterly splendid.

Quiet amidst all the to-do, the nergal had examined that doorway that they'd revealed, as well as the rather ominous figure that still appeared to be following their progress. At any rate, that one hadn't attacked them yet, unlike the reapers within the fog. Not that Sharra had been attacked personally, but all the same. Flexing his claws, he listened to the discussion of the note. This merely became more dire all the time. Wondrous. Maladore had a very good point. "A school field trip to here was about the last thing we needed, I'd say....I want to find out whose idea this was, and then I want to smack them." He growled. Though in truth, he'd likely have done more than a simple thwack about the noggin' at this juncture.

Having their FEAR and quite possibly themselves harvested by Reapers, was not at all how Sharra planned to go out. In fact, he'd not been planning on finding his end for a few centuries yet, if not longer, thank you just the same. Scowling, he turned to stomp his way up those stairs. Jack help him, but he was going to give that silent, watching b*****d a piece of his mind....see if he couldn't get more answers than these illusive notes.

Gaining momentum as he went, he soon came to realize that he wasn't getting anywhere. Hey...that dragon, Sheridan, right? He was floating of all things. How was he managing that? "The Jack is this?" Sharra muttered, and then, "Screw it." Balling his hands into fists, he simply...stepped off the edge.

Oh. All right. Floating. Got it. This was NOT OK. Looking over to Sheridan, he raised an eyebrow. "What'd you say about time and space? This is....clearly more unnatural than any of us." And really, if you took Charlie into account, that was saying something.

Sheridan shook his head, wings held out as if to glide, expecting gravity to return to normal at any moment.

"I find it highly unlikely that all of the instructors and trick or treaters were forced to do anything without leaving some sign or sound of a struggle behind."

Okay, the trick or treaters maybe, probably, but the instructors? Most of them were strong, very strong, they could not have fallen so easily. Though he would concede it was possible this had been some sort of rescue mission or a search for something. But if that were the case, it STILL meant the instructors knew far more about this island than they had told the students, and it still didn't explain what had possessed to think that it was in any way a good idea to bring them here.

"Perhaps...no, surely the instructors are no so easily fooled. But if this were a 'rescue mission', perhaps it was for it."

He gestured to the figure above them. It, and the one they had seen on the beach, were clearly different from the reapers they had met in the fog. Maybe it was stuck here too, or maybe it was the master of this cruel game, he wasn't sure anymore.

His tail twitched, eyes turning to look at Sharra and Aksaja as they both joined him in midair.

"Time normally moves in a linear matter, space follows the laws of physics, this...does neither."

But was it a power wielded by the unknown figure, or was it an effect of the island itself?

((HP: 23))

It had happened quickly. A creak followed by a crack, and suddenly the downstairs was full of attic. Aside from startled and slightly bruised (who would have thought rotten ceiling could be so tough?) Draven was alright. It seemed the students had found their way inside, as well. Of course, their cloaked 'friend' had been inside waiting for them. Behind a hidden door. Now that, that was kind of neat. The door part, he quickly clarified in his head, not the 'strange and probably dangerous cloaked figure waiting' part.

The conversation sparked by the note was interesting. The demon listened, though he had little to add. After being in the mist for...however long he'd been in there (he tried not to think about it), it was almost a bit hard to follow. 'FEAR batteries'? Not being in Halloween anymore? Other students here before them...now missing? What in Jack's name was going on? More importantly, how were they going to get out of here?

There was one person in this lighthouse who might actually know the answers to their questions, and they were standing at the top of the stairs.

The stairs seemed to be having a strange effect...but actually experiencing it was something else. It was difficult to noticed right away, when he first stepped onto the stairs they seemed normal enough. After a bit of trying though, it became clear that normal was not the case. Things that couldn't happen were happening, and Draven, for one, was getting nowhere. Stopping for a moment, he looked ahead of him and behind. The stairs seemed impossible. The certainly felt like they would never end, and he hadn't been on them that long.

That was when he saw a few other boils had somehow managed to step off the stairs and into the air. Where they were simply staying there. "Well, that's unusual," he was genuinely surprised. He glanced at the steps below his feet, then turned and jumped over the edge of the stairs, landing in midair. Under normal circumstances, being in midair would have been comforting but seeing as he was floating and not falling or flying, it was almost as unsettling as being on the staircase. "Odd. Very odd."

Draven looked up (down?) at the plague doctor. "Would making a map even be possible? Things seem...unpredictable here." The room had his head spinning, at least. He shrugged. "A map would certainly be nice, though."