Welcome to Gaia! ::

Twi scrambled and struggled, trying to break free of the loosely tied restraints. he frantically yelled in his panic, calling out loudly.

"NARI! NARI, OPEN UP! LET ME OUT OF HERE! HELP!!"

he was terrified. he had no idea what to do, or what to expect. whoever this Waffle impersonator was, she meant business. sure she was going to kill him. and as for Nariana? how could Twi trust her? he didn't know if she cared to save him. for all he knew she had betrayed him. some sort of sick, twisted revenge for accidentally peeping on her, or just for being a Vampire.

Twi dreaded the worste, as he broke one of the straps off at the bolt and wiggled out of the other, and began to unfasten the one around his torso hastily.

The figures looked at Twi struggling with his restraints, then at each other, and giggled in sync; they were stupid, and could not understand why anyone would be so afraid. The laughter got louder as each recognized their neighbor laughing too...until one stopped; one figure shrieked as her skin started to putrefy. Soon enough, another burst into flames, and one started to suffocate. A fourth was convulsing, a fifth started to bleed from every pore, and cancerous growths burst from one more. Each of the figures were dying in different ways, and the dome fell apart. The walls were no longer there, nor a door. The figures themselves, except for the charred one, dissolved into the abyss.

In the other, similar space, Sabe began to lose his sense of weight and direction. He still believed there was a door somewhere, but he could not even feel the floor below him; it was like he was floating. From the darkness emerged some small but beautiful multicolored fractals that floated in random directions, and elvish figures with no real definition. He could finally see, but it wasn't himself nor anything he was searching for. Sabe put out his arm, reaching toward one of the figures, and the figure grabbed his hand. Instead of feeling the touch of someone else's hand, he for a moment felt his ego dissolving until it became nothing...and it was somewhat comforting.

Outside the basement, the floor and walls started to blacken and fall away into nothingness, starting with the door and going up along the stairs. The walls near the basement entrance wobbled ever so slowly, yet the building was in no immediate danger.

It felt as though all the air had left Koji's lungs when he looked down and around him at the nothingness that spread through the basement. He had experienced something similar the first time he tried using his powers when he was younger, and it left him terrified. For a moment, he thought that it had happened unwillingly. After his mixup with the shadow portal earlier that day he wasn't sure what was happening with his abilities. There was something different about this, however, and the panic that he originally felt started to subside as he tried to focus on a solution. It wasn't an illusion, he knew what illusions felt like. If it were a trick I would still be able to feel the floor beneath me.. The unsettling stillness he had felt in the lobby was stronger. He turned to look back towards the door, but it had vanished with the rest. It wasn't until then he realized the other two weren't with him anywhere. Had someone set up a trap on the door? Was he teleported somewhere? If so, where? No.. he hadn't felt the pull of teleportation. There was always a lingering unease in his stomach after teleporting.
A chorus of odd laughter followed by muffled screams echoed in the distance though he couldn't seem to place a direction to the sound. Koji tried harder and harder to keep himself collected and focus but the harder he tried the less able he seemed. Before long his mind was an unintelligible tangle of thoughts, none of which correlated with any other. Somewhere in the mess, logic was screaming to be afraid that he couldn't piece his thoughts together, but it was too lost to impact any actions. Instead, Koji stood in position, not moving other than to breathe or blink.

The deterioration became rapid and unevenly grew in all directions. Once it ate through the building's walls, it flowed into the sky above and across the ground. The town's denizens soon saw this decay and panicked as it spread like a virus. Some had reached for their phones, reaching in vain for help, before they were swallowed whole. Those further out got into their cars and drove further away, but this too would be in vain; there was no escaping from the universal rot.

At the epicenter, what was of HQ merged with the core, the dust-line door. Twi, Nariana, and Koji were all near each other once again, along with the burnt corpse of one Waffle-figure. A floor materialized again, almost invisible if it weren't for the little ambient lights.

The corpse rose, revealing a distinct pattern in the charring, though not one that a Gaian could recognize. A halo formed above her head. This halo gave off no light, and looked more like a ring of frosted glass. Her grey garb turned to dust; underneath were the scorched remains of what she wore when she left.

After a few minutes or hours-- Nari didn't know how much time had passed anymore; there was herself, and there was this engulfing nothingness-- Twi was with her again, as well as Koji. Her knees distinctly felt a hard surface once more, and this was enough to snap Nari back to her senses. Hesitant at first, she felt the new floor with her hands before deciding that this was real and it was okay to stand.

Her eyes focused on the Waffle remnant in front of them, and she tensed. She wanted to take a step back, but she was afraid that doing so would trigger another relapse into the void.

Koji's steps made her cringe momentarily, but she relaxed-- as much as she could given the circumstances-- when nothing happened to the space they were in. "I have no idea. A circle of these figures that looked like Waffle appeared, and then it was like we fell into another dimension... I couldn't sense anything physically!... even mentally for a while..." she told Koji, sounding a bit baffled at the end.

What were they supposed to do now? Nari wondered if this mysterious figure knew anything, assuming that it was even real. She couldn't think of anything better to do than talk to an undead(?) figure. A bit gruffly, mostly out of stress and fear, she called to it, "H-hey, you! What is this? What happened to HQ?!"

Twi, who until now had been wide eyed and perfectly silent without breathing, finally spoke in a squeeky high-pitched tremble.

"p-perfect f-for what?" he asked, fear obvious in his voice.

his mind was jumbled. a Void was the worst possible place for a Portal-Magician to be. there was no escape for him. he knew that. he was all but helpless. there wouldn't even be Spirits to call on.

survival instinct kicked in. his undead heart pounded once in a defiant beat. he steeled himself. this was a chance for more time, and more information. exactly what he needed. Twi grunted and responded in a more firm voice.

"what are we looking for? what task do you have for us? we'll take the job."

Well, this was definitely the worst experience of her life. Nari still had doubts that any of this was real, but she had no evidence that it wasn't... She listened as Twi spoke to the evil Waffle thing-- she still didn't have a name for it. The request seemed simple enough; cover the ugly thing with a fancy, but still ugly, outfit. It almost seemed too simple, though. Business always had a cost. Then again, she didn't want to know what would happen to them this time if they failed. She settled for another question.

"Why is it important to keep this drawing hidden?"