Welcome to Gaia! ::

Mort squinted further at the photo for several seconds before turning the photo over to view the mysterious numbers. "Mrrr . . . Recognize a couple've people in here. One on fire is younger Arel, and Red is ghoul with the same color clothes. She used to work here." But that story obviously made him grim-faced if they asked, he'd tell later, when they were less likely to be shot at from the presence on the other side of the door.

45- 52-16/ 188 . . . What did that mean? "Not sure yet, but good find." He committed the series of numbers to mind regardless, turning his attention to the ghoul clutching at his shirt.

"Hey," he said gently, noting her heavy breathing. "Ah, Mei she said? We're good, Mei. Dead-end hallways a-always lead to someplace; played enough video games to know. Just have to find." His free hand patted her shoulder in what he hoped was a consoling manner, the other still clutching at the cider bottle under his coat.

"Right, ah, names! Mortimer," the zomboil said, pushing his glasses up by way of introduction like he would a hat. "But Mort is short. You three new here, y-yes?"

"Right, no worries." She backed Mort's words with what she hoped was an encouraging smile to the jiang shi. "And we already know there's an exit right here, so worst case scenario we'll just have to wait a bit until Arel sorts his things out." She hoped that was as reassuring as it'd sounded in her head.

"Leo, nice to meet you lot." Casually waving her hand and attempting to look as friendly as possible, rather than frazzled like she felt. "I'm, uh, not actually new, but I haven't been around much. Family troubles, you know." It probably wasn't the time to go into depth, so she left it a bit vague.

Jove gave Herryk a comforting pat-pat on the arm, which would be reminiscent of a little foxfire looking for attention with the patting of a paw. It wasn't so bad. After all, there were often mushrooms in dark places like this! Glancing over, he gave a similar pat-pat to the ghoul who looked frightened. They didn't have to be scared yet, there were worse things than being somewhere small and dark. Like being instantly punished by Arel.

The dark became less dark as Tybalt joined them at the end of the hallway, now with two pairs of luminous eyes lighting the area. It was enough light for Jove to catch the smile directed at him from the unfamiliar ghoul. Was she smiling at him, or just... smiling? No, that was a smile at him.

The pup blushed, his cheeks beginning to glow slightly as well. Not good! His embarrassment was only too obvious in the dark, and he couldn't afford to hide his face when there were so many people depending on his light!

The pup did the best he could, abruptly pulling his scarf up over his nose like the world's tiniest bandit.

Leo listened horrified as the drama up in the office unfolded, and watched as a bit of light entered from where the now slightly sideways bookcase blocked the entrance.

Okay. Total drama. Not the good kind either; this was the kind that made her hesitant to enter into the office again, despite the fact that the ray of light quite clearly revealed that this corridor was a dead-end.

And the ominous silence. Except, thankfully, someone broke it. "Well, it seems to be a dead end. But what's the point of just having something like this, fill it with ounces of nothing and have it lead to nowhere?" Didn't make sense, at all.

Really, if it hadn't been for the scuffle upstairs, she'd probably have been too busy cooing over the cute, luminous ghost with the scarf and the blush, and aww! As it was, Leo still spared him a grin, feeling slightly less doomsday with something to cheer her up.

Lumikki jumped as soon as the bookshelf received it's blow the sudden thump made it really hard not to squeak, but knowing that someone was on the other side she bit her lip trying not to make a sound. Watching a ghoul she hadn't met yet walk back in to the office she peered out after here. Oh what a mess the person made. She saw the sign the other ghoul was looking at, and started to read it outloud.

"call...1 - 666 - 666-6666...oh wait my phone..."

Pulling out her phone she put the number in to a message to Julian, she still didn't know how to use the phone other than to send messages.



Well now that she had that number and of course a bottle of cider, seeing as how the other bottles were broken she looked back around. Seeing the students at the back of the wall, which looked to be pretty solid and then looking back down to the ground, saying to no one in particular,

"Uhm....oh maybe the floor...?"

"Right." She nodded seriously, moving to assist the pricolici. Imitating the other ghoul, Leo let her hands run over the wall, carefully feeling for anything that indicate a door, or a compartment, or something. Lower and lower she went, until a ghoul's voice broke in. The floor?

"Uh yeah, I think I might have something." Down on her knees, she squinted. Yes, that was definitely a square in the floor. "Down here, on the floor. It looks like.." She cut off, frowning at the thing. "It definitely looks like something moveable."

Shehk's ears perked up as she looked down to the floor, passing a look over those who were present before she crouched down to run her hand over the edge of the door as well. The faint light and her night vision weren't exactly getting along, unfortunately, so the details were a bit fuzzy for her.

"Well, let's see if we can find a way to lift it, yeah? If it's too heavy, I could try to go through the edges...unless we have a ghost here..?" she took a moment to look around to se- well, Jove. Could he phase through things?


Or he would

just...
...
...

"?"