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Climbing down the ladder while not particularly hard... was still draining due to the darkness that enveloped him in his descent. Gabrian really didn't want to be there at all. In all honesty, he wanted to go back home, and he was making a mental note never to join another field trip again. Something about that damned school and it's fieldtrips was horribly off! What school sent their students unsupervised directly into hell? Because... he had no doubt this little insanity inducing island had to be one of hell's many levels. How else could he even begin to justify what it was doing to them? It was nothing short of psychological torture and he had the distinct impression someone was behind all of this, enjoying the way they were toying with all of them, watching them suffer from some otherwise secure location.

Then again, it might be the paranoia acting up. When the voice came... Gabrian only startled slightly, unsure if it was just another of the voice in his head or something real. He followed it regardless, mostly due to the fact it sounded distinctly less violent and harmful than the other voices that had been haunting him.

The descent was long and he only just barely avoided falling, but when his feet finally touched ground, the demon let out a long sigh of relief, "Well..." he drawled out as he pushed himself away from the ladder to make way for the others that were climbing down, "We're here," a pause followed the words, "Where ever 'here' is," he let his eyes get accustomed to the light after the flash of light. There seemed to be stairs, elevators and rooms, "I believe searching the rooms is a good idea," he said, though made no motion to move, "Who knows? We might find some more of that FEAR in a bottle from before," he turned to look at Ren as he descended down the stairs on his own, giving him a pointed look, "Jack knows you're going to need it. I don't want to exit this level until we're sure what's around here..." he was not pointing out the possibility of a sneak attack, but it was there; he wanted to cover all his bases as well as they possibly could by exploring every inch of those damned rooms.

Climbing down a ladder set into a grave was bad enough. Climbing down a ladder when one's hand was pretty much useless and broken, as well as splintered, was even worse.

"Jackskd;lfdammit - "

Luckily for Ren, most of the obscenities he let out were merely in his head and therefore no one would have to be subjected to the fact that he would probably have scorched the ears of the people around him. But Jacking hell if it didn't hurt climbing down that stupid ladder. Doing it one handed had proved to be next to impossible, so Ren had been forced into using both hands. That, combined with the fact that his back was hurting significantly and he was still quite weak, made the whole trip down...not so pleasant.

He stumbled when his feet finally touched solid ground, running into Gabrian on accident. Mumbling an apology, Ren pressed his injured hand against his stomach, stepping away from the others so they would not see how much he wished he could just remove his hand from his body right now. No hand, no pain, right? Right.

His eyebrows drew together in slight confusion. "Bottle?" Ren repeated, looking back at the nix. "What bottle? Did you give me something? Is that why I feel not as craptastic as I was earlier?"

What was he again? Oh yes, that's right - pathetic. Ren hated feeling weak, especially after that pointed look Gabrian gave him. Face flushing he (unintentionally) stomped a few feet away, looking first left, then right, feeling embarrassed at the fact that he was so injured.

LW was standing a short distance to his left, looking terrified and clinging to the person next to her. Ren gave her an encouraging smile, though he did not feel entirely pleasant and was pretty sure that his smile was, in fact, not quite as reassuring as he'd wanted it to be.

"Which room should we look in first?" he asked, wincing slightly. "I, er...say we all stick together."

"...please," he added, somewhat as an afterthought, reaching out to take Alessa's hand tightly in his, as if letting go would cause her to disappear.

"FEAR in a bottle, the label said..." Gabrian's voice sounded distant as he answered, his eyes squinting in the near darkness in an attempt to make out the different rooms around them. Not even when Ren bump into him did the nix startle; instead, one of his hands automatically shoot out to steady the gryphon before he dropped it down to his side again, "I made sure it smelled like it was supposed to. We weren't sure if it did any good, but I guess that given what you just said, we did the right thing," he moved a couple of paces away from the others, but as he did so, his tail reached out again and curled around the nearest person's leg, almost as if it were a safe rope. After all, he'd only moved a few paces away from them back at the beach and the fog had swallowed him whole; he had no doubt that if something wanted to take him down here too, it would, and no measure he took could help him. Yet at the same time... the feel of his tail curled around warmth was enough to at least provide some small measure of safety.

His hand curled around the knob of the door and he tugged, finding it to be firmly locked, "I hope they're not all locked," his gaze lifted up to squint at the door in the darkness and he seemed to pause, visibly startled, "Huh," another pause before he turned his head towards his friends, "I believe this is a bathroom, even if it's locked," he motioned up to the small sign that hung on the door, only just barely visible in the dim darkness. Where was the small bit of clarity he could see even coming from? From outside? Somehow he doubted it, Moving towards the door directly to the right, the demon gave it a tug, noticing it was in fact, open, "So apparently the boil bathroom is locked, but not the ghoul one. I doubt it's working but... if anyone needs water it's worth a try?" this was said as he looked towards both LW and Ren in turn; they were after all, the only injured ones and he wasn't sure if they'd need to wash their wounds out or not.

His hand abandoned the bathroom door and he placed it on the wall as he moved towards his left once more. The next door he encountered offered no resistance and when opened led to a room full of cabinets and what appeared to be broken desks, "I don't think I want to know what happened to this place, do you?" he watched Ren out the corner of an eye and idly wished he could grab his friend aside for a moment, just so he could get a few private words out between them; he knew how he felt at the moment, given the fact he'd almost died, frozen, bloodied and upset when he fought that damned snowman back on the icy path. He didn't really think anyone expected him to be be a hero, or 'useful' in the adventure from hell. The only reason he was still in one piece was the fact their attacker had fled, and he felt the need to somehow convey this, along with other thoughts. However, for the time being... the nix remain silent, "So, which room? The one with broken desks? The bathroom? Or something else?" he hadn't really checked the other doors, but he figured one of the others would.

Everyone had dispersed into random groups and though Belladonna had been attached to Whisper, the witch had somehow gravitated away from her to follow Ren. Her eyebrows were slightly tensed as she wondered how he had gotten SO hurt, but her pockets and bag proved there was nothing she could do about the matter. So, she followed. Well, that was until she tripped over something and scraped up her knee. For a long moment she sat on the floor, her head bowed over knees as she tried not to cry. Again. This whole trip was making her nerves thin and the fact that she was in an enclosed space was not really making matters any better.
Finally, after a nice long little space of time wherein she asked Hecate and Diana and any other goddess she could think of to help her not cry anymore, she stood and toddled after the group.

"Watch out for the floors, they're kind of slippery." She advised, taking a look at all the rooms before heading to the ladies' room. In her mind she deemed it only viewable for fellow ghouls, so she inspected it for a long while before turning to the mirror. All pretense of investigation dropped from her as she approached it, her hands coming up to touch her cheeks, red with tears. "I look dreadful..." She murmured mostly to herself, her fingers quickly brushing out her hair in attempt to groom herself. For a moment she contemplated those voices still telling her terrible things about herself and how maybe they were right. But a second thought caught her mind first.
"Someone is keeping up the mirror. Everything else is gross and unkept, but this mirror... It still looks nice." That was strange.

"And these stalls..." They were dirty too, but the last one... Had a hole in the wall? "Um, there's a really big hole here... I could easily fit through. Do we... Do we go through that too?' Already she was in the stall, one hand splayed against the door to keep it open and the other next to the hole, her head almost inside it as she peered into the darkness it held. "I wonder..." She must not have wondered very much or else she would have said it and instead she only tilted her head to another side to view the darkness some more.

HP= 25-3: 22

Clearly inspecting the bathrooms had been a horrible choice, because Gabrian found himself falling right back into water again. While it was true he loved water... this felt like someone was teasing him, "I couldn't agree more," this was grumbled as Ren yelled, but the demon's voice was much more controlled, "Let's just get a move on - things can't posibly get worse."

Or maybe he'd just jinxed himself, "Let's climb down the elevator shaft, then," that said, he followed Ren's lead.

Gabrian's HP: 23

((Exit post to ORP))

Alessa looked around the room, but didn't spend much time dwelling on its contents or what may have happened there. She didn't honestly care, she just wanted to go back home. Staying alive, safe, and getting somewhere that could eventually get them home was her only real priority. She was squinting at something she thought she saw in the dark when Ren slipped, breaking their handhold, and fell into the hole.

"Ren!" Alessa called after him. His cursing only confirmed her fears, that the fall had hurt him. It wasn't hard to believe in the state he was in. Without thinking she jumped down the hole after him. She underestimated the drop and landed sideways on her ankle. She fell to the floor for a brief moment, hissing in pain. Twisted it a bit, but the throbbing died down after a few moments and she was able to stand, stumbling over in Ren's direction. She wrapped an arm around his waist, regardless of whether or not he needed she support. "Are you alright?"

"While I'm worried about, say, an elevator falling on us or something, I have to admit..." Alessa paused. The hairs on the back of her neck were on end, because the smell of that stain in the chamber was making her stomach turn. She had an idea of what it was, but didn't want to think about it. She did want to avoid it. "I...still like that idea better. Do you think we can use the cables to go down the elevator shaft or...? Oh thank Jack! A ladder."

She pointed to the ladder on the inside of the shaft, though it was hard to see in the dark.

(( HP: 23 ))

Once again, Ren was climbing down a Jackdamned ladder. An elevator shaft, to be exact. He tried to ignore the sharp jabs of pain that shot up his hand and through his arm each time he grasped the metal rung to take another step downwards. It was holding steady, at the very least, but the creaking noises mixed with the apparently outrageously loud beating of his own heart was making him quite on edge.

He missed Amityville. He missed his bed. He even missed Rhys, the silly little lepus. And Jackdamnit, Ren missed being normal. Right now he was:

A.) In a very lot of pain, and
B.) Climbing down a rickety elevator shaft with a stalled elevator above their heads.

Why did this situation look so crappy.

"Everybody all right up there?" Ren called anxiously. Gabrian was directly above him, but he could hear the slightly muffled and echoey sounds of the others above the nix. While he was worried about all of them, he was a little concerned over Belladonna; Ren had caught the look of concern and dejection on her face before going down. It was a familiar look; one of missing someone, or somebodies. Ren knew that look quite well; she was probably worried about her friends.

"Bells, you all right up there?" he called, wings fluttering slightly. He would have flown, but in his tired and exhausted state, he would probably not get very far. "Alessa? LW?"

[[ exit to the orp~ ]]

Alessa had started down the ladder after LW. As before, it wasn't the darkness or the depth to which they were under the ground that bothered her. She was more concerned about how long a drop it would be if she lost her hold. Maybe it was those thoughts that jixed her, because about halfway down the ladder creaked under her. She froze immediately, her senses on high alert, but it was no use. Within seconds the ladder had jerked away from the wall, sending her tumbling down with a scream.

The fall wasn't as far as it had seemed in the dark, but it hurt pretty badly. While she prematurely handed on her feet, the impact sent her tumbling to the ground. When she finally pushed herself up, she found that she had some scrapes and maybe what looked like the start of some bruises. Her ankle throbbed too.

She immediately looked around for the others. She saw them a bit away, and there were more students too. There was something going on, so she quickly got up and moved over to see...

(( HP : 20
Exit post to the ORP ))