T - Bee, Dark, Xenon, Satra

[Bee]

Something large and sharp in his peripheral vision caught his attention and Zeki turned back around. Andrei, who had just fully rejoined the land of the living, was apparently trying his luck where Mercutio seemed to be having very little. He truly did not understand what was so fascinating about those washing machines. Didn't they want to get out?

"Um," Zeki said, somewhat hesitantly. He debated saying anything because hello, giant blade wings (though gads were they fascinating, his dad would probably like to get a look at those), but what they were doing was really starting to look like a bad idea. Senka's drawer hadn't wanted to open up either and look what had happened. He really didn't want anyone to get blasted in the face. Andrei probably hadn't heard him and Senka talking to Mercutio. "I think trying to force those might not be very wise. We've just recently had an accident of this nature..."

He locked eyes with Senka and gave a helpless shrug, looking for backup, maybe. Then something happened that distracted him from his companions entirely. The floor rolled, like a tiny earthquake, not even enough to tip his balance but when he jolted in surprise his lamp finally caught what they were looking for.

A door!

Ten feet off the ground, like the room had lowered itself and forgot to take its entrance with it. He was quite befuddled. And a little concerned. The little jolt of the floor...was this place sinking?

[Dark]

Senka met Zeki’s glance with a look of exasperation and suggested in whispers, “Perhaps prolonged exposure to plant molestation has rotted their brains.” Or at least messed with their brain chemistry. Senka could think of no other reason they would so willfully pursue a course that had already lead to disaster once, except perhaps hysteria. (Or maybe they had always been this way).

She had never had much patience for such behavior, and was deliberating how best to deal with the situation when the miniature quake made up her mind for her.

“We’re getting out of here,” she said to Zeki, a plan swiftly forming. The other two could come if they liked, but she wasn’t going to wait on them. Zeki and she had already done the descent thing by rescuing them in the first place.

Senka gathered a pile of miscellaneous clothing together and began tying them together. “If you can give me a boost up there, I can use the rope to pull you up.” Hopefully the stairs held.

[Nathalia]

Andrei's blade wings managed to puncture ad tear away the door.
Lying inside, in a broken, crumpled heap, was the corpse of a Solandrian Bat! Wings broken into a multitude of pieces, they render the body a nasty bag of ruptured meat with sagging flesh-bag wings.
Oozing blood out and all over Andrei at once...he'll feel a bit of his odd personality trying to surface at the feel of it.
The smell is...horribly fresh and as soon as this one opened, the second door popped ajar as well, nearly hitting Mer square in the head.

Inside, sat a tiny, golden paperweight, shaped like a lily...drenched in blood.
Well, it looks like the Bat was hit with this quite a few times, doesn't it?

Lily Paperweight: This little paperweight tingles when touched and smells like the blood it was drenched in...even after being washed off. Looks valuable though, perhaps you ought to hang onto it...

Meanwhile, that rope ladder trick ought to work for getting one of them up, careful about the weight though...wouldn't want it to snap, would we?
The doorway leads to what appears to be an entrance hall, with a door that hopefully goes outside about 50 feet room them, down a sagging, dirty-grey hallway lined with three doors and some old pictures of landscapes...

[Satra]

[Whew! Rolled a 17 reaction to the blood! Though I rolled a 1 for him keeping his composure. XD]

He wrenched his wing free, feeling somewhat proud of himself for the idea (and for figuring out more things to do with the damned things) right up until what was in the washer revealed itself. He shrieked like the panicking fop he was and stumbled back as the blood spilled out onto his legs and feet. The burning of someone's blood combined with the frightening figure before him made him not quite stop shrieking yet.

A Solandrian Bat. Oh Suits please don't be family. Pleasepleaseplease no... Given the rarity of both breed and realm, what were the chances it just happened to be...

Oh wait, we're not done screaming yet.

Okay there we go. It was supposed to be a slow transformation. Guess he was screaming like a sissy for a while.

While the other personality only surfaced minorly at the feeling, the surge of guilt upon seeing the body brought up things he thought he was over. Guilt of not being home when his own Father died. Guilt of not being more supportive of Heilyn through her grief. While one of those things were out of this control, the other certainly was.

Though now that this side of him was in control, he no longer felt the things that triggered it in the first place. He cursed and growled at the burning on his legs and stumbled into a standing position. Ignoring the pain, he walked over to one of the washing machines that looked full (of what they were supposed to be full of, not bodies) and opened it. He rung out the still soaking articles of clothing over his legs and toweled them until they were cleaned. They still stung and the skin and feathers looked frayed and raw, but it was better than before.

He is immune to any and all poisons, with the exception of other peoples’ blood, which burns him like acid.

[carcinoGeneticist]

As soon as the others appeared and began attempting to talk him out of his attempts, Mercutio slowed his frantic prying, turning to look at one Corvie and then the other. His ears flattened out against his neck for a moment and he looked as though he was going to argue against them, but then he stopped. After all, they were right. Halfway into his attempts he had started to seriously question why he was even wasting his time with this, and their words just confirmed it further. Looking suitably cowed and embarrassed, the Coyote dropped his makeshift crowbar.

"Sorry," he mumbled under his breath. He considered trying to explain himself, but how could he? It didn't even make sense in his own mind. But he just didn't know what to do.

So he slipped into silence, torn between watching them prepare an escape plan. He stared down at his own paws and swallowed hard. If that was what they were going to use... He would have to be the last one up, and hope he was able to climb fast enough that he could make it to the top before the cloth stopped holding his weight.

Andrei's screaming ripped him from his distraction, followed a moment later by the washing machine door slamming open. A yelp of surprise, lost in Andrei's screaming, escaped him. It was a close thing that he was able to avoid being smacked in the face by it, and if he'd still been struggling with it he almost certainly would be hurting now. He peered into the washer closest to him and collected the paperweight, carrying it over to the other machine and peering in.

Oh, hell.

His stomach rolled at the horrible sight within and he fought the urge to vomit. The likelihood of that being some relation seemed... Almost too high. "Oh, fuck," he whispered, trying to look the corpse over. "Wait. Please, wait. This might... Might be someone related to us. Do you think I should check?" The fear and doubt was thick in his voice and he tried to catch Senka's eye, sensing that she was the one most frustrated by the situation. And honestly, unless someone else thought his investigation was worthwhile, he wouldn't be able to muster the mental ability to do it.

[Bee]

Zeki's stomach rolled, violently. He didn't like the sight of blood any more than the average person, and seeing Andrei suddenly get sprayed with it made him thankful, once again, that there was nothing in his stomach to toss, just the tang of bile in his throat. And he just had a moment of genuine relief to see Mer stop trying to pry his door open, too. He watched, a little dumbfounded, as the bird thrashed and screamed, feathers getting frayed like they were being disintegrated. Acid. He was too afraid to get close. Fortunately, Andrei seemed to calm on his own, grabbing laundry to wipe down--he really needed water, to wash off, but...

But now they were preoccupied with the source of the catastrophe. The bloodied figure of a Solandrian bat, stuffed in the machine; Mercutio was now holding a severely blood-soaked object that might have been used to brain him. He may never have met most of Virtute's extended (very, very extended) family (and oh blast, those ears, could Andrei be one of them?), but he knew enough to think that Mercutio's concern might be valid, even if they didn't appear to recognize the Card right off.

"Check quick," he said, at last. Senka had fashioned them their way out. This place might be sinking, with plant beasts above and dead bodies in the cleaning appliances. He felt a little insensitive trying to get them to move considering Mercutio's worries about family, but he didn't know what else to do. They needed to get the hell out. "I'll help Senka up."

[carcinoGeneticist]

Zeki's permission was all the Coyote needed to proceed. He sucked in a deep breath to try and steady his stomach (5), then without any further wasted time, turned his attentions back to the corpse.

Oh, fuck.

There would be a short break to empty the contents of his entire digestive system. Once that was finished and his head was a little clearer, he wiped his mouth clean and returned to the grisly task at hand. Andrei clearly wouldn't be any help with the way he'd responded to the blood on his skin, and Mercurio dimly hoped the corpse wasn't, in some way, a secret sibling of his own. It seemed unlikely and stupid to even think, so he reached into the bloody mess and began to check the body over. Any clues to identity, anything familiar, anything that might help to solve this poor soul's mystery beyond the murder weapon that he had safely tucked away...

He moved as quickly and efficiently as he could, not wanting to further irritate his savior and his sister's boyfriend.

[Nathalia]

Phew, at least the corpse doesn't look like anyone the boys know...still, that' not to say that it's not related to them and Seth simply never said.
He did have those weird kids with Peaches and all...

Senka will manage to get about halfway to the stairs above before their improvised ladder and the railings it's tied to begin to creak ominously. Roll as you continue...those stairs might not hold.
Strange though, Mer could swear he heard an odd sound from above...a bit like an explosion...

[Dark]

Corpses stuffed in washing machines. Not exactly what Senka had been expecting. Her lip curled as the smell hit her: thick copper on the back of her tongue. Senka was no stranger to violence, but this kind of careless brutality...was more than mildly distressing. And from the smell it was a relatively recent crime. Where was the perpetrator? Her eyes flicked about the room contemplatively.

After seeing such a disquieting scene, it wasn't so much of a shock to see their recently awoken companion shrieking, though it seemed a rather unfortunate (and violent) allergic reaction. He seemed to get it under control, though.

It was rather strange their final companion seemed to think the victim might be related to him--he didn't sound very certain; an estranged relative, perhaps?--but she made no move to help him check. Relation or not, the poor sap was dead, and at least for the moment they were not. Senka would like to keep it that way.

She slung the rope up over the stairs, and accepted Zeki's boost gratefully. The stairs started to groan something awful as soon as she had her full weight on them. Senka gritted her teeth, and moved quickly.

[12?]

[Bee]

Zeki kept half his attention on Mercutio and Andrei as he helped hoist Senka up; he really, truly, desperately hoped it wasn't anyone related to either of them. Carnage was bad enough when it didn't hit close to home; no one needed to add heartbreak to the existing horror. He also really hoped that Mer would drop the blood-soaked paperweight. Just looking at it made his skin crawl.

He glanced back up at Senka when he heard the steps groan. He readied his arms to catch her if she fell (his turn to be the cushion, he supposed), though maybe those wings of hers might do her some good. They looked like they would function poorly for takeoff but might work a little better if she were already up in the air.

Actually, though they matched her region and markings, they didn't quite look like they were her own mutation, either. He would have to ask her about that. His dad might be interested in comparing notes with whoever had done the work. He also knew that he was distracting himself from gore with meaningless technical thinking, but he didn't care because it was working. One could say what they would about the Corvie science drive (and they could say an awful lot, most of it unpleasant and true), but one-track thinking came in handy in moments like this.