Hallways at the School, Monday Evening

[amitragic]

Ulysses could hear his heartbeat in his ears.

The hallway lined with doors to various teachers' offices stretched on ahead of him, pitch black. He was holding a lighter, but the small flame could only do so much against the darkness. He'd almost twisted his ankle just making his way over to the school from the dorms, startled by some scuttling that had suddenly seemed to come from way closer to him than he was comfortable with.

So why was he even here? Well, there'd been the note. And all the lights were out today. And... Ulysses didn't make great decisions. Just in life. In general. So, he'd thought maybe visiting some offices under the cover of darkness was a fine way to pass the time tonight.

He was already reconsidering that thought when the lighter's flame flickered out, suddenly.

"That's fine," Ulysses said to himself after a beat, reflexively reaching for his pocket, for... something he'd actually left behind at the dorms. "This is fine."

But it was not fine. The darkness had swallowed him up, and that meant that what little bumper there'd been between him and whatever the everloving fuck kept making those noises in the shadows was just gone. And almost immediately, he could hear something coming up behind him. So he startled forward, with several long, quick strides --

And promptly walked into a wall. Right, the hallway actually took a turn, there. He knew he should've at least looked at the floor layout before he'd come here, or something!

"... Oww."

This was going to go great for him.

[ooc: Oh so open for anyone else wandering the halls/breaking into offices!]

Comments

[thishouseishaunted]

Some might think that after the avalanche of traps ending in a gremlin bite the last time she tried, Mae would think of a strategy other than “at night in the dark” for hatchet heisting.

One would be wrong.

So! Some of those footstep noises were from actual footsteps! Tiny little bootsteps, even, as Mae walked casually in the near-pitch darkness like one who was accustomed to occasionally running full speed off the sides of buildings.

“Psst!” she hissed when she heard someone groan. “Did you hit a trap?”

[amitragic]

Ulysses was not proud of the yelp that ensued from suddenly hearing an actual voice amid all the other noise he was hearing. (Mostly the footsteps, but also his own thudding heartbeat.) But he would also not apologize for it.

"Not unless this wall is one."

... Saying that meant he had to immediately grope around the wall just to make sure it was not, in fact, hiding something.

[thishouseishaunted]

"Maybe?" Mae said. "It could have a secret door in it." Mae looked askance down the very dark hallway. "You could try to find it while I go search the offices."

And then she could get the hatchet while he was still knocking on walls!

[amitragic]

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I just walked into a regular wall." Which he was apparently not above admitting when the offices were on the line.

He was also now keeping one hand against said wall as he shuffled carefully a little further down the hallway, squinting into the darkness. "Don't need a secret door, I need an actual door."

[thishouseishaunted]

"Actual doors are handy," Mae said. "For getting into rooms."

She was a font of wisdom.

"I bet there are all sorts of gremlins in here. Like, if the lights suddenly came on, we'd just be surrounded by wall to wall gremlins."

She was so reassuring, too!

[amitragic]

Ulysses stopped.

"Why the fuck would you say that?"

Now he was wondering whether he could tell gremlin footprints apart from all the other scuttling. (Spoiler: he would absolutely fucking not.)

[thishouseishaunted]

"Because I got attacked by a gremlin last time I tried this." Mae shook her fist, her eyes narrowed. "They are wily beasts. Someday I will earn their respect."

[amitragic]

"Yeah, well, I'm not gonna get attacked by gremlins, okay?" Ulysses replied, wholly unconvincing even to his own ears. "So, uh. Just don't say that."

He moved forward. Found a door. Stopped.

"But, you know, just out of curiosity," he said, slowly. "Which office was that?"

[thishouseishaunted]

"The one with the extra funky dark lights and all the weapons." Mae was not a reliable source of information, okay? "But not the one with the rug trap. Maybe. Unless I was too stealthy for it!"

Because sure, you could out-stealth a rug trap.

[amitragic]

Ulysses was regretting having asked. Just, for the record.

He tried the door handle.

"Guess it would've been too much to ask for these not to have been locked, right?"