Dr. Finkelstein's Vault of Terrifyingly Bad Ideas

Dr. Finkelstein's Vault of Terrifyingly Bad Ideas
Date of Scene:	20 October 2012
Location:	Halloween Town
Synopsis:	Dr. Finkelstein's Vault has been broken into. It is full of traps, bizarre Clownfish and Dentistry combinations and assorted madness. Also down there, the heart created by Dr. Finkelstein during one of his 'moods' -- is that what the Heartless are after?
Cast of Characters:	Tifa Lockhart, Mercade Alexander, Sarafina Carenze, Uzuki Yashiro, Oogie Boogie, Katyna Redsvaren
Tinyplot:	Dr. Finkelstein's Vault of Terrifyingly Bad Ideas

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Riku has posed:
The rumors all lead here. A group of heartless stole a ring of keys from Dr. Finkelstein's lab, and although most of the keys have already been recovered one very important one seems to still be missing. The key, according to the mad doctor, leads to a system of Vaults that he has constructed underneath Halloween Town to keep his failed and discontinued experiments out of the way, seeing as trying to keep them all in one building has shown to have terrible results.

(Here a number of visual examples are given. A gigantic crooked tower held up with flimsy supports. A very long building that extends up the side of a hill and down into a swamp, a building that looks like an Escher painting with doors, rooves and windows in odd and inconvienient places.)

Dr. Finkelstein insists that there is nothing down in the Vaults that the Heartless would want but some of the residents aren't as sure. Some of them seem to recall earlier experiments (which is pretty easy since most of them are prefixed by explosions) in which the Doctor was crafting a series of mechanical hearts. Most of the prototypes were destroyed (and in one case, accidently eaten by the werewolf mailman) but one still remains locked up and forgotten somewhere in the lower vaults.

These broken or lost experiments are still considered to be dangerous and the vaults that contain them even more so as Dr. Finkelstein has armed them with a series of traps to keep meddlers and thieves away from his research when he can't watch it directly. The directions the mad doctor gives leads out to the middle of a giant graveyard, where a small maze of tombs and mauseoleums eventually renders up a giant slab of marble.

Underneath this slab (which has been cracked in half by unknown forces, mechanical arms broken off or splayed around) are stairs leading down to a room of bare rock with a large portcullis against one wall. It's stuck about eight inches off the ground and could probably be pulled up with effort. A Victrola in the left corner squeeals, the mad doctors voice echoing in a crackling repetitious screech.

"Hey. You there! Yes. I see you. I see all of you there, you zombies. Go away. This is a private grave. Go find your own." the recording continues to harass in the background

Avira has posed:
That little robbery of Dr. Finkelstein's the other day...well, Avira had been there to witness it. At the time she was with Mercade, investigating a bunch of rumors they'd been hearing about Heartless activity in Halloween town. How fortuitious that they saw just that! Well now she is back, and oddly Mercadeless. Something about him going off to find Riku? Funny that, Avira had planned to do the same only she had realized...she had no reliable way of finding him.

While she would rather be here with her fellow VALKYRI too, neither of her teammates were available. Not off to much of a good start here as she approaches the ripped open vault, pulling out a little device from Ivalice that could easily be described as an equivalent to a flashlight. It really ran on magecite and generated light from the crystalized mist, though.

"...welp." she murmurs to herself, assuming she'll be going at this adventure on her own, "Here goes nothin'." Sucking in a breath, she descends into the open tomb.

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
The first thing to suprise Tifa when she arrived in this 'dimension' (for lack of a better word considering this seems to defy most logics for her own world), was the whole spooky feeling to it. She's not that fond of horror movies, so to get the feeling she's walking right into the set of one is a bit unsettling indeed.

But then she sees herself, 'zombified' like that, she has a little shriek. Now she's the monster of the movies she hates. This is starting off on a great foot, indeed ~_~.

Yet, a hop in and a hop out of the portal assured her it wasn't something permanent at least, so she decided to go with it. The rumors of the heartless were annoying on their own, after the ice cream theft at least, so she's been volunteering at times to handle some of the more pesky critters. She can use the munny right after all, piling it up for later use. No, she's not money grubbing like that top hat duck, but she can still see the value in it at least. Simply, not at all cost.

She follows the others to the grave, jumping down. At least her limbs are still working right, despite their odd look. She got the feeling she could lose an arm or a leg anytime looking like this. And she will need a shower, icky.

She eyes the recording play in loop. She's not a zombie! Oh wait, she is. Oh well. Trudging on anyway ~_~

Uzuki Yashiro has posed:
Without Kariya to bother her, Uzuki has had free reign to cause as much mischief as possible and erase Players in any way she deemed fit. The Emergency Call inacted on all Reapers was truly a wondrous thing. But not all is peachy in Uzuki land. She was simply doing too well. Erasing players scattered by the end of Shibuya was becoming -boring- and the overall number of Players was dropping rapidly. Also, no Kariya meant no games for Uzuki to play and no ramen bowls to win. She was simply going to have find her own entertainment.

This is about when Uzuki heard rumors of a dangerous series of connected vaults that hold horrible creatures inside of it. It would be such a shame for anyone to perish down there (hehe)! But those adventurers need not worry, death is really only the beginning (double hehe).

In the most inconspicuous manner as someone with such an odd appearance, a pink haired young woman in black shorts, a long sleeved, dark gray blouse and a white corset follows after this Avira and Tifa. She keeps a safe distance behind the intrepid explorers and deadpans simply, "I sure hope there is nothing 'dangerous' down here." A wry, mischievious smile appears on Uzuki's face.

Oddly enough, Uzuki looks like she always does. Gasp! Will this mean that the Reaper will be one of the -most- normal looking ones?

Oogie Boogie has posed:
"Hehehehe..."

Somewhere there's a vault. Within this vault, there's a lot of terrible things awaiting the unwary, and all of those terrible things are wired up to one central location. Someone- someone who shouldn't usually be there- is in this central location.

And he just loves pullin' on levers and seeing what the crazy results are.

"Oh, ho! Well, looks like I picked a good day to go stretch my legs.. Well, you know what I mean. Looks like those little squirts were right. How'bout you scurry around for me, ya little rats?"

Seated in the vault's control room, Oogie Boogie sweeps across a row of switches like he was running a finger along a piano.

"It's like a party and I don't even need to socialise with anyone!"

Katyna has posed:
This is the first time Kat's seen this crazy realm, and she's a little intrigued frankly. She'd heard something about heartless stealing keys to some vault or other although she had not been present herself to help out.

She is curious for her own reasons however, to learn more about the vaults and the mysterious doctor and so she follows the others into the grave. "Woo, this looks like fun! I'm sure there's lot s of treasure down there!" she quips cheerfully.

Riku has posed:
The recorder continues to yap it's monotonous cycle of harrassment. There is nothing alive or undead in this bare room except those already entering into it, the only partially open portcullis blocking the corridor that extends far back into the horizon line before being swallowed into a dreary gloom. There seems to be nothing generally amiss or very prominant about the room. Bare walls of roughly hewn stone. A cleanly hewn stone floor layered with dust.

A pressurized gust of foul air errupts from the other end of the corridor attached to the portcullis. This is followed by the snap-- snap of sparking stones towards the ceiling that rain sparks down on the foul smelling gas. The final result of this is a pillar of fire aimed straight at the party as the stairs abruptly flatten out into a steep incline, broken mechanical arms flailing. If they hadn't been broken, they probably would have gathered in the stairs entirely. --Then the floor starts to fall away. That cleanly hewn floor cracks down the middle with a grinding CLANK, yanking the floor sections away one after another to reveal nothing below but a long chute leading down into darkness. The victrola falls down and disappears, clattering against the sides several times still complaining.

Avira has posed:
Oh man, where did all these people come from!? At this point the only one of them that Avira remotely trusts is Tifa and all things considered she actually starts to think she'd be better off alone here. That smile on Uzuki's face makes her especially nervous and for a few seconds, Avira lets out a small growl, baring a multitude of sharp pointy teeth in the process.

As Avira edges her way down the passageway, she's the first to stop abruptly as she's hit with the powerfully foul smell of gas. It was something she certainly recognized, which makes when she sees those sparks going off elicit an immediate reaction from her. "GET DOWN!"

Avira quickly flattens herself against the floor like a big furry throw rug. Fire roars overhead, singing the very tip of her tail before she abruptly disappears into the chute that had opened up beneath them. After a moment's delay, there's a startled yelp as she realizes what just happened.

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
She did not like the air of things around here. Really, she'd rather be anywhere else than inside of a tomb, which is within haloween town, which is like part of a horror story, which is... you get the idea.

Either way, she's not at ease. She gets the feeling she's being watched. And if that wasn't enough, the floor gives up suddenly. When you see you got the choice between a bottomless-looking hole, a column of fire zooming straight at her, there's only one place left to escape to.

And that's up. Using her strong legs and agility, she jumps. While in the air, she kicks toward the nearby wall, and propels herself upward and in the other direction, bouncing between the walls dextly until she's at the very top, near the broken door.

She phews, kneeling down on the side of the steep stairs, and calling out "Is everyone alright down there?" At least for those that went down, others might have followed after her too. She's always caring about those she travels with.

Yes, even Uzuki. She doesn't know her yet, obviously.

Uzuki Yashiro has posed:
Sometimes it pays to hang back near the rear of the group. This allows others to stumble into traps first (hopefully) and it also gives Uzuki plenty of time to react to whatever traps may be in store for them. This strategy pays off in the very first room of this dungeon. Now let's see here, a nasty looking firewall, a perhaps bottomless pit, and the stairs leading back have seemingly flattened all by themselves. Overall, she gives this death-trap a 7 out of 10 for covering all their bases. She would have rated if higher if there was a shark lurking at the bottom of the pit, but she is not too inclined to find this out.

Well. Maybe not -all- the bases were covered by the trap as both Tifa, Sarafina, and Avira 'escape' within a matter of seconds. Two going down, down, down and the other going back up, up,up. Uzuki herself keeps that wolfish grin on her face when the wolf and the chainsaw murderer disappear and then she decides that she too should probably get out of harm's way. In an instant, a pair of skeletal 'tattoo like' wings sprout from Uzuki's back and she rapidly ascends up the stairs without really having to 'flap' her wings in a normal sense. It looks like her Reaper wings do not rally obey the laws of gravity, not that such laws have much meaning here anyways.

Uzuki gracefully lands next to Tifa with her boots clopping down against the ground. Now that was quite a rush! Maybe this won't be boring afterall. The pink haired teenager turns to Tifa and lets a facade of worry display across her face. "I think I saw two of them fall down that pit, hopefully they are going to be okay!" Actually, Uzuki hopes within her heart of hearts that they both meet a terrible doom down that pit, but the Reaper is choosing to have a little fun instead.

Oogie Boogie has posed:
"A ha ha ha!" Oogie chortles.
"Man, the old doc's not much for sanity, but he sure knows how to throw a barbeque!"

Then he looks again. Everyone successfully evaded the trap? But there was like three of 'em! "Eh? Aww, if that doesn't just take the candied corn! Finkelstein, I take back what I said! You're useleeeeesss!"

He brings a fist down, on a bright red button. Oh dear.

Katyna has posed:
"Heh, piece of cake! Would someone shut up that automated voice?" She makes a face as she heads down the steps. However, Katyna's not as quick as the others when the stairs give way, and flames start spewing down on her. Fortunately, her armour and her fire affinity give her some measure of protection against the flames, but she's not as quick as some people, and even when she jumps to avoid the trap door she ends up falling inside, vanishing from view!

Mercade Alexander has posed:
And suddenly, a ghost! A spectral form in a black leather coat and burning red eyes looms in the darkness, Tattered shreds of ectoplasm follow its movements a is quickly sweeps up behind the group moments after the fire blast, and looms behind Uzuki.

The voice is also very echoy and spectral. "Boo!"

Mercade the Shade has arrived. And he's getting into theme with the locals, it seems. "Hey guys! Sorry I'm late. Wow, that's a hell of a trap. Are we sure we want to be rummaging around down here? This definately doesn't look like the usual 'playful scary pranks' that the locals usually indulge in... Unless we're talking like, Addams Family?"

Riku has posed:
Hey. There may be a shark down there at the bottom but then how could somebody jump it? There isn't any lava, or doom, or even doom lava spikes at least. At the bottom of the gloomy chute is a fall-breaking pile of junk and one cranky Victrola that is now upside down, the recording now speaking backwards and in crackling gibberish. Of course, this is the junk of Dr. Finkelstein so the somewhat squishy hoard amounts to old research papers from disfavored colleagues, body parts, broken springs, mechanical apparatus and rubber chickens with horrifying expressions. Apparently someones 'Terror poultry' project didn't go as well as one would hope. There are other research worthy bits and pieces now dusty and forgotten. It also seems to be a Dentist's Office.

This is worthy of capitals because of how the doctor focused on the machines present in such an office. They are attached to the walls with all manner of drills, picks and mechanical arms. Also everything is colored in hideously bright colors. Cheerful reds, yellows and blues. A brightly multi-colored wig adorns each machine or bears the masked face of a clown. Floppy shoes lay in piles along with the terror poultry. Each machine has been thrown into startling focus by an intermittant light that casts shadows across the empty padded chairs and old magazines in a little rack.

Cheerful wallpaper patterns and a little flowerpot sits abandoned in a small corner of the room. The far wall is lighted by it's own power, a terminal inset near a door. The screen reads 'Lower Vault Access Denied. Please give proper validation through East and West wing protocols.

Short version. This one large room has three exits, with a fourth being the chute above. The middle of the three doors is locked with a heavy slab of metal with no seams blocking that doorway. There is a door set into the left wall and the right wall. Above them is an arc that reads. "West Vault" and "East Vault" respectively.

A little door, no more than the size of a quarter, opens up in the ceiling. A cheerful and nearly perfect rendition of Dentist office music starting to play-- entirely using Kazoos.

Avira has posed:
Controlled manner? Pff. Avira tumbles down that chute and pretty much lands on her face in that pile of junk. She makes a terrible amount of noise, punctuated by the squeaky squeak of rubber chickens. Shaking her head, she pops out of the junk pile with a stray spring jammed over her left ear. The spring is extracted seconds later and Avira wades her way out of the junk pile with more squeaky noises.

Suddenly she's overwhelmed by the urge to pick up one of those rubber chickens and CHEW ON IT! Yessssss-NO! No she must resist!! ...okay, maybe she'll just take one rubber chicken and stick it in one of her pouches for later. Yes.

She's not touching any of that clown stuff. Just looking at it makes Avira shiver. "Mercade? Is that you??" Avira shouts back behind her. While waiting for him, she starts to explore the room, quickly coming upon the other exits and the glowing terminal. "Protocols, eh? Hmm. HEY MERCADE WHEN YOU GET DOWN HERE, I'VE GONE THROUGH THE EAST DOOR, OKAY?"

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart jumps a bit at Mercade. He didn't really say 'boo' toward her, but she hates this place with a passion she didn't know she had. "Don't do that!" she sighs, a hand on her chest to calm her heart. "I almost fell down face first..." she considers "... which I guess its where we need to be heading anyway." she shakes her head, and jumps down after the others, grinding the now sloped stairs with her hard boots, scratching sounds along the ground until she gets to the bottom, a nicely controlled decent at least.

She raises an eyebrow at the Dentist room "... If I wasn't already spooked enough..." she mumbles a bit. Yeah, she's not quite as 'cheerful' as usual in this situation. "Guess... I'll go this way." She decides to go check on the west vault, since someone has went to the east side.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade had totally descended the chute on a grapple (a detective's coat is like Batman's utility belt, only with more guns), hanging there for extra Spooky damage.

Uzuki Yashiro has posed:
Uzuki Yashiro coyly raises her right leg back while cradling her chin in her left hand in typical 'Oh no! You really scared me fashion!' She then smiles demurely and crosses her arms against herself after bringing her right leg back down to the ground. "A ghost! You sure scared me," intones Yashiro as her Reaper wings stretch out impulsively. Surprised, yes. Scared? Probably not.

Before the Reaper can say or do anything more. Everyone starts jumping down the open pit like one lemming after another. Uzuki raises a hand to her temple in exasperation before gliding after them. If they want to rush to their deaths, fine. That just makes Uzuki's job that much easier.

At the pit, Uzuki merely spreads her wings and descends downwards in a gradual descent. She touches ground on lightly in an assured 10 point landing and then casually looks to see where all her potential future Players are running off to. Mmmm. East or West? Werewolf or Zombie? The word werewolf is closer to her given name, but zombie is closer to her surname. Uzuki concludes this expert decision making process by heading after Zombie-Tifa.

She never liked being called by her given name anyways.

Oogie Boogie has posed:
Oogie Boogie is sitting in this chair he found (it's not a dentist's chair.)

He's listening to elevator music and staring at all of the buttons and switches with murderous intent.

"Finkelstein, you cannot do /anything/ right. Even this /music/ is terrible!"

Rassen frassen stupid where's the cats being bathed.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade, as mentioned, descended on a grapple because does this kind of thing. Sometimes you need to get up to a fire escape, after all. Being a detective means you sneak into places you're not supposed to be sometimes.

Ghostcade drops off of the grapple and detatches the grapple gun, smiling to Uzuki. "Hi there. Mercade Alexander of the Twilight Detective Agency. Nice to meet you." He miiiiiiiiight not be able to tell ominous and evil when he sees them. Of course, the Halloween Town effect might have something to do with that. Mercade blinks at the Terror Poultry in the pile.

He experimentally pokes one.
AAAAAAHSQUEAKY.
Mercade blinks, and pokes it again. AAAAAAHSQUEAKY.
AAAAAAHSQUEAKY. AAAAAAHSQUEAKY. AAAAAAHSQUEAKY.

"Hahaha, this is great." Mercade laughs, and then looks over the rest of the office. He waves to Tifa in the distance "HI TIFA! SEE YOU WHEN YOU GET BACK!" Since two of them went that way, Mercade is going to go with his hired Kickassian help.

"Sup Sarafina!" Mercade greets. "I'll explain later." The horror of television is too great even for Halloween Town!

Riku has posed:
To those in the East Vault

This room has a small 'airlock' kind of room which is small, a sterile white, and completely void of description except for another door. It leads out to a long rectangular corridor with double doors on the far end from the door leading into the 'Dentist Office'. The floor is a battered black strip of carpet, wide and long with no other description of the room other than it's complete featurelessness. The only exit not already explored is those double doors. Any movement towards them, however, will be difficult as you don't seem to arrive at your destination when moving towards them. They don't seem to get any closer. Abruptly a cake drops from a hole in the ceiling, exploding in a storm of frosting mid-splat.

Riku has posed:
To Those in the West Vault.

This room has a small 'airlock' kind of room which is small, painted black, and completely void of description except for another door. It leads out into a circular room with a door at the far end away from the door you came in. Something brittle snaps and crackles against the shoes, the floor littered with large fragment as if the entire floor were one big broken mirror.

There are a number of Scary Floss machines bundled together here, with a Popspider cart malingering with the dust of eons on the mechanical surface of the abandoned Halloween Town Food cart. Inside the circular room, part of the floor has collapsed, imbedding a sturdy greenhouse into the floor. It is completely overgrown by tomato plants. Or-- at least-- Clawmatoe plants, the unruly runners and vines poking from the broken greenhouse and curling around the carnival machines. There is a button, very plain and very clearly labeled on one wall. It says. "This is a trap. Do not push." in neat handwriting. Several holes open in the ceiling-- letting in a flock of butterflies made of metal and bits of glass. They flutter around, seeming mostly Harmless. Mostly.

Riku has posed:
To those still in the Dentist Office.

Several panels open in the walls, confetti spews from the walls to adorn the Dentist drills and grabbing arms. This is followed by the wet SMACK of a fish being launched out of a hole in the wall and smacking with some grim finality into the far wall. It is, of course.. a clownfish.

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart walks through the area, wondering what exactly happened here. A greenhouse underground? A storing area for various events? Maybe its the leftovers of some carnival they had before? This is all very strange. And every step has that crick-craking noise too, nothing to appease her at this point.

She carefully stays away from the 'clawmatoes', doesn't seem like anyone would like to eat those either... maybe use them as a pet, a vicious looking one, but whatever those are, she wants nothing of it.

She turns her head back to the door "Anything on your side?" she calls out, while she dwelves in deeper.

Yes, she stays clear of the button. She'd rahter not push anything unneeded, even if it was labeled 'free money, push here'. She's not that stupid after all.

What were they looking for again? Oh, right, a heart. Doesn't seem like it'd be the right place for this anyhow, but maybe in the back...

Avira has posed:
Silly Mercade, everybody looks ominously evil here.

Presented with a hallway, Avira's immediate reaction is to walk down it, of course. She's walking and walking and walking...but the double doors at the end of the hallway doesn't seem to get closer. Frowning, she starts to run to the other end of the hall to see if that'll get her there any faster. She's running, running and running until the cake drops down and explodes.

Abruptly, she stops so she can wipe the frosting from her face. Seconds of doing this reveals that with fur you really can't wipe stuff out, it just gets ground down into the fur and gets all sticky. She tries to lick it off and is reated with the sensation of trying to lick something out of a carpet. Eeeew.

"...hmmmm." Walking a few steps away from the fallen cake, she bends down to draw a line on the carpet in frosting. Then she steps over that line and starts walking to the other end of the hall again. Or trying to.

Uzuki Yashiro has posed:
Uzuki is momentarily distracted from following after Zombie-Tifa when Ghost-Mercade decides the time is right for introductions. "So nice to meet you! I am a horrible monster who is just here to see that everyone meets their untimely ends. Bye!" The Reaper intones with a mocking laugh as she glides after her zombie prey.

Thankfully due to her gliding, Uzuki avoids crunching over whatever is on the ground of the West Vault. That's for the best, it is really, really hard to keep white boots white when mucking around who knows what.

Ooh. A horrible greenhouse full of tom...clawmatoe plants. This seems in apt place for a...Uzuki's thoughts are interupted when she spies a shiny and mostly likely red button.....a trap. Really? The whole this is not a trap, but it really is a trap thing? That is like a 2 out of 10 and that is being generous. Buuuuut, maybe pressing the button will be the easiest way to get Tifa killed.

The Reaper gliiiiiides on up to the button and looks down at it for a moment before clasping her hands together. She raises her intwined hands up and brings up her right back leg at the same time. "Ooh, a button! -Whatever will this do?-" A devilish grin appears on Uzuki's face before she slams a fist down on the red or maybe not red/ trap or maybe not a trap button.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
"None so far." Mercade says, still rolling Perception checks at the room. "Maybe Heartless are weak against light-hearted pranks? I don't know. I wouldn't guarantee that everything in here will be so good-natured, though."

Oogie Boogie has posed:
Any attempt to get the Vault Security system to target its prey seems to fail spectacularly because the system is almost as crotchety as the man who built it. It absolutely INSISTS on testing each system, in each vault, in order, and responds to frustration by starting the count over again.

You can imagine how Oogie Boogie feels about this, can't you, right?

"Ooooh, you're unimpressed huh? Just you wait until I spice this up! If I can't start trouble, I'll make trouble!"

Riku has posed:
To those in the East Vault

The line moves with you. The floor, now splattered with cake, is rolling across the floor and the cake remnants disappear into previously unseen seams in the floor. As this happens, the lights abruptly go out in this room, followed by the click of a door locking. When they come back on, a sinister wraith is flying at Avira and Mercade at top spreed with an ear-splitting scream. The light strobes and each time it does the gruesome visage in rags gets that much closer, claws extended for them as red eyes bore into their chosen prey. This would also be the time that the heartless arrive. In stop motion, they rise from the floor and clamber down from crawling around in the walls. The wraith lets out another baleful scream, this time even louder and the heartless attack at almost the exact same moment-- as the lights all go out again.

Riku has posed:
To Those in the West Vault.

the backroom is a hoarder's paradise. Skulls, old trophies, a mounted fish that's head is turned towards you as if almost ready to burst out into song. Shelves and shelves are stuffed to bursting with odds and ends. An entire table of beakers and flasks is suspended by-- what. Hammocks? There is another terminal here though, in the backroom although it's difficult to make a pathway there through the clutter.

A number of thin wires come down from the ceiling, attaching and draping around the tables, shelves and other miscellany. The reason why is made more obvious as the floor CRACKS in half and falls away. Another fall awaits.

In the farm room outside of the backroom, the heartless come out of the Clawmatoe field. Soldiers and buzzing wizards appear, swirling around with the glass butterflies just in time for the fun to begin. A giant fan appears in the ceiling, a slab uncovered and the fan starting to turn. A very strong wind starts in this room, a storm of metal, glass and floor shards added with tumbling, out of control heartless as the doors to the Dentist Office and the Backroom lock themselves down.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade also hopes that Uzuki is joking. Really hoping. Because that could be Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Players!

The wraith appears, and this actually scares the hell out of Mercade, despite being kind of spectre-ish himself. He screams, falling backwards on his butt and scrambling back, trying to get some distance. He takes a terrible skeletal claw to the shoulder, growling at the pain from the wound as he rolls and hits the wall.

And then the lights go out, then back on, revealing HEartless appearing in a terrible horrorstrobe. "SARAFINA, STOP BEING RIGHT." Mercade yells, pulling out his pistols and firing wildly, the muzzle flashes highlighting everything crazily as he tries to aim for those beady glowing yellow eyes of doom.

Avira has posed:
"...yeah, that's what I THOUGHT." Avira huffs at the line moving along with them. The carpet must be attached to some sort of giant conveyor belt. Very sneaky. "Maybe we can outrun itAAAAAAAAAAAGUHGETITAWAY" Upon seeing the wraith, Avira flails for a few seconds before managing to get her weapon out. Could that even hit a wraith? AVIRA DOESN'T CARE, she is going to swing it about at it like mad. Mercade better watch out.

To make matters worse, the lights then go out, just as HEARTLESS appear. But after seconds pass in the pitch black...a smaller light flickers on again: Avira's magicite torch she wisely brought in with her.

"Go Mercade, I'll hold 'em off and catch up later!"

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart has pretty good reflexes normally, but the button press from Uzuki doesn't give her alot of time to react. Barely a little 'clunk' sound, and then the floor opens up. She still has time though! She jumps up, trying to reach for one of the overhanging wired items! At least a small push before the floor completely gives away under her footing.

It didn't give her enough push to get all the way to the nearby shelf though, her hand barely reaches it, finding catch on it just by the tip of her fingers.

But unfortunatly for her, that's not all the shelves caught over time. A heartless found perch there. One of the small, dog-like ones. It scratches its ear, and then sliddles away to the fingers it sees. Oh hey, a new game. This little piggy went to the market... and this little piggy went home... and this little piggy fell to its death!

Tifa barely has time to notice what's going on before she falls straight down into the pit of junk, and lands in a terrible CRASHing sound, that sure sounds painful from up there.

At least one person will rejoice, likely.

Uzuki Yashiro has posed:
Uzuki sure is trouble, and there is no travelling Music Man to save the day here.

The pink haired Reaper looks alllllll the way up when the fan starts to turn. Air conditioning? -That- is what the button does? It turns the air conditioning on? Eh, maybe the button is like on a circuit or something and she just needs to press the button more. Uzuki has no idea how circuits work, but she should probably do something before some glass or a heartless come flying her way.

Bam, bam, bam. The button is banged three times in succession. Maybe the button will do something awesome this time. She really needs to catch up with Tifa who is apparently locked in that backroom for all Uzuki knows. Tifa can't become a Player if Uzuki can't get to her body afterall. When she finds Tifa dead on the ground, -that- is when Uzuki can finally rejoice for the Games can begin!

Oogie Boogie has posed:
And then it's time for everything to go crazy at once. Oogie Boogie jumps up himself as the Heartless start appearing, and he gets /some toys to play with/.

He leans over to look at the screens, and eagerly twists some dials and presses the buttons he thinks will get this to do the maximum possible mayhem. It's probably mostly for show, but, you know, if it FEELS like it's helping...

Over in the east side, the 'Perpetual Jump Scare Corridor' activates! The scare corridor is meant to take sound, amplify it, and use it to create a local distortion that keeps someone trapped there. Not going forwards, or backwards, and periodically, a false 'jump' scare is added to keep the machine going and 'harvest the fear energy'. Can you escape, especially with the Heartless there?

In the west side, you've got the 'Basement of Biting Kettles' to deal with! This is exactly what it sounds like. You know how some kettles look like they have faces, or big noses? This takes it a step further. Now you've got these to deal with as well as the Heartless!

Riku has posed:
To those in the East Vault

The horrorstrobe is disrupted by the flares of Mercade's guns and Avira's magicite torch. The wraith is easily batted away, and in fact seems a little.. plastic and papery as they disappear into the ceiling.

The heartless are more intractable. Although they are thinned somewhat by the gunfire, a few of them leap at Mercade when they get close enough, a wizard causing a ball of ice to rocket towards the wraith detectives head. A light on the far wall lights up, several red bars lining up like the progress bar of a machine. The floor jerks, then starts to roll faster instead of in sync with the motions of the group as if the treadmill were being supercharged.

This time the side panels open up in the walls, hideous hydra like snake creatures leaning out to flail and hiss menacingly. At this time, several more soldiers drop from the ceiling, some of them almost right on top of the group as Sarafina hews into their numbers with the chainsaw.

Riku has posed:
To Those in the West Vault.

Those in the farm house end up activating some of the other machines with the Hammering of the Button. A scary floss machine breaks open as several heartless slam into it, clouds of sticky floss candy thrown up in large streamers from the guts of the machine. A small panel opens across the room, near the clawmatoe vines which snap and snarl, grabbing at anything close having been woken up from their nap. The air becomes tangled with sticky gobs of heartless and flying debris. The small panel reads. "Air Tunnel Reset"-- whoo-- those clusters of debris are getting closer and-- are those popcorn spiders swarming over the heartless? Well. There's no heartless now. Only more popspiders. That can't be good.

To those in the basement. You are in the cookware section. Pots and pans, kettles and soup pans and all kinds of kitchen ware are jumbled together in heaps. Oddly enough there are no knives. The kettles start to stir, mouths full of teeth snapping as they shake off their torpor and launch, in groups or in large cauldrons, drag themselves, towards Tifa with jaws bared. It's too high to get out from the top, but there is a high ledge that runs around the edge of the room. With a little luck, that would put you out of the reach of most of the bigger man eating cookware.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade finally switches to an alternative method of dealing with the problem. One that space marines in martian bases still haven't ven figured out! It's high-tech!

Mercade pulls out a flashlight and tapes it to his shotgun.

Now he can see and shoot at the same time. "As long as we can fight... We can keep going!" Mercade says. Avira makes her request, and he glances over to her, concerned. "... Okay. I believe in you, Avira. I WILL SEE YOU LATER, DAMMIT." He lunges forward, using hops to rebound off walls and make it past the conveyor floor. "COME ON SARAFINA! WE NEED TO KEEP MOVING!"

And then the Scare Corridor activates! Sound is amplified and redirected. A scream causes Mercade to jump back, and and a lashing swipe of a Shadow takes him in tbe back. "ARGH!" Mercade yells, spinning and blasting it with a shotgun. It disintegrates, but the problem with fighting a Heartless isn't killing one.

It's fighting the thousand more right behind. Mercade's feeding that fear energy collector a lot though as he struggles to push forward into the next area, but that only gets worse as the conveyor speeds up! "WAAAAAAAAAGH! SARAFINAAAAA GO BACK TO BEING RIGHT!" Mercade yells, as the iceball smacks him in the head and knocks him flat on his face. The conveyor promptly whips him back all the way down the corridor and slams him into the wall. "Uggggggh-hurk." Mercade says eloquently. But he's still got SHOTGUN. And shotguns solve a lot of problems.

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart is still alive! And concious too. But that was a rather bad fall. She ugh as she drags herself back up kneeling and then standing... She takes a quick look around, seeing the gleaming eyes of the fanged kettles around her. This isn't a good day. The only plus side is that you can't see her wounds with this zombie getup. At least, not the real ones among the fake ones.

If that's any consolation.

She staggers a bit, her back against the wall. Maybe she can reach that ledge up there, that should give her a bit of time at least. "I could use some help!" she shouts out, hopefully someone will hear her. She jumps up, kicking off a kettle from her leg, but before she takes any good height, more kettles appear, and apparently using each other as leverage, they still manage to get her back to the ground...

And then there's a muffled cry as the barmaid is buried in angry kitchenware. Not a good day.

Uzuki Yashiro has posed:
Gravity, schmajgity. Uzuki's science defying Reaper wings propel her out of harm's way as some nasty looking debris (tm) come flying towards her at alarming speeds. But, it seems her button mashing it just making things worse and Uzuki is the only one who will suffer from this and that simply is no good. If only her partner in crime, Kariya, was here. He would know what to do.

But then, a panel flips open near some clawmatoe plants. Uzuki looks its way with a hmmmmmm. A lightbulb suddenly turns on in her head when she reads what is next to the panel. The Reaper then glides close to mash buttons, pull levers, press switches, or anything else that might be on the panel.

Oogie Boogie has posed:
"Kyaaaa ha ha ha ha!"

Oogie Boogie just sits and watches chortling himself silly. Oh, this is rich! Oh, man, someone even said it can't get any worse! Oh this is really gettin' fancy!

He starts frantically putting odds on these guys' chances of survival. Oh, where's a pair of dice when he needs 'em?

"Leave some for me, Heartless!" he laughs, cheering them on like a guy watching a football game. "Ooh, I can't decide. If there's enough pieces left, should I get someone to stitch 'em all up like a jigsaw puzzle? Or just throw 'em all in a pan with some other leftovers? I can't wait to see what happens next!"

Riku has posed:
To those in the East Vault

Shotgun does INDEED solve many problems. The heartless begin to thin again, but the conveyor is speeding up faster and faster now. It jerks to an absolute standstill, throwing heartless and other occupants flying as it peels into reverse, smoke starting to waft up from the edges of the room as red bars continue to fill the panel all the way towards the top.

Now the dance of scares becomes positively manic, the plastic wraith batting a wizard out of the air, snakes spewing from the walls, the double doors rocket open. All of the red bars drain at once to zero, the word 'Tilt' evident as something menacing and very angry ROARS from the darkness beyond the double doors. The conveyor belt seizes, smoke pouring from the seams of the room making it difficult to see the remaining heartless, which are few enough now.

Riku has posed:
To Those in the West Vault.

The backroom is filled with the clattering of eager cookware trying to get in on the feast, but those in the front take up most of the space and so only really a small fraction of the room's cookware is able to reach her without falling into or against eachother. There is something glittering on a chain not too far away, attached to one of the bigger kettles which is almost big enough to ride inside of, the fanged mouth being on the outside of this design instead of around the rim. It almost looks like a key.

To those on the farmhouse, everything goes dead quiet as the fan turns off. Heartless, tied up with sticky floss, twitch and flop on the ground. They are no longer the scary thing here. The popspiders seem to have survived the battering and are consuming everything in sight. This creates more popspiders which come into existance with crackling pops. Now they are definitely coming this way. Both rooms have been unlocked though as a slab hides the giant fan from view.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
The conveyor stops, and things break, Mercade falling to the ground with a jerk.

Okay, he's had enough.

"LISTEN UP, YOU PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS!" Mercade yells, channeling a man with a much bigger chin than him. "THIS... IS MY BOOMSTICK!" He lunges forward, taking advantage of the stable footing to blast the Soldiers off of Sarafina. In Left 4 Heartless, you gotta protect your partners, after all! He bends down, throwing her a hand to help her up as he blasts another Heartless. He pumps the shotgun, ejecting a spent shell. "Ballistics is magic, yo."

Sarafina will probably clear the way with her chainsaw of murderface. This is getting very grindhouse in here.

The roar causes him to cough a little. "Uh.... That sounds big."

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
The pile of kettles stay still, as the ones in the center are probably trying to gnaw away at their captured prey. Only the sound of the clanking of their maws is heard for a moment.

And then a low rumble, the pile starting to tremble, as if being affected by an earthquake, and the sounds of metal clanking on each other getting more and more pronounced. Until the pile explodes. The Zombie-Barmaid lets out a mighty RAAAWR (which honestly doesn't sound that scary from her either), standing where the pile used to be, arms lifted as she mightly tossed all of those that were on top of her "ENOUGH!" She's not pleased. She almost was the meal of things that you use to make meals. Talk about nasty turnabouts. She promises to clean her kitchenware better after this ~_~

She turns toward the giant one, spotting the shiny thing inside in the corner of her eye. What's the smartest thing to do? Well, maybe not smartest, but given the situation, probably the best solution here. She runs toward the giant one and jumps straight toward its mouth.

The giant maw try to close down on her, but she anticipated it. One leg go straight up, meeting with the top of the jaw, while she stands on the bottom jaw with the other feet, an impressive vertical split, as she stretches an arm inside to nab the key, and then hpo out of reach. "Mine now!"

And before it can do anything else, she bounces up on top of the giant kettle, and then goes to safety on the ledge. Now, how does she get otu of here anyway?

Uzuki Yashiro has posed:
Uzuki has little love for Heartless, or Taboo Noise as she calls them. So no tear is shed when they are consumed by the popspiders. And speaking of those freaky little creatures, Uzuki should probably do something about them.

t is only now that Pinky notices popspiders exploding out of Heartless to make more popspiders. EWWWW. GROSS. Uzuki gasps before shrugging her shoulders in indifference. Sucks to be the next person in this room! The winged woman than flies her way into the backroom and down the opened hole to rendevous with a disappointingly still alive Tifa. "Oh, you are still alive. Greeeeeeeat," greets Yashiro.

Oogie Boogie has posed:
Suddenly all the lights in the room save for one very small one shut off.

Oogie Boogie just freezes in mid-wave, stock still, like a statue.

Slowly, he lowers his arm and looks at the blinking light.

A few seconds pass in silence.

Then he smiles, shoves a keyboard off the table, and walks away.

Riku has posed:
To those in the East Vault

The double doors lead out into a Y junction hallway. One of the branches is already locked away with a large door of a similar construction than the middle door of the dentist office. A silver faceplate to the lock is the only affectation to the door. It has no handle. A gloomy archway barred by a sturdy barred door is the other branch. It is unlocked, though that bar looks a little on the heavy side.

Good news? No sign of whatever was doing that roaring. Bad news? More heartless. A number of wights appear, long arms lashing out for Serafina.

Riku has posed:
To Those in the West Vault.

To those in the backroom that seems to be a matter of patience. There is a vent on the far other side of the room which will probably go somewhere else than here. It's large enough, not to fit someone comfortably, but enough so that she could probably manuever around without getting stuck someplace. Hopefully. The kettles seem to be becoming irritated that they can't reach her, but it's only a matter of time before they remember stacking. The funny thing about rapidly populating popspiders is they'll eat anything. When Uzuki flies into the backroom, a few kernals are swept over the edge into the mass of cookware. Rapidly, hunter becomes the hunted, and a grand melee between Food and Containers to Hold Food showdown commences.

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart is mostly glad that those things are not going after her for the moment, with the sudden influx of popsiders. She calls up to Uzuki "Yeah, still alive. Looks like we got a moment of respite here. There's a vent over there, we should be able to get out there." She figures if Uzuki came this way, she probably didn't have a way back up there either. Who would want to go down a hole anyway.

She moves around the ledge rapidly, going toward the vent. She slips along the way though, due to the battle of kettles down below rocking the legs of the ledges some. She ends up holding herself by a hand again, sighing as she tries to get back up on top of it before the kettles reach her again.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
PROGRESS IS MADE.

Mercade heads into the next branch, looking at the two areas. "I don't think we'll be able to proceed until we find the key for that door." He shrugs. Wight Heartless show up! Mercade is getting tired of the sudden spike in encounter rate in this dungeon. With a yell, he SHOTGUNS the Heartless to whittle them down for Sarafina to finish off, positioning himself at the bar at the other end of the corridor. "I don't think I can open this one by myself." Mercade calls. "Once you get those guys, let's push together!"

Uzuki Yashiro has posed:
Uzuki weightlessly hovers in the air as she watches the ensuing battle unfold below her. She could really use some popco...eh...maybe she should stick with something safer like some bento instead. The snackless Reaper looks to Tifa who is still hanging in there. My, my. The martial artist is quite the perdicament. It would be such a shame if someone would come fly in and knock Tifa into the melee between animate kitchen objects and popspiders below..he..he..he.

But then again, the Reaper also wants to get out of this in one piece. She flies over towards the vent and gestures towards it idly. "After you..." begins Yashiro before noticing Tifa slip a little bit. OH COME ON. JUST FALL ALREADY. A perturbed look washes over Uzuki's face as she hovers there by the girl who is just so desperately clinging onto that life of hers.

Riku has posed:
To those in the East Vault

After the heartless have been dispatched and the bar lifted, the door creaks as if it had not been oiled, and not completely another cliche. The long squeak of the door is the only sound. The room beyond is a musty, closet filled catacomb with stairs leading down and around the corner into a deeper recess. Every wall is filled with stone shelves, and these shelves are crammed with cloth of various faded colors and description. At the bottom of the stairs is a small room, with a terminal inset into a small dais. There is a switch. It is not labeled at all.

Riku has posed:
To Those in the West Vault.

The vent is small, cramped, uncomfortable and full of gummy rats. The squishy jelly creations don't look like they are harmful, but they are squishy and get in the way of making the way back to --well-- anywhere. The anywhere turns out to be the Clown Dentist room again, next to the cheerful little flowerpot. The popspiders and the kettles are left behind, although a few of the more daring ones make a grab for Uzuki's shins when they get a chance.

A restraining wire snaps, sending a table crashing down into the melee. A spray of popspiders flys through the air, all legs wiggling. A few kettles manage to get onto the ledge, starting to thump and rattle their way up the vent after Tifa.

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa clung for dear life, yes, she doesn't really want to go back down there. When she sees the kettles and spiders come after her though, she quickly climbs back up to the ledge, and rapidly goes to the vent, stuffing herself in. Since Uzuki wanted her to go first, she's not about to argue that either. She's holding the shiny key too, should come in handy at some point...

She moves through the vents "Come on, get in and put the lid back on, that should slow them down!" No girl would choose to be stuffed in small vents like that, but better than being kitchenware food.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
"Your chainsaw might be able to break down the door, but I don't want to risk bringing down the house on top of us. We'd be buried alive, if we were't crushed." Mercade walks forward, looking over the cloth and frowning. He rummages a bit in the cloth, but he shakes his head. Surely the cloth won't be important!! "What do you think about all this, Sarafina?" He asks.

He also glances down the stairs at the terminal. "Oh, this is /totally/ not a trap." Mercade prounounces. Yes, he's being sarcastic.

Avira has posed:
Suddenly, a hand falls upon Mercade's shoulder, grasping firmly! Or...well, it would, were he not a ghost detective right now. Instead, that hand falls through as if it were thin air. "Gah..."

Avira compromises by sticking her furry hand through him and waving, "Heeeeeey Mercade, finally caught up!"

Uzuki Yashiro has posed:
Uzuki is being such a good girl and keeping her temper under control. That is until a popspider jumps and bites her on the leg. The Reaper flails at the popspider and then seemingly out of nowhere brandishes her weapon, a large, odd looking pistol. A MAGIC PISTOL. With a maniac look on her face, she fires one shot out of her pistol which erupts into a cluster of smaller energy pellets that fly every which of way. "Time to get Erased you stupid Taboo Noise!" Uzuki shouts with a clenched fist before gliding her way to the vent.

She does follow Zombifa's advice and attempt to close the vent behind them. Either with the lid or with caving in the vent itself, Uzuki would be determined to make sure no more popspiders trail after her. Ugh the vent is cramped enough that the Reaper dissolves her own wings, like they were going to be much use for her in here.

Riku has posed:
To those in the East Vault

The cloth certainly won't be important. The shelves and shelves of it, full to bursting, are just decoration. Except that it starts to move even before anybody touches the switch.

A cloth head rises up, covering the switch in a maw of felt as a low roar starts to build, and build, until it becomes a chorus for a hundred throats. Beady button eyes and glowing specks of light illuminate every scrap of cloth, every rag. Stitching gleams as all at once the cloth stitching descends on them all. Sharp teeth and razor starching and loose threads are bared. It is after all..

~The Attack of the Pocket Monsters.

Riku has posed:
To Those in the West Vault.

The vent leads out to the Clown Dentist room. Nothing seems to have changed here except perhaps a cake has exploded. There is frosting everywhere. There is a faint sound of roaring from beyond the East Vault door, but it's muffled and indistinct.

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart phews as she escapes the vent. At least its somewhere safe... Just to be sure she bars the way to the West Vault using a table though.

She looks around at the 'party', and then back at Uzuki "You want cake?" There's some everywhere, so easy to pick. With the key in hand, she heads toward the East Vault door, wondering why its closed "Is it safe to open up you think?"

Well Uzuki will probably say to go first ~_~ So she opens the door to check what's going on. Just a little.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade totally would have WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHed in surprise and shock if he wasn't a ghost, Avira. It would have been awesome.

Except she puts her hand THROUGH him and waggles it. Mercade looks down and lets loose a "YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!", flailing until it registers that 1) he's not dead and 2) It's Avira.

"God dammit, Avira, don't /do/ that. He coughs, and then nods to Sara. "That's a good plan-" A moment later, POCKET MONSTERS. "OH GOD IS THIS SERIOUS?" Mercade yells. BLAM! Ker-chak! "I BET THEY DIDN'T EVEN USE A GOOD FABRIC SOFTENER!" BLAM! Ker-chak! "DON'T MAKE ME GET THE BLEACH, YOU BASTARDS!"

Uzuki Yashiro has posed:
Tifa's offering of cake causes Uzuki to lean close to the exploded frosting and scoop some up with a finger. Mmmm. All of this trying to get Tifa killed has caused Uzuki to work up quite an appettite. But then againg eating the frosting will probably poison her or something terrible like that. There seems to be no good things in any of these vaults.

"It is just a door, what is the worst that can happen?" offers Uzuki helpfully as she secretly wishes for the worst to happen to the door opening Tifa.

Avira has posed:
"Ehehehehehe awww I couldn't resist, Mercade!" Avira grins a toothy grin. She'd lean on Mercade at this point except...yeah. Darn Mercades being all incorpreal and stuff. "Did I miss much? Took me a while to clear out all those Heartless." Fortunately, while alone and in the dark, Mercade and Sarafina weren't around to see whatever panic attacks she might have had.

Though it seems that no sooner than she caught up with the two that she winds up getting viciously attacked again. By sock puppets? Stuffed animals? The problem with this is, Avira doesn't take them seriously at all, just batting them aside as if they were flies. Then that one large bat-type latches onto her head and starts to gnaw. At that point she finally registers that, wow, these things can actually HURT. Avira shouts suddenly and reaches upwards, grabbing and pulling at it to dislodge it.

She manages to grab ahold of the two wings of the bat and pull downward. This still doesn't seem to help. "...fine! You want to stay up there?!"

She yanks the wings downward and ties them in a knot under her chin, turning her tormenter into a very bitey hat.

Riku has posed:
To those in the East Vault

ARRGH Pocket Monsters! And even though you bust apart their clothen shells, the little creatures number in the hundreds and hundreds. An entire closet full of these things continues to descend while one very confused but somewhat bitey BatHat wiggles around on Avira's head and tries to get loose and get on with the bitey. A horde of rag rats form as the cloth monsters merge together on the floor, biting at ankles and chewing at whatever cloth they can get a hold of, spectral or otherwise. Moth rats, whose second cousins are piranaha.

Riku has posed:
To Those in the Dentist Office.

@Emit It looks like something seriously busted in there. Smoke comes out of the doorway and it's completely dark. A large splatter of cake, gunshots and several plastic snakes litter the ground. It looks like the others have been relatively busy. A few fitful sparks fly from the broken off trunk of a wraith half imbedded in the ceiling, the construct made of plastic and paper. The double doors at the other end of the room are open. More growling, snapping noises come from beyond it. The dental machines activate, although the denistry may be a little off because lasers start to fire wildly around the room, singing wig and shoe and mask alike.

The cake doesn't really taste like it should. It's created by someone who really doesn't have more than a tenuous grasp of reality outside of his specialty, and so it has properties in which it is quite uncakelike. Better cakes through chemistry means It tastes like roast beef somehow, and ends up, like Uzuki suspected, being a lie.

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Well, she's glad it didn't blow up right in her face as she opened, so she can offer some help to those in the back at least "They are over there." She says to Uzuki, maybe she doesn't care, but at least the barmaid does. She knows a few of them after all.

The barmaid rushes through the vault, toward the noises, into the next room. What she hopes is bringing support from the back, the Zangan fighter coming in kicking the heartless away... Wait, its nort heartless, but clothes, hats and teddy bears? Well no matter, Mercade is shooting at them, so that must mean they don't want to cover them up for the night ~_~ If not for the eternal sleep "I'm here, need a hand?"

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Shotguns are good, but Mercade doesn't need the raw killing power on cloth (he loads slugs in it, not buckshot). He needs rate of fire. Mercade stashes his shotgun, switching up to his dual handguns, each twisted, spooky black metal from the effects of Halloween Town. Heach of them fires, Mercade rapidly peppering the cloth beasties with sheer volume of bullets. The rats show up, and Mercade leaps, using his legs to brace against the walls to keep him suspended over the floor. It might not be made of lava, but rat swarms are bad too. "Anyone got any fire?" Mercade calls. "This is getting ridiculous!"

Avira has posed:
Now an unprotected head is one thing. Feet with thick leather boots are another. Avira assumes that the rats can't get through that. Of course, she just happened to forget that in this werewolf form, her feet are shaped weird and so she isn't actually wearing any boots right now. When she feels the first sting of teeth in her skin, she flinches and struggles to not cry out in pain.

Angrily, she kicks them away, wading through the rat swarms with no small amount of pain. Her performance in this place, she reflects, has not been great so far-so how's she supposed to convince the people with her that she does this all of the time?

Instead, she puts on a brave face, sucks it up, and keeps going. "I don't know fire. Only ice, Mercade."

Uzuki Yashiro has posed:
Tifa delightfully has her back turned towards Uzuki as she scouts what lies behind the door. Uzuki knows a chance where she sees one as if you want something done right, you do it yourself. Her MAGIC pistol is then leveled towards the unsuspecting martial artist. Heh heh heh.

But, then Tifa runs past all the lazers, through the room, and off into the next one in the blink of an eye. Darn it, darn it, darn it! Uzuki's anger gets the better of her again as she flails around ends of punching some of the nearby icing, causing a poof of it to go back up into the air. Stupid super dodging martial artist, stupid cake being a total lie! Ugh. The Reaper rematerializes her wings and chases after her quarry. Maybe she'll get her chance in the next room.

Riku has posed:
Unnoticed and unmourned, another clownfish flops against a wall in the dentist room. The giant head cloth shows up again, giving another glimpse of the switch. A gust of poisonous fog streams forth from the giant maw, ragrats reforming into small goblin like creatures made of rags. There are far fewer of them now, but the ones who have merged together and gathering together more scraps into themselves, making themselves bigger and tougher as they surge onto the attack again.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade... is no longer out of reach of the goblins, and he gets pummeled down and swaemed. "OH GOD NOT IN THE FACE! NOT THE FACE!" Mercade yells, firing his guns wildly at the raggy goblins. The poison fog also rolls in, sizzling him. "ACH!" Mercade coughs. "It smells like evil!" Mercade yells, doing his best to fight off the horde of cloth monsters smashing him.

Avira has posed:
"...there!" Avira kicks ragrats away, only to have them start forming larger creatures before them. At that point, Avira finally pulls out the Spine and charges, running through one of the goblin creatures that lunges at her. She doesn't even bother to dislodge it from her weapon as she continues forward, chasing that giant cloth head. "I saw something! In there!"

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart is apparently mostly unnoticed behind the swarm of... cloth goblins. She calls out "Everyone okay?" over the small crowd of monsters... and kicks a few for good measure ~_~ "What's with all these monsters anyway, I had to fight my way through angry kettles, and now tissues? I'm afraid of what could be in the next room at this rate." Maybe its the library of doom with paperclips and erasers.

Riku has posed:
The giant head cloth growls at Avira, pouring out more poisonous fog while the cloth goblin wiggles and flags like a banner impaled on the sword. She reaches it, pulling the switch while the pocket monster wails in frustration, teeth coming down to snap off her arm.

It goes loose, sliding away as all the power goes out of the pocket monsters. Apparently, the thing that looked the most like it was a trap, was actually a trap in reverse. Cloth flutters down in heaps to lay thickly on the floor, the monsters no more than rags again.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade groans. "That was way more painful than it needed to be. Clever bastards." He sits up, dusting himself off and looking to Avira. "You do realize you have a cloth bat tied to your head, right?"

Avira has posed:
OH NO IT'S GOING TO BITE OFF HER ARM oh whew they all stopped. Well that's perfectly fine with Avira-she enjoyed having both arms. "I know, isn't it great." Avira grins toothily. "I think I'm gonna take it with me."

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart blinks as everything falls dead around her, her last kick going straight through and gathering a bunch of cloth that sticks to her leg isntead "... Someone wants to explain what's going on now? Because I sure don't know.". She wants to go home ~_~ She did pick up that key earlier, even though she doesn't know what its for yet.