[OOM] Taris, the Labyrinth, Former Undercity Sewers.

[stuck_mynock]

It's very dark.

Not completely dark. There are a few lights, sickly greenish-white, left, to give a little bit of illumination, and they light up the flow of water in the most interesting ways. It's a circular room, clearly deep underground, with a massive hole in the centre through which water crashes down. The railings are broken in several places. There are two doors there, and around each, an array of monitors, screens and machinery, all brand new.

Guppy and Will have been laid out on two blankets, on either side of the pit, and left there, at least until they wake up.

Comments

[guppy_sandhu]

"Is there any chance that something could reflect the torture waves?" Guppy asks. "Because I've got a space blanket in here; it's not strong enough to use in the rope but it's metallic, because it's used for hypothermia."

He dissects the shirt that has claw marks in it. It's not like he can take any of them home and let his wife see them.

[will_scarlett]

"'ow would a blanket do that? Wouldna some sort o'mirror be better?"

[stuck-mynock.livejournal.com]

"I'm not sure, t'be honest. Apart from forcefields and thick metal, s'not a great deal that completely blocks them, as far as I know. But, y'know, extra clothes'll help."

[guppy_sandhu]

Guppy gets it out to show them; it's like a blanket made of tin foil, but more like a fabric.

"We could wrap this over a thick layer of clothes." he says. "Other than that the only metal I've got is a few tins of food."

[will_scarlett]

"Couldna 'urt ye any, Atton an might 'elp."

[stuck-mynock.livejournal.com]

"Well, most of our clothes are going into the creation of this rope - which, by the way, is a better investment of fabric than lots of clothes to act as protection. We don't know how intense'll it'll be, so we don't know how many layers I'd need, but we know that the rope is our friend and would never say cruel things to us."

Beat.

"I'll, you know, take the blanket, though."

[guppy_sandhu]

Guppy takes off his baseball cap and wraps the blanket around that so that it dangles over but he can see where he's going. He passes it to Atton, then begins to dissect a pair of trouser.

"Hey Atton, are the glowing lights what's emitting the torture field?" he asks. "Because if it's not out here, it must be localised, and if it's from the lights, could we smash them with the rails before you go in?"

[will_scarlett]

Now Guppy gets a long look,

"Say that 'gain, 'ow could 'ittin' the lights stop it?"

[stuck-mynock.livejournal.com]

"It'd smash the lights. If they're the generators. S'difficult t'say," Atton says. "Pass me a rail. When I go in, I'll try smashing them. We don't want to try hitting them before I go in - whenever something enters the field intensifies. We'd have to put the rail into the field to smash them, and then if it didn't work, it'd be worse for me when I went in. So I'll just take one in with me."

[guppy_sandhu]

"Oh yeah, good point." Guppy says, tightening the rope then securing it carefully to the pole. He then ties it around Atton in a climbing harness fashion, puts the hat on him, and tries to get him covered with the space blanket.

"You're very brave." he adds quietly.

[will_scarlett]

The rail Will's holding gets handed over,

"This is the longest one, 'opefully can smash 'em 'fore gets too bad."

[stuck-mynock.livejournal.com]

Patting Guppy: "You are very overly sentimental."

He takes the rail, holding it loosely in one hand as he steps into the passage. There's a visible grimace of pain, and his shoulders hunch slightly, before he whacks at the lights with the rod.

The rod just bounces off them.

[guppy_sandhu]

"You can do it Atton!" Guppy calls out encouragingly. "Kick ass, bro!"

He passes the end of the rail to Will, and holds onto it himself, in case it gets jerked out.

[will_scarlett]

Will tries to anchor himself and winces sympathetically as Atton goes through.

[stuck-mynock.livejournal.com]

Atton grumbles, drops his rail-rod thing, and continues onwards at a slow pace, supporting himself against the wall as he does so.

He eventually comes out the other end, staggering a little, and takes a moment to scoop up all the weapons.

"Okay, I'm going to toss these things to you as I come back through, okay?"

[guppy_sandhu]

"Okay." Guppy calls back to him. "You're doing great, just hang in there."

[will_scarlett]

"Oh aye."

Will moves so that he's as close as possible to the field without being in it so he can grab weapons.

[stuck-mynock.livejournal.com]

Once Atton's in the field (and there's a considerably more pronounced expression of pain, this time), he tosses the weapons out towards Will.

[guppy_sandhu]

Guppy keeps holding onto the rail tightly with one hand, but manages to catch his chucked stun gun in the other.

He watches Atton anxiously, hoping he can get out.

[will_scarlett]

As quickly as he can, Will grabs all the weapons and puts them into a pile,

"Got 'em now get the 'ell out o'there."

[stuck-mynock.livejournal.com]

"Sure thing," Atton mumbles, half-heartedly.

He's only taken a few steps before the humming starts to grow louder and shriller, and a faint blue glow gathers in the tunnel.

He starts sprinting, but he yelps and his legs give way before he can get out.

[guppy_sandhu]

Guppy pulls hard on the rope, making the use of Atton's sprint momentum to pull him as far and as fast as he can.

"Keep pulling hard!" he yells at Will, then sprints in to pull Atton the last few metres out. The pain is almost unbearable, but he uses every ouce of strength to help pull Atton the rest of the way quickly, then collapses just outside.

He knows it wasn't a sensible thing to do, but if Will went in and collapsed, there would have been no hope of him pulling both of them out, whereas there might have been hope for Will to do it if he'd collapsed, and he didn't have time to explain that.

"At, talk to us..." he whimpers, crawling over to him and shaking him gently on the shoulder.

[will_scarlett]

Will curses and pulls and then rushes over to Atton and Guppy as soon they're out,

"Bloody 'ell, Atton?"

[stuck-mynock.livejournal.com]

Atton groans.

"Will, punch Guppy," he mumbles, dazedly. Behind them, there's a flare of light from the passage as the lights blow out and the field fades.

[guppy_sandhu]

"'m sorry." Guppy says, lying down on his back to avoid the feelings of nausea and faintness.

"I thought Will might dive in and fall and I wouldn't be able to get both of you out and Will is stronger than me so if I'd gone down he might have been able to..." he says, his eyes filling with tears that he tries to blink back.

He rolls back onto his front, crawls a few feet away from them, and throws up.