vivarium | CALHOUN HOUR

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CALHOUN HOUR - SURVIVOR

At the crack of dawn, presumably, Calhoun gathers everyone in the first floor warehouse to make an announcement.

"That's right, it's time for another of my special events!" He seems pretty pleased with himself. "I noticed you lazy, fat test subjects really let yourselves go last round! It's like I don't feed you here or something."

"Well, I'm worried about your health, always lazing about and not getting proper exercise. So, I decided to be the change I want to see in the world, and so we're going to do something a littttttttllllllle different this time."

"To stop you guys from getting soft from all the fun you're having here, it's time for a little workout."

From one of the doors Calhoun never lets anyone go through there's a loud, metallic banging sound repeating, as if something is trying to get out. Calhoun does not seem troubled at all by this. In fact, he seems pretty excited.

"The rules are simple, everyone's getting sixty coins to use as they see fit. You'll notice the vending machines on both warehouse floors. Anyone who isn't caught will even get a memory back." But what does that mean?

"So go on, survive for 23 hours, I'll even give you a five minute head start. Good luck!"

And with that he scurries off. Should people hang around they'll get to witness that same door open five minutes later. From the door comes several figures, human in shape but something is very, very wrong.

They seem to be robotic, skeletal humans. At one point they must have had some synthetic skin over them but most of it seems to be melting or ripped off. They don't move very fast, mostly they shamble about until they focus on a target. Better hope it's not you!

BASIC INFO ✖ FIRST TEN HOURS ✖ LAST HOURS ✖ POST EVENT MINGLE

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He nodded. "Alright. I guess the first step's getting there, then. I think as long as we're quiet, we should be okay." Heiji was just going to use his trusty shovel for this one, because while it wasn't a distance weapon, it was still insulated from electric shock. Besides, he was pretty sure of his kendo skills.

"C'mon, follow me." And with that, he was off in the direction of the Infirmary.

Another nod, and Sasuke will follow silently.

He's never been in the Infirmary before... It must have been for the round before he arrived. But-- wait, if it's the infirmary, just what are the weapons Heiji is talking about? Scalpels?

He rotates his wrists a little as they move, just enough to loosen them up a bit. Who knew if it would help, but hopefully it wouldn't hurt.

Once they were at the Infirmary, Heiji took a quick look around to see if everything was in place. Creepy dolls to the side, check. Three beds of varying degrees of stabbed or burned, check.

Under one of the beds, he started pulling from the small pile of knives. "Good; they're still here. Dunno why they just left all of 'em in here, but just be sure not to touch the dolls or anything, okay?"

...Wow, it really is a pile of weapons. Was Calhoun hoping they'd all stab each other or something?

"Got it." He'll crouch by Heiji's side and refrain from touching anything - knives included, unless Heiji hands them to him. "Were these... part of the puzzle, somehow?"

"Nah," said Heiji. "I think they're just here for flavor, if ya could believe that. Be nice if there was an easier way to carry 'em outta here though. Oh, I got it!"

He took one of the sheets off the bed and tore it into a long strip, so that they could wrap the knives up -- blade to blade, tip to tip. It wasn't ideal, but since they didn't have anything else to work with, maybe it was the best they could ask for. Heiji picked up one of the scalpels lying around in the room, too. Kind of flimsy for robot-fighting, but... maybe one day a black market doctor would show up who played by his own set of rules.

"Okay, so. I'm thinkin' the place we should start out is the Gallery. You've been there, right?"

Lovely. Well, Heiji's probably one of the least likely folks in the whole warehouse to stab someone, so if anyone should have a whole set of knives plus a scalpel, it might as well be him.

"Yeah-- it was my first puzzle room." And also by far the worst one, even including the Music Room. Every. Single. Painting. Jake and Piper, why. "What are you planning to do in there?"

Heiji winked at Sasuke. "Oh, not much. I just wanna see them traps work for us for a change. So. My team ain't set off all the traps in there. You know what each of the paintings do?"

Maybe they could compare notes!

The wince probably says enough by itself.

"...The first one we set off was pepper spray. After that was a spray of needles - they must have been tipped with a mild poison, since I got hit by one and it make me feel sick right away. After that was sleeping gas, but I have no idea how long it puts you out for. Calhoun was the one who woke us up after a while." In a way, the sleeping gas had been kind of nice since the pepper spray's effects had more or less worn off by the time he was up again.

Heiji stopped and uh... "You set off all of 'em?" How did you guys even.

"...Well, okay, none of those sound really helpful against robots, but that's --" He fell abruptly quiet as he caught the clattering sound of a robot making its way down the hall. It was out of sight, maybe coming in or out of one of the nearby rooms. With any luck, it wouldn't come this way...

Jake and Piper are just truly magical people, that's all. The moment he hears the robot, he ducks down even further, his entire body tense as he holds his breath. He keeps his head slightly cocked, listening intently to try to determine the robot's movements based on the sound of its footsteps. If it does come inside, they might be able to move quickly enough to get a head start...

But instead, the robot clanked off down another hallway. Heiji let out a breath as its footsteps receded away from them.

"I hate those things," he muttered. "C'mon, let's keep going."

No need to tell him twice. Without a word, he quietly begins to move, heading for the Gallery - but not without cautiously checking to make sure there are no robots in the vicinity first.

The coast is clear for now... They'll have to hope it stays that way as they move along.

Once they were in the room, Heiji relaxed a bit. "Okay, so here's the plan. We'll lure one of them robots in here and get them to attack that white statue. It's got a pretty powerful grip, and it's heavy. So it should be able to hold the thing down while ya try a bit of target practice."

Easy peasy, right?

Easy peasy... if they can get it caught in the statue. And if his aim proves true. But they've come this far, so backing out isn't much of an option anymore. He'll give another one of his usual short nods.

"Do you want me to lure it, or...?"

Heiji shook his head and handed Sasuke one of the knives. "Can't let you take all the risk, right? Just stay outta the immediate line of sight. I got a bunch of that rotten meat, so I'll use that to attract one of them."

After checking that the white statue was still intact, he went over to the door and looked around, placing a piece or two of the meat in one of the hallway intersections. The faint clanking of robotic feet grew louder, but Heiji waited out of sight until the robot shambled past the small blind spot in which he was hiding.

There was an exposed area on its back, near the area of its waist, where he could clearly see a cluster of old wires. Heiji thrust the blade of the shovel into the junction, knocking the robot temporarily out of its normal balance. Then he ran, straight down to the Gallery, with the robot lurching after him. Its arms pinwheeled crazily through the air, probably a side effect of the damage to its wiring.

It clanged into the doorway, then surged after Heiji, who had assumed a defensive stance in front of the white statue.

Sasuke himself picks a spot behind the dividing wall, waiting until Heiji has left to do a quick test without actually releasing the blade. As with kendo, there was the odd sensation of familiarity as he shifted into the stance, his grip on the blade immediately switching to a more comfortable one for throwing.

...And quickly went back to a neutral one, feeling vaguely disturbed as he allowed his grip on the knife to loosen. What a thing to know...

Once Heiji reenters the room, he's on the alert, the knife held low at his side for now. He's going to be sure the robot is in range before he even readies to throw, whether it puts him at a slight disadvantage or not.

The robot lunged for Heiji, who quickly stepped aside, allowing the robot to barrel straight into the sheet covering the statue's body. Immediately, the statue grabbed for the robot, catching it by the neck (or what passed for a neck on a robot, anyway). The machine beat furiously at the statue, but it was made of stone and thus rather more sturdy than Heiji and Sasuke would have been.

"We're ready!" said Heiji, backing off a little so that he was out of Sasuke's immediate line of sight. "Try and aim for one of those exposed bits!"

That's his cue. He quickly snaps an arm up to throw, the knife not even having the chance to complete a spin before it embeds itself in the wiring at its waist. It's hard to say which one, exactly, but apparently something important is severed, because the robot begins to spasm for a moment before short-circuiting completely.

Victory?

The statue released the robot, which fell to the ground with a thunk.

"What? Was that it?" Heiji actually sounded a little disappointed as he prodded the robot with his shoe. "Guess they don't make them mechanical menaces like they used to."

Before he could say any more, however, the now-familiar clanking sound of more robots began to approach from the hall outside...

Hey, isn't it supposed to be a good thing they were able to stop it? Though he's pretty sure at least part of it was luck...

And then there's that sound. He looks predictably alarmed by the sound of multiple robots coming all at once.

"Don't tell me... are they-?"

Heiji tossed Sasuke another knife. "You know... I think we should probably get outta here."

The door burst open, though it was certainly not wide enough to admit several robots at once. When they tried to enter, they got wedged in the doorway. Improbably, one of the more broken-down ones started flailing at the others, making it more difficult for them to get through.

He catches the knife with ease, peering around the wall at the robots now blocking the door. Wow, yeah, no, let's not even. Rather than deal with that, he'll make a break for the other exit - hopefully there aren't robots waiting there too.

FAST BREAK

It looked like there weren't any robots down the hall, but they really didn't have any choice either way, so out the exit it was! A robot popped its head out around a corner as they were making a break for it; Heiji swung hard with his shovel and partially caved its head in. Let's see, from here, where could they get to...?

"The Garden!" said Heiji. "Let's see if we can knock a couple of these guys into the water!"

"Even though the creek's so shallow?" However, Sasuke will obligingly change course for the garden, his sprint swift. If they were going to short out the robots, they'd need a lot of water--

Oh. "You mean the waterfall?" That would be the obvious option, wouldn't it.

"Worth a try," said Heiji, casting a quick glance over his shoulder as the first of the pursuing robots tripped over the one he'd hit. It seemed like several of them were not actually pursuing them, however, and instead moving off in a different direction. For what reason, Heiji could only guess -- maybe there was another test subject nearby?

Regardless, it was something in their favor as they approached the Garden.

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