vivarium | CALHOUN HOUR

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CALHOUN HOUR - ESCAPE

When characters begin to wake up, instead of finding themselves in the usual warehouse, they will instead find themselves in an a very unfamiliar area. Maybe they'll wake up alone, or maybe they'll wake up with someone else. Either way, the biggest point is that they're in God-knows-where and it's the start of a new Calhoun Hour.

Within seconds later, a familiar voice booms throughout the loud speakers.

"Ahem, testing, testing! Hello, can you all hear me?"

It's, without a doubt, your favourite robotic mouse, Calhoun. As usual, he sounds a cheery as ever.

"Wow, isn't this familiar? It's almost like the first time we've met, you know. Test subject in a new location, maybe alone or maybe with someone else, my charming voice rings throughout the room, trying to drown you all in an elevator. Good times!"

"Well, anyway, welcome to your new Calhoun Hour! You can see that I've taken the liberty to move you all to a more suitable location. You may not know it, with how small your brains are, but you're all stuck in a maze! I've had my fair share of running around in mazes, you know, being a mouse and all, so I want to return to favour to you humans! So, you know the drill: explore, look around, try to escape, blah blah blah, I don't need to explain all this! Just get to it! Who knows, maybe the exit here is an exit out to the real world. I might be generous like that, if you manage to find it. If not, well, I guess you can all starve here!"

He snickers, then pauses. Suddenly, a loud gunshot-like sound rings throughout the speakers, and Calhoun screams again.

"Let's get started!"

BASIC INFO ✖ ESCAPE ✖ POST-EVENT MINGLE ✖ TURN-IN

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"Ha, yeah! It must be shakin' in its boots since -- " But Heiji never had a chance to finish his sentence because an eight-armed menace suddenly launched itself across the floor and grabbed his ankle from under one of the tank displays. He tripped and barely managed to avoid falling flat on his face as he hit the ground.

IT HAD BEEN WAITING

IT USED ITS INK AS A DISTRACTION AND SOMEHOW QUIETLY SNUCK OUT WHEN THEY DROPPED THEIR GUARD

"H-Heiji!" THEY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN fucking octopi are way too smart, they juggle crabs and shit, they never stood a chance against it.

Hershel really wasn't sure how to help with this situation so he tried stomping on the tentacle grabbing at Heiji, muttering a sorry to the poor, murderous thing and hoping they could just. escape. maybe to the other side of the room before anyone got inked in the face or drowned or whatever the creature had planned.

Heiji, meanwhile, was taking a less apologetic approach to this problem, pulling out his switchblade and knifing the octopus. Unfortunately, he apparently hit its ink pouch or something, because now ink was just EVERYWHERE.

"What is this thing's problem?!"

"Oh for-" Heiji. Hershel tried to cover his face, taking a step blindly and, like the champion he is in his heart, stepping on one of the things tentacles and falling rather spectacularly on his back.

"Oof-" Is all he has to say to that, trying to kick the thing away. His pants were probably now covered in ink, why not, right? Why not. "It has to be dead by this point!"

This was kind of a disaster, but you know what. Heiji wasn't going to take chances. He hurled the octopus into another tank -- one that had a rather large predatory fish swimming around (could it be a shark maybe it was a shark).

The fish snapped up several of the octopus's legs in one bite and then a truly epic battle began.

Heiji made his way shakily to his feet and held out a hand to Hershel. "You okay?"

Absolutely it's a shark, why the hell not, they're fighting an octopus. There is no god here.

Hershel stared at the tank for a moment, jesus discover channel shit much, before lifting a hand to find it covered in ink. He sighed- oh well, at least it wasn't like he was going to tea with the Queen or anything, before glancing over at Heiji and his offered hand.

He couldn't help a small laugh after a moment, shaking his head and taking Heiji's hand to help pull himself up. "For goodness's sake, how did we almost get beaten by a sea creature?" Skill, basically. His humor faded somewhat. "I'm alright, bit of a mess though- what about you?"

"Just a little messy, I guess," said Heiji. He looked around just in case there were some other threats lurking about, but aside from the sharktopus gladiatorial match, the coast looked clear.

"I can't believe that thing was still after us. C'mon, let's keep going. This room's pretty big; maybe we'll find some clues or somethin'."

"Do you think it will survive... that?" Hershel really isn't sure he believed what he was seeing in this epic fight over there. Would they ever get to see their friend the vengeful octopus again after this? Stay tuned...

Taking a step away from the ink mess was probably the best thing to do. "Agreed. You know this is a rather lovely room besides... all of that." He mentioned, heading down and pausing when he noticed something on the ground. He kneeled, picking it up to examine... really, really stale bread? He looked puzzled but turned to hold it out to Heiji so he could get a look.

Heiji looked back at the octopus-shark battle, but before he could answer Hershel's question, the shark gobbled the octopus up whole. It patrolled angrily around the tank then, as if irritated that its latest meal had been so argumentative.

"No one could survive that," Heiji said, unknowingly stumbling on like the biggest movie cliche ever. One day...

He took one of the bread crumbs from Hershel. "Hey, that's a pond up there, ain't it? Maybe there's some more fish! I sure don't see any ducks."

Hershel let out a soft sigh, feeling torn. "Goodbye, octopus. You were a tough sort, for an intended meal." He said to the tank. Truly that was it and they'd never have to deal with that enemy again.

"Oh, yes-" He walked over to the pond, kneeling a bit to get a good look before sounding rather pleased. "Ah, come look, Heiji, I think it's a koi pond. Lovely little things, aren't they?"

"Seriously?" Heiji hopped on over and bent down over the water. "Hey, check it out!"

He tossed his bread crumb in the water. "See that one with the big red spot on its head? That's a Tancho. And that yellow and white one over there's a Doitsu koi. It's a crossbreed between a Japanese koi and a German black carp. You can tell by how orderly its scales are."

"Strange, isn't it? I don't think you eat koi, so this might just be for decoration." It was nice though, so Hershel didn't have any complaints.

He listened to Heiji's explanation, smiling as he tossed a few breadcrumbs in watched them go nuts about it. "Somehow I'm not surprised you know trivia about koi." He said in amusement, glancing over. "What about that one? It looks like the Tancho a tad." He pointed towards a kohaku that was probably being a greedy little bastard and sticking it's head towards them to get more chow.

"Yeah, you don't eat 'em. Although some of the other fish here... wonder if we could haul one outta here and cook it over a campfire." He was really, really tempted to try.

"That one's a Kohaku, and the one it's bullyin' off to the side with the white, orange, and black is a Sanke. I'm surprised they got somethin' like this in here; looking after all these fish has gotta take some time."

... honestly he kind of was too. "If only we had something to make a campfire with." That would have actually been pretty amazing, even if gutting a fish was gross. Worth it for real food.

"I guess Zero must like koi." He mused after a moment, throwing another piece of bread in. "It's strange to think of, isn't it? That Zero would have such a normal hobby." Seeing as they're a piece of shit monster, probably.

"Well, Jake made that campfire before, right? In the garden. I bet he could make another one." Eyeing those fish, man. How long had it been since he'd had a sweetfish or a mackerel?

"Anyway, he's got about a hundred weirdo hobbies. Figure he's gotta have at least one normal one. Heiji tossed a few more crumbs in and watching as the fish inhaled them greedily.

"... If we could find Jake and something safe to burn, somewhere where the smoke wouldn't collect-" They could live the dream. They could do it. He sighed after a moment. "Though finding Jake in this is probably much easier dreamt about than done."

Ah well. He turned his thoughts back to the koi, head tilting. "Does Osaka have a lot of ponds like this?" He asked after a moment, throwing the last of his horrible stale bread in to watch them go nuts. "I'd like to see that one day."

"And we gotta kind of keep it quiet around Sasuke. He's weird about those trees, y'know. Gave me kind of a hard time about the bokutou." His name was Sasuke, he spoke for the trees...

Heiji laughed. "Yeah, old guys like to keep 'em. Gives 'em something to do in their retirement. I guess that's one more thing we gotta do when you visit."

"Well you probably shouldn't have gone and broken a tree branch like that. You're lucky Calhoun did get out the foghorn again." Hershel answered, less troubled by the tree mangling than Sasuke of the Forest was apparently.

"I wonder if that makes Zero an old guy. I'll be a bit cross if harassing us is a retirement hobby." He said dryly, standing straight now that he had nothing to feed these assholes. "You know I remembered something in my room, this big map on the wall with a bunch of places I wanted to go. I think Japan was on there, probably someplace more obvious like Tokyo though, rather than Osaka."

Heiji put a hand over Hershel's mouth. "Listen, I didn't break it, okay? It was practically fallin' off already! And it was a total coincidence that I just happened to be around when it finally did."

SHHH Hershel god you were the literal worst at secrets.

"Tokyo?" He sounded annoyed. "Everyone goes there. But I'm tellin' ya, the Kansai area's the place to go. It's so crowded out in Tokyo, like they're always havin' a festival or something."

Edited 2014-12-15 20:35 (UTC)

Hershel just gave him a look with his mouth covered like that, one that said 'uh huh, sure,' but when he got his voice back he replied dryly. "Ah, yes of course, silly me to forget. Did you finish that little project of your yet?"

Look who's talking, dude, but yeah okay he's pretty terrible at it can't deny that.

And he couldn't help but look amused at Heiji's annoyance. "Heiji, I promise Osaka's going on the map now, infact it'll be the first place I try to visit. After all you've had to say about it I can't imagine going somewhere else first." Heiji Hattori, the entirety of the Osaka Tourism Department.

"It's looking a lot closer to the end product, but I still need to work on it a little more. Plus, I need to make sure it doesn't put out a ton of splinters." Too bad they didn't have sandpaper available, but Heiji would work with it.

He looked mollified at the fact that Hershel had moved Osaka up to the top of the list. "Well, of course it's gotta be number one! Though you can still go to Tokyo and all; it's only a couple hours by bullet train. I'd kinda wanna visit Stansbury, but I guess you might not wanna go back there..."

"A shame we don't have sandpaper or something like it... you could try wrapping the handle some, I have some spare cloth if you need it." Usually used for bandages but hey, good cause.

"I'd like to see Sasuke's school at least, the way he makes it sound it must be very lovely. Maybe after Osaka then? You could come with me, if Sasuke would want us visiting, of course." Hershel honestly hadn't thought anywhere too close to Tokyo could have a school with so much tree action, it sounded pretty awesome. And he nodded. "I'd like to go back to Stansbury too, if only to see how Randall and Angela are doing. Whatever happened with this boy must have been hard on them, I'm under the impression they lived in Stansbury far longer than I did." Haha. "It's a lovely place though, very rural, probably not as exciting as your motorcycle chases and jewel thieves though."

"Huh? Why wouldn't he want us to visit?" And the real question: could Sasuke stop them even if he didn't want them to see his school?

"Rural towns've got their own charm. Was it a fishing town? Farming, maybe? I bet you could still get a motorcycle, even way out there. Course, you'd have to find a mechanic or maintain it yourself..." God the minute Heiji got back he was going to get a new ride, for real. Then WATCH OUT, CRIMINALS.

Answer: he absolutely could not stop them in a million years. "Well, he's a private sort, maybe he'd prefer we didn't barge in." Hershel tried. Again, too bad for Sasuke if that's true, never gonna not happen.

"I'm not sure..." Hershel crossed his arms as he tried to think it all over from his memories. "I don't think it was a farming village, maybe a little... ah, well, there were some ruins and such nearby? Like the ones Randall and I explored. Maybe it relied on tourism to some extent." He offered, looking amused again. "I think I'll pass on buying a motorcycle, that's a little too dangerous for my blood." Unlike Heiji and his criminal hunts.

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CALHOUN HOUR - ESCAPE

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