applesaucedream | Encampment Under the Sea [Open to All]

Encampment Under the Sea [Open to All]

photo encampmentunderthesea_zps98ceddce.jpg

Since the dreamers of Manhattan had such a lovely time at the last vaguely-nautical-themed party, the Rift has decided to step things up a notch. Tonight, the dreamers will find themselves in what appears to be a city very much like the one they inhabit in the waking world, full of towering skyscrapers, neon signs, and heavy traffic. But there is one rather crucial difference: this city is located deep underwater, and the aforementioned traffic is mostly whales and fish, with the occasional submersible thrown into the mix.

The walls and windows are heavily reinforced to withstand the pressure of the water outside, and the people who dwell in these buildings seem to be doing rather well for themselves, for the most part. Buildings are connected by enclosed walkways, so barring any horrible accidents, the dreamers should have no problem getting around without getting too wet.

Much like the city they inhabit in the waking world, some areas are more obviously affluent than others, and the dreamers are as likely to stumble upon an upscale club as an underwater pub. But while the chances of a full structural breakdown are slim, there are definitely some areas that are on the leaky side, and a general sense of claustrophobia pervades the city wherever you might find yourself.

Explore. Or, if you're feeling particularly ambitious, attempt to escape. Either way, take care - it's hard to say what might be lurking in the darkness just beyond the city lights.

[ooc: Y'all know the drill. All characters are welcome, whether they are in the game or not. Characters can remember or forget the events of the dreaming at the player's discretion. And the party never stops - backtag into infinity!]

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Morbid humour, that Seth can do. That's nice and familiar. He scoots up next to Daniel, listening to him talk, not saying anything but at least noticeably softening at his words.

Well, until Daniel mentions the morphine again, and Seth tenses up just a little, eyes flicking to the kit still lying on the floor. It would be great if he could forget the existence of it for at least five minutes or something. He reaches up and rubs at his arm again.

"Well, it's the thought that counts, and all that," he answers, once he realises Daniel is done talking for the moment.

The drugs are wearing off in earnest now, thankfully, leaving Daniel observant enough to see Seth shoot a look at the morphine kit once he mentions it. The gesture is just as ambiguous in meaning as it is in context. He files it away.

"Well, we were lucky that you had that with you." He inclines his chin at the kit. "Even luckier that it wasn't washed away. If only my glasses were so lucky." He smirks wryly and lets his head thump back to rest against the wall, using the motion to shove all the worries and issues with self-worth and Seth and stupid heroics and unsanitary, ill-advised blood transfusions out of the forefront. "God, what a day."

Seth smiles bitterly and gives Daniel's shoulder a comforting pat. He's not sure if he could be trying to move his arms as little as possible, or if he needs to make sure they don't stiffen up.

"Well, if it helps, the whole blood-stained shirt and stomach wound goes a lot better with the broad-shouldered action hero look you've got going on, more than the glasses did," he jokes tiredly. Though Daniel does look a bit like a different person with them. They did really do a lot for the studious look.

"Truly a relief to know that even when I've been impaled, my machismo remains willfully intact," he answers drolly. Seth is talking and smiling and joking again, even if it's all still pretty well steeped in the realm of gallows humor, and that's a step forward. "I was worried about that."

Seth snorts gently at that. "Pretty sure you never have to worry about that, mate," he answers. God, he wishes he had a beer or something. Something to do with his hands. And something to take the edge off. Somewhere amidst the exhaustion, hunger is starting to make itself known too.

He sighs and reaches up to rub his eyes. "So, what are we gonna do?" Yeah, for actual planning, Seth is just going to look to the one who's actually with the military and has been exploring alien planets. His plans are usually more like 'make it up as you go and hope for the best' most of the time.

"Well, ideally, we should find a way out. Call me paranoid, but I don't think 'underwater concrete maze' exactly screams 'safe'."

He looks up and around as he says it, studying the building's interior. He still has no idea what sort of purpose this place must have. Or had. It seems abandoned now, which is perhaps why it doesn't have an obvious function.

"Then, if our luck hasn't run out by then, we can find someplace that is safe." He adjusts his position against the wall and winces. "Preferably with a greater variety in medical help than just morphine. No offense."

"Yeah, unfortunately I don't walk around with a full first-aid kit," he answers with a sigh. And even if he'd had one in the room he woke up in, yeah, he wouldn't have brought that while he was busy drowning.

"Not sure we're going to be able to do anything about the 'underwater' thing, though. I can't see the surface." It's hard to tell exactly how far down they are though, since the light from the surrounding structures make it difficult to tell if they're getting light from above. But on the plus side, it seems to be a pretty huge location, which means just because this place is deserted doesn't mean they'll find people elsewhere. There's still light on, after all. Something's gotta run this place.

"So phasing out to try and swim up would probably be a bad call." That had been next on his conjectural list of suggestions, an option he has now nixed.

"Whatever we decide to do, I'd like to suggest a minimum of walking. Or drowning. Or impaling." With an emphasis on the latter. The morphine's almost assuredly fading out of his system by now; what used to be a bearable throbbing at his stomach is steadily ratcheting up in intensity. He curls one hand over the injury. It might not feel like his insides are in danger of spilling out anymore, but damn if it doesn't still sting.

"Agreed," he answers with a nod. Really just a minimum of pain and injury and terror in general. They'll just have to see if they can actually manage to stick to that plan.

"And yeah, bad call, especially since I can't swim," he adds, figuring Daniel should know this if they keep getting into these situations where water and drowning is a possibility. Which... does not seem entirely unlikely.

Daniel looks up at that, mildly surprised. That's a factor he hadn't taken into account. The basics of swimming and treading water had been right up there with learning how to load and fire a Beretta. He makes a mental note to, assuming they get out of this alive, address this at a later point.

"Well, you did a good job keeping us both alive, considering." Considering it had been a massive amount of water coming at them, considering Daniel hadn't been able to swim, much less move or think or be in any way useful, considering they were lost in a place with gray never-ending walls, considering Seth had had nothing but his phasing power to keep them both afloat.

Considering all that.

Edited 2014-10-03 20:00 (UTC)

"Amazing what panicked kicking and flailing can do, huh?" he answers with a small smile. At the time he'd been pretty worried whether he was even managing to keep Daniel's head above water, but thankfully he had not had to keep trying for all that long.

He sighs and decides he should at least look around a little now Daniel is back to himself. He reaches over and packs up his kit so he can take it with him, then gets to his feet. A little too quickly, it turns out, because he has a moment of lightheadedness and has to reach out and steady himself against the wall.

"Take it easy," Daniel cautions, cringing. "You all right there?"

Seth has lost a lot of blood, no thanks to his improvised transfusion, and just because he's in better external condition doesn't mean he should actually be moving around. Daniel wishes he could stand to help but he's still in decommission from his last failed attempt. One hand still jumps up, palm out, as if simply holding it there will be enough to steady his friend.

"Yeah," he answers after a moment, nodding. "Just.. don't plan to be running any marathons any time soon."

At least his legs are in slightly better than condition than his arms, so as long as he doesn't overexert himself, he should be fine to walk around. Just tired and stiff, achy knees from slamming them into the floor, but still less painful than when he tries to use his arms.

"I'm just gonna look what's around," he adds, heading towards one of the doors. There's three of them here, and they appear to open outwards. That's good, at least. If there's water on the other side, Seth simply won't be able to open it, so no chance of it rushing at them. The first one he tries has exactly that result - either locked, or just blocked. And he's not about to try shoving it open.

"Careful," Daniel says, just for good measure. It's redundant at this point, but he's still guilty over how poorly he handled his life getting saved.

He's also examining the doors - as best he can at this distance with no glasses, anyway - and they look an awful lot like the pressurized sorts of doors that people put on airlocks. To separate themselves from horrible imminent death.

"You sure that's a good idea?"

"Well..." he answers slowly. "We sort of have limited options." He turns and leans against the door, sighing. He wants to be cautious, but at the same time, they can't actually stay here forever.

"I could stick my head through the wall again, but... I mean, it's kind of exhausting to do a lot," he admits. It is a possibility, if there are simply no other options, but he doesn't want to use it so much he completely runs out what energy he has left in him.

"And also you could die," Daniel adds, lending special emphasis to the last word. "If there's more water on the other side or something...worse?"

He wets his lips and goes over their options, which there really aren't that many of. Option A would be to stay here, though that's not advisable. Option B would be to go back the way they came but, seeing as that place is probably swamped with water by now, that doesn't look to be a viable solution either.

Leaving Option C.

The infallible third route.

He ducks his head and makes a muted well, get on with it motion with one hand. Seth's right - they don't have any other choice.

Delightful.

Seth moves on to the second door, which proves to be just as unopenable. He sighs and crosses the room towards the third and last door, which does open.

He doesn't leave Daniel, just looks through the door. There's a wide, spiral staircase, going both up and down. He can't say he looks forward to walking up stairs, and Daniel certainly won't, but at the same time he's not sure he'd be overly enthusiastic about being in an elevator either, judging by the state of this place.

"There's a staircase," he says, turning back to Daniel. "Not sure how far it goes, but I'm guessing there'll be less water the further up we go."

"Stairs?" Daniel looks up at Seth, then down at his injury. Then back at Seth. Then down at his injury. Then back at Seth. "Oof."

Stairs don't sound like fun. Walking in general doesn't sound like fun, but neither does sitting here and waiting for the water or something worse to catch up to them.

"Well, it's now or never." He pauses. "Er, I guess not, actually but - you know, never mind. Just let me - " He plants one hand on the wall, grunting at the onset of pain that single action brings, and braces himself. And begins his slow, agonizing ascent, inching upward and practically clinging to the wall for support and trying not to think about how much it feels like his abdominal muscles are tearing with each movement.

Seth hurries over to help Daniel up. Given the state he's in himself though, and how huge Daniel is, it's not like he can properly lift him or anything, just help and give him some support. That'll have to be good enough.

"Just lean on me, we'll take our time, yeah?" he says, putting his arm around Daniel's back, careful to avoid the wound there.

"Oh, yeah. Time. We're taking it. It's good." And that's about all the words Daniel has the lung capacity for at the moment, strained and torn and with more effort than he's altogether comfortable with. He leans on Seth as much as he dares - which isn't much, what with how bad a condition they're both in - and lets the wall take the rest.

He's blinking alarmingly bright spots out of his vision by the time he's fully upright, but he still lifts his eyebrows and grins at the success, exhausted and vaguely triumphant.

"Stairs don't stand a chance," he announces with far more confidence than he's feeling. His whole lower half feels sore and shaky and he'd probably pitch over sideways if he dared let go of the wall (which he does not) but he's chosen to read this as a victory. He turns to Seth, panting.

"Shall we?"

Seth frowns in sympathy, wishing this were easier, or that either of them felt safe enough to stick around longer so they could rest a little. But at least they're not currently fighting the flood. Small mercies.

"We shall," he agrees, trying to sound more optimistic than he feels. He heads towards the door at a pretty slow rate, mostly letting Daniel set the speed, and not moving away from the wall. Putting one foot in front of the other probably isn't as hard, but it's going to be a pain actually braving stairs and having to move vertically as well. Funny how much further everything seems when you move at this speed.

Moving faster than this would be ideal, but Daniel doesn't think he's capable of a very broad range of movement. And tempted as he is to urge Seth to move ahead and let him catch up (hopefully without any undue dramatic pleading from either party), Seth's reaction to the earlier suggestion that he should have left Daniel in the first place has pretty severely nipped that option in the bud.

It feels like an age before they finally reach the doorway and Daniel has to take a minute. He leans against the doorway and examines their chosen route, taking note of the stairway's construction, its wide steps and sickeningly corkscrew-like design, constricting their view of everything other than what is directly in front or behind them.

"Wonderful," Daniel comments between panting and trying not to crumple under the effort of standing for so long. "Up, then? And hopefully, uh, away."

"Yup," Seth answers, looking up the stairs, even though there isn't much to see except for stone steps and stone walls. "Hopefully the further up we go, the less damage there is, and the closer we get to civilization... Maybe the reason we've got all this water coming our way is cause they're draining it to the lower levels. That makes sense, right?"

He rolls his shoulders back, his body protesting to supporting Daniel's weight, but he refuses to consider other options. They're not in a good enough state that splitting up would be safe. Especially since they have no way to communicate.

"Mm-hm." That's about all he feels capable of vocalizing at the present time, too preoccupied trying to prepare himself for the daunting and no doubt intensely painful task of getting up an unknown number of stairs while injured.

No point in putting it off. The first step burns like hell and the second is even worse and their progress is achingly, tediously slow. Not to mention aching in just about every other way possible. This much movement has already made him faintly light-headed again and he's started trembling on top of it.

"Anytime you wanna take a breather," he hisses out by the third step, "would be okay."

Seth walks a little ahead of Daniel, so he can help lift him onto the next step each time. Which he seems to be doing more and more for each step.

"Come on, let's make it to the fifth step first," he says encouragingly, making an effort to keep his voice from sounding pained, his own legs and shoulders and arms aching, but surely nowhere near how much pain Daniel must be in. "We can make it to the next floor, I'll go in and see what's there, maybe we won't even need to go further up."

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