Everyone in the hallway: Read Taarkara's turn, you see what Taarkara sees as well.
Duh? stretches, then gets up and does a few gentle exercises, testing how his body feels.
If he finds he feels bad and just getting up was taxing, it's bad to bed for more rest. Otherwise:
If he still thinks he has energy and seems reasonably well, he'll think a thought of thanks to the invisible animals he can't even continue to see in his mind's eye, and laugh to himself about how he can't even sleep, make a decent candle, make a bed....
Which reminds him. He takes another moment to make this laid-in bed again, then turns to the door and sees about opening it, with or without that key. He's taking his candle holder, its candle stub, and his hand-made candle in case he needs a second, as he doesn't know how lit the space past this door may be, if he can even get through it.
But if he can, he'll open the door and look outside, ready to close the door should anything unfortunate happen or be noticeable out there.
Stretching and performing a few gentle exercises, Duh? finds himself feeling not only fine but better than fine.
More flexible than he remembered, with comfortable, fine control over his movements and an impressive range of motion.
He doesn't seem to be any stronger or anything, but the level of control and comfort is significantly better and he finds himself able to push his strength just a little further as a result.
Whatever was up with him, right now he's in peak condition.
Giving a sad half-chuckle at his previous actions, he makes his bed again.
This starts out poorly, the tears from before having grown during his brief use of the bed, but after some careful attention he manages to hide the worst of it by swapping the sheet around and covering the tears.
It isn't actually going to be the most comfortable with this much of the sheet tucked away, but it looks decent now.
Afterwards, he confirms he still has his pocketed piece of wax-soaked cloth, then takes the lit candle in it's candlestand and the key.
Briefly trying the handle to confirm it is locked, he uses the key to unlock it, and steps out, finding himself in the same corridor as everyone else found outside their doors, his door being one of the most ordinary doors of the lot.
Esselez
That was a strange experience. Does it work on anything else?
Esselez puts the tiny key into the doll's dress pocket, and puts the doll down on the bed. Then she touches the candlestand on the table, visualizing... being a candle? Being fire?
Gently placing the key into the doll's dress pocket, Esselez then sets it comfortably on the bed and attempts to repeat whatever process had caused her to possess the doll before, this time with the lit candle.
Nothing happens.
She tries with the candle. Tries with the candlestand. Tries with the flame. Nothing.
She gets frustrated, she demands it to be an extention of herself, she tries giving it verbal encouragement, pleading with it, threatening it. Nothing.
She is unable to become the candle.
Taarkara turned around. She'd noticed the noise before but she didn't turn around. She saw the black cat and flew into the air, coin in talon. {Get away from me!} and a bunch of curse words in crow. Taarkara panicked then realized that soon she'll tire and the cat will eat her. So she waved her talons around in panic, hoping that the arch could be perched on, and wishing that a hole would magically appear before her.
Taarkara's panic at the feline sighted behind her has a rather direct effect, as the floor before and beneath her gives a quiet slithering hiss and opens wide into a gaping circular maw as wide as the corridor itself and lined with at least twenty concentric rings of large hooked teeth with an infinite, unending darkness and void at the center.
Curling out from behind the bottommost ring of teeth a set of three tendril-like tentacles rise up extend out into the hallway, searching, feeling, for whatever might be near, and Taarkara can even see the suckers at these tendrils ends and the single thin barbed spike extending from each sucker's center, all to help it maintain a grip on its prey.
"Let's see where the hell we are, then," Val mutters, half to himself and half to the lizard. He opens the door carefully.
Val slowly opens the door and takes a peek outside, finding the same hallway as everyone else has found.
Before he can go out into the hallway, he feels claws gripping his leg, which when he looks down is revealed to be his newborn companion.
Said companion is climbing up his leg and back, its claws scratching at him mildly but not really digging in, stinging and scratching but not giving him real injury, and its weight upon him isn't too bad though it's a little uncomfortable.
((This wasn’t supposed to happen, but to not meander in the same hallway…))
If one of her captors is willing to talk to her, there is little point postponing it. Better to learn enemy’s face and intentions firsthand than to keep jumping at shadows. But even then, in such strange a place, how can she be sure what is only a “shadow”?
Knock three times and enter, but not before taking a look at other doors nearby.
Looking at the other nearby doors, Hireshite finds they're all labeled in one way or another, but none with words she recognizes, possibly names, possibly another language. Each door has a unique, personalized design, and unlike the doors from the side of the arch she'd woken up on, none of these doors have locks.
Knocking three times, she hears a droll bored voice issue a single command.
"Enter"Upon entering, she finds herself in an ornate, gothic-style throne room of grey marble lit from overhead by a series of silver chaneldiers.
There are a series of columns on either side, with a single red carpet leading directly from the door to the throne ahead.
The throne is atop a small rise, with stairs spanning the width of the room and a circular outjutting just in front of the throne itself.
Said throne is a simple, high-backed and angular affair, apparently made of the same marble as the room itself, and possibly sculpted in place as part of it.
Behind the throne is a series of what appears to be tall stained glass windows with black panes, and a quick glance to the sides reveals similar smaller ones placed high on the walls and evenly spaced throughout the chamber.
In fact, this chamber seems to be large enough it should encompass the space of several of the surrounding doors, yet the only door in the room is the one Hireshite entered through.
Seated upon the throne is a tall, lanky, pale-skinned man, leaning heavily to one side with an elbow on the side of the throne propping up his head, with one leg draped over the other arm of the throne and the other hanging freely towards the front. His free hand is holding a quater-full champaigne flute with deep red liquid within, which he is swirling slowly while idly gazing in Hireshite's direction.
No creativity from me today. Celosia will go explore the bookshelves area that's lit by firelight.
Also, can he understand the bird's squawking?
Ignoring the bird's squaked complaints in crow, complaints that he finds himself fully able to understand, despite not knowing crow, Celosia instead moves away from the loud bird and investigates the area full of empty shelves.
He finds himself in a large warehouse, lit from above by what appear to be hanging oil lamps.
The shelves are almost entirely empty, with the only occupied shelves being near the far right wall, and containing what appear to be large wooden crates.
the room extends only a short distance to the left, but a substantial way to the right and ahead, but with no significant changes throughout, and occasional gaps between empty shelves forming walkways around the place.
on the far wall a series of heavy wooden doors can be seen, but also on the far wall and a ways to their right there is a giant opening showing what appears to be a large open room of circular tables ringed by chairs. and finally a bit to the right of that opening, also still on the far wall, is a single wooden door.
On the near wall there appear to be a pair of arched openings, one closer and one further, but Celosia can't see through them from this angle, only able to tell they exist unless he goes further into this room or approaches the openings from the side.
