\o

\o/

making coffee and then ready

o/

coffee has been acquired

\oo//

ginger did warn they might be limited today, we could get going and see when they pop in?

alright then

The meeting somewhat concluded, the party start to clean up from breakfast and get ready for the rest of the day:

Darri fiddles with his sleeve

What time is it?

Around ten in the morning by now.

Jack returns from the bathroom, much relieved and waits for everyone to be assembled

So have you decided on a plan of action for the day?

Brune finishes tidying up after a few minutes and rolls back to the table. "So, it appears we're off to the university, if there are no objections. I don't suppose we could retrieve those goggles while we're there."

"The ones from my dream, right?"

"...oh those goggles?" And with that Jack yawns again

"Yes. I suspect they might be useful." Brune looks mournfully at the empty table as if wishing more coffee could appear.

"If we go to the uni, there's a breakroom on the ground floor of Amsted Math with good coffee... I mean, it's meant for the math people, but, it's real good coffee"

"Unless they changed the door lock again, maybe."

@bobble "I could do with more..."

"I like the way you think, Mr. Jenny. I don't suppose your car is in working order." Brune looks hopefully at Jack, clearly not being very fond of jamming himself into a bus again.

@Sciborg "it's fine. Just need to keep an eye on the fuel tank." A tinge of annoyance in his voice

Brune nods, relieved, and rolls off to give back his hotel key.

Darri pulls out a phone to text Yi, the math PhD he knows - hey did Amsted change the door pw again

@bobble I don't believe so.

I'm here !

(\o/)

"Alex, we're going to steal some Amsted coffee, want to join?"

It takes them a moment to parse that proposition. "...sure"

(@Mithical is Jack needing to roll for staying awake again soon?)

@AncientSwordRage after that amount of coffee, it'll be a little bit before it wears off :p

@Mithical (😅)

Brune returns, adjusting his tie slightly - it's the spare one he throws on when rushing to medical conferences, and it's not a perfect fit, and Darrion currently has his favorite one. "To the car, then." Then, eyeing the drowsy Jack nervously, "Are you feeling up to operating heavy machinery?"

"Door code should still be ISSAC. Dunno what they think they're doing, with password-protecting the door, it just means everyone makes a friend in the math department"

"Well, you know. It's about the principle."

"Maybe it's a conspiracy to make the math folks have outside friends"

Darri is chatting while following to the car

"Well if we're going, let's be off then," and Jack strides off bolstered by his cane once more

Alex stifles a laugh at that comment. They seem a bit more upbeat today, maybe?

Jack makes a point about checking the fuel level out loud once everyone is buckled in

And then sets off to the university

Brune listens to the coffee conversation with some amusement, remembering how his old medical students had made an inside joke out of moving the coffee machine to increasingly ludicrous locations - inside the MRI machine, and so on - just so that when he rolled in operating on two hours of sleep and fumbled to start making his coffee, they could watch him go through the muscle movements for about twenty seconds before abruptly realizing there was no machine there and swearing vigorously.

You set off to the university. The town seems rather quiet as you traverse the streets, but you arrive without incident to the university. When you arrive, you note that the campus also seems a bit quieter than usual.

"Darrion, " Jack says conversationlly while he pulls up, "Does the university have a chapel by any chance?"

@Mithical 👀

"There's an all-faiths prayer room near the flower garden, but that's it"

There may be some that Darrion isn't necessarily aware of, though.

@bobble "Ahhh, rightio" and by now he's out and assembling Brune's wheelchair

"Thank you," Brune murmurs as Jack does so; he carefully avoids looking at the spot in the parking lot where Darrion was bleeding out yesterday.

(stop me if I'm moving the game too fast)

"Amsted is thataway," Darri points at a rather depressing-looking building set in depression in the ground, with a staircase leading down to a door. "Uh, I'm sure there's an accessible way to get in"

"Get the pot of coffee going, Brune and I can find another way I hope," and Jack looks over to the doctor for his assent

"There, uh. There's the tunnel from the Maxwell building, but I think that's the only way in that doesn't have a flight of stairs ? And I don't remember if the door can be opened from the outside"

"Are there no wheelchair-using math students? Was this thing built before the ADA? Seriously"

"Wouldn't surprise me"

Darri rants a bit more before saying, "I can get coffee and then come back out, maybe?"

"No, kindly don't slow down on my account," Brune says, touched by all the concern but clearly not wanting to be an obstacle. "I can swing by the medical laboratory first and catch up to you all later. I wanted to check something there regardless."

He has that tone of voice that suggests he's planning to investigate something.

"You go investigate. I'll get coffee. How do you want it?"

@Sciborg "I can go with you"

"Black as my soul, Mr. Jenny." Brune starts rolling off towards the medical laboratory.

Jack strides after

"Jack?"

"Black too, lad" he calls over his shoulder

Darri sets off to Amsted. Which way is Alex going?

Brune glances over his shoulder when he hears Jack's cane clacking behind him, and smiles faintly; he seems more affectionate suddenly, his voice sounding the way it did back when he was patching up Darrion. "You really worry about me too much, Mr. Rivers."

@Sciborg "Need to make sure no one's alone in shore leave..." Then pausing to process what he just said, "Uh, no one gets split off from the group"

Alex follows him over to the door

"Ya think he's gonna go fetch the goggles?"

Brune looks at Jack with an expression that says he would happily throw himself on a Hunger Spawn for him as they head down the hallway.

"Prolly"

Darri eases open the door and heads to the break room. Anyone else in the building?

Nope.

@Sciborg Jack notices the smile, and smiles back almost... nervously?

Alex stops to go check the door into the tunnels.

What specifically are you checking for?

Their steps echo off the walls, which are papered with posters full of symbols that might or might not summon Cthulu

@Mithical To see if it's locked from this side or not, since they don't remember and it's on their mind

It doesn't look like it's actively locked at the moment.

Darri types I-S-S-A-C into the (0-9) keypad and peeks inside to see if there's anyone to look at him judgmentally while he gets coffee

@AncientSwordRage Brune gets a distinct pinking in the ears that suggests he is becoming increasingly flustered by the notion of whether Jack took that in a way he meant or not, and looks hastily back at the hallway with extremely determined stoicism as they reach the door of the laboratory.

Intrigued, Alex swings it open and peers through

@Sciborg Jack gets the hint and matches the stoic determinism in his gait

@bobble There doesn't appear to be anyone inside. A half-finished cup of coffee with a cookie-crumb-covered napkin next to it is sitting on the counter, though.

Just two dudes being dudes.

@Ginger The tunnels are open before you. One of the overhead lights does appear to be out.

Does the laboratory look like how we left it?

Darri bustles inside and starts making coffee, while also searching for anything to carry multiple cups with

@Sciborg It does not.

Oh dear.

Feeling a draft of cold air from the other side, they shut the door quickly and hasten back to Darrion and the coffee.

It has been thoroughly cleaned and organized in the time since you left yesterday. The medications used have been returned to where they belong, and several cabinets are now locked that hadn't been before. The blood has been scrubbed off and the whole place smells of disinfectant and cleaner.

@Mithical "What happened here?" Jack says to Brune

"It seems someone cleaned up our mess." Brune looks around to see if the goggles are still there.

At a quick glance, you don't spot them sitting out anywhere.

@Sciborg "Are you looking for... Yes of course" Jack says awkwardly, and helps look

The two black coffees have been put to the side when you come in, and now Darri is brewing up a cappuccino for himself. "What'd you want?"

The smell of disinfectant seems to unnerve Brune the longer they stay in the room, and his fingers tighten a bit on the armrests as they start searching.

(do we spot hidden?)

A variety of coffee and tea selections are arrayed against the wall, with a sign hanging over them hopefully saying "FOR MATH DEPT ONLY".

You continue to search through the room, opening cabinets and drawers, doing a thorough search throughout. You don't see any trace of the goggles in what you can open.

"Whatever you're having, I trust your taste." Alex does not have coffee very often, surprisingly

"Well, that's disappointing." Brune looks crestfallen. "I don't suppose someone might have brought them to the lost and found?"

@Mithical is there anything we can't open, and do we find anything else unusual?

"See a holder anywhere? Or I guess we can each carry two cups"

Is there a holder present?

There are several locked cabinets and drawers that you can't open. Everything else in the room seems to line up with what you'd expect from a basic student lab designed for teaching.

"Can you open these?" And Jack points to the locked cabinets

@Ginger There may be a couple stashed behind a sugar container.

"Not that I'm aware of." Brune rolls over to study them. "I would only visit for presentations, and the like - they never gave me keys."

While he waits for an answer, Jack looks around for something heavy enough to smash a lock

(pretend I was quicker at writing)

"I hesitate to do more damage to..." Brune trails off, remembering that the circumstances might be saving the world, and corrects himself. "Carry on."

"By the way, did you see anyone? Usually there'd be at least one postdoc or something squinting over a whiteboard"

(@Mithical can Jack find anything heavy or with leverage?)

There isn't a lot of heavy equipment in the room. There's the bed, and the IV stand, but most of the objects in the room are rather small or light.

"...no, actually. It's been weirdly quiet today"

@Mithical no fire extinguisher?

There is a fire extenguisher, although taking it out may automatically call the fire department.

Jack hesitates, pats himself down, and reconsiders.

"Let's come back later if we don't find them"

"I'll take that," Darri grabs the holder from Alex and plops the cups into it. "Let's get back to the others. Do you know any shortcuts?"

"Let's check with someone in the department to see if any lost items were brought in," Brune offers, hoping for a nonviolent alternative.

Jack nods

"Probably nothing you don't know about yourself"

Brune rolls off to go see if he can locate a member of maintenance staff, or someone that would plausibly be responsible when students find lost items.

"Tunnel is probably the best bet then. You go first"

@Sciborg Make a Luck check.

Absolutely dreadful, 97 vs. 60.

Alex swings the door open again. "Medical labs, right?"

@Mithical Jack is staying out, does anyone helpful wander by?

"Yep"

You don't seem to find many people as you roll through the halls. Most of the people you do pass seem to be a few students here and there rushing to a class.

@AncientSwordRage You can also make a Luck check.

Brune wheels back to rejoin Jack after a while. "No luck, I'm afraid."

Alex heads off, taking the various turns from memory. After a short walk and one unlocked door they come to an elevator door that doesn't look like it's opened in the past decade. "This is right under Medical A, I think"

"Hit the button, please?"

@Mithical 47<52 (success)

(that would have fail had I not recovered some luck last time 😳)

"Yeah, just a sec..." Alex stands on their tiptoes to fetch a key from atop an electrical panel in the corner, inserting it into a keyhole on the panel marked "ELV FLRCTL ACCS" and smacking the button.

Before Brune comes back, someone pushing a garbage collection trolley wanders through, emptying the trash cans in the area.

"Just give it a second..."

@Ginger The button lights up, and through the door, something begins rattling and creaking. It might even be an elevator.

As he rolls down the hallway to return to Jack, Brune's gaze lingers on some of the medical classrooms. His eyes stray longest on anatomical diagrams and posters - a detailed depiction of a human skeleton, the construction of the eye, the valves of a heart, the fingers on a hand... something about one of those makes his pulse speed up, and he quickly looks away, a bit pale.

@Mithical "Hey, uh HEY!" Jacks says a little louder than needed "Do you know who cleared out this lab?"

@Sciborg (👀)

The person jumps. "Cleared out? I'm sorry, what do you mean?"

Darri wobbles a bit

@Mithical "Uh, " and Jack pauses wishing Brune was here to use his medical words here, "I think we used it last and left some... Personal effects inside. But they're gone now...?"

With a bit of a crunch, the elevator stops and the door grinds open.

The silence between Alex and Darrion stretches on for a disconcertingly long time. A fluorescent light buzzes somewhere down the tunnel.

@AncientSwordRage "Oh, I think Professor Bardot said that any items like that from here should be delivered to her. I don't know if she's here right now, though."

"You're sure this thing is safe?"

Alex steps inside and decisively hits one of the unmarked buttons on the panel. There is a noticable disparity between the quantity of buttons and the number of floors Darrion knows to be in this building.

@Mithical "She's on leave... Any idea where they'd go instead?"

"Uh, yeah, it's fine. See? Certificate's right there." They point at a rusty metal frame on the wall holding a faded piece of paper that could plausibly be an inspection certificate.

"No, I'm sorry. Maybe check her office? I have to continue now, if you'll excuse me."

"Sure..." Darri steps inside cautiously

Brune rolls back into view, looking considerably more anxious than when he left.

They quickly jump out, return the key to its home, and squeeze back in through the (very slowly) closing doors.

Jack nodded as they left, and had waited what feels like too long for Brune to return, relief palpable in his face

"Bardot's office" he says curtly

"Every one of our buildings has at least one thing like this, you know" they remark as the cabin begins to rise. "It's just that nobody bothers to look."

Brune nods and promptly starts rolling alongside him, trusting him instantly.

Jack follows

(brb)

"I don't suppose it will be unlocked," Brune says. His tone of voice suggests he has a specific grad student in mind who has a knack for getting into places he shouldn't.

"Oh, I've seen them. Couldn't figure out how to open 'em though"

"Usually the keys are right next to them, heh. But I meant in the more general sense... little bits of hidden architecture that just get forgotten over the years." They pause. "Well, I remember them. So they're not really forgotten."

"How long it'd take for you to find 'em?"

"Depends. Some people will tell you if you ask."

Do we know how to get to Bardot's office, or do we have to ask a student for directions?

I believe you've been there before, but in any case, you'll be rendezvousing with Darri, who definitely knows how to get there.

In that case, Brune will head some of the way there, but not too fast to give Darrion time to catch up.

He's pretty certain that the two of them are hard to miss.

When the elevator stops, the jolt sends some coffee out of a cup and onto a white section of Darri's dress. He looks at the stain with abject horror.

"Ah, yeah... they do that sometimes. Sorry about your dress."

Darri's luck with his clothes has not been great lately.

With no free hand to spare, Darri can't do much but try to find the other two and/or napkins

Brune slows down as they near the office door and drums his fingers on the armrest as he looks hopefully around for Darrion's distinctive silhouette.

The doors open to reveal a short stretch of hallway ending in a flimsy metal door stamped "MAINT ELEV". The writing is reversed, since it's meant to be read from the other side.

"Here we are, Medical A. Any idea where the good doctor could be?"

I look around

Neither Jack nor Brune are in sight, but you can hear footsteps slowly getting further away.

As Brune sits patiently waiting for his friends to reappear, he gets a vague recollection of something Darrion was humming earlier, and begins idly whistling a passable, if slightly off-key recreation of the Doctor Who theme.

Darri beelines towards the Doctor Who theme, presuming he can hear it

You reunite in the hallways, all four of you present.

hooray!

Brune trails off and looks up with uncharacteristic brightness at Darrion's approach - either because it's Darrion and Alex or because there is coffee in their hands, or possibly both. "There you are."

"Here's your coffee. Got any wipes?"

"Also, there wasn't anyone else in Amsted, which is really weird"

"Oh, dear." Brune pulls the triangle out of his jacket pocket and starts dabbing at the coffee stain.

He takes his coffee. "There do appear to be less students around than usual. I suppose because so many classes have been canceled?"

It's not super effective, but it's better than nothing.

(back; back reading)

You arrive at Bardot's office. The door is not locked.

Jack takes the lead and goes inside

(unless someone else wants to)

Brune follows Jack and gestures to his suit jacket, silently asking if Darrion wants to borrow it to cover up the stain.

Sitting on the desk is a box. It is labelled "Darrion", and closed with a combination lock.

Do I recognize it?

Jack raises a single quizzical eyebrow

"Doc, 's fine, really" Darrion says in a despondent this-is-not-fine voice

@bobble You do not.

Brune gives Darrion a I know you too well look and pulls off his blue suit jacket, pressing it firmly into Darrion's hands before returning his gaze to the office.

"Uh..." Darri stares openmouthed at the box, while his hands automatically put the jacket on, arranging it to hide the stain

"Hm?"

"It appears Dr. Bardot has been expecting you." Brune rolls closer to get a better look at the box.

"I don't trust that box for a second."

@Ginger "I wouldn't trust it as far as I could throw it"

Darri pokes it with his coffee cup

"I don't either, given how she was acting earlier." Brune studies the lock. How many letters or numbers?

"You do understand that that analogy doesn't really... work, for you? Unless I've gotten it backwards, in which case it works quite well"

@Ginger "I was never good at cricket," Jack mumbles unhelpfully

Alex nods, uncomprehending.

@bobble It clangs. It's a small metal box, seemingly a basic lockbox of some sort, around the size of a few encyclopedias stacked on top of each other. A label with Darrion's name has been stuck to the outside. It needs an eight-digit number code to be unlocked.

"Eight numbers." Brune looks at Darrion. "Are there any numbers that might be significant between the two of you?"

(any?)

@bobble Are there? :)

(👀)

(👀)

(👀)

"I mean there's my birthday, the day I passed my quals, the first day we met for an interview, there's the score I racked up on Cookie Clicker that one time I stole her computer for an analysis..."

"... but I'm not sure about any of those being important. Oh, there's also her birthday."

"Wasn't her birthday when you gave her that basket of chickadees?" Brune says, remembering Darrion's story from a while back. "That might have been important to her."

He tries Dr. Bardot's birthday

In what date format?

MM/DD/YYYY, then if that doesn't work DD/MM/YYYY

The second try, it pops open.

Inside is a pair of goggles and a note.

"Ah." Brune smiles. "I would certainly remember the day my students brought me a basket of chickadees, I suppose."

"Uh-"

Jack murmurs a nondescript murmur of approval at the safe cracking

"Hey, did I ever mention to y'all what happened when I put those on?"

"Something terrible, I suspect," Brune says, in a tone of voice that says he's very used to that by now.

"You put them on?!" Jack blurts out

"Yeah, I did. I think they confer a true sight of sorts?"

"Show things as they really are, whatever that would be. I don't-" Their voice hitches. "I don't think it's safe to keep them on for more than a few seconds at once."

"I suspect that the note will enlighten us." Brune gingerly takes the note out and spreads it out on the desk so Darrion can read it.

(what does it say?)

Darri has been mostly frozen with shock

(mith is probably typing)

The note is hastily scribbled on a piece of paper, in Dr. Bardot's familiar (to Darrion at least) handwriting. It's not very long.

[end there?]

"An ally after all," Brune murmurs. He feels bad for confronting her earlier.

(thumbsup)

(👍)

(👍)

(👍)

sorry for taking half the party on an unnecessary sidequest to steal coffee

@bobble vital! Very vital!

the other quarter of that half didn't mind :3

character bonding time ;)

@Mithical absolutely

i love the darrion/alex dynamic so much