Struggling to keep her breaths steady, the sound of Walter hyperventilating doing little to help stave off her own fear of drowning, a couple tendrils of shadows rose from beneath her feet and wrapped around her legs, as if trying to escape the quickly rising water. She leaned against the side of the bookcase as Conna’Cel rose with his wings, and looked to him when he neared, glancing almost enviously at his ability to currently stay above the rising liquid.
“I-I think there might be a passage behind here,” she explained, not taking his offered hand. She nodded toward one of the feathers still stuck and twitching slightly against where the shelf met the wall. “Help me move it? Please?”
When they managed to move it, the water eagerly flowed through the new opening, trying to force her and Conna’Cel inside with it. She gasped when the tug of the mysterious air current swept from the now gaping mouth in the wall and worked together with the water at her feet to pull her and the robot inside. She gripped onto the edge of the bookcase, using it to help pull herself out of the way of the opening.

---

Nikolai gave a frustrated snort when his efforts at prying it off seemed to do little. He glanced down as, with the water still rising, Soren stepped onto the bottom rung of the ladder.
“I told you that you shouldn’t be skipping weight lifting,” Soren said. “Bad form.”
And if you had listened to me back in town, we wouldn’t even be in this mess! Though bitter, anxiety of their situation saturated his mental voice.
“As great as pointing fingers, how about--” Soren’s attention snapped to Scarlet, and Nikolai pulled back in surprise when the woman threw a dagger into the portrait.
The silent fae cast her a glare, but still said nothing. Noticing the slowed flow cascading from the picture, he held the crowbar in front of him. The prongs thinned and shortened slightly, Hemmingway’s face distorting beyond recognition as it pulled into a trident shape. Looking back to the portrait, Nikolai stepped to the top rung, and thrust the three sharp points into the picture near Scarlet’s knife. He released the trident and drew back quickly in case the portrait did not much like being stabbed.

"Hmm," Lusso replied to Marianne, starting deeply in the sinister girl's eye which was not covered by hair. The pale-haired girl kept on this staring contest until the cawing of her raven, beaking at a portrait which had been covered in the spilled beans, broke whatever spell bewitched her.

It was only then that Lusso noticed the whole ordeal through which they were going. Marianne's preternatural calm was very distracting, however, sooner or later, anyone ought to notice that their feet were planted in a nigh literal pool whose water suddenly began to drain away into a howling, dark passage. Almost like an excerpt of a book given flesh and made real. Or as real as this whole setup could be, at least.

"We should leave as well," Lusso said as she approached Shawn, touching his shoulder as her bird landed on her shoulder, casting an ominous gaze over the boy, "We apologize for your food. The imprisonment must have made us hungrier than we thought," the pale-haired girl added, smiling at Shawn.

Lusso seemed to be sincere and, up to a certain point, even shy, despite her definitely sinister idiosyncrasies.

---

@shi12 @TheWindel @Scarifar @Siaya Dragalorn

@shi12 @TheWindel @KoL @Siaya Dragalorn

Conna'Cel looked toward where Faira was gesturing, his scanners confirming that water was indeed flowing out of the room through the small opening behind the bookcase. "Understood," Conna'Cel agreed. Grabbing a corner with both hands and planting his feet on the wall, Conna'Cel began to help Faira pull away the bookcase. Once the opening was revealed, Conna'Cel tried to look down it to scan for any sort of hazards or hostiles, but the new air current made things somewhat difficult. He was quick to readjust his position on the wall, gaining a better grip and increasing power on his wings to prevent himself from getting pulled in. Secured, he attempted to resume his scanning.

---

Shawn could turn the handle on the door easily enough, but whether from the water pressure or some other unknown force, he could not get the door open no matter how hard he pulled. After a few seconds of grunting and multiple pulls, he gave up the attempt, realizing that it was getting nowhere. Feeling a hand on his shoulder, Shawn turned to see Lusso apologizing for the earlier incident with the bird.

"Ehh, it wasn't that big a deal. Don't worry about it," Shawn said, smiling back and dismissively waving his hand. Then his stomach began to growl again, quite loudly as a matter of fact. "Ok, maybe it was a big deal, but it's still fine!" Shawn added, flashing a thumbs up.

It was then that he noticed that the water level began to drop. Looking around, he saw the water being drained away through an opening in the wall, revealed by the pulled-away bookcase. "When did that get there?" Shawn asked. "Ah, whatever, let's get going!" Rushing as fast as he could through the water, Shawn wasted no time jumping straight through the opening without fear. He was hoping that something edible would be at the end of wherever the new path would lead. There had to be something there, after all.

The airway inching the robot and human closer and closer to certain demise slowly and surely lessened in velocity. It got to the point where both Conna'Cel and Faira were able to manage on solid footholds; yet the rest would be short-lived because soon enough the air current was picking up yet again, eager to draw them into the darkness below. It was almost like a throat contracting in and out, breathing one way and out the other.

That imagery was contrasted with the prospect of freedom from this room, an opportunity that Shawn fully embraced without consequence. With nothing else keeping her here, Scarlet launched herself into the opening along with him, presumably with the others following behind her. Where the duct took them, no one could know or say, but eventually they did land in what looked like a dungeon of sorts.

Of all the places to be in this hell house, a dungeon was perhaps not the most pleasant of locations to be in. At least the flood up above seemed to trickle down into only a bare stream. The dungeon itself looked bare and typical, save for the dried blood stains on the wall and the…was that a horse plopping in between the cells?

---

Lusso traded her soaked shoes and stockings for bare feet on the way down the semi-flooded passage. The stone floor was firm but too wet to wear footwear. Because of this, the pale-haired girl's soles were now in direct contact with the grime and gore which covered the floor. She seemed unfazed, despite this gruesome experience.

The change in ambient did little to alter the state of Lusso's nerves. She and her raven stared around the murky darkness of the dungeon. Both seemed quite indifferent to its eeriness.

"It seems that we aren't alone," Lusso said, more to herself than anyone else, when the clopping of hooves became too pronounced to ignore. "Is it the same as above?" she added, referring to the fact that the painting which caused the flood at the study room also had a horse on it.

With a wordless gesture, Lusso sent her bird to look ahead, scrutinizing the darkness with its hellish eyes.

---

@Scarifar, @Siaya Dragalorn, @TheWindel, @shi12.