[Last Time, on Battle High: Karasu left the room in tears, and Ao-Lang ran after him to offer her comforting bosom. Okay, so not really, but it's a nice thought.] [Mini Battle... Fight!] * Karasu wanders around the castle! * Ao-Lang walks after Karasu. "Hey Tall, Dark, and Cryptic! Wait up!" * Karasu heads, uh... Outside! Yeah. Let's look around the castle grounds. * Karasu idly looks over his shoulder. * When you arrive at the great main doors, they're closed tight. If you want out, looks like you'll have to find a side door. Maybe a fire escape. Or a window. * Ao-Lang is there, and walking after him. He'd better watch it or she'll catch up to him. * Karasu peers at the doors, decides it isn't worth it and heads towards another part of the castle. Maybe he'll find a music room. Or a computer room. Or an art room. Or, uh, anything c.c * Ao-Lang catches up and continues beside Karasu. "Where're you going?" * Karasu shrugs. "No where in particular." * Once again, the first floor appears to be naught but residence halls. One tower you know is all classrooms and faculty offices, but the other is partially unexplored, and you still have an unknown number of basements you can find and then explore. * Karasu explores the tower first. Up is more fun than down. Ah, I see. Just looking around? * Karasu nods. * Ao-Lang follows him. "Woulda figured you had this place covered by now." I haven't had much time. * Ao-Lang raises an eyebrow. "Yeah?" * Karasu nods. * Karasu knocks on the nearest known stair up into the Fight Tower, and presented before him is a stairway. He and Ao-Lang are on the first floor, and he could go up as high as the fourth. * Ao-Lang blinks. "Whoa." * Karasu heads up the stairs! * Karasu arrives at the second floor landing. * Ao-Lang ... follows Karasu. "Um. Are all the stairways secret passages? Don't tell me we need to find them to get to class on time." * Karasu nods. "It's bothersome." Aww, man. How frustrating. Why'd they go and make a place like this? * Karasu shrugs. "It's beyond me." ... Do you ever say anything longer than three word phrases? * Karasu shrugs. "If I have to." Four! Good. It's an improvement. We'll get you to compound sentences in no time. * Karasu doesn't say anything to that :P * Ao-Lang just grins and keeps following up the stairs. We are still going up the stairs, right? * Karasu reaches the third floor landing. * Karasu gets out here. Good a place to start as any. * Ao-Lang continues with the following. She has even less of a clue than Karasu. * Karasu emerges into what appears to be thoroughly deserted hallway. It's lit, just like everyplace else in the castle, but it feels as dead as a school after hours. * Ao-Lang looks around. * Karasu does too, walking as he goes. * Ao-Lang blinks, then remembers to follow Karasu. "Y'know what this floor's used for?" * The doors are all standing open currently, as no fights are going on. All the rooms appear to be small fighting arenas like the ones you're used to fighting in. * Karasu keeps going. "No idea." Fighting, presumeably. * Ao-Lang looks in. Yeah. * Karasu looks in a few, too. * There are often small craters in walls or the arena floors, where repairs have been temporarily abandoned for work on the cafeteria, but nothing really unusual. * Ao-Lang goes back to walking. "So is this what we're normally stuck fighting in?" * Unless you consider the occasional bloodstain "unusual." Normally. Although it's been suggested that there are a multitude of arenas. Not to mention our next fight's in the pool room. I doubt it'll be like the others. Probably. People get more powerful, you need more space. * Karasu nods. * Ao-Lang frowns a little, thinking. "Yeah. Definitely more space." * Karasu comes full circle, back to where he came in. * Karasu heads up to the next floor, then. He can't read minds yet :P * Ao-Lang follows! What do you mean by yet? * Up, up the stairs he goes, and where he stops, the GM knows. At the fourth floor, which is as high up as he can go. * Karasu gets off at the forth floor. (Ding!) * The fourth floor is also totally deserted, and appears to be more of the same fighting rooms as the third floor, though with slightly more craters. * Ao-Lang steps out and looks around again. "Hey, if we need to find more fighting rooms, I guess we know where to go now." * Karasu nods. "We're typically told where to go, however." Then we know where to find these! Maybe. They don't send maps, do they? They do not. Rather, they seem to expect you to know everything before you come. Now that sounds about right. That guy who brought me? Told me practically nothing, no matter how much I bugged him. The same with the rest of us, I'd imagine. * Before long, Karasu comes full circle to where he entered the floor. Probably. I've got to play catch up, though. * Karasu looks for the fifth floor. "I wouldn't say that. It's only been two days." Yeah, but I bet *you* at least met the principal and most of the other students and probably got a little more time to get into the swing of things. * Ao-Lang pauses, verifying what she just said. "Yeah." Oh yes, the other students. Most of them seem to hate us. * Ao-Lang blinks, then laughs. Nice to know some things never change. It's to be expected, really. * Karasu continues towards the fifth floor, taking a different set of stairs, if the GM will let him :P * Ao-Lang tags along. "Oh, sure. Expected. Not sure why, but it is." * You come to another staircase fairly easily. You head up to the next floor, and note that there's another flight of stairs going up. Because most people aren't friendly to someone who they just fought with. Especially if they lost. * Karasu goes to the sixth floor; he's seen the fifth already. So our team always wins, then? Not hardly. * You emerge onto the sixth floor and the setup is much the same as the library in basement one. There's a single short hallway. You enter from the only door on one side, and there is only one other door, straight across from you. At either end of the short hall is a beautiful stained glass window. * Ao-Lang snerks. "Then what's the problem?" She blinks. "Oh, *nice*." * Ao-Lang steps out and gets a better look at one of the windows. * Karasu peers out the windows. * The windows don't seem to have a picture in them right now, they're apparently bits of abstract art in stained glass. Well, the incident with the cafeteria didn't help matters. * Karasu opens the door. Eh. That should blow over. It's not like they got detention for it. * Ao-Lang notices and checks out the door, too. * The room inside is pitch black with dim patches of light shining down from above onto the floor. * Karasu looks up. * Ao-Lang whistles and... does what Karasu does. * The top of the room appears to be pitch black, with no lights in evidence. * Karasu walks forwards. * Ao-Lang frowns a little, puzzling this out. "Doesn't make any sense." Probably. What do you mean, 'probably'? There's no probably about it. It doesn't. * Karasu steps out into the room and is immediately struck by a slight case of vertigo as he looks down at the floor, far, far below. It appears that the patches of light are not shining from above, but filtering up from the immense full size arena below, and Karasu is standing on a relatively thin girder above the arena. * Karasu gets dizzy, but is too cool to show it. He looks down. * Ao-Lang blinks, then looks down into the room, too. * The arena floor stares up at you both, unblinking. ... Yup. Bigger sandboxes. * Karasu heads out curious if there's another staircase leading up. * outside in the hallway, there are two evident doors, the door you came through not being concealed on this floor. * Ao-Lang heads over and tries opening the first one. * The door opens. it's the stairwell you came up to get here. The only other door is the one out onto the girders over the arena on the fifth floor. * Karasu heads back down. Let's look for the basement! * Ao-Lang follows. Sure, why not? * Ao-Lang decides to chat as they go, though. "So, um. What do you do?" What do I do? Yeah. What do you do? Besides fight and school, because that's what everybody does. There's little time for anything else. I suppose you could say I explore the school, for now. * Ao-Lang rolls her eyes. "Okay, what did you do before? Before you came here?" * It doesn't take long before you're all the way down at the first basement, and the stairwell doesn't go any further down. Much the same, though not so much fighting. So you went to school. And that was it. * Ao-Lang sounds more than a little skeptical. I don't have much in the way of hobbies, if that's what you mean. * Karasu looks around the basement. * The first basement is just as you left it, the entrance hall to the library. * Karasu has been to the library already. He looks for more stairs. * Ao-Lang grins. Now we may be getting somewhere. "Why not?" Can't spend all your time sitting and staring at the wall. Makes you lazy. * Karasu heads for that set of stairs, then. "I suppose." But I don't have any particular reason, either. * Ao-Lang follows. "Come on. There's got to be *something*. Or else you're the dullest individual I ever met, and I don't buy that." * The center staircase is unlocked. * Karasu heads down the stairs. "Maybe I am." Mmm hmm. Maybe, Mr. Three Word Phrase. * Karasu is able to go down a single flight of stairs, at the end of which is no door. * Karasu looks for a sekrit door, 'cause a stairway to nowhere would just be silly. So c'mon. What is it? Tell me or I'll keep pestering you, and since you live with me, I'm gonna get really annoying really fast. * Karasu shrugs. "I don't particularly mind." * Karasu's perusal of the landing reveals no secret door, at least not one that opens the way he's used to them opening. You may say that, but four words tells me different! * Knocking on the wall where a door would normally be does reveal the hollow sound of hallway beyond, though. * Karasu looks for a loose brick :P * There do not appear to be any loose bricks. * Ao-Lang watches Karasu knock on the wall and resists the urge to smack him across the back of the head with a tessen. But just barely. * Karasu heads back up the stairs. No sense in streesing out over how to open it when he doesn't have to. * Ao-Lang eyes the wall, then kicks it before tagging along behind Karasu. * The door takes it, and likes it, but does not say "Thank you sir, may I have another?" * Ao-Lang continues chatting. "You know, it's kinda hard to have a get-to-know-you session when one of us doesn't want to be known. Wouldn't you agree?" * Karasu shrugs. "I wasn't aware that was what we were doing. And there's not much to tell, anyhow. I spend my free time training, mostly." Really? Training? So is this about the time when I say, 'let's fight'? Because I'm about to. This certainly isn't the best place to do it. And besides, we have a fight in a bit less than two hours; don't waste your energy. Now you're assuming I care if we win this fight. I suppose so. Most people who go to this school tend to care whether they win or not. * Ao-Lang keeps grinning. "Yup. Most of them do. Do you?" Not particularly. I don't like fighting. Then what are you doing here? I have my reasons. * Ao-Lang hums. "Reasons, reasons. Care to share?" * Karasu shrugs. "They probably told you already anyhow, but if not, I happen to have some sort of evil entity living in my mind. That's all. Oh, an evil entity. Yeah, they told me it was a demon. * Karasu shrugs. "Could be." And going here's a way to make it better? The principal seems to think so. * Ao-Lang grins. "Well. Maybe he's right. You've got a better reason than most of us, then." I wouldn't say that. Most people come here to fight. That's the point of the school. Oh, yes. Fighting's important. But I don't think it's quite up there with I-Have-A-Demon-In-Me-And-It-Won't-Go-Away. I suppose so. * Ao-Lang laughs and says, teasingly, "But you just said you wouldn't say that. Why don't you make up your mind?" Very well. The point of the school is fighting, not exorcising demons, or whatever the entity happens to be. I'm not focussed on the point of the school. So, I wouldn't say that. Yeah, but what about fighting demons? Perhaps the seniors do it. But I'm unaware of any such instances. I don't think you're getting it. I mean fighting your demon. I suppose you could look at it that way. I doubt it's a common case, however. Then you really are here for the same reason the rest of us are. Only instead of just doing it for the fun, or the thrill, or because your parents or clan wants you to inherit the school or kick another school's ass, you're doing it to stop whatever it is from eating away at you. I think that's an awfully good reason. * Ao-Lang shrugs. "Common, common. Look at this place. If it's anything like Toriyama, there isn't one common person here." Fair enough. Of course. So, where to, Dark and Tortured? * Karasu shrugs. "Didn't I say before? No where in particular." Yes, but which section of nowhere in particular? * Karasu goes ... To the courtyard! [Fight... Win by Exploration!]