[Last Time, on Battle High: The High-Q showed up just long enough to answer a question for Ao-Lang and drop off the data on Alexander 103's next fight, to be held monday during the lunch hour, in sub-basement five.] [Our heroes took some time to go over the provided intel, and made some sketchy plans, and that's where we find them. Ao-Lang, Isaac, Karasu, and Mariah. Hope hasn't been seen outside her room in what seems like ages, and Kairi is being a lump.] [FIGHT!] .. I'm trying to figure out if there's anything else to do for right now. * Ao-Lang sleeps, dammit. * Karasu wall-leans and broods. * Isaac shrugs. Maybe I'll get some practice in.. * Karasu shoves his hands in his pockets and heads out the door. "Goin' out." Okay. [...several hours later...] [Ao-Lang wakes up. Mainly because she really has to use the bathroom. Also, her head feels kinda like one of those traditional drum thingies that people beat on all the time. * Ao-Lang emerges from her den of something or other, looking like much hell has run over her. Her hair is an absolute mess. She doesn't have her teddy bear with her this time, instead just clutching her head with one hand and stumbling blindly to the bathroom. * Ao-Lang is *still* in the same clothes she wore the night before. * Isaac looks at Ao-Lang with concern. ~Are you okay?~ * Mariah is sitting on the couch, still looking over the data. "Morning..." * Ao-Lang mutters something that may be a greeting, but is probably a death threat. She manages to make it into the bathroom and shuts the door behind her. Oh, boy. Remind me to stay out of her hair. * Karasu comes back several hours later. Ta da! * Ao-Lang turns on the shower in response. She must have heard you, Mariah! * Ao-Lang is now known as IdleAo * Isaac is now known as Isaaceating * Karasu sits down on the couch next to (well, not next to, but in the vicinity of) Mariah. He swings his legs onto the table, grabs a file and starts going over things again. Did you have any thoughts on the fight? * Karasu holds up the file of the shadow guy. "This one's mine." * Mariah nods. "That's fine with me... * Karasu sorts through the documents again and asks, "Are you capable of fighting this one?" He holds up Clinton's picture. I think so.. as well as I can fight anyone, anyway. Are you certain your emotions will not get in the way? I'm pretty sure. * Karasu puts the picture down and starts looking through the others. "If you are not certain, you should not fight him. Let someone else do it." * Mariah shrugs. "Okay. I think I can, but I just want to do my best regardless." * Karasu nods. "Plenty of other targets. Perhaps this one." He holds up the other shadow guy. "Of course, if you don't go after him, I will." Hmmmm... maybe. * IdleAo is now known as Ao-Lang * Karasu rifles through documents until he finishes, then tosses them on the table. * Isaaceating is now known as Isaac Any other plans? Or should we just play it by ear? * Karasu shrugs. "That's up to the others. However, it's best to engage opponents that you can defeat easily, or that would give your teammates the most trouble." * Ao-Lang opens the door and exits. She's looking better... well, now she's pretty wet, and she's wearing nothing but a towel, and she's carrying her clothes, but her eyes aren't as bloodshot, and she seems more awake! She walks by, glancing at what the others are doing. "I think we should team up on the two heavy hitters first. Whazzit... Kale and Clayton. Just get them out of the picture before they can get us." * Mariah nods. "Right. They're both pretty low-defense, right? So we can take them out early." Yup. No range. But they'll hurt if they're close. * Isaac nods. * Ao-Lang makes it to the room. "Lots." And then she's in and the door's closed again. Stay at range. Riht. * Ao-Lang keeps talking from in her and Mariah's room. "If we go two on one for them, or even four on one, then four on one again, we'll take them out early. Then it should be four or five on three. Can't really count on Hope being up to it, so we have to take out the biggest damage dealers first." You got a dark attack, right Mariah? That moon thing? Yeah, that's Dark -- it'll be good at taking out the shadow-users quickly. It's not at range, though... * Karasu points to the guy he indicated earlier. "Use it on this one. I'll handle the other." Okay. * Ao-Lang says from the other side of the door, "I'm just thinking that if Karasu hit him from range, then Mariah got in close and got him before he has a chance to touch her, he'll be out in one round. No question." .. that's actually a pretty good idea. She could defeat him without my involvement. Maybe. But this is a much more sure thing. ~Need to cover your bets.~ We'll see. I know I'm not going to complain about help. * Ao-Lang opens the door. She's in a new set of clothes, and she walks out, braiding her hair. Not so much. We'll see about the rest, but it's good to know what you'll probably be doing first off. I think Mariah and Karasu against Kale is a totally sure thing. * Mariah nods. "And we can improvise some... Yeah. Clayton... well, I guess whoever else we've got. I've got range; I can stall him, at least, and whittle him down if I've gotta. Or cover the rest of you, depending. If Kale's out, we can just concentrate on him. * Ardweden is on IRC My range is good enough that I can help there. It might be good to have someone distracting him at melee, though. Oh, yeah. So they can get pounded. Well, not for *long*... someone who can hold out for as long as it takes the rest of us to take care of him. I don't know if we have anyone who can do that, though. * Ao-Lang shrugs. She finishes with one braid and starts on the other. * Mariah shakes her head. "This would be a lot easier to plan if we knew about Hope. I think I'm going to have to talk to her today." Sure, if you can find her when she's not pretending she's dead. I'll do my best. If she isn't up to fighting, that's okay, but we need to know that so we can plan. Not really okay, but yeah. * Ao-Lang ties off her second braid. "I'm gonna check out the basement. Coming, Isaac?" Mind if I come along? * Ao-Lang blinks. "Um... no, I guess not." Pause. "You wanna come too, Karasu?" I suppose. * Isaac nods to Ao-Lang. * Karasu gets up. * Ao-Lang rubs at her eyes. Guess it's a party. * Mariah stands up. "Well, it'll help us all to get an idea of what we're doing." * Ao-Lang pulls on her boots. "That's the idea, yeah." * Ao-Lang opens the door and goes a-basement hunting! * Karasu follows until he realizes he's the only one who knows where the place is, so leads instead. * Isaac follows! * Mariah follows whoever knows where they're going. * Ao-Lang tags along. She also chats, because she's like that. "So you've been to the basement before, Karasu?" * Karasu nods as he walks. * Ao-Lang stifles a yawn with one hand. Didja find it in the middle of the night, or what? ... What *do* you do instead of sleep, anyway? Find places like this, I guess. Good for those of us who have to sleep and study, huh? ~I guess?~ * Karasu nods again. Hey, I'm sure he has to study. That makes one of us. * The way over to the main floor beneath the class tower is easy, and the secret door is right there where he left it when he went down to the library. * Karasu points it out! Ah, okay! It's down that way, you're sure? Unless it moved recently. * Ao-Lang blinks. "Cool." She tries opening it. * The secret door slides open on well-maintained hinge sorta things, revealing one of the main stairways. * Ao-Lang smiles. "Nice, Karasu. I guess insomnia can come in handy." * Mariah blinks. "Huh. Not sure I would have expected this to be open, but hey..." She starts to walk down the staircase. Quite. * Karasu walks down the stairs. He seems to meld with the darkness or something. * Ao-Lang walks after him. She... doesn't. * Mariah also remains distinctly discrete from darkness. * Isaac floats along, every once in a while putting his hand through the wall to make sure he can fly out. * Down the stairs, which end abruptly by letting you out into a hallway with two sets of double-doors on one side, and four single-doors on the other, all spaced evenly across their respective sides. Sub-basement 5, right? * Karasu nods. * Mariah looks at the doors. * Ao-Lang walks along, doing the same. * The doors are all very plain, with no distinguishing marks. They're all the same grey painted metal, too. Very boring. ~Blech, so blaaaaaand.~ Yeah, and how do you know they don't use some sort of crazy numbering system? * Mariah tries one door on the single-door side. * The handle wiggles a little, but is definitely locked. * Ao-Lang tries another door. One of the doubles. Darn. * The double doors open, revealing the book-laden interior of the library. It even has that same musty smell Mariah recognizes from Alfred's Rare Books. Huh. Is it even on this level? ~I'm not sure.~ I don't know. * Ao-Lang blinks a couple of times. "Okay... do they really want us to fight in the library?" I have to imagine there'd be a lot of property damage... but I guess they're used to that. I just hope nobody wanted to study over the lunch hour. * Ao-Lang closes the doors and counts from the start, then tries to open the fifth one back. * There isn't a fifth one, actually, but as it turns out, all of them are locked except for the two sets of double-doors into the library. .. huh. Guess that's it. Well... * Ao-Lang folds her arms. "That makes no sense." * Mariah shrugs. "Maybe we took the wrong staircase." * Ao-Lang walks over to the end of the hall and starts checking the wall for anything that might trigger another staircase. Perhaps there's another staircase. * Isaac peeks through the locked doors. * It proves VERY hard for Isaac to push his head through the first door, but behind it, he sees a staircase going down. [And we adjourn until next time, when people practice their B&E]