ARENA 09 - THE MUSEUM

[etcircenses]

The Tributes are woken up early for this Arena, and switched from whatever sleeping attire they're currently in to a set of pajamas, each designed for the individual in questions. Women wear onesies, and most of the men wear two-pieces, but other than that any similarities are at random - the outfits are in all sorts of colors and patterns.

The floor of the helicopter taking them to their Arena location, and of the underground entrance to the tubes that hoist them to the surface, will feel cold under their bare feet.

Rather than bringing them to sunlight, like the tubes have in the past, instead the Tributes are presented to a dark concrete ceiling in a badly-lit parking lot. Fluorescent lights do little to illuminate the cavernous space.

The countdown begins, announced as if from far away.

20

19

18…

The Cornucopia, a ghastly thing carved from stone and concrete, sits at the center of a pattern of white and yellow lines reminiscent of spots for parked cars. The painted lines create a sort of spoked wheel, providing lanes for the Tributes leading to the prizes at the center. Some of the more unfortunate Tributes will find the concrete architecture has placed pillars in their lanes.

8

7

6…

Six parked cars lie around the outskirts of the huge lot, barely visible in the dim lighting. Glowing exit signs on two opposite sides of the chamber announce where Tributes should go to escape the bloodbath. Elevator doors are perched beneath them.

3

2

1

The gong rings out, and the countdown's voice announces "the Arena is now open". The Games have begun.

Comments

Closed to Nepeta, vents of floor 6

[youbarium]

Carlos was getting used to this whole sneaking-through-the-vents thing. He was actually getting pretty good at it. So, he set out for the floor above the one where he was hiding, just to see what was there, and to see if its cafe had been picked clean yet.

He found himself inside the walls, with an opening to his right that came out about eight feet above the floor. Pausing to look out and down, Carlos stares -- why was there a wax museum here? Who were these people? Who had they been? What did they do to merit wax effigies in this massacre arena? From the look of their clothes, they were from all kinds of different places -- they didn't have that painted, too-bright look he'd observed about local fashion. Old contestants? he thinks. Ones who didn't make it?

Lost in thought, Carlos won't hear anyone approach until they're in sight.

[whoseesbynight]

Even with the elevators offering a relatively easy way between the floors, Nepeta has found that she far prefers the vents. They're a little safer and they feel more comfortable, besides. Of course, it does mean that she's rather expecting to peer out of grate and be looking into a meteor instead of the building that this particular Arena seems to be. But that's a minor inconvenience. Especially given that there's an awful going on to remind her that this isn't exactly the same place.

On the other hand, she hadn't exactly expected to run into someone else in the vents and despite her best intentions she can't help but fall back on what her lusus taught her and so her first comment is less a comment and more a low hiss, much like might hear from a cornered cat.

[youbarium]

Carlos's head whips around when he hears the hiss. He stares at the newcomer, alarmed and cautious and -- curious?

She was a competitor, she had to be, but she was only the second obviously-inhuman person Carlos had seen. Were those things protruding from her head ears, or something else?

He shimmies back a foot or so, hands up and out in front of him in a gesture of peace. They're empty. Carlos has a knife with him, but it's in the pocket of his pants and he's not reaching for it.

"Well, this is awkward," he whispers, not wanting to alert anyone in the room itself to his presence.

[whoseesbynight]

There's a part of her - the trollish part, and the one that still thinks she's going to round a corner and find herself face to face with a murderous highblood - that thinks she should take a preemptive strike against this stranger. Especially now that she's managed to put something at least roughly similar to her usual claw-gloves together. The rest of recognizes this as a bad idea, especially at this point in the arena. It's early enough that a few allies won't go badly amiss and it's pretty clear that whoever this is, they don't mean any immediate harm.

"It could purrobably be worse?" she whispers back, with a half-shrug. Going anywhere might be a little difficult like this, but as long as they remember to be relatively quiet they should manage to keep from disturbing anyone in the room proper.

[youbarium]

"Oh, good, you do speak," Carlos says, barely louder than a breath. He couldn't assume anything with extradimensional beings. He speaks quietly but urgently. "Listen. I mean you no harm. If you let me leave, I won't do anything to hurt you."

He was trying to keep his own inquisitiveness to himself until they had sorted out whether or not either of them would be doing any killing.

[whoseesbynight]

"Of course I do," Nepeta whispers back. She knows she's very much not human, but she's yet to see any Tribute that can't speak, one way or another. Not that she's always been looking, but surely it would have come up? Either way, it doesn't matter much just at the moment. There are other things that are far more important, just at the moment.

"Which way were you going?"

[youbarium]

"That way," he says, pointing directly past her. "But it doesn't matter all that much. Really, I just wanted to see what was on this floor. Do you know who they are?"

He points to the side, out of the vent-opening, at the wax museum.

....that was odd, he could have sworn that one wax figure's hand was open a moment ago. Now it's clearly in a fist.

[whoseesbynight]

Ah, that would be inconvenient, not the least of which is because there isn't that much room in the vents and either one of them would have to squeeze past the other or else she'd have to turn around and go back the way she came. Still, they can deal with that when they get there. Right now there are questions to be asked and she recognizes at least a few of the figures.

"Some of them are people who where here befur."

[youbarium]

Befur? Oh -- she must mean before, Carlos thinks. Alien accents sure are weird.

"Before?" he says aloud. "What -- what happened to them? I thought we were resurrected after each Arena. I'm sorry, I only arrived a few hours before this Arena began, and I really don't know what to expect -- or believe."

[whoseesbynight]

It's not really an accent, with Nepeta, but she makes no correction. As long as Carlos isn't asking for clarification she can make do with whatever he happens to be assuming about her speech patterns.

"Um. I think some of them were killed here. Not efurryone comes back, and you don't get to comeback at all if you die outside the arena, I think."

[youbarium]

"Oh," says Carlos, because no one told him that catch. "No one told me that sometimes we aren't brought back." Most of his apprehension about this gray-skinned alien is gone, replaced by curiosity and the drive of scientific inquiry. "Is there any discernible pattern to the people who don't come back? Anything they have in common?"

[whoseesbynight]

It's no surprise that it wouldn't have been mentioned. Nepeta only knows because she's seen it happen the once outside the arena. Everything else is guesswork, and the fact that some of the faces aren't ones she's seen in the arenas for a while.

"I don't think so. But I haven't really been keeping track either."

[youbarium]

Carlos looks away from her and down, mind racing. There were so many questions, and so many of them couldn't be answered outside the Arena.

He looks back up at Nepeta after a moment. "How long have you been here?" he asks curiously. "Not in the vent. I mean in -- this dimension."

[whoseesbynight]

Nepeta considers a moment. It's not entirely easy to tell, all the time, but she doesn't want to resort to counting by arenas either. Eventually, she manages to come up with something that sounds about right. She's still not entirely used to the human way of counting units of time, but she's getting better, or so she hopes.

"Um... eight months, I think?"

[youbarium]

"That means at least two Arenas, maybe three," Carlos says with a nod. "So I was right in my assumption that you are from another dimension? I couldn't be sure, since I saw people with some very strange body modification in the city outside. Dyed skin, whiskers, distended eyes, tattooed stripes -- all done deliberately."

Carlos had seen some strange growths, of course: cancerous horns, bleeding stigmata, and other worse things he didn't want to think about. However, none of those had been voluntary. They just kind of happened, and you either successfully got them removed or learned to live with them. At least, that was what he'd observed in the people of Night Vale.

[whoseesbynight]

"I don't know if's another dimension," Nepeta answers with a shrug. "But I'm furom another world, yes."

Sgrub, on the other hand, probably does count as another universe. But that's not where she's from, and they've managed to get out of that well enough. Not enough to be allowed entrance into the universe they'd made, but enough to be no longer in Sgrub... presumably. It's never really been terribly clear.

[youbarium]

There was that accent again. Fascinating.

"After all this is over," says Carlos in a low voice, "would you mind answering a few questions about your world? It's not that now is a bad time for science -- there's no such thing as a bad time for science -- but I'd rather do it somewhere we didn't have to whisper, and where I don't have to worry about being unexpectedly murdered."

[whoseesbynight]

Nepeta might have her disagreements about there being no bad time for science. But then again, science as practiced on Alternia is very different than on any world that most other Tributes might be familiar with. And in any case, the vents are probably not the best place to have arguments either.

"Not at all. Just let me know whenefur you want to talk about it, after we're out of here."

[youbarium]

He gives her a smile, an open one that really doesn't belong in a mass-murder deathtrap like this museum. "I appreciate it. I don't like being here and this whole situation is terrifying, but my team of scientists and I hadn't made any progress on performing interdimensional travel and communication safely, without loss of life, or health, or sanity...anyway, this is an unprecedented opportunity to learn about other worlds. My name is Carlos, and they say I'm a District 10 tribute, if that means anything to you."

[whoseesbynight]

It really doesn't, but given that Nepeta has managed to maintain a fairly friendly outlook across her own planet, a game that had seemed all but determined to kill them in a variety of new and eventful ways, and the handful of Arenas she's been through, it's not something she's going to comment on. Everything would be dreadfully boring if everyone settled for what was appropriate to this sort of situation.

"I'm Nepeta. District 4, although I'm still not sure what the districts really mean."

[youbarium]

"Nepeta," he repeats. "District 4. Okay, I'll find you after this is all over, and we can talk about your world. I might be able to explain the Districts a little better, too."

So that was that...but the vent problem still was unsolved.

"...now, about this vent thing. I'm willing to back up to the last intersection and let you go by. I think I passed one about fifteen feet ago."

[whoseesbynight]

Anything would be better than nothing, and Nepeta isn't without her share of information about the Districts. It's just that she doesn't much see the point of them, when they aren't really from the world that has had them in the first place.

"Thank you! That would be purrfect."

[youbarium]

Carlos smiles back, unable to help himself. He's -- well, not made a friend, but at least made an amiable contact in a very unlikely place, and also she was an alien, which was super cool.

He shuffles backwards awkwardly, taking a minute or two to reach the junction, then backs into the T-tunnel far enough to let Nepeta by.

"Good luck," he whispers.

[whoseesbynight]

"You too," Nepeta whispers back, just before she heads down the other vent. And then, she's gone. Or at least, as gone as you can ever really be in a set of vents, but she's one her way and doesn't mean to look back. There's no time for that here.