Mini Arena 2

[etcircenses]

Tributes are woken early, and the hovercraft ride is a long one. Not the longest some have experienced, but they are clearly going far.

25 - 24 - 23

They land on the deck of the boat, and are ushered underneath, to the lower levels, quickly. Their stylists go from cabin to cabin, decking them out in over the top finery, before loading them into the pods installed into the corners of the rooms.

20 - 19 - 18 - 17 - 16

The platforms lift them up, and they are all ringed around a grand buffet table, loaded with a grand feast looking ready to sag down from the weight. Among the food are supplies, plenty of them, all for the taking.

11- 10 - 9 - 8

They've all been warned, don't step off your pedestal early. They have also been warned to put on a good show. That's all this is about, a good show. None of them have been told that there can be multiple winners this time around.

5 - 4

3

2

The sound of the gong plays crystal clear across the opening. The games have begun.

Comments

[whoseesbynight]

The sight of a dark shape coming in through one of the doors isn't a comfortable one. In fact, Nepeta is halfway through pressing herself further back against the wall when Carlos' head breaks the water, and she's not ashamed to say that there's a sigh of relief to see someone she knows. It might be a small thing, but it's still better than some of the other things that she'd been imagining.

She nods at the question, though. "I'm purretty sure I do."

She's not getting out of the room without help, that much is certain, and she doesn't want to die cold and alone, if she can at all help.

[youbarium]

"Here. Take these." He hands her a pair of goggles and an oxygen tank. "We might have to go under to get out of here. I'm guessing you can't swim?"

Given that she's the most cat-like insect he has ever seen, and she's also very panicked by the water, the evidence all points to no.

[whoseesbynight]

Nepeta blinks, but takes both the goggles and the oxygen tank without so much as a second thought. She isn't entirely certain what to do with the latter, but the goggles are easy enough to put on.

"There was nefur any need to learn," she answers, with an apologetic sort of shrug. Besides, there's no one she can think of who would have even bothered to teach an oliveblood to swim back home, even if she'd wanted to.

[youbarium]

"Then the best way to do this is going to be with you on my back," Carlos says, nodding. "I'll do the swimming. You just hold on."

He'll turn so that she can get hold of his shoulders. He's just in a wetsuit, so she might have to wrap arms around his neck to get a good grip, but holding on won't be impossible.

[whoseesbynight]

"Alright," Nepeta answers with a nod that's surer than she feels about all of this. But if it gets her to safety she's willing to try an awful lot. That and holding on is easy. Easy enough that she grabs hold of his shoulders without a second thought, once he offers them to her.

The oxygen tank... well, she'll figure that out as things go.

[youbarium]

As soon as he's sure she's got a good grip, Carlos takes off down the hall. The water will be cold, but keeping his head above water isn't hard. His feet brush the bottom about every other step.

"We're headed for the bow," he explains as he goes. "The explosion came from the back of the ship, so that part's going to take on water the fastest. The front of the ship will sink last, so the closer to the prow we are, the higher our chances of survival will be." He glances back at her as a thought strikes him. "Trolls are warm-blooded, right?"

[whoseesbynight]

Cold is at least nothing new to Nepeta. Even before they'd all holed up in a nameless asteroid in void space, there had been places in Sgrub that had hardly wanted to warm up at all and in any case, having been largely nocturnal prior makes for a certain familiarity with cold.

That said, she doesn't much like the cold of the water any, and her fingers tighten a little on Carlos' shoulders, as they first enter the water. But she holds on, out of stubbornness and a desire to not find her death here.

"I'm purretty sure we are. You might have to ask someone else, but we're meowstly nocturnal."

[youbarium]

"That's good. If you were cold-blooded, you wouldn't stand a chance in this water." He swims for the door, which opens into a hall that runs perpendicular to the one they'd just left. Carlos frowns, looking left and right, trying to decide which way was more likely to lead to a staircase.

He has to decide quickly. The water level is rising.

[whoseesbynight]

Rising indeed, and despite her best efforts to keep her concern about the water under wraps it's only partially working. Worse still, she has no more idea than Carlos about which hallway is more likely to get them out of the water for good. And there's nothing to identify one from the other.

Chance it is then.

"Let's try that way," she says, pointing left and hoping that Carlos can tell which direction she means.

[youbarium]

He can tell; he feels her weight shift on his back. Carlos nods, and heads that way. He's trying not to shiver -- even though he's in a wetsuit, the cold water is beginning to wear on him.

They turn a corner into another hall, and Carlos sees a sign next to a door. The symbols are unmistakeable: stairs.

"There!" He points, then picks up speed, pushing through the water as fast as he can. "Don't get your hopes up yet. The door could be locked, or stuck, or the stairs could be flooded, or--"

He reaches the door and turns the handle. It opens just fine.

[whoseesbynight]

Despite Carlos' words, Nepeta does start to get her hopes up on the sight of a door marked stairs; there's a sigh of undisguised relief as the door opens properly. If it gets them up and out of the water, anything is welcome.

Preferably before the chill sets into her bones any more than it already has. But right now, she's more interested in the fact that stairs likely means the end of the water, and that's certainly a good start.

[youbarium]

The stairs are flooded at the same level as the corridor, so once Carlos swims into the stairwell, he's able to climb out of the water fairly easily. He tries not to shiver.

"Will -- will you be all right from here?"

[whoseesbynight]

There's a brief consideration, and then a nod from Nepeta. She doesn't know where is and isn't safe on the rest of the ship, apart from somewhere that's generally up, but that's as good a direction as any, just at the moment.

"I will. And thank you fur helping me."

[youbarium]

He smiles at her and pats her on the shoulder. "If you like," he says, "you can keep the air tank. If you can't swim, you need it more than I do. It'll last for about ten minutes, which might be enough to get you out of a flooded area."