A quiet night

[chozo_girl]

 [Late night in the Chalice. Most of the personnel is already asleep hours ago, the place is calm and silent, and the lights are a bit more dim. It's quite peaceful compared to the hustle and bustle and noise coming from the hangars that are the norm during the day.

For whatever reason, however, you are going around the corridors, be it because you have business somewhere, needed to go to the bathroom, simply to enjoy the quiet, or any of a myriad other reasons... 

...but despite the apparent peace, if you're in any way observant you'll probably soon feel stalked. Something is observing around the empty, long corridors this particular night. Every now and then there's very quiet, metallic pitter-patter sounds that stop whenever anyone looks around. And sometimes, a low, quiet creak like that of an ungreased old door hinges' opening can be heard, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right. And overall, a definite feeling of observation. 

Definitely unnerving stuff.

How do you react?]

Comments

[nietzsche_waifu]

[Devon likes to stalk around the night - be stalked, slightly less so. Wordlessly, she passes by a corner.

And whoever, or whatever follows her, will not find her there behind the turn. Instead, she has climbed up near the ceiling, to get the jump on the stalker.]

[chozo_girl]

[And a few seconds later...

...nothing.

And the pitter-patter comes, very quietly, from behind now, as if something was scurrying around inside the walls]

[nietzsche_waifu]

[Devon jumps down, a case of mild but growing frustration developing. Is that damn robot playing in ventillation shafts again?]

At this rate you will remain my daughters' toy forever, you know.

[She takes a glance inside the nearest vent.]

[chozo_girl]

[When Devon looks into the vent, though, instead of seeing the expected tiny robot, she's going to catch a glimpse of what looks like a sharp, whiplike tail scurrying away really fast, away into the tubing system in the blink of an eye!

There's definitely something in there, hiding. And it looked big and not very friendly.]

[paladin_robot]

Yawn...

[Richard's making his way back to his quarters after staying up to do a bit of extra work. Man needs his beauty sleep, and especially given how things have gone lately for the crew. Indeed, he is tired... too tired to pay that much attention to the odd sounds behind him. After all, not everyone was asleep, right? No big deal...

Man, if only Yuu had gotten this lucky with his stalking efforts.]

[chozo_girl]

[And thus our paladin is going to be followed by whatever sinister entity this is, for we don't yet know what nefarious purpose, as he heads back to his room.

If he ever felt like looking up, he'd probably catch a glimpse the creepy, red compound eyes looking at him from inside one of the vents. But perhaps he's too tired for even that?

Your teacher Sam would probably disapprove of this lack of awareness, Richard!]

[paladin_robot]

[At one point, Richard does briefly pause, looking around out of random curiosity...

And then pausing a bit as he catches sight of those eyes.]

...Truth's Sight!

[And with his magic, locks on to try and reveal just whatever is behind that vent!]

[chozo_girl]

[When Richard shouts his spell the thing retreats away and around the corners like a bullet - but his ability to see through walls lets him get a look at it before it crawls away.

There is a thing in there - and somehow it seems to be sort of... blurry to Richard's magical senses, like something was censoring it but doing a bad job of it. But he can definitely see it's some sort of blue-green and gray monster. It's long, lanky, and has a long, whiplike tail. And even though it turned away the moment Richard shouted, as if startled, he can catch a glimpse of multiple, glowing red eyes and sharp teeth and claws.

That doesn't look good.]

The past month or so has not been good for Roads' sanity

[sexygodofscienceandwar]

[Roads has been...on edge lately, working late into the night. And morning. And evening. Time really loses meaning when you don't sleep like a normal person. Right now, it's lunchtime! At 2AM.]

Ugh, stupid needing to eat...[He stops in the hallway as he starts to feel watched.]

...Now, if you're here to kill me, I just have to say...

[Roads whirls around, drawing a handgun from inside his coat.]

YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE YOU VAMPIRIC SON OF A BITCH!

Pipe down, Scooter :P

[chozo_girl]

[Roads finds himself aiming at empty air.

And a very soft chirping (something like the dilophosaurs in Jurassic Park, really, which probably doesn't help if Roads saw the movie) comes from what is now behind him and upwards. It seems to have sort of metallic echoes - and be worryingly nearby]

[sexygodofscienceandwar]

[Well that's great. Roads creeps towards the noise, keeping the gun ready to fire.]

I swear, if we have vampire rats in the vents...

[chozo_girl]

Reeee?

[A strange noise comes from right above Roads's head. If he looks up, he'll see a horrible, red eyed alien monster popping its head out of the ceiling vent and staring right at him not one foot away.

Panic?]

[saikyocivrobo]

[Going around at night is nothing unusual for Werter! He looks around.]

Prometheus?

[The chibi robot stares at him, because he's right behind him.]

Right. It's not you, then...

[chozo_girl]

[Silence.

Very soft skittering.

Silence.]

[saikyocivrobo]

Okay. Some kind of strange creature is stuck in the air ducts again, and... What are you doing?

[Prometheus waves to something offscreen.]

[chozo_girl]

[A sort of ululating sound, sort of like a point between hiss and bird twitter, can be heard, though where the heck it came from is hard to place.

But whatever it is definitely doesn't sound like any animal Werter has heard of - and it's definitely close]

[2hell_weride]

This again...

[[People keep stalking him... and he's without his belt... It's probably not a good idea to carry it all the time anyway. But a mechanic always has a wrench... and he's gripping it like someone's finna have a hearty bowl of busted teeth!]]

...people need to quit stalking me...

[chozo_girl]

[As MarKus turnbs around, however, her can see that there doesn't seem to be anyone in the corridor at all. Yet that doesn't diminish the sense of being observed.

If he pays attention, though, he might hear a very soft sound of skittering for a second, echoing metalically...]

[2hell_weride]

[[ANd he turns for it...]]

Alright, quit stalking and come out! I'm tired of this crap! [[And he is! Now what the heck was that little skitter... it was behind him... now in front of him...]]

[littleshortforanelemental]

Still buzzing from the necrosia, Nikolai's senses are already on high alert. So when he hears the skittering he freezes, listens intently for the source, trying to hear it over the sound of his own breathing, unusually loud in his ears.

[chozo_girl]

[With his current hypersensory state, Nikolai might be able to feel the strange sounds that every now and then come from all around, like chitinous clicks. Or, rather, he'll probably realize, those are just echoes. In a place so metallic it's very hard to pinpoint a precise direction to the bouncing sound, but whatever it is, it's definitely not machinery... and inside one of the walls, which is not a place things should be moving]

[littleshortforanelemental]

It's certainly a familiar sound. He's spent enough time around his totem to know what an arthropod moving through tunnels sounds like. Hell, to any beast with the right nose, he probably smells like one, due to the protein markers from the necrosia still in his bloodstream.

His hand reaches for his sidearm but doesn't draw it. He doesn't intend to shoot it off the bat but it can't hurt to have a plan b.

"Come out come out, little one..."

[morethanarobot]

[Rock wasn't usually up at this time of night, even if he didn't need sleep as much as humans did, but he'd been tinkering around with machine's in Dr. Light's lab and was only just heading back to his room when he thought he heard something suspicious near by.]

Huh? What was that?

[He glances around, trying to see if he can find the source of the noise.]

[chozo_girl]

[Between how quiet the sound is and the echoing nature of the corridor's walls, it's honestly very hard to find a source to this noise. Did Dr Light remember to pack any sensor gear in that helmet, Rock?]

[morethanarobot]

[Well of course Rock has sensors, he switches them on and starts to check around the hall again. The sound was faint, but the source of it couldn't be too far.]