Lights Out

Percy hesitantly pats Amelie's shoulder in a gesture of somewhat misguided support. "It is probably ineffective to clean this place starting from here - with how big the basement is, the rooms closer to the stairs will just get messy while you move dust from the further away ones. Besides, I don't think..." He looks at the ceiling with a frown. "I don't think it is very structurally sound. It's probably best to make sure there aren't any leaks or cracks before cleaning."

He pauses, then hurriedly adds after glancing at Yazeba: "Not that it doesn't have its charms, dust and old things and all! But if you do plan to clean it up later, I'll happily assist." The elemental gestures around, almost knocking down some other dress stand in the process: "Although I'm afraid I cannot with curses; that is a little too advanced and magical for me. But leaking pipes, that I can fix! I-If you want me to, of course."

Parish looks around at the numerous exits from this room. "I believe the generator is this way! Or, er... Hmm... Is it that way? These basement chambers have a pesky habit of moving about when one isn’t looking..."

"Thanks, Percy!" Amelie responds, trying to understand what Percy meant. "I might need some time to adjust to this new logic." They appear to be a bit confused as their circuits work overtime.

When Parish seems unsure which way to go, they speak up again. "Oh my, Parish. I think I might be able to help!" Amelie's eyes start to dart from side to side as they search their memory bank for information. "Aha! Got it. An old map of the basement... Oh but it's complicated."

It takes Amelie a bit of time to study the old document. Cross-referencing visual input with the blueprint as best they can. "I'm not sure it's still up to date, but it's something to get us started at least." They say to the group. "Looks like we need to go east from here." They point to a dark side of the room they're in. "That way."

"Eeek!" Amelie freezes. Not just in the figurative sense, but literally. Their processing functions freeze and initiate the emergency shut down sequence to prevent any damage to their hardware. They stop dead in their tracks and are unresponsive for now.

Yazeba sighs and rolls her eyes. It was bad enough that Amelie had decided to take it upon herself and lead their group like this, but the addition of shutting down the moment something strange crosses their path. Down in a place like this there could be anything going on, not even Yazeba herself knew everything in the twisting, turning labyrinth of the basement, so...

"If you're going to come down here, you all need a bit more spine." She says flatly, pressing the reboot button on Amelie to bring her back to readiness. "And I don't mean in a literal sense. I'd say follow Parish, he's got the most courage here, but even he's a bit... slippery."

Naturally she leaves out the part she most wants to say, that she's worried for their safety, because no witch is allowed to be worried about anything. It's not proper.

Percival steps towards the direction which something ran off in, squaring his shoulders and trying to look intimidating against anything scurrying in the darkness. His posturing is only marginally effective, as despite his massive bulk and physical strength, an expression of protective worry on the elemental's face reduces the general result to only mildly dangerous. Not to mention that the humidity of the underground dampens the flames of his arms.

"Sorry, ma'am!" He guiltily glances back at Yazeba at her comment, then quietly sighs in relief as the witch reboots Amelie; he'll never grow accustomed to how the robot can just go still like that. For an elemental, it seems so unusual! "M-Maybe I can help Mr. Parish lead the way and be more... courageous?" Percy isn't entirely sure what will constitute as courage in Yazeba's eyes, but asking seems improper.

As something scurries across her feet, Viv jumps up on a box next to her. Once it seems that whatever was there has gone, she begins to step down, but then hesitates. "uh, is it... is it safe?" Once again, she lowers a foot to the ground, only to withdraw it once more. "Oooh," she whines, "I can't decide!" She seems to be stuck, unsure of what to do next.

"Steady everyone, steady!" Parish calls out, holding his broom high. "It was probably just a rodent. Take heed to the wise words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.'

Once everybody has settled down, he looks up (and up... and up!) at Percy. "Now then, young elemental. Would you care to open the next door? I'll be right behind you!"

In the background, a series of beeps and bleeps signal that Amelie is rebooting and probably performing some kind of system diagnostics. It might take a minute.

Percival frowns as he watches Viv climb on a box which seems even less structurally sound than the basement itself - it probably has been here since times immemorial, and therefore can't be safe to stand on! Promptly forgetting all about moving forward, the elemental instead steps towards the Lady of the Lake. "Miss Niviana, I think the interloper is gone. You are safe to step down, I assure you!"

He hesitates for a moment, then puts his hands together; his fingers glows with warm yellow-orange light, and then Percy reveals a small red gemstone, one which he offers to Viv. "Here, it is a little nifty trick my folks taught me. It has some elemental magic inside, so it should scare off any small beasties which might scurry about."

Whether or not Viv takes the offering, Percy's attention is then drawn by Parish's words. "Me?" As he peers down at the brave amphibian knight, the elemental looks befuddled to suddenly be the center of attention. He offered to help leading, of course, but it wasn't as if he actually expected to be offered to actually lead! Not that it is a problem of courage - few critters or beasts are bold enough to pick a fight with even a small fire elemental - but surely he isn't competent enough for navigation of any way? Then again, there isn't that many ways to go forward...

"Alright," the elemental glances at the door nearby and hesitantly puts his hand on the handle. "We should be close enough to the generator, I think! Otherwise this place really violates some safety protocols..."

Viv feels the spiderweb on her body and yelps. She frantically wipes off the old cobwebs, while she says, "Yuck Yuck! Ugh. This reminds me of that time I learned that some spiders wait in their webs for much larger creatures, like us, to stumble into them, so they can hitch a ride on their bodies. I wonder if spiders are on our bodies right now..." She shivers, wondering why she needed to share that disturbing factoid right a this moment...

Percy winces at the spiderwebs brushing against his body and tries to hurriedly back away before any of them catch on fire, but only succeeds in stumbling into Yazeba. That, by itself, is startling enough that the elemental tries to jumps away with a flurry of apologies, flailing his arms and consequently managing to fall over Parish and land straight into the middle of the spiderweb. The web, despite Nivian's theorising about it being woven to catch large creatures, promptly breaks and goes down together with Percy, leaving the elemental partially cocooned - and well-disoriented - on the floor.

"Sorry," Percy murmurs, embarrassed, as he blinks at the ceiling. There might be a spider judgementally looking back at him, although maybe it's just a random shadow. "...A, a little help, please?"

Parish uses the broom to sweep the webs off of Percy. "There you are. On your feet, brave warrior! This is not the place to be sticking around." The frog grins at his own pun.

Once the elemental has been disentangled, Parish turns to Viv. "Lady Niviana, would you like to do the honors of taking the lead for a time?"

Amelie opens their eyes and says "So we go this way!" to nobody as they have been left alone in the room. Oh my! They think, not sure about what happened, but they can see the glow of light coming from an adjacent room so that must be the way everyone went.

I don't want to stay here in the darkness goes through their head as they hurry to catch up with the others. Luckily the group isn't far away and they quickly find them... in a mess of webs with Parish trying to clean up Percy. "Oh no, oh no, oh no." They say "You should see yourselves right now." They shake their head. "Well maybe if someone would have been allowed to clean down here, this wouldn't have happened. But a robot like me needs to follow orders.""I suppose Yazeba didn't say anything about cleaning residents, though." They pull out a soft dusting broom and a pair of scissors and walk over to where Percy is doing an impression of a caterpillar trying to become a butterfly. With a positive sense of duty, they help Parish dust off Percy and anyone else who would like to be cleaned up.

Viv meekly nods and carefully moves to the front. She glances over her shoulder, a look of uncertainty on her face, and then she proceeds forward.

Viv slowly walks forward, clearly tentative and afraid. Finally, she stops, takes a deep breath, and turns around to face the others. She speaks, her voice a little shaky, and she says, "I know it's silly, but it would really help me if I could hold someone's hand as we go."

Parish, ever the gallant knight, smiles up at Viv. "Of course, dear." He holds out a webbed hand to take hers as they walk to the next room.