paixaorpg | Beyond the Gates of Mist [Active]

Guns. Why did she have to have guns? First Rosette, now Lara. And not just one gun, but TWO.

There was no mistaking the look of dislike towards her weapons as the Doctor watched her check her equipment out of the corner of his eye. All he was doing was checking his journal once more before he dropped it in his coat pocket, and pulled his glasses off, tucking those in a pocket in his jacket.

He liked Lara, really he did, but he'd had a long time to come to his decision concerning firearms. It wasn't anything really personally against her, of course. Hopefully she wouldn't need them, if they had any luck. He certainly hoped so.

Realizing she was speaking he turned, planting a smile over his face, "Oh, yes! Yes, I'm ready if you both are."

Sonic normally wasn't the most observant of people, but even he couldn't miss the Doctor's look of dislike towards...nah, couldn't've been Lara. They wouldn't have had tea together if the Doctor didn't like her, The guns, maybe? Didn't make a whole lot of sense not to like a weapon...unless someone had used a gun on the Doctor. It was the same reason Sonic was none too fond of robots.

Yeah, that made sense.

"Been ready," he replied nonchalantly to Lara's question, idly tapping his toe against the ground. "Wanna go the same was as last time?" he asked with a grin. He knew Lara liked it, but it would come as a surprise for the Doctor. The guy needed to loosen up a little anyways, and what better way to do that than with a good run?

Lara, of course, didn't miss the irritation in the Doctor's glance when he looked at her guns. She looked at him and said simply, "It's better to be safe than sorry." Some things had already attacked her outside the gates, and who knew what else lurked out there? Where there were smaller, weaker monsters there were almost certainly bigger ones, and Lara had no intentions of dying as of yet.

"I'm ready, as well," she continued, with an amused glance at Sonic. "And I don't mind going the same way we did the last time, but perhaps you ought to explain to the Doctor what that entails." She hadn't liked being carried about, but she could deal with it, and the Englishwoman had to admit that it was much faster than the alternative.

For now he let it go, looking from Sonic to Lara, learning that 1. Apparently they'd done this before, and 2. Apparently there was a "way" to do this.

"Way? Which way would that be? Other than that way, that is," the Doctor inquired, briefly indicating the direction of the church. He'd thought they were in for a good long walk, but that wasn't the case it seemed?

The Doctor, however, couldn't say he quite knew what other possible 'way' they could go.

"Awesome." Sonic gave Lara a thumbs up, then grinned at the Doctor. "You'll see."

That said, he turned back to Lara - "Let's go!" - and with no more warning than that, scooped her up and started running. It didn't take long to get her to the church, where he set her on her feet and, with a "be riiiiiight back," ran back to the city to get the Doctor.

"Alright, Doc, your turn!" Sonic barely slowing down before he picked the Doctor up much the same way he had Lara - it was kinda weird doing this with a guy, but it worked - and headed back for the church at near-top speed. Barely minutes later, he skidded to a stop on the white grass and set the Doctor next to Lara.

He took a step back and grinned, rubbing a finger nonchalantly under his nose. "Well? Pretty awesome, right?"

"Oh, dear," Lara said, not really meaning it judging by the amused look on her face. "I suppose we're in for it now, are we?"

She was right. Without so much as a warning this time, the archaeologist was picked up by Sonic, soon accompanied by the familiar feeling of being out of breath. She managed to laugh when she was set down, and being that she had given Sonic permission, she couldn't be angry about it. The Englishwoman had barely had time to nod at Sonic before the hedgehog sped off again, and not too long later saw him return with the Doctor in tone.

"Did you have a nice trip?" she asked, somewhat wry in her amusement.

And see he did, as he watched Sonic scoop up Lara so suddenly and disappear into the horizen with her. He certainly couldn't say he'd seen that coming.

The Doctor didn't really have long at all to even think about it before Sonic had suddenly returned and was scooping him up.

"W-Whoa, wait a mi--" he yelped as he was suddenly scooped up, and cut off. He could only manage to laugh as he was finally put down at what appeared to be the church. The Doctor, despite his protest, was rather enjoying it. There weren't a great deal of creatures in the universe who could move this fast.

"Well," he finally spoke, after recovering from the surprise, "And here I thought we were going to have a nice pleasant stroll!" The Doctor gave Lara a slightly goofy grin. "We'll have this done before supper at this rate."

It was all Sonic could do to keep from taking a bow...ah, heck, he did it anyways. It was pretty awesome, after all.

"Nah, walkin's too slow," he replied to the Doctor's comment, already on the way to the door. He pushed it open, then gestured inside. "C'mon, let's go."

Lara laughed as well, amused by the Doctor's response. "I must say, that's exactly what I thought the first time I came here. I believe Sonic got bored, however." And a bored Sonic, Lara was quickly learning, meant trouble. Then again, a bored Lara meant trouble as well. She grinned at her friend as he bowed, even applauding a little to keep up the joke.

The archaeologist couldn't hide her grin as she entered the church. The odd book was still there, and Lara picked it up, flipping through it. Its text was still just as bizarre as it was before. "Doctor," said Lara, walking towards the man with her eyes still on the pages, "can you make any sense of this?" Something abut it struck her heavily as some kind of symbolism - something all religions had - but it was so convoluted that it seemed almost like a code of some sort to Lara.

The Englishwoman looked around, brown eyes scanning the room. "It doesn't look like anyone else has arrived since we've been here," she told Sonic.

The Doctor followed Lara into the church, hands in his pockets, as he turned around several times, looking at the large room carefully. He couldn't see anything off hand that seemed strange. The place looked largely abandoned, in fact, however he knew better than to assume that just from looks.

"Hm, what?" he replied, as his attention returned to Lara, and he approached, with curiosity. "Well... what have you got here?" he muttered, as he reached into his inner pocket, producing a pair of dark rimmed specs that he perched on his nose.

"Well," the Doctor started to say, as he scanned the text quickly. "I'm not sure." It wasn't anything he could recognize, which was really saying something.

"Yeah, I think you're right," Sonic replied to Lara's observation, looking around the church. The sets of footprints they'd found when they'd last come here were almost completely buried in dust, and the prints they'd made were half covered already. "Kinda spooky."

Leaving the Doctor and Lara to the book they'd found, Sonic headed for the back of the church and, when he arrived, up the stairs. Aside from a fresh layer of dust, it didn't look like anything at all had changed since he and Lara had last come here, down to the new doorknob on the door at the back (though it wasn't quite so shiny anymore) and the deep gouges in the floor. He gave the door a glance, then headed back to the balcony. "C'mon," he called down. "All the interestin' stuff's up here, y'know."

"Well," replied Lara, "it's not as though this church is close by. I doubt everyone in Paixao even knows of it." Really, Lara had just been wandering around aimlessly, curious about her new surroundings, when Sonic dropped in. The archaeologist began to follow the hedgehog, still looking at the book. "Well," she said, "I suppose I ought to take it with me this time." She turned to the Doctor. "Perhaps we can both take a look at it later, over tea." After all, their time in the cafe had been interrupted by her impatient friend - not that Lara was exactly a bastion of patience.

She slipped the book carefully in her pack and walked back up the stairs. "Nothing's really changed," Lara mused, crouching to look at the floor and frowning slightly at the door. "I've never really liked locked doors." She got up and followed Sonic, her brow narrowing at what she saw. "It looks as though there was some sort of skirmish here."

"Sounds like an idea to me," the Doctor agreed. Glancing up at Sonic. The interesting stuff was up there, was it? Well then.

He followed Lara upstairs, also crouching over the floor, examing the floor carefully. He wasn't sure what the gouges were, other than it looked like something large had been trying to reach through the, now relocked, door.

Standing up, he grinned as he dug into his inner coat pocket again. "Just a tick," he said, as he produced his sonic screwdriver. Holding it against the door, there was a light from the end of the device and a whrrr, followed by a click of the lock being released.

"There we are! No more locked door," The Doctor said, pulling the door open to be greeted with... another room. A room that couldn't possibly fit in the church.

"Well, isn't this interesting," the Time Lord commented, as he stepped into the room, looking around. Far more gouge marks and damage graced this floor, and there was another door. This one was very different from the one he'd just opened, however. This one had a very large keyhole, looking like something out of a cartoon.

"Yeah, no kiddin'." The gouges on the floor may have been dusty now, but they still looked just as bad as they had when Sonic and Lara had first discovered them.

He watched wide-eyed as the Doctor did something and the lock opened. That...wow. That was new on him. "Say, Doc, what was that..."

He trailed off as he entered the room and took in just what it was. "Whoa," he breathed. There was no way a room this huge could fit into a building the size of the church. Something wasn't adding up here.

He wandered into the room, looking around. The floor was covered in gouges just like the ones outside the room. Man, he would not want to meet whatever had done that.

"Weird," he commented, figuring the Doctor and Lara would have more to go on.

Lara raised an eyebrow upon seeing the Doctor's... whatever that was. "Just what in the world is that?" she asked. It looked rather like an odd pen of sorts, but there was no way in the world a pen could do that. It did its job, though, by the looks of it; all of a sudden the door was unlocked. Whatever the strange pen really was, it was terribly useful and the archaeologist was grateful that the Doctor had it. She walked into the room and looked about her.

"This doesn't make sense," she said. "This room is much larger than a view of the outside of this building would suggest." Mummies? No problem. Dinosaurs? Piece of cake. Ancient teleportation devices? Certainly. But a room like this was unlike anything Lara had ever seen before. The woman stepped into the room carefully, eyes sharp for any traps that may be around and noting the gauges.

"Now this in certainly a point of interest," she said, walking up to the door and tracing carefully around the edges of a keyhole with her fingertips. "Where would one find a key this large?"

"Oh this?" the Doctor replied, holding up his screw driver, "Just a sonic screwdriver."

As he looked around the Doctor tucked away his glasses. "The question is what is a dimensionally transcendent room doing in a church?" What was this room for? Clearly someone was trying to keep it from being found, but why? Not to mention transcendent dimensions was a Time Lord technology, so what was this? ...He really didn't want to have to say it was a magic room.

"Well, with any luck we won't have to," the Doctor replied, coming up to the door, screwdriver in hand.

With the words "sonic screwdriver," the technical jargon went right over Sonic's head. He'd let Lara and the Doctor talk about the door - they probably had a better idea about things. For now, he examined the marks in the floor, trying to figure out just what made them. It was big, sure, but what was it?

Lara nodded to the Doctor. "Quite." There was clearly something special about this place, and Lara was glad she had followed her instincts about it and come back a second time. Despite her own experience with magical objects (not to mention the creatures she had come into contact with during her travels), Lara was still somewhat cautious regarding the idea of magic itself and tended to take it with a grain of salt.

She stepped back to allow the Doctor to do is work and walked about the room, examining. Strangely enough, she thought she heard a skittering sound and looked around her to see what it was.

Holding the sonic screwdriver to the door, he activated it and frowned as it whirred away in vain, finally he pulled it away and examined the lock closer, before stepping back rubbing his chin. "Well, I guess that isn't going to work after all. It's like it's a deadlock seal, but it doesn't seem like one either," he said, trying to figure out just what it was they were dealing with.

"Which leaves... Oh, I really, really don't want to have to say magic door," he mumbled, cringing at the mere notion.

Tucking the sonic screwdriver away, he spoke up again, "Well, I suppose the answer is to figure out where we can get a key that large."

Edited 2009-01-30 06:55 (UTC)

To Sonic, the markings on the floor were definitely the weirdest thing in the room. Doors could be broken open - who needed locks and keys? - but nothing big enough to make all those marks could have gotten in or out of those little doors. Not without leaving massive damage, at least.

But if it couldn't leave, that meant...

The skittering sound reached his ears and he slowly looked up, the one direction he hadn't thought to look when he'd first come in.

There was something big and white up there and it had too many legs and it was dropping to the floor very quickly and oh man this is bad-

"Doc! Lara!" He took off at top speed, heading for Lara to get her out of the way of whatever that thing was. "Forget the door an' go!"!

"Doctor!" Lara began to shout a warning as Sonic picked her up. She disentangled herself from him once he stopped moving, guns drawn in a flash and trained on whatever that thing was. "Get out of the way!" She wouldn't let anyone get injured if she could help it, not on her watch.

The creature rearing menacingly in front of her was the largest praying mantis she had ever seen, ghostly white with the same... oh, no. Lara's eyes widened. "That mark," she told Sonic. "It's the same as those strange creatures that came after me when I first came here." They had to be connected, somehow.

The archaeologist looked over at the Doctor. "Move!" she shouted, preparing to attack the creature. "Go! I'll catch up!" She wasn't planning on killing it unless she needed to, but she would distract it in order to give the others an opportunity to escape.

"Wha--Oh!" the Doctor said, turning and promptly seeing what Lara and Sonic were so panicked about. Well, that wasn't good.

The Doctor knew a fair bit about running. In fact, the need for it seemed to happen a lot around him. While he was not as fast as Sonic, he made his way quickily as he could away from the door, dodging past the creature, but he stalled behind Lara. "Oh no! Not going anywhere without you," he said, not about to leave her to face the monster alone.

"Come on! Back out the door!"

Sonic wasted no time in getting Lara to the open door. They needed to be out of here and now, because that thing was huge and didn't sound too happy. At least it looked like the Doctor was going to reach the door alright too.

That taken care of, Sonic took a hard U-turn, heading at top speed towards the creature. "I'll take care of this thing! You guys get outta here!" Tapping into the power of his ring, he curled into a ball and ricocheted hard off the creature's head, grinning a bit as it screeched. Okay, he'd distract it long enough for the Doctor and Lara to escape, and then he'd-

His train of thought was very abruptly derailed as a giant claw came swiftly out of nowhere, catching him midair and slamming him hard into one of the stained glass windows, cracks spiderwebbing all across its surface from the impact.

And then he fell.

The only reason he landed on his feet was the fact that the fall was a long one, and he'd had time enough to flip over and get his feet under him. Still, ow. He landed hard and staggered sideways, shaking his head. Ow ow ow.

Then he was off again in a spin dash, right as the claw lashed out at the spot where he'd been a split second ago. Geez, no wonder there were marks all over the floor - this thing played rough. He revved up a homing attack, aiming once again for the head.

Lara ran for the creature as soon as Sonic let her go, the hedgehog's course of action clear to her, at least. She wasn't about to let him fight the strange mantis alone, after all. She held her guns up, running out of the way just in case it attacked so the Doctor wouldn't be hit. She fired again and again, her eyes narrowing as the creature turned towards her. Good. That meant it wouldn't come after the others, and it had been Lara who'd so wanted to explore the church.

Unfortunately, her guns didn't seem to have much of a visible effect on the mantis, other than annoying it. "Bloody hell," she murmured, flipping out of the way as a huge claw came slashing towards her. Her second flip, however, came just a bit too late, and Lara gave a strangled cry of pain as pain came searing over her shoulder. She staggered a bit to regain her balance and reloaded to fire again.

Meanwhile, the Doctor was... at the door wondering why they weren't following and going out the door like he'd been trying to tell them. Why didn't people like to listen to him? Especially when it came to either running or attacking something? Why run when you could shoot something? Just because he didn't carry a gun, didn't mean he was helpless.

Right. So. This thing was a giant praying mantis? That's what it looked like, despite the rather strange colouring. Wait. A mantis? Of course!

The Doctor had his sonic screwdriver out again in a flash and quickly fiddled with some settings before holding it out towards the mantis.

"Come on you two! OUT! NOW!" he yelled in a voice not to be argued with. As he yelled, he activated the screwdriver. A highpitched sound could be heard from it, but to the mantis it was apparently far worse, as the creature recoiled, halting it's attack.

((Mantis' hear things in ultrasonic so they can dodge things like bats. 8D SO... :D ))

Edited 2009-02-06 01:19 (UTC)

Sonic slammed against the mantis' head again, trying his hardest to knock it off balance. It wasn't working as well as he'd have hoped, and when he heard Lara cry out he knew it was time to go. He wasn't doing any damage, Lara wasn't either, and the Doctor was yeling for them to get out-

He stiffened in shock as the sound hit him, knocking him out of his spin and flat onto the floor. He landed hard, body completely unresponsive as his mind all but split with pain-

No. No he wasn't stopping here there was a monster in the room and they needed to get out-

Shaking, barely able to see through the agony in his head, he pushed himself to his feet and made a near-blind dash for the door. The good news was, he made it out. The bad news was, he misjudged both his own speed and the distance he had to run. He was going too fast and stopped too late, skidding hard into the railing of the balcony and landing in a heap.

And still the mind-splitting noise went on.

Lara looked over to the Doctor. She could see where causing damage simply didn't work, and now was one of those times. "Right!" she called back, holstering her guns and running for the door. She knew Sonic was able to run faster than she, and he would get out in time. Or so she thought.

She stopped when she saw her friend disoriented and changed course, running in his direction. She felt for a pulse and, when she was satisfied that it was steady, gathered the hedgehog into her arms. "Stop that noise!" she called to the Doctor as she stood, carrying the hedgehog past the Doctor.

He already had when Lara passed by him. Well. That hadn't gone exactly to plan. He hadn't expected really expected Sonic to be sensitive to ultrasonic sound.

Pushing the door shut, the Doctor switched the setting on his screwdriver again, locking the door back as they'd found it, then followed after Lara, rushing down the stairs to the main floor of the church.

It didn't sound like the creature was following them. Thank goodness for small miracles. "Sorry, about that there," he began, a little bit sheepish. He didn't often make mistakes like that. "You both alright?"

Edited 2009-02-12 08:08 (UTC)

It took Sonic a few seconds to open his eyes after the noise stopped. Man that hurt...but why was he-

It took him a few more seconds to realize that he was being carried, and he struggled out of Lara's arms, landing on his feet, then taking a knee and putting a hand on the floor to steady himself. Whatever the Doctor had done, it'd messed him up more than he thought and given him a killer headache to boot. The worst part of the whole thing, though, had been getting carried out. It was supposed to be the other way around, and it was humiliating.

"Yeah, yeah, 'm fine," he muttered, making his way to his feet. He wasn't sure what hurt more, his head or his fifteen-year-old male pride. "You wanna warn a guy next time you do that?"

Lara looked worried as she gazed down at Sonic. Her eagerness to find the truth had been, at least partially, what had led to this. It would not be like Paraíso years ago, when Lara and her friends had ended up being chased by a strange, wraithlike creature. Most of them, save Lara and Amanda, had died - and Lara had promised herself that she would never let it happen again.

She let the hedgehog down and, once she discerned that they were safe from that creature, took off her brown shirt to work around the white tank top beneath so she could begin to clean and bandage her wounds. Next time, she thought, I'm going alone if I have to. Lara's obsession with such things often led to trouble, and now was no different.

Well, Sonic seemed okay in the long run. No permant damage done, anyways.

"Right, yes, will do," the Doctor agreed whole heartedly. He'd definitely keep in mind that... well, whatever he was exactly, were sensitive to ultrasonic sound. Definitely would watch that in the future.

"Well! That was certainly... interesting," he said, gaze lifting back to the upstairs.

"I wonder what's behind that door," the Time Lord wondered aloud, trailing off. It was important, that was for sure.

"Yeah, thanks," Sonic muttered, hand still on his head as they headed for the door. He'd had more than enough of this place for one day. At least the trip - okay, trips for him, since he had to make two - back to the city wouldn't too long.

"Whatever it is, we're gonna have t' beat th' monster before we can get to it." Figuring out how to take out the monster was first priority - the other door could wait until that was taken care of.

"It certainly was," replied Lara, looking over at the Doctor as she wrapped a bandage around her shoulder. "What do you suppose they're hiding in there?" Whatever it was, it had to be important - and whoever 'they' were, they wanted it to stay hidden. Perhaps Lara would find a clue as to the origins of the place in the book she had taken from the church.

She nodded, almost absently at Sonic's assertion. "I've never seen a mantis that large," she mused. "Well, lads, for every strength, there's a weakness. There has to be some way to defeat it." The explorer stood, having finished bandaging herself, and pulled her shirt back on, over her tank. "Right now, though, I think we'd better get back to the city. I'm going to analyze the book and see if I can find anything."

"Not a clue, but it's important, whatever it is," the Time Lord replied. He had no doubt now that they needed to discover what was so important about it, but it would require finding a way past the guard as well as finding a way to unlock the door. It wasn't often he came across something that the sonic screwdriver couldn't open.

Regrouping back in the city did seem like the best plan, and he did need to make sure Donna and Rose hadn't gotten into any mischief.

"Doesn't look like there's much more we can accomplish here today, so, you're right, let's head back, shall we?" the Doctor replied.

"Sounds like a plan," Sonic agreed, already heading out the door. He'd had enough of this place to last him quite a while.

It didn't take him long to run the Doctor back to the domes, and then Lara. He'd been tempted to leave the Doctor at the church, but he knew his headache (much as it sucked) was an accident. There was no reason to leave the Doctor stranded. After this, though, he was going back to his hammock and crashing out.

"Doctor," Lara asked as they headed out, "perhaps we ought to take a look at the tome we found later. It may have some information in it." Either that, or it could simply be nothing more than lyrical babbling, perhaps written by a madman before the church had been abandoned.

When Sonic took the Doctor with him, Lara waited patiently for his return. At least this trip hadn't been a complete waste of time and perhaps they would find some more answers about this place soon.

Beyond the Gates of Mist [Active]

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Fffffffff I imagined I tagged this again apparently

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