Ruby Quest: Chapter 28

The light fades from the room and darkness envelops Ruby and Tom. It is a familiar and horrible kind of darkness.

The unrelenting sound of moving water deafens their ears.

You can suggest actions for both Ruby and Tom, though neither is sure exactly where the other is.

"Feel around. Try to fing the other."

">Feel around. Try to fing the other."

Ruby and Tom grope blindly in the choking blackness to try and find each other. The sound of water is all about them, drowning out their cries.

“Open third eye” "Do they actually FEEL any water? They can

still breathe fine and stuff, right?"

">Open third eye"

Ruby opens her third eye, and a guiding vision appears.

Through the sounds of water, she hears a faint voice whispering, calling her onward.

">Do they actually FEEL any water? They can still breathe fine and stuff, right?"

The area is dry. They don't

FEEL any water.

"Have both Tom and Ruby try and find the rail" "start walking"

">Have both Tom and Ruby try and find the rail"

">start walking" Ruby begins to follow

the arrow. Tom continues searching for Ruby, and finds the rail, following it.

Ruby feels a set of stairs in the direction the arrow was pointing.

"Tom: while following the rail, swing your manly fist through the darkness."

">Tom: while following the rail, swing your manly fist through the darkness."

Tom swings his fist. Ruby feels something

hit her foot.

"Try to contact each other with the radios." "Ruby: Stop! You're on the rail!"

">Try to contact each other with the radios."

The sound of water is too loud to use the radios!

">Ruby: Stop! You're on the rail!"

Ruby freezes. The sound of water

begins to subside.

The light suddenly returns in a crackling flash.

Tom helps Ruby down from the railing quickly. The darkness seems to have past, and the distant voice is gone.

Ruby closes her third eye and again the two of them consider the door to Lab B.

Ruby has a very strong feeling that before all this is over, she'll have to go in there.

“Hug Ruby” “Is that blood I see on the fans?” "CROWBAR + LOCK" "Check the plant again."

">Hug Ruby"

">Is that blood I see on the fans?"

Tom politely explains he doesn't feel like hugging Ruby right now, given the footage they watched together a short while ago. That hug didn't end particularly well.

Maybe they just need some time to trust each other again.

The blood on the fan is most likely a spot the cleaners missed after the "accident" Ruby made Stitches have in the fan.

">CROWBAR + LOCK"

The lock is massive and sturdy. No way even Tom's MANLY PHYSIQUE could tear it down!

">Check the plant again."

Ruby checks the plant, but it doesn't appear to be anything but a plant and some soil.

Ruby and Tom return to the previous room.

However, something seems to have changed.

"Examine that thing that they're standing on." "Go inside. Check out everything."

">Examine that thing that they're standing on."

It's that same severed foot from before. And Tom is gross for stepping on it.

">Go inside. Check out everything."

Tom brings out the BLUDGEONY CANESHOVEL and the two of them enter the room.

...but it appears empty.

"Oh well. Open those lockers."

">Oh well. Open those lockers."

There is a patient's stool in the southwest corner. It doesn't open.

Against the north wall in what appears to be the examination portion of the room, there is some sort of metal footlocker overgrown with fleshy protuberances.

It resists Tom's attempts to open it, and two long, fleshy growths seem to converge where the lock would normally be, reaching towards each other with a gap in between.

The entire thing seems like an amalgamation of skin, muscle, and vein.

"check behind the poster on the wall"

">check behind the poster on the wall"

The EYE EXAM chart is bolted to the wall. It appears to be a permanent fixture.

Ruby and Tom check their respective inventories.

The keypad linked to the access hatch in the ceiling is a strange one.

It has a digit-lock AND a swipe-card slot, and it appears to be lacking power.

Strangely, it is connected to the hatch with both an electric and apparently-organic cord. The fleshy cord reaches from one terminal to the hatch, as does an electrical wire. Crossing the electrical wire is a thing flap of burnt flesh and ash, which appears to be leading to the a set of contacts on the access card reader.

It seems rather complex. Whatever the case, the burnt flesh appears to be evidence that the two cords have

trouble working well together.

"Break open the cabinet with the BLUDGEONY CANE SHOVEL."

Tom explains that he has added the SCALPEL to his leather pouch of MEDICAL IMPLEMENTS.

">Break open the cabinet with the BLUDGEONY CANE SHOVEL."

One of the doctors probably had a TINY KEY to go with this lock.

Tom's no doctor, but he's got the prescription for this medicine cabinet!

After bashing the cabinet open, Tom finds a large jar of TRANQUILIZER inside.

"Tom: Fill syringe with tranquilizer."

">Tom: Fill syringe with tranquilizer."

Tom fills his SYRINGE with LIQUID TRANQUILIZER. He's got several doses worth in there now!

Still, he considers how much good it would do against a behemoth like Ace, should he show up again.

There appear to be three schools of thought on the fleshy locker. Should Tom:

Cut the growths sealing the locker with the scalpel?

Retrieve the fleshy growth from the jar downstairs and use it with the locker?

Inject the growths with tranquilizer?

Going by the first 5 responses,[which have vanished with the original thread, thus cannot be posted in this power point] the majority is in favor of using the JAR GROWTH on the LOCKER GROWTHS.

Tom and Ruby warily head back downstairs.

Ruby removes the BARBED WIRE from her RUBBER GLOVES and carefully removes the growth from the jar.

Tom and Ruby return to the hall.

STITCHES is here.

“Say Hi!”

Ruby's hands are full, and she has nowhere to put the large fleshy growth. She says hi.

Stitches groans hoarsely and growls in response.

Stitches lunges forward. His intentions are clearly hostile.

He lets loose a pained moan as he staggers at Ruby, claws held high.

ＵＨＡＡＡＨＨ ＫＩＬＬＬＬＬ ＭＥ

"Combo move, run into next room, bait with ruby, trip with tom, syringe while he's down"

">Combo move, run into next room, bait with ruby, trip with tom, syringe while he's down"

Tom and Ruby prepare for an elaborate maneuver!

Ruby trips Stitches with her UNATTRACTIVELY LONG FOOT. As soon as he falls, Tom pins him down using the strength of his MANLY PHYSIQUE and injects a healthy dose of LIQUID TRANQUILIZER into his neck.

Tom keeps Stitches pinned until, after a very nerve-wracking minute or so, he finally goes unconscious.

"Loot Stitches."

">Loot Stitches."

Stitches is carrying a TINY KEY labelled "medicine cabinet" in tiny letters.

...Tom decides to leave it with him.

Tom shoves Stitches into Locker #5 and slams the door close hard enough to jam it on the hinges. It's not much, but it'll do for now. It should keep him safe, and he should be out for a while with all the tranq Tom used.

"Wasn't one of the lockers in here jammed before? Now that we have Tom and MANLY PHYSIQUE we should try to open it"

Ruby slips the GROUP PORTRAIT into a paper-thin gap in the locker's edge, at the top. Stitches may appreciate it, perhaps?

">Wasn't one of the lockers in here jammed before? Now that we have Tom and MANLY PHYSIQUE we should try to open it"

That would be the locker Tom just re-jammed to seal Stitches in.

There was nothing inside when Tom checked.

Tom and Ruby resume their original course of action and head back to the upstairs room.

Ruby places the fleshy growth from the jar into the gap between the other fleshy growths.

Before Ruby's eyes, the fleshy growths grow together and coil into one another.

The large fleshy mass Ruby placed onto the chest, now connected, begins to beat rhythmically, expanding and contracting with a soft, wet sound.

A moment later, the lid of the locker opens up -- not from the edge, but from the center, peeling itself open.

From inside, Ruby retrieves a FLESHY PROTOTUBE, a bizarre organic item that somehow features an electrical contact panel on one end.

"Ruby: Lick it."

">Ruby: Lick it." IT TASTES BAD.

Tom cuts away the burnt flesh and Ruby plugs the FLESHY PROTOTUBE into the keypad's contact panel.

It doesn't seem to do much by itself.

“Connect it to the other growth”

">Connect it to the other growth"

Connecting the FLESHY PROTOTUBE in that way would lay it over the charged electrical wire! That's probably how the last connection got burnt!

Wrap the cord with the rubber gloves so they don't connect

Ruby wraps the cord in her RUBBER GLOVES and connects the FLESHY PROTOTUBE, leaving both cords intact and connected!

The key panel lights up, awaiting a 4-digit number.

Ruby punches in the code 0645, and the access card reader lights up.

Tom swipes the HIGH-ACCESS card.

That seems to have done the trick. The HIGH SECURITY HATCH on the ceiling recedes.

The path upwards is open.

Ruby and Tom ascend to the floor above.

Tom tries the security room door, but it is locked with a SECURITY KEYCARD READER. Even Tom's HIGH ACCESS CARD does no good here.

Ruby and Tom head to Ace's quarters. Tom politely goes first.

Ace's quarters appear rather starkly furnished.

"Check ACE'S BED"

Something is very disorienting about this room. The bed appears much larger than Tom originally thought.

">Check ACE'S BED" Tom finds a SPADE

KEY tucked safely under Ace's pillow.

Ruby and Tom return to the hall. Filbert's room is securely locked, and the Security room needs a SECURITY CARD. Even Tom's HIGH ACCESS CARD doesn't work here.

“open the left door”

">open the left door" Ruby opens the door

to the other wings...

Ruby closes the door. Ruby decides not to

go that way.

Make sure Tom saw what we saw

">Make sure Tom saw what we saw."

Tom says that if you saw a huge door lined with teeth leading into some sort of horrible abyss then yes, he saw the same thing.

Filbert's door is too sturdy to be bashed or pried open. Further, there is no answer from inside.

"HP Check, re-examine Tom's eye (lack thereof)"

">HP Check, re-examine Tom's eye (lack thereof)"

Ruby peels back the bandage on Tom's eye for a moment...

Tom's wound seems to be doing well. It doesn't appear to be infected and the earlier bleeding has stopped.

He looks like he'll be fine.

Ruby and Tom head down one level.

“Fill the syringe and use on dummy downstairs”

">Fill the syringe and use on dummy downstairs"

Tom tops off the SYRINGE with LIQUID TRANQUILIZER.

Ruby and Tom decide to begin the long trek all the way back to the DUMMY ROOM.

Ruby and Tom continue their trek.

Still going! They head through

the room Ruby woke up in.

Now into the dissipating brig...

Ruby and Tom finally arrive in the DUMMY ROOM, though the DUMMY is absent.

"Check that wall painting with your third eye, Ruby. It might be important."

">Check that wall painting with your third eye, Ruby. It might be important."

Ruby examines the room with her THIRD EYE.

Something painful emanates from the PAINTING. But it's hollow, distant. Like an echo of something, memories of before.

A second echo suddenly comes through, piercingly.

It's small, and it's just an echo, but it's still incredibly focused, overpoweringly potent.

It hurts so badly, and yet...

...and yet it feels strangely good.

It's like a feeling that deep down, Ruby wants to feel forever.

Ruby recovers a little and wipes the blood from her third eye.

Tom examines the CLOCKLIKE DEVICE.

...it would appear the EYE DIAL is missing.

Tom grabs the DO NOT OPEN sticker for no apparent reason.

Ruby and Tom take a long trek back to the catwalk outside Lab B, but those frames were lost on their way overseas, so we'll just skip to their arrival.

">wear the DO NOT OPEN sticker on the chance that it may prevent someone from opening you"

">wear the DO NOT OPEN sticker on the chance that it may prevent someone from opening you"

Done.