Captain systematically cleared through the pile of theatre supplies.
Carlos smirks, "I know enough of magic to have set up this whole mess here." He has nothing more to say, being shocked at the praise that Captain Rose had given him.
Looking through the stuff the investigator has an idea.
Shouting at the top of his lungs he calls out, "Hey! The show is about to start we need all hands on deck. Everyone needs to report to the prop room for dress rehearsal immediately!"
There is no response to the nose or the commotion or the calls. Rose and Carlos notice that a door towards the end of the hallway just very gently shut.
Captain eyed the door cautiously, heading towards it while watching out for anything of concern.
Seeing the Captain looking at a door and realizing that something is afoot, she puts down the falling apart prop spear and follows closely behind while trying to remember her training with the police. She reaches for the gun under her hoodie, but stops as she thinks about how good of a shot she actually was.
Better to use what I can than to try and appease some strange compulsion and shoot someone in the butt.
The door remained distinctly door-esque. It was solid, and apparently led to a changing room given the plaque. Nothing happened as the Hunters approchaed, but without opening it up there were few ways to know what awaited.
Kavax eyed the door. "Is this going to end up the same as the last door we went in? How many different haunts and ghosts can one theater have anyway?"
"Weeeeeell, have you ever seen a Christmas Carol," Charly asks Kavax.
She then warns everyone back before opening the door.
Carlos believed that the most haunted location recorded by hunters, a small town in England, had over 130 ghosts and haunts within its borders.
Charly opened the door to find an old dressing room. The mirrors, although intact, were caked in dust and old costumes lay scattered around the floor, half draped on chairs and hanging from the walls. A second door was on the far side of the room, most likely leading to a green room near the stage.
Getting nervous, Charly once again considers trying to find the next missing person with magic again. After a moment of considering the risks, she takes a deep breath and focuses on the strands of fate she could feel in the back of her mind.
Carlos listens to Kavax and decides to answer just to break the silence, "A lot, one place even has over 130 reported ghost sightings." He arches his back in a stretch before handing the victim off, "People don't choose where to die typically. Mind giving me a hand here?"
"You'd think that they'd take each other out in infighting or attract something that eats ghosts or something like that before it got to that many. Eh, let's hope this theater isn't that haunted, at least."
Kavak gingerly took the unconscious victim from Carlos, the way he handled her making it clear that he was less concerned with the weight than the possibility of accidentally harming such fragile cargo.
"Yeah, I can carry for a while."
Charly is able tell the person is within a few feet of where she is. Either in the room or extremely close to it.
Charly takes a deep breath and opens the door.
Carlos nods to Kavax, "Thanks. Let's see what is beyond here, and I hope if it is a ghost it has some answers for us."
Charly moved across the vacant room as Carlos and Kavax handed off their precious burden.
As she opened the door on the far side of the dressing room Charly found a corridor with a variety of doors leading off it. The most noticeable, however, was the one right next to the dressing room door. The whimpering suggested something was in there.
Again, Charly takes in a deep breath to steady herself and opens the door she hears someone whimpering behind.
Kavax stood as ready as he could while holding a person in one arm. Well, at least he still could use his other arm.
Charly opened the door to reveal a large, muscular man with a bleached blond buzzcut whimpering and trying to hide even more as the door opened, clearly terrified out of his mind. The scent of fear and less pleasant fluids was potent.
Seeing the door pushed open, Carlos stands on guard, not sure what to expect. He nearly sends out a magic bolt before seeing that the figure is a large man, and the smell was a dead giveaway that they weren't something in disguise. Nothing would pick that smell of fear and wretchedness.
"Hey, you okay?"
He starts to approach and takes a quick look around the room.
Charly slips in and ignores the smell, which thankfully kills her appetite.
"Hey, can you move? Are you hurt," she asks softly.
Carlos was just in time to see a figure move up on them, there bare feet making no sound at all as they crossed the room from where they had been hidden. The woman, tiny as she was, looked momentarily shocked as she met Carlos' eyes, but quickly backed away. "Who are you? Who said you could come back here?" Her eyes darted between the Hunters as the man sobbed silently and tried to yank the door closed.
"Akiko," Charly lies, "We just wandered in and noticed something going on that smelled a little rotten. You seem to be unaffected by it though."
Not really knowing what was going on, Kavax stood to the side as unobtrusively as a hulking figure in trenchcoat holding an unconscious person and with a very long sword strapped to his hip could. Which is to say not very.
This gentleman is too young - he might be late high school of early college age - to be Charly's missing friend.
The woman waved a hand imperiously. "Something is always rotten right before a show goes on. The flowers can never cover the nerves or, in some cases, the vomit." She looked down disdainfully, apparently unware of the poor state of her own clothing.
"Ah, and I guess you're the one they got to play damsel in distress number three," Charly snipes, the woman's attitude rubbing her the wrong way.
Seems like trouble again...
Carlos takes a look at the woman, "It seems that I have the right room. I'm here to tell you that there is a big wig from the Boston School of Theater just outside the building and he would love to see the whole cast and crew before the show."
I should keep my mouth shut.
He tries his best but its clear that such a line of thought wouldn't work here.
Captain listened in as she quietly moved to try to provide Kavax slightly more cover.
"If flowers are not enough, there should be something to help him and keep order." she remarks as she looks around.
The woman looked at Rose before moving away slightly before looking at the other two. "I am playing Princess Ida, of course. So there may be some slight distress." Looking at Carlos again, she held out her arm. "Very well then. Escort me out."
Charly rolls her eyes and turns her attention back to the man cowering in the closet. Seeing the door closed, she frowned. How was she supposed to get this guy out safely with Miss Ima Princess-y-Diva hovering around and demanding that Carlos escort her out.
"Well, now what?"
Carlos was unsure why his dumb like worked but he was glad of it, taking her hand he starts to move her outside the building. "Anyone coming with?" He stops at the threshold of the doorway and wonders, How the heck DO I get out anyway?
The woman waved a hand. "Do we really need to make this a group effort for a, what was it, cast meeting with someone from a theatre school? Besides, I assumed your friends would want to help the one weeping in his cupboard."
"I thought it was an act, my apologies miss." Carlos tries to consider a route out that doesn't involve the horrible mist, spooky man-eating rooms, possibly mannequins, ghosts, or possibly even more mannequins.
He shoots a look at Captain Rose, Hopefully I have someone who can pick her up when we do get outside.
"Didn't the first girl mention someone yelling at her that it was her time to go on stage," Charly asks the Captain before trying to open the door with the terrified man and trying to coax him out.
"Hey, we're here to get you home. Can you walk? Are you hurting anywhere?"
The man seems to be uninjured, but is almost catatonic in terror.
"Just outside the front door m'am."
He hopes that nothing jumps out, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
"Hey, the scary woman's gone, and we need to get you and the others out. We'll get you out safely but we need you to work with us. Okay," she tells him in a firm, but still pleasant voice.
"Go away," he sobs out in reply. "Just leave -sob- me alone. We're all -hic- going to die in this -sob- stupid ****ing ghost theatre anyway."
Carlos feels the dread fangs on his throat. "This is what I get for trying to do good! Damn this all!"
Pulling up a small rosary seemingly from nowhere he begins a prayer that he remembers from his youthful days in school. For once he was happy of the reed sticks slamming some knowledge into him.
The beads shatter and almost turn into magical bullets; and his prayer changes to one of hoping it will work.
The vampire swore as she moved away, padding softly in a circle as the rosary forced her back for a moment. "Those things are most frustrating," she said with a sigh as she circled. "I don't even believe in the Church"
Captain thought for a few moments on Charly's question as the younger woman tried to coax the very agitated man, "Possibly, you spoke with her for a while before I got there..."
At the man's sobbing, Captain sighed and responded in an attempt at a neutral manner to calm him down. It was not neutral, it was professional clipped 'I already have one unconscious person I want to get out of here so if you can walk and make me come in there, the ghosts are not gonna be your problem' manner that Captain may have used more than a few times before, "Part of my job is to get people out of situations like these. You are not the first to get freaked out by these types of sights, but there are better odds at surviving with trained personnel." That some of the people did not fit that criteria didn't seem worth mentioning at the moment.
Charly gives Captain Rose a glare before turning her attention to the man.
"While she's being a little rude, my partner is right. Staying means we're going to die for sure, but if you come with us, we'll see you through. You're not alone here, not unless you chose to be. We can help you, but you have to take the first step," she says in as soothing and encouraging a voice as she can manage.
Kavax didn't step into view, but wondered if he should join the conversation. Probably not. He tended not to be much help, unless they were trying to scare someone. Perhaps he should keep watch? Everyone was paying attention to the scared man, so nobody was looking out the door.
Shuffling carefully while carrying his fragile cargo, Kavax poked his nose out the door they had come in through to make sure that there wasn't any spooky mist or haunt tendrils or anything else horrible sneaking up on them.
Carlos assesses the situation and knows full well it can go from okay, to really, really, really not okay quickly. Hoping his improved magic holds the creature back, he makes a dash past it to return to the group as fast as he can.
"And me? I don't believe in biting people in the neck and here we are!"
Rubbing his face and eyes, the man looked over at people. "Yeah, and how many can you save? Can you even get out? We couldn't when we tried. There's all sorts of crap in here. Everyone else is missing, and we got hunted..."
Kavax could...feel...two things. Something was approaching, and something had been disturbed below.
"We've already got one out," Charly says trying to keep a handle on her temper, though her tone does get a little more waspish despite her best efforts. "We've saved a second person and you're number three. I know where a fourth is. I would carry you out but you're about a foot taller than I am and probably double my weight, so please don't make us have to drag you out. I don't think that'll be fun for anyone."
Charly stands up, looking down at the man with a stern expression that fades into one of puzzlement. She grimaces and slaps a hand over her eyes as she realizes something.
"That woman you were terrified of is the one doing the hunting, ain't she," she asks with a groan.
His eyes widen as he pauses. "Maybe? I thought it was a little girl, but I didn't see. Just heard the giggling following me."
Kavax looked back towards the conversation.
"Hey, can we hurry things up? I smell trouble coming our way. Two different kinds, probably. And this closet is a bit too cramped for all out fighting."
"Something like this," Charly asks before giving her best girlish giggle, a tinkling sound that made the young woman seem more like an escapee from middle school when combined with her height and slight build. Before she gets an answer, she turns and jogs after Carlos and the mystery woman.
I should've gone with him! At least he wouldn't be all alone then!