yeah that happens if you turn into a vampire

[cross_and_bow]

(prologue)

Bella slips into the school by a side door; she just saw a thing and she thinks she's seen it in a book before and thinks it's supposed to be mostly harmless but before she wakes Giles up over probably nothing or kills a likely neutral demon she wants to check.

And she pushes into the library.

Comments

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles has goggles in his pocket that suffice to let him see where he's going.

It's probably reasonable to attempt stealth at least until the point where he can tell how many statues he'll need to disintegrate.

[cross_and_bow]

No argument from Bella. She stays a ways behind him, climbing down when he's had a head start.




Gosh that's a lot of lumbering statue jobbies. They're dancing.

[thisvorlunatic]

Well.

Miles picks a nice vantage, and then he starts shooting. The underground chamber quickly fills with the horrible screams of dying statues.

[cross_and_bow]

The dude around whom they are dancing changes tactics.

"Can you get me a path to him?" Bella murmurs.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Let's find out."

He picks off a line of statues. They seem reluctant to touch their disintegrating brethren, which helps.

[cross_and_bow]

They move pretty fast.

Bella moves faster. She charges, dodging and weaving. Statues suffice as cover when the dude in the middle takes exception to her approach.

There is a blurring scuffle and then Bella has his implement of mysterious magicalness and he has a snapped neck.

[thisvorlunatic]

The remaining statues disintegrate neatly and quietly, without the cracks or the smoke or the horrible screams.

[cross_and_bow]

"Phew," she says. "Thanks!"

[thisvorlunatic]

"No problem."

[cross_and_bow]

"I do not see any obvious loot here, but I can wait around without depriving you of your ride if you want to loot hunt."

[thisvorlunatic]

"A quick look around can't hurt."

He has a quick look around.

[cross_and_bow]

There is a little loot but none of it readily exchangeable for US dollars, the principal currency in which plane tickets are sold.

[thisvorlunatic]

Eh, you can always find somebody. Miles pockets some likely-looking objects. "Okay, let's go."

[cross_and_bow]

So she drives him back to Sunnydale and drops him off by the butcher shop.

[thisvorlunatic]

And he hangs out with Zeke and commits petty theft and decides to scrap the whole idea of buying a plane ticket because faking the necessary identity documentation would require too much human contact and stowing away in a luggage compartment is safer. This still requires him to acquaint himself with flight schedules and pick up supplies, though. And he'll need some means of transporting himself to an airport...

[cross_and_bow]

He has evidence that Bella possesses a car!

[thisvorlunatic]

That's true!

He loiters by the butcher's shop around sundown; when Bella doesn't happen by, he tries the school.

[cross_and_bow]

There's her car!

[thisvorlunatic]

Promising! And the lady herself...?

[cross_and_bow]

Not in the library, or anywhere else in evidence on campus.

[thisvorlunatic]

...

[cross_and_bow]

Bella, meanwhile, is waking up on a truly unpleasant floor, even as floors go.

[pythbox]

Gosh, it's so unpleasant!

[cross_and_bow]

It's not really improved by the headache or the fact that she can barely lever herself up from prone, either.

She manages it eventually.

[pythbox]

The unpleasant floor belongs to an unpleasant house, and the unpleasant house is perfectly still and silent, quite as though unoccupied.