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Majoraa
Noah hadn’t gotten as much information as he had liked, but it was a start. The boy sat up from the hospital bed and looked down at his watch, it still was only 1:13 AM. No one would be up for hours, which meant new information would be scarce. Noah took a quick look at the handbook he had studied dutifully and switched to the map section. It hadn’t been very different from his own previous game, but he still wanted to find any dissimilarity that he could. After scrolling through the different floor plans, he decided to go have a look himself. The small Biologist stepped out of the bed, slipped on his clothes, and quietly let himself out of his room on the second floor.
It wasn’t too hard to move quietly as Noah already normally stepped as light as a feather. The more vibration on the ground, the more chance a beaker would fall and break, so Noah had tried to change his step accordingly. Of course, these countermeasures didn’t do much good when it came to his spatial awareness. He still seemed to run into tables and knock over piles of books in the Study, or run into one of the chairs in the waiting room of the first floor hospital wing. He had dismissed the vault and ‘Alice Parker’ for the moment, wanting to look into it with a fresh pair of eyes in the morning. As he wrote down notes in the notebook he found in the Store, he thought back to last night’s events.
After the words from Daimyon, the Biologist knew he wasn’t the only one who thought Juliette looked petrified. He had given the two new Infinites his introduction and then stirred the Horologist towards the break room with the Infinite Caretaker and Politician. There they had enjoyed a nice cup of tea and had gotten a quick summary of the killing game’s events from Cyrus. Noah went over the rules with Juliette, trying to read between the lines, but alas, he would have to hear everyone’s accounts before he could really understand what happened.
The Patient’s Quarter’s in both games were pretty much the same, but the ‘attractions’ were a bit different. The cave-like like structure called “Aladdin’s Palace” the most curious of them all. Noah took a quick scan of the normal amenity rooms and quickly finished up, noting that the kitchen was closed off during nighttime. The boy went back to his room and slipped inside, dropping off his coat and other apparel before hopping into bed. The room was dark, but not completely blackened. It was filled with experimental equipment and powders, almost identical to the room he had lived in in his last killing game. But nothing was rearranged, which meant any experiment he had been working on would have to be started anew.
When he woke up a few hours later to the morning announcement. He set an alarm on his watch and got up before heading into the shower. He would need something to wake him up and Noah knew the coffee would probably be awful compared to his own dabblings. After a quick shower, the boy did the bare minimum to dry off his hair and got changed before heading out for Juliette’s room. After using the Handbook to find her room number- or should it be letter? He arrived and gave the door a polite knock.
Noah was still worried about her. She hadn’t been injured, but her psychological state had been shot, turning phantom symptoms into reality. With the sleeping drug came fatigue, a slight inflammation in the throat, dizziness, and a bad headache. It was a wonder that the girl had been able to stay up as long as she had with those symptoms and almost having a panic attack. The Biologist was used to some of the symptoms and had come up with coping mechanisms, but a normal girl? That was just a horrendous combination. The boy would have liked to give a follow up to his examination but after last night... he might be pushing it.
The Horologist herself found herself having been awake for hours before the morning announcement, sitting at the small desk in her assigned quarters (thankfully the layout of Axis Mundi was much better understood after a debriefing the evening prior over tea) with an assortment of watchmaker tools and trinkets spread out before her. She had managed to get her wristwatch to work again (it required a little winding and a replacement battery, all of which was suspiciously provided in her chambers) and was in the midst of fixing her pocket-watch. As she did, she too reflected on the events of the evening prior.
The most memorable Infinite was Noah, for he was not only a new arrival, but someone who assisted her in understanding her surroundings. She had quickly scanned over the E-handbook and been dismissive of it, putting it away the first chance she got. She only pulled it up again when locations and rules were being mulled over and discussed. It wasn’t difficult to understand, but Juliette would do well to commit the rules and the locations to memory as soon as possible.
As for the most memorable event? It was when the Infinite Biologist had attempted a check-up.
“Good morning…” Juliette yawned, opening the door to face her companion from the evening prior. The tone of her voice turned the statement into a question, and though she looked better than the last time the two had spoken, it was now that the fatigue hit her like a truck and caused all her limbs to ache dully. Or perhaps the adrenaline had finally worn off.
“Good morning, Miss Juliette. How are you feeling? Hungry?” He took a short glance at the bedroom behind her, though the room wasn’t very illuminated. Mostly different clock components and the like. He gave the taller girl a smile, “I can smell the bacon from here if you’d like to join me for some breakfast.”
“...!” Immediately, formerly dull icy eyes lit up from behind black rimmed spectacles that she found in her room that were the perfect lenses. “Yes!” she interjected before catching both herself and her protesting stomach. “Please. Yes. Food…”
Again, her gut growled in firm agreement. If Noah would have noticed, she was dressed haphazardly, as if having woken suddenly and gotten to work right away and mindlessly. Still, it did not seem to bother her, even though her labcoat was inside out and a few buttons remained unbuttoned on the top of her blouse and just about revealed the lavender and lacy border of her b-
“...I would like that, yes. Thank you…"
It took a few moments of Noah’s head processing her attire to realize she might be embarrassed later by how she looked, “Miss- um, you might want to fix your clothes. First impressions are rather important and we’ll be meeting quite a few of our new colleagues so...” He coughed, “I’ll be out here.” He closed the door on her and stood in the hall. No one was really milling about, but he could hear sounds coming from the distant resort on their floor. Noah looked down at his own clothes and although they were rumpled, he hadn’t gotten into his chemicals so the coat still looked pristine and white.
“Mn…?” the Horologist was initially confused, but a look in the mirror provided enough of a jolt to wake her up, coupled with washing her face over again to try and cool the manic blush on her cheeks, because did she really just-
“Um. Thank you.” she reappeared out the door, looking more put together than before. She still wore the spectacles but was more presentable, for sure. “...let us go.” And that would be that, and she would pretend the former incident had never happened.
“Let’s~! I’m starving,” While his earlier attitude was a bit more analytical, now that everyone was awake, breakfast time would be perfect for getting to know everyone’s personalities. The Biologist started for the Diner along with Juliette and as they arrived they watched two Infinites leave. Trying to identify them by just their backs, Noah gave a quick glance at his Handbook, “I wonder where those two are off to...” He murmured, then grabbed for the Diner door.
When Noah opened it, a wave of delicious food brushed up his nose and even his own stomach growled. He could hear movement further in through the kitchen, but didn’t see too many of the infinites in the seating room itself. That’s when they heard the unforeseen announcement.
“They must be over there.” Juliette voiced her thoughts, almost as if having read Noah's as well. Of course, she was referencing the study for this so-called coalition meeting. But it was a curious decision to make between food and socialising. Since both were equally important, she offered up a suggestion, “Should we take our plates over to the study? Are we allowed to? It isn't far, I think.”
His stomach growled again, signalling support to her argument, “I suppose it won’t matter much, it’s not like the others probably have a say anyway. I’ll probably just make a breakfast sandwich out of what’s available and get going. Let’s hurry though! I want to hear what they have to say!” With that he hurried ahead of Juliette and into the kitchen.
