05-10-2015, 10:42 PM
As he clipped the walkie-talkie to his belt, Shang strode across the front parking lot toward the main doors of the hospital. He made it across the midpoint when a sudden pain shot through his head. With a grunt, he dropped down to a knee and covered his face with his hands. A few streets over, the air raid sirens started to wail. Although he could see the city shifting around him once again, the sorcerer ignored it as he made his way toward the front doors of the hospital. Now that he was here, he didn’t plan to let anything distract him from his objective… whatever that was supposed to be.
Stepping through the revolving door, Shang had an immediate feeling of uneasiness at how perfect everything looked. Cedar Grove Sanitarium had been in a state of decay, and the Riverside Motel had been neglected for some time. For whatever reason, Alchemilla Hospital had the appearance of a place that was still servicing hundreds of people every day, despite the fact that the building was empty and silent. Directly across from the revolving doors, a polished elevator sat with its doors shut and a feel strips of ‘Out of Order’ tape barring access.
Given that the stairwell was likewise ‘sealed’ with a sturdy chain that Shang didn’t feel compelled to break, the sorcerer made his way to the next room down the far wall. Labeled ‘Director’s Office,’ the room behind the nondescript door was plain, but there were a few small clues that made it seem like someone had combed the place over earlier. For a hospital director’s office, the place was devoid of any sort of evidence that a human, rather than a robot, did work in it. All the books were perfectly aligned on the shelf, the trash was empty, and it even smelled as if the paint and wood stain had been freshly applied.
Shang frowned as he walked over to the chair and slid it out from behind the desk. His hands found the drawer and tugged it open to reveal that the desk was empty save a little notepad. Plucking it up, the sorcerer dropped into the old chair and quickly skimmed through the handful of pages that remained on the spiral-bound pad. Most of it was gibberish about office supplies vanishing and poor work being done on the inventory. The only things that caught the sorcerer’s attention were mentions of some supplies being stored ‘Down There.’
From behind the man, he heard the door creak open. Shang spun around and found himself staring at a scraggly little man in a tattered red hoodie. Despite having the appearance of someone who hadn’t showered in a few days or slept more than an hour or two, the sorcerer didn’t feel intimidated or unnerved. “Hey, what’s up?” The man asked as he pushed back his hood and unkempt hair to reveal a face that was probably no more than twenty-some years old. “I think most of the staff has cleared out for the night… can I help you?”
It was rare for Shang to meet someone who didn’t want to jump his bones or trying and tear them out of his body, so the young man casually asking how he could assist him was probably one of the bigger shocks of the evening. “Who are you?”
“Me?” The youth asked as he glanced around to make sure he was being addressed. “I think I work here. At least I hope I work here, since I’ve been cleaning up these messes for far too long without some form of money. Hell, I’d take free coffee drinks… I got a bud who could whip up an excellent mocha y’know.”
Shang furrowed his brow. “You didn’t answer my question.”
The young adult shook his sweatshirt-clad shoulders. “I can’t recall the name, I’m sorry. I think I’ve had a few of them, but none of them have stuck as of late.” Stopping his train of thought, he ran a hand over his chin, which sported the barest traces of facial hair. “Yea… I think the other guys knew it. Anyway, are you looking for anything in particular? I think the guy who used to work here left… a while ago? You can’t imagine how hard it is to keep track of time in this place. Sometimes I feel like I go to sleep and wake up last year.”
He was talking in that rambling and confused way that everyone else did, but since he wasn’t blatantly hostile, Shang didn’t mind. “How long has the hospital been like this?”
The scraggly youth scowled and scratched the side of his head for a few moments. “A week? A year? Three hours? I feel like none of those are right, but at the same time, there’s a chance they’re all right. We haven’t really had much luck with any of this since coming to this place.”
“We?”
“Yea,” the youth replied, his tone confident for the first time. “I got some friends who I ride with, but we all occasionally like to go off on solo tours.”
“Solo tours?”
“Yea,” Shang’s acquaintance replied. “It’s like… when the Beatles split up and they all decided to go take a stab at being famous on their own.” The young man glanced at his surroundings before shaking his head. “Only when John Lennon gets shot in the face, we all get reunited in band mode.”
It made little sense, but Shang found his curiosity drawing him further into the unkempt youth’s rambling remarks. “So does that make you Ringo or George Harrison?”
What followed was one of the more uncomfortable pregnant pauses in Shang Tsung’s many centuries of life, but after that uncomfortable silence, the twenty-something let out a soft laugh and shook a finger at the seated sorcerer. “You’re pretty funny for a guy who throws fireballs and has knives in his arms.” Had this not been the first time they met, the tone in which the other man said the remark would have made it seem like just a casual remark. Instead, it betrayed the fact that the poorly dressed youth knew things he shouldn’t be able to know.
“And you’re pretty knowledgeable for someone I’ve just met.” Shang retorted with a little more menace in his tone.
“Ah, nah… I just have a really good pair of eyes outside,” he replied without skipping a beat. “What brings you to Alchemilla anyway?”
Shang scowled at the deflection before setting the notepad back on the empty desk. “I was following some leads I picked up in Cedar Grove Sanitarium about some patients transferred from here. From what I learned, they had some sort of degenerative and highly contagious condition. Do you know anything about any patient transfers? An… associate of mine also mentioned that there were so shipments made to the hospital that were removed from the import registry.”
The scraggly young man thought about the question for a few moments before almost reluctantly nodding his head. “You’ll probably want to check out some of the rooms in the basement, but to get to that part, you’ll need to go to the third floor.”
“Why the extra trip?” Shang inquired.
“Is anything ever as straightforward as ‘Walk to X and win’?”
A scowl spread across the sorcerer’s visage as he contemplating having to navigate his way through the hospital. The last thing he wanted to do was run into any plague-addled patients or homicidal nurses. “Can you lead me up to the third floor then?”
“Nah,” the youth replied with a faint grin. “You really think I work here, man? I just like to keep the place clean for visitors.”
Before Shang could offer a response, his new acquaintance slipped back into the lobby, letting the door click shut. Unwilling to lose such a vital lead, the sorcerer bolted up from the seat and nearly tore the door from its hinges as he threw it open. Half-stumbling into the lobby, Shang glanced to his left and saw that the room was completely empty, with no indication that any of the doors had been recently disturbed.
A scowl spread across the sorcerer’s visage as he made his way over to the elevator. Although it was clearly out of commission, the wall next to it had a large map of the hospital’s first, second, and third floors. After a few moments of staring at the images, Shang committed them to memory. If the map was accurate, the hospital was essentially a large ‘U’, and he was on the employee side that contained some offices, a kitchen, and a storage room. He would need to head over to the other part to find the stairs that led up to the second and third floors.
“Let’s get this done,” Shang mumbled to himself as he started toward the other end of the room.
Stepping through the revolving door, Shang had an immediate feeling of uneasiness at how perfect everything looked. Cedar Grove Sanitarium had been in a state of decay, and the Riverside Motel had been neglected for some time. For whatever reason, Alchemilla Hospital had the appearance of a place that was still servicing hundreds of people every day, despite the fact that the building was empty and silent. Directly across from the revolving doors, a polished elevator sat with its doors shut and a feel strips of ‘Out of Order’ tape barring access.
Given that the stairwell was likewise ‘sealed’ with a sturdy chain that Shang didn’t feel compelled to break, the sorcerer made his way to the next room down the far wall. Labeled ‘Director’s Office,’ the room behind the nondescript door was plain, but there were a few small clues that made it seem like someone had combed the place over earlier. For a hospital director’s office, the place was devoid of any sort of evidence that a human, rather than a robot, did work in it. All the books were perfectly aligned on the shelf, the trash was empty, and it even smelled as if the paint and wood stain had been freshly applied.
Shang frowned as he walked over to the chair and slid it out from behind the desk. His hands found the drawer and tugged it open to reveal that the desk was empty save a little notepad. Plucking it up, the sorcerer dropped into the old chair and quickly skimmed through the handful of pages that remained on the spiral-bound pad. Most of it was gibberish about office supplies vanishing and poor work being done on the inventory. The only things that caught the sorcerer’s attention were mentions of some supplies being stored ‘Down There.’
From behind the man, he heard the door creak open. Shang spun around and found himself staring at a scraggly little man in a tattered red hoodie. Despite having the appearance of someone who hadn’t showered in a few days or slept more than an hour or two, the sorcerer didn’t feel intimidated or unnerved. “Hey, what’s up?” The man asked as he pushed back his hood and unkempt hair to reveal a face that was probably no more than twenty-some years old. “I think most of the staff has cleared out for the night… can I help you?”
It was rare for Shang to meet someone who didn’t want to jump his bones or trying and tear them out of his body, so the young man casually asking how he could assist him was probably one of the bigger shocks of the evening. “Who are you?”
“Me?” The youth asked as he glanced around to make sure he was being addressed. “I think I work here. At least I hope I work here, since I’ve been cleaning up these messes for far too long without some form of money. Hell, I’d take free coffee drinks… I got a bud who could whip up an excellent mocha y’know.”
Shang furrowed his brow. “You didn’t answer my question.”
The young adult shook his sweatshirt-clad shoulders. “I can’t recall the name, I’m sorry. I think I’ve had a few of them, but none of them have stuck as of late.” Stopping his train of thought, he ran a hand over his chin, which sported the barest traces of facial hair. “Yea… I think the other guys knew it. Anyway, are you looking for anything in particular? I think the guy who used to work here left… a while ago? You can’t imagine how hard it is to keep track of time in this place. Sometimes I feel like I go to sleep and wake up last year.”
He was talking in that rambling and confused way that everyone else did, but since he wasn’t blatantly hostile, Shang didn’t mind. “How long has the hospital been like this?”
The scraggly youth scowled and scratched the side of his head for a few moments. “A week? A year? Three hours? I feel like none of those are right, but at the same time, there’s a chance they’re all right. We haven’t really had much luck with any of this since coming to this place.”
“We?”
“Yea,” the youth replied, his tone confident for the first time. “I got some friends who I ride with, but we all occasionally like to go off on solo tours.”
“Solo tours?”
“Yea,” Shang’s acquaintance replied. “It’s like… when the Beatles split up and they all decided to go take a stab at being famous on their own.” The young man glanced at his surroundings before shaking his head. “Only when John Lennon gets shot in the face, we all get reunited in band mode.”
It made little sense, but Shang found his curiosity drawing him further into the unkempt youth’s rambling remarks. “So does that make you Ringo or George Harrison?”
What followed was one of the more uncomfortable pregnant pauses in Shang Tsung’s many centuries of life, but after that uncomfortable silence, the twenty-something let out a soft laugh and shook a finger at the seated sorcerer. “You’re pretty funny for a guy who throws fireballs and has knives in his arms.” Had this not been the first time they met, the tone in which the other man said the remark would have made it seem like just a casual remark. Instead, it betrayed the fact that the poorly dressed youth knew things he shouldn’t be able to know.
“And you’re pretty knowledgeable for someone I’ve just met.” Shang retorted with a little more menace in his tone.
“Ah, nah… I just have a really good pair of eyes outside,” he replied without skipping a beat. “What brings you to Alchemilla anyway?”
Shang scowled at the deflection before setting the notepad back on the empty desk. “I was following some leads I picked up in Cedar Grove Sanitarium about some patients transferred from here. From what I learned, they had some sort of degenerative and highly contagious condition. Do you know anything about any patient transfers? An… associate of mine also mentioned that there were so shipments made to the hospital that were removed from the import registry.”
The scraggly young man thought about the question for a few moments before almost reluctantly nodding his head. “You’ll probably want to check out some of the rooms in the basement, but to get to that part, you’ll need to go to the third floor.”
“Why the extra trip?” Shang inquired.
“Is anything ever as straightforward as ‘Walk to X and win’?”
A scowl spread across the sorcerer’s visage as he contemplating having to navigate his way through the hospital. The last thing he wanted to do was run into any plague-addled patients or homicidal nurses. “Can you lead me up to the third floor then?”
“Nah,” the youth replied with a faint grin. “You really think I work here, man? I just like to keep the place clean for visitors.”
Before Shang could offer a response, his new acquaintance slipped back into the lobby, letting the door click shut. Unwilling to lose such a vital lead, the sorcerer bolted up from the seat and nearly tore the door from its hinges as he threw it open. Half-stumbling into the lobby, Shang glanced to his left and saw that the room was completely empty, with no indication that any of the doors had been recently disturbed.
A scowl spread across the sorcerer’s visage as he made his way over to the elevator. Although it was clearly out of commission, the wall next to it had a large map of the hospital’s first, second, and third floors. After a few moments of staring at the images, Shang committed them to memory. If the map was accurate, the hospital was essentially a large ‘U’, and he was on the employee side that contained some offices, a kitchen, and a storage room. He would need to head over to the other part to find the stairs that led up to the second and third floors.
“Let’s get this done,” Shang mumbled to himself as he started toward the other end of the room.
![[Image: Shang.jpg]](http://www.omniverse-rpg.com/images/Shang.jpg)