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day two

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blood match day two

open arena

23 players remaining

Once dawn breaks around 6 AM, the weather effects from the night before fade as well. Today the sun is shining, and the temperature is hot and muggy, but the air is still and there isn't a cloud in the sky.

If you return to zone zero, you'll note that most of the supplies have been cleared, though there still appear to be crates inside the hut on the beach.

(OOC: When starting a thread, please put in your header the following: ZONE # - TIME - AREA. This will hopefully make it easier for everyone to keep track of which character is where.

Please remember to update the Weekly Check-in with your character's planned movements.

Please expect another arena event around nightfall.)

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At 11:15 PM, the lighthouse comes on. Initially there's just a point of light trained into the distant void of the sea - unsteady, but only in the sense that makes a pretty standard SOS signal.

The beam turns around, slowly but surely, until it projects from east to west, roughly along the arc of the car bridge connecting northeast Zone 3 to northwest Zone 4. Right when the path is as close as possible to properly illuminated, the light disappears. Upon its reappearance, the approximation of a signaling pattern is immediately obvious.

Blink blink flash blink. Flash, flash... flash, flash, flash, flash. Flash flash flick-flick-flash. (Flick/flash; flick/flash.) Flash flash flick-flash-flick. Flash, flash, flash-blink. Blink-blink flash. Flash flash flicker flash blink (falter) blink blink.

After this, the light gradually recedes, especially from the Zone 3 point of view, tracing idle patterns on the surface of Zone 4 for about a minute until going out altogether.

[GUESS WHO'S ATTRACTED LIKE A MURDERMOTH TO THE FLAME?? It's Jack!! Who has taken the liberty of scoping the light out for his group (and simultaneously scoping out Zone 4 despite the fact that it's almost midnight okay CAUTION IS FOR THE WEAK or perhaps those who are less nuts). Being camped out near enough to catch sight quickly, he had run a check by Mayu first - an "I'll be right back", before heading off with a few of their supplies just in case he runs into another angryass bear.

But fortunately for him, luck is on his side this time and he makes it through to the fourth zone with only a few heart-pounding close calls which the audience is surely thrilled by, a little scratched up and out of breath but not too bad off.

Haruhi will likely be able to hear his steps since he's not making much effort to try sneaking up on whoever's manning the light. If there was any doubt about that, he calls out soon enough, too. Judging by the sound of his voice, he's already near the top.]

Hellooo... Is anybody here? [KNOCK KNOCK, IT'S YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD JACK.]

What the heck, a man?

[She doesn't particularly recognize any other elements of the voice; anyway, that makes it obvious enough this is Not Nui. Haruhi rushes to the doorway of the top floor - she can't run back down the stairs (or jump out, however tempting that is for multiple reasons), but she can man the door. She holds it less than six inches radius swung open; she stands with a relatively relaxed posture, and her right hand holds a knife with a grip that isn't even her approximation of combat-ready, just her standard approach more appropriate for spreading butter. (The knob presumably is in her left hand.) In short order they can see portions of each other's faces.]

Jack?

[She has never, ever said this out loud before, only learning it from bumming around reading her booklet between much more interesting pages of the zombie apocalypse survival handbook, and it sounds more like "Jacques".]

[Close enough for him! Of course, he's been reading the cards as well and had paid enough attention during the introductory week to memorize pretty much everyone by name, face and sight even if he didn't speak to any of them. His expression lights up in recognition accordingly, and he holds one hand up in greeting. The other is by his side, visible and weapon-free.]

Haruhi! Was that you, then? There was a weird light coming from this direction, so I thought I'd have a look in case something interesting was going on.

[Like maybe a sudden supply drop!! Of course, the thought that it had been a trap definitely crossed his mind a few times, which is why looking weapon-free doesn't mean a whole lot. Still, his posture is at ease and it doesn't seem like he has any intention of attacking. Haruhi, after all, seems more on the defense than the offense - and just barely that - so he's not particularly keen on starting a scrap.]

[Haruhi bristles hearing her own name; she has a weak spot for the informality of foreigners. Through the limited field of view that the door provides, she scans him enough to see his hands are bare (and there's no hugeass machete or crossbow strapped to his back either). She lets go of the doorknob, and with her arms slack pointing down, just barely still gripping the knife, she leans against the window. The door swings open at least halfway; Jack could walk through.]

Yes, it's me. I came up here earlier, and the lighthouse didn't work back then. The electricity came on all of a sudden at eleven o'clock. You probably saw the boardwalk, or maybe if you came here another way it was the storefronts instead. But all day today, nothing was on. So I wanted to see if it would work now. [She turns her head away from him to look out the window down at said storefronts, trying to pick out Nui if she's on the main street once again.]

[He does take a couple of steps forward, but he doesn't want her to feel cornered either, so it's mostly just getting close enough to have a better look around inside of the lighthouse itself.]

Hm! So there's electricity all over this island, then? [The way he speaks about it probably sounds a little strange, because a week is just not enough time to 100% adjust to a complete shift in technology.]

The light makes it out a fair distance, you know! We saw it all the way on the third island. Others might have seen it too, so you should take care, okay?

[Not everyone is as benign as he (sometimes) is.]

[Haruhi can't judge him; some people just aren't good talkers! She's always wanted to meet a time traveler, not that she actually gathered the Victorian angle. She feels pretty good about the concept of them both being a respectable distance from the door as much as each other.]

The whole point was for people in the third island to see. That's probably where she is. [Haruhi's sulky stance (obviously over her absent partner) disintegrates as she realizes something much more important and looks directly at Jack again.]

So third island... you're counting from the four tunnels at the very beginning, right? So there are definitely two more besides this one and that lame jungle?

[That gets an understanding hum. Seems like not everyone was lucky enough to get back together with their partners as quickly as he had...]

Oh— [Shaking his head at that! Though he had seen the tunnels, he hadn't thought going near them would be an excellent idea with everyone else heading that way.]

I'm counting from the ones I've been to. There's the jungle one, this one, one that's mostly barren but filled with a lot of mountains, and then one that has a few nice cabins and some sheep and things like that. It's really hospitable there!

[But also very open and now sporting some dead people SO.]

I guess it makes sense that we're all so spaced out... especially if there's really a nice pasture. I've been here all day, and it's completely concrete or dirt or stuff like this - I guess I'm not sure about the material, but my point is, not farmland at all. On the bright side, no animals either, and there's other stuff to eat so you don't even worry about no hunting game.

[She frowns some more as she tries to reckon out the window even though without the lighthouse on she can't have any hope of seeing the islands. And even when she was in the third area, she didn't see the mountains of the second area. Though the trees were thick and later there was fog. This altitude is great, for multiple reasons. There's still some amount she'll have to concede to experience, though, and she feels like she's earned the rapport with Jack from her own survey of the island.]

Is the mountainous one the furthest away?

It doesn't sound like it's too bad here, then. The third one is a real pain with all of those big animals wandering around...

[This said with a mild laugh - a little light "haha!" that sure doesn't lend itself to the fact that he had been running from a bear just hours earlier.]

You're right, though! The mountain area is the one that you can get to if you swim from the first place we started at. It's a good enough starting point, I guess, but there isn't a lot to eat or drink. The terrain is a little difficult to pass through, too. Rocky and hard to navigate, lots of hills and quarries and things like that... You definitely have to be good at keeping your footing there.

[Or have a complimentary Jack to mule you around.]

If killer goats are the worst thing you could have in the mountains, that's better than killer jaguars in the shadows, I guess, but it'll take forever to get there now that we're already all the way out here. Gosh, we hate all the walking we did already. These shoes suck, you know? Once this is all over, getting a pedicure is gonna be so ni--

[So nice, she purred out under the cold but skilled hands of the friendly robot masseuse and Franziska agreed with her assessment, probably, Haruhi couldn't completely tell between the champagne in the other girl's mouth and her own head almost facing the ground as her hair fell in big brown curtains but there was something blue somewhere in the leaves not red not this same flash of silver that was so hard to destain--

Haruhi's grip loosens on the knife. She catches it before any impact with the ground, like that reflex test with the ruler she loved so much in grade school.]

And lunch, afterwards, no more rations.

Ah—

[A little brief, outward reaction to the fact that she seemed to have lost her train of thought somewhere in there. That's a little alarming, isn't it? His brows both arch, but he says nothing more about it.]

...Well! I wish I could help, but walking's all I've been doing lately, too. Have you tried padding your shoes with something softer? Are there any fabrics around here?

[Glancing around the lighthouse as he speaks, though he means the island in general.]

[She thinks seriously for a while. Is she struggling over whether or not to share even more information? Or just trying to remember the relative locations of items on an island that's now pitch dark? She doesn't like looking so vulnerable and so she speaks up after just a few seconds.]

Well, yeah. There are lots of stores and no shoplifting prevention procedures. Maybe I should go back tomorrow. I hadn't been thinking about shoes is all; I was looking for other stuff. It'd take a long time to say everything they had in stock!

[Haruhi's mouth forms a flat line as she is suddenly even more proud of her maneuver with the machete.]

[Seems like a good enough answer to Jack, who just nods along with that.]

I could show you how to wrap your feet up so you don't get blisters and have a little more padding, if you want. I used to do it all the time in the winter!

[Because he was a dang street urchin and his shoes were shitty to begin with and there was always so much walking involved...]

I'd just need a little fabric... Oh - but I guess I could just show you how to do it with my socks! [Glancing down at his feet as if to confirm that he is indeed still wearing some.

He is.]

[Haruhi follows his gaze down to the socks, then back up to look up at him. Which is way above her, at least one head.]

There are socks for sale in the store for sure, but I don't know if you have time for that. If Nui-chan is on her way...

[She only hears her own if at the end of that sentence and, utterly unsubtly, scans Jack's clothes for blood to deduce that he probably didn't meet and kill Nui before coming in here; if he did he'd still be covered in blood without time to change, unless he's a barehanded killer, in which case, she concludes with blunt affect, she'd already be screwed.]

With all due respect, I think it'll be more convenient for everyone if you get back soon. Akamura-san must be really worried about you by now.

[She does not know the half of it unlike my other character]

[The "if" that lingers and then drops off is about all the heads up Jack needs. Nui is ranked pretty high, by his recollection; without much of a decent weapon on hand, he'd rather not engage in anything too violent just now. If she's going to provide an out, then he's not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so to say.

The first part will be set aside for her, then. They both know what she meant by that, so there's no need to address it.]

Well! You're right about that... Mayu gets scared when she's by herself for too long.

[SHE TRULY DOES NOT KNOW THE HALF OF IT. Or that "scared" in this case is synonymous with "probably murderous", especially now that he doesn't have to piggyback her around anymore.]

You'll be able to hold things down here on your own until Nui shows up?

At least as well as I did before you got here! [She says it with a nervous grin because it's entirely realistic that a Jackoid (that's a very serious geometric term Haruhi just coined for somebody occupying a similarly shaped position) could have come in and personally murdered her. They both got lucky in their own way. She steps back and sits on the windowsill (though the windowsill isn't actually wide enough to accommodate an entire tush, even a thin girl's) and puts her chin in her left hand, dimpling her cheeks. Her right hand holds up the knife at chest level, still friendly enough for the movement to resemble a wave or even a salute.]

You should be relaxed as possible when you see her. I can count down so you don't have to worry about funny business on the way down the staircase or anything. [This is not actually negotiable so much as just something Haruhi intends to do; before she even finishes speaking her left hand screens over her upper face with loose fingers.] Fifteen... fourteen... thirteen...

[A JACKOID...

This is very true, though. It may be lucky or it may not be, but it sure does save both of them from potentially being dead and/or left having to scrub bloodstains out of their clothing. Both would be equally undesirable, right??

Either way, as soon as she holds her hands up and starts the countdown, Jack laughs and takes a step back.]

All right! Take care then, okay? If it helps, I didn't hear or see anyone else from my area of the island heading over when I was!

[And then he raises a hand in a parting gesture and turns on his heel to start moseying his way back in the direction he had arrived. His footsteps won't sound hurried, if she listens; it seems he's neither concerned about a back attack or running into Nui. It'll carry on at the same pace until he reaches the ground level, at which point he'll exit through the base door without further fanfare.]

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Zone 4 | 11:15 PM | Lighthouse

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