Welcome to Gaia! ::

The corridor would lead in a wide circle and begin exactly where it started - at the portal entrance. Clearly neither of them were quite good at directions, though this did negate the second portal from the left and the fifth one as well. The second they ran out of the portal back to the entrance, a very large drop of condensed sewage hanging from the ceiling fell on Stormy's head. Only three more portals to go.

Their headsets crackled on for a second, but there was quite a large amount of interference. Something about a stairway.

The desire to not split up and stay close began waning around the time both the static hit their ears and the nasty drop of sewage hit her head, and learning that they had wasted time going in a circle didn't help. Whatever amalgamation of attempted optimism and conversational politeness Stormy had concocted since waking up faded and made way for something sterner. Her mission face had begun chipping away at her softness long ago.

"Not in this hub, no," she replied, already sloshing her way forward towards the opening furthest to the left, her hand peeling out of his to wipe the mess away from her face. "Don't go far in, but pick a different one. Holler if you see something." If they got left behind or worse just because of something like this... No, she had to do well for his sake.

Gale ended up making a tight circle again, arriving back straight where he had left, notably without Stormy.

Meanwhile, his accomplice had indeed found the exit, the mentioned ladder, and there were voices coming from above, the sign of a struggle, and then sound of gunshots. Without warning, a body fell through the ladder entrance and fell into the dirty water, splashing Stormy yet again. She would definitely have to change her coat after this.

There was a voice shouting something like 'help' from above and it sounded a lot like Mark.

Gale, to his great annoyance, wound up right where he'd been, and this time without his girlfriend. He glanced around at the passageways, wondering if he should pick the last one they hadn't tried yet, or follow after Stormy in the one she had chosen.

His choice, however, was made for him; a shout came from Stormy, and Gale immediately pivoted and started to make his way down the tunnel, trying to ignore the vile scent. He found her halfway up a ladder, and Gale reached out, grasping it with gloved hands.

The body was given a slightly horrified look, but he tried to move past it, climbing up after Stormy.

"What happened?" he asked. "Mark's up there?"

"Don't know and I think so," Stormy replied quickly as they hustled to the next floor—and right into another slice of zombie-ish hell. The smell nearly punched her in the gut as she took in Mark's scrambling form and the many yellow-eyed corpses rattling and shambling about. She got bad flashbacks to the first instance of contagion and shuddered.

Stormy didn't want to leave Mark, but the equipment was necessary if he was really putting his own life over it. (And really, it should have been more frightening how quickly she could push the assistant's life off to the side.) She exhaled shakily and then pulled herself together. "Mine's better for crowd control," she said to Gale, summoning the large greatsword to cut down the corpses getting too close to them. "You grab the stuff, I'll cover us."

There were sounds of gunshots as they neared the building. Most of the lobby had been upturned, the bare concierge desk entirely destroyed, blood and unmoving corpses splattered everywhere in various states of decay. The smell was rancid, it was strong enough to sting vision.

Thankfully there were no moving corpses to be found in the front reception area, though the gunshots were nearing, through the main lobby doors past the broken elevators. It was dark at the far end, and there was what sounded like hundreds of feet shuffling.

Then they could see it - eyes, swarms of yellow eyes in the darkness. The gunshots neared, and they could hear someone - an unfamiliar voice - crying for help. They had heard Stormy and Gale approaching the lobby. There was a flashlight next to them, it had fallen, and was partially lighting up the arms reaching towards them. They were not a Hunter, just a civilian at the wrong place in the wrong time, and their foot was mangled, warped, and twisted, probably broken during a struggle. Various bite marks covered their body and still they fought on.

Beyond the civilian was a stairway that was lit by a fluorescent white that flickered on and off occasionally. It seemed vacated, though there were a set of footprints that seemed coated in fresh blood.

Gunshots were a familiar sound to Gale, but these ones unsettled him, made him feel uneasy. It was not the reassuring crack of his own rifle in his ears, and he took a deep, steadying breath, hauling the equipment into the building, past Stormy holding the door open.

He wanted to throw up, just from the sheer smell alone, but forced his emotions back under control, amber eyes sweeping the dessicated lobby. Someone was shouting - not Mark, not Caelius (as if the man would ever call for help before hell froze over), not anyone except a simple human, lacking in the tell-tale white coat of a hunter.

Stormy's unspoken question hung in the air between them; and he found himself at a crossroads, Gale's heart hammering in his chest as he traced the path of the bloodied footsteps. Saving the human seemed ill-advised, considering their state, and the fact that there were only two of them against dozens. It was very likely they'd get overrun. But it also went against the principals he had spent years honing, whether for good or for bad. He'd already left Rep and Lucky behind during the Opus Labs fiasco, running after Caelius to get help. Could he do it this time as well? They had survived, but...

He felt nauseated, but took a second to compose himself, eyes falling shut only briefly before he opened them again.

"One minute," he told Stormy, voice quiet, even. "If we can't get them out in under a minute, we'll have no choice but to keep moving."