Into the room we go.. (Tag: Group 4)

Arista followed Balto and Jim through the doorway to find a room that looked like a study. "Goodness..."

She moved to look around, moving over to the desk to see if there was anything there that could help them find out where they were. "I wish I had a lighter or something... Oh! Look for a light! Maybe we can find something in here."

She moved to the walls and started to search for any kind of switch for a light. Feeling something that felt like a switch, Arista flipped it. The room lit up a little, giving them enough light to see to look around. "Yes!"

She jumped in excitement, feeling they were finally getting somewhere. Moving back to the desk she started to look and see if she could find any papers with any information on it.

As he was looking around the room as well, he felt as though this place was going to be dark at first, until he noticed that Arista found a light. This was just a relief, and it was better than being in a dark room at all. Oh finally, a room where everyone was going to find some information on what is going on in this place. He did find a desk with some papers as well and gazed at them. "Hey, Arista, I think I found something." He said, and looked at them, thinking that they could be useful. While reading, he saw that there was a little light, but that was certainly better than nothing at all. While reading, he did come up with some details that was somewhat suspicious, and thought that it was somewhat strange and quickly gave the paper to Arista. "You better look at this.." He whispered to her, with a somewhat concerned tone.

Marina smiled as the weak but functional switch lighted up the room. It would definitely make things easier for them, and made her feel slightly better. She approached Arista and Jim as the man handed her some papers, and read them quietly, frowning.

“Azoth? I'd never heard of this.” She looked around the table and papers. Could this be the atelier of an alchemist? These days? “But it doesn't explain what we're doing here. What does this have to do with us?”

Not yet satisfied with their results, she turned around, and absent-mindedly noticed the dog seemed nervous. This instantly made her nervous as well; she wasn't a fan of dogs, but she definitely wasn't a fan of dogs ready to attack. But his attention wasn't on any of them. It was directed to the door they'd just walked through, which was now closed.

“Wait, who closed the door?” she asked, before realising she'd been the last to enter. And there was no way she'd done this by accident. She was way too apprehensive to do something like that without realising.
She was about to make a step towards the door, but stopped almost instantly. Her last attempts to approach a suspiciously moving door hadn't exactly given her good results; and she wasn't sure she wanted to repeat the experience right away. She was an explorer, but she wasn't reckless.

She looked at Balto once more. He'd definitely sensed something before any of them had. She wasn't comfortable around him, but maybe he could help. “What is it Balto?” she asked, leaning towards him, awkwardly trying to imitate the “puppy” voice Arista would use with him. She felt a little silly taking to him, since an animal probably couldn't understand much of what she said, but it was worth a try. “Did you see anything?”

"Hey, Arista, I think I found something."

Arista looked up and moved to Jim as he read over a paper. When he handed it to her she looked at it in confusion. "Stone of a wise man? I've never heard of this either," she said, looking at Marina.

"Let's keep looking, there might be something else," she said, moving to look through more papers. Most of the papers seemed to be in the foreign language, which wasn't any help at all.

"Huh?" Arista looked up when Marina asked suddenly who closed the door.

"I haven't been by the door..." She bit her bottom lip, seeing how Marina and Balto seemed nervous.

Moving to the door, she thought a quick prayer before trying to open it. She grunted when the doorknob refused to turn. "I-it's locked!"

Panic quickly went through her. They couldn't be locked in again! They had just gotten out!

She almost started pounding on the door again, but refrained, remember how something had tried to grab Marina last time that happened. Slowly, Arista backed away from the door. "W-what're we going to do?" She looked at her comrades with large and frightened eyes.

As he saw that she was reading the article with her, he did skin until read the part when it went to talk about "Azoth" and he was raising his eyebrow and started to get a flashback to where he got kidnapped. He knew that at that time, he got kidnapped for a reason, but, didn't know it was going to be simply for that reason as he didn't know he had it in him, or else everyone had had it, including him. He was also was not sure if the kidnapping was going to be for something else as well, including an experiment. He then thought about an alchemist possibly doing this, and he raised an eyebrow at her question and shrugged. "Possibly, an alchemist could make sense. I have no idea on why he would want us here though." A scientist looking for this element to be an essence of life, interesting. But, he had no idea on what the kidnapping for and what did looking for the Azoth have to do with everyone being in this my mysterious area. He saw that the dog was in its guarding tone now and knew that things were going to get more mysterious than usual. He then saw their the dog was getting a little bit nervous, and knew that something was up and looked at the article once again. Something had to be up at this point, first the question of asking themselves on what this kidnapping was for, then the dog getting nervous, and now the door was closed and locked for sure. Shit, this was going to be harder than usual, but, he still had determination to get everyone out safely. "Now this would be the perfect time to think of a strategy to get out.." He said, and looked around to see if there was something, like a key to get out, and thankfully, there was light, so, everyone could see. He did look at the door closely to see if there was a keyhole for the key to open the door. At least they got information on what was going on so far, but, the results are not pretty at all.

Arista looked down at Balto when he suddenly started growling. "Balto?" she asked, before seeing the older man.

A gasp left her when Balto jumped at the man. Before she could think, the man's hand glowed blue and sent Balto into the wall. "Balto!" she cried, moving over to the dog.

"Now that, that was handled, we can finally be introduced. My name is Alistair and I'm in charge of this place. Which means this study you are snooping around is mine. So I'd refrain from touching anymore things."

"Why are we here? Please, let us g-Jim!" She stood, moving over to him. "Why would you do that? We only want to know what's going on!" she shouted, turning to Alistair, before looking at him in confusion.

"We don't have any-AH!" A scream left her as she was brought to her knees from the sudden shock.

A whimper left her as she looked up at Marina and Jim on the ground as well. Looking up at the man known as Alistair, her eyes were wide with fear, tears threatening to fall.

As he walked towards them, she felt panic rise within her. What could she do? From what she could see, she was the closest one to Alistair. She was weak, but maybe she could give the others a chance?

Letting out a sort of battle cry, Arista forced herself up and ran at Alistair, knocking him full force into the stomach.

"Run!"

As he felt that punch from him, he felt as though a car just smashed him. He did feel paralyzed for a couple of seconds when feeling that unexpected shock from that man. He had no idea on what he wanted, but, having that punch and shock was definitely not the right away to do it. Heck, he even heard the dog barking and Arista asking on why they were here in the first place, and thought that this was getting wired and at the same time, scary by the next. This was totally unexpected, but, felt as though this was going to be an unexpected match between the three of them and that guy. He did see that Arista punched him in the face, and gave her a quick thumbs up and started to get up slowly. He then saw that the guy started to choke her for a few seconds and then saw that he was having a power that could suck energy, and his eyes was wide opened. As he was about get in, he saw that the dog attacked the man, and if the dog was not there, they would be dead by now. He then saw that the door was opened, so, there was an opportunity to come out of the area and move somewhere else. He carried Arista in his arms and gestured Marina to go follow them.

Marina stood close to Arista as she tried to open the door again, hoping if anything bad happened, she could pull her away as the blonde woman had done for her last time. But the door didn't move, and before they could think much of it, their attention was directed to a growling Balto. The dog was showing his menacing teeth at an old, white man, and Marina instinctively took one step closer to the door and further away from him. For how long had he been in there??
She didn't have the time to question him, for the dog was thrown flying onto the wall. She gasped, shocked. How had he done this? He hadn't even touched him!
Still startled, she turned her attention back to the man. He presented himself as Alistair, before scolding them for their intrusiveness. She gulped down, as the man approached Jim to take the papers back from his hand.

“Look, sir... We're sorry for snooping around, but, we just woke up here, we don't know where we are, we just wanted some hel--”Marina's eyes grew wide as she was interrupted by another act of violence; the old man had just punched her male companion right in the face with surprising force for a man his age. “Jim! What are you doing, let him go right now!”

Reacting quickly, she run towards the two men, ready to interpose between them; but before she could get there, she felt some kind of force spreading through her body, weakening her, and she fell to the ground with a gasp, trying to get some air. Feeling uncharastically fragile, she stared at the man with fear, but also anger in her eyes. She wanted to give his attack back so badly, but she couldn't find the strength...
She didn't have to, though, as Arista hobblingly jumped to her feet and run towards their assailant, successfully knocking him down. Her victory was short, though, as the man threw her flying into the wall again as he had with the dog moments ago.

“A-Arista!” she cried out, struggling to get to her feet. She couldn't let the frail woman defend herself all alone in this situation, and Jim was also hurt. She needed to do something; but before she could, Balto had jumped on the man again, biting his neck and causing him to howl in pain. This made the man turn around just enough for her to finally see his hand had turned blue, as if he was using some kind of dark magic on his poor victim. Marina's eyes widened again as she frowned weakly. What kind of supernatural shit was that?!

She decided she didn't care, at least for now, and she quickly helped Arista to her feet, letting Jim take her in his arms as they all flew towards the now mysteriously opened door. Balto had just gotten out, barking for them to follow him, and she was now more than ever ready to trust him. They needed to get out of there. Quick.