But that doesn't mean I'd want to go back there...
Warning!: This is based upon a game that's rated M for Blood, Drug
References, Strong Language, Suggestive (read 'Sexual') themes, and
Violence. If any of these things offend you, don't click on the link.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Junpei: Well, looks like we don't have any choice.
Santa: Yeah.
June: Sure does.
We have to go into that place, again... (In case you haven't noticed the first time, Shimohi really doesn't like having to be in the kitchen.) Yeah, I'd rather be doing stuff other than slaving over a proverbial hot stove. (Good thing Daemon wasn't here to hear that, other wise...) No, just stop right there, okay!
Lotus: Well then, let's open it.
'Junpei grabbed hold of the knob, and quietly pushed the door open. He entered, slowly, trying to take in as much of his surroundings as he could. The others followed shortly.'
Santa: Oh... So it's a kitchen...
Duh. (No shit Sherlock!)
'Santa did not look pleased.'
(And he's not the only one.)
June: What were you expecting?
Santa: Isn't it obvious? The exit. I was hoping this would be the way out of here.
Junpei: Heh. You really think it'd be that easy?
Santa: Yeah, yeah, I know. Still...
'As they talked, Lotus headed deeper into the room. ...Until at last she stood in front of a door.'
Lotus: If we can just get through this door, we should come out on the other side of that grate we saw earlier.
Junpei: But...don't we need a key for that...? ...Sorry. I guess that wasn't very constructive...
Indeed. (No kidding.)
'Neither Junpei nor Lotus looked terribly happy. Junpei dug the ship map from his pocket, and spread it out in front of him. As he did...'
Lotus: H-Hey!
Santa: What's that?!
Junpei: Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess I forgot to tell you. I found this a little while ago. It's a map of the B Deck--
'Before Junpei could finish, Lotus snatched the map away from him. She ran her finger across it, muttering to herself.'
Lotus: I knew it. See? Look.
'Junpei did as he was told. Santa and June moved over to look at the map as well.'
Lotus: See? We came in here. If we go out there, then we'll be on the other side of the grate.
'With her finger Lotus traced a path on the map. She was right. Satisfied that she had been correct, Lotus folded the map and handed it back to Junpei. He took it, and slid the valuable piece of paper back into his pocket.'
June: There's a card reader on the right side of the door.
Yes... (We see that.)
Santa: Then that means the [key card] is somewhere in here, right?
Lotus: That seems the most likely.
Junpei: All right, we know what we need to do then.
Here we go again...
Junpei: Let's get moving! First off, I say we split up and look for clues.
(Whatever you say, Fred...)
June: Okay!
----------------SEEK A WAY OUT!----------------
Okay, as I recall, we need to go into the pantry to fetch a few things... I believe there's something behind the cheese in there.
Junpei: Hey... There's something behind the cheese.
June: You're right. Why don't we move some of the cheese.
'All right guys, time to move it. June and I need to look behind you...'
(I can't believe you're talking to cheese!) Huh, Niyagi, that's just the narration. (But still, it's talking to CHEESE!)
'There's a little green bottle back there.'
And we have a bottle of oil. Now I think there's a rusty knife somewhere in here...
'This shelf has a white cloth on it.'
Wrong shelf. Behind another shelf connected to it that's covered with a white sheet, and there's a flat box. Inside the box is...
Junpei: A rusty knife... I don't think we'll be able to use it while it's like this...
'The knife seemed important, Junpei thought, but it wasn't going to be much use the way it was.'
June: It's futile.
(Like "your existence"!) (I seem to recall you doing a gag like that the last time...) Nope, I checked, originally it was a Star Trek reference. The Borg to be precise...
Junpei: Futile...?
June: You know... A waste, useless, pointless...
Junpei: Oh...Um... Any particular reason you wanted to bring that up?
June: Oh, no reason, really...
(Right...) (Now, THAT I know you said last time.)
June: I was just thinking about Futility...
'She wasn't making much sense...Junpei tried rephrasing his question.'
Junpei: Why were you thinking about Futility?
'At last, she answered.'
Like last time, you're about to find out... (Even if it won't make a lick of sense.)
June: Well, it has something to do with the Titanic.
Junpei: The Titanic?
June: Yep. Have you ever heard the story that the sinking of the Titanic was predicted?
Oh yeah, there was this other... (fictional) ...ship that sunk like the Titanic... (that you forgot what its name is), but that book was written and published before the Titanic sunk. (Talk about life imitating art...which is still a crime against reality!) Dude, can you NOT go on about your obsession with absolute truth...
- Yes, I have. -
- No, I haven't. -
You know what, I'm curious about what would happen if we picked the other option...
Junpei: No, I haven't... What is it?
June: In 1892, 14 years before the Titanic sank...
(And now you're visiting Wikipedia...yet again... I've said this before, haven't I?) Yeah I know, still , that novel was called...Oh my! (Let me see that... "Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan".) I know where June's train of thought is going here.
June: A novel was published. It was called Futility.
As I said before, it had another title "The Wreck of the Titan."
June: It was written by an American novelist named Morgan Robertson. The story was about a big cruise ship colliding with an iceberg and sinking.
(Interesting...) Really, this is sounding interesting to you? (In the sense that it sounds faked.) ...Of course...
June: Of course, if that was the only similarity, there wouldn't be any reason to mention it...
And...last time we did mention the few similarities along with several differences. (In which one of them was an obvious nitpick!) And I'm still surprised that you were defending something strange for once.
June: It wasn't though... The name of the ship, its nationality, course, departure time...Size, displacement, maximum speed, number of passengers and crew, the number lifeboats...
...Is not the same, do Akurei have to rattle off those same stats again?
June: Even the location of the accident itself, and the cause, and the location of the damage... Everything matches the Titanic almost exactly.
*sigh* That doesn't mean that it is the same. Looks like we do have to do this, ready Akurei? (As ready as I'll ever be...) Well, time to rattle off some stats, again...Go! The Titanic was 882 feet and 9 inches long. (The Titan was 800 feet long.) The Titanic's speed was 22.5 knots. (The Titan's Speed was 25 knots. Ha! The Titan can beat the Titanic in a race, motherfucker!) (Are you really going to list stats differences between the Titanic and the Titan...) Why... (...not?) We're the Survey Corps of statistics! (*sigh* You just had to shoehorn in an Attack on Titan reference, didn't you...) Yes, yes we did. Anyway... The Titanic was once described by newspapers as being "designed to be unsinkable" and "virtually unsinkable". (The Titan was the largest craft afloat and the greatest of the works of men and was deemed "practically unsinkable".) (We all know that's just a stupid nitpick!) The Titanic carried only 16 lifeboats, plus 4 Engelhardt folding lifeboats, less than half the number required for her passenger and crew capacity of 3000. (The Titan
carried "as few as the law allowed", 24 lifeboats, less than half
needed for her 3000 capacity. Even with those folding lifeboats, The
Titan still had more lifeboats!) The unsinkable Titanic sank, and more than half of her 2200 passengers and crew died. (The indestructible Titan also sank, more than half of her 2500 passengers drowning.) So... (Let me get this straight...The Titanic was longer, yet The Titan held more passengers?) That's exactly what it sounds like... And... (Of course...) The Titanic went down bow first... (While the Titan actually capsized before it sank.) Well, aside from the name only being similar, there 'were' some things
that were the same. Both had triple screw propellers. (As mentioned
before, both had the same passenger and crew capacity.) And... (Of course, the most obvious one...) [simultaneous] Both were sunk by a fucking iceberg! (Both were sunk by a fucking iceberg!) [/simultaneous] (Are you two quite finished?) Yes, now back to the game... (*looks up* Hey, that's got to be the largest segment of uninterrupted custom content! It's a new academy record!)
June: It was almost as if he'd seen the whole thing happen. ...But this book was written 14 years before the Titanic sank.
June: R-Really?
Junpei: ...
June: But that's not all. It wasn't just "Futility" that predicted the sinking of the Titanic. There were 2 other, similar stories written by a man named William Thomas Stead.
...Who died on The Titanic. Okay, it was only in "From the Old World to
the New" that involved the sinking of a ship by iceberg. (While in "How the Mail Steamer went down in Mid Atlantic by a Survivor".
A steamer crashes into another ship, not an iceberg, but the similarity
is in how passengers died because there were not enough lifeboats...) That is several kinds of irony. (Yeah, it is strange how you're, once again, for once questioning the strange stuff when usually you're apologising for them...) Or, in this sense of the word, defending them. Well, you weren't saying anything, so somebody did.
June: Both of them before the accident...One in 1886, and one in 1892.
Like I said, because he died on the Titanic itself. ("How the Mail Steamer went down in Mid Atlantic by a Survivor" was published before "From the Old World to the New".)
June: Stead wrote 2 stories that had striking similarities to the Titanic disaster.
And...Akurei and I mentioned those 'similarities' earlier. (For the second time.)
June: In one, 2 ships collided, and many of the passengers died because
there weren't enough lifeboats. In the other, a ship collided with an
iceberg, and sank.
Well, at least we agree on those points. (And, once again, not enough lifeboats.)
Junpei: Hmm... I dunno. I mean, I'll give you that it seems a little
weird, but... I'm pretty sure it wasn't too uncommon for ships to hit
icebergs back in the day, or even other ships.
June: Right. I knew you'd say that.
Junpei: ?
(Is she about to mention how he died on the Titanic?) Over nine-thousand Internets? (Over nine-thousand Internets.)
June: But...what if Stead had some sort of special powers...? To be more specific, what if he had the ability to do automatic writing...?
Junpei: What? Automatic writing? Wait, are you...Are you talking about
that thing where someone says they're possessed by a spirit... And then
they write a bunch of stuff without knowing what they're writing?
You mean like Neon Nostrade's Nen ability? (And you're doing the HunterXHunter reference again...)
June: Yes.
Junpei: What do you mean "yes"... That stuff's a load of bull!
(Indeed, this guy has a good head on his shoulders.) *ji...* (What!? He does!)
Junpei: Okay, so let's say--hypothetically--that automatic writing isn't
a total load. These guys still couldn't have predicted the sinking of
the Titanic. When this Stead dude wrote his thing... Nobody had died on the
Titanic yet. So if automatic writing is about being possessed by spirits
of dead people... Who the hell possessed him so he could write that
stuff?
June: That's not it.
Junpei: What's not it?
June: Stead wasn't possessed by a spirit. He was doing the possessing.
Junpei: ... ...
(Okay, how in the hell does that even work!?)
Junpei: What are you smoking?!
(And can I get a hit of that, too!?) (*LOL*) And now that same strange voice is laughing at us, again...
June: William Thomas Stead was a passenger on the Titanic. He just wrote
down what he saw with his own eyes. ...20 years before it happened...
'...'
(Okay...)
'...He decided it was probably best to say nothing. What June was
saying was insane and utterly absurd. If he tried to take what she was
saying seriously, he'd go mad. Junpei smiled uncomfortably.'
Junpei: Well...uh... Why don't we talk about this some other time...okay?
(I'm well aware of the prediction I made back then and the next post ended up being titled "'Survival' Instincts" instead in a previous playthrough.) (So that ended up Shimohi chaning the title of the next post to prove you wrong.) Actually, I changed the title because there wasn't much justification for giving it the "Tin-foil Hat Time" title. I ended up using it for a later post.
June: Huh...? But...
'Her voice trailed off, and she glanced at the floor, troubled. *Tap*
*Tap* Junpei tapped June gently on the shoulder and awkwardly reached
around her to pick up the knife from the box.' And we have that rusty knife! Now time to got to the sink to get the whetstone, and use said stone to sharpen the knife!
'Maybe I'll use the whetstone to sharpen the knife... The blade of the knife is getting sharper by the second. I should be able to cut something pretty good with this.'
And now to get that something to cut, to the freezer! (You do remember that we're going to get trapped in there...again. Right?) Yes, and that it's going to be an inception of locked room escapes; a locked room to escape from in a locked room to escape from and all that... And that lock bar's going to be rusty, so that's why I picked up the bottle of cooking oil back there...
'This bolt is rusted in place. It won't budge.'
Junpei: Of course! Maybe if I put some oil on it...
Santa: H-Hey!
'Just a little bit of oil, and... Come on! Come on, you little son of a bitch!'
(Sounds like the narrator's been listening to us a bit too long...) (*ji...*) Akurei, I know you know stuff, and so do I, but please; please, just keep it at vague hint levels if you don't want to... (Lose your unholy nachos, yes, I know that!)
'Whoa! ...Ha! Yes! Got you, you little bastard!'
(Well, at least I agree that the narrator could use to... Hey, we're seeing this from Junpei's point of view! Of course a college-aged young man's going to cuss, not that he should...) (*LOL*)
June: You did it, Jumpy! You're so smart!
Now to open the door and get ourselves trapped in the freezer...
'As Junpei walked into the room, a blast of cold air washed over him. Almost instinctively, he folded his arms tight across his chest, doing what he could to conserve body heat.'
Junpei: Brr... It's cold in here! What is this place...
It's a freezer. (You know that because you've seen this before!)
Santa: Are you blind? It's a freezer.
Right now I'm imagining what happened in this room during the second playthough, something like Snake... Oh wait, Snake was with us, never mind...
'Santa's teeth had already begun to chatter. Hardly surprising... The freezer was far too cold for someone dressed as he was. Lotus, however, was in an even worse situation.'
Lotus: Oh, no way! That's way too cold for me. I'll freeze solid in seconds. Sorry, but I'm afraid I'll have to pass on this one. I'm going to leave the rest to you.
'And with that, she ran out of the room. As Lotus left, June came in.'
June: Whoa... It's really cold in here...
'White puffs of steam hovered in front of their faces as they talked. June had already started to shiver.'
Junpei: Hey, you don't need to be in here. You had a fever just a little bit ago. You should stay outside. We got this.
June: No, I'm fine. My fever's gone now.
Junpei: But--
'Junpei had scarcely opened his mouth...When the thunderous sound of metal upon metal rang out from behind them. In unison, the spun around, to find that the door they had only recently come through...Was closed.'
Junpei: !
June: !
Santa:!
! (!) (We saw this coming, know you two are just acting!)
'Junpei rushed to the door. Desperately, he grabbed hold of the doorknob--'
Junpei: Ow!
'It was cold--beyond cold. Merely touching it was painful. The doorknob had been frozen solid. They quickly deduced that the pipe next to the door had ruptured. Water released by the rupture had hit the door and frozen instantly. Santa shoved Junpei aside and pounded against the door.'
Santa: Hey! Lotus! You're out there, right? Open the door!
'She wasted no time in responding.'
Lotus: What do you want? What's going on?
The DOOR'S FROZEN from this side, we were wondering if you could open it from the other side so we don't turn into human popsicles!
Santa: The door won't open! Try opening it from that side. Please!
Lotus: Ugh, fine. If you say so. Hold on...
'Soon, they could hear Lotus on the other side of the door...'
Lotus: Nggrrr... Arrrrrgh! NNNNNNNNNNNNGGH!
'Then the grunting ceased, and they could hear light panting, as if from exertion.'
Lotus: It's no use. It won't budge. You've got more people in there. You figure it out.
Santa: ...
([sarcasm] Great, now we've got to... [/sarcasm]) But we can get out of here alive! We've done this before, we'll do it again!
June: ...
Junpei: ...
(So... When are we going to start working again?)
Santa: ...Goddamnit.
'Santa was shaking like a newborn deer. June was hugging herself and was shivering violently. Even Junpei, with the heaviest clothes of any of them, was clearly feeling the cold. With every breath they took, they could feel the cold working it's way deeper and deeper into their bodies.'
Junpei: A-A-Anyway... L-Let's f-find a way out... If we don't get moving, w-we're gonna be permanent residents!
Indeed...
June: T-T-Two heads a-a-are better than n-none.
So, then six should be just awesome! (Six?) Yeah, Junpei, June, Santa, Akurei, you and I. That's six people!
June: I-I'm sure we'll figure something out...
Santa: Y-Y-Y-Yeah. Y-You're right. L-Let's just take a good l-look around this room, okay?
Junpei: R-Right!
'They pushed in close to one another, and began to search.'
Let's see...I know there's some frozen meat we need to get somewhere... Ah! Here it is! On the shelves over there!
June: There's some frozen meat up there. Looks like pork...
(Now, now, we've already done the "long pork" joke last time...)
Junpei: ...Huh? What's this? It looks like a...tag or something...
That's one piece of the puzzle. Now we just need some frozen chicken, a bottle, some string and some dry ice! (*sigh* Are you planning on doing something weird with that odd assortment of items?) Nope, that's what we need to get out of here. (The dry ice is in that "metal cabinet" or safe-like object.) Ah, and there it is. Thanks...
'Junpei picked up the dry ice with his sleeves so as to avoid burning himself.'
(Huh?) Frostbite and all that.
Santa: Dry ice is just frozen carbon dioxide, right?
Yes, yes it is.
Junpei: Yeah, it is.
Santa: I wonder how warm it has to get for it to turn back into gas again...
Junpei: Hell if I know. How's that gonna help us, anyway?
Santa: Oh, well, I figured we might be able to use it to get out of here.
See, told ya.
'They were about to move on when June spoke up.'
June: Carbon dioxide's sublimation point is -109 degrees. Any warmer than that, and it'll turn into gas. Any lower, and it becomes a solid.
'Junpei looked at her, dumbfounded.'
Junpei: How do you know that?
June: Tee-hee. Despite my looks, I'm the Qleen...bleh. Ahem...the Queen of random knowledge.
Well, it can be quite surprising the kinds of odd stuff just about ANYONE can know.
Junpei: Looks bad to mess up when you're showing off.
June: Argle mouf *Mumble* *Mumble*
*LOL* *ROFL* (*LOL* *ROFL*) (...I don't see what's so funny about that.)
Junpei: Oh, you're so cold your mouth's going numb?
June: Yef.
"Yes."
June: Wats wite.
"That's right." ...Okay, at this point, you're sounding like Elmer Fudd.
Junpei: ...You're just doing that on purpose, aren't you?
'June giggled, and did her best to hide her guilt. At least she was still feeling good enough to joke around, Junpei told himself.
Santa: C'mon guys... Don't you think that's kinda weird? I wonder why it doesn't turn into a liquid first...
'Santa was now shivering at an astounding rate, but his curiosity seemed unaffected.'
Well, if he ever stops shivering in here, THAT'S when we should be REALLY worried... Wait, severe shivering is a sign of moderate hypothermia...? We need to speed up our escape efforts! Now!
'Junpei, however, was not in a mood to discuss science.'
-He wanted out of the freezer, now.-
-It did strike Junpei as rather odd.-
(Mmm... I'd rather see Santa suffer a bit more...) Hey! Akurei! Give me back my DS! (Too late...)
'It did seem rather odd to Junpei, and he couldn't help but think about it. June answered.'
June: But it can turn into a liquid. Carbon dioxide turns to liquid if you put in under high enough pressure. But at 1 atmosphere, normal air pressure...
It goes straight from solid to gas.
Santa: It won't turn into a liquid, right?
Exactly.
June: That's right. Instead of melting, it'll do what's called "sublimating", and change immediately from a solid state to a gaseous one.
Santa: See, that is weird. Water's a liquid between 32 degrees and 212 degrees... So why isn't that the case for carbon dioxide?
'June replied with an answer that stunned both of them.'
June: There's a kind of ice that doesn't turn into liquid when it goes above 32 degrees.
Yeah, yeah, we know, that's "Ice-9"...
Junpei: ?
Santa: ?
June: I...heard about it...
It's from a novel called "Cat's Cradle"...
June: Its melting point is 96 degrees.
And the "normal" temperature for humans is... (98.6 degrees... Fahrenheit, of course.) (So... I is possible for a human to secretly be about 70% liquid Ice-9...) (*LOL*) Wha...?
Junpei: Ice with a melting point of 96 degrees?
Santa: You mean there's water that freezes at 96 degrees?
Huh, Santa, to me it sounds like it's water that freezes at 95 degrees but melts at 96. Isn't that what "melting point" means...?
June: Yeah.
*facepalm*
June: Well, you could also look at it as ice that won't melt until it's 96 degrees...
Much better June, thank you!
'Water that freezes at 96 degrees? Ice that won't melt until it's 96 degrees? Junpei was cold as hell, but this was too interesting to ignore. He did his best to warm up by rubbing his arms and stamping his feet, then put the question to June.'
Junpei: So what's this ice with a melting point of 96 degrees called?
Like I said, "Ice-9"!
June: I heard it's called [ice-9].
Told ya.
Santa: [Ice-9]...?
Yeah, exactly.
June: Originally, [ice-9] was a made-up substance invented by a science-fiction author.
That would be Kurt Vonnegut.
June: ...But recently, scientists have discovered that such a substance actually exists.
Well, yes, as a specific formation of ice crystals. But it doesn't work ANYTHING like the "Ice-9" mentioned in the novel. It's existence is actually rather fragile... (So, in short, "Yes, except no.")
Junpei: Wait. Hold up. So is this thing called [ice-9]? Or is it water?
June: Like I said, if the ice is over 96 degrees it'll be liquid, if it's under that, it'll solidify.
*sigh* I think what Junpei's trying to ask is, "If ice-9's in a liquid state, is it still called water?"
June: So you could think of it as a polymorph of H20. Here, think of it like diamonds and graphite...
Except that putting a diamond next to some graphite won't turn the graphite into diamond, although that would be cool if that DID happen. (Let me guess, you're wishing that'd happen so De Beers could be put out of business...)
June: They're both made of carbon, right?
Yeah, but diamond has a more stable molecular structure than graphite, which is so brittle that even scratching it against flattened wood pulp is enough to make it fracture into dust. Leaving said graphite dust to settle into the gaps in the flattened wood pulp, otherwise known as "paper". (And THAT, ladies and germs, is how pencils work!) And, of course, why pencils don't work on non-porous surfaces like metal and plastic. Or, at least, not for long.
June: But depending on the structure of the crystallization, the hardness and structure are completely different.
Junpei: So you're saying normal water and this ice-9 are like that...
June: Yep.
'She wasn't finished.'
([sarcasm] Oh boy... [/sarcasm])
June: Have you heard about the story about the crystallization of glycerin?
(The story about this stuff again...)
June: For 150 years after the discovery of glycerin, people cooled it, warmed it, and did all sorts of things to it... But whatever they did, it never crystallized. However, one day in 1920...
'Some glycerin that was en route to England by ship was discovered to have crystallized during the trip. Naturally, scientists worldwide wanted to research this new, crystallized form of glycerin, and began asking for samples of the seed. A seed is, of course, a sample of the original crystallized substance. With a seed crystal, further crystallization of glycerin would be a simple matter. However... Something very strange happened.'
(What?) (You'll find out...)
'Not only did the glycerin encourage by seed crystals begin to crystallize, nearby samples did as well. It didn't end there. After that day, all glycerin in the world began to crystallize naturally when cooled to less then 64 degrees. Before that day, no matter how glycerin was cooled, it refused to crystallize. But once the crystallization had begun...'
June: It was almost like... How do I put it... It was almost like all the glycerin in the world was communicating. Communicating in some way that we can't sense...
'Junpei...'
-...Was honestly impressed.-
-...Was kind of annoyed.-
(*grabs DS*) Really!? You're going to do that in this post as well...?
'...Was kind of annoyed. June was nice, but he'd had enough of her ridiculous stories. So all of a sudden a substance began to crystallize without a seed crystal? That seemed unlikely... No, impossible. In fact, it was utterly ridiculous. Even so, Junpei couldn't help but ask...'
Junpei: What does that have to do with ice-9?
I think June's comparing how nearby glycerin crystals encouraged more crystallization of the same substance to how ice-9 causes water in comes into contact with to also change it's freezing temperature...
'To his surprise, it was Santa, and not June, who answered.'
Santa: What she's saying is that it's a lot like ice-9. What happened, I mean.
What he said.
Junpei: A lot like...? That would be bad.
Indeed, in the original novel, it's melting point was 114.4 degrees Fahrenheit... (I mean, isn't 107 degrees Fahrenheit internal body temperature "human cooking" high? *munch* *crunch*)
Junpei: If water everywhere started freezing at 96 degrees...Man...
Not really as bad as freezing at 114 or 115, all it would mean is that it'd be a lot easer to get frostbite...
Santa: It'd be the end of the world.
And it was... The end of the world, as we know it, in the original novel...
'Junpei felt that Santa might not be treating the idea of the end of the world with the proper concern.'
Santa: At any rate, we're not gonna have to worry about the end of the world unless we can get out of here pretty damn quick.
'He was right. Junpei shivered.'
Santa: All right guys, I think that's enough of that. I didn't think we'd get quite this far off-topic... I mean, I know I'm kinda at fault here, but we can't be screwing around any more. Seriously... I might go by the name Santa right now, but I didn't grow up in Iceland.
Well, if you read certain novels or watch a certain movie, Santa's Russian. Or consider the fact that there's a town called "North Pole" in Alaska... (Or if you literally went "to Hell and back" starting from "Paradise" you'd travel six-hundred and sixty six miles...)
Santa: I freakin' hate the cold. So, let's get crakin' all right? We gotta find a way out of here.
'Santa stomped off, clearly doing his best to pretend the cold wasn't affecting him. Selfish, isn't he, thought Junpei to himself. Still, Santa was right, and it was high time they got back to their search. The story of [ice-9] had him interested, but there'd be time to think about that once they'd gotten out of the freezer. Junpei looked at June, nodded, and resumed his search of the room.'
Okay, back to the metal cabinet to get that piece of frozen chicken. Now we apply the chicken to the dry ice to break it into chunks...
'All right. The dry ice is all in pieces now.'
And we have dry ice (crumbled)! Now, I think the bottle we'll need is in the trap door in the floor... Ah! There's the bottle and the rope! Now crushed dry ice plus bottle...
'I'm gonna put these pieces of dry ice into the water bottle...'
And we have a water bottle with dry ice in it. Now the aforementioned bottle plus rope...
'...And let's just tie a rope on here...'
All right! We have our dry ice bomb! Now to apply to the door where hot water can get to the bottle and...sublimate the dry ice into carbon dioxide and... (KABOOM!) Exactly.
'Warm water dripped from the ruptured pipe near the door. Junpei pulled out the water bottle filled with dry ice, let a good amount of water fall in, then quickly sealed it up tight. The [make-shift bomb] complete, he tied it to the doorknob as quickly as he could manage in the cold.'
Junpei: All right, that's set. So...uh...what do we do now?
(Hide behind the trap door so we don't get hit by plastic shrapnel! Duh!)
Santa: We just need to give it a little, uh, tap.
Ah, right, the triggering spark so to speak.
Santa: The bottle's already about to pop. If we just throw a rock or something at it, it'll go off all on its own.
Junpei: A small rock? A small rock...
(The frozen pork, dude! The frozen pork!)
'Junpei looked down at the floor... Scattered across it were pieces of dry ice left over from the larger chunk he'd crushed earlier.'
(Right... That'll work too...)
Junpei: All right, this oughta do the trick.
'He pulled his sleeve down over his hand to keep from getting burned, and grabbed the chunk of dry ice. It was a pretty good size... About as big as a pool ball. He figured it would be just about the right size.'
Junpei: All right guys, stand back. Actually, we should probably hide somewhere.
Like what Akurei mentioned earlier? (Exactly!)
'Both Santa and June looked at him with new concern.'
Santa: Where, exactly, do you expect us to hide, genius?
(Dude! Like I said, behind the trap door in the floor!)
June: There isn't really anywhere big enough...
(*facepalm* For the love of Satan... THE! FUCKING! TRAP! DOOR!)
'... ...'
Wow, even the narrator's shocked by this...
Junpei: Yeah, there is! Look! Right here! We can hide in there!
'Junpei pulled open the door to the small cellar.'
(Finally!!!)
Junpei: Come on! Get inside, quick!
'Santa and June nodded and jumped down, into the hole. Junpei quickly followed. In his hand, he could feel the chill of the frozen carbon dioxide, even through his sleeve. He tightened his grip, took aim, and prepared to throw.'
Junpei: All right, here it goes! 1 2 3 4 5
June: You're counting the wrong way!
Junpei: Oops!
At least he didn't replace the number three with the number five. Now THAT'S counting the wrong way! (Reference jar! Now!)
Santa: That is a really sad excuse for a joke, man...
(I know, right!) I don't think Santa was talking about me.
Junpei: Sorry, dude. All right, for real this time. You guys ready?
June: Yes! Whenever you're ready!
Santa: Just throw the damn thing...
Junpei: All right, here I go!
(Get on with it!) (Really!? Twice in the same post!?)
Junpei: 3! 2! 1!
(Fire in...) ...the hole!
'Junpei threw the chunk of dry ice as hard as he could. With the same motion, he ducked down into the cellar with Santa and June, just as--'
(KABOOM!)
'...'
(Yikes! DON'T YOU EVER DO THAT AGAIN!!!) (I can't make any promises...)
'...Junpei leapt up out of the cellar and ran to the door.'
June: Jumpy! The ice on the door! Is it gone?!
Yes, it's gone like yesterday's rain!
Junpei: Yeah! It's gone!
Santa: The blast must've shattered it!
Junpei: Yes! All right, let's see if it opens!
'Junpei grabbed the knob and pushed, with all his might. The door gave way easily, and all 3 of them tumbled out of the freezer at once.'
June: Hooray!
What June said.
June: We're out!
'June, relieved, collapsed onto the floor.'
Santa: Move!
'Santa shoved past Junpei and ran straight to the grill, which he immediately grabbed.'
Dude, that's not a good idea. (He's just going to burn himself...)
Santa: Ow!
Told ya.
Santa: Goddamnit! Hot hot hot hot hot! Fuck!
'He proceeded to kick the grill in a futile but amusing fit of rage.'
(I'd say that was amusing... *munch* *crunch*)
'But...where was Lotus? It took Junpei only a moment to find her... She was sitting on the counter, idly scratching her chest.'
[sarcasm] Big load of help you've been... [/sarcasm]
Lotus: *Yawn* Welcome back. I was starting to get tired of waiting for you guys.
'With a great yawn, Lotus lowered herself off of the counter. Junpei clenched his teeth and walked toward her.'
Junpei: What...were you doing...?
(Isn't it obvious? Being the Load.)
Lotus: What do you mean, what was I doing? I was waiting.
Junpei: We were gonna die!
Lotus: Oh yeah?
[sarcasm] Yeah, Lotus's clearly being the empath here. [/sarcasm]
Lotus: But you didn't, so everything worked out all right, didn't it?
Junpei: What the hell...
What Junpei said.
Lotus: Just kidding! It might not look like it, but I was really worried.
Junpei: Don't gimme that crap!
Lotus: I'm telling the truth! I mean, if you died, then I'd be in trouble too. If you died, then I'd be stuck here, and I'd die too. See?
Junpei: ...
Lotus: I did all I could. I even looked around to see if there was anything I could use to pry open the door. But I couldn't find anything.
(That doesn't work as an excuse!)
Lotus: ..So all I could do was wait. I mean...what else did you want me to do? Call the cops?
'It was true that there wasn't much she could have done, but something about her tone...'
Oh dear...
'Junpei gritted his teeth.'
Junpei: Fine. But there's one thing I have to ask you.
Lotus: What's that?
Junpei: You didn't close the door...did you?
Lotus: Wh-What?! You think I closed the door on you? Why would I do something like that?! It closed on its own! I told you before, if you die, then I die too!
'She was right, and Junpei knew it. Without them, she's be in very serious trouble. It seemed that an accident was the only explanation for the door's closure. If Lotus had really wanted to kill them, all she would have had to do was bar the door from the outside... And she hadn't. Well, she hadn't done anything.'
(And THAT'S why I don't like her.) ... (...)
'The most she was guilty of was laziness, or negligence, but not attempted murder.'
Still enough to get charged with a crime of some kind, though.
'Junpei swallowed his anger, and did his best to apologize.'
Junpei: Well. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I doubted you.
Lotus: Hmm? Oh. Yes, well, that's all right. As long as you understand.
'Lotus looked away and twirled her hair between her fingertips. His vengeance against the grill complete, Santa swaggered back toward Junpei and Lotus.'
(Oh yeah, I forgot that Santa was busy bullying inanimate objects.) (*looks up* And suddenly the above scene's just a bit funnier.)
Santa: Hey! No more screwin' around you 2!
As if you weren't screwin' around with that grill just seconds ago.
Santa: Break time's over. Especially for you lady. You've just been sitting on that fat ass of your while we were freezing to death.
Lotus: How rude!
Indeed dude, Lotus's kerple isn't fat... (Yeah, the ass of Shimohi's mom's much fatter than that...) *punches Akurei* That's for the crack about my mother! (Yeah, yeah...)
Lotus: I was plenty busy!
Santa: Yeah, yeah, how about you put all that energy into something besides bitching. Let's go!
(Yeah, so next stop is the grill...) Hope it's still functional after Santa's beating... Oh wait, I've done this before; of course it is! (Let's grill the heaven out of this meat!)
'Guess I'll put this meat on the grill.'
Lotus: Hey, what are you doing!? What are you going to do if the paper burns!?
Santa: C'mon, it'll be fine. I mean, it's not like it's gonna burn right away, right? We just gotta keep an eye on it, and the paper'll be fine.
'Well, they can argue all they want. I'm gonna keep an eye on this pork...'
Later...
Junpei: Cool, looks like it's about time. I'm gonna try taking the paper out.
June: Jumpy, be careful.
'Sweet of her to care, but I know what I'm--'
(And... Junpei joins Santa in the "burned my hand club".)
Junpei: OUCH!
(Told ya.) (It's not impressive at all when you've seen it happen before.)
June: See...? I told you.
Santa: Hey, what the hell are you doing? Hurry up and take the paper out--
So... Is Santa going to burn his hand yet again?
Santa: It's not coming out.
(Aw man...) (Was that about Santa not being able to extract the paper from the now cooked pork, or was that about Santa not burning his hand?) I suspect the answer is "both". (Bingo!) (*facepalm*)
Junpei: This thing's frozen stiff. I can't get it out.
Lotus: So are we going to have to cut the meat?
Looks like it, good thing I thought ahead to prepare that sharp knife!
Junpei: Yeah, looks that way.
Okay, now to get that knife out...
Junpei: All right, now that I've sharpened the knife...
*looks up* Dude, we did that before we even got ourselves trapped in the freezer.
Junpei: Yes! I cut the pork!
Santa: Awesome, Junpei. Now we can cut out the paper.
We've got the "pork note".... (!) And, no, it doesn't turn people or things into dead pig flesh. (Aw man! ...Oh well, at least I've got this bucket-full of long-pork salsa topped nachos. *munch* *crunch*) (That's still really gross!) Well, we know the answer to the code from the last time we were in here. To the number pad!
Lotus: This is probably what you're supposed to use to enter the password. Maybe if we put in the right number it'll open the oven door. Junpei, maybe the note you found earlier...
Junpei: Yeah. I know.
Lotus: Do you know how to enter those numbers?
(Yes! Yes we do! That does it, we're skipping to when we're actually punching in the numbers!) Later...
Junpei: All right, let's give it a shot!
So, the answer is... 43!
'Sounds like metal is falling... Well, I guess that went well.'
Time to back up and open the cabinet door!
Junpei: Yeah! The door opened!
June: Good job, Jumpy!
Now time to pick up the... (Saturn key card.) And get the hell out of this proverbial Dodge! (*sigh* Shimohi uses the Saturn key card on the card reader next to the exit door.)
Junpei: Yes! I think it's unlocked now!
June: You did it, Jumpy! Let's get out of here!
And that's exactly what we'll do!
Junpei: Yes! Let's go!
----------------YOU FOUND IT----------------
'They stepped out of the kitchen and into a hallway that looked rather familiar.'
In more ways than one...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(And you're getting another cliffhanger!) And yes, I'm aware that the amounts Akurei and I owe to the Monty Python reference jar are suddenly lower than in some previous posts. That's because this post was initially worked on months earlier and was only finished recently. (Other projects got in the way.) (So now you get to see what they used to owe!)
Monty Python Reference Jar
Akurei: $37
Shimohi: $23
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