Kain poked Luna for a while, enjoying the reactions she gave. [Hey, time to wake up. We’ve got stuff to do.] It took a small while, but she eventually opened her eyes. Standing up, she confusedly looked around.
[Did… we get it?] She nervously asked, getting a chuckle out of Kain.
He rubbed her ears gently. [Yeah, we killed it.] He soothed. She gave something resembling a grin and stood on his lap. Looking around, she sighed.
[Well, that’s good, but too bad about the stuff you just made me. Sorry about that.]
[It’s all right. I can make you another one. I have enough metal in the amulet.] He reached to his amulet, which had luckily been carried in the blast with him, and paused. He suddenly pulled out Luna’s flying hammer, deer skull, and shield. [When did I grab these?] He rhetorically asked. [I don’t remember…] He muttered to himself.
[My stuff!] She cried. [When did you find the time to grab it!? I got hit by the tongue pretty hard, thought the shield took most of the hit, and it was sent a decent distance. Took everything I had to keep it close.] She quizzed.
He just shook his head. [I don’t remember. I just threw the gems and tried to put something between us and it.] He answered.
[Well, you must have pulled it in at some point. Also, which gem did you throw? Was it the six we found in that box?]
[Yeah, the blue and purple gems. At the very least, I think that it’s safe to assume that the stuff in the box is meant to blow stuff up with.] He argued.
Luna climbed aboard her floating deer skull, making it fly upwards until she reached his eye level. [Agreed. No matter what, if we can make two more of those, then not much can really kill us. Unless, of course, there was some giant many times the size of that thing.] She shivered for a moment before calming herself down.
Kain knew exactly what had caused her to shake, but did not press it. To him, pressing it only made it worse. [Yeah, that would be pretty bad. If we get attacked by some giant monster, we would probably have to find a way to run. Either way, we have to figure out where we are.] He paused for a second. [Damn, it feels like Deja vu.] He muttered, inspiring another head-tilt from Luna. [It’s when you feel like you’ve done something already, and get the uncanny feeling that it’s going to repeat itself. For me, this is the second time I’ve had to figure out where the hell I am in the last week, so it’s getting quite familiar.] He explained. Luna nodded and decided to look around the room, something that Kain mimicked. The room around them was giant. It was circular, with nothing but tables, windows, doors, and a glass tube in the middle occupying it. The windows were large, spanning from the floor and going up to the ceiling. The room’s size was not much larger than a normal human room, the ceiling being about 10 feet from the floor, which was most likely normal for such a room; the walls were made up of some sort of light brown colored material and the floor was made of a similar, black material. The tables that littered the room were clear of any decoration and were circular. They had a ring of benches that were attached by bars, similarly to some cafeteria benches, and each had four gaps in the ring, allowing for the user to climb in at any time. The rooms formed two circular blocks that wrapped around a circle in the middle, only broken in two places, which were areas with windows; it was against the wall of the blocks that they had found themselves. There were 30 red doors in the entire room, all closed, which gave the room a sense of symmetry. Kain noticed that the lighting of the room was somewhat dim, and was only lit by light that fell from the ceiling. Unlike light bulbs from earth, the entire ceiling emitted a soft, almost unnoticeable glow that lit the whole room enough that one could see clearly every part of the room. Not finding anything else in the room, Kain sighed. [Kinda boring for the first thing we see. At least nothing is trying to kill us.] Kain joked.
Luna gave a snort. [Just you wait. We’ll have something or other trying to kill us soon enough.] She derisively giggled.
[Welp, we’re doomed.] He sighed. [Thanks a lot, Luna.]
She gave him a playful glare. [Do you really think that the whole jinxing thing you were talking about was real? Sounds like nothing but superstition!] She declared.
[…] Kain was silent for a moment. […A talking rabbit… is claiming that something’s superstitious… I’ve seen it all now.] He laughed.
[So, what’s behind the doors? Don’t look at me like that, you’re the one who’s better at this stuff.] She said defensively.
[I have a guess, so you should as well. Maybe it’ll make you a bit better at figuring this ‘civilization’ stuff.] He said, in an exaggerated voice.
Luna gave another glare, giving a rabbit grin. [Okay, I think that the rooms are those freezer things you were talking about, and that every other room is a kitchen!]
Kain laughed at her wild guess. [Alright, I think that this place is like a hotel, and that every room will have identical furniture.] He said, smirking. Luna nodded in acknowledgment, flying over to the first door and waiting. Smiling, he walked up and opened the door that Luna was floating in front of. Inside, there was a well furnished room complete with a bed, dresser, nightstand, and desk all made of a dark wood that had turned slightly blue. The floor and walls were all the same as they were in the common room. The room was otherwise bare, without a window and lit up, save for a necklace sitting on the desk. The necklace was nothing but a red gem strung on a durable chain. Kain gave a gloating grin. [Looks like I won. You want to know how I knew?]
Luna grumbled for a bit, soon giving him a pout. [Fine… I lost.] She conceded. [So, how did you know?]
[If I’m being honest, I was a bit split on this being either an apartment complex or a hotel, but because each room is so small it could only be a hotel.] He explained.
Luna looked around the room. [So if it could be either, how does the size change anything?]
[Well, for something to be an apartment, you need a certain number of amenities; water, restrooms, kitchens, and other stuff all need to be in the apartment for it to be thought of as such. Hotels, though, are basically bedrooms for rent. They have all of those other things in shared facilities. I’ll amend my statement from earlier, there’s going to likely be a restroom on each block.] Kain explained.
[Wait, what if the people who lived here had different opinions about what constituted an apartment? Maybe what they consider an acceptable living space and what you consider one is different. It just feels a bit… wrong to make an assumption based on what you consider to be normal. Though, you are the only one here with experience with civilization, so I may not be the right rabbit to ask.] Luna concluded.
He paused for a moment to consider what she had said. He had always been thinking about this place as being fundamentally human. Sure, the Dragonoid tower was made for and by giant lizard people who were twice the size of humans, but he had wrongfully assumed that they had all of the same basic needs as he did. Only now, after talking about the subject with Luna, did he realize that the tower had no bathrooms anywhere. For that matter, he realized that he had not gone to relieve himself at all for the week or so he had been in the strange place. He took a deep breath as he internalized the fact. […Yeah, you’re probably right. There are going to be things that differ on a fundamental level. These could be apartments and the former residents were just more open minded about sharing facilities. You want to help check the other rooms?] He offered.
She shrugged. [Not really. I am kind of tired, now that all of the adrenaline has worn off. Do you mind if I take a break?] Kain shook his head. She floated off to one of the tables and laid down on her shield with the skull on top of her. Kain ignored her for a bit and checked every single room, finding the exact same thing inside, along with the exact same necklace. He examined it for energy constructs and was baffled to find the complex energy constructs that laid within. It was so complex that it almost beat the green gem with red markings on it that contained the odd energy. By the time he had finished his explorations, he had found 28 necklaces. The middle of each block was a bathroom. He walked over to Luna and got her attention.
[Every room is the same, and they all have this same necklace.] He pulled out one of the 28 necklaces from his amulet, which he had been carrying in his hand. [You have any ideas about this thing.] He asked, pointing at the necklace.
She shrugged. [Nope. I would ask you to try it, but it could be dangerous.]
[Maybe, but they wouldn’t leave incredibly dangerous stuff lying around a hotel, right?] He thought about it for a moment. [Wrong attitude. This doesn’t seem to be the right place to put anything dangerous. I’ll just put it on for a while. After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained.] He slipped on the necklace once finished with his sentence. Feeling nothing different, he looked at Luna. [Do you feel anything different?] She shook her head and he sighed. Unconsciously, he spoke aloud, “Dammit, what does it do?” Luna’s eyes widened, causing her to stumble backwards a bit.
Suddenly, Kain heard a voice. “I… think I know what it does.” He looked around, and found the voice coming from none other than Luna. Her voice seemed to overlay what was, in reality, a series of noises which were the only things she could make. Although it was overlaid, he knew that the voice was her own, as they had talked at length through their energy connection. “I know what it does… It’s a translation necklace!”
