Play@YSDC

Kate gasps, putting a hand to her chest. "Who the devil is that?!" she cries. "I thought only Miss Aston and the Countess were still up there, and those sure don't sound like a lady's footsteps. They could be in danger!"

At the sounds, Artemis stepped backwards waving the flash light ahead of him as he did so trying to get a sense of what that sound was and what was it that was coming down the stairs.

The stairwell is empty. No sign of anyone there. But as he flashes his light about, the footsteps break into a zig-zagging run upstairs, ending in the sound of shattering glass and a woman's high-pitched scream.

"What the hell was that? Frank, bring your gun, we have to see what that was!" With the flashlight in his right hand, and his left hand firmly grasping the silver knob of his walking stick, Artemis ascends the stairs quickly. "Countess, Ms. Aston, what happened? Are you alright? Where are you?

Frank Durant

Frank jumped at the sound of glass shattering. His eyes went to the stairwell. He was barely drawing his pistol and starting to move by the time Artemis had reached the bottom of the steps and shouted to him. Frank stopped at the bottom of the steps himself once Artemis moved started ascending the stairs and yelled out "Drop to the floor if you want me to start shooting."

As Artemis moves out of the stairwell into the hall Frank follows him up a few steps at a time, still covering with his pistol.

Kate shudders when she hears the breaking glass and the scream. "I'll stay here and watch the Station Master," she says. "I'll be fine, go help them!" She's just as relieved that she doesn't have to go with them. Frank has a gun and Artemis has his hefty walking stick, but she'd be of little use in a fight - and she's downright terrified. I just hope Miss Aston and the Countess are okay, she thinks.

"I'm not leaving you alone with him, Miss. Besides, I'd just get in the way up in that tight corridor." Charlie's voice is reassuring, though really he's trying to calm himself more than he is Kate. "Besides," he flashes her a smile and switches to a cavalier tone, "being the last line of defence for you makes me look pretty heroic." He positions himself between Kate and the stairwell, keeping an ear out for what's going on upstairs.

Charlie's grin is infectious, for Kate manages a smile of her own. "I do appreciate your chivalry," she says, "but he doesn't look like much of a threat at the moment. I'm not in danger right now, and they are."

There's a few shouts from upstairs, of the "Miss Aston where are you?" sort of variety. No gunfire yet. It is nice and cozy down here, at least, with the warm and crackling fire and the lovely paintings along the wall. Shame about all of the stress and strangeness.

"She might have gone out the window," suggests Kate to Charlie. Then a thought occurs to her. "With the scream and the breaking glass, she might have been thrown out the window!"

The grin drops from Charlie's face and he runs upstairs.

There's shouts from upstairs. Not frightened and panicky shouts, but calls to and fro. She can't make out their words, though she can make out Hagan in the corridor above asking where everyone is. The room is warm and comfortable and lit well enough to make all the strange and bizarre events of the night seem so very far away. In here one can almost pretend that everything is fine and that everyone else is overreacting. Funnily enough not even that rancid buttery smell penetrates the very niceness of this room. Yet she hears a noise behind her, coming from the restaurant door. A tapping at the frosted glass.... A rattling of the door.... The man, the alleged station-master-who-isn't, groans in his sleep, features twisting in a look of misery and loss even in his sleep.

"Hello?!" calls Kate, moving up to the door and trying to peer through the glass to get a look at whoever is on the other side. "Who's in there?"

Shuddering, Kate turns and runs away from the restaurant door to the base of the stairs. "There's someone behind the locked restaurant door!" she calls up the stairs. "Someone horrible!"

OOC,Sense Trouble roll (spending 3 points): [dice]0[/dice]

The door handle rattles again, urgently, as though inspired by the sudden sound of her voice.

Charlie rushes back down the stairs, followed by Artemis. "Miss Lacey, we have a way out." He keeps his eyes on the restaurant door.

The door is silent and still.

Artemis followed down the stairs behind Charlie taking a bit longer than his colleague. As he came down to the bottom of the stairs, he paused. "What is going on down here? We need to get out of the building. Ms. Aston said that this guy here is not the Station Master."

"It's good there's a way out," says Kate, lowering her voice so as not to alert whoever is on the other side of the restaurant door, "but what about the Station Master? Whoever he is, we can't leave him here. He'll be helpless. I suppose we could risk carrying him upstairs, but then we'd have to find a way to get him outside."