"So what of purgatory. Where does that place in the grand scheme? Ancient writers had plenty to say about it. Mr Dante Alighieri in Purgatorio. Though his writings were inspired on religious texts only loosely."

"Life is the test. We spend every day caught up in decision making and those decisions really make a difference. Which way we go, who we speak to, what we do with our very limited time. Judgement comes later. The choices we make in purgatory define where we will go. It is now. We are already there. Purgatory is our day to day. We are very much alive of course, but isn't this just one stage of life? We all have our part to play from the old..."

Roth glanced down at himself.

"I suppose that would be me."

There was a very reserved laughter from the congregation.

"And the young."

Roth glanced at the young girl with auburn hair sitting in the pews next to her father and mother. Her father was smiling.

As the crowds milled through the church exit, Roth stood and nodded, shaking hands with them as they left.

"Thanks Mister Roth!" The girl said with a smile. Kristoff shot a glance at her before looking awkwardly at Roth.

"We call him father Roth, Melissa. He's earned himself more than just mister."

Roth shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't care much for the formalities Kristoff. Most people just call me Roth."

Kristoff smiled.

"But you touch so many each week. Yet another captivating sermon. It really spoke to me."

The young girl ran into the grass, chasing a butterfly as Kristoff looked over nervously.

"I've been rather sick, father. I'm worried that it'll be something serious."

Roth looked concerned.

"Have you been to the doctor?"

Kristoff nodded. "Sure, but he told me there was nothing wrong. I was healthy and there was no danger. But I feel it..." He looked down. "I feel myself getting tense each day and I feel my heart racing. I'm scared that my time on this Earth is coming to an end."

He looked at Roth's sullen expression. "If anything happens to me father...watch over Melissa. Her mother tries but she isn't always good without the medication. I worry. I want her childhood to not be haunted with tragedy. And so be it...hopefully we'll meet again in the next phase of life. I'll miss her terribly."

Roth frowned and placed a hand on Kristoff's shoulder.

"I will pray that you make it through. There are evils in this world that cannot be prevented. But I will pray, and I will hope that they can."

"See ya in another life brotha!" Vernon shouted to the crowd. He'd piped up. Somebody had left a red sheet in the corner and he was parading about with it on his back. Roth glared. There was something haunting about that image.

Bryce rolled his eyes as Vernon frowned. "Come! Adventure awaits!"

Bryce grinned. "Yay! Adventure!" And the two charged off towards the right.

The rest of the group looked around at one another sullenly.

"No way that I'm going right." Said Rob coldly. "Least of all not with him around. Let's go left, clearly it's the better path."

Roth paused nervously as the rest of the group followed after Rob. Kristoff looked up at him wearily.

"Somethin' wrong fa- Roth?" He mumbled.

Roth looked sheepishly into the distance.

"Just an awkward sense of deja vu..."

He sighed.

"I'm sure it'll pass."

The group marched down a long corridor. Far too long. No other exits adorned the walls. Was this normal. Roth frowned. It was always a very strange place. He never felt comfortable here. But it was abandoned and they had some sense of security. It would...

He stopped silently. They'd reached their destination. Kristoff mournfully looked on.

"Do we have to really go in?" He said rubbing his temples furiously. Roth looked back at the crowd.

"Something wrong?" Waka asked with a slight concern.

Roth turned back to the door.

"We've just both got a history with this room. But there may be useful supplies and it'll give us a place to sleep."

He pushed open the door. A sign on the front read "Medical Bay 5". Slowly everybody walked through the door.

It was pretty much what you'd expect. It was a room with a few beds spread around and no other doorways or exits. There was a window which was heavily barred, making the dimly lit room seem a lot more sinister. The darkness seemed to flow through the window and fill the room itself. It was very unsettling.

Ari shivered and wandered over to the sides of the room to see if there was anything worth picking up or finding as the rest of the group sat down quietly. Wikey was stood in the centre shifting his glance in every direction as people scowled at him. He sighed and sat on the floor with a sad expression.

Standing in front of a large closet, Ari pulled on the door and kicked it a couple of times. Boc pulled him away.

"Plz stop." He said as the metal clanking echoed through the air, exacerbating a number of headaches. Ari frowned.

"It's locked!" He declared helpfully.

Kristoff lay down on a bed...his bed. He checked underneath to make sure and...good...harnesses still intact. He looked over at Natalie who was quite shaken from the other day.

"I know you have my back right? After what I said...if I start acting strangely you need to put these things around me. It's for the best."

She looked away nervously and walked back to the door. She suddenly felt very trapped in here. Roth slid his hand under a bed and pulled out a large metal box.

"I knew this place wouldn't be completely empty." He opened it with a smile and then frowned. There were a series of compartments sealed with two locks each. On the wall he looked up just in time to see a hand grab a key. Roth dived up and pulled at them.

"We're not doing this again. I know there is no trust. But everybody is getting one of these. There are 18 keys, you each get one. I'll keep the other two."

Pulling the open box over, the group glanced down at it. Ari tried his key in the closet delightedly and looked forlorn as it failed to open.

"Here's what we do." Roth spoke authoritatively.

Objectives:
You each have a key. The box contains a series of compartments numbered 1-9. The 18 keys are numbered 1-9, indicating which compartment they open.

To open a compartment, you must have both keys in your inventory and you must post ##Open: compartment [number]. Results of this will be posted in private.

To speed up the running of this process, if a public action is posted to hand your key over in the thread with ##Pass key to [player] that player will then be considered to have the key, even if I haven't updated their inventory yet.

Keys #9 will be handed out to different players at random. Inventories will be updated momentarily.

Phase 4 ends in 24 hours.

Okay guys, can we not fucking fail at cooperating this time like we did with the shards?

I have key #5

I have key #6

Also, am I correct in assuming that we only lost Vernon and Bryce? If so, it's worth taking note of anybody who didn't post in the public threads yesterday, because those are people who may well be employing a lurker strategy...

#4

I have Key #4

All rightey Curtis. Wanna pass it over here?

Dylan @ 11/9/2012 22:05

I have key #5

samesies

Also, guys, one thing we may want to be aware of is the possibility that there is a klepto in the game. If there is, he's going to wind up getting every single item that we uncover, and that could be very, very dangerous if they are a scum.

Klepto scum would be pretty unbalanced and unfair don't you think!

Not sure why you keep suggesting there's a klepto tbh. I think the chances of there being one are pretty slim. There's a lot less items up for grabs in this game than a regular Lab game

Well, either there's a klepto or Wikey was lying about not getting the guns, or there's someone with improbable speed in the cast. I absolutely agree that a klepto scum would be amazingly unbalanced, but if you'd mentioned the possibility that Rose was nigh on unkillable last game, I'd have found that amazingly unbalanced also.