Frank continued to approach the dog taking slow measured steps. He kept his gun trained on it the whole time, ready to put the pooch down if it made a move to attack him.

OOC: Readied action to shoot dog, if it as much as looks at me sideways. :)

Tobias frowned, looking at the dog. Frank was right; something was off. Keeping his gun trained on the dog, he waited for it to do what any dog would normally do, and either attack or retreat.

See Frank's readied action. Same.

Standoff.

Tobias and Frank surround the dog, inching forward ever so slowly without making any sudden or threatening moves. The dog does not budge from his position save to turn one way or the other to growl at whichever intruder moved last.

Something about the dog's growl grates on their brains. Tobias and Frank feel as if they just can't quite remember something, but that if they only try a little harder they will get it.

[Private to Tobias Byrne: Will (16): Fail. Guess you are not very wise today :) You have no ill effects... that you know of!!!

18:12, Today: Facilitator, on behalf of Tobias Byrne, rolled 16 using 1d20+7. Will Save (with bonus).]

[Private to Francis 'Frank' Decourcey: Will (25): Success! Finally the thought resolves itself in your mind, and the thought is: This Dog Does Not Exist. Suddenly the dog simply disappears from sight and sound, as if it were never there in the first place.

Tobias doesn't seem to have had the same realization, however, as he is still acting like there's a menacing beast among you.

Spot (20): Success! When the dog disappears you notice, amongst the rubble, a small piece of black plastic. It is featureless other than the fact that, unlike everything else in the Shaque, it is completely free of soot and dirt.

18:11, Today: Facilitator, on behalf of Francis 'Frank' Decourcey, rolled 25 using 1d20+8. Will Save (with bonus).
18:16, Today: Facilitator, on behalf of Francis 'Frank' Decourcey, rolled 20 using 1d20+11. Spot check. ]

Tobias sighed. "This is getting annoying. I'm tempted to just shoot it."

"Toby," said Frank, calmly. "This dog does not exist."

He slipped his gun back into its holster and carefully approached the object on the floor, still wary of any other traps. He kept careful watch for anything suspicious, whether mundane or supernatural.

Tobias stares at the dog again for a second then suddenly feels very stupid.

[Private to Tobias Byrne: Will (22): Success! Finally the thought resolves itself in your mind, and the thought is: This Dog Does Not Exist. Suddenly the dog simply disappears from sight and sound, as if it were never there in the first place.

Spot (22): Success! When the dog disappears you notice, amongst the rubble, a small piece of black plastic. It is featureless other than the fact that, unlike everything else in the Shaque, it is completely free of soot and dirt.


21:18, Today: Facilitator, on behalf of Tobias Byrne, rolled 22 using 1d20+9. Will Save (with EXTRA bonus).
21:19, Today: Facilitator, on behalf of Tobias Byrne, rolled 22 using 1d20+6. Spot check. ]

Tobias exhaled slowly. Half-tempted to shoot where the dog was anyway, he growled, "I feel like a doofus."

He kneelt near the front of the door, muttered a sharp set of syllables, and began looking about. "Go see what he was guarding?" He suggested. "I'll see what made that... thing.

[Private to GM:
Only picking it up if I don't find something. Casting Detect Magic on the area, checking the door, followed by the plastic.]

PM

[Private to Tobias Byrne: You don't detect any magical auras... per se. You sense Conjuration (Teleportation) aura coming from behind the door, which is strong and holding steady. The small piece of plastic has a faint and quickly fading Illusion aura coming from it. Only... both of the auras are distinctly technological in nature, and entirely unmagical. It is not unlike the aura that comes from your Rod of Technology.

The plastic piece itself is about the size and shape of a poker chip. It is totally featureless on all sides, though on the edge you can see that the two faces were manufactured separately then sealed together.]

"Hold up." Tobias held up a poker-chip-sized piece of plastic. "This was our culprit for the dog, and there's some sort of teleportation effect behind the door. Be careful."

After Toby had warned him, Frank approached the door he'd indicated and then pushed his back up to the wall next to it, just as he'd been trained to when handling a situation where a probably armed suspect was holed up inside a room.

Gesturing for Toby to get against the wall on the other side of the doorframe from where Frank was positioned, Frank used his gun to try and nudge the door open, careful not to push his hand past the level of the doorframe.

Frank nudges the door which slowly creeeeeeeeaks open. His heart skips a beat when he sees a figure standing about 20 feet beyond the doorway aiming a weapon at him, then he quickly realizes he is just seeing his own reflection in a grimy mirror. The room used to be the unisex bathroom, however most of it was lost in the fire or the vandalism afterwards. The sink has been torn off the wall, and the toilet and urinal look like they have been attacked with a sledgehammer. Oddly, while the stall is missing, the door and frame are still in tact; in fact, the door is closed and appears largely free of soot and graffiti.

[Private to Tobias Byrne: Your Detect Magical Aura spell indicates that the technological conjuration energy is coming from the stall door.]

"That... is a portal-potty." Tobias said, stepping into the room. He examined the door closely, looking for any sort of writing or markings which could indicate where it would go.

Unless you take literally the banishments to hell of one rival gang to another, there are no indications of what lies on the other side of the door.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:37, Mon 06 Feb 2012.

Frank smiled wryly at Tobias' comment. He was still having to get used to the idea that magic was real, and the idea that a simple toilet stall door could be a portal to another dimension was not a pleasant one. If anyone who knew magic could turn any mundane doorway into a portal, it begged the question how could someone guard against that. The implications were terrifying.

"So, what now?" asked Frank, slipping his weapon back into the holster now that the physical threat was no more. "I take it we can't tell where it goes? What if we opened it; could we see through?"

Tobias kept his gun drawn, pointed down, but in the direction of the stall door. You never know what might fly through one of those. "I can't from here. We could open it, but I've got no idea how this one's set up. I'd suggest a stick or pole, myself."

"Agreed," said Frank. "I don't want that damn thing taking my hand..."

He searched the debris in the room to try and find a stick or pole that he could use to open the door without touching it or passing any part of his body through the threshold.

OOC: 14:28, Today: Francis 'Frank' Decourcey rolled 5 using 1d20. Search for a stick.

10 once I stop rushing and actually take a bit of time to look!

Frank easily finds a long section of pipe protruding from the wall. He steps off to the side of the door, and uses the pipe to slide the lock to the left, then gently pushes the door outwards. When it opens, you see a long, perfectly white hall, lit by florescent lights. Along each side of the hall and at the other end are plain, white doors, each one displaying a small metal label. The floor is a perfectly clean vinyl tile flooring.

"Well then." Tobias looked down the hallway, "I wish that I could do that."
Hefting a peice of smallish rubble, he tossed it down the hallway. Assuming nothing came lurching out to destroy it, he turned to look at Frank. "Worst that can happen is that we can't get back. I don't think that's particularly likely, though. Whoever designed this has to have made a way to get out."

The debris skitters down the hallway. No monsters come out to investigate.

"That's a pretty bad possiblity," said Frank, shaking his head. "We need someone who can pull us back from this side. Call the office, let them know where we are and where we're going. At least that way we won't just disappear without a trace. I'd do it, but I don't think I can describe this portal properly."

"Got it." Tobias holstered his gun and stepped back. He pulled his phone and dialed quickly. "Yes, hello. Agent Tobias Byrne, I need to speak to someone about a mission-relevant impasse..."

Once he got the appropriate person on the line, he explained the situation and the portal, as well as their concerns about not getting back.

Frank was tense as he looked down the corridor, the sounds of technobabble a dull murmur in the background. David's words had surfaced in his mind again;

"He's in the white house, black house, white house, black house, white house, black house..."

Well, the corridor was certainly white. It almost put Frank in mind of the long white hallways of St Elizabeths Hospital. For some hard to place reason, that wasn't a comforting thought. He brushed his hand over the grip of his gun, finding something reassuring in the action.

When Toby had finished his call, Frank spoke to him.

"Well, this is it, I guess," he said, nervously. "I don't see that we have a choice. I think I should go first. If this door is trapped and seals shut, you might have a better chance of opening it again from this side, if not, you come through straight afterwards. What do you think?"

Tobias slipped the phone back into his pocket, and shrugged. "Sounds as good a plan to me as any."

"After you."

Frank steps through the door, braces himself and... nothing happens. After he takes a few more steps down the hall with no ill omens, Tobias follows. They walk down the hallway, reading the metal tags on the doors. There are three doors on the right and left sides of the hallway, spread apart at a distance of 20 feet between each door, and one door at the end of the hallway. Most of the doors' metal tags bear text which seems to swim before your eyes, never quite forming full words. The middle door on the right hand side and the door at the end of the hall, however, do finally reveal their destinations: in elegant engraved script, one door says "East Wing", and one says "West Wing". None of the doorways in the hall seem to have any visible locks, warning mechanisms, or any other system to stop you from entering.

After checking out the hallway, Frank turned around and walked back towards the way they had entered, wondering if they would be able to see back through the portal to the Hot Dog Shaq's unisex bathroom.

He moved close to the first door on the left hand side and pressed his ear up close to listen for any sounds on the other side.

[Private to GM:
22:43, Today: Francis 'Frank' Decourcey rolled 31 using 1d20+11. Listen Check. ]