Exploring the Cellars [John], Friday, October 7, 2011, 12:45 AM

[Spencer Fallen]

John was a fast walker so Spencer had to quicken her pace to catch up to him. He was a tall boy and his feet covered a much larger distance when he was walking than Spencer's did. She followed him towards the exit, hoping that there weren't any professors on the other side of the wall leading to the cellars. She couldn't afford to get into any more trouble because she had already been caught a couple times hanging out with some of her friends after hours.

She got rid of the unpleasant thoughts in her mind and focused on what they were going to be doing right now. "It'll be an adventure!" Spencer threw in with a smile. She had only explored the cellars to a certain point. After that she had always gotten bored or her friends wanted to leave. If they used their time properly, they could probably go farther than any Jackson has gone before. Just thinking about it gave Spencer goosebumps.

When John mentioned getting lost, Spencer just shrugged. "We'll find a way out, no big deal," she replied. The rooms were moving around all the time and they were bound to end up near a place they know at one of those times. The walls started opening up and Spencer smiled, she loved adventures! They had around six hours before they should probably get back, but Spencer also wanted to make sure she had some time to get some Zs in.

[John Mayer]

"We can probably get away with going this way," said John, turning left when they had left the common room. The wall slid shut behind them, and as they walked down the hallway he could hear it muttering rudely behind them. That was the problem with semi-sentient magical constructs: they always said things. Ridiculous, really. "Once we hit the picture of the hairless cat we're in unexplored territory," he added. It was a well-known Jackson fact that the hairless cat was the edge of the known cellar-universe. No one had travelled past it, mostly because the cellars got far too confusing to bother with any more, and Jacksons could only stand things as long as they were fun. Clippesbys were too boring to even explore.

He stuck his hand out and laid it to rest against the wall, bring it with him as he moved. He wasn't just feeling the walls (which admittedly did feel quite nice). No, he was keeping track of where he was. The cellars could still just move somewhere else, but it was the best shot they had at not having to call the house elves for help. They got quite annoyed when people did that.

"Hey, Spence, light your wand?" he said, taking his own wand out of his back pocket. He was still ignoring the advice his father's pamphlets had given him, because who actually knew someone who had blown his own buttock off? "Lumos," he muttered, giving them some extra light. The wall sconces were great, but as they went deeper into the cellars the sconces were unlit.

[Spencer Fallen]

Spencer wasn't comfortable turning left but she didn't say anything. In the past, whenever she didn't know which way to turn, left or right, she always turned right. It was kind of a superstition she had but she just ignored it for the moment. She was sure John had explored the cellars many more times than she had and probably knew where he was going. Well, for now at least. She had never seen the picture of a hairless cat but from the way he was talking she was pretty sure he probably had.

The goosebumps didn't go away as the two of them made their way down the hallway. She saw that John was feeling the wall and she was pretty sure it was so he could keep track of which way they were going. She was hoping that the cellars wouldn't change places anytime soon, they weren't ready for that yet.

Spencer watched the hallway get darker and darker and assumed it was because not many people went this far in. "Lumos," she mumbled while holding her wand in front of her. For some reason the hallway was getting a bit narrower too so she let John walk in front and followed closely behind. It would have been awkward if they both tried to squeeze through.

"Is that the picture you were talking about?" Spencer asked John as they turned a corner. A bit in the distance there was a picture on the wall that, even though it was hard to see with the lack of light, seemed to be an outline of a cat.

[John Mayer]

John sped up slightly and shined his wandbeam at the portrait. The ugly cat hissed at them and arched its back. It always did that when students came near it, and it was like it was trying to warn them from going any further along the cellars. That fact alone had given rise to the legend that the secret chambers were hidden beyond the portrait of the hairless cat, but no one knew for sure, since most didn't venture ahead of it.

"Yeah," said John, frowning at it. "This is the one... it's like, a guard or something." He hissed back at the cat, which seemed to become offended; it turned its back on the two of them and John shrugged. He carried on walking past the cat, and felt slightly disappointed when nothing actually happened. Still, they'd come this far now and so they should probably carry on.

Up ahead, though, the cellars did some weird "split into five different directions" thing which left John staring at them in dismay.

"Well that's a bit shit," he said flatly, staring into the darkness.