Numerous sets of eyes tracked his sudden movement with frantic wariness, causing several brandished weapons to inch closer to the two of them. Yet, despite the increased scrutiny, he didn't let go of Layla's hand.

As spontaneous as the movement had been, and the obvious pragmatic drawbacks… he wasn't ready to let go.

For a brief moment that felt like it stretched on into eternity, an extremely lopsided standoff unfolded. Somewhere deep below them, the final aftereffects of the elevator impacting with the deepest point of the shaft rolled up and past them, causing the floor to tremble slightly and kick loose a few clouds of dust from the decrepit ceiling. Elsewhere, from some indeterminate point not too far away, automatic gunfire chattered in short, controlled bursts. Blaring to life with no warning, only to fall silent just as abruptly and be replaced by a new source of weapons discharge from yet another random point. Under the dim yellow glow of incandescent bulbs, Henry didn't dare twitch a muscle more than he already had. Not that it seemed he had a choice in that matter, anyways.

They were almost completely surrounded by watchers, now. Lying on his back on the floor as he was, he couldn't exactly see much of the room past the throng of the crowd… but he could see enough. And the condition of the rest of the floor left him both shocked and appalled.

Apparently, this floor did have power going to the lights unlike those below. However, it was immediately apparent that every expense was spared to keep the quality of said lighting as abysmally poor as physically possible. In between the aisles of metal rebar and scrap cages that now lay in ruin, only a scant few points of light lined the pathway, leaving the majority of the cells permanently cast in shadow. Even the cages themselves almost felt like they'd been built by the lowest bidder, and that was even before you addressed the damaged state they were in. Seemingly very recently, they'd been systematically torn, bent or sliced open, allowing those unfortunate enough to originally be within them free reign of the entire floor.

I recognize that handiwork, I think…

He wished he could get a closer look, but the present welcoming committee seemed to have no intentions of allowing such an act. Circled by a ring of gaunt, hollow faces of men, women and children, both he and Layla were getting plenty of wary looks cast in their direction. The spotty lighting made their faces look even more stretched tight than they would normally, casting heavy shadows into the recessed pits under the cheekbones and close to the sockets of their eyes. Each of them looking half dead, almost like skeletons despite each and every one being very much a living, breathing person. Many were obviously fearful, but some… some were more curious as to just who they were.

The one currently pointing the sharp end of a pike into the crook between his neck and chin was very solidly in the former camp. Not much curiosity in his actions. Flat of the blade pressed smooth against the edge of his jaw, cool to the touch but promising an inescapable death should he so much as sneeze at the wrong time.

Getting captured was really getting old, he thought.

Like a broken record, the man with the pike addressed Henry for a third time, shifting his stance so that he could put his entire weight behind a spear thrust, if need be. "Who are you?!", he repeated.

Almost lazily, Henry's eyes met his. "...Take it easy…" he spoke to his captor in slow, measured words. "I'm sure none of us are looking to get tied up by the Club again…"

He winced the moment he finished speaking. Not realizing until it was too late, it occurred to him that that turn of phrase could be very easily misinterpreted.

And, sure enough, a susurrus of various voices in the gathered crowd followed the mere mention of that name. Some saw it as a threat, a twinge of fight-or-flight responses creeping out from those with particularly strong memories of their experiences with the brutish organization. He felt the point dig in about a millimeter closer.

"Hold it!", Layla hurriedly corrected, before the spearhead could slice any closer to his neck. "He meant as in, they're actually after us, too. By the looks of it, you're all captives that the GC has taken over the months, right?"

Nice save, he thought to himself, relieved. Come on, people, please bite at the chance to start an open, civilized dialogue for once…

Fat chance of that happening, if he was being fair. Ever since vampires had started disguising themselves as humans, the pool of trust people were willing to put in strangers had evaporated practically overnight.

Each surviving group of humans left had by now developed their own flavor of vetting new entrants, typically hot on the heels of some sort of trial by fire or another and with more than a few close calls coming from development of said methods. While it was true that these captives had been mostly sheltered from that reality… using a very generous stretch of the term sheltered… Common knowledge was common for a reason. And trust was still very much at an all-time low.

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The one who had spoken before narrowed his eyes and held firm.

"Don't move," he spoke redundantly before sparing a glance to one of the others nearby. "Take their weapons, and set them off to the side. We'll deal with those later." With a nod, the order was obeyed.

Henry was forced to remain perfectly stock still as his various tools of the trade were taken off of his person one by one. First to go was the SMG on a sling over his shoulder, then his revolver, and lastly his set of knives. Layla was given a similar once-over by a second escapee, but ended in a much smaller haul on account of her having her own methods.

The ringleader didn't take more than a second to look at the gathered tools before returning to his interrogation.

"Now," he stated flatly, the tone of his voice much calmer but still just as icy. "I need your names, and I need to know exactly what you're doing here."

If he could have nodded, Henry probably would have in that moment. Instead, he opted to do what the nice man with the pointy stick wanted of him.

"Sure. I'm Henry, and that over there is Layla," he began. "And… to make a long story short… I crossed Guillaume Dufresne. If it weren't for the Knights crashing through just now and putting him on the back foot, he'd probably be after our heads already."

"Guillaume?!" Several voices spoke up in alarm when they realized who he was up against. The commotion lasted for several seconds, before the leader held up a hand to silence them.

"Apologies," the spokesperson explained. "But there are some memories best left unremembered with us when it comes to him. Though… hmm…"

The man scrutinized him closely, giving Henry the sense of feeling like a microbe under a microscope. There was a sort of sharpness in the man's eyes, ever so subtly different than the crowds around him. Vengeful, calculating. Assessing whether or not the two of them were liable to get in the way of whatever he had in store.

Most likely, that would be some sort of revenge, Henry imagined. Not everyone went for it, but in the right hands spite was a very powerful motivator.

"It's obvious that neither of you are Knights, certainly," he assessed, inching the pike back just a hair. "And if you are part of the Gentleman's Club, I doubt either of you would last more than half a second as you are. The fact that you talked willingly makes me doubtful of that, though. So… just what makes a couple of random nobodies stay in Stratford willingly, anyways?"

Their weapons weren't exactly lowered, but most of them were withdrawn just enough to give them both space to sit up. Good sense on their part, honestly. Vampires could always get rather devious when they were desperate enough. Both sides knew of the unspoken possibility, but saying it outright had developed into a sort of taboo among regular folks.

Bad luck to openly accuse a vampire, many swore by. And with more than enough bad luck to go around already, the superstition managed to catch on rather quickly. So, Henry paid it no mind, and simply shimmied around a bit to face the hedge of blades from a kneeling position.

"Well, our situation is simple… but at the same time, it's not easy, either," Henry elaborated. "Guillaume's going to kill us the first chance he gets, most likely, which makes it lucky that we were on our way to kill him first. Though, time is running out on that front and we got separated from a friend of ours along the way…"

"A friend? There was a third person with-"

A shout of alarm interrupted the line of questioning, raised by one of the sentries placed on standby near what would have been the staircase access.

"INCOMING!", rose the cry from the door as ramshackle bracing was hastily thrown in front. "The bastards are coming at us from above and below!"

"The hell's it matter where they're coming from?", the leader barked. "They all gotta come through the same door! You two, keep an eye on the new arrivals. The rest of you, get ready! We're not going to let them lock us up a second time!"

Where the crowd's resolve had been wavering moments before, the call to arms had bolstered the escapee's collective nerves. In a sense. It was like placing duct tape over a hole in a sailboat and calling it fixed. Weapons fell into place, looted armor was hastily donned, and whatever loose scraps of cover surrounded the gatehouse were quickly occupied. However, the underlying sense of panic in the air was impossible to ignore as many either scrambled to action or got out of the way of those who were. Henry and Layla watched on from a distance as they prepared, moving about with gusto but with an… optimistic sense of what the malnourished captives were physically going to be capable of withstanding.

"We have to help them," Layla decided.

"Are you sure? We're not exactly in a position to argue our case, and my weapons are being divvied up between them as we speak."

"Doesn't matter. We have to help them."

"…Alright," Henry replied with a slight sigh before turning to face their two guards. "Look, I'm not saying either of you have to trust us or even try to keep us alive, but we can fight and it would seem we have a common enemy. Just leave me with the pistol and the knife, and we'll take front and center. What do you say?"

The two guards gave a nervous look to each other, unsure of if they should take initiative on the decision or not.

Figures.

"Great! Glad you agree!", Henry interrupted.

Standing up and lifting Layla to her feet, he swiped his two tried and true weapons off the table they'd been dropped on, and just… walked off to fight.

Surprised that worked, actually, he thought to himself amusedly as he flicked open the revolver cylinder like he'd done so many times before.

Five shots. And just over a half hour to find Guillaume.

They all were in for a hell of a night, it would seem.

< -|- -|- >

"Cover! Cover! I need cover!"

"Get down! Get down!"

"Put those feckin' rats back in ther' cages!"

Absolute pandemonium erupted the instant the Gentleman's Club broke through the barricade. Jeering hooligans whipped around the corner in twos and threes, spraying hot lead in every direction they saw movement as well as a few that they didn't. They were met, in turn, by shaky defenders in mismatched sets of Knight armor flailing wildly with medieval weapons they only had the most cursory understanding of for the most part, flashing combat enchantments back at them in an uncoordinated mess. But, even despite those disadvantages, enchanted equipment was nothing to laugh at. Weighing everything in, the escaped prisoners would have only been at a slight disadvantage defending the entrance had they fought this battle in a vacuum.

Fortunately for them, they had the Shroudwalker on their side to even the odds.

Orbs of mist whipped through the open air in slight arcs, staggering attackers and spoiling their aim as the opaque haze dispersed. Wherever they struck, confusion blossomed, giving the undertrained survivors a large enough window to finish the worst aggressors off here and there before they could recover.

Henry snatched up a dead thug's gun from off the floor, spraying in the general direction of another group of bandits that were giving Layla trouble at the moment. Up close and personal to the fighting, mist billowed around her as she rapidly multitasked between condensing and propelling ultra-dense orbs of mist, and knocking any of the Club members lucky enough to withstand the barrage long enough head over heels. The moment they got too close to the escapees for her liking, she'd drop the control on whatever orb she was condensing, absorb it, then reflexively convert the power boost into a devastating strike. Any hit from her was equivalent to being hit by a charging bull, leaving many of their attackers groaning on the floor from heavy bleeding – internal or external, depending on how she hit them – or crawling away in a desperate bid to retreat, also with heavy bleeding.

Casualties mounted on both sides. Stray bullets dropped friend and foe to the ground alike, as the small-scale invasion stalled out and gradually became a stalemate. They were taking plenty of the Club down with them, at least three of them for every one they lost… but the numbers had yet to thin as they streamed out of the gatehouse to assault the maybe just north of a dozen able-bodied fighters left standing.

Time to start fighting smarter, instead of harder.

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