The Big Bang

Quite suddenly and, to 95% of the people in the room, with no warning at all, there’s a loud blast. It originates from below the ballroom, in the kitchen, but the strength of it is such that the entire corner of the ballroom near the main entrance to the foyer is immediately destroyed, engulfed in a cloudy inferno that makes escape from that exit impossible.

Bits of glass, metal, and wood fly in every direction, and some fleshy bits that could have been meat from dinner or… someone you knew. The noise from the explosion is deafening, making it difficult to hear anything at all. Most of the people in the room are panicking and blindly running for the only viable exit as the fire spreads, the sliding doors leading into the gardens. One or two fear-crazed individuals head straight into the flames before anyone can stop them.

Only a couple of the waiters are anywhere to be seen; the rest have presumably been killed in the blast in the kitchens. The Mayor, too, is nowhere to be found. The blast seemed to be focused on the table he was seated at.

The half of the balcony that was off of the foyer is no longer intact; the explosion has taken out the section with the stairs. A small section at the end of it is still stable, for the moment. The end that would have led down the stairs is now a mess off wood and metal leaning out over a two-story high blaze. The other end still overlooks the dance floor but the only conceivable way off now is to jump into the rapidly growing flames.

The orchestra apparently never saw the Titanic… they are one of the first ones to grab their instruments and hightail it out into the gardens.

((ooc: You now have 36 hours from this point on to RP your characters’ escape from the burning room as the fire advances and the fire crew arrives. The explosion has blocked off the exit from the foyer and destroyed that corner of the ballroom. Here are the rules of escape:

-Your character must remain in the thread he/she is currently in.
-No one will sustain any more than minor injuries (cuts, bruises, abrasions, 1st degree burns).
-Anyone still in the ballroom after 36 hours have passed will be subject to consequences at the discretion of the admins running the event.
-Once your character has left the ballroom and ooc’d out of his/her current thread, you will be allowed to make one final post in the “Exeunt” thread, similar to the ‘Entrance thread.’ Please see the ‘Exeunt’ thread for a description.))