After years spent reading CVEs, you became agile like a cat: the login manager crashes and you contemplate a somewhat unusual desktop. The active window contains an incomplete journal entry about food recipes. A minimal web browser is running behind it, showing a recipe named "Chole Bhature". A terminal emulator is keeping track of the system log, where you see the report of a recent segmentation fault. On the bottom you see a dashboard that blinks in a weird way: it is probably buggy.
While you meditate on the age-old problem of software usability, you decide to have another bite of pizza, and get back to the kitchenette to heat up a slice. You notice the wooden plank again, and decide to check it out.
You leave the microwave humming, move away the crate, and take a look: is an old sturdy board, painted in yellow. You lift it, and you find that it covers a square hole in the floor. You look down the hole, but it is completely dark: all you can see is the top part of a wooden ladder.
A loud *ding* makes you jump: the pizza is ready! It is actually way hotter than what you intended to get. You wait to be able to touch it. Glancing the ceiling, you notice another round device, similar to the one you saw in the restroom. Is it just the same?
As the pizza seems to take ages to cool off, you decide to check the restroom again. First off you look at the device: it is exactly the same. Both of them are turned on (the LED is on), but none of them seem connected to a wire. You guess the wires are passing behind the false ceiling.
Finally, you glance at the pipes: they are rusty, but they seem still in working conditions, at least for now. Given the amount of dust, the upstairs pipes might be broken.
~pseudoriemann wrote (thread):
Yes, I'm in! Ignoring the glitches for now I open a new tab in the browser and go to the pubs official forum, midnight.pub, and make a post describing my situation. If it works then surely rescue will come within minutes.
But if it doesn't I'll need to hatch another plan. I think the LED devices are either smoke or carbon monoxide detectors, and they probably automatically contact the fire department when they go off, but I'll consider my other options before taking any actions in this regard (starting the sprinklers, if there are any, could potentially cause more damage than removing the grills from a single window).
The ladder to the cellar is also very interesting, there could easily be power tools down there. Is the laptop mostly charged by now? If yes, I'd like to take it down there to see if the display is bright enough for me to see anything (ideally a light switch).