towerofanimus

Entry tags:

[003]

Characters: Kuja, Zidane, and YOU
Setting: Floor 2 (infirmary), Floor 14 (media room), Floor 18 (study room), Floor 22 (art gallery), Floor 26 (morgue)
Format: Starting with prose, will match
Summary: Kuja meets with his brother for a chat; Kuja gets stuck; Kuja around the Tower in general.
Warnings: Claustrophobia in the morgue.

After speaking with Zidane over the network, Kuja immediately made his way to the media room. Although he browsed through the selection, he did so without real interest. He was here to have a little chat, not settle down with a story. Maybe later.

The morgue was an unusual and out of place location. What point was there to a morgue where the dead never remained so? Kuja looked through some of the cabinets, and while he did find a few remains, they were utterly unfamiliar, without any identifying markers. Most of them were empty, as if built for a higher death count... In one he thought he saw a glimmer, but to go headfirst into a dark, narrow place was foolish. Instead, he tried to fish it out with magic, and when that didn't work, he braced himself on the shelf to reach the object with his foot.

Immediately the drawer slammed closed with a heavy click. Kuja pressed against the door, but nothing happened, not even when he rammed against it. His heart started pounding in the stifling space, but he couldn't panic.

"Hello? Help! I'm in here!"

Kuja resisted the impulse to also shout 'I'm not dead'. The scent of cold metal and preservative filled his head but that didn't mean he had to lose it entirely. Someone would come by. Eventually. In the meantime, Kuja summoned some fire, for light since the metal didn't melt in the slightest.

After all that nonsense, Kuja just wanted to relax. What better way than with a book? Some might not think a medical text wasn't very engaging, especially one focusing on chemistry, but Kuja liked it. The text reminded him of the countless hours studying in his youth, learning how magic could affect and shape the body.

Now, if only the ghostly whispers would stop. At first Kuja tried to decipher the words, but every time he listened, the noise was just this side of unintelligible. So, like with many minor annoyances, Kuja ignored it. The warm, wet air stirring at his neck was harder to ignore, but he could manage it well enough.

With all of the changes in the recent pod situation, Kuja decided to take the next step in his education on more mundane methods of medicine. He had the book from the library with him, and he was checking the information against the stock available in the infirmary.

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[He's not unfamiliar with death. Granted, he did avoid causing deaths directly, but sometimes it just couldn't be helped and he had to get his hands dirty. However, in a place that he'd been assured that death wasn't permanent, a morgue seemed a rather arbitrary attachment.

If a body has too much light or darkness it simply dissipates. Most of the time it's just an empty husk left behind, the heart returned to Kingdom Hearts. Ghosts, certainly, he's seen more than his share. Zombies pose little threat due to fire or his blade. Still, there's an almost unsettling air about the place. Malicious. Just like everything else in the tower.

He steps carefully, deliberately, footsteps echoing in the silent room. It's too quiet, the sort of quiet one expects a monster or something to jump out out of the shadows to attack from.]

[The quiet doesn't last for long. Kuja can breathe as well as his conjured light, but he's not anxious to stay in the confines of the metal drawer any longer than he has to. It makes him feel too much like the universe (multiverse?) is trying too hard to remind him where his proper place is.]

Hello?

[So he'll keep shouting periodically, pounding on the door.]

[The shouting and pounding catches his attention quickly. The voice is familiar... ah yes, Lord Kuja as he'd called himself. He begins to home in the source of the sound, turning to the wall of drawers after a moment of listening.]

Keep spraking. It will make finding you easier.

[Okay, talking without end is something Kuja is very good at. He drops the flame since it won't help whomever is on the other side find him. He does keep slamming the drawer.]

"Prithee, call me 'princess' no more! Marcus, wilt thou truly cherish me, the king's only daughter? Or is such a desire too dear to wish for!?"

[The words don't matter so much as making sound to track him by.]

[Oh, he has to stifle a laugh at that. This is good, and Kuja is almost convincing in his role. He does have quite a bit of talent, there...

It is useful though, and soon Xehanort is rapping on the drawer for confirmation that Kuja is there.]

[If he's going to recite, no matter the venue, he'll give the performance his very best. Not that making his voice appropriately high and feminine is hard.]

"After our nuptials, shall I become no more th - "

[Wait there it was.]

I'm in here! Hurry up, I'd like to get out sooner rather than later.

[Though he isn't in much danger, since he can feel a wisp of a breeze: these aren't airtight, a good fact to remember. Just in case.]

[He takes a moment to consider the best way to go about this. There's a few options, some more satisfying than others. After a moment of thought he simply summons his keyblade, and taps lightly on the drawer as though knocking.

The drawer obediently pops open. There is little that once locked can resist the innate power of a keyblade, after all.]

You should be able to come out now.

[Kuja grips beneath him as he feels the draw slide open: they're weighted, so half of it pops out. With as much dignity as he can, Kuja sits up and stands, sliding the drawer closed again, brushing himself off.]

My eternal gratitude, Xehanort. I'm not a skittish man, but I'm sure you can understand how glad I am to leave that situation.

He manages to hide the traces of amusement from his face, softening his features down to a neutral smile.]

Of course. Being so confined, in a chariot meant for the deceased, would hardly be a pleasant thing. If I may ask, how did you end up so trapped?

[Well this is embarrassing... Kuja will keep his cool.]

A trick of the light, I suppose. I thought I saw something inside.

[Best way to thwart off mockery: beat them to it. Kuja laughs at himself.]

Not the best plan I've ever had.

It must have been something quite worth the risk of stepping inside... [no he's not judging you, really!] However, that is past, and bears little repeating.

Perhaps a moment of thought: is it strange to you that this place has such a floor when the deceased do not stay so?

No, it was only trash. Ah well, not every endeavor can result in a prize.

[Blatant lies; but Kuja is not going to share his little discovery. Not just yet.]

The same thought crossed my mind, yes. It's possible this is an obsolete floor, since only recent arrivals such as ourselves are untouched by death.

A shame. Perhaps next time you'll have better luck.

A reasonable theory. These floors were unveiled not that long ago, perhaps this one was opened due to the lack of necessity. Unless of course there's something unpleasant hidden here as well, waiting for the ideal moment to strike.

It couldn't hurt to be cautious, as I proved just now. Anyway.

[There's something that Xenahort brought up that concerns Kuja far more than the use of a morgue.]

All of the floors of the Tower that have become public are all upward. I wonder, how many have yet to be revealed, and why delay our access to them>

I'm certain that they will keep adding as suits them. The forms they take may only be limited by our ability to perceive them. This is hardly a tower outside of the barest sense of the word.

Not the most unusual tower I have seen, but it certainly has its own rules and functions.

[Kuja can't help but look at all the dusty labels on jars along one counter. They look so old... nothing like the infirmary. Older type of names, on some. "Spirit of" this, and that "fortis". Not all of them used for preservation, either.]

I expect they will continue as before, unless there is some major upset. This tower and its administrators favor the status quo. Stagnantation....

Each world is unique in the laws that govern it. With time, we will learn more about how it is structured and what makes it so. They can limit us, but they cannot truly stop our forward motion if we desire to understand.

[His eyes drift lazily around the room, taking things in.] Experimentation on corpses, perhaps. Understanding different physiologies. How else can they tailor things to each person and species in kind? We may look the same on the outside, but in a metaphysical sense... even the heart may differ.

[Kuja smiles at that. An admirable attitude.]
Just the sort of spirit I hope for all to foster in these dark times! Most of the basic laws of nature, as I understand them, seem to be present, so it's the finer functions rather than the baser ones that we need to puzzle out.

[So that occurred to Xehanort too. Kuja is intimately familiar with the functions of the body, its study, creation, and destruction...]

A vital point; I'm glad you came to that conclusion too. In fact, we cannot assume we are anywhere near the first survivors they have brought. We could only be the latest batch, refining their obscured processes.... The body, the soul, these things could vary so widely, even within a single planet.

[Kuja pauses a moment, fingers resting on the soft purple of his collar.]

Rather optimistic of you, to think they practiced on corpses. These collars didn't just spring out of the fog....

It's difficult to say how much of what we're experiencing is real. It could simply all be a mass-induced hallucination. The notion of all of the worlds being dead... when one departs, perhaps they're given the mental scenario of wandering a wasteland while in reality they're simply on a table somewhere. Perhaps somewhere even like this. [He gestures to the side, at the nearest table.] Merely corpses? We are if nothing else, test subjects. Alive or dead or "departed", I'm certain they'll learn much from us in whatever fashion they operate on...

[He leans against the table, drumming his fingers on it curiously, listening to the sound as though it would give him some form of answer.] I did not hold stock in what pablum they have fed us in even spoonfuls. Nor do I believe much of what they say even now... but the more curious thought is, who is to say that this is even the only instance of such a thing? Perhaps there are other towers. Perhaps there were previous iterations of whatever grand experiment is running here. We are hardly special... our coming here was little more than random chance through a summoning.

There was someone else browsing the media room, or more than anything being frustrated at how unorganized the place was. At least to his taste anyways, where was all the 'Ultimate Powers' section? These games that they had here were too simple for someone as great as him! Or at least he certainly thought so since if he lost the game would find itself blown up.

But that didn't matter after a while, there were things of interest here and Veigar didn't really feel like blowing things up at the moment, or plotting the demise of the Tower. So he instead was sitting idly looking at some show on the screen about some humans in ridiculous suits fighting monsters.

Kuja had drawn back down to the room, to settle his thoughts with a distraction for a time. Usually he left all well alone but -

There. A small person with a tall, floppy hat, a shadowy face with bright eyes... It couldn't be, could it? It looked animated enough, so it couldn't be empty. Kuja walked over, standing over it to see what reaction it will have.

Why... why did tall people have the damned urge to stand over them! OVER HIM?!

Veigar, upon noticing the person stood up, and then onto whatever was closest to close the height different and narrowed his eyes at the person.

"What? What is it? What do you want?" he asked in an annoyed tone.

Well, with the obviously-not-empty person at roughly eye level, Kuja could get a better look. Whatever they were, they obviously had a soul and a will at that. Kuja wasn't about to ask what they were, but he wondered if this was yet another example of different worlds. Not all Black Mages could be so meek, surely.

"Forgive me for staring, but you look similar to someone I know. Might I know your name?"

Of course he'd look familiar, he wouldn't know why anyone wouldn't want to look like him.

"I'm Veigar, master of raw power, space and time magic and all powerful mage!" That was also his shortest title. A plethora more came from having such a huge ego.

Veigar looked over at Kuja and raised a brow. "And you?"

A mage with quite the ego. After his frustration with the meekness of his previous creations, Kuja finds himself oddly fond of this little spitfire.

"Lord Kuja, patron of mages such as you."

Of a sort. That's all Veigar really needed to know, and Kuja didn't trust him with much more: he seemed like something of a loudmouth.

"Patron of us mages you say?" This is certainly the first time he's ever heard of such a title and decided that maybe this was one of the moments where you gain more from learning than blowing things up.

"I've never heard of such, so I'll assume you're from another world much like many of the blasted minions that dwell in this accursed tower."

Minion? Feh, Kuja never liked slipping on that role, needed as it was. But a noble, bloated with excess cash and influence... Even without resources, people could trust such an individual to set up something similar. But was Veigar using 'us mages' excluding or including Kuja himself?

"As are you, I'm sure." Really, everyone but the administrators were. "Magic is so fascinating, and mages can come up with such marvelous spells and creation, with just a little support."

"So, your name, it doesn't sound familiar, though I must say that's kind of the point of living in this place... Where are you from? What was your world like?" Veigar asked curiously. After all, mages from other worlds should be interesting to say the least.

Now here was a subject both of them were interested in. With such a mix of worlds, what other methods of magic could be shared?

"I lived in a city called Treno, in the country of Alexandria, upon a planet called Gaia. I couldn't easily reduce a whole planet to a few bare facts, you understand, but... Let's see. We have magic, and were on the verge of switching to a steam engine to power all sorts of things, from household heating to powering whole airships. There are four continents, although the Mist Continent is the most populous, with a number of large cities and kingdoms."

Not that different from his own it seems...

"Hmm, I believe we came from similar era's... Runeterra is full of magic, some would say to an unwelcomed amount since it almost ripped the world apart. We have a few continents, Valoran being the most populated and active and some of the City-States focus more on technology, building airships and machines vastly different from anything else in Valoran."

Difficult to sum up an entire planet in only a few sentences, but on the surface they seem similar enough. Kuja burns with curiosity about the magic that could do so much, but he can't ask about that. Not just yet.

"Sounds similar to Lindblum, an immense city knows for its airship yards and innovation. What sort of mechanical advances are we talking about?"

"I wasn't much into them, but Piltover was known for the most advanced mechanical innovations. Mobile vehicles, automatons, augmented armors, airships, war vessels... There's a great deal in that particular city."

And that was just skimming it considering they had built sentient automatons like Blitzcrank and Orianna.

Kuja, as usual, wasn't difficult to spot. That guy really knew how to stand out in a crowd. It was funny, how he'd managed to avoid the spotlight for so long, in spite of that. Zidane made his way over.

"Hey Kuja." Yup, it still felt weird to greet him so casually. Or to speak to him at all, like this. He wondered if that weird, unreal feeling would ever go away.

Sometimes it was easy to hide in plain sight, to be dismissed with other, more likely excuses than one's actual goals. Even easier was to send others to do the more overt dirty work.

This time, however, Kuja had no such wicked machinations, instead seeking out Zidane as well.

"Hello Zidane. Pleasant to see you as always."

His brother was not one to be fooled with sweet words.

Now he knew Kuja for what he was, as complicated a matter as that was. Kuja was his brother, among other things.

"Yeah, it's--good to see you, too." Maybe Kuja could be insincere, but there was no reason not to be polite back, right? "You doing okay?" He did care about what happened to him, although he wasn't sure whether Kuja felt the same way about him.

"Well enough, I suppose."

A polite fabrication, because Kuja isn't keen on having a little heart-to-heart; too reminiscent of deathbed confessions. Better to change the subject.

"So how did the Genomes react on Gaia? How long did it take them?"

"Glad to hear it." Zidane smiles. One can only be so good in a place like this, but he's glad that Kuja's at least--maybe--doing okay. It's hard to tell, with him.

"Oh, uh, not long." There's an awkwardness in this subject as well. "I had to go right after they got settled in. Go fight you is what he doesn't say. "They were starting to fit in and talk with the mages already. That's all I know."

Kuja is quiet for a few moments, processing the information. He shoved the thought of that's not fair away: it wasn't needed. So what if he waited years and Zidane had days, hours (moments?). It was the past.

"Then it wasn't anything I did, but rather Gaia."

And it's shuffling through the cabinets in the infirmary that Tara will find him, when she limps in a little while later. The girl is obviously unsteady on her feet, some sort of injury hidden by her clothes. She can't even make it quite as far as the cabinets, instead taking a seat on one of the beds and laying herself down with a whimper. She won't draw attention to herself, quite yet, but Kuja will probably notice he has company when he next turns around.

The sounds of footsteps is enough, but the shuffling gait, the whimpering, and the sound of a depressed bed alerts him. Kuja doesn't turn around right away (not just because he doesn't like revealing just how perceptive he can be), instead turning a page or two first. When he does, Kuja is surprised to see who it is.

"Willow? Feeling ill?"

"...I'm not Willow."

Willow is gone, and the reminder of that fact is almost, almost as painful as her injuries from getting attacked by Thanatos.

"And I'm n-not sick."

That much is true, beyond any negative effects from being caught out in the cold.

[ Aside from the random creepy noises and the variable lighting, Ryoji finds this place a pretty nice spot to hang out in, when he wants to read - and there's an awful lot of interesting information in the reference books here! A lot of the time, however, when he comes in, he's alone - except today, there's someone else already here, and it's someone he doesn't recognize.

Well, as long as they're here together, he might as well say hello, right?

He wanders over into Kuja's line of sight and waves. ]

Hey, there! I just came in here to do a bit of reading, but I couldn't help but notice - you have beautiful hair! It's like snow...

At first Kuja thinks it's the room when he feels the growing sense of dread. Such feelings of anxieties are rare; Kuja doesn't often let himself dwell on problems. He tried to ignore it, focusing on his book. At the new arrival, Kuja looks up, eager for a distraction from the choking panic. Not even now does his smile falter, even as his hand clenches into a fist by his side.

"Hello. That's kind of you to say."

"Well, it's true!" Ryoji laughs a little as he says that before smiling brightly and continuing, "It seems like a good idea to get to know people here, so we can all help each other, so -- my name is Ryoji Mochizuki!"

He always kept his fingernails long, part vanity and part practicality. Kuja could feel each sharp nail stinging the flesh of his palm. It grounded him as the dread continued.

At least Ryoji was a bright note, a beam of sunshine piercing through cloying mist. He had a likable face, and Kuja reflected his smile.

"Kuja King. This Tower can seem so large sometimes, but its residents so few. A pleasure to meet someone who knows the importance of getting to know everyone."

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[003]

Floor 26 ho ho ho

Oh god. XD

8)

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Floor 14

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Media room, of course!

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Floor 18?

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/forever late

no worries!