towerofanimus | (no subject)

Characters: Ienzo (now a big boy) and you.
Setting: Room 2-12 and some other places.
Format: Either!
Summary: Science Boy is back in the tower, except he's... significantly less of a boy, now.
Warnings: Ienzo is a ramblin', gamin' man.

Room 2-12.

[Ienzo found it extremely disheartening how long it took him to realize that something had gone amiss. The color palette wasn't even that similar; everything was a shade of grey here, it seemed, whereas everything was a shade of brown when he had gone to sleep last. Ienzo withheld most of his immediate reactions upon realizing that his body was not responding to movements; truthfully, it was enough to upset him considerably (what if he had been drugged was a recurring thought), but there was no use showing that. He noticed that there were several other people in this room, which only reinforced that notion.]

[He found the trunk quickly, and pulled on his clothes quickly before continuing. The letters were the second order of business. He read them both in detail (looking confused at the second), and stowed them in his pocket shortly afterwards. From the same pocket, he conjured a pen, and tucked the two journals in the trunk under his arm. Then, only then, did he bother to talk to anyone. He started with the people in his room, though branched out into the hallway. Whoever he asked, the question was the same:]

Excuse me. Can you tell me why I am here?

Floors 1 through 5.

[Greetings, Tower. Did you miss him?]

[Of course, game mechanics are a beautiful thing, and Ienzo doesn't remember anything about his last stint in the tower of souls. Though some other people might, and they would be remembering Ienzo as a little kid in an oversized lab coat who talked so quietly he didn't even use capital letters. Well -- and I know this may be surprising -- the lab coat actually fits now. He's been taken from a much farther point in the timeline, and is now nineteen years old. And yes, he is still quite short.]

[Anyway.]

[Ienzo's strategy for Tower exploration amounted to this: move up the floors one at a time, looking thoroughly at each one. Of course, he could see from the elevator that there were forty-eight of them, so he didn't expect that he would cover the entire Tower in one day; in fact, as soon as he stepped up the staircase and into a forest, he simply decided that he was done with exploration for the day and moved down to the lower floors again. Passerby might find him walking around, inspecting things so mundane that most people wouldn't even give them the time of day, or else sitting down on any available surface (except the floor) to take notes.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The start of the year?

[If he recalls correctly, the date on the computers before said December 10...]

So this place has been operating for almost a full year at the least. [He writes this down in one of the journals under his arm.] And... have you yet found a way to explore the areas outside the tower?

[He shakes his head.]

Not yet. But the 45th floor is this...I guess kind of a giant observatory? The walls are all made out of glass, so you can see everything outside. But it's so high up that most of the time you can just see clouds. I haven't really gotten around to exploring a lot of the lower floors yet, so maybe there's something on one of those? But unless I am completely blind or something, there's no front door that we can just waltz out at any time we wish.

[John, you had him on the word 'observatory'.]

Into the clouds. [That comment sounds quite impressed. It ain't easy to build and keep a building of forty-some floors that goes into the clouds...] Well... I'm sure that there is a way out someplace, perhaps in one of the administrative rooms. If worst comes to worst we'll just ask them to let us out.

[If only you knew, Ienzo... if only you knew.]

Uh...I really think if it were that simple, someone would have done that by now. DOn't you think?

...Perhaps 'ask' was the wrong word.

[A+, Ienzo. Good job.]

Well, we can convince them one way or another. They wouldn't have us here without having a way to take us out, don't you think?

I didn't really think about it, but I guess that's true. Though I wonder if going outside would honestly be any better than being stuck in here.

[He still doesn't think there's really any way to convince them to be let out though.]

I think it would! We could see the exterior of this world, that isn't as likely to be monitored and blocked off. And we would be able to study it to find out if there was any particular element that protected it from being destroyed by the Darkness... if that is what happened.

The Darkness?

[Come again?]

...Well, that's what I'm assuming has overtaken the worlds, until we learn otherwise. Devouring universes is not an undocumented occurrence for it.

So...what is it a monster or something?

No, Darkness is... [Ienzo takes a deep breath. That's a difficult question. Is it a monster? Well, kind of.] Darkness is a bit like the common elements one would find on a periodic table. in that it doesn't seem to be able to be broken down into anything. However, Darkness is also at least semi-sentient, and can fuse with peoples' hearts -- their consciousness, somewhat, though hearts are a completely different story -- and using that can turn into creatures that are, more or less, monsters. It also seems to have magical properties; as one can shoot a fireball or imbue their sword with flames, one can do the same with darkness. Dark versions of other magic also exist...

[You'd better stop him soon, John.]

[Why does John try to understand Kingdom Hearts. Why. Darkness and keyblades and facetwins and why the fuck is everyone Sora.]

[Not even Homestuck kids understand Kingdom Hearts. That's how wack their shit is.]

Ah..aha, okay I think I got it! I have played enough video games to at least get the gist of something like that. Just the way you talked about it at first kind of made it sound like a monster. But I guess that could be what destroyed all our world, assuming they were indeed destroyed. [Sneeze!]

[Instead of responding proper, Ienzo reaches into the pocket of his pants (not lab coat -- there are things in there that mankind was not meant to know) for a clean handkerchief. He then handd it to John.]

Caught a cold?

Thanks. [He takes the handkerchief, just in time to catch a second sneeze with it.] Yeah, I dunno if you noticed but the heat is out. Apparently, it's not always like this though.

I didn't notice. [He's... well. Two words should nicely describe Ienzo's relationship with cold: "Even's lab."]

...are you from like Antarctica or something?

[How can you NOT notice this?]

No, I'm from Radiant Garden.

[HE HAS NEVER HEARD OF THIS... ANTARCTICA.]