towerofanimus | And then it comes crashing down

Characters: Enoch and anyone
Setting: From the dorm floors down to the cafeteria
Format: I'm starting in prose but I'll match!
Summary: Enoch, uh. Attempted to get inside help. And now he's seen the admin video.
Warnings: None yet!

Enoch stared at the screen that had come on, drawing him off the stairs on the second dormitory level to watch.

The image of Dax being torn up by Ruana's hands was burned into his vision, Dax's words still ringing in his ears. Ruana's taking over next.

The feed was off. There was no way to know if Dax was all right - but Ruana couldn't have read- ... His request! Enoch didn't linger at the terminal to react. He ran.

Enoch nearly slammed into the elevator door when he ascended to the first dorm floor, he was running in such a panic, but he managed to catch himself on the wall just in time and hit the call button. It's only a few moments, the elevator wasn't all the way at the first floor, but the ride down was agonizing. If he was alone in the elevator, he didn't stay still, his hands were on the door as if ready to push them open the moment there was any space to do it.

Naturally the elevator doors were strong enough to not actually be ruined by that. Enoch slipped sideways out the door as soon as it could admit him and he rushed for the suggestion box's counter, jumping over tables instead of running around them, his Arch occasionally catching on and knocking a chair to the ground.

At least until he pulled it from the back of his jeans and opened it in one fluid, practiced motion as he neared the box, bringing it around in a streak of blue to cut off the top of the box. His other hand was already reaching down to take...

...Nothing. The box was empty.

Enoch stared at it, his Arch slowly lowering to his side.

"No...no..."

His entire body was trembling. What had he done...? What if Ruana took it out on Dax?

He sank to the floor against the counter. Once his head was below its level, the box was, suddenly, intact.

Not, of course, that Enoch noticed. All he could do was hope that Ruana never noticed there was a hidden message in the first place. If he tried appealing to her, it would alert her to the message's presence for sure, if she didn't know of it.

So he was trapped. All he could do was sit there in the wake of his failed mad dash and stare down at the floor that separated them from the administrators, and hope the one that had a moral head on his shoulders still had his head at all come next month.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Enoch just sighed, not looking up from the floor where construction could still be heard. His hair concealed his eyes, but not his mouth.

"It wasn't a request meant for Ruana."

He frowns. It couldn't simply be a failed request. Not when Enoch was upset enough to destroy the request box.

"...And who exactly was it for? What did it say?"

"It was for Dax. An-..." Enoch cut himself off and looked up at the ceiling. ...Did they have eyes here too? Did Ruana watch through them?

Lancer also looks up, but he can't see anything suspicious.

"...Well, she already got that request, so it's not like she can do more to punish you now."

"Requests aren't replied to until the start of the new month..." He sighs. "It...isn't myself I'm worried about."

Enoch never was one to do so, and the tower's treatment of death doesn't help him act any less selflessly. As much as he dislikes both dying and putting himself at Jason's mercy.

"Then who...?"

He can only make one guess.

"...Dax?"

Enoch nodded. "Dax. Especially with...what we were shown."

"He was alright at the end."

At least, this is what Lancer wants to believe. He doesn't know why Ruana would try to tear Dax apart for no reason. Though, it seems that she did have a reason after all, and it was related to Enoch.

"He was... I...I don't know what to think."

Enoch wanted to think this was just Ruana being Ruana. Just playing with everyone. He didn't want it to be a warning. Didn't want to be responsible for Dax's injury or death...

"Well, whatever it is, it's already happened. Don't think too hard on it?"

Lancer knows this isn't a very good attempt at comforting, but it's all he can say for now.

Enoch lets out a little sigh.

"We can only wait to see a sign of life from him."

"Like the next time he has a month? What's the usual pattern for these months anyways?"

"Jason always follows Dax...and then it's...Riki. I wrote-..."

Oh no. Don't tell him...

"I thought Ruana only participated when she had a game she wanted to play, but..." Enoch braces himself against the counter and stands. "I wrote down what I believed their order to be... I'll copy it for you if you come with me."

...But he's a little too busy staring at the repaired box now. What...how did it become intact so quickly?

"Alright, thanks."

Knowing the order that the admins went in would be useful to see when he should be more careful, at least.

"So Ruana has a set place in their little schedule after all?"

"I believe so. And I should have ensured I knew exactly who I was making a request of."

Enoch led Lancer to the elevator, and down the stairs from the top floor to the third dormitory floor, and to his room. When he knelt at and opened his trunk...the scrap of paper was right there, showing that he had guessed Ruana had this spot instead of Dax. Had he consulted it first, he may have held off to be sure. But he was so eager to put his plan into action, so driven to get them to work together and restore the worlds, after the shock of seeing his own (a shock so great he only recalled impressions of events and burying Armaros in the sea was the only event that stuck, itself an impression of an action)...

With a sigh, he held it up for Lancer to see, while he fished a pen out of the side of the trunk and tore a scrap of paper from the end of the fourth notebook to copy it.

...While he was at it, he marked through the question mark beside Ruana's name on his own copy, and didn't even bother writing it at all for Lancer.

Lancer leans over and observes the order for the administrators. They match almost exactly with the months he experienced. The only exception was that Riki was missing a turn. Then again, Zelda had said something about Riki having an extra turn at one point.

"Nice list. So why didn't anyone notice Ruana before?"

Even if they regarded her as an interloper, they should have noticed how she was sandwiching herself only between Riki and Dax or something like that.

"I'm...not certain. It could be that not enough people have been here long enough to catch it...or those that have haven't thought to keep track. I wasn't sure of the order, myself, until I asked Jason through the request box about who would come after him and who was before him."

He hands Lancer his own copy and puts the original back in the trunk and closes it, leaning against it.

Lancer carefully takes the slip.

"And he gave you a straight answer? Didn't expect that to happen."

"I didn't, either...but the answer he gave seems to match what's happening."

He looks down at his trunk, a finger idly tracing an imperfection in the metal. "If I'd thought to consult my list before writing the request I'd meant for Dax, I would have known to try waiting for a month..."

Lancer reaches out and pats Enoch on the shoulder.

"Things like these...happen. You think you can try again next month? If Dax is still there, that is."

Dax had said once that all five administrators were needed to run the Tower. That probably ensured his safety to some extent.

"I might..."

But if Ruana does find it, he'll have to lay low. No telling if she'll get paranoid.

"...with any luck."

And then it comes crashing down

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