Ad Visitatores

[animusmods]

Characters: anyone participating in the event
Setting: floor 56 and eventually other areas of the Tower
Format: either
Summary: Welcome to the Tower.
Warnings: horror/creepiness/potential danger/generally unfortunate things all possible
Notes: PLEASE GO HERE TO MAKE NEW POSTS.

A few minutes before anything happens, Ruana's voice rings out over the Tower's intercom--it manages to be louder than anything the residents happen to be doing. "Hey, everyone, there's something exciting going on at floor fifty-six! Go make sure they don't get themselves killed!"


You arrive, stepping or tumbling, in a surgical suite. It looks abandoned, with dust collecting on the table and floors. The lights flicker, and for a moment blood dripping off the table, puddling on the floor--but no, the lights are back, and surely that was your imagination. It's quiet, eerily so, but nothing hinders you, and you're free to spread out and explore. There are multiple rooms here, like in any hospital, and it's all a bit confusing. Occasionally the lights flicker, and it's a bit frightening as Things appear that shouldn't exist. Shadowy creatures stitched together and reaching for you, doctors brandishing phantom surgical tools, blood splattering the walls or floor or ceiling, how did it get there--but none are real, and all of them vanish when the lights return. Eventually you find the staircase, spiraling up and down into darkness. Approach it, though, and the thing glitters with a barrier that will push back any attempts at climbing the thing.

A girl, a teenager dressed in red and black, appears. And she does simply appear, inserting herself into the space, nearly pushing it aside to make room in it for where she is now. Her face beams with unconcealed excitement, and her words tumble out on top of themselves. "You can't go there! Yet, I mean. You'd all die!"

The girl steps onto the staircase, passing through the barrier as if it weren't there, and sits on the steps to address everyone. "Hi! I'm Ruana. You didn't show up the normal way, so the Tower can't support you yet. We got this one floor ready when I saw you were coming but, well, the Tower's kind've big, so getting all of them set up is taking a little longer than I thought." She smiles, sheepishly apologetic in a carefree sort of way. "I've got everyone coming here to visit you--or at least they know they can visit you--and I'll have someone bring food up for you. It'll be oatmeal, and oatmeal is super boring, but you have to eat it, okay? Then you can have whatever you want! The cafeteria's down on the first floor if you get hungry. We should have everything ready in a few hours. I've gotta go help with that, so you guys wait here.

"Don't worry, the monsters can't get to this floor as long as that barrier is up."

And then she's gone, blinking out of existence. The barrier will remain for three hours.

Comments

[otakuro]

I mean, I'm not exactly jumping to eat whatever's going to be in the oatmeal, either...

[Atsuro sighs and gives a shrug. He will respond to Hizumi's question perhaps a bit more confidently than he might expect.]

It's not a person. It's a... thing.

You ever hear of Nyarlathotep?

[bondsofsuffering]

Nyarlathotep?

[Judging by his look? Nope, he has not.]

[otakuro]

You know about Jungian psychology but not Nyarlathotep?

[For shame, Hizumi. Clearly you don't know what the important things in life are.]

I heard this second-hand from some others. If Philemon is our Spirit Guide, Nyarlathotep is the guy who wants to bring our journey to an end. He shows up in the writings of a guy named H.P. Lovecraft...

[bondsofsuffering]

You keep saying it like I'm an expert on Jungian psychology!

[Which he never claimed to be, thank you very much.]

Lovecraft... You mean the one with the Cthulu thing?

[otakuro]

Exactly.

We didn't have time to let you guys know, but... last night, we found something in the Mictlan. Something called a trape... trapezodedron...

1/2

[bondsofsuffering]

Oh, you were part of that team?

[Hmmm...] That's the thing Philemon was talking about, right? The thing that lets us travel through time and space.

2/2

[bondsofsuffering]

Wait... Then does that mean...

We just got dragged to a whole 'nother world so we could hunt down a tentacle monster... thing?

[otakuro]

...
...
...



Sounds like that's the plan!

[bondsofsuffering]

...

I really gotta wonder about that Trapezohedron's choice in people...

[Then again, destiny's always been kind of a crapshoot when it comes to Hizumi. Sigh.]

This is already sounding pretty troublesome.

[otakuro]

I think it started being troublesome a long time ago.

[Atsuro sighs slightly in sympathy.]

I mean, how are we even supposed to be doing that? We don't know anything about this place...! Towers and monsters and oatmeal...?

[bondsofsuffering]

I guess if it's a Tower, we'll probably have to search each of the floors until we run into him. That's usually how it goes, isn't it? Like a dungeon crawl with a hidden boss fight.

[otakuro]

...

So this is probably the first floor and we have to make our way to the top?

[Wrong.]

Wait, no, she said the cafeteria was on the first floor. Down on the first floor. We're already somewhere above.

[bondsofsuffering]

She also said the tower's big... No matter what floor we're on right now, we're probably going to have to do a lot of searching both up and down.

And I don't even want to think about how it'll go if it turns out he's moving between floors, too.

[otakuro]

Half of us go down, half of us go up? If it's linear, there's no way we could miss him.

Of course, that means we're splitting our forces in half...

[bondsofsuffering]

And some of our forces don't even fight.

[Namely Hizumi, whoops.]

Nng... It'd probably be better to send the stronger people upwards. Anyone who thinks they're trained in battle enough to handle it, yeah? We know the cafeteria's down on the first floor, so if we send the rest of the party that way, even if they don't find Nyarlathotep they'll eventually reach a place where they can get food reliably.

And if this place really is crawling with monsters, that seems like it'd be the best place to hole up for a while.

[otakuro]

...

You're not just saying that because you're hungry and you want better food than oatmeal, are you?

[...]

Aha, no, but... you're probably right. We should regroup and get a better assessment of everyone's... abilities and that kind of thing.

[bondsofsuffering]

I am shocked and hurt that you would make that assumption!

[He looks like a kicked puppy at the mere suggestion! For like a whole second, anyway.]

It looks like there's a decent number of us here... Hopefully the Trapezohedron was careful enough to pick out a team that could actually handle this kind of a mission.

[otakuro]

...Or maybe it picked terribly on purpose for the sake of amusement or something. Who knows what a geometrical shape is thinking?

[bondsofsuffering]

It better not have picked too terribly. I mean, if we all end up dying in the attempt that doesn't say a whole lot of good for the future of humanity.

[otakuro]

Mm...

Philemon said he thought we would be fine. Up to now... apart from what happened after the tournament, nothing we've gone through has been too terrible, right?

...And even the Anoli didn't kill any of us, as far as I'm aware...

Maybe we've got some divine protection on our side or something.

[bondsofsuffering]

[Okay, that gets a small chuckle out of him. Divine protection? That'd be pretty funny.]

Maybe! But he also apologized to those of us who had to go. He even made it very clear we had to be careful while we're here.

[His expression turns a midge more serious for once.]

Either way, I get the feeling this is going to be on a different level from what's happened before.

[otakuro]

...When I say things like that, try to respond with stock cliches about the power of friendship overcoming all. Even Philemon said so, right?

[He gives a small smile.]

No, you're right. Whatever's waiting for us, we're going to have to be prepared...

1/2

[bondsofsuffering]

Whoops, sorry! Let me try that again.

[He clears his throat before his dramatic announcement!]

But of course we'll make it through! With friendship and teamwork and love, we're unstoppable!

[bondsofsuffering]

[...That might have done better if the lights didn't pick right then to flicker, giving the image of monsters and blood everywhere.]

--Oops. Maybe they didn't appreciate it?

[otakuro]

No, no, it means they sense their weakness. Keep the pressure on; it's worth it.

I'll just be here in the corner with my eyes closed if you need me.