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

[echo_of_a_jedi]

She shrugs. "You remind me far too much of Mandalore for me to believe you'll kill a man and leave the building he was in standing."

"Or starship."

[greyerrant]

"Mandalore?" He tries to remember if she's mentioned the name before, and frowns beneath his helm, bemused.

[echo_of_a_jedi]

"A giant humanoid natural disaster with a surprising poetic streak who never takes his armor off in public. The main difference is your culture seems to fight everything for the sake of an empire and his culture fights everything because they think it's fun," she explains.

[greyerrant]

"Hmm. Sounds like a Space Wolf or a World Eater then." He nods his head, then raises his hand as if to forestall her, explaining.

"It isn't just for the sake of the Imperium, and the Imperial Truth that we do what we do. It is a question of survival. Humanity was on the brink of dying out forever before the Emperor revealed himself to us. We'd fallen into techno-barbarism, and no longer wandered the stars. We were slaves, we were food, we were killers and the killed, but we weren't... illuminated. He brought us knowledge and purpose. Faith, if you will, though faith in ourselves and our destiny, rather than some mythical gods."

[echo_of_a_jedi]

"An empire isn't necessarily a bad thing, Cerberus," she said. "My home galaxy's had some bad experiences with them, but I can't fault you for fighting for what you think is right on a universal scale."

"Even if I did, I'm a little sick of wars at this point. I'll take a nice monster hunt if that's what Philemon is asking of us any day."

[greyerrant]

"I know you weren't. But... it is a point of philosophical debate, one I've thought of with my mentor, Sindermann, for some time. We're not right because we are mighty. Rather, our knowledge and right made us powerful. Dark would be the day when we asserted our right by strength alone, rather than moral argument."

He nods his head, and says, "While I never dreamed of peace, because I could not dream, I wondered about the future, after our Crusade had been completed. I would likely have been tasked with ruling a planet or a sub-sector, as I'd be an effectively immortal, mentally and physically enhanced administrator. We don't really... get sick of war, but I was curious what awaited us beyond the last battle."

And he'll never know, either.

"But you spoke of a monster hunt. So, you think this Nyarlathotep is a form of monster, or beast, then?"

[echo_of_a_jedi]

"Even if he's a man, this isn't the kind of place a happy, well-adjusted person lives," she observes. "This entire place feels wrong. Corrupting."

[greyerrant]

"Good point. Even I felt that much."

He frowns slightly.

"Do you think he'll be like the Anoli, then?"

[echo_of_a_jedi]

"The Anoli and their methods are crazy, but they're still people," she said. "Whatever's here is something else."

[greyerrant]

"Abomination." His eyes harden, and his jaw tightens slightly.

"I just might leave this place a pyre when we leave, truth be told."

[echo_of_a_jedi]

"Told you."

[greyerrant]

"I'm capable of surgical kills, should the undertaking require it." He sounds almost petulant.

"I'm not a World Eater, you know."