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

[alephbet]

[Aleph nods at that, though he hasn't encountered anyone from a world where he wasn't aligned with Chaos.]

Let's see, other demon tamers... I know Naoki's gone and Yamato and his caretaker are too... I guess that just leaves Naoya.

[otakuro]

Naoya...?!

[Let's be rational here; Naoya is not an uncommon Japanese name and the odds of it being the same Naoya are slim to none.]

...White hair, weird yutaka and glasses?

[alephbet]

That's the one. I guess you've met.

[otakuro]

Hrgh...

[Atsuro pulls back with something akin to a grimace. ...A version of Naoya, here...? He didn't like the guy for his role in the lockdown, but...]

...There's no chance of bringing you guys back with us when we leave, do you think?

[alephbet]

I'd love that, honestly. I can deal with demons any day of the week.

Aleph's a better demon summoner than anybody else in this tower! [Lilim has to throw in her two cents, though she's still a bit huffy from being such a lower level than Rangda.] We could beat Naoya with all our hands and claws tied behind our backs.

-anyway, I don't think it's likely, but it's worth a shot.

[otakuro]

Yeah?

I know the Trapezohedron can definitely bring in new people, anyway...

[Honestly, Naoya hadn't been that strong when they'd fought; it'd just been the COMPs constantly summoning new demons and his annoying habit of teleporting around. He might have invented the system, but it didn't mean he was great at using it. Atsuro doesn't correct Lilim.]

Oh. Sorry, I should go on with the explanation. ...So. Philemon. Hinoto-Ri. ...And Personas!

[He blinks in surprise at having forgotten such an important thing.]

Everyone in Hinoto-Ri has a power called 'Persona'. It's... a little like summoning demons, but it's... an aspect of yourself that takes on physical form to fight in battle.

[alephbet]

[Well Aleph beat God, so there.]

-oh, I've heard of those before. Briefly, but I've seen someone summon theirs here.

[This is fascinating stuff.]

[otakuro]

...Right. There's another world where the natives use Persona, too - We had a few of those in Hinoto-Ri as well.

[Atsuro pauses as he tries to pull everything back into place to give the story some coherency.]

So... all of that aside.

Something happened the other night. We were in this... temple on a rescue mission - long story - and we came across this... stone. A trapezohedron. We discovered it was an artifact that could take people into different worlds.

That same night, all of us had this dream. Philemon - the guy who had pulled us into Hinoto-Ri in the first place - told us that we needed to track 'Him' down; the trapezohedron would take us where we needed to go. And so...

Now we're here.

[alephbet]

I can't give you much advice on who that might be. Ruana is the only female administrator, and as for powerful captives... There are plenty. I would have directed you at Lucifer if he had remained here.

[otakuro]

Lucifer?

[A pause. He would be surprised if he hadn't been fighting God's army just a few months ago; of course Lucifer was a real thing.]

Lucifer was here? A captive, like the rest of you?

[alephbet]

[The soft smile on Aleph's face would seem odd to someone who didn't know his friendship with Lucifer.]

That's right. He came from my world, some time after the point I was pulled from. He only disappeared from here recently.

[otakuro]

...

We have gods in Hinoto-Ri, too, but they're kind of... not very god-like.

[Not to mention that he summoned gods.]

Lucifer just seems more... surprising somehow. To be trapped in a place like this. I mean, if we're taking about the one from Christianity here.

[alephbet]

That's the one. You're thinking that he would be too powerful to be under the tower's limits, aren't you? But the people here can be very powerful even in comparison to God.

[Not that he killed Him or anything.]