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

Floor 25

[vermicompost]

The meadow was Kariya's favorite floor, and it wasn't unusual to find him there. He liked to rest among the flowers, too. He waved when he saw the familiar face.

There was something different about Saber today, although he couldn't quite say what. Her clothes were different, certainly, but he was glad as always that she was the "ordinary", green-eyed Saber, and not the Saber dressed in black who he didn't doubt would kill him under the right (or wrong, really) conditions.

He didn't bother concealing his own Command Spells; most people who knew about the War already knew he was a Master, but he didn't notice hers at first, as he wasn't looking for them. Why would she have Command Spells? She was a Servant.

"Hello, Arturia." He'd been on a first name basis with her during the long-running poker games that hadn't really happened, so it only seemed natural to call her by that name. "How are you today?" He hadn't seen her since the incident with their false memories, so he did feel slightly awkward. Most everyone had known that he'd believed Rin and Sakura were his daughters.

As he came closer, he realized what was different (or at least one of the things). She wasn't wearing her collar. That was something he hadn't seen before, on anyone here. What could it mean? "Did something happen?"

[maybe_a_king]

Arturia sat up when this man appeared. She had seen his picture in Rin's home in a few places, but that didn't quite register to her beyond a vague sense she'd seen this man before. For one, he had awful scarring on his face she chose not to comment on. Shirou had similar scarring from his burns and she'd grown used to ignoring such things.

No, what surprised her was that he knew her name and acted like he knew her. She gave him a confused look. How could this man possibly know her name?

"Uh, I only just arrived here, sir. A bunch of people from the city I was in were brought here a few hours ago. Apparently it came as a surprise to the people who run this place as they had to keep us quarantined in the infirmary."

[vermicompost]

"Oh. I see." Momentarily taken aback, Kariya paused to think this over. He hadn't been in any shape to go to floor fifty-six and see what the matter was when the announcement had been made, figuring he would find out from Lancer or Diarmuid or one of his other friends later.

"You must be a new Saber, then." He'd already met three of them, so what was one more? It was hard to believe he was getting used to multiple Sabers. At least only one of them had actively wanted to kill him. But it was strange, she didn't feel like a Servant. He felt nothing of that powerful aura about her. Was that some effect the Tower had had on her? Something odd was clearly going on. He'd never heard of an entire people being brought in all at once, or a quarantine.

"I'm sorry for the confusion. I didn't realize what was happening. Are you all right?"

[maybe_a_king]

"I'm fine, but.... why do you call me Saber?" she asked, reaching up with one hand to run it through her bangs, "My name's Arturia. Arturia Pendragon. You had it right the first time."

It didn't make sense to her. Why would he call her that in particular? If it had been a random title she would have passed it over as some kind of slang she didn't know, but Saber? Why would this man call her the class name of a Servant.

Self consciously, she clasped her hands together at her waist and worried at her Command Spells. Was it a coincidental thing or had he honestly mistake her for a Servant?