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

[primordial]

B movies are cheesy. This...this definitely isn't.

[Don't mind this pathetic looking guy with shaggy brown hair standing off to the side, voice shuddering with slight anxiousness.]

It's really scary...

[drakenguard]

[Yamato just gave the quivering guy a long, flat look. Really. Philemon brought this coward here?

...however, Shijima was as cowardly as they come, and he had a wealth of potential inside of him. Yamato was learning not to judge a book by its cover!]

Scary? Feh. What about this is frightening? The illusions cannot harm you.

[primordial]

Yes, but, it all makes me wonder if I'm going mad...

[He takes a few breaths, as if to calm himself down.]

But if you can see them too, then I guess I'm not.

[drakenguard]

You're not.

[Yamato observes the room. People milling about, huddling together in groups, with flickers of the monsters and murderous surgeons in between the light flickers. He sniffed]

I hope that the rest of the tower isn't so... underwhelming. If it is just filled with gimmicky horror tricks...

[This will be a dull field trip]

[primordial]

You call this underwhelming?

[He stares at Yamato as if he's grown a horn in the middle of his forehead.]

Oh, so the possibility of getting gutted by a monster sounds like a nice little day trip, doesn't it?

[drakenguard]

[That's his day job, Sam. Hunting demons, fighting space aliens FROM SPAAAAAAACE and the World's Administrator aka God. HE'S GOT THIS]

Actually, yes. I haven't had an invigorating field exercise in a while, so this will be good in refreshing my skills.

[primordial]

[WHY DOES EVERYONE ELSE GET THE COOL JOBS]

...

[A dubious look.]

Field exercise? Well, I guess this means your world isn't the nicest place in the universe...

[drakenguard]

Haha...! Oh, no, the common populous have their comforts and vices, utterly ignorant of true danger.

[Yamato's tone became a bit disgusted here but, calm. This was no time for him to have a rant about the rottenness of common society, and how meritocracy will totally cure it okay...!!! Let's, uh, address the current situation at hand...]

But more importantly, we are to be expecting visitors from this place, hostile or not, if what that girl said was true...

[primordial]

Well, I don't want to say "ignorant" as much as "people don't usually search out danger because they're kind of sensible like that".

[A nervous look and a nod.]

Yeah, I heard that too...I hope they're nice. The last thing I want is to be attacked.

[drakenguard]

Nice...

[Yamato looked caught between snorting or shaking his head at that word]

It would be beneficial if they weren't hostile, this is true. They seem to be our only source of reliable information for this place. However, considering our surroundings... heh, they'll certainly be interesting.

[primordial]

[He gives Yamato a suspicious sort of look.]

Interesting? What do you mean?

[drakenguard]

Hahaha... you'll see. I'm interested to see the type of people who would live here, that's all.

[primordial]

...

Who in their right minds would live in this place, though? It's scary...

[drakenguard]

It is most likely not through choice.

[Yamato was giving Sam a strange look]

And it is not at all frightening. Harmless illusions? The only danger is getting a headache from the poor lighting.

[primordial]

How can you be so sure they're illusions, though? Somebody has got to be be producing them, even if they are.

[drakenguard]

I'm certain they are illusions. [And that was that] But true, someone may be the cause of it, demonic, spiritual, or human... we will find out eventually.

[primordial]

Hmmm. Which one do you think it is, though? I mean, you're the expert...is it demonic, spiritual, or human? What's your guess?