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

[pitiedthefool]

[Not only not injured, but older. His gaze was a little more...empty? no, distant. Though thanks to the reset he was through last, his hair was only half-way down his neck rather than the bowlcut he always sported. You don't trust just anyone for a haircut in Helltower. Not to mention, his shirt makes the blue collar around his neck obvious.

He nods.]

...I've been better. [Which was honest, but... Why did they have to arrive during a Ruana month?] Though I'd be a little more concerned with where you are than how I or any me is.

[Oh, the pluses of Margaret and Igor mentioning that there were multiple hims going through the same journey...]

[detects]

[He looks physically in better condition than his other self, at least. Not so comatose. But she can notice the subtle weariness and the more obvious physical changes. She isn't sure what to make of it or what's even going on. Is this place playing some kind of cruel joke?]

I believe where I am and what you're doing here in front of me are related. [Her voice sounds a little tight. Anxious. This isn't Yu, is it? It can't be... but it does seem like him at the same time.]

But from the sound of it, you know where this is.

[pitiedthefool]

[He nods faintly. Yes, it is still Yu... just not the one you're familiar with; the one still in the hospital. Maybe at some point he'll explain that, but right now... she deserves to know the truth.]

Right. [He manages a faint hint of a smile before it's gone. He...really wishes he had better news to tell her.] We're in the Tower of Animus. It's a place that pulls people and other sentient beings to itself when they sense a world about to be destroyed, but it's anything but pleasant.

[detects]

[She wants to ask about that... needs to, really. For her own sanity, perhaps. She knows there's probably an explanation behind why this Yu isn't the same one she saw in the hospital.

But for now...]

A world about to be destroyed... [She frowns, trying to absorb that. The part about this place not being pleasant she already figured from her surroundings. (Though she really doesn't know the depths of that, clearly.) But the other part...] That's a bit troublesome. And a bit complicated. I didn't come from home. I was already in a different world before I woke up here. Does that mean that world was in danger of being destroyed? [Is that why... there were so many people here from Hinoto-Ri?]

[pitiedthefool]

[He'd answer it the best way possible. Really, there's a lot of people from the same worlds that things happened maybe just slightly differently, but for now he's going to focus on what is said rather than anything else.]

I doubt it. None of you arrived the same way the residents did. [When he says this, he lightly taps the collar around his neck.] First of all, you didn't wake up with these... so you're likely not bound here.

...Is there anything you remember before waking up here? [It could be a clue.]

[detects]

[She examines the collar, leaning in a bit closer to look at it. She'd noticed it before and had a feeling it was linked to this place, but then... she didn't have one. That was definitely odd. Then why...?] Was I brought here... temporarily for some reason? Has something like this ever happened before?

[Definitely suspicious either way... At his question she shifts on her feet a little anxiously, glancing away.] I... had a strange dream. Or perhaps it was more of a nightmare.

[pitiedthefool]

[Beats him. All he knows is that removing it means he'd die. At least in this place.

He shakes his head.] Not in the eleven months I've been here. And There's been no record of visitors in the network, either.

[That caught his attention though; the mention of a dream. Finally, something he has expertise in.]

...? What kind of dream? It may be important.

[detects]

[So this was new for those who wer living here as well...

The dream, though... She takes a deep breath.] Are you familiar with a being called Philemon?

[pitiedthefool]

[Very, very new. Even Ruana made a big deal out of it.]

...Actually, yeah. He was here once several months ago by Tower-time, and even then... there are several Persona users who were pulled here that met him personally in their own worlds.

[Not to mention he saw his butterfly form all the time, but details.]

[detects]

[Oh, that made things easier then.]

He sent us all here. Or so it seems. The dream I had was something like that. [She barely remembered it, actually... It was still a little fuzzy.]

[pitiedthefool]

[A little bit, but... sent them here? What for? Though with how his dreams always went in the Velvet Room or related to it... he had a feeling she wasn't used to how vague it would be.]

I see... [And considering he didn't have the dream... he has no way of piecing together all of the clues.] I have no idea why he would, considering what they do to most of us here... but I can give you some information about this tower.

[In other words, he kept his skills sharp and investigated every floor possible in his eleven months and those who run the 'establishment' as much as possible.]

Are any of the others here, too?