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, Feb 9

[greatergone]

A new place. More than usual, it had Kais on edge. He had his suit electronics running without stop, looking for some type of weakness or break in the walls around them. Of course, he was without success.

When he came out onto the twenty-fifth floor, Kais was a little astounded. He was sure he was still indoors but this certainly looked like he was outside. And his scanner detected nothing out of the ordinary. There wasn't any in depth study but the cursory glance his equipment could provide was enough for him.

"....Ethereals, help me."

Kais had no idea how he could overcome someone who's tech level was this far ahead of his.

[hegantha]

Amberley was a bit late to the party, mostly because she had tried to convince Cain to come with her, but he seemed content to stay in his room. Maybe that was for good reason, but she wasn't going to let this chance pass her by.

By the time she made it up to the entrance of the twenty-fifth floor, she could see the flood of new people coming out, all without collars. But before she had a chance to figure out exactly what that meant, she spotted Kias, looking a little more than familiar.

"Stop where you are." She shouted over the crowd in Tau, with a voice that carries like an Inquisitor's should. If that didn't get his attention, nothing would.

[greatergone]

The actions of somebody speaking in Tau surprised him. And he had the sense of mind to know that with the accent that it came from, it certainly came from no species that normally spoke Tau.

He whirled around and leveled his rifle in the general direction of the voice, wondering if he was being played with. His HUD inside the helmet was a flurry of activity in its search.

"Who is it?"

[hegantha]

"Watch where you're pointing that, if you would."

Amberley waves both arms in the air to show that she's unarmed. Well, except for the needler on her finger, but no one needs to really know about that.

[greatergone]

"I think its fine where it is. Especially in front of a gue'la."

There was no like of humans at all from him. But another human speaking the Tau language meant one of two things. It was knowledge pounded into every Tau in their schools, to help interact with others on the field of battle.

"You...you are either a rogue trader or an Inquisitor for your corpse-god. Which is it?"

Those designations came out in the human language, to help facilitate what he was actually speaking. But the Tau were experienced in knowing who all was actually interested in them.

[hegantha]

"Do I look like a rouge trader to you?"

She's still speaking in Tau, and god Kais if you break her cover, she will break you in two.

"Anyway, it won't do either of us any good if you shoot me. Particularly when all I want to do is help."

Of course she wants information in return, but hey, a little information swapping never hurt anyone. And it's not like Kais hasn't figured that out by now.

[greatergone]

"Be more clear about how you're going to help."

Or else the gun wasn't going anywhere. He spent enough time around humans to know they would cower one minute then pick up a gun the next minute.

[hegantha]

"Getting you some food that won't make you throw up, a bed to sleep in, and I'll generally explain the workings of the tower. I'll even answer any questions that I can, see, aren't I a nice gue'la?"

She seems honest enough, but really he could just figure this stuff out for himself. Though I'd take time, time that Kais may or may not have.

[greatergone]

"First, I'm not a...lesser being to be treated as an idiot. It is you gue'la who are ignorant."

Just getting that out of the way.

"Second, I know most of that. It was explained properly to us. What I need to know is why we are here. This is a mission of sorts."

[hegantha]

Oh, great. A Tau without a sense of humor. Her least favorite kind.

"The residents of the tower are here to be experimented on and generally poked fun at by the admins. If that is your purpose here, it wouldn't surprise me."

Amberley can't really think why a bunch of new people would show up in the tower if it wasn't just for another round of experiments.

[greatergone]

"No."

He had to take a moment to recall.

"We saw a error laden video filled with people getting harmed so we came here to investigate."

[hegantha]

So that was it? But why had Tau forces been sent in?

No, that was wrong, because he was the only Tau that she had actually seen, and she knows that she hasn't seen any Imperium soldiers. At least not yet, anyway.

"Those people on the video were probably us." Though why he came here, she still isn't sure, if he hates humans "Who do you mean when you say we?"

[greatergone]

"We as in displaced residents of a certain city. It is made up of many humans who do not know anything of the galaxy and a few non-Tau species whose origin I'm not sure of. But I'm sure you would like to hear that there is a machine worshiper and a Space Marine here with me also."

[notagiraffe]

Taiki was on this floor, he hadn't gone to the floor that Ruana had told them to, because that floor was bad. He was a little bit scared about not going but so far no retrieval units had come to get him.

Gohran was with him, in a form of a small puppy running at his heals. Taiki stopped when he saw the creature.

Gohran growled warningly but Taiki willed him to stay back, since the creature didn't seem like a monster...

[greatergone]

Kais' helmet jerked around at the sound, half expecting a large kroot hound. He had a bad experience with one in the past and, unfortunately, left him on the lookout whenever he heard dog-like noises. Thankfully, it looked to be....nothing major. He practically chastised himself for overreacting, putting his long weapon back over his shoulder in a rest.

"...do you need something from me?"

[notagiraffe]

"No..." Taiki bit his lip. "Sorry... Are you new?" There were lots of new people again and Taiki hadn't met many yet.

[greatergone]

"I'm not new because that would mean I'm staying. I'm only here until the mission is complete."

And it was a vague mission. But he had volunteered for it either way.

[notagiraffe]

"Oh... Sorry..." Taiki didn't actually see anything strange in that, since he had met plenty of people who claimed they weren't staying and would be going back soon. They never did though.

"Um... do you need any help?"

[greatergone]

"All I would have is a simple question."

He had trouble saying the name that was coming up, mostly because it was foreign to his mouth. No word pronunciation existed like it in his language.

"Have you seen or heard of a person or thing called Nyarlathotep?"

[notagiraffe]

Taiki frowned, thinking for a moment because the name did seem very familiar, and it wasn't really a usual thing to hear.

But it took a long time before he realised where. "Yes." He nodded, "Sorry... a long time ago..."

[greatergone]

He was expecting a negative answer since that was all he had gotten so Kais was a little surprised.

"You said a long time ago but was it short enough time to know if a being or creature having such a name is around here?"

[notagiraffe]

"Um... it was... Summer I think... I don't know if he's still here..." He shuffled his feet awkwardly. "Um... we could check the graveyard..."

[greatergone]

"Why would we look at a graveyard? Is that where he lives?"

It would be pointless if this thing was already dead.

[notagiraffe]

"Um... sorry... no..." Taiki shuffled his feet, looking down at them, "There's a grave for everyone who has disappeared... so... if there isn't one... then he's still here."

[greatergone]

"I can check that myself. Do you remember what he looks like?"

No offense. He just has a thing about humans and/or people that look like humans so he doesn't like spending much time with them.