towerofanimus | Ad Visitatores

Ad Visitatores

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Unaffected by the barriers, Minato easily walked through it and checked on the new arrivals sealed behind them. Ruana's announcement and what he learned so far from talking to a few people made him worry. Will this be preparations for Ruana's "game" of the month?

His footsteps slowed down, for just a moment, before he quickly walked and stop in front of the familiar figure.

The other Minato. Seemingly younger (or was it an illusion, because he looks healthier?), not as weary looking as his own mirror reflection in the morning and most of all...

The other Minato's eyes wasn't yellow.

Minato saw the other's feet first, preoccupied as he was for the moment, staring at the ground and pondering. But the sight of shoes drew his attention, and he looked up, opening his mouth to say something. However, the words died on his lips, and he widened his eyes, instead.

It was like looking into a mirror, kind of. Except that this mirror showed him, as if he'd gone through hell and back and the trip had taken at least a year or two. After the moment or two it takes him to get over the surprise, he immediately starts wondering about this. The first possibility that comes to mind is another him from another world and timeline - it makes sense, right? After all, he's met other people from different worlds... Was this... this world's Minato? Or the Minato Miki knew? Or... something else entirely?

"... hi."

If Minato knew his thoughts, he would correct the other about not being the Minato Miki knew. It almost feel disrespectful when he didn't have the Strega leader's experiences.

"...Hello."

His eyes briefly glanced at the other's neck. Like everyone else, this Minato didn't have a collar. Minato looked back up and stared.

"Minato Arisato." Was it said to address the other, or to introduce himself? It can even be both. He paused for a moment, to see if the other have questions to ask him.

Minato noted that glance and suppressed an urge to bring a hand up to feel his throat, especially as he noticed the collar on the other's neck. Instead, he met the stare with a wary, curious one of his own.

"Yes." A confirmation - perhaps both ways. "... you look tired." He wasn't sure if that was better or worse than asking 'Are you all right?', because although he did have quite a few questions, really the first thing that popped into his mind was that this Minato looked really run down.

"Just a little." Which meant he's tired, rarely having a peaceful moment in the tower. During the downtime, he kept his guard up and always walked around armed with his weapons. But his experiences hasn't broken him.

"The tower can be very eventful, sometimes."

In more ways than one.

"More than just monsters?"

After all, they'd climbed over two hundred floors of a tower full of nothing but monsters ~~and revealing armor and strange food and huge wads of cash~~ and come out all right. The way this Minato speaks makes this place sound infinitely worse.

"More than just monsters."

Compared to Tartarus, this tower was far worse. It's enough to make him miss Tartarus and its many, many changing floors.

"There's some dangerous floors that can affect your mind and body. It wouldn't surprised anyone if you die in one of them..."

Speaking of death, he just when he about to talk about it when Minato realised something.

"Death isn't permanent and we normally revive the next day."

But will the new arrivals be a part of the revival system? Minato died before and knew he'll keep on getting revived. But with the strange circumstances for these people, do they count?

He takes note of the warnings about the floors readily enough, but that latter bit of news. Death isn't... permanent? Minato isn't sure whether that's a relief or something really terrible.

"How is that possible?"

"I don't know the details, only that we don't die permanently."

It's a mix of both. Relief in seeing his friends again after he die (again) and regret from making them worry. On the other hand, all the memories and experiences on his mind and body weighed a lot. Minato can selfishly see his friends again, at the cost of being a little more damaged each time.

"...Considering the different circumstances, I'm not sure if it applies to you and everyone."

"It's probably not something we should test, if it can be avoided."

In his case, it's not that he minds dying, exactly. He's sort of done that already with the whole Seal thing. But he's not sure what dying here would mean for the Seal back home - and in any case, he doesn't want to make his sister upset by never coming back. And as for everyone else, he'd rather not see anyone die if they don't have to.

Minato would agree, and it became one of his bad habit of thinking. It's better for him to die instead of others, than watch others to die a horrible death.

"...and on a fair number of floors, our powers won't work."

It's pretty important to mention, particularly from what he learned from Doc. These group of people have Personas, but if they enter those floors? It would be disastrous. Assuming those floors would affect them as normal.

Floors like those was one of the reasons why he trained his swordsmanship a lot.

"I see... How many floors are there? Is there any sort of map or list anyone's made?"

It's a very good thing to know, but it's not the only thing they need to know at this rate. He won't be surprised if there is no map or to hear that floors change, but even knowing that is helpful on its own.

"Around a hundred floor so far. As for a map or a list, I'm not aware of any."

He's not surprised, as people arrived and leave the tower, almost without a pattern. The network is also unreliable, whenever it went down when people need it.

"Hm... But people have been to every floor?"

"It usually take a while to explore and investigate every floor. More so if there's anything dangerous on it."

"Are the floors really that large, then?"

He doesn't yet know how physics bending this tower can get.

"Incredibly large and hard to explain. Some floors have their own skies, others have seemingly bottomless pits and so forth."

Frankly, he learned to stop questioning them to focus on other things.

"Huh..."

That's... incredibly weird. But he supposes now it makes sense why no one's tried to map. If there are floors as expansive as all that, it's certainly a challenge to map one, let alone all of them.

"Are there safe places to sleep here?"

There's some attempts, but it's quite difficult.

"The rooms in the dormitory floors. There should be plenty of empty places for everyone here to stay in." A pause. "Don't stay out too late. Monsters usually come out at night on certain floors."

"I'll keep that in mind. What are the monsters like here?'

Gotta keep on collecting the useful information! Besides, you never know when you'll be out in the middle of the night... Besides, how does one even keep track of day and night here?

"Monsters that can hide in the shadows or in the open. Some are animal-like." Like that giant yellow ~~chocobo~~ chicken. "While others...aren't quite human."

They're still dangerous monsters out for their blood.

...Some of the floors with their own "sky" sometimes show the night sky?

"There's one where it pretends to be a statue, only to fly out and attack you when you're close enough."

"Sounds... unpredictable. I take it the best defense is to always be prepared. ... probably isn't a good idea to travel alone, if you can help it."

Of course, it's not like good ideas are always the most practical to follow.

"Are there any consistent weaknesses?"

"That's right." Of course, Minato would...sometimes go out alone. He's been here long enough to learn how to move around quickly.

"No consistent weaknesses. Some are more affected by the elements, others aren't so. I have to switch my Personas around, depending on what monsters I know about."

And, um, he maaaay have discovered some of his information from trial and error.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ad Visitatores

yo

sup

how's it going, me

i'm having a towering good time. me?

just stringing along for the ride

we're all here for a moosical adventure

and off to meet their destined person

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