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

[culbutiri]

The woman that did be here before, she did. And four others who do be obeying her.

[heather_mason]

[Heather is a bit uncomfortable with the idea of someone bringing her here without her knowledge and keeping her prisoner. You know, just a little]

Like a... cult?

[culbutiri]

What do a cult be being?

[heather_mason]

[Heather doesn't quite know how to explain a cult to someone]

It's like a... a bunch of people who all blindly follow a leader. Even if that leader decides to do something really screwy, like murdering someone, or kidnapping or something.

[culbutiri]

[Inwardly she sneers, though she sort of expects people to be light sided so it's not really a disappointment, it still annoys her.]

So when people do be following someone or a god or something without knowing what it really means to be following them? [Which was almost the entirety of Nesir's world, in her experience.]

[heather_mason]

Yeah, I guess. Like a bunch of... blind sheep.

[She tries to soothe the rage she feels when she thinks of the cult that she was born into. The same one which recently lured her back to that evil place and attempted to use her as a sacrifice.]

[culbutiri]

I do be knowing a few people like that. [She seems angry, Nesir tilts her head.] Perhaps they do no be knowing exactly what they are doing and do be just following Ruana. I do no be knowing.

[heather_mason]

[Heather knows what she means about following blindly, but she's never heard that name before.]

I guess. But, who's Ruana?

[culbutiri]

Ruana do be the woman who did be here before.

[heather_mason]

[Heather remembers her. That girl who told her not to leave this floor.]

Is she the one who brought me here?

[culbutiri]

Probably. She do be in charge of the place anyways.

[heather_mason]

What do I have to do to get her to let me go?

[culbutiri]

I do no be thinking she will be. Whatever you do be doing.

[heather_mason]

[Heather thinks this over for a moment]

So... She's gonna keep me here forever?

[culbutiri]

I do no be knowing. Probably. Unless we do be escaping.

[heather_mason]

Escaping sounds good. But I don't even know where we are.

[culbutiri]

Neither do we be knowing, it do be a tower and it seems like it do be the only place in this whole world.

[heather_mason]

What do you mean, this world?

[culbutiri]

I did be meaning the world we do be on. They do be claiming our own do be destroyed. And there do be a lot of worlds apparently.

[heather_mason]

[Heather hadn't thought of that before]

Oh god...

[With her father already dead, she isn't as upset as she could be. She doesn't exactly have anyone else to miss. There's Douglas, but she only knew him for a few days and hadn't gotten a chance to get close to him yet.]

[culbutiri]

[She nodded] Yeah... [For once Nesir doesn't have anything to say, she had seen her dead world for herself and wasn't sure if it was real; in which case she didn't want to think about it, or some illusion; in which case she didn't want to consider how much her mind was being manipulated.

Either way she did her best to ignore that particular situation.]

[heather_mason]

[Heather thinks it over for a while, contemplating the situation]

Well, do you think it's true? I mean, it seems a little far fetched that so many planets would get destroyed at the same time, right?

[Even if it does turn out to be true, she wants to deny it for as long as possible]

[culbutiri]

I do no be knowing. They do be very powerful, but they also be very good at illusions and making us believe things that do no be true.

[heather_mason]

[Heather's made her mind up about what she's going to believe]

Well, I don't think it's true. I think it's just a bunch of bull they're feeding us so we'll listen better. I know plenty about being lied to y selfish cultists and it feels like that's what's going on.

[culbutiri]

Nesir shrugged, "It do no be changing the facts though, we do be trapped here."