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

[oathshackledbird]

Diarmuid's eyes also drop to her neck, and he quickly realizes his mistake. A bit of wariness creeps into his eyes, but his expression otherwise remains friendly and he bows his head to her, "I'm sorry, Lady. It seems I mistook you for someone else. Though, apparently you share her name since you answered to it? Would that be correct?"

She also shares her face and her voice, though oddly enough she doesn't feel like a servant to him. However, since he knows little about the people who have been dropped into the tower because he's been avoiding them, he just brushes this off as being a quirk of whatever brought her here.

"It seems like you are familiar with me, though," and with Rin, though Diarmuid says nothing of this to her. "Are you from yet another version of the war?"

[maybe_a_king]

She held up her hand so he could see the Command Spells on the back of it, forcing the expression of surprise off her face. Specifically the set meant for the Master of Servant Archer. Somehow, with all the worlds out there, she shouldn't be too surprised by this turn of events.

"Yes, I am. In the version I'm from you are the Servant of a friend of mine named Rin Tohsaka and we were working together to ensure no one with an evil wish won the Grail."

[oathshackledbird]

The symbols on her hand aren't familiar to him, but he still recognizes them for what they are. Diarmuid just doesn't understand how it can be.

"Y-you're a master? How is that possible?" He raises his hand and rubs at the tension suddenly forming between his eyes. This is why he should have stayed in his room despite the restlessness he had been feeling. He's really in no shape to deal with something like this now.

"Your world is very different from mine. Rin was just a small child when I was called into the war. There is no way she could have been my master at that age," Though, he is trying desperately to protect and help the one here--when she lets him.

[maybe_a_king]

"I fell through a roof onto a summoning circle and Archer came to my aid," she explained easily, letting her confusion show on her face. Why does he keep acting like this is so surprising?

"Rin is a teenager at the time of the Fifth Holy Grail War, the same age as myself. However, she was a child during the Fourth from what I understand."

She lowered her hand, then leaned over to pick up her shinai more to distract herself from the surprise than a real need for it.

"Why are you so shocked I'm a Master? I know Rin was surprised given how happenstance my participation is and how do you know me in your world?"

[oathshackledbird]

"Yes, the 4th Grail War. That was my war," Diarmuid's words are distracted and somewhat distant as he tries to accept what he's been told. It shouldn't be so hard considering the number of different versions of her he has met recently, but as different as they all have been, they are still all servants.

A master is something else completely.

"Most certainly not as a master," He answers her honestly. "In my world you are the servant Saber, the great King of Knights, Arturia Pendragon or perhaps more well known as King Arthur."

[maybe_a_king]

King Arthur?

In another world, another life, another War she had been King Arthur? The thought is strange. Yes, her Uncle Mordred got looks for his name at times, just as she did for hers, but that didn't mean she actually could be King Arthur. King Arthur was long dead and buried in her world!

"Don't joke like that, Lancer. I know my family gets comments about the name 'Pendragon', but there's no way I could be King Arthur. I'm just a girl."

A girl who could walk on water and whose earliest memories were a mess, a girl who wished desperately to be a knight of some kind even if they no longer existed, but still a girl nonetheless.

[oathshackledbird]

Diarmuid shakes his head, "I would not joke about such a thing, Lady. And forgive me, but I don't think that any version of you, master or servant, could ever be described as 'just a girl.' You are far too talented and brave. Meeting you was one of the few joys I found in my war."

"She is here you know," he pauses as if he's suddenly not sure he should be saying this, but then continues on, "The servant version of you, I mean. She is a captive of the tower just as I am. I am honored to be her friend and ally here. We've spent a lot of time trying to make this tower safer for those who are forced to live in it."

He pauses again to rub awkwardly at the back of his head, suddenly embarrassed to be rambling at her as if she were still the same one he knew, "I'm sorry, that stuff probably doesn't matter to you. However, if you have any questions you would like me to answer, I will do my best to answer them for you."

[maybe_a_king]

"It's a lot to take in. How can you be sure it's not just a coincidence? There's enough worlds out there from what I understand for there to simply be a coincidence."

Though it sounded hollow to her as she said it. Of the worlds she'd heard of, enough had been similar enough that it was hard to justify some things as merely "coincidence" of some kind. This was also Lancer. Someone she'd clicked with really well when they'd last met, if only because of how she aspired to the honor he himself strove for.

Which is what made this awkward for her, too. This was not the Lancer she had known, this was not the one who had been Rin's Servant. Arturia shifted her weight awkwardly from one foot to the other as she waited for him to answer.

[oathshackledbird]

Uncertainty flashes across Diarmuid's eyes. Uncertainty and weariness. Perhaps at a different time he would have a good answer for her. Some kind of proof, but as it is, he can do little more than shake his head.

"Perhaps it is. Honestly, I don't know. There are so many things I don't know right now," He half-turns away from her and gazes out at the flowers around them. "I have been faced with so many questions about things I never thought I would have to ponder lately that I feel like I know absolutely nothing about anything.

"Though, you two are very similar both in manner and in feel. If it is truly a coincidence, then it is a very covenant one."