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

"Ballroom floor?" What was that about? Eh, whatever. "Hrm, allow me to heal them. It would be a shame if one of the few sane people obtained an infection from improperly healed wounds."

"Yeah... It was this room I went into, and they put this mask on me and made me dance. Like, for hours, and hours. Until it cut up my feet." There had been no way for her to stop until she'd been pulled out of the room by a passerby. The skin of her feet was bloodied and torn, full of broken blisters. Not a pretty sight.

"You could...?" Still, she was distracted at being called 'sane'. That never happened, and it showed by her large grin.

He can easily retract that statement Selphie! Indeed, he was eyeing the woman's wide grin with a suspicious frown, slipping his hand into his pocket.

"I could. Sit down and remove the bandages," he ordered briskly, taking a phone out of his pocket and flipping it open. He hadn't checked to see if his magic worked in the meadow, but it couldn't hurt to try.

Selphie pulled a face at that frown, and the commanding voice. But, he was offering to help her out, so she wasn't going to start complaining, at least not now.

She sat down, watching him play with his phone as she slowly took off her bandages. There were a lot of them, and some of the blood had dried, meaning that taking the bandages off was tearing the scabs, making them bleed anew. "Owie..."

Selphie had tried healing them herself on one floor, but had discovered that her magic didn't work for whatever reason. But being Selphie, she figured that meant that it didn't work anywhere, not considering that it might vary from floor to floor.

Yamato shifted his gaze from his phone to Selphie's feet, not even batting an eyelash at the ruined state of them. She wasn't kidding about dancing them to pieces. His attention moved back to the phone's screen, and with a tap on a button-

'Prayer' was cast, a warm pale light washing over Selphie. It was a spell that cured all injuries and ailments, and was probably a bit overkill for torn up feet, but Yamato didn't have a weaker healing spell to use.

Wow. That hadn't been what Selphie was expecting at all. For a start, she'd never seen magic that came from a device. Still, she was far from complaining, especially with the glow subsided, showing her feet to be free from any injury.

At once she jumped to her feet, flexing them before bouncing up and down. "You did it! You really fixed them!" Selphie gave him the biggest, most relieved smile, before pouncing at him with a hug. "Thank you so much!"

Yamato flinched when the woman suddenly lunged at him, standing very stiffly as she caught him in a tight hug. Although he tolerated Shura randomly pulling him into bone-crushing hugs, that still didn't mean he was fully comfortable with random strangers getting into his personal space!

"Ah. Yes. No. No problem. Let go."

Fortunately, Selphie was used to people reacting to her hugs in such a way. Especially people she'd only just met. She jumped back, wriggling her toes before doing a twirl, so pleased not to feel pain in her feet.

"This is amazing!" Selphie looked down at her feet, realising now that she was without her boots. Hopefully they'd still be where she left them.

Yamato relaxed a fraction when the woman moved away, although he still looked extremely tense as he straightened out his long coat. "Prayer heals all wounds and ailments. It is a simple spell," he muttered, slipping his phone back into his pocket, and crossing his arms over his chest.

"...you're from Hinoto-Ri, aren't you," he suddenly asked. He noticed the lack of collar. "I don't believe we have met."

"It's a really good spell! I didn't think magic would work round here." Or, she's wondering if it's possible that she was just far too exhausted to heal herself earlier.

Selphie nodded at his question, then shook her head, "Nope! We haven't. My name's Selphie. Nice to meet you!" And she stuck out a hand towards him.

Yamato stared at the outstretched hand for a moment, but after a pause reached out to reluctantly grasp it with his gloved one. "Yamato Hotsuin," he said, letting go after a few stiff shakes. It seemed he was not one for human contact. "Strange that we have not met before. How long have you been in Hinoto-Ri?"

Unperturbed by his stiff handshake, Selphie nodded back to him in greeting, "Nice name, Yamato." She took a moment to think about this - she still felt like she didn't belong to Hinoto-Ri, and more to the point, she still didn't have a job, "Mmm...just a couple of months. You?"

"Almost half a year," Yamato replied. "I work in the Sagittarius laboratories. How about yourself?"

If this woman even had a job. He knew some visitors were still without work in Hinoto-Ri, and it sometimes left him a bit boggled. How could you spend your time on permanent vacation? Yamato had been without work for two months, and he had practically gone insane without anything to do!

"Oh.. Do you like it there? At Hinoto-Ri, I mean. And at your work?"

Selphie bowed her head, giving a small shrug, "I...don't have a job yet. I just haven't found anything. But I'm all out of money so, I guess it's a good thing that we came here. At least I can eat. Well, kind of."

Fact was that Selphie was at a stage of having to beg for something, be it money, food, or a job.

"...hm."

Jobless and broke. Yamato raised an eyebrow, sizing the woman up for a moment. If she had a talent - well, if she excelled at something, she should have been able to find something within the few months in Hinoto-Ri right? He didn't even know if this woman carried any potential within her...

"What are your strengths?"

Selphie watched Yamato right back, wondering what that 'hm' was supposed to mean. So now she was determined to show that she did actually have strengths, "I have these guys." She unwound her nunchaku from where she had them around her neck like some kind of accessory. "And I can do magic. I can fly spaceships, and pretty good at fixing them up too. Also...I play a bunch of instruments, and I sing - but you knew that already."

And that was pretty much all of everything that Selphie was capable of - a fighter, a pilot, and a musician.

Yamato tilted his head in thought. Hinoto-Ri had plenty of people able to use magic via Persona, so that talent was rather, ah, common.

"Have you considered joining the local law enforcement? I hear that security is always open for new recruits."

Selphie just watched Yamato, wondering what he was thinking, and tilting her head in the same direction that he had to consider this.

"Security...?" Sorry, but she couldn't help but pull a face at that. She imagined an ugly uniform, and chasing down slow thieves. "Uh... Maybe?"

"Beggars cannot be choosers," Yamato said, sensing her distaste towards the job. "You are in need of money to sustain yourself, correct? One has to do unpleasant things, or work for something that disagrees with them, to sustain themselves long enough to their goal."

"Yeah... I know." Selphie lowered her eyes, shuffling her feet against the meadow floor, which did actually feel nice. Eventually she looked back up at him, knowing full well that she was at the stage where she was willing to do anything.

She smiled as she thought about a security job, "So long as I look cute in the uniform, right?" Yes, she was totally joking, and hopefully Yamato would understand that.

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