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

[heather_mason]

[Heather remembers when her father taught her how to swim. It was an experience she's glad to have had and she feels sorry that her companion had to miss out on it.]

Why didn't you learn?

[culbutiri]

[Nesir shrugged. In truth she had never worked out why her guardians had never taught her to swim, perhaps they couldn't themselves. But because she had never been taught she had considered it not important until she had almost drowned during her survival test at the temple, after which she made sure she learned.]

I do no be knowing, my parents did be working at the inn a lot so we did no be going to the sea very much.

[heather_mason]

[Heather nods. She remembers the summer days she used to spend at the lake with her father, and the fewer occasions of going to the ocean. Those were good times and she swallows her sadness at the thought that those times are gone.]

I guess that makes sense.

[culbutiri]

But I can be swimming now, I do be thinking it do be being useful to be learning.

[heather_mason]

[She nods again. This time a lot more honestly.]

Yeah, drowning'd suck the meat.

[culbutiri]

It do no be very fun.

[heather_mason]

[Heather looks around awkwardly. She can't think of anything to say but she doesn't want to lose this conversation. This moment of normality before entering this world of strange fears and god knows what else.]

[culbutiri]

[Nesir smiled at her] Well I do be hoping you do no be dying too quickly.

[heather_mason]

[There's something eerie about the nonchalant way she talks about death. The same way her father would tell her to have a good day at school or discuss what they could have for dinner.]

Thanks... You too.

[culbutiri]

[She gets a smirk and a wave before Nesir disappears into the crowd.]