Something Unexpected

[animusmods]

Characters: characters selected to go into the elevator
Setting: the admin levels
Format: any
Summary: The admin elevator has been left open, its destination preprogrammed. Where is it going to take you?
Warnings: general horror warnings for now

The elevator doesn't announce itself when its doors slide open. There's no alarm, no message to be found about it. It sits open and waits for anyone curious enough to enter. There's a barrier on it that locks out anyone without a collar, and it isn't going to stay long, but aside from that there appears to be no security. There's nothing stopping someone--or multiple someones--from climbing into the elevator and going down.

Where's it going? Who knows.

Hub Area
A lounge area with sofas and chairs. It's large enough to hold the entire group, constructed similarly to the dorm rooms, and is connected to five doors.

Door One
???

Door Two
???

Door Three
???

Door Four
???

Door Five
???

Comments

[animusnpcs]

[The worker unit slumps to the ground, unconscious. It's quiet in the hallway again.]

[uzuki]

[She turned to give the others a slightly apologetic smile.]

Well, that went well. Shall we?

[She started down the hallway, past Enoch, to continue their exploration.]

[warriorscribe]

*Enoch breathes a sigh of relief and follows Shion, stepping carefully past the worker unit.*

Thank you. If you can do that again readily, I would prepare to use it. There may be others...

*He gestures to the others to follow. They have some exploring to continue.*

[seekinganswers]

Hold on!

[Sheba's darted out from around the corner and is now trying to heft the worker unit up onto her shoulder.]

What if it wakes up and sends that retrieval unit after us? Let's see if we can lock it in one of those empty rooms from before.

[Once she's got a good enough hold on the worker, she'll drag it back to one of the doors and set to locking it in.]

[uzuki]

Oh, I guess you're right.

[She hadn't thought about that, but once it was suggested, she hurried over to help drag the worker into its lovely new home~]

[seekinganswers]

Thanks!

[Once they have the worker in there, Sheba fiddles with the door for a bit, checking and double-checking to make sure it's locked. When she's satisfied that it is, she steps away from the door and hurries back down the hall.]

I think we should probably try to avoid outright confrontations if we can. There might be more of those retrieval things around, and as much as I wish we could, I know we can't handle them in a fight.

[animusnpcs]

[The retrieval unit continues floating in its tube when they return, dormant.]

[warriorscribe]

Let's move carefully.

*Part of Enoch wants to inspect the tube, but he doesn't want to risk accidentally waking the unit. He'll move with the others down the hallway, if nobody stops to do what he checked himself from doing.*

[seekinganswers]

[Sheba doesn't stop to inspect the tube, either; as much as she wants to, she has this terrible feeling that she'd be tempted to try reading its mind, and she doesn't want to risk rousing it.

Her steps are careful, quiet, and deliberate - if there's something else further along, she doesn't want to risk revealing that they're coming.]

[animusnpcs]

[More tubes reveal themselves as they walk. The hallway quickly grows lined with them, retrieval units floating peacefully.]

[warriorscribe]

*Enoch gazes in a mix of fear and wonder at the inert retrieval units. He wants to know what makes them so different from humans they must sleep this way. He wants to know what exactly the tubes do...

...But he knows what the beings inside can do, so he stays quiet and keeps to the center of the hall, walking cautiously and watching the tubes pass as they go by.*

[uzuki]

[Shion didn't comment on the number of tubes, but she was a little surprised. She didn't stop to inspect any of them either though, as she was... A little uncomfortable with things that resided in tubes.

She continued past them all, moving as quietly as possible.]

[lighthousediving]

[Felix was keeping up his typical silence, just frowning at the sight of the hallway. As disturbing as it was, from what he knew about this place, he wasn't overly surprised either.

Despite doing his best to tread carefully, Felix is looking at some of the tubes as he passes just to see if anything jumps out at him as being off.]

[seekinganswers]

[These tubes are seriously giving Sheba the creeps. Her grip on her staff tightens and her gaze shifts from one retrieval unit to the next, an expression of extreme distrust clear as day on her face.

She doesn't know whether to hope for an end to the rows of units or not - whatever comes next might be worse...]

[animusnpcs]

[Each retrieval unit appears to be sleeping as they float in red liquid. There are various tubes attached to their collars that connect to the machine down below which appears to be some sort of control pad.

The rows of tubes continue until the end of the hallway. There's a door much like the kind one might find in a hospital. There is a window, but its frosted over. It's clear the lights are out on the other side, though.]

[warriorscribe]

*Enoch raises his free hand to his own collar as they reach the door. He wonders what the liquid could be sustaining in them, those who are not foreign... Or foreign souls at least, given the conclusion he came to after going about thinking through his return to Meridian's ruins all too bluntly.

...Well. There was no use in thinking about it too much. His grip tightens on his Arch, but he does not raise it as he reaches out to open the door.*

[animusnpcs]

[The door opens to an office desk in the center of a hexagonal room. There are two hallways beyond, but the desk is clearly the one Jason has been seen at before in videos.

There is nothing on the desk's surface except for a holographically projected keyboard.]

[uzuki]

[Still silently, Shion made her way inside, once Enoch had, and moved around the desk.]

Hmm...

[She bent forward, carefully typing out a few commands on the keyboard, trying to bring a screen up.]

[animusnpcs]

[As soon as Shion presses a button the screen--similarly holographic--appears in front of her. Then a hundred more screens blink to similarly to life. A program has been left open--the Tower displays before her in thousands of views from hidden cameras.]

[lighthousediving]

What...?

[The mosaic of pictures takes Felix by surprise. He's only seen video over the network in the last few weeks, seeing this much at once is a bit overwhelming.]

How is this possible?

[seekinganswers]

...! What the--?

[She looks similarly surprised - and then she darts over to some of the other screens, reaching up to try and pass her hand through it.

Hadn't Riki used something like this to show her some of the plans for other floors in the Tower? She had no idea if the concept was the same or not, but...]

This is weird...

[animusnpcs]

[Her hand will instead tap against the screen; the video in question will zoom in, focusing on residents passing through the dormitory hallway it displays.]

[warriorscribe]

*Enoch stares at the screens. Lord help them, they did have eyes everywhere...

...Everywhere?

Enoch looks for a sign of some of the floors on the outside of the tower, ones without ceilings. Are they there? Are there blind spots?*

[animusnpcs]

[There are no cameras in the bathrooms or inside the saunas. Aside from this, every floor is represented, often multiple times.]

[uzuki]

[Shion grimaced at all of the feeds, but she didn't bother spending too much time looking at them. Instead, she set to work on the keyboard, attempting to get into the directory to see what might be stored in the system it was using. Or what other sort of applications it could run.]

This technology doesn't seem too different from what I'm used to, actually. So maybe we can get some information from here!

[She was pretty optimistic. She did have some hacking experience, after all. So looking around this way should have been a piece of cake.]