ITP: Concerning the nature of souls and finding purpose

[no_longer_a_king]

Characters: Arturia [AU5] and OPEN
Setting: Various, with prompts for floors 82, 12, and 60. After the elevator event, but the timeline is otherwise completely flexible
Format: Prose, please!
Summary: Arturia goes around making sure the people she knows are still alive after seeing what's down stairs, and other sundry things.
Warnings: none as of yet.

[A: Various, possibly combined with other prompts if you like.]
It was still like a blow to the guts.

Their actual status here wasn't what had shaken her so badly. They were souls in an artificial body, made by some form of magic. That didn't phase her because that was essentially what her existence had been from the moment she made that contract on Camlann Hill. It was the true of all Heroic Spirits and familiars like them. It was true of Counter Guardians like herself and Archer.

No, what had shaken her so badly had been seeing the bodies. Arturia had thought she had seen battle so much a mass grave couldn't phase her, but when the bodies are people she knew--multiples of people she knew--she'd wanted to retch. If she hadn't had so much experience, she supposed, she would have thrown up right there. So many people, even if they were just acquaintances, as corpses. She had to make sure that what they saw happen in the great machine was real--that they were truly all right.

That was why she was rushing through the Tower now, trying to find as many familiar faces as she could. Visions of slashing through the Grail-tainted Camelot were playing in the back of her mind, the horror of it, the suffering. She had to be sure those graves were not the reality of now. Had to.

[B: Floor 82; Masquerade of Truth]
Arturia had never gone on this floor before and had mostly observed from the stairs. The party that seemed to go on here at all times never interested her and since she rarely saw someone she recognized, she usually passed it on. Now? After how much she had gone through the last few days? She really did want to be around people. Everyone had moments like those, even people who tried to avoid them as Arturia did.

So she stepped off the stairs, walking to the masked gentleman who acted as a 'bouncer' of sorts to the party. He looked her over for a moment and then wordlessly handed her a mask. He reached out to put it on her, but she waved her hand and took it herself before placing it on.

Then he stepped aside and no sooner had Arturia crossed the threshold than another masked gentleman took her by the hand and began to whisk her across the dance floor. Arturia was graceful and skilled on the battlefield and there had been many a time at court or during some kind of festival or banquet when she had had to dance with Guinevere. It was easy to figure out the steps her partner followed and, while she was certainly no dancer by trade, she did not embarrass herself. it was easy to briefly lose herself and simply forget and by the time her partner released her on the other side of the room after their dance was when Arturia realized something:

She could not recognize anyone here. She had a vague feeling she should, but the thought of who it could be was gone the moment it entered her mind upon looking at the person.

Odd. Must be a trick of the floor.

[C: Floor 60; Industrial Kitchen]
In her more private moments, Arturia tended to find herself lingering in kitchens and thinking. Reminiscing, really. About the Fifth War and Shirou. About how the kitchen had been his domain and, painful as the memories were, it was comforting to think of him at times, of the way he'd insist on how she was a person and not a tool, of how he treated her like a guest in his home. True, his teasing had gotten on her nerves, but it had been a very long time since she'd been Arturia and not King Arthur.

But that was the past. Anything that might have happened with Shirou she could not undo and there was only one part she would ever hope to. Perhaps, if she had made more effort, been less weak, then maybe--maybe--things would be different. Maybe she would not have become the World's Sword. Maybe she would have peacefully gone to her rest if she had stayed her hand that fateful day.

This would probably be her only chance to reminisce for a very long time. Things in the Tower had changed and Arturia had no doubt things were about to get busy. No matter how she failed in the past, there were people here who needed help, who needed saving and she....

Arturia was not sure if she was a knight anymore, but she did know one thing: she could not stand by when people needed help. When people she considered comrades and allies needed help.

And so she went through the kitchen silently saying good-bye to her indulgence of the past and mentally prepared herself for the future.

[D: Floor 12; World Death Projection]
Arturia stood in front of the latest of the projections running, this time the object of focus was a red planet bloated with skyscrapers and vehicles that crossed through the atmosphere like bees in a hive. It stayed like this for a few minutes, the occasional bright flash in the sky as two of the vehicles ran into each other and then, it began to glow.

As with the last projection the glow seemed to fade, the vehicles in the sky making looping zig-zags before crashing to the planets. Buildings fell from the impacts. The nearby sun began to dim and slowly, spreading out from this one world, everything began to go dark until the only source of light in the room was the planet at the center of the show.

"Is this what's happening to the worlds?" she asked allowed as the projection began again--a space station proudly bearing the moniker "UFP: NEW HOPE" the center of it this time. She'd never paid attention to this room before, but after being downstairs and finding out what had happened above, she was getting interested in what, exactly, had destroyed these worlds.

Comments

D

[lightofhumanity]

"It would appear so."

chaos had come into the room just as this person-another odd spirit of sorts-had spoken, so he replied. There was no smile on his face.

"It is odd..I never thought my universe would end like this. It was always on the brink of destruction..but I did not think it would be destroyed in this manner."

[no_longer_a_king]

Just as there was no smile on her face.

"I wish we knew exactly how this was happening, but from the sound of it, the administrators have not been very forthcoming on their research."

[lightofhumanity]

"I know it has something to do with Ruana observing our universes..but I am sad to say that I do not know more beyond that."

D

[ghostytrainer]

John's always had mixed feelings about this floor. On the one hand: giant space projections are pretty awesome! On the other: the fact that the projections always show a universe being destroyed is a little unsettling. Even to someone who believes that the universes are not as gone as the admins would like everyone to believe. Even after everything that happened downstairs in the admin levels last week, John still clings to this hope. Sure, they may all be endlessly reanimated souls shoved into copies of their own bodies but that doesn't mean more factors can't be in play here.

In any case, upon catching sight of Arturia, John decides against bypassing the floor and leaves the stairs. He crosses the room, putting his hands in his pockets as he approaches the young woman and drawing level with her just in time to hear her question to nobody.

"You believe them then?"

[no_longer_a_king]

"I have nothing else to believe but that," she said, looking from the projection of the space station as it, too, began to glow. It was true, too. With her having negated her own existence and her status as a Counter Guardian, the only way she could be here is if the world was well and truly gone.

What she saw downstairs just made her believe it all the more, especially in relation to her world. That machine was magic on the level of the Holy Grail itself and why would the Administrators need to lie if they were capable of something like that?

[ghostytrainer]

"Why though? Because of what we saw downstairs?" His eyes follow the station as it glows, waiting for it to inevitably explode. While the Arturia in Johto may have tried to explain the Grail War to John, she hadn't gone into so much detail that he would realize what that machine was capable of. At least from her perspective.

To him, it was just a machine. A machine that could pull souls out by some sort of strange science-magic, not unlike a lot of the machines used in SBURB.

"Did I miss something while I was napping or something? Because all I saw was proof that our bodies are..." He cuts off. "Well. Yeah. But none of that explains the time discrepancies."

D

[swordedpast]

He approaches her in silence when he sees the familiar figure. Archer has been wandering the tower since the network came back on, unable to fully process the revelations in those posts. No, that's not true. He can process them all right. But if he thinks too hard on what he saw, all thoughts lead back to the same one: why, now of all times, was he spared when so many died? Why again? Wasn't the first time punishment enough?

By the time he ends up on the twelfth floor, he's too numb from the endless repetition of self-blame and bitter regrets inside his head to feel much at the sight of that white-clad vision of the woman he's thought of so often. He approaches her in silence and only speaks when he draws near.

"I wonder. Saber. Do you think it's still our duty to stop this?"

He nods at the endless display, and as he asks the question, he feels it sink in: he acknowledges this other spirit as just like him, in a way she was never meant to be.

[no_longer_a_king]

It was the same sort of thoughts that betrayed her own doubts: why her? Why was she, the most unworthy of all, saved? Part of her understood it'd been random chance--enough people had explained Zo's troubles with his abilities to her--but there was always that lingering question of why she had not perished with the world she swore to protect.

Seeing Archer, now knowing who he had once been, made her heart squeeze tight in her chest. Ever since Saber had told her of his identity she had been wary of their eventual meet up. She had told him he would never see her broken down like she had been and she intended to keep her word.

But it's hard to look at him and keep her face straight. Here was some version of that boy she betrayed and now she knew she had betrayed him twice over: once for making Archer's sacrifice to buy her, Rin, and Shirou time meaningless and again for beheading Shirou at the critical moment.

Yet she'd had plenty of practice in suppressing her emotions. She was not quite to the degree she had been while reigning as king, but it would be enough she could keep her emotions to herself for this encounter and speak as one Counter Guardian to another.

"Yes, I do. Even if it's not, the people here are suffering. Many good, kind people and who knows how many more."

[swordedpast]

"'Many good, kind people,'" he echoed her. But his voice twisted the earnest emotion behind the words until they sounded like a mockery coming from his lips. "Yeah, that's right, Saber. Many good, kind people, and us as well." Though his expression was still cool, the sneer was there in his voice.

But then it changed. Something softened in his face. To tell the truth, he couldn't truly sneer at Saber, even if she was no longer entirely Saber. "Hey, do you know something?" And his voice sounded, once again, just a little bit like that boy she betrayed so long ago.

"Do you know what you do when you're the only one who's saved out of many? This isn't really something I care to share with most. But we are almost two of a kind, so there's no sense in keeping it from you."

D

[unkindnessof]

"...Is it?"

Raven had, from the moment he arrived in the Tower, tried to avoid dwelling on the claims that their worlds were destroyed, and therefore this floor by proxy. It's simply absurd. Surely nothing of the sort could have occurred so quickly as to have them go to sleep in their own worlds one moment, and wake up the next in their rooms here. Not without any warning.

Still, faced with as many illusions as had cropped up over the past few days, it's hard not to doubt.

He'd come onto the floor to reassure himself, 'of course not, it couldn't happen,' but instead. Instead, he simply watched the projections cycle.

"I always thought... that if something were to happen to the world I came from, it would have been something else.

"Not this, whatever it is."

[no_longer_a_king]

"I cannot be sure myself," Arturia said as she circled the now-glowing space station suspended in front of them, trying to grasp some idea of what was going.

"This is the closest I've seen to it. Not many have been able to explain what is going on and I doubt the administrators have taken to telling us anything they know for sure about it or how they can even track it."

[unkindnessof]

He scoffs. "The administrators. It's a rather convenient claim, isn't it? That our worlds have been destroyed, and that whoever the masters of this Tower are just so happened to be able to save us from that same destruction.

"They'll allow us easily to access this floor and watch what's apparently happening to our worlds, but since I've arrived I haven't heard any details at all about it. No discussion, no theories, no solutions," Raven says, derision acrid in his voice. "The only word we have to go on is the letters they so kindly left us when we first woke." And then he's not at the wall anymore, having chosen instead to pace around the glowing projection in agitation.

But as quickly as it arises, the hostility bleeds out of him again in just as much time, leaving him staring up at the image as the space station, like many before it, falls into ruin. Rewind, reset; this time the display is of a bright planet, of brilliant blues and greens.

"Yet... there seems to be no reason for our being held here," he murmurs now, steadily watching the projection. "We are given too much freedom to be prisoners. We're given too little to be anything but. So what game are they playing at?"

A) Between floors

[adorably_evilish]

This was probably not a familiar face she had wanted to see, their encounters hadn't been the most... welcoming and yet, it was hard to miss the Yordle who seemed rather calm in spite of all that had been happening.

As he made his way up the floors, he heard the hurrying footsteps and looked up, his Black Torch at the ready before he noticed who they belonged to. He lowered his rod for slightly but kept on guard. You never knew with this place even if the particular subject might not have been the best at games.

"In a hurry?" he called out as she approached.

[no_longer_a_king]

No it was not. Not in the least.

But it was a familiar "face" of some kind and she could see he was actually alive, which gave her some hope she was only being foolish.

"A bit. What of yourself?"

[isthatashortjoke]

"Nothing of the sort. Business as usual as one might say in this wretched place." he replied nonchalantly.

"I take it you've witnessed what is happening..." he added as an after thought.

A, forward dated to Friday "evening"

[angramaintsu]

How fortunate it was that she was to run into Rin Matou all by her lonesome. It was rare enough to find her in the dormitory levels these days as she took to wandering the more dangerous floors to avoid others involved in the Holy Grail War.

So there's an unhealthy amount of animosity rising once she sees Saber. It wasn't that she felt anything ill towards her, but she had heard stories of the knightly girl that amounted to her fighting against people such as herself. It was only natural that Rin's finger flex defensively before she shuts down her paranoia for arrogance.

"You look like you've seen a ghost." The irony isn't lost on her, in fact she smiles at the joke of telling a ghost she's seen one when the person she's staring down is more alive than herself. "Has a monster made it's way onto this floor? I'll dispose of it."

[no_longer_a_king]

Rin.

Rin.

Not the Rin who had reassured her and teased her as Shirou circled one another like a pair of roosters fighting over a third, yet still Rin at her core in some way. The one who had confused her in the maze and gave off an aura that reminded her of a strange cross of Irisviel and the Grail itself. She knew, on some level, that Rin was connected to the Grail in a manner similar to Irisviel and Ilyasviel. (and, oh, she still did not know of those two's connection to one another.)

Arturia wanted to hug her, the image of that body down there still burned in her memory just as much as sitting atop Camlann waiting for her end was. Yet she restrained herself. Rin was breathing, alive, here. The process she saw down there worked, somehow.

"I can slay any monster that follows me. No, I was looking for you. I wanted to know that you were well."

[angramaintsu]

That's strange.

Well, it would always be strange whenever someone comes seeking her out with the intent to make sure she was well. A monster deserved no allies, no peace, and here they were forcing themselves upon her to ensure she had just that.

It pissed her off. Not enough to get her to outright scream at Saber, but her teeth grit just a bit as she bared them.

"Why wouldn't I be well?"

B; Floor 82

[whiteblackknight]

A ballroom? On this floor?...How interesting. The mask was a bit tacky, however. Recognizing others on this floor seemed a little iffy, but not by sight. It was more like trying to remember an old friend, picturing the face and their personality but still just out of reach of who they were. Was it a trick, or was Mr. Walker's memory just being touchy?

Experience has taught the latter.

Whoever this...person was, she could dance quite well. Allen found himself reaching out and saying "may I have this dance?", and not because he didn't want to, inwardly. He might not be as good, but "dancing" is very similar to what he's done in the past. How hard could it be?

[no_longer_a_king]

Part of her wanted to say no, wanted to go, but.... well. She had come here to have a moment to get lost, to not think, and as far as she and Diarmuid could tell, there had been nothing dangerous about this floor. No one could recognize each other and there was no harm in dancing a little more, in moving so she could let her mind stop working for a moment.

"All right," she said, taking his hand. Hopefully this wouldn't be too bad. She had spent so much time pretending to be a man that it was odd being the one led for once.

[whiteblackknight]

Accepted. It's a start. Whoever this was, she sounded as regal as the room they were in. Did she often frequent places like this, or is this just Allen's imagination?

The hand he offered was covered by a glove, but its grip says otherwise. Much less like a person's hand holding another and more like a mechanical vice than anything, and even the skin beneath it felt worn and mottled.

The start is slow going. There's no music, other than that which is in the mind of the beholder, and there's little that could define an audience to wow. And a clown without an audience isn't a clown at all...

...

This "classy" thing does not fit himself at all, Allen thinks.

"Have you ever danced before?" he says, through his graceful yet not rehearsed footwork.

floor 12

[fusedstars]

"Unknown," spoke Hei, just arriving on the floor. He was on his way to hunt for some more food when he stopped on this floor, taking note of that question. Honestly, he didn't know what exactly did all of this, information everywhere scattered thanks to those random clone naps.

"However, I choose to focus on the threats testing our sanity within this tower, even if there's little I can do about either situation."

He wasn't a mage, a Servant, or anything like the other people here. Without the meteor shard, he couldn't hold a candle to most, even with his extremely deadly skills.

[no_longer_a_king]

"The threats to our sanity is what has me concerned." Because if they could not die here, that was the main threat any of them had in the long run. Who would want to be saved if a life of torture was all they had to look forward to.

"Which could stop if the threat the Administrators claim is consuming everyone's worlds is true."

A; Library

[yougotthatwrong]

...Hello?

[There's the sight of a confused boy as he stared at the girl looking about.]

Can I help you with something?

[And at that question, a similar face popped into his mind; the girl by that weird floor-less floor.]

[no_longer_a_king]

"No? I'm well," she said. Relieved to see that yet another familiar face was safe and well and the bodies down there really were mere vessels, even if she didn't know this familiar face that well yet.