Mission 001 [ Magic Act ] | OPEN

[flipkicking]

Characters: Jill Valentine and anyone!
Setting: Room 2-03, dorm halls, then Floor 4
Format: Starting prose, but whatever's fine with me.
Summary: Jill arrives, trusts nothing, suspects everything, and explores.
Warnings: None at the moment.

[Room 2-03/Dorm halls]
There were two possibilities, as far as Jill could deduce. Either this was another trick, some illusion that she'd eventually wake or break out of -- or it was real, which meant that she'd been taken somewhere else besides home, besides any place in the Underworld.

Another world, in the latter scenario, was possible -- there was an infinite number of them, so what was to say she hadn't ended up in one she didn't know? The way this was set up, the letters... if anything, the place looked like another crossroads.

Never good, from what she'd learned.

She didn't sit around long. Jill looked in the indicated trunk first, hardly surprised to find her usual weaponry -- she did, however, all but scowl at the single outfit the chest provided. Looking as new as the day she received it, the form-hugging battle suit was, undoubtedly, hers. Her initial impulse was to hurl it back inside, but compared to what she'd woken up in... well. Experience-wise, it was the lesser of two evils, and it allowed her to carry her weapons, which she wasn't about to leave lying around -- so she changed, albeit grudgingly, dropping the pistol and spare clip into the holster, strapping the knife to her boot, tucking away the lockpick. She wore her weapons openly, without choice, but she'd done the same for a year now. The one thing that agitated her more than the suit, though, was the thing around her neck: it wasn't tight enough to choke, but just being there, and apparently without a lock or keyhole or strap that she could find, was enough for her to distrust it.

Fine.

Jill emerged into the unfamiliar hall, heels clicking on the floor until she made an effort to reduce the sound. She didn't question anyone as she passed; she just moved quietly, unassumingly, taking everything in with a trained eye, wanting her own opinion and deductions before asking anyone anything. She didn't recognize a single face, but that didn't really surprise her, either. Just more people, some dressed like she had been, all with similar chokers.


[Floor 4]
Going by the letters she'd received, she decided to go down to the first floor. From there, she eventually and silently made her way up to the fourth. Lingering here the longest, Jill crossed her arms and observed the windows with a blank expression. That her homeworld had been destroyed, she would never believe; that the Underworld had... It was more believable, more acceptable, but no less dreaded, considering all the people who might still be there.

And those who aren't.

Jill's features changed for the first time, edging into a frown.

Illusion or reality, she knew this wasn't a good situation she'd found herself in.

Comments

[idol_support]

Rise didn't mind professional mode--it was probably a good thing, really. You had to be strong to survive here, and more friendly-but-strong people were always welcome. So she'd do her best to make sure Jill-san wasn't walking into anything blindly, and make sure she had at least a basic understanding of this place. Which meant, right now Rise had to explain a little more about the Tower itself.

"They're a big part of the danger, but the Tower by itself can be pretty awful too. There are a lot of floors--more than a hundred now!--and some of them are really weird, or dangerous, or have monsters on them, or even all three of those things." Still, Rise couldn't help but smile as she though of a few of those floors. "Some of the floors are pretty neat, though! And most of the time the dorm floors are safe--the monsters don't usually come up here unless something really crazy is going on."

And adding on a few more basics couldn't hurt either.

"There's a stairway that runs through the whole tower, and there's also an elevator, but it doesn't stop on every floor, just some of the more important ones. You'll probably wanna visit the first floor pretty soon--that's where the cafeteria is, and you have to eat the plain oatmeal there before you eat anything else or you'll just keep throwing up whatever you eat. Trust me, I've seen it happen. It's not pretty."

[flipkicking]

Monsters. Of course there were monsters. When weren't there monsters anymore?

Jill went on listening with a patient, attentive expression, occasionally looking thoughtful but not interrupting. Partway through, she finished with her hair and tucked it into the back of her suit.

The last part received a slightly puzzled look as she wondered what the meaning and logic behind that was, but she only nodded again and leaned back some on her bed -- appearing, for all intents and purposes, relaxed despite the revelation that there were probably things waiting to kill them somewhere in the tower below. It wasn't arrogance; it was habit, knowing better than to stress herself sooner than necessary and daring to figure that the monstrosities here couldn't be much worse than everything she'd seen.

Even if they were, it would still boil down to learning how to kill them. That, or be killed. Chilling as it sounded, looking at it in black and white like that helped -- it helped Jill, anyway -- because it narrowed down the possibilities to two and between those, she knew which it would have to be. That way of thinking had helped keep her alive for over a decade, so it was safe to call it habit by now, even instinct.

"How often do people leave the tower?" she asked. She'd almost said How often do people go home, but given the lies they were weaving, she doubted they would phrase it as such. Assuming they did send people back.

[idol_support]

That's a simple enough question...but is it really? Where did they go when they left? Rise hasn't been sent home to wander her ruined world yet so she still didn't believe her world had been destroyed, and none of her friends had seen fit to tell her any different.

But where wasn't the question; instead it was how often, and Rise did have an answer for that one.

"People are leaving and then returning all the time. Sometimes people will disappear for a while, but then they come right back and are the same as they were before. Other times...they're gone for longer, and if they come back, they're different. They don't remember anything that happened the last time they were here."

Rise nodded back towards the doorway she'd only recently vacated, indicating the nameplates there, though of course Jill couldn't see them with the door shut. "The way to tell if someone's really gone is if their name plaque disappears from outside their dorm room. Otherwise, they should be back within a month at the longest."

WAY TOO SRS UP IN HUR time to lighten it a bit with some Cheesy RE Dialogue(TM)

[flipkicking]

Jill nodded slowly. A familiar enough story, as well.

So the big picture seemed to be otherworldly kidnappings, a sadistic group of people (people, not necessarily humans) responsible, unclear motives, a dangerous setting, and more or less getting by day-to-day while occasionally interrupted by varying events that, by the sound of it, sometimes fell under inhumane.

Familiar enough was an understatement.

With all that in mind, the only lingering curiosity was--

"And these," Jill pressed, fingering the collar with a slightly darker look; "I assume they're not just bad fashion statements."

[idol_support]

"They really do mess up the look of most outfits, you're right!" Rise said, her reply half frustrated and half amused. "But you're also right that they're important. Everyone is wearing one, and no one can get them off, no matter how strong they are. And...well, I don't know as much about it as some people do, but when experiments are done that involve the collars somehow, things...can get pretty bad pretty quickly."

The unspoken message there is only semi-subtle: it's best to leave the collars alone.

"Oh, and we have to go in for collar check-ups every so often, which isn't always very fun...but there's no use in fighting it, so it's best to just go quietly. You'll see what I mean if anyone in your group decides to try to fight their way out of it."

Once again, not pretty. Every time it happened, Rise hated that they all had to just give in and let it happen, but there really was nothing they could do--any of them. And if someone like Senpai couldn't fight his way free, then she didn't stand even a fraction of a chance herself. And although she hadn't had a chance to scan Jill yet, Rise doubted that she was stronger than Yu-senpai. Still, she'd have to scan her at some point just to make sure.

[flipkicking]

That was the first time that Jill's expression really darkened. It was slight, but all the more obvious given how controlled her face had been up to that point -- agitation, or maybe just annoyed surprise, or quite possibly both.

She was in no danger of doing anything rash; her temper aside, she knew when to bite the bullet and leave well enough alone. All the same, that didn't mean she would tolerate what Rise was describing very well.

Jill glanced aside, the hand at her neck lowering -- now a fist, but only for an instant before it relaxed again. Her features returned to something like neutral, but there was still a shadow hanging over it. She nodded.

"Noted... So besides the scheduled insanity, we're left to ourselves the rest of the time?" She couldn't say free, but any room to do what they wanted, however limited, was a precious kind of freedom all the same. It beat a lot of alternatives.

[idol_support]

It was pretty obvious that something Rise had said really bothered Jill--not that that was surprising really. What kind of person would take it well when they were told not to fight against what basically amounted to regular, forced doctor's appointments where the staff held little to no concern about their patient's well-being? Still, Rise knew from experience that that wasn't even close to being the worst thing that could happen in a place like this.

No sense in thinking about that right now, though--better to just answer Jill's questions and make sure she'd be as ready as possible to face whatever the Tower threw at her.

The former idol nodded. "Yeah! We're allowed to explore the Tower as much as we want. Even when a 'game' or experiment is going on, I've never seen them lock us away from the whole rest of the Tower. But...I guess it might've happened--like I said, some people have been here way longer, so you'd probably have to ask them to be sure."

[flipkicking]

Jill's neutral almost-smile was back by now, her expression again attentive.

"I'll be sure to." However dependent one source was, it was still ideal to get as much input as possible. She had the feeling she'd have a lot to choose from.

"Thanks," she added after a moment. "I know explaining things like this isn't easy, so I appreciate the advice." Not to mention it beat stumbling around, metaphorically blind and discovering half the things she'd been told through experience. Not always a good way to learn.

[idol_support]

Jill will get that idol-level smile beaming back at her, because terrible as this place is, Rise will always do her best not to let it keep her down. And as her team's morale-booster, it's second nature by now to cheer people on and up regardless of how bad things look.

"No problem! And well, it's not like it's all that hard...there's just a lot of stuff to cover, and no way of knowing when it might change. We've just gotta be ready for anything!"