towerofanimus | It's not like I'm walking alone into the valley of the shadow of death--

Entry tags:

It's not like I'm walking alone into the valley of the shadow of death--

Characters: Enoch, Zelda, and their ragtag bunch of immortals (Lucifel, Naoya, Solas, Saber Lily, and Ruler)
Setting: Admin levels; night of April 9th
Format: Any, though action might be faster?
Summary: With Jason apparently busy examining the "malfunctioning" worker units, it's the perfect time to strike and retrieve the information Dax left behind.
Warnings: It's a break in. These do not have a history of going well. Character injury and death is possible.

It is a dark and stormy night, as cliche as it sounds. Most of the Tower residents should be asleep by now, or wandering the more interesting floors in search of monsters to fight.

Not these ones, though. A small group quietly begins to gather around the administrator elevator after the sun is well and truly down, several of them armed. Jason's announcement over the intercom yesterday had been just the tell they were looking for - one that informed them he was distracted - and despite some of the distressing disappearances that followed, they had to jump on this rare opportunity while it was within their grasp.

Dax trusted them with the information he had collected, and one way or another, they were going to find it.

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[Floating. Really? Lucifel actually looks more than amused right now. It's a bit strange to him, but it's fun to watch the rest.]

I could count a few without wings that can fly.

Anyways, where should we go from this point on?

[From here, through Solas's eyes, it's a walk up a ramp to a door. It's impossible for the others to see where they should be heading in the void, though.]

This way, the door's this way.

[Solas keeps walking up the ramp and toward the door, ready to open it with the vines she can't currently see if need be. It's still weird, but...Hey, weirder things have happened.]

[Arturia follows Solas to the door, even if walking on air/water/electricity. Whatever it is!]

*Enoch's movement is rather ineffective, considering he doesn't know how to swim. He manages a few movements in one direction or another, but they're mostly accidental, and for the most part he's pushing himself upwards.*

Ah...c-can someone...

*Someone help this idiot...*

[The door opens on its own, though the others will see it as a bright point of light they're heading into.

There's a hellhound, growling and made of flame, on the other side of the door. Solas won't be able to see it at all. It lunges at whoever gets to the door first.]

... Enoch, stop moving.

[Seriously, as amusing as the scribe is to watch, the had to proceed quickly. Lucifel grabs his wrist to drag him along, heading to the direction Sola's has pointed at.]

[Unfortunately for Ruler, the hellhound lunged straight for her.

Letting out a surprised and fearful scream - surprising, considering how unruffled she had been with the rest of their adventure up until now - she raises her sword, a slightly panicked look on her face as she swings it down in an arc with all her might. Oh please, let one strike be enough to kill it...!]

[The sword seems to pass through the hellhound--it's made of fire, so it simply disrupts the flickering flames slightly. Ruler will feel the fire beginning to burn her skin. If something doesn't happen quickly, she'll burn to death this way.

Solas will still be unable to see any hellhound at all.]

I can't see it-!

[Half-panicked, Solas tries to lash out with her vines in the general direction that everyone is attacking.]

[To the others, Solas's vines appear to burn to ashes upon contact with the creature. Solas will be unable to see her vines and is completely unharmed, though.]

[Solas may seem panicked, but that's nothing compared to how Ruler looks right now. There's an almost wild look in her eye as she screams again, a scream of pain as well as fear this time, and swings her sword again. She knows it's futile, she knows what she's doing has no effect on this creature, but the rational part of her brain has momentarily been taken over by the fear she's harbored ever since the end of her original life.]

[Well, if she can't do anything else -- She can at least use her vines as shields, right? She'll start trying to use them to protect Ruler, she seems particularly upset.]

Sola! *It's an instinctive cry as Sola's vines appear to burn.

...But she doesn't appear to realize? She didn't even feel that? She seems to be trying to help though, still...*

Sola! Try to get us through that door!

*He's not sure why this. Why just ignore it. But he knows hellhounds are indestructible, so if Sola can't be harmed, maybe she can do something.

He never was a tactician.*

[Again Solas's vines appear to be burned to ashes as if they weren't there at all--and of course Solas can't see it or the hellhound, and will feel no pain and be entirely unharmed.

The flames are licking fast along Ruler's body--it won't be long, if they can't figure out what to do, before she burns to death.]

[Arturia, meanwhile, is going for Jeanne. Her first instinct is to get her away from that thing with how badly she's freaking out. If possible, if Sola's vines burn away, she's going to shove Jeanne away from the hellhound.

Death is meaningless to her in this place. If it means she will wake up once again upstairs, then so be it. She can ask if this excursion was successful later one.]

[The hellhound has Ruler pinned, enough that she can't be moved, and when Arturia approaches it snaps angrily at her with jaws of flame hot enough to melt metal.]

A-all right! I'll do what I can!

[It's easy to deploy the vines she can't see into the ground; small shields, things to dodge behind if nothing else. Maybe they'll only take a few hits, but surely that'll be enough, right?]

Just keep heading toward the light! This way!

[She races to and through the door, propping it open with a vine from the ground.]

No-...

*Of course. If she can't see her vines either...*

Sola! Move her yourself!

*In the meantime, he's going to try to run around to the other side so they can all get out of there.*

[From Solas's point of view, it must be a very odd situation. Even as everyone sees Ruler burning, even as Ruler feels her skin being charred and bubbling, Solas can't see any injuries to Ruler at all.]

Okay, on it!

[It really is odd, but she does what one would expect - using her vines as a third hand to very gently pick Ruler up and carry her through the door. She's calm about it, but that may be just because she can't see or feel the hellhound or the flames.]

[Solas, divorced from the situation with the hellhound, is indeed able to lift Ruler. She is lifted up into the hellhound's body, through the paw holding her down, of course.

It's very hot in there, from Ruler's perspective. She dies, burned to death, even though Solas can't see the injuries at all.

A door behind the hellhound opens.]

[Why isn't she breathing?

...

Oh.

Oh god.

This is Solas looking utterly horrified and retracting the vines she still can't see.]

[Arturia stares as Ruler is lifted into the flames she's so afraid of, screaming. And then Ruler is gone.

Ice settles over her heart. She had not known Ruler very well, not very well at all. Yet she had been a comrade. And now....

For now, she is once again the King who gathered the Round Table. A door has appeared now that Ruler is dead and, barring the creature attacking anyone, they have to move.]

We have to go. Now.

[Ruler's death will not be in vain.]

*...he'd meant herself. Her arms, not her vines...

But he hadn't been clear enough. And for that...for that they've lost someone.*

Let's.... *His throat closes up and, as he'd moved closer to Sola when he tried to evade the hellhound, he reached over to grab her arm.* ...we have to go before it attacks someone else.

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