towerofanimus | Take every moment; you know that you own them

Characters: Zelda, a box, her trusted friends and allies, and you!
Setting: One of the ladies' bathrooms, the cafeteria, the workshop, and somewhere else...
Format: Starting action, but can do prose!
Summary: A new month, a new plot point in Zelda's mailbox. In less resistance related news, stopping to smell the roses (or the rose flavored tea) is good for the soul, and the Princess is terrible at sewing.
Warnings: ~~DEAR GOD THE TL;DR~~ None as of yet.

Mailroom -> Bathroom; closed

[Ever since Dax's death, it's become routine. Wake up, get ready for the day, check the mail. Most of the time, there's nothing, and Zelda moves on with her day without a second thought. Sometimes, she receives letters - requests, offers of assistance, statements of solidarity, all varying in urgency, and she spends some time thinking of what to do regarding them. Sometimes she receives gifts, most often in the form of food, and she is quick to share the bounty with her descendant. Once, she received a particularly cruel package - a snowglobe of her castle, but without the snow to imply it is anything but underwater - and she can't imagine the workers in the mailroom enjoyed cleaning up the shattered, wet pieces of glass after she threw it against the wall (April was not a good month).

Regardless, the routine of checking the mail has given her some sense of normalcy, and on average, has brought her more hope than despair.

That fact continues to hold true on the first of May, as she opens door number 0001 to see a very familiar box (how could she forget it when she carried the thing out of Dax's room, when Ruler died seeing them to it?) simply sitting there, as though it wasn't touted as the key to removing the "obstacles" keeping the Tower populace from making their own choices.

She can't help a sharp inhale when she sees it and reads the short note attached, and she finds her eyes sliding to the side, to where the retrieval unit watching her stands silently. Do they know? Guy didn't mention anything about it when he spoke of what she told him while brainwashed into obedience, but... the others...? They haven't been able to talk about it since, and... could it be a trick? Could Jason have somehow taken the image from her mind and mimicked it in one cruel twist of the knife?

If he did... she couldn't bear if the others were exposed to any more danger because of her.

With equal parts hope and fear, Zelda takes the box from the cubby, tucks the note into a pocket, and starts up the stairs. Twenty or so flights isn't so bad with Farore's Wind, and soon she's even lost the unit trailing her. Which was the idea. She makes quick work of stealing away into the ladies' restroom, and as she hides away in one of the stalls (just... for good measure), she finds herself thinking of things over a year in the past, now. When Gandalf first approached her, when he said it was her destiny (and, oh, how she's grown to hate that word) to lead the people of this place out of here to somewhere better. When she said she was inexperienced, and she feared failure in such a monumental duty more than anything else.

How things have changed.

She breathes in, deeply, steeling herself for the worst and praying desperately for the best, and slowly, she opens the lid...]

Cafeteria; open

[And now for something completely different.

With a new month comes a new menu in the cafeteria, and while you can usually count Ruana to make meals thematic to some holiday and Jason to give nothing bunch water and nutribars, Riki has always been harder to pin down. But whatever she was expecting, it certainly wasn't this! The fragrant smell of flowers wafts over the cafeteria like a spring breeze, and for a moment, she isn't in the cafeteria at all, but rather her flower-filled courtyard from so long ago. Perhaps it's only a fleeting moment of pleasure at best in this place, but she feels like indulging, just this once.

In a rare display of contentment, Zelda can be found off to the side of the cafeteria, merrily nibbling at her breakfast and breathing in the sweet smell of her tea.]

Workshop; open

[Let it never be said Zelda is one to lose herself in indulgence, however! There is always work to be done, and not all of it id directly resistance related. Towers of monsters, horror, and death are not exactly kind to clothing, and after nearly sixteen months trapped within one, the Princess is beginning to run out of clothes. Her lessons back in Hyrule never got to the point of complex sewing, but it cannot be that hard, right? She has been hard at work the past few days, measuring and cutting and measuring again, and she thinks she's got the fabric at a point where it's ready to start sewing together.

... And then she actually tries sewing it together.

After the twentieth time of seeing the whole thing fall apart and the thirtieth time the thread's gotten tangled, the determined Princess of Hyrule drops her head to the workbench in defeat, sighing in frustration.

Sewing actually is kind of hard.]

Bathrooms, May 3rd; closed

[After sending out as many letters as she could to people she believes she can trust, Zelda now waits to reap what she's sown. She cannot possibly do this alone - the tower is far too large for her to take on herself. Especially if only a few of these 'microchips' can be on someone's person at a time.

Sure, it might seem a bit strange for someone to just... hang out in the bathroom, but if anyone asks, she simply tells them she's trying to get some peace away from her stalker unit.

And as for the men she contacted... well, they will find a rather androgynous Sheikah waiting in her place.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[At that, Tohko nodded, burning the information onto her brain before taking five chips and speakings.]

Alright then. Good luck with those floors then..and I'll try to cover as many areas as I can. However..I have a few close friends, people that I'd trust my life with, that I've told about Dax's final wishes. Would you be angry if I told them about these chips and where to get them?

[The Princess remains quiet for a moment, contemplating Tohko's request. Hm... Well, if they already know about Dax's will, then--]

... No, that is all right. We will need as many able hands as we can find. Just make certain you tell them to give me your name so I know I can trust them.

[At that, Tohko smiled and nodded. She knew Zelda had almost every reason to feel nervous about that sort of request, so it was nice that she was granting it.]

Don't worry, I will. Thank you. A few friends of mine are must faster than I am, so that's why I asked. If we could cover twice as much ground in one person, than that would be great.

Dax does request as many trustworthy hands as possible, and the more microchips we can place, the better.

[... Still, she can't help being paranoid, so--]

Just make certain they do not speak of this on the network, or anywhere worker units might hear them.

[..By Tohko's standards, that wasn't really paranoid.]

Don't worry. I've already told them about that, so there shouldn't be any problems at all.

All right. I was just making sure.

I believe that is all regarding the current state of affairs. Would you like to be briefed on the infiltration now, or would you like to begin working on placing microchips right away?

Normally, I'd work on the microchips..but this may be the only free moment we both have together before things start getting busy. Please, if you could, tell me what happened when you and everyone else went down there.

Understandable. Let's see...

[She closes her eyes in thought, recalling that night.]

We went late at night, as we originally planned. Naoya hacked the elevator and found an area only Dax had access to. The ride was long - maybe thirty or forty minutes before the doors opened again. There was a barrier before a hall with three doors - the barrier was apparently similar to one used before, when those from Hinoto-ri appeared, and is said only able to be breached by those with collars. [She taps her own indigo collar briefly] Enoch would know more about that, I think.

After a bit of fruitless exploration, we found something possibly just as important as the contents of this box. An internal resistance force composed of "re-processed" retrieval and worker units. These units had been modified into allies for Dax's cause, and, in turn, us. The one in charge was a retrieval unit called R-037-- [Pronounced R-zero-three-seven]--one who displays far more empathy than any other unit I have encountered. She explained that Dax wanted us to have a choice in how we lived: we could stay in the Tower, we could return to our homeworlds, or we could try to use the Tower's resources to restore the worlds. All the systems he set in place were to help us remove the "obstacles" blocking us from making that choice - in this case, the other administrators.

After answering a few of our questions, she sent us on our way with a device that would allow us to navigate a false maze Dax set up to guard his room. Solas is currently in possession of this device, as it could only be attuned to one of us. You will have to ask her about what she saw; the rest of us had to follow her directions through a seemingly endless gauntlet of impossible physics and geometry.

[She's just going to leave out the part where Ruler died, don't mind her.]

At the end of it all, we found what we assumed to be Dax's bedroom. This box as well as a note were on his bed. The note explained that R-037 was working in Dax's stead, and that the contents of this box will "open the path" to his research, which he hid in the residential area.

... He also said something that does not make sense yet, but will be important to keep in mind: "There will come a time when everything around you seems to be not what you thought it was, and you won't know what to believe about anything at all. At that time, look for something that is still true." He did not explain, though he did say he hoped it would make sense "when the time comes".

After that, we returned the box to R-037 as both she and Dax requested, and returned to the residential levels, presumably unseen by the administrators. R-037 is safe, at least, as she was the one that delivered this box to my mailbox on the first.

[Hoo, that should be all that's relevant.]

[While Zelda spoke, Tohko took everything in and burned it all down. While this was all interesting, especially the fact that Dax was letting them choose..even though those paths were dangerous, and even though it seemed that in the future, these roads would make them lose faith in anything they believed in, this was all interesting. She'd have to talk to Sola and Enoch later..but for now, this was great. She finally had an idea of what happened down there when she was dragged off. Smiling, she nodded at Zelda.]

Thank you..while I'll have to talk with the others later, this does help bring me up to speed. It's great that there's a resistance force down below..but I wonder how Dax has been reprogramming them? If we knew, we could potentially recruit all the drones to our side.

And I think..I understand why Dax said that. I don't know when that'll be relevant, but I do understand why he put it down.

I do not know; R-037 did not go into detail about that, and likely with good reason. If we knew and Jason decided to peer into our minds - as he is wont to do - he could be able to put in a preventative measure in new units.

[It's strange, to tread this thin line between desiring knowledge and needing ignorance, but if nothing else, the events of the past month have proven it is necessary.]

We will see what the future holds in time, I suppose. There is little we can do at this point but enact this mission.

[In Tohko's opinion, they never needed ignorance. They just needed good ways to hide that they knew things from people that could find out. However, at the thought, Tohko sighed.]

You're right..that probably would happen until we found some way to keep Jason from peering into our heads. But, I'm sure we'll find out some way to keep him at bay soon! For now, we just have to place these chips and see what benefits they'll give us.

Indeed. Until that fateful day, the best we can do is keep as quiet as possible and pretend nothing in the balance of power has changed.

[Which sucks when she sees some of the more downtrodden residents, but it's for a more long lasting happiness.

Or, at least, so she hopes.]

Do you have any more questions, Tohko?

Well..strictly speaking, we're not sure that the balance of power has changed significantly yet. But hopefully it will eventually.

[As for being quiet..Tohko will try her best, but..knowing Tohko, that might not work out so well. At least she won't blab to anyone she knows is bad. However, at the question, she just smiled.]

I think that covers everything right now! If I have any more, I might come to you or Enoch, but for the moment, I'm alright.

Take every moment; you know that you own them

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