towerofanimus | 010 ♃ it's all a game of this or that, now versus then

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010 ♃ it's all a game of this or that, now versus then

Characters: Sheba and... wait for it... YOU! And also closed threads for Asch, Saturos, and Xion.
Setting: The music room and the restaurant for open prompts, and the library, the dorms, and floor 52 for closed prompts!
Format: Brackets because I am too tired to prose at the moment that I'm writing this. But I can switch if you want!
Summary: First, Sheba deals with some fallout regarding a castmate's arrival. Next, she gets distracted by music. Then, she gets hungry and goes on a quest for restaurant food.
Warnings: She's toned down her mind reading by a lot, but may try and peek at your character's thoughts if they say something that makes her curious. It's up to you if she succeeds in finding anything, though! Also, the last prompt may involve character injury or death. c:

[Library - backdated to just after this thread, closed to Asch.]
[This just feels really awkward.

She hasn't met Asch's eyes since he'd essentially chased Saturos away. For as much as she's found out about his past by reading his mind and sifting through his memories (and even that isn't much), she hasn't come anywhere near as close to sharing as much about her own past. Talking about Saturos had been the furthest thing from her mind, anyway - a small part of her had known that even people who had died on their worlds could appear here, but she'd never in a million years thought that she'd see the Proxian again.

She glances at Asch out of the corner of her eye and sighs as they make their way to a more secluded section of the library. She still has no idea what to say, aside from -]

Um... thank you, for before.

[Dorm floor 2 hallway near room 02-05 and 02-06 - backdated to in the evening after the above thread with Asch, closed to Saturos.]
[It's been a long day. Sheba would like nothing more than to fall into bed and sleep (though she knows it's not really a bed), and in fact she has every intention of doing just that as soon as she gets to her room.

But she has to pause as she approaches, because there's a familiar figure - too familiar, and not in the good way - standing at a door right near hers.

She sighs heavily when she realizes what it must be. Great. First they take away Felix and replace him with Saturos, and now his room is this close? She figures she must have really pissed someone off.

Her earlier reprieve had just been temporary, it seemed.]

...Saturos. Hello again.

[Floor 28 music room - not backdated, open.]
[There are more important things she could be doing with her time, and she's aware of that, but sometimes a girl just needs to relax. This is one of them.

It doesn't particularly bother her that the instruments are playing all on their own. She's sitting off a few feet from the staircase, near a harp, munching on some food brought up from the cafeteria for her lunch and watching the strings pluck themselves to try and get an idea of what strings make what sound. She'd never really learned to play an instrument on Weyard, but it was easy to see - or rather, hear - the appeal.]

I guess it's never a bad time to learn something new...

[The words are spoken mostly to herself, but are said out loud - loud enough for someone on the stairs to hear, certainly.]

[Floor 21 restaurant to start - not backdated, open to the first person to reply to it.
NOTE: There's a risk of death/injury in this prompt.]
[It's dinnertime and Sheba's mouth is watering. She knows - knows - that it's not safe to eat at the restaurant, but she can't help it. She's got her eye on some of the dishes they're not serving in the cafeteria, and she just can't get it out of her mind.

If someone else decides to eat with her, she decides, she'll find out what it is they want and they can go hunt down the cost of their meal together. Whether it's a friend or someone she's never really spoken to, she flags down the next person to pass onto the floor with a smile.]

Hey! Were you thinking about eating at the restaurant?

[Floor 52 - July 20, closed to Xion]
[Sheba would be kicking herself if the situation weren't dire. She and Xion are covered in blood, looking rather worse for the wear, and are now in the center of a floor that seems to be made of playing cards. They can't just run for the staircase - being dumped onto the floor by a Floormaster counted for putting up the blockade the same way that stepping onto the floor did.

(Note to self: Next time she and Xion hang out, they leave to catch the elevator before it gets dark, so a Floormaster can't grab them as they're waiting for it to arrive.)

She winces and gets to her feet, looking down at the pattern warily.]

How are we going to get out of this one...?

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They've taken a lot of books from the library. But the books had to go somewhere...

[She wonders if they're down in the administrative levels, or maybe even somewhere else in the Tower. She agrees that the administrators would hardly leave crucial information just lying around, but she thinks that if they learn enough separate parts, they can combine them into something much greater.]

I'd like that a lot. I'd feel better about whatever might come in the next year if I knew for sure that I'd still be able to see the friends I've made here...

Right... and obviously the Admins most know how to do it too. I mean they brought us here, or at least part of us. So they must at least have a good idea of how it works.

[But where would the Admins keep that kinda knowledge hidden away...?]

At least we've got most of a year left to figure it out? I mean... [She pauses right there, blinking a couple of times as another fact just sort of hits her. Slowly she leans back in her chair, managing a quiet chuckle.]

You know what I just realized? I've been here nearly as long as I was in the war back home. It doesn't feel like it was all that long ago...

Really?

[Sheba smiles, but the expression is bittersweet.] It's the same for me. I've been here for almost as long as I was with my friends from Weyard. It's strange to think about, don't you think?

...if we stay here until everything ends one way or another, we'll have been here longer than we were on our worlds during some of the most important years of our lives.

... that's hard to believe, isn't it. By the time this all ends, regardless of how it ends I'll have been here almost three times longer than I was at war. I wonder if my friends back home will even recognize me?

[Not just because she'll be older, but because of how much more experienced she'll be. Being through hell has its perks, she's learned a great deal while she's been here and there's been no shortage of chances to hone her skills further. She's pretty sure her technique's even better by this point than it was when she got here, maybe even near Duessel's level. Maybe.

And on top of that she's learned how to be quite a bit more independent, trusting more in her own skills and judgement. She's had to make some extremely difficult snap decisions here.

One of which happened to involve the girl sitting across from her right now.]

[Sheba wonders more if there's even going to be anyone at home to recognize or not recognize them - but that's exactly the kind of thinking she's been trying to stop herself from falling into. She chuckles a little uneasily and rubs at the back of her head.]

I guess there's only one way to find out, and that's to make it back.

[By now their food has probably already come, been eaten, and gone. It's time for them to get started on paying the restaurant back for all that. A small slip of paper is slid in front of each of them - much like a receipt. If Amelia looks at hers, she'll see what her meal will cost her in clean, crisp handwriting:

One (1) canopic jar.]

[... a what? She's not entirely sure she even knows what that is. Thankfully the momentary feeling of dread is suppressed slightly by the realization it's probably not something off of a monster, which makes this more of an exploration challenge. She blinks a few times at the receipt before setting it back down.]

Alright. That's unexpected, I don't suppose you know what a... canopic jar is? They're probably not talking about just any old jar.

[And it's at this point her mind begins to wander onto the subject of what they might take from her if they can't find it. Would it be an object or like, an actual body part?]

What'd you get?

I don't know...

[~~Lalivero might have been based on Ancient Egypt, but that didn't mean Sheba knew anything about making mummies.~~

She furrows her brow and reaches over to pick up Amelia's receipt, then puffs her cheeks out in annoyance. It would have been nice if they'd been a little more clear about where to find such a thing. ...then again, the Tower wasn't known for being nice.

She looks down at her own receipt and reads it before sighing heavily.]

A hallucinogenic mushroom.

[She's not sure she wants to try tasting every mushroom she finds to figure out if it will work or not.]

[So they need to find a Canopic Jar, whatever the hell that is and a mushroom that'll make you trip out and see shit. One of them they don't even know what it is in the first damn place, let alone where to find one, and the other one doesn't sound much easier to find.

There are floors that she knows has mushrooms, but just grabbing them at random and hoping one does the trick seems a little too reckless. The frown on her face is nothing short of intense right now.]

Well... crap. How long do we have again to find these?

Twenty-four hours, I think.

[It gave them a little leeway. It might be possible for them to head to the library and look up what a "canopic jar" was, or to ask people on the network about where to find these things, but if no one knew or no one was willing to help, and they kept waiting and ran out of time...]

We should probably get started.

[... well crap indeed. 24 hours isn't as bad as it could be, but that still realistically only gives them one day to figure out how the hell they're going to find these things. And that means they should probably be getting on that like... now.

At least it was a damn good meal.]

Yeah, I think you might be right about that... I don't really want to find out the hard way what they're going to take from us if we run out of time. [Hopefully nothing too important if they failed.]

[The meal was totally worth it.

...let's see if she still thinks that in 24 hours, if they fail. Sheba gets up from the table and tucks the receipt with her instructions into the folds of the cloth she uses as a belt, then brushes crumbs away from the front of her clothing.] Do you want to head to the library and see if we can find any information about what a canopic jar is?

That's as good a place to start as any. And I know I've seen some floors with mushrooms on them before... shall we then?

[So she doesn't lose it she tucks her own receipt away under the front of her breastplate, taking a second to readjust Garm on her back and the sword on her belt. 24 hours and the clock is ticking now, so she doesn't wait any longer to leave. Thankfully there's an elevator right on this floor.]

You know, this raises a pretty good question. What do they do with the items people bring them in, and why do they ask for such weird stuff like this?

Yeah, let's go.

[With the elevator so close, it's a simple matter to head over there and press the button to call it down. Sheba crosses her arms and leans against the wall while she waits - it's a few floors up, so it'll take some time for it to get there.]

Who knows? They're pretty strange. It doesn't really seem like there's any rhyme or reason to what they ask for, so I can't think of what they'd do with it all...

[Even on a floor like this it's never a good idea to lower ones guard too far, so as she waits her left hand rests on the hilt of her sword, eyes occasionally darting around the room. Admittedly, a full stomach does make staying alert a lot easier.]

How much do you want to bet Ruana designed this floor? I still don't quite understand the way this place is put together. Why there are some floors that honestly help us while so many seem to exist just to kill us? And then there are floors like this... sometimes it feels like they're just playing with us.

I think Riki is the one who does all of the floors, actually. I talked to him a few months ago, when most of them came down to answer some questions for us... he said he likes to stretch the limits of the possible.

[There's an almost grudging respect in her voice as she says that - testing limits is something she can admire, though she does wish those limits would be tested in such a way that didn't involve her potentially dying if she took a wrong step or couldn't find something.]

It does feel like they're playing games with us, though. I don't think I like being someone's pawn... [Actually, she knows she doesn't like it.]

... neither do I. It's a horrible feeling, isn't it? Reminds me of certain parts of the war I'd really rather forget.

[Ugh. Gheb. Just everything about that sorry excuse for a man. Her face falls for a moment as she remembers that, eyes lingering on the staircase for a moment as if watching for anyone else entering the floor before her attention turns back to Sheba.]

I guess I can see that, some of the floors certainly seem like they stretch limits. I'm still not sure how some of them are even remotely possible. [Even with the occasional Glamour Failure glitches, she hasn't been around any of the more impossible floors long enough to actually figure out the truth behind how they work.]

It is.

[Sheba is silent, watching Amelia in concern as the other girl's face falls and she looks at the staircase. There is clearly something bothering her, but the expression doesn't linger long enough - Amelia has already turned back to her and is talking again. She nods slowly.]

I didn't look around enough when the glamour was down... what I did see still seemed impossible, though. Whoever built this place to begin with must have been a master architect. And Riki just keeps on improving it...

I'd ask to learn how he does it, if I didn't think it was futile. I don't think any of the administrators have much of an interest in teaching us anything.

I kind of get the feeling most of the administrators here don't really care about us outside of using us as either experiments or toys. I haven't heard as much about Riki as I have the others though...

[Although she has wondered about just how far their capabilities go, a building like this must be an incredibly complex mix of technology and magic, right? But hell, to her it's pretty much all magic. Even the more simple floors would probably be quite impressive back home, to say nothing of the stranger ones.]

... and I'm still not used to the whole "coming back after dying" thing.

He doesn't seem so bad, to me. I spoke with him once, when they came up here to answer questions. He seems to really enjoy his work... the building-things part of it, I mean.

[She also likes that trying to read his mind hadn't been painful. It had just been heavily veiled, like a brick wall - much like Dax's had been. But Jason's had hurt, and Zo's... well, maybe she should have known better than to try and read the child's mind.]

It's strange, isn't it? Sometimes, when we would fall in battle back home, it would be possible to bring us back. We could go to a Sanctum and a priest would do it, or else Felix... sorry, I mean a friend of mine... would use Psynergy to raise us. There were some Djinn that could do it, too. But I'm not sure if falling in battle was the same thing as death, because then, if the priests could truly raise the dead... why did people still die?

...I've been brought back from what might have been death before coming here, but I never expected it to happen the way it does here.

... yeah. Part of what makes it so strange is that I always thought it was... well. Impossible. I knew a sorcerer back home who tried it, they even did it twice. But what came back weren't really... people anymore.

[There's some obvious distress on her face as she says that, this bringing back a whole torrent of unpleasant memories. How the war started, what happened to Emperor Vigarde and Orson's wife... her hand instinctively tightens around the hilt of her sword for a second just remembering it.]

I guess I'm lucky, I've only died once so far here. But it's still... I can tell it's not something you're supposed to come back from.

Death is meant to be permanent. It's meant to be the final end of all things.

[It was why you ought to honor the memories of those who had died and cherish the time you had with the people who were still alive. If death was something you could just walk away from, then where was the value in living?]

The way it seems to mean next to nothing here... it's just another thing that makes this place unnatural.

[She sighs heavily.]

And I don't mean that just in the sense that they keep finding us new bodies to put our souls into when something happens to the ones we're using. The attitude the administrators have towards death... the way they talk about what might happen in a year... the way they treat us as if we're they're toys. That's unnatural, too.

... yeah. I suppose you're not supposed to be around afterwards to talk about what death is like. I can see why, it sucks.

[For a moment she finds herself just kind of staring intently at the wall, memories of the war and all those who had fallen rushing back. How many had died for no reason? Solely because Lyon wanted more power?]

They remind me of my first commander, in a way. I forget exactly how he phrased it, but he kept telling us about how we should be glad to die for someone as important as him, and how nobody would even blink twice about any of us dying. How little our lives really meant.

[The corner of her lips upturns ever so slightly, almost a smirk that she barely manages to suppress.]

... I ended up running him through about two hours later. I kind of wish I could do the same to certain administrators here.

[Amelia's description of her commander makes Sheba's lips press into a thin line and her brows furrow. "How little our lives really meant"? Sheba wants to say that clearly the man is a fool, clearly he doesn't know what they're talking about - but then there's a hint of a smirk on Amelia's face and she's continuing. What she says makes Sheba blink in surprise.]

You killed your commanding officer?

[She'd seen men killed and imprisoned in Tolbi for less. It seems strange to her that Amelia can talk about it so casually, but then, there's no one here who holds sway over her for any actions she would have taken on her homeworld, now is there?]

What he said was unforgivable... but you must have been very strong even then, to have survived whatever retaliation came from that.

...sometimes I wish someone would do something like that to some of the administrators, too.

... yeah, it wasn't ea- [She stopped mid-sentence as she realized what she'd said and that Sheba wasn't even from her world, something that caused her eyes to widen slightly. Oh dear, that could have come across all wrong! ... well, even if she technically had been a traitor.]

Err, that was far from the only reason though. I never told you about it did I? The war that I was in back home? The entire reason I joined the army was because I admired one of the men in charge, General Duessel... I wanted to fight for the glory of our Emperor and our country, but it wasn't that simple. After I actually arrived on the front lines...

[She trailed off again for a moment, letting her back lean against the wall as she let out a sigh. This wasn't the most pleasant memory to talk about, but it was a key part of who and what she was. And she'd already admitted to turning on her first commander, which made it all the more important to explain.]

They pretty much told me to grab a lance and get to the front. In hindsight, they were using us recruits to wear down the enemy, the whole point was for us to get killed weakening them so the veteran soldiers could finish them off. And that's when I heard the truth. Grado had invaded all of our neighbors at the same time and betrayed our long-time ally, Renais. We murdered their King, left their country in ruins and didn't so much as lift a finger to maintain order afterwards. General Duessel had been opposed to the war from the beginning... and when our commander said how little our lived mattered? Something neither General Duessel or Emperor Vigarde would have ever told a soldier?

[Her off hand tightens slightly around the hilt of her sword, it's the closest thing she has to a stress ball and a habit she's developed recently whenever she's thinking about something unpleasant.]

That's when I realized the Grado I wanted to fight for and the Grado I was fighting for were two different things. So I made the decision to join Prince Ephraim of Renais, and join him in trying to put a stop to it. I guess that would make me a traitor... but I couldn't keep fighting for a madman.

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010 ♃ it's all a game of this or that, now versus then

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