First Blood; Arrival and Exploration

[sacrament_of_blood]

Characters: Merciless and you
Setting: Dorm room 1-17, the 99th floor, the 30th floor staircase, and the 1st floor cafeteria, all on the 14th.
Format: Prose, but use whatever you like and I'll respond in kind
Summary: A confused death cultist finds herself in the Tower
Warning: Blood, gore, decapitated head, possible crazy talk about death being a wonderful thing. Also, shadow child, but she's ignoring hers.

Room 1-17
The door's been left open. What looks like a teenager in a violet collar and the white jumpsuit is sitting on a previously unused bed, hugging to herself like a teddy bear the decapitated head of a woman with short blonde hair. Next to her, the introductory letters're  laid out on the bed, and she appears to have an expression of deep thought. One of the shadow children showed up while she was still reflecting on the letters she'd read, and it's now next to her going on and on, saying things only she hears like "My blood's on your hands", "We were friends and you killed me", "You couldn't save your people", and so on. She's completely ignoring it, after a brief experimental swipe of her hand had passed harmlessly through it.

Floor 99
By now, she's ventured out to explore the floors below. The last two floors'd confused her and she'd written off floor 100 in particular as more foul trickery like the shadow child. But this one was so utterly unlike the other floors that she could only step out onto the crystalline floor from the elevator and stare around herself in amazement at the crystal caves. For this moment, her expression's filled with nothing but simple wonder at this strange and beautiful environment. Not even the ever-present shadow child could distract her.

Floor 30, Staircase
Blood is smeared everywhere in the staircase, which's littered with assorted monster corpses she'd dragged out.from the floor after being forced to retreat the first time. Said corpses bear wounds looking like something'd cut perfectly through them, and many're in a messy state of dismemberment. Much of the blood on the walls forms what seems like random scribbles of things like suns and houses and people and monsters. There're also illegible glyphs, as well as written warnings consisting of "The stairs here are fragile. Dangerous creatures prowl inside the darkness, some with an untouchable nature." The writings squirm strangely, seeming to change into more easily understandable forms as you look at them.

In the midst of this mess, she stands bloodstained, working on another set of writings. This one starts with "She walked though the hallways, and in the midst She entered the valley of death. Revelations filled Her eyes, and She saw the blood that needs to flow, the bodies that need to be broken, the world that needs Her bloodied touch. And thus She..."

Floor 1, Cafeteria
She walks in, blood covering much of herself and her formerly white jumpsuit from head to foot. To shut out her shadow child's tedious prattling, she'd plugged her ears with little bone pieces carved out from the earlier monster corpses, However, she's now removing the bone plugs as it hadn't done anything to block out the shadow child. Unmindful of her gruesome state, she looks around as if searching for something.

Comments

Room 1-17

[stitchedupbodyguard]

Veronica had come back to her room to put her package with the trunk. She paused in the doorway at the sight of the rooms newest member. She knew there was four beds in the room, but she hadn't seen anyone else in here before.

"Uh... h-hello?"

[sacrament_of_blood]

Merciless looked up at the arrival. This was an odd looking girl, similar to some of the more stitched up corpses she'd seen but still alive and moving. And her scent... Death, lots of it. A killer. One that brings Her gift to the world. This actually relaxed her, and she lowered the severed head into her lap.

"Greetings."

She'd been trained to speak formally so much that anything else was strange to her. But her demeanor and tone was surprisingly cheerful.

[stitchedupbodyguard]

Veronica could smell death in her own way. Her heightened senses had picked up the scent of blood before she saw it and left her on edge. The girl made Veronica a little nervous as well, what with her dark look, not to mention the severed head in her lap.

"I, uh..." she stood awkwardly in the doorway, not sure if she should enter or not. The shadow child got a quick glare. "I guess you just woke up, right?"

[sacrament_of_blood]

"Indeed, I did. The letters provided little explanation. I would almost think it a trick of the Empty Ones."

Seeing the glare at the shadow child, Merciless frowned at it as well. Suddenly, her hand lashed swiftly at it with clear lethal intent, but passed through ineffectually. Then she returned to ignoring it.

[stitchedupbodyguard]

"You can't hurt them." Veronica sighed and shook her head. "The most you can do is try to ignore and avoid them. They're not actually anyone you know."

She walked in to her bed and set the package down. Her own shadows were gone, for the moment anyway. She turned to Merciless and bowed respectfully.

"My name's Veronica. You are?"

[sacrament_of_blood]

"Yes, it was already evident it was mere trickery." Deciding not to deign the shadow child worthy of additional comment, Merciless instead set aside the severed head and stood up to return the bow. Not precisely the manners she was used to, but it was polite to respond in like kind.

"I was gifted with the name Merciless." She glanced down at the head on her bed and, after a moment of thought, picked it back up to hold it out. "Would you like to hold Rose?"

[stitchedupbodyguard]

"Merciless? I've never heard that name before."

She stares for a minute at the head.

"I uh... not really, but thank you for asking. Why do you have a severed head with you?"

Veronica briefly wonders if it's another, badly timed roommate. She ignores it for now.

[sacrament_of_blood]

"It is a sacred name filled with virtue," Merciless answers as if reciting something she'd been told. Then, "I bear it with pride." That sounds less recited.

Putting the head back onto the bed, she answers, "I sleep better when I have something to hold. It is comforting. I am glad to have found Rose arrived with me." She indicates the trunk with her foot. "I would have had to find a replacement for her otherwise."

[stitchedupbodyguard]

"..."

Veronica sits down on her own bed, keeping an eye on Merciless at all times.

"...You sleep with a severed head."

It wasn't really a question, more of a statement just so she could be sure she heard it like that.

Floor 1

[kindofademon]

"Well, you're a mess."

Ryuunosuke, munching on a nutrition bar in between sentences, approaches her and looks her over. Yep, that's definitely blood. He would know it pretty well, serial killer and all. Still, usually washing before you show up in public is a good idea.

"How much of this blood is yours?"

[sacrament_of_blood]

"I do not know for certain. Some would be mine, but most would have belonged to the strange creatures I encountered while journeying down the Tower. A hundred floors seem slightly far to travel for a meal." Not to mention hazardous. She had nearly died several times.

She takes a sniff, drawing in his scents with the keenness of a bloodhound and the spiritual sensitivity of a divine vessel. Taking particular note of how much he smells of blood, death, or both.

[kindofademon]

"The elevator's way faster," Ryuunosuke points out. "Doesn't stop on every floor, but it stops here, and monsters don't live in it."

(How can she smell blood on him with all that blood on her, he might wonder.)

[sacrament_of_blood]

"Elevator?" Merciless says as if the word is foreign to her.

(Magic, and the metaphorical rather than literal scent of blood, in short.)

[kindofademon]

"Thing you ride in that goes up and down. Alternative to stairs."

[sacrament_of_blood]

"My apologies, but could you clarify further?"

[kindofademon]

"Welllll, it's like a box. A really big box. And when you get in the box, it's pulled on ropes up and down, so you can go up and town in the tower without having to walk yourself. Does that make sense?" Ryuunosuke asked.

[sacrament_of_blood]

"I shall have to seek it out." A pause. "I seem either afflicted with something, or the creatures in this tower are inedible."

Room 1-17

[warriorscribe]

*Well, whoever left the door open was rather inconsiderate. Monsters could get into this room. He's about to close it as a courtesy when he realizes there's someone inside.

...Someone in the newbie suit holding a severed head. Well...it wasn't as if he hadn't kept the severed hand that had been mailed to him, he realizes with that sickening feeling of one just coming to realize he might be unwell in a way he'd never thought of.

But he shakes it off. Maybe that head is like the hand he got...*

Are you all right?

[sacrament_of_blood]

I cannot discern any sense in this letter. [Merciless indicates the arrival letter she'd gotten, the one about her world having been destroyed and her being rescued. She doesn't mention anything about the severed head. Indeed, she gives it a pat.]

[warriorscribe]

"Ah..." An uneasy look at the severed head. They made it for her?

"Well...it's true, even if it makes no sense for your world. The thing that destroys our worlds pays their rules no mind."

[sacrament_of_blood]

"If it ignores the laws of the world, then it would truly be a perverse and evil thing."

Noticing Enoch's look at the head, she holds it out. "Want to hold Rose?"

[warriorscribe]

Enoch nods at the response to the destroyer's description, his eyes hardening for a moment - the exact moment between that and the offer.

"Ah...Rose? Was she a friend of yours?"

He isn't sure what to make of this. Was she driven mad by loss? (again, of course, remembering he's stored Armaros's severed hand somewhere safe instead of getting rid of it...)

[sacrament_of_blood]

"I gave her the name Rose after I sent her into the valley of death. She has become a good friend and allows me to hold her to help me sleep better."

[warriorscribe]

"You..."

Enoch looks noticeably disturbed.

"You killed her?"

Needless to say, even as much as others have to be taken at their word, this particular case isn't something he thinks of in those terms. He sees someone with a very disturbed mind before him, rather than someone who can literally speak to the dead.

[sacrament_of_blood]

"I sent her soul to safety with her gods and family. She was about to lose herself to the Emptiness."

Merciless hugs the head to her own chest. "I am not a spirit speaker, but if I was, she would thank me. It is a terrible fate to be devoured by the Empty Ones."