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

[stitchedupbodyguard]

It takes Veronica a moment but she starts nodding slowly.

"Y-yes, that's true. She is most likely dead. It's just... I've never met someone who is so... friendly with dead things."

Unless that head was about to come to life or something. Then it would all be okay.

[sacrament_of_blood]

"Yes. She is within the arms of the gods. It surprised me to hear that you had never..."

She tilts her head. She had thought Veronica one of the People of blood with how much death she smelled of, but perhaps not.

"I talk to Rose, but the spirit speakers are better able to get an answer from the dead," she explains. "Still, they hear us."

[stitchedupbodyguard]

"You talk to the dead? That's amazing."

The talk of gods and spirit speakers was a surprising turn for Veronica. She had never really believed in things like this, Fran would be astounded.

"We don't have stuff like that in my world, you're just able to do that?"

[sacrament_of_blood]

There was actually an expression of surprise upon Merciless's face.

"Anyone can, but only the spirit speakers can reliably get an answer. I only hear back from them at occasion. Still, they enjoy hearing news about those still in the valley of life."

She didn't seem to realize just how unusual even getting an occasional answer was.

[stitchedupbodyguard]

The surprise was noted with a small smirk.

"Death really does hold beauty, no matter who it claims."

She shook her head. "I guess I forgot to tell you. You're now in the Tower of Animus."

[sacrament_of_blood]

"Indeed, death is beautiful." That caused her to slip into a brief reverie.

Then she heard Veronica's explanation and blinked. Animus. Where'd she hear that? Dim memories of the many readings she was forced through, texts and texts speaking about death, souls, blood, and other such holy subjects. A dim recollection of a text using particularly confusing terminology, which she'd had to ask for explanation about.

After a very visible pause as she struggled to recollect the meaning of that word, she said tentatively, "The Tower of Spirit?"

[stitchedupbodyguard]

Veronica's head tilted in confusion. "Spirit? That's what it means? Well it makes sense since we're all trapped here."

She explained further. "Everyone here is from a different world, even you and me. That's a little hard to believe, isn't it?"

[sacrament_of_blood]

"We are from different worlds?" There was a definite note of confusion in her voice. As far as she knew there was the realm of life, the realm of death which the gods claimed as their realm, and the realm of emptiness. And this place... it was none of those. All this was falling completely outside her worldview.

"This is not the world of life, nor death, nor emptiness," she stated as if those're the only three worlds. Her brain was very clearly locking up. Then, after a moment, she asks, "What world, then, would this be? And where would you hail from?"

[stitchedupbodyguard]

"I don't know what kind of world this place is." Veronica shrugged. "I think it might be just this tower."

Which sounded pretty bad when she thought about it. Nothing but this tower? What a horrifying thought.

"Where I'm from? I'm from Earth, specifically Japan. Well, my own earth I guess. This place is pretty strange, but honestly, back home was a little stranger."

[sacrament_of_blood]

"Earth.. Would not that be the same world as mine?" Merciless didn't seem to have grasped the concept of multiple worlds named Earth.

She pondered the concept of a world consisting of only this tower. The world of... spirit? For the moment she would think of it as that.

[stitchedupbodyguard]

Veronica shrugged. "I don't know, maybe we're from the same world."

Could she be from Veronica's world? Was that possible? "What happens in your earth?"

[sacrament_of_blood]

"We the People of Blood, are in a holy war against the Empty Ones who threaten our very souls and the souls of every person in the world of the living."

Surely that must be why Veronica had so much of the smell of death. She must be a holy warrior like Merciless herself. So Merciless logically, at least in her own mind, concluded.

[stitchedupbodyguard]

Holy war? Then it was impossible wasn't it? Veronica shook her head.

"Sorry, last time I checked, my world didn't have a holy war going on."

[sacrament_of_blood]

This revelation filled Merciless with yet more confusion. She had been feeling a great deal of that today. "Then would you tell me about your world?"

[stitchedupbodyguard]

"In my world there's nothing threatening our souls, it's mostly normal life. Humans are usually fighting and killing each other for whatever reason though. I'm the protector of my home and my sister, who's a doctor."

[sacrament_of_blood]

"Your sister must have many threatening her," Merciless observed. Meantime, she was attempting to fit this new information into her mental cosmology. If there are multiple worlds of life, multiple earths, then they must all be connected to the world of death. The thought that a world might be connected to different gods, or to none, completely failed to occur to her.

If so, then this world of spirit must also be connected to many worlds of life. And clearly there is at least one world of life not connected to the world of emptiness, so that could not be said to be universal. A good thing, truly.

[stitchedupbodyguard]

"Hundreds. I've killed more people than anyone should have to."

Despite the statement, she couldn't help but grin.

"It's exhilarating for a warrior to go into battle so many times though. All of the blood, the fights. Sure I've died a few times, but it all works out."

[sacrament_of_blood]

"It is truly a wonderful thing to part their flesh apart and see the rivers of blood flowing, and know that you are doing the right thing."

She paused. "You have known death and yet returned?"

[stitchedupbodyguard]

Veronica nodded. "Yup. A few times actually. I was even sort of created from death. You could call me undead if you wanted to, I guess."

[sacrament_of_blood]

An uneasiness settled into Merciless's stomach. "Death should remain death."

She stared down at her hands, unsure what to say.

[stitchedupbodyguard]

"Oh..." Veronica suddenly felt her own unease.

"W-well, I can't die just yet. I have a duty to uphold, the very reason I was created was to protect my family." She explained. "How can I protect them if I'm dead?"

[sacrament_of_blood]

Usually Merciless would flat out condemn this person as an abomination. But something in her did not want it to end like that. Not recognizing the desire for a friend who could understand the joys of killing instead of being terrified, she decides to label it as an intuition that she should not be so quick to condemn Veronica. She had gotten divine inspirations like those before.

Ah. There already was something in Veronica's words to give her a convenient excuse explanation for that intuition. She speaks up, "But you spoke of being born from death. Our guardian creatures are also born from corpses. You must be one of those, except that you can think and speak. Thus, there is nothing wrong in your existence."

She seems to perk up after saying that, as if she had resolved the matter.

[stitchedupbodyguard]

"Guardian creatures?" Veronica stated. Throughout the conversation she had scanned Merciless's body language. It was all normal until that last bit where she began to seem uncomfortable.

Now Veronica didn't really understand this other world where Merciless was from. Her talk of death and war was a bit jarring compared to her own world. It was nice to have someone that understood her love of fighting though, and wasn't freaked out at the revelation of who Veronica really was.

She nodded approvingly. "Yeah, that's what I am. A guardian."

[sacrament_of_blood]

Satisfaction that the matter had been resolved filled Merciless. She had nearly made a grave mistake there. It was good that she could continue conversing with this person. Then something from earlier in the conversation came back to her mind. "You spoke of us being trapped within this tower?"

[stitchedupbodyguard]

"Yeah, apparently we're all trapped here by these people called Admins and we can't ever go home."

She shook her head.

"Doesn't mean any of us are going to stop trying."