towerofanimus | 1 - Not the WORST Awakening...

Characters: Annika Whittenberg and anyone else
Setting: Cafeteria, floor 5 viewing stations, and dorms.
Format: Prose to start, but I'm fine with replying to whichever.
Summary: Seasoned adventurers don't take these sorts of sudden life changes nearly as bad as some. Annika's so seasoned she's positively dried out and dessicated, so she's taking her arrival to the tower fairly well. At first.
Warnings: Undead are gross?

[Cafeteria]

There's yet another new arrival to the tower, one that seems to be taking the whole matter fairly well in stride. For Annika is certain this 'world has been destroyed' business is a bunch of nonsense. Because she's been in strange places, and managed to escape from strange places. And because everyone looks so interesting. Mostly human, mostly... and as far as she can tell, nary another member of the Horde in sight.

She picked up her bowl of oatmeal from the cafeteria staff, stuck a spoon in it, started for an empty table... then hesitated, looked about the place, and made for an occupied one instead. Perhaps the locals would have better information than that simple little letter.

"Hello there!" Yes, that is is a very dead-looking lady approaching you, clutching the newcomer's bowl of oatmeal and smiling. Her eyes have a sickly glow. She smells a bit bad. And she wants to talk to you. "This is a funny kind of place, isn't it?"

[Floor 5 - Viewing Stations]

Any optimism that Annika had managed to gather up at breakfast had been quite rapidly snuffed out. It only took five floors of climbing to find the viewing stations and to see what they were put there to demonstrate. That was Azeroth, blown into pieces, shattered even worse than Outland, for Outland at least held some life within it. There was nothing, nothing remaining with a flicker of life to it. Not even the Scourge, not even the Burning Legion's demons... nothing.

"What could even do such a thing...? How is it even possible?" She pulled away, rubbed at her face, then dipped back in to stare some more. "I've never... never in all I've seen... never heard of even an indication that this..."

It's so astonishing that it has to be said aloud. Everyone needs to hear it. No one needs to hear it. But she has no time to seek about with her eyes for anyone paying her words any mind. She adjusts the viewfinder, continuing to stare in fearful awe.

[Dorms - Room 1-05]

The scent of heavily-perfumed potpourri hangs in the air, and it's especially strong around the bed of the newest arrival to the room. She's sitting upon that aforementioned bed, some rough fabric from the workshop in her lap, busy at work with a needle and thread. And quite engrossed with her work. To work was to put bleaker thoughts out of mind, at least for a little while. And to work was to be useful.

Maybe you're out in the hall and the perfume is making your nose itch. Or maybe you live in the room, too, and it's time to start negotiating a proper roommate agreement...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The look that Enoch is giving her is a familiar one. There's recognition there. And a cascade of emotions springing from that recognition. But he's trying to reply. It seems more like embarrassment than fear. Maybe he could be a friend rather than a foe. Or at least friendly. She'll have to be her very kindest, her most professional, her most helpful.

"I'm sorry if I'm a little more peculiar than most. I just woke up here, and I'm feeling my way around. I... don't suppose you'd be alright with answering a question or two?" She stands a little straighter, holds her head a little higher. Maybe it will help to banish thoughts of shambling and slumped Scourge from this man's mind.

"Of course." He moves his food a little closer to himself, freeing up the center of the table in invitation for her to sit across from him.

He may still be tense, but that's not even entirely because of her presence. She's a newcomer, so he'll do what he can to help get her up to speed. That much won't change no matter what this place does to him - precisely because it can do so much to him.

She hesitates a moment when Enoch makes that silent motion to offer a spot to sit, but then decides to take advantage of it. She sets her bowl down, then sets herself down, all the while smiling at the man.

"The trip on the elevator down to here was incredibly long! This place must be enormous. Is the exit anywhere nearby?" If the oatmeal weren't a giveaway that she was new, if she hadn't said as much, that statement would be a dead giveaway. She stirs the oatmeal in her bowl while waiting for a response.

"There isn't an exit we can reach. There are a hundred and six levels we can freely move about, and then many more below us where our hosts live, some of which existed before them and they never use."

That was all right; he'd see to correcting that. The whole point of this conversation was to help her get up to speed.

This was getting her up to speed at a positively breakneck pace. She stopped stirring her oatmeal quite abruptly.

"Oh. There's... no exit? We're trapped in this place? It seems roomy enough, at least..." She let her gaze wander for a moment, the oatmeal-stirring resuming, as she turned matters about in her head. And then her head snapped sharply (not quite humanly) about, so she could fix her eyes on Enoch once more.

"What do they intend for us to do, exactly? Simply... exist? We were 'saved', or so said the note that I received. Is that accurate? Was any of it accurate?"

"Yes, the notes are accurate. The person who wrote them truly does wish happiness for us, but he is not the only host. There are five-...four of them, and each has their own designs for us."

He couldn't believe that had slipped. He'd gone so long without doing that. The pain of losing Dax, for a moment, hurt anew.

Annika hadn't missed that he slipped up on how many 'hosts' that there were. Was that relevant? Did that mean something? But there were other questions that she'd rather ask, first. Ones that seemed, suddenly, very important.

"What sort of designs? What do the rest of them want us for?"

"Ruana is their leader. We're as good as dolls to her, and she plays 'games' with us that are only enjoyable to herself. Jason is the physician here, and he performs experiments. In truth, there's little difference between his experiments and Ruana's games. Lastly, Riki is the architect. He doesn't appear or speak to us often, and his motivations are a mystery. There are things he does to us, but it's hard to say what they are, other than the one we know meant to distract us while he worked on expanding the tower."

The games didn't seem to bother her. Her expression remained mostly blank. But the talk of the physician performing experiments made her stiffen visibly, and so suddenly that her knee and elbow joints ground audibly against themselves. The existence of an architect barely registered in her mind.

"We're specimens. Do they expect specimens to be happy? I know how experiment-performers handle their specimens."

There's a simmering anger in her tone.

Enoch did catch that, and he looked down at the table. "He didn't write that note. Despite having a leader, each of them seems...independent of one another."

"Who did write the note, then? And what's their particular... tic?" She still sounds very, very unhappy.

"Zo. He's only a child, so he doesn't understand just how wrong everything else is yet. He grew up with the others, after all..."

1 - Not the WORST Awakening...

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