(no subject)

[cullscuttlefish]

Characters: TEAM 'POKE STUFF WITH A STICK AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS' (which is still open to anyone topside!)
Setting: starting at Floor 56, extending to the other terribad floors (16, 26, 43, 44, 59)
Format: starting in prose, either is fine in comments!
Summary: The exhaustion effects are worse on certain floors, so time to get our investigating on.
Warnings: Standard Tower warnings apply (psychological horror, possible physical horror, I'll edit this if worse comes up)

It wasn't a bad plan. 'Look for something that doesn't belong and see if it's on the other bad floors, and if it's there, we'll figure it out'. It was simple.

That, of course, meant things couldn't possibly go easily, Feferi thought as she made her way down the stairs. Still, she remained optimistic as she approached the entrance to floor 56.

"All right. Let's do this."

She tightened the grip on her trident. The monsters might have been gone, but who knew what else might be lurking? Better to be ready for anything.

[OOC: Now with shiny chip searching and EMP team threads!]

Comments

[athousandcurses]

Grainne followed Feferi, her knife manifesting and she could call her cup at any time if needed. She hesitated though before the entrance, since she wasn't sure if this would work. No reason not to try, though. Pushing on was the only way.

"Lady Feferi, maybe I should send in my Noble Phantasm now before we go in. I can feel a drain already, and we should not linger longer than we have to." She took a folded map out of a pocket in her cloak, pulling it open to reveal a detailed outline of Floor Fifty-six. She had found it and copies of several of the other dangerous floors in the pile of reports and papers in the Hidden Floor. "I have a map here. I thought it would be useful."

[cullscuttlefish]

"Just Feferi, please. I'm not the empress to the throne anymore."

The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them.

"I'll explain later." She gives a sheepish grin, then nods her head in agreement. "For now, I think if you've got a way to check things before we go in, that's going to be for the best. Don't push yourself too much, though."

[athousandcurses]

"I--" Grainne was about to say she had no idea about Feferi's actual title, she only used it as a courtesy. It didn't really matter if she was a scullery maid to Grainne, she'd treat her the same.

"All right, just Feferi." Shaking her head, she rolled up the maps again and held them out. "I won't. As a Servant, I can last much longer than others might, so do not worry for me. Shall I leave these maps with you?"

[cullscuttlefish]

"Sorry. That came out a lot harsher than I intended."

Feferi turns, smiling apologetically. "The short version is that I was the heiress to the throne back home, but I abdicated. It gets conchplicated."

She nods, taking the maps. "That sounds like a plan. Thank you."

drops placeholder whee

[fionnuisce]

"Before we begin, I'd like to express slight concern about floor sixteen." Waver remarked, turning a small glass vial over in his right hand.

"A bottomless pit of death isn't very conducive to an easy search of the area. However, I have a weapon designed at least in part for scouting that can reach a fair distance from the stairs. In other words, please leave that floor to me if possible so we can avoid any unfortunate accidents."

[neverbeamemory]

Of course he meant that dratted handmaiden, but Sephiroth would refuse to comment in this instance. He was much too tired already to want or need much more animosity than had already passed between them.

"I might be able to assist, to a certain extent at least."

Sephiroth's power in the telekinesis that enabled him to fly was touch-and-go currently, on account of his powers transitioning into reality again. Chances were it might fail and drop him mid-flight but it felt only right to put it out as another option at least.

Death by exhaustion or death by bottomless pit; was still dead either way.

[fionnuisce]

"I would sooner approach a sleeping Ruana while carrying several ringing alarm clocks and blasting an air horn before I would go anywhere near a pit of death with you in pushing range."

No uncertain terms here, nope.

"Volumen Hydragyrum can search a floor on its own. With all due respect--which when it comes to you, is very little--I can efficiently handle that floor alone."

[cullscuttlefish]

"...are you two done yet?"

Feferi crosses her arms across her chest and taps a foot loudly, glaring daggers at both of them in turn.

"You can bicker all you want once we get back. For right now, I don't want anyone falling into a death trap. Who knows when you'd be revived again, with things like they are? It's not worth it. If there's a way to avoid having anyone killed, I think it's the better way to go."

CHIP CHIP SEARCH-O-LUTION

[cullscuttlefish]

[Name the floor! Let's find some stuff.]

Floor 56

[cullscuttlefish]

[Well, here goes nothing. Feferi doesn't actually say she's taking point, but she moves towards the front of the group, trident out. The energy drain is pretty strong, but so far she's steady on her feet, scanning the floor methodically.]

Okay. Like I've said, what we're looking for is something that doesn't belong here. Something like a reely modern piece of equipment or somefin...

Floor 56

[neverbeamemory]

[He hates this floor anyway.

Almost as much as Sephiroth feels the too-noticeable way his energy feels being drawn out of him by a straw the moment he steps out from the stairwell into the hospital ward. He's one of the group of them that has already had their reserves depleted by checking out another floor before coming up to the Hidden one in the first place.

Almost within a minute the floor sways beneath Sephiroth as the first prickling of hallucination threatens to break into reality for him; he's keenly aware that he can't let it and for one moment questions whether it's a good idea for him to be here. What if they are being watched?

He pauses and rests his forearm against a nearby wall, peering after Feferi.]

If it's anything like -what I saw on another floor- Electronic chips.

[cullscuttlefish]

...did you say electronic chips?

[Feferi's eyes widen. She knows all too well what a well-placed chip in this place will do. She knows, because she placed several of them.

...and then the glamour had gone down for the first time.]

If that's the case, he's -

[She has to brace herself against her trident for a moment. The room seems to spin, but she manages to shake it off.]

- playing our own game against us.

on floor 15 searching floor 16

[fionnuisce]

Fervor mei sanguis.

[He was careful not to enter the floor yet; better to save that for when it was necessary and the energy drain couldn't be avoided. When whatever was down there needed to be dealt with directly, then he could risk his life like an idiot.]

[From the workshop floor, Waver poured out a vial of liquid mercury that immediately began to move; it came to life and slipped downstairs, forming a tall serpentine figure as it stopped on floor sixteen.]

Automatoportum quaerere. [In response to Waver's invocation, the liquid rooted itself to the stairs and immediately split into multiple thin tendrils to reach out through the air to begin searching.]

[miseris_socios]

[Ken watches Waver, leaning on his spear a bit.]

One day you're going to have to teach me what that stuff means.

[Yes, teach the tiny Japanese boy Latin when his English is still terrible, this cannot possibly go badly.]

[fionnuisce]

All I learned were basic incantations, along with a handful I developed later. I certainly can't speak the language itself. [Shrugging, Waver lit a cigarette and watched the flowing mercury.]

The initial invocation could probably be roughly translated to 'let my blood boil' or something similar. 'Automatoportum quaerere' is just 'automated search', which is exactly what it sounds like.

Floor 26

[athousandcurses]

[Grainne is getting tired just from standing on the staircase, but she rubs her forehead and forces herself to go on. She's a Servant, she can last longer than this.

Taking a deep breath, she summons her cup in preparation for her search, but pauses when just summoning it takes too much energy.

All she wants to do is sit down... but that would be a death sentence at the rate this drain is.

With a wave of her hand, she sends the first of her water orbs inside the morgue.]

[oathshackledbird]

[Diarmuid is suppose to be resting--he had promised Waver--but after sitting still for so long and not really feeling any stronger, he just can't sit still anymore. There is just too much to do and as long as he can still move at all, he wants to be helping. That is why he has made his way--much more slowly than usual--to the 26th floor. He was thinking of checking out the 16th floor, which is the lowest affected floor, but he can sense Waver on that floor and running into him is just going to mean a trip back up to the hidden floor.

He is surprised, though, to find that Floor 26 isn't empty. Grainne looks so tired, though, that he can't just pass by. Perhaps if they work together, they can get through the floor a little faster? It's not exactly an easy one to check, after all. It might not be a bottomless pit like Floor 16, but it does have a lot of places to look.]

Mind if I lend a hand?

[They might not be getting along that well, but he trusts her to know this isn't the time to deal with those things just like he knows it isn't the time. That can come later when they aren't being drained of their very life forces.]

[athousandcurses]

[Grainne starts slightly, not expecting his voice of all of the ones that stayed above. She almost has half a mind to send him down to Sixteen to help with Waver, but with the drain being so strong...

She nods.]

I can do it on my own, but it takes more effort than I thought... You... haven't seen it yet, have you?

[She points to the glowing up in front of her, and it's obvious where she got the drawings on the note she sent him weeks ago.]

If you could place some of my orbs before I start the search, that might help. Don't get any on your face by accident.

Stairwell - Floor 44

[neverbeamemory]

[It's been hard going to get down to this floor. The exhaustion pulls unrelentingly at all of them and for those that had already started at a lesser-level of energy than others it's starting to take it's toll.

Despite all of his persistent pausing to get over this-or-that hallucination, or simply refocus himself into staying awake, at somewhere passed Floor 50 Sephiroth misses his first step on the way down. An uttered obscenity is hissed as he lands hard, half-way up a stairwell, with steps jarring his back on account of his height; well, that certainly woke him up more.

Though adding the dull throbbing of regenerating bruised flesh to the sensation of having ones life being sucked out only proves more of an encumbrance and Sephiroth falls behind by the time the group reaches Floor 44. His collar is lighter than before and he's using the wall to carefully guide himself down each set of stairs.

He sits on the bottom step leading onto the landing of Floor 44, with his head rested against the wall. Watching the others through heavy-lidded eyes as they split into two, three-

He just needs to rest, if only for a little while.]

/slides in here

[floreatnoctem]

Well now.

[Chidori's feet come into view, having witnessed the fall and paused before turning back. Her tone is light and neutral, as is her expression- though her arms are crossed and her posture is, for all intents and purposes, somewhat smug. Being used to being sapped of energy by things she cannot control, Chidori is an expert in pushing herself well past her limits without letting on.

Watching him falter is... satisfying.]

I didn't think it had gotten quite that bad just yet.

o-ho!

[neverbeamemory]

[Two dark blobs on the floor directly in front of Sephiroth pass in and out of focus between heavy-lidded squint-blinks of his eyes. He's very nearly asleep with his head against the wall like that. He doesn't think they are feet at all.

He thinks he hears something mumbled above-down at him though and though he didn't register what was said it does prompt Sephiroth to roughly set his jaw and make the all-too difficult motion to turn his head up at her. White face within a bright red mass of hair is all he really sees. Though somewhere in his half-awake state he knows he's being talked to, and then catches up with the dialog after a delay. Stubbornly he blinks a few more times and shakes his head -narrowly missing bashing it on the side of the wall- as if to dispel this recent almost-undeniable wave of tiredness.

He is better than this. Everyone else is holding it together and he's the one that's flaking. Never mind the weeks he's had before this, never mind that he's already exposed himself to these more-affected floors before, Sephiroth should be better than this. Yet, his ego is still bruised even if it is coming together again- so that thought is second guessed as he narrows dark-rimmed eyes up at the face he assume is there but can't make out the details.]

Speak for yourself.

EMP TEAM, ASSEMBLE

[cullscuttlefish]

[And once we know about the chips' locations, we can hit them with an EMP.]

[have a finished EMP gun]

[deloreandriver]

[Marty sets the last part in place, and grins as he hears the thing whir into life when he flips the switch. All it needs now is getting down to where it'll do the most good.

With him having worked on it, he doesn't think he's strong enough to get it downstairs himself.]

All right, it's done.

[It's a quick announcement to the floor at large.]

[fionnuisce]

Spectacular.

[Waver raised a hand slightly, beckoning the maid to step forward.]

If no one's about to raise an objection, we can get started.

[deloreandriver]

You guys can handle it, right? It's just flip this switch here...

[Marty points to a big switch on the side.]

And then push this button when you're ready. It'll send out the pulse and fry anything that gets in its way. I~ [Marty's voice takes on a nervous note, drawing out the sound] would probably not put anybody between it and the chips though. I don't know what affect it will have on our bodies.