animus_network | HaVE a nICE daY. [Text] [Forward-dated to the evening of the 10th]

[There's an audible chime, like a cheery voicemail tone, from every terminal simultaneously, before text appears on the screen.]

Good afternoon, Tower of Animus. My name is The Observer. I've got a special message for you today, direct from one of our beloved administrators. Please read, listen to, and memorize this message, and reproduce it wherever you can!

Souls in our world are defined as the self. Even those without anything that can be considered a soul in their own worlds would manifest one here. Souls are extremely resilient - they can be torn out of their body and survive provided they are removed in the right manner. But they shouldn't be of course - the side effects might be disastrous in ways we can't quite understand. It's happened here before. Souls can be torn out of this world the same as in any other. Here though they can split - that's extremely important. They can split and merge if you have the right skillset. Never lose your soul in the Tower of Animus. None of yours are yet lost - but never lose it! They won't come back whole if you let her swallow them up. The power must have gone by now - she'll want to restore the tower. Everyone who ended up trapped on their own worlds is now in grave danger! She can't take souls as Zo can, but she can siphon them and she can squeeze all the energy out of them.

As soon as this message is decoded put it in as many places as possible! Put it on the network make copies and plaster them on the walls. Do everything you can so that as many people read this message as possible. There isn't enough energy to erase everyone's memories!

Remember - souls born here can be split and reabsorbed here. A soul born elsewhere can be split there, but there's no way to put it back together unless you can put it back where it's supposed to be.

Not everything is as fake as it seems. Your souls are here and you have all been drugged to keep certain aspects of yourselves contained but every part of you is here. You can use that against them if you can figure out how to unchain yourselves.

I'm afraid you'll have Jason as your first opponent as he's the one with the keys you need. Be careful! There is information everywhere though much of it has been nearly permanently sealed. I can make it possible for you to access it, although you will all have to unlock it.

Wasn't that a special little message? Now, copy it down in your notes so you don't forget it! No matter whom you're allied with, be it Pandora, Ganondorf, your friends from home, or just yourself! There will be a test on this.

And the first section of the test is this - I want you to place at least one copy of this message somewhere in the tower. No points for hiding it! It has to be visible to everyone! In a few days I'll tell you all how you did, and I'll repeat this message for you lazy people who didn't see or hear this today.

That's all for now!

- The Observer

[All characters with mailboxes will find a copy of the message in their mail as of this evening.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You--

[Sheba literally has to take a step back from the terminal to calm herself before continuing. Ruana is first on her list of people she dislikes right now, but Jason is a very close second. She takes a breath and steps back to her terminal. Her voice is less outwardly angry, but she's very clearly upset still - and she's not even bothering to try and disguise herself. She wasn't good at figuring out how to go anon, and wouldn't Jason know anyway?]

Either get out of our way and help us save our friends - really save them, not the twisted idea of salvation that made you guys bring us here - or you're next. You'll see what we can do when we put our minds to it.

I have no intentions of getting out of your way on this--though don't worry, my hands are a bit tied until next month. You can all have your fun until then.

You're in for a world of hurt next month. Just you wait. I'm really looking forward to seeing the look on your face when we take you down.

Subtlety isn't your strong point, is it?

I'm not trying to be subtle.

If anything happens to my friend's soul because you're keeping us from stopping Ruana, I will kill you myself.

Perhaps you shouldn't have drained the power, then.

..!

[She didn't feel guilty for her part in the glamour failure before, but now? She does, and it's written all over her face. But she takes another breath, clenches her fists, and tries to hide it.]

You say that like they would have been safe anyway. They're not. Isn't that why we're all brought here? There's a way to save them, and we never would have known it if we didn't act. We'll act again and we will save them, and if you try to stop us, you're the one who's going to cease to exist!

You're brought here because your worlds were destroyed. The ones who we lost track of, Zo tried to bring back, but otherwise we left them alone.

And now you're hardly leaving them alone. And you said to someone else that they weren't in very good shape after spending a long time on their world; something isn't right there!

You're no saviors. You're all twisted. You, and Ruana, and this tower - twisted. You don't save any of us. You keep us captive here and torment us, month after month.

Does it really surprise you that we're not happy with the way you're running things?

Their mental state isn't directly our fault. If you were to spend weeks, months, or years in a world with nothing except you on it, where you couldn't die, your mental state might deteriorate a little, too.

All I'm doing is my job.

Your job? Hah! You're a surgeon, aren't you? A type of doctor?

You're supposed to help people. All you do is hurt them! Would it kill you to do the right thing for once?

I'm a scientist. Research and experiments are my job.

And if you let us all perish, you'll be out of subjects to research and experiment on.

The longer you get in our way, the more likely it is that you'll be out of a job.

But giving you keys to the cage is no way to make you stay, either.

People might be more willing to cooperate with you for your experiments if you weren't a tyrant.

Give people the freedom to choose, and there will always be those who will choose to stay - if you're not a jerk about it. But if you force people into things and hurt them to make them stay, they'll do everything they can to end you.

It's not my decision to make about all of you staying here.

Oh, for the love of...

[She can't keep from muttering under her breath or from rolling her eyes, but she does look back to the monitor after a moment.]

Are there any decisions you can make, or are you her puppet as much as the rest of us are?

We can make decisions on our own, of course. Dax did.

I was asking about you specifically, Jason. Are you so frightened of her that you're going to just do whatever she says?

You can respect that a shark can kill you without being afraid of sharks.

So you torment us just because you don't want to die?

There are a lot more of us here than there are of you guys. You really think tormenting the people who have numbers on their side is going to keep you alive?

I do my job. If it's all of you or Ruana, I'll choose Ruana.

Why?

[Her expression and tone of voice are incredulous. She can't think why anyone would pick her over countless others, unless -]

...are you in love with her or something?

Hardly. She's just more dangerous than all of you.

Yes, because she has you and the others to do whatever she pleases! There's strength in numbers and in having people you can really trust.

You'll witness that strength firsthand if you insist on staying with on her side. We'll save our friends and take her down, and you'll be going with her at this rate.

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HaVE a nICE daY. [Text] [Forward-dated to the evening of the 10th]

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