animus_network | [Video] Reorientation

[Prussia is sitting in front of the Network screen like nothing ever happened, like he hadn't just poofed out of the tower for a good deal of time. His yellow bird is in its customary place on his head, and not even that recent network post he spotted questioning whether the pets were real could make him do anything else with it. It didn't matter if it wasn't "his" bird; he'd accept whatever made him comfortable here. That, of course, is beside the point; he's got some serious catching up to do.]

Hey, everybody. Guess who's back and awesome as ever? Prussia. Yep, awesome. [He's not putting much gusto into the word today.] Had my initiation oatmeal and everything.

I dunno if anyone noticed, but I've been gone for a while. Did anyone see a stone in the graveyard for me? Just wondering. So, because of that, I need someone to catch me up on just what's been going on in the tower. I have no idea how long I've been gone, because being stuck on a dead world kind of screws up your sense of time. So, if anyone could tell me what I've missed, that'd be greeeeeat.

Oh yeah, another thing. Is Enoch still here? Just wondering.

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Got his head cut off.

[He lets that sink in for a moment before continuing.]

The guy who did it, he... he cut off his own head to do it.

[But there's more.]

Then, ah... were you here last year when the old administrator, Dax I think his name was, was killed? Because when I got here I was told what Ruana did to him and it was the same thing as far as I can tell.

[He's still incredibly shaken up about everything that's happened. Don't mind him.]

It looks like it was once a city but there isn't really anything left. No stars or anything. The only thing that's left is the bodies, bizarrely. We probably all would have died-- really died, but Zo saved us. I'm still not entirely sure what happened to cause us to get thrown out in the first place, but it was nearly a third of the entire Tower.

Cut off his own head to kill Jason? How did that work? [Beat.] Yep, I was around when Dax got killed. I remember that pretty clearly. So... Ruana ate Jason, too? Geez, that girl's got an even bigger appetite than I do.

That sounds fortunate. [That statement is, of course, dripping with sarcasm.] I hope we figure out the mystery of this place soon. Heh, we don't really have a choice, do we? It's soon or never.

It... I'm not entirely sure myself, and I was watching the whole thing happen.

[He nods gravely.]

I hope so, too. It was better when we had a year left, but now we've got two months. That's not much time left at all. I don't like these odds.

You watched the thing happen? Yikes. You've never seen anything like that before, have you? [Even Prussia knows that not many people would have seen something like that, but it's mostly to see how severe the impact was on this guy.]

Yeah, I... I'm not so sure about our odds anymore, either. Did we make any progress at all over the past few months?

Yeah, it was-- it was on all of the monitors.

[And was one of those things that he really couldn't look away from. He'd seen people die before-- horribly, even. And it never got any easier.]

I wish I could say we have. Riki tried something to power the tower. Something about using part of our energy to give us a bit extra time but I don't know what happened with that.

That was back in February.

She put it on the monitors for everyone to see again? First Dax, now Jason. I'd say she's got a sense of showmanship if it weren't so nasty.

So it sounds like whatever Riki did didn't accomplish much. Great.

Wish we had some idea of what it was.

I don't have a clue.

[Which, come to think of it, certainly makes him feel weird. Did they really manage to buy extra time?]

It sucks that we're so in the dark about everything. I'm sure that there's some people who do a little more around the tower and know some more stuff, though. Maybe we should go look for them?

There are probably people who know more about it, but it's not really safe to talk about it over the network when someone could be listening in.

Zelda is probably one of the people who know the most.

Well, yeah, obviously it wouldn't be a good idea to name any names- wait, then why did you just mention Zelda? She could get in trouble now!

[He blinks for a moment, raising his hands slowly to his face.

Good job, Neal. Good going.]

It's fine. There are other people whose names being mentioned could make it really ugly, though.

It's not safe to mention their names at all so I won't.

[Though actually, he's just aware of the one name but better to make it sound like it's a bigger number just to be safe.]

Of course. I'm sure she'll be fine... we've just got to be careful. If something's actually being done somewhere, our lips have to be zipped.

[Video] Reorientation

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