[003 ★ text]

[guiltapalooza]

I spent some time looking through the network backlog and tracking down the posts that the tower administrators have made before, and I have to say, I'm underwhelmed. A whole lot of ambiguous morals, incoherent and vaguely creepy requests for user log in, and a distressed child. Not a whole lot of answers.

So who's been around for a while? Is there anyone that's been here the longest? And do you have anything to add to the above, because I'm all ears. Even if we can't find a way out, it's worth trying to pool our information.

Before anyone asks why I'm saying this on the network that they presumably monitor, hey, I'd love to talk to them.

In the meantime I'm going to see if I can find out what keeps putting this thing on the fritz every so often, because it's majorly annoying, and also may be connected to something. Anyone computery want to help me out with that?

Comments

[guiltapalooza]

They also seem like they've kind of made a mess of things and don't know what they're doing, based on their previous posts. Not the most indicative of experience doing this before.

A library buddy! I'm Willow, we probably have seen each other. A Hellmouth is a portal that leads to a hell dimension, typically closed. (When it's open, you know about it.) The town I live in has one, so all sorts of interesting demony shenanigans goes down.

[tempustemporum]

Right. This is probably their first time working with such magic or technology, whatever has brought us here and kept the Tower in working order [he uses this term loosely -- very loosely] until now. One would think that they would have had the foresight to familiarize themselves with their tools before taking such lengths, though it may simply be that they didn't have enough time.

Demons? That is quite unusual -- and, now that you mention it, I recall that my world had a similar problem when I left. It was an extremely troublesome monster infestation; we didn't know what they were or where they came from. It may be possible that they came from a Hellmouth as well, though unlikely; someone else I met here knew about them, and said that they were generally called Unversed, not simply demons.

[guiltapalooza]

It definitely seems very rushed. More like my first time doing magic when I was in high school than anything I do now. It makes me wonder why they bothered with us in the first place.

If we run on the assumption that our worlds weren't really destroyed, what are they getting out of telling us that? Do they believe it themselves? And if our worlds were destroyed, I really don't know why they bothered saving us, because anyone doing it magnanimously would, I don't know, sit us down for tea and tell it to us nicely, not leave us a vague letter and never show up again ever.

As for demons, I can at least say it probably wasn't a Hellmouth? They don't just appear one day; they've been around forever. We have records of Spanish explorers hundreds of years ago that thought something funky was going on in the area. So I guess they might really be "Unversed", which frankly sounds ominous to me. I hope you guys can clear them out.

[tempustemporum]

There is always the possibility that they simply can't tell us what is happening. It may be that they are being restricted from telling us anything about the tower based on orders from another party. Or, they could be lying about everything and simply pulling the wool over all of our eyes. There is no reason I can think of that they would simply choose not to tell us, unless they are trying to intentionally provoke unease among the populace.

I learned upon coming to the tower that these monsters caused trouble in several connected worlds, so it may be that you are right and they are two separate entities. For obvious reasons, I haven't been able to get any updates on the state of the world, but it seems as if some creatures that resemble the Unversed have come into the Tower now.

[guiltapalooza]

I saw a mention of an experiment in a previous post, and it's made me pretty suspicious. We had a case back home where the government thought it was a good idea to start doing tests on demons, and see if they could control them by putting microchips in their brains and stuff like that. Maybe it's my paranoia senses tingling, but this entire set up is reminding me of it. It definitely keeps us complacent if we think they're our rescuers and we have nothing to go back to.

Monsters across worlds is pretty intense. Even I haven't seen much of that. Wait, they're here now?? What do they look like? Do you know their weaknesses?

[tempustemporum]

I did not participate in those experiments, but I was in the tower while they happened, and knew several of the people they experimented on. All of the test subjects came out of the experiment with some kind of mutation or disease, which somehow faded after a while. These people could be truly here to help us, or as you said, they could be lying to keep us complacent. Unfortunately, we don't have enough information to make a decision right now; and if there is a third party involving themselves in the tower, Ruana for example, then they could be working for separate goals.

I knew very little about them before coming here; we didn't even have a name for the creatures. They were simply 'monsters'. They are slightly different than the ones I was familiar with, but they look very much the same. One is the floating pots; the other seems to manifest as a raven statue, though I haven't gone near enough to see if they pose any actual threat and aren't just a lookalike.

[guiltapalooza]

A mutation or disease? This is really weird. I just can't figure out what they're getting out of this with all of this put together, so a third party is looking more and more likely. But who's Ruana?

I wouldn't know much either if I didn't spend so much time researching the latest monster of the week back home. But floating pots, raven statue... okay, I've got that written down. Someone else said they were trying to put information together on all of the monsters they recognize. I think we should make it a full-fledged database and try to get as many as we can recorded, especially their appearances and weaknesses, and where they were encountered.

I love how they're just having this hardcore discussion over the network

[tempustemporum]

Earlier, there had been some corrupted text on the network; I did not know how to 'fix' it, but I could get a general idea of what it said, and the person who accessed the network was a person named Ruana. Later, a user addressed the tower network through text, which was when everyone was flushed into the cafeteria floor; on that post, two people asked "Are you Ruana?", leading me to believe that I wasn't the only one to get that reading from the text.

I agree that we should try to compile a bestiary of the creatures in here. If needed, I have done some work of my own and compiled a list of mundane and interesting information, if we are looking to expand the database to everything we know about the tower thus far.

well you can't talk this much at once in person!!

[guiltapalooza]

That's the part I couldn't decode!! That's been bugging me all day! Thank you thank you that is really helpful. :) Did the user ever respond to the people asking them that?

Might as well be ambitious, right? It might take us a while to get it up to snuff, but I think it's worth doing. And a lot less dangerous than some other investigative things we could be doing instead. It's important to regroup and organize everyone before launching some kind of offensive, I think. I mean, if we want to.

[tempustemporum]

No, they did not. If you wish to see the post yourself, it is public and you can go looking through the archives for it.

We are absolutely not in a position to organize an offensive. But I agree that we should focus on gathering information about this tower first, even if it is unimportant at the end of the day. Then we may decide if the situation requires an escape or overthrow maneuver.

[guiltapalooza]

I must've missed it-- I'll go looking for it again later. Thank you for telling me about it! See, you've already been a big help.

I've been part of crazier offensives, not that I'm advocating the idea... But I agree, info would be a lot better than rushing in face-first. That never really ends well. I've had a couple other people be interested in helping out already, so I think we might actually get somewhere.