[01] || [Circumstances] || [Video]

[the_white_rider]

I would advise against using the network, but given the circumstances there are no other options.

[ Have a Gandalf appearing on the screen- He looks dead serious, yet somehow calm. Anyone paying attention could notice he looks quite tired as well. ]

I need to know what happened in this tower before my arrival- From the first day people were ‘saved’. If there are people who could give me any relevant information, this would be highly appreciated.

I’m most interested in a child who has been mentioned a couple of time yesterday, I believe his name was Zo. From what little I have read, I assume something terrible must have happened.


[Text – Filtered to Princess Zelda, Fi and Xion]

I need to see the three of you as quickly as possible. Please come to the library as soon as you can. You know which one.

-- Gandalf

[ It is sent right after the video feed, and he won’t reply- What he has to speak about with them is too important to be discussed on the network. ]

Comments

[fracta_anima]

Thanks! Zelda's been teaching me, but I'm nowhere near as good as she is.

[the_white_rider]

It takes time, it takes practice to get better. With time you may well be at her level.

[ Smiling still but it soon fades as, he gets back to the topic- ]

Unfortunately, I'm afraid the tower won't give us much time for our activities in the coming week. Something big is arriving, it is linked to our hosts, those messages, our collars.

[fracta_anima]

[Her expression gets more serious and she sets aside the harp as he begins to speak.]

Everything has to be connected. I wish I knew what the reason for everything was. Heck, if they'd just been more straightforward with us from the beginning I think things might have turned out better for them, but....

[She touches her collar at her throat. What does it say about her time here she's grown so used to it that she can all but ignore its presence?]

You wanted me to tell you about when they mixed up our fluids during the exams, right?

[the_white_rider]

Without the shadow of a doubt things would have turned better for everyone, us and them. Alas, if everyone was reasonable and acting in the best way, the history of our worlds wouldn't be written in blood...

[ Guess there are bad people in every universe, and those of the tower are more on the black than the white side. He nods at her though. ]

Yes, I'd like to know about what they did on that exam. The more I hear about those collars, the more obvious it becomes they are their only way to keep us under control.

[fracta_anima]

It.... well, like I said, they mixed up the fluids we got during the transfusion they do during the exams. The results weren't.... pleasant. People's powers and wills went haywire and....

[She stops to think for a second, tries to think of the best way to word it and the observations she's made during her time in the Tower before and since then and what she heard happened during the accident itself.]

Okay, think of the color spectrum, right? ROYGBIV? Red, orange, yellow, and so on? Well, it's like the further down the spectrum your color is the more insane your powers are. I'm blue because of my powers, but some people I know from home are yellow because they don't have the variety with those powers I do. And, well.... [She points at his own violet collar.] I'm sorry if I'm assuming but you look like you'd be pretty powerful yourself even without the collar.

[the_white_rider]

You would be right to assume so. Even though it's a matter of scale- Compared to a normal human my powers could be impressive, but compared to other beings they are negligible.

[ He thinks for a while then nods at her. ]

Nevertheless, I have to thank you for informing about this. I had suspicion those collars were their only source of power over us, but not it's a certainty. If only we could develop an alternative, out of their control, then they would lose their only source of power...

[fracta_anima]

Maybe? But when the fluids got mixed up things got.... bad. Like for me? My main power is summoning beings called persona. They're a piece of my soul from what I understand, but the shape they take is also connected to various dieties and folklore from my world. My fluid got brought down the spectrum to yellow and I lost control of it. They took me over completely.

When I looked over the archive later, other people, as they moved up the spectrum and felt like they were being paralyzed. So it's.... I don't know. It's like the higher on the spectrum you are, the stronger of whatever they're giving us we get, but the lower the more we lose control of ourselves.

Oh, and you're welcome.

[the_white_rider]

[ He nods at what she says- Persona? That's an interesting concept, he'll have to look into this latter, but the bit about the collars... ]

If the fluid color is related to the power, a less potent fluid will have disastrous effect on those with great power, like you and I. A higher color on the other hand would incapacitate those with little power. This logic makes sense, but that raises other question. Such as why do they need to control our powers with this fluid?

[fracta_anima]

Well, from what they say it's to keep us alive here? And with what happened to that one guy who went through with his collar being removed I think it's safe to say it's true somehow. Maybe the more powerful people need it more than those who aren't?

[A thought occurs to her.]

Maybe that's how so many different kinds of power can work in this world? Since from what I've seen and heard, a lot of people's power shouldn't even be able to work outside their own world. Maybe in some cases, like with the more powerful people, they wouldn't even be able to exist outside their own world.

[the_white_rider]

It's possible... I think your theory is very good even. It's like a fish when you think about, outside of water it would die unless we found a way for a fish to survive outside from water. We are the fishes, our universes are the water- And the solution to keep us alive outside from our universes is the substance in those collars. They may very well be providing us a bubble of sort, one that allows us to exist as if we were still back home.

[ He hadn't thought about it this way but... Minami's probably onto something. ]

Nevertheless, while this is a noble purpose for those collar, I'm afraid what they're doing with them remain unacceptable. They can kill us and experiment- They keep us under control.