The Missing Report

[Archer]

21 minutes ago, kenod said:

Archer, with Kingston's Talent, does it automatically make people believe what he's saying, or does it alter reality to fit, or does it do something else?

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The way I'm playing it, when Kingston talks, it automatically filters into lying, similar to that guy with the gibberish Talent. People can generally tell they're falsehoods if they're insightful enough, although, just as a consequence of how much he lies, without reference, it can be difficult to tell what parts of his sentences are true and which parts aren't, leading you to draw faulty conclusions. But that's nothing magical.

However, he can make people believe what he's saying is true by concentrating on the effect. That alters their perception of reality only, for now.

As he develops, he will eventually be able to lie to himself and alter reality in minor ways, such as telling himself he's not dying from a gunshot wound. The trade off is he can either have a limited effect with his Talent while remaining aware that he's lying or he can warp reality but he'll no longer be able to tell the difference between what's real and what's not. If he seems unaware that he's lying right now, that's mostly his personality. Deep down, he's trying to subvert the effect and be a good guy, but the words just keep coming out wrong. You may voluntarily decide you believe some of his stream of half-truths, but unless I write that he's focusing on selling the lie, I don't expect anyone to. 

"I already tried that," Kingston griped. He yanked on the nearby handles to demonstrate. With a low creak, the doors slid open. "Huh, you must have activated the unlocking aon. Good work, Jake."

Edited May 26, 2020 by Archer

[CahiraCelosial]

Lina ran into the room, a hint of panic in her eyes. "Am I late? I'm so sorry if I am! I really didn't mean to be!"

[+Sorana]

I can't remember your name. And with that the girl turned away, started to talk to the others. But somehow the boy stayed, even continued to adress her, after learning her name. He had to know who she was, had to have heard the stories. His words were strangely formal, but if he prefered it that way, she wouldn't disagree. Not when finally someone talked to her.

All around her they continued to talk and finally arrived at the lower levels of the Archives. It took Kingston a bit to open the door, but he managed after pushing on them first and she hesitated a little, kept back no willing to enter the Archives first.

"Did they really give nobody a description of what we're looking for?" she asked loudly, wondering how they were supposed to manage the feat of finding and undescribed record. "If no, then it will probably be obvious the moment we see it." which was hard to believe but the only thing she could come up with. Otherwise - they could spend years in the Archives with no clue what they were doing.

"Do you think we need a plan? An order to advance, or just walk through the door and see what we find?" She turned her head when a girl ran into them, obviously late, but now she was here nonetheless. She greeted her with a short nod, but waited for the others to reply.

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Who wants to go first with the scene setting inside of the Archives?

 

[Silva]

"There is no way to plan for the Archives," he answered. "Paragraph four of subsection 3b of section A-F in the second installment of the official TUBA starter handbook states, 'The archives were designed in manner intended to confuse all infiltrators of the organization. Should they attempt to find the information they seek, they will quickly find themselves helplessly lost. All known maps of the archives have since been lost inside the archives themselves in order to guarantee maximum security of the knowledge in our possession.'"

He paused, taking a moment to digest the words he'd just recited by heart without really thinking. "Which makes our lives a little more difficult. The good news is, we'll be able to test the security and see if it's as strong as it is believed to be. No one's done that in years."

At least, none of them had returned with enough sanity to give a half-decent report. The handbooks tended to skim over most things regarding the archives. Subsection 3b was one of the few places it was even discussed. Most of the guides tended to spend the majority of the time detailing proper form procedure, which, while fascinating, served no purpose at the moment.

Eiran smiled encouragingly. "Also, since the document's loss was only noticed recently, it likely won't be too far in. We should be in and out pretty quickly."

Edited May 28, 2020 by Silva

[+Sorana]

Zokora made a slight nod and then, as nobody else stepped forward slowly neared the door. Hopefully the boy was right. Not too far in, just get in there, find the report and be out again quickly. Sera hummed slightly when she felt her make her decision to take over initiative and Zokora nodded again, more to convince herself that this was a good idea than anything else and nearly hastily walked through the door.

Contrasting the levels above, this one was quieter, af first nothing but a long dark hallway. When she stepped into it, Aons started to glow softly on both sides, illuminating the first part. The further she continued to walk, the more Aons came alive, until she was standing in a long, gently lit corridor. At the other end was a doorway, shaped like an arch with the number '4' displayed in its middle. Fourth level down.

It was eerily quiet, her footsteps being absorbed by the walls neraly immediatly, as if all sound was lost to the dark walls. When she lifted her head, searched for a ceiling there was nothing, only darkness extending into nothingness. Turning around to the others she lifted a hand and waved at them, signaling that it was safe, that nothing had happened to her so far. Usually she would have called out, but something about the way she could only barely hear her own footsteps, made her wary about shouting out loud. She didn't feel particularily observed, but there was something about that darkness that creeped her out. The way there was nothing but the Aons, no ceiling and the floor - she quickly averted her eyes again. The floor was polished stone, reflecting her illuminated body, but no the sources of the light themselves.

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I figured we could use @The_Archivist 's idea for the room at the end of it.

@Emi @Archer @Silva @kenod @The_Archivist @CahiraCelosial

[Archer]

Kingston rushed past Zokora, diving forward to slide past him on his belly along the polished floor. “This feels like a traaaaaaap!” he cried delightedly as he zoomed down the hall. His cheer didn’t echo, as he’d expected, but it was still fun to feel the wind in his face. Plus, the more he acted like a fool, the less anyone would suspect he was guilty of certain heinous crimes.

The Smedry slammed into the far wall, next to the mysterious door with the number ‘4’ on it. This close to it, he could see the detailed stone carvings that surrounded the arch: a beautiful relief of some climbing ivy. Despite himself, he chuckled at the Latin joke. “I recommend we blow this thing open, it will help us gain the element of surprise. I know at least one of you has explosives, every sensible adventurer carries them.”

In front of him, the door shimmered. What at first glance had appeared to be a simple obsidian-tinted portal actually seemed more like a writhing mass of shadows. Having made it to his feet, Kingston leaned in to inspect the phenomenon. It was hard to make out the individual parts, but it almost looked like the arch was filled with thousands of tiny black letters, spinning around, clumping together, creating the illusion of a solid doorway. 

Cautiously, he poked at it with his foot. It vanished from sight, swarmed by the coalescing words. He leaned forward some more, and promptly fell off a ledge, disappearing beyond the threshold. Seconds later, a roaring tsunami of flying pages erupted from the doorway, bursting into the hallway like a tidal wave.

On 5/28/2020 at 3:51 AM, The_Archivist said:

I have no idea if this fits with the atmosphere, but we can plagiarize Terry Pratchett's work [Going Postal] and make a room filled to the brink with letters from years ago, never delivered. It's not really dangerous, but it's a little creepy, and you can add danger by stealing even more and having there be illusions caused by the letters, of a different room, or of things discussed in the letters.

 

[The_Archivist]

When Zokora finally opened the door and revealed the corridor beyond, John eagerly rushed in to see if there was anything interesting. There wasn't. But there was a door at the end of the corridor, and paper bellowed out of it when it was opened.

John knelt down and cautiously picked up a piece of paper. It appeared to be a letter, adressed to one Lawson Tekiel. The letter was yellowed with age, years old, and it crinkled dangerously when he unfolded it.

Spoiler

My dearest Lawson,

I cannot describe my joy when I received your letter. Not even to you, who understands me so well. I am delighted to tell you that I accept, and as soon as you send back word I will make haste to meet you in Luthadel, where I am sure you've already made the proper arrangements of our wedding.

yours truly, Vivetta Cett.

John shivered as he slowly refolded the letter. How long has this been lying here, unopened? Did Vivetta and Lawson get married despite this letter being lost? How many stories like this, snapshots of different moments in time, like bugs caught in tree sap, then fossilised, were there down here? How many lives were ruined, hearts broken, wars ignited by those letters being taken here? Would the people mentioned in them be fine with it, knowing there thoughts, ideals, goals, in a way, the essence of their very self, were preserved in such a way? Left untouched for hundreds of years, and would remain untouched for hundreds of years more, if it wasn't for John and his fellow TUBAists. And what right did they have, to walk into this place and disturb it's silence, it's deep slumber, to pull it back into the flow of time?

Disturbed, John straightened and entered the room, to find stacks of letters, piled by the thousand, covering nearly every inch of the stone floor. He slowly approached one, but his leg got caught in a crevice in the floor, a crevice which he knew was not there when he looked, and he was sent tumbling into the letters, scattering them everywhere. When they fell, he fancied he could hear muttering voices, furious over what he did, and it felt like they targeted him as they fell, slicing him, trying to suffocate him in their cold, crinkly grip.

He quickly staggered back, arm protecting his bleeding face. Suffering from dozens of tiny lacerations across his body.

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I hope you enjoyed my brief attempt at a love letter 

 

[Silva]

What the sparks...? he thought, taking in the torrent of letters.

These were archives! Where were the volumes containing important guild secrets? Letters?

Eiran stumbled over some papers, but made his way into the room proper. It wasn't even a working security mechanism! He made a mental note to bring that up to his superiors when they got out. This was not a very practical precaution. 

He looked around for a door forward, to keep going, when his eyes caught on an envelope. Mr. Sullivan, read the outside, followed by his address. The address of the apartment he'd just moved into.

What the sparks...? His thought echoed again, stronger than before. 

Picking it up, Eiran slid his finger under the seal. It broke surprisingly easily, as though waiting for him to find it.

Spoiler

Dear Eiran Sullivan,

I hope this letter finds you in good health. I heard of coming departure and I must say, I am quite sad. You did great things here, Eiran. No actuary has ever saved TUBA as many times as you have in your short time here. I know it's because of your skill, but that doesn't discount anything. You're exceptional.

I understand why you are leaving--if I had your particular weakness, I doubt I'd have lasted nearly as long as you have--though I do wish for you to know that you will always be welcome back.

Eiran, take care of yourself. If anyone can, it's you. At the same time, don't be afraid to take risks. A life in a bubble is no life at all.

Best,

Pi

His eyes widened at the first use of his name, then proceeded to widen further as he continued to read. Eiran hastily crumpled the paper in his fist. He didn't know who this Pi was, but he knew that he knew too much. Things that were dangerous to have out there. 

Except.

Wait.

They were in the archives. There were security mechanisms in place, the very ones he'd just dismissed as inconsequential. Maybe vaguely written notes that could be misinterpreted were one of them. Maybe he was worrying for no reason. 

He smoothed back out the paper, reread it, and let out an internal sigh of relief. It had been a trick. A trick he'd almost fallen for.

TUBA didn't know what he could do. They didn't know his Weakness. They couldn't manipulate him with it. He was still safe.

Eiran carefully refolded the letter and stuck it back in the envelope. He closed it and, digging a hole with his right foot, buried it beneath a pile of paper. While it wasn't technically incriminating, he didn't like the idea of anyone else getting their hands on it. It was a little too close to the truth.

[Archer]

As he swam about in a pool of pages, a musty piece of parchment became lodged in Kingston’s mouth. Curious, he bit into it, then immediately spit it out, retching. “The paper tastes good!” he shouted to anyone who might have been listening. The Smedry had lost track of the others, so he just tried to claw his way forward, half walking, half swimming.

He felt a piece of paper fall into his pocket. Once past the epicenter of the massive pileup, he pulled it out and began to throw it away. But as he glanced at it, he recognized the handwriting. It was his.

Dear sirs, the letter began. I wish to formally apply to become a member of TUBA, the foremost guild of bankers in the Alleyverse. He cringed, thinking about how hard he had struggled to write that sentence, just for it to come out wrong.

I have extensive cookie and biscuit making experience and wish to use my talents for the betterment of my community. Attached you will find my forms, completed in triplicate. There were no forms, paperwork had never been his strong suit. And even then, it didn’t matter because he’d signed the cover letter with,

Thank you for your consideration,

Bartley Bongos.

At the bottom, someone had stamped the word ‘REJECTED’ in blood red ink. Even though he’d put the wrong name on his letter, rendering the whole attempt moot, that hurt. Frustrated, Kingston crumpled the page into a ball and threw it back into the heap.

“I don’t think you guys are still coming!” he hollered, waiting for the rest of the party to catch up.

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Should we move to the next obstacle?

 

[kenod]

Kumiko and KanMien went into the room last, both of them looking around the massive piles of letters. Both of them were tense, looking around for any possible threats. "Invested?" KanMien asked Kumiko.
She paused, and picked up a letter. It was old, the answer to a request to sent aid to the part of the city destroyed by the conflict that happened two decades ago. It painted a bleak picture, the guild doing all it could, simply lacking resources to do more. Unconsciously she crushed it, and then a weak purple-blue flame started burning around it, quietly flickering, only fading once the paper had crumbled away. "I don't know," she answered. "If there's any, it's weak, might just be ambient investure of this place getting caught up."
KanMien nodded, and they started walking again, quickening their pace to catch up with the others.

"I wonder if these are copies or originals," Kumiko quietly remarked. "I really hope they're copies. I know we have a bit of a bureaucracy issue, but for this many originals to be stored like this would just be sad, in more ways than one." A letter floated through the air in front of her, and she grabbed it. After quickly reading it she passed it to KanMien, looking angry.
"Maybe they're just copies," KanMien replied, "with copies placed here after being sent, or of letters that have been received and handled. You don't really need letters that often after handling them. Or maybe it's just investure, capturing all correspondence here, so they don't have to store and sort it." She took the letter Kumiko handed her. "How..." She muttered when she read it. It was an old letter from KoTiel, a request for information on how things were going with KanMien and Kumiko.
She sighed, hoping that the letter had actually been responded to. "Maybe this place shows letters related to the people within them?" She speculated, voice slightly shaken. "That would explain why there's no visible sorting system." She shook her head. "Maybe we should just move on, get to the next room." The two of them quickened their pace, wanting to get out of the room quickly.

[Archer]

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To keep things moving along, I'll introduce a new room. It's an elevator. At least a few people need to hop in. As soon as someone presses an interior button the doors will slide shut with a cheerful ding, and the elevator will plummet down a bottomless shaft while tinny music from the 60's plays ominously in the background. 

Kingston was thinking about art. That's what all the smart people did, they looked at art and thought really hard about it. But as finding art to look at was hard and time consuming, he simply chose a spot on a wall and stared at it, waiting for its form and colouring to reveal the secrets of the human condition. 

The spot he'd chosen was a shiny grey wall. He'd picked it because it had a little circle beside it that offered nice contrast. "Obviously the work of a classic minimalist sculptor," he mused. Then, because he'd never been good at following the rules of impromptu art galleries, he reached a hand out and rapidly poked at the circle several times. 

Ding! The door of the elevator he'd been looking at slid open, revealing a comically undersized box, designed based on the philosophy that riding an elevator with another person was already an inherently uncomfortable experience, so if it was cramped and scratched wall mirrors on the sides made it impossible to avoid making eye contact with each other, then it really wouldn't make that much of a difference. Besides, the weight rating clearly said '1,000 kg', and round, arbitrary numbers were calming in these situations, so no one could possibly feel uneasy. 

As Kingston stepped into the elevator, a static-filled copyright-free song began to play. He recognized the tune, even though he'd never heard the song before. The doors remained stubbornly open, so the Smedry couldn't stare at them. Instead, he looked down at his hand and pretended to be texting someone on an invisible phone. "Darn, the reception in here is no good."

[Silva]

After reading the letter, Eiran watched the others. A couple, those who picked up their own envelopes, seemed to have reactions similar to himself. Some form of discomfort. Confusion or personal anguish.

So it is a defense mechanism, he thought. Not very potent, though. The papers themself are more of a hindrance. He made a mental note to bring that up with his superiors when they finished with this task. If they ever finished. It was very possible the missing report lay in that very room, hidden under piles upon piles of other papers.

Yet, already, Kingston was moving on. Onto the next room before they'd done a comprehensive sweep of this one. Maybe he had a reason for it? Maybe he had a sense for things like that and just knew it wasn't there?

Eiran hoped that was the case. Wandering through hundreds of rooms with no success simply because of carelessness would be quite frustrating.

Trusting Kingston's intuition, he waded through the papers. He made it over to the alcove the other man had entered.

Not an alcove, he realized, noticing the button on the wall near it, an elevator. Might there be a map on the inside, describing the contents of each floor? 

A couple visions of danger arose when he stepped inside. He brushed them away. They were common these days. If he took note of every single one, he'd be standing around like an idiot most of the time. Better to just go through life like normal people--without a reliable danger sense. 

"Dang, the reception in here is no good," Kingston said, feigning texting.

Eiran raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. He'd had poor interactions with the man earlier and hoped to remedy the not so great first impression they'd made on each other. 

The elevator contained a panel of buttons. No labels, though. Nor any master sheet. Nor even a sign about what to do in the case of an emergency.

Of course it wouldn't be that easy. He still felt a little disappointed. It would have been nice to be able to create some sort of map or plan of how they intended to search in an orderly fashion.

Tinny music played softly, coming from little speakers in the upper corners. For some reason, that struck him as the oddest thing. Why bother with music? 

He shook his head. Analyzing these Archives was a bigger project than he could take on. Better to stick with attainable goals. Like paperwork.

Edited June 11, 2020 by Silva
Some comma/period switching.

[Archer]

"Huzzah, high-score!" Kingston pocketed his pretend phone, greatly confusing the mimes in his gaming server who all had at least a three car lead on him with two laps to go. They began to angrily text him, creating a phenomenon the Smedry usually attributed to phantom vibrations. He instinctively tapped his pocket. "I really need to cut down my screen time."

Nodding to the man standing in the elevator next to him, Kingston leaned forward and poked the door close button. Ding! The music immediately changed to a Spanish dub of the song that had been playing. Additionally, the doors slammed shut in front of them, revealing a word scrawled there in red marker. It too was in Spanish. "They've put the exclamation mark the wrong way up," Kingston noted. "Also, this Peligro fellow has terrible handwr-"

DING. With a jolt, the elevator began to plummet into a free-fall. 

"-IIIIIIIIITINNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG!" 

[Emi]

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Do we are all in the elevator, or just you, @Archer?

 

Edited June 23, 2020 by Emi

[Silva]

This fellow kept confusing him. Was he mentally...okay? Eiran wasn't so sure.

Before he could ponder that train of thought further, there was a cheerful DING! and they started to fall. Quickly. He wasn't quite sure how he knew it, having never been in a falling elevator before. He also was quite confused for the wrong reason. See, given that they were in a free falling elevator, inevitably they would hit the bottom. Upon hitting the bottom, depending on how far they'd fallen, the danger could be minimal or fatal.

Yet, he didn't see any visions of danger from that. It made no sense. All shafts came to end. So why didn't he see that danger that he knew was coming? Unless, was it bottomless?

That seemed unlikely.

It surprised him how calm he'd remained, plummeting faster and faster to a possibly nonexistent bottom.

"Do you understand what it says?" he asked Kingston, raising his voice to overcome the other man's scream. He had many more questions, but that one seemed the most pertinent. That word on the doors could be the difference between life and death. Not that he was seeing any death situations in the near future.

Not waiting for a response, Eiran began inspecting the walls, searching for clues. Anyway to realistically get out of the elevator safely. He might have been a High Epic by a very loose definition of the term, but his prime invincibility did little in this case. It hadn't even warned him! That, in addition to the shift in music, was itching him. Why hadn't he forseen this? How would this not constitute danger?

"Free falling elevator survival," he muttered to himself, remembering some old survival reading he'd done as a kid. "Don't jump. Almost impossible to time correctly. Best to lay flat in the middle. More people die using stairs than elevators. There are safety mechanisms. Each individual cable is strong enough to support the elevator. Multiple types of brakes to stave off disaster. Cushioning at the bottom too." 

None of it struck him as particularly useful. There didn't seem to be a bottom. The cables all were broken, apparently. And the brakes didn't appear to exist.

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Eiran and Kingston are the only two established being there, but you could finagle Allence or others having entered as it hasn't explicitly been mentioned that only they are inside. Alternatively, someone could jump down the shaft and land atop the elevator and have fun from there.

@Emi

[Emi]

Allence was in the elevator, when it started to fall. She didn't really knew why did she went there, she was following the group. And it wasn't a good decision. It's never a good decision, going to an old, mechanical place, but who cares? And that's how it usually ends.

"Does somebody know how to turn it off?!", shrieked Allence. She never had problems with heights, neither speed, but this place was weird and full of surprises. And they were normally bad surprises. Like, doesn't TUBA checkes their own archives? 

Stop she thought. They need to focus, beacause there will be the end. They can hit the ground anytime and with this speed it won't be a soft landing. 

@Archer, @Silva

[Archer]

Kingston couldn't read the writing on the wall, so he said as much, in his own way. "It says 'Pele was here'! Very useful informatioooon!" His words became distorted as the elevator picked up speed.

"I appreciate the expeditious service!" he announced, terrified. He was hugging the hand rail on the side of the elevator, feet off the ground, but not squished into the roof yet. The Smedry's ears popped as the elevator continued to plunge. The mutterings about safety mechanisms sounded smart, so he extended a finger towards the bank of buttons that had started the whole fiasco. The lowermost one was a red 'Call for Help' button. He pressed it. 

The music turned off, replaced by a man's voice playing through the speaker system. "Cy, can you move that box? It's blocking the door."

"Hey, nice looking man, can you help us?" Kingston wasn't sure where to talk into, so he just shouted. The voice on the other end continued talking. 

"Down, please." There was a muffled ding. "So how'd the- wahaaaaaaaaaaaahh!"

"I think this is a useful development! I'll keep trying to talk to this man, live!"

"Make it stoooooop... Cyroson, save the jello! Oh no, it's too late... push out the-" The recording clicked off. The Justin Beiber remix of a Spanish song faded back on. 

[kenod]

Meanwhile, Kumiko and KanMien were both looking at the closed lift doors. "How much longer do you think it'll take?" Kumiko asked in a slightly annoyed tone, somewhat tired of waiting for the elevator to come back.

KanMien shrugged, and started walking further along the wall. "Let's look around," she said. "Maybe there's another elevator around here somewhere." She sighed. "We really should have gotten aboard that thing while we had the chance. Waiting on elevators is annoying."

[Silva]

And then the visions danger appeared. Stuck against the ceiling of the elevator, slowly, yet quickly, getting crushed by the pressure. He brushed them aside. Eiran was now perched on the railing, scouring the ceiling with his eyes. They needed to find a way out through there and then maybe they could get off somehow. 

He reached over and pressed the call for help button, following Kingston's lead. When it repeated the same thing as last time, he sighed. 

"No use. Even if it did work, the signal would get worse and worse every moment," he said to Allence and Kingston, still surprising himself at how calm he sounded. "However, we do have some good news." Eiran pointed to the words on the wall which Kingston had translated. "Whoever this Pele follow was got out of here even after the doors closed. That means there's a way out."

Hopefully.

Or the 'Pele was here' was just a trick installed by the engineers of this death trap. 

The music resumed once more, the recording having reached its end. 

One tile in the ceiling looked off, he noted, but it was too high for him to touch.

"Can you reach that?" he asked Kingston. 

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I have no clue what's off about it, though there is a way (No clue what that is either. Something simple.) to move it and access a compartment crammed full of documents and books above. What else that compartment can do/is is open to interpretation. Simply dying in a falling elevator seemed a little dull. They ought to at least have some nice reading material, or even a way not to die at all. 

@Archer @Emi

[Archer]

"Definitely!" At first, Kingston couldn’t tell which square he was pointing to. He leaped upwards and let his fist drift into one. It held fast. “Ow, that was pleasant,” he mumbled. Then the elevator jolted slightly, and his head banged upwards. But instead of crashing into the metal ceiling, it pushed through a small, well disguised hatchway. 

Unfortunately for the Smedry, the elevator was still moving. Quicker than he expected, as he reached his arms through to pull himself up, he popped out into a dark shaft, lit by violent sparks of the scraping metal on rock and a light yellow glow from the top of the elevator itself. Standing on top of the elevator car, he was immediately jostled into the wall and knocked off his feet.

“No need to paniiiiic!” he cried down, cutting his hand on the rough shaft wall before he got a grip on the plummeting car. “I have a brake!”

Kingston reached his bloodied hand into his bag and pulled out a very sharp short sword, the kind children's parents would never let them keep unless they said it was a letter opener. Grunting, he plunged it into the wall. A second later, the elevator had moved out from under his feet, leaving him dangling from the hilt of a weapon that really wasn’t built for this kind of activity. As it raced away, its occupants would be able to hear him shouting.

What he tried to shout were detailed instructions about how to deactivate and reprogram the Silimatic Glass he'd noticed glowing on top of the elevator, obviously locked into some kind of downward propulsion command. What came out was a faint, “This is fine…,” his voice getting fainter and fainter as they moved away. Making matters worse, any occupants with precognition powers might have also had visions of the elevator beginning to constrict in the near future, like the trash compactor of some space-based science fiction movie.

“Never mind, I think Star Wars is canon on Alacatraz Earth, I can improve that analogy!” Kingston decided to hang tight and wonder what universe-scrambling events had occurred to make it so that the first alley he came to in the Alleycity would end up being a vertical one. “Seems very practical!”

[Silva]

"Huh. There actually was something there," Eiran said, mildly surprised, as Kingston flew out. 

He looked to Allence, panic now arising in him.  "We can get out, but then we have no way to stop our free fall into eternity and then if we fell onto the top of the elevator, who knows what random machinery would be sticking up ready to impale us? Staying inside is probably safer in the long run because normally elevator shafts don't actually have those elevators that protagonists always miraculously hold on to and, well, neither option is really great but staying inside has been scientifically proven to be saf--"

A vision cut him off. Walls, moving in, slowly squeezing them, compacting them, crushing them into--

He cut off the vision midway, like it had his sentence.

"Never mind. We're getting out of here. Now." He didn't explain further, didn't lie, didn't start the cover up for any questions she might ask later for why he'd decided that so quickly after deciding to stay in the elevator. That could wait. Or maybe she wouldn't even ask? Or was that wishful thinking? He didn't know. He had no clue. All he knew was that the panic that had been building up this entire fall had burst out.

The walls chose that moment to begin lurching inwards.

Eiran grabbed Allence's hand and, using his other hand to manuever, shoved them out of the elevator in what he hoped was the direction of a wall. They shot out faster than anticipated. He futilely reached out his arm, the other still tightly gripping Allence.

And grabbed onto something before colliding hard with the shaft.

Cold metal. His fingers were latched onto a bar of some sort.

Tentatively, he poked his foot forward and found another.

"You have got to be kidding me," he muttered. He would really need to have a talk with whomever had designed these archives. This whole thing felt like something out of a film--designed with way too many lucky coincidences. If they truly wanted to keep them secure, they ought to install the copied idea without the escape.

He dared a glance downward. Due to the darkness, he couldn't see anything besides a small blob of light slowly shrinking and disappearing.

Allence got herself situated on the unlikely ladder, allowing him to hold on with both hands. They began to climb upwards. Each new step of the ladder that his hand found had him breathing out a sigh of relief. It would be quite malicious for the ladder to only go part of the way up. He wouldn't have put it past the designer.

"Kingston?" he called, unsure whether or not to even expect a response in return. The man had said something about a brake?

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Emi, when you're back into existence with time on your hands, if you have any issues with the liberties I took here with Allence, let me know and I will be happy to adjust.

@Emi

[kenod]

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I have to admit that when they finally get out of the elevator I kind of want to just have a second one stop with with the others walking out after a completely normal ride, but with no idea when they actually got in or what happened.

 

Edited July 9, 2020 by kenod

[Archer]

Meanwhile Kingston was clinging to the hilt of a sword, dangling from a wall, millions of meters up in the air. "I don't need HEEEEEEEELP!" he cried.

"Help?" echoed back a small voice. The Smedry looked to his right to find a small rodent sitting perched on the rung of a ladder. It had a pair of leathery wings and a single pointed fang, copper in colour, protruding from its mouth. The creature cocked its head quizzically. 

"I knew that ladder was there," Kingston grumbled, grabbing the rung below the animal before he fell into the abyss. 

"Ladder." The rat gleefully jumped into the air, landing on Kingston's face. "There!"

"Gosh, you've got lovely smooth teeth that definitely don't make you look carnivorous!" Its front fang pushed forward, scratching the front of his Warrior's Lens. "That's cool, buddy, those weren't hard to find. I've got a fang too, wanna see it?" Out of his bag, he pulled a stiletto, which parried the rat thing to the side. It flapped its wings upwards to dodge his next strike, then dive bombed him, scratching at Kingston's fingers. His grip loosened and he fell once more, watching the underside of the creature as it did its proud victory dance above him. 

"I thought you things were supposed to be meekeeeeeeeeeeeer!"

"Kingston?" came a voice from below, faint, but audible. 

"Nobody here but us Rosharan chickens!" He let himself dive for a minute more, picking up speed. Eventually, a pair of ascending figures came into view. Trusting his Warrior's Lens to assist him in the maneuver, he drove himself into the wall to grab the ladder. He missed, and smacked feet-first into the rock. But the feet stayed stuck to it, holding him in place. 

"Hey Eiran, do you like my Grappler’s Glass boots that I've known this whole time that I've been wearing?" Archer definitely hadn't forgotten and only just remembered when he checked Kingston's character sheet to see what Lenses he was wearing. "The way out is up there, I saw the light of the exit while I was making friends with the local wildlife." With feigned nonchalance, he began strolling up the wall, a feat which revealed an impressive amount of core strength.  

[Emi]

On 9.07.2020 at 2:43 AM, Silva said:

Emi, when you're back into existence with time on your hands, if you have any issues with the liberties I took here with Allence, let me know and I will be happy to adjust.

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It’s ok. I’ll try to write something later as I don’t really like to write loooong posts on my phone 

 

[Emi]

Allence couldn't belive this situation. It was... at least scary. Scary and frightening, but yet incredible. Why it was incredible? She didn't really know. But why she would care about it? They were alive and only a little bit frightened. Frightened... Right after exiting the elevator, she had to miss it because of the adrenaline rush. Now this detail seemed to be overlooked. There was uninterrupted silence and darkness in the room. Under the latter, the worst memories of her childhood returned. Fear, Pain, blood, everything her father did, ran through her memory, like uninvited imps, unable to do real damage, and bullying a girl. She cringed and gripped Eiran harder. Eiran ... He saved her. No one had ever paid attention to her, except maybe her mother, but it was so long ago. They... they saved me.- She thought. And I don't deserve it. 

After realizing it she couldn't stop tears welling up in her eyes. Not now. Now, she needed tears. Maybe they will stop memories. Maybe someday. Now she needed just to focus on steps. counting always helped, so she decided to do it. One, two, three, four... 

With tears on her face she only asked Eiran one thing: "Why... why did you saved me?"

seven, eight, nine...

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Well, I'm kind of sorry for double-posting, but I haven't seen a different way to do this 

 

Edited July 13, 2020 by Emi