Passage [active/OPEN]

[beautifulrondo]

Character(s): Open
Content: The stakes are high and the only way to go is up. People have come to this floor looking for a door, but what will they find when they go through?
Setting: Clusterfuck Floor (the highest one so far)
Time: Nighttime
Warnings: Depends on who replies, I suppose. XD
Note: Multi-thread format. Form up whatever groups you'd like! Once the door is found, I'll edit a note in here letting people know what thread to have their characters run to if you all want in on the opening action. You're looking for a giant tower, as jumbled up and mismatchy as everything else in the world. There will be the usual Castle Oblivion door somewhere in there, and you are free to write the tower however you like.

The door opening sub-thread can be found here!
Please don't worry about posting order during this thread. We're trying to push through on into endgame, so if you have an opening for your character to post in/your character has something to say, have them go ahead and say it.

Comments

[beautifulrondo]

Once he had made sure Laharl was somewhere he couldn't run off from and he had let a few people know where Laharl was, Krichevskoy had set off back to the strange, if not unsettling, floor he had been before. He was by no means unsympathetic to his son's reasoning, after all, and for having to stop him like that, Krichevskoy thought the least he could do was help search for the very door Laharl had gone looking for.

This way he could be sure nothing would happen. And even if it did, he could be sure that it only happened to himself.

Still, it would be easier to search if the entire place didn't seem to have changed from the last time he had been there. Or maybe he just hadn't been paying enough attention?

[magicissrsbznz]

By the time he made it to the conglomerate floor, Chrono knew he was already too late to stop anything Laharl might have had in mind. He'd spent too long preparing every dirty trick he could remember and a few he made up on the spot to level the battlefield between himself and the demon overlord, and he KNEW it still wouldn't be enough to stop him.

But he had to try. Didn't he?

Well... strictly speaking, this wasn't his jurisdiction. Strictly speaking, he had no attachment to these people and no duty to protect them. But he still had his honor, and dammit, that had to count for something, right?

As luck would have it, someone had beat him to the punch. Chrono did not know this, yet; therefor, as he approached the strongest magical signature on the floor, he was loaded for everything from bear all the way up to combat mecha. And he still felt under-armed.

Did I mention he's never seen Laharl before? Hi, Krichevskoy; meet a pint-sized dimension cop who may be pointing his staff at you. Or it could just be pointed in that general direction; totally up to you how you take it, old man. He has a couple of seeking spells orbiting him at the moment.

[lordofthedead]

Somewhere in a distant corner of the mishmashed floor, Hades was blowing a gasket. It wasn't a castle-detroying mess like Laharl had been planning, but it was crater-inducing. Hades. Was. FURIOUS.

It wasn't that he cared so much that the Organization had locked up a god like him in this place, making him the same kind of worm as everyone else. He'd come to accept it, in some twisted way. He's had his fun. Remember that time he threw a party at Ceu de Mouraria? Those were some good times. Sure, it ended with him kicked and beaten and sore in places he didn't want to ever mention, but it was a blast. And there was of course Yuna, who hey, he was upset he never had a real chance to finish making her into a real, hardy pawn of his, but he got over that with time, too.

Then there were some things that Hades hadn't been able to get over. He enjoyed the crashing of the domes, but then that snot-nosed shorty came by to ruin his good mood, and rub it in that yeah, he's a god, stuck in a rotten castle. Oh, and remind Hades that no, he doesn't actually have any great scheme. He hasn't created a mastermind plot that can shine greater than the fall of the domes.

Anything he comes up with just falls short!

But hey, he's got this. He was cool. No problem. Just pick himself back up again, get back to work, get Megara, and bam-bada-boom, let's make chaos!

And so we come to the portion of the story where there was a giant crater, fire burning through the amalgamation of worlds, grasslands and city streets, a junkyard or two. Now ash remains, surrounding a seething god, deep orange flushed over all parts of his body, not a speck of his normal blue in sight. His hair billowed in high flames that licked into the air.

If one were to listen, they might hear the distant echo of Hades' raging voice reach across the floor:

"YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. THIS IS NOT HAPPENING."

There's a lot that Hades can shake off. If anyone were to ask what his deal was this time, he would lie, but the truth of the matter was that Hades felt the disappearance of a-certain-person-that-he-owned. He's not shaking this off. He doesn't approve of others taking away what is by contract his.

Hades is looking for a way out of this castle, once and for all.

Once he calms down, that is.

[halvedhowl]

It was time.

Blue never thought she'd end up this high through the floors. She never thought... about a lot of things. Maybe she just wanted to escape them. Maybe she hoped that things could still... go back to the way they used to be, but even sitting outside the outskirts of the Native camps, left alone while she kept in her natural form, it looked like those hopes were impossible.

She had friends that needed help.

They couldn't keep living in this castle -- it... it wasn't even living. Blue remembered Hige in the first time in awhile, really remembered him. Not just the constant memories in the back of her mind, of him and the pack, that were always with her. They shaped her, after all. Paixao had shaped her, too. But she remembered Hige, and his collar.

So there's a halfbreed wolf sniffing around, keeping her eyes on the lookout for an out-of-place door, but it was hard, given just how much seemed out of place. This was the strangest world Blue had ever been to.

[keep_my_promise]

They never had managed to find Jade and then Natalia went missing, when she'd pretty much only just arrived. Luke couldn't be surprised since it had happened before. He wasn't sure why it seemed to happen so much to the people he knew, though. Then Guy vanished. More searching ensued, but at this point, given so many others were vanishing too lately, it seemed likely he was another casualty.

Suffice to say, Luke was keeping a close eye on Tear. She was all he had left, and considering now no one seemed really certain now if people who vanished DID actually go home...

It seemed like it was time more than ever to try to find their way to the top of the castle and find out what was going on. Luke's face was set with determination when they arrived on the confusing top floor. There had to be a door here somewhere. Hopefully him and Tear could help find it.

[fonichymns]

It was almost as though this place had been toying with them. Giving them the hope of reuniting only to be torn away just as quickly from those they were close to. Although she did her best to keep these concerns below the surface, Tear was finding it increasingly difficult, especially with the appearance of the newest floor. There was just something so... sinister about it.

"Let's keep heading north," she suggested, checking the sky. Although it didn't do much to reveal the secrets of the landscape -- it was one of the few indicators they had.

[maybeimaleon]

Even after everything that had happened during Time Compression, the only real word Squall had to describe the final floor (or what was presumably the final floor) was that it was something of mess. To be honest, it looked less like a coherent world and more as if someone had lost pieces of a whole bunch of worlds. Still, it was somewhere to explore and there had to be something here. Otherwise what would have been the point of having the world at all?

What he would find, and where, was anyone's guess, but that was besides the point. Someone had to try, and the sooner they found something, the sooner they could (maybe) go home.

[esperkin]

This place gave Terra an odd feeling. A chill that she couldn't shake; a discomfort that wouldn't leave her. Wandering around through the morbid and concering landscapes she truly felt alone. If only some of the others were here -- then surely she would have felt more confident in traveling down these twisted roads, and perhaps she wouldn't have been so on edge.

The sounds of footsteps in the distance were more than enough to catch her attention and she withdrew into herself, hands extended as magic began to dance across her fingertips. "Who's there?!"

[timberwings]

As Rinoa followed after Squall, she had to admit, she was hoping just as much that they might find something or someone that might get them home. The small taste of home that she's managed to get before returning here had only made that want even stronger. It was why she was here now, on the last floor that she even expected, and that even she could only describe as being somehow disconcerting. She honestly wasn't sure if she really liked the place much, but she'd continue through it until the end. Especially with Squall here with her.

"This floor is so different from the others." She said, mostly to help keep herself grounded. She knew Squall wasn't the most talkative, but right now, she just couldn't stay silent. Not here.

[drillsanddrool]

The thought of leaving others to find the door had been a tempting one. Why bother wasting time on that when he could spend that time preparing to bash that Organization's face in? He could just show up, attack, force that bastard to fix things, and everything would be taken care of. But the more Mao thought about it, the more restless he became. Nice as it would be to sit there and strike when the time was right, his eagerness to strike was quickly getting the better of him.

Finally, unable to bear it anymore, Mao had announced to Yorda that they were joining the search and stormed up to the latest floor... and promptly found himself lost beyond all recognition.

"What the hell kind of place is this?!" he growled out in frustration.

[evil_ditto]

Having made the top floor her current home, the magical girl quickly identified the latest intruder into her hunting grounds. She mostly had ignored the visitors, not caring one bit about their search for the so called "door". It was only upon seeing that ugly, white mop that she sprung into action, stalking him in the shadows, waiting for him to drop his guard.

That kid... how did he survive? He should have been crushed under the rubble a long time ago. Thankfully, no one had seemed to realized that she had been stealing his identity, but she still had to find a way to deal with him.

Thankfully... she was at full power now. And she had a large amount of grief seeds to spare.

[trademark_skull]

"So this is..." well, unsettling could have been another word for it. But no, this was apparently it, the beginning of the end so to speak. And boy did this look like the perfect place for one final fight. And with that in mind it begged the question, will the Organization meet them here? Or will they have to move one step forward, to the top floor.

"It's like it couldn't figure out what world to make," Emizel did feel like he was stating the obvious but it still bothered him. Someone mentioned before that each floor was made of a person's memory but all the ones he'd seen before were consistent, from what he could tell. So what was even going on here?

[promisor]

Unsettling was one word for it, ghastly was the one Valvatorez liked the sound of better and the one he was going with. He glanced around the place with an air of distaste. He'd heard of the memory thing as well and that made it all the more perturbing.

"Be on your guard, we don't know what we'll find in a place like this." And with that, and a sweep of his cape, Valvatorez kept on moving without hesitation. They needed to find that door as soon as possible lest anyone else tried making hasty blind decisions.

[keybladedancer]

The further they traversed up the castle, the more Aqua realized how familiar it... not the floors, but the hallways. She'd seen hallways like these before, but it couldn't be the same place, could it?

Aqua kept these thoughts to herself for now. It raised too many questions that would take time to explore. Right now they needed to find the next floor. The importance and urgency seemed to be at an all time high, given what was happening and how few 'outsiders' remained. They needed to get to the top and find out what was there.

Knowing Xehanort--Xemnas had something to do with all this, Aqua felt she most certainly had to be there when they got to the top.

Summoning, not her own keyblade, but rather their Master's keyblade to her hand, she took in the floor. This place... what had happened here?

[limitbreakpilot]

The question of what had happened was still one that Cid was asking himself. Sure, he'd gotten used to strange over the years, but that didn't really mean that he liked having to deal with it. It was a pain, even with the promise that eventually they might get out of this damned city-castle. All the same, Cid offered a polite nod as Aqua stepped into his line of sight. Just because it was damned strange was no reason to not be at least relatively polite.

Besides, even if that was all it was, they were technically in this mess together.

[windybonds]

"What in the world...?"

Or more like what world, because from the moment Ventus stepped onto the new floor, he couldn't help but feel like he was looking at too many worlds at once. It was strange - the other castle floors he had seen had looked like one big, connected place, but this one didn't make any sense at all. Finding that door around here would be tricky.

But they had to find it. That was the only way they could find a way to get everyone out of here, back to their own worlds...or, at least, to wherever they wanted to go. Somewhere safer than here.

"Any idea where we should start looking, Aqua?" he asked.

[limitbreakpilot]

Cid would like to have said that the floor the door was supposed to be on wasn't in the least bit unsettling. Unfortunately, he couldn't - it was unsettling, and in ways that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Maybe it was simply the fact that the end was - presumably - in sight, or maybe it was something else. Either way, Cid couldn't shake the fact that something had him on edge.

Still, there was supposed to be a door out in the mess that was this place and that was at least worth enough of a consideration to get Cid to decide that he might as well see things through to a proper end. It was high time someone figured what was behind this place.

[timberwings]

Getting split up from one of the few people she felt completely safe around seemed to be a rare thing indeed anymore, but still, it had come down to that for now. Besides, they would have been able to cover more ground this way, though she still found the place unsettling.

It took time before Rinoa spotted a figure in distance, though she couldn't really make out anything other then it was a person quite yet. She squinted her eyes as if it would somehow allow her to see the person in the distance more clearly, which obviously it didn't. Alright, looked like she was going to be approaching him, and if the person in the distance meant trouble? Well, she'd deal with that if it came to it. She much preferred to try to stay on good terms with whoever it was though.

[biphasic]

To someone who was used to seeing the world as the result of so much code, the floor that the door was meant to be hidden on was nothing short of a wreck. It was as if it had been designed by far too many people, most of whom who hadn't been in contact with any of the others.

Needless to say, it wasn't much of a surprise that he'd all but retreated into a relatively normal spot of the floor, as he tried to get his processors to deal with the fact that everything was far weirder than the strange User world had already been. Honestly, he'd expected more of User-kind, from all that many programs had once believed them to be capable of.

[keyofthesky]

The floor was unlike anything Sora had seen before. Was the castle... broken somehow? Or was this a deliberate thing, to try and throw them off, and make finding the last door difficult?

As he explored, he ran into a familiar figure.

"T-- Rinzler? What are you doing here?"

[lovestherunning]

A new floor meant something new to explore, and was often always a source of great excitement for Jenny as she made her way there, thought when she finally arrived and saw it, she had to admit it was far from what she had expected. As if chaos has erupted upon the floor, but even that in the end wouldn't deter her from continuing her explorations of it.

Of course, she only took time to actually stop exploring when she finally spotted someone in the distance. She moved closer towards him, stopping a good distance from him still.

"Hey!" She called to him in greeting.

Door Opening!

[paixaomods]

[beautifulrondo]

Krichevskoy ran his fingers over the wood of the door embedded in the mismatched, twisted tangle of the tower they had found. It had been a difficult fight to get there, but here they were. Whether it was the last step they needed to take or the first of many final steps was difficult to say, but it was progress, and that alone had something to be said about it.

Perhaps Laharl would forgive him for detaining him like that for doing this. Not that Krichevskoy would have chosen any other action.

He looked up at the final remnants of the signal he'd tossed into the sky, the sparks of the magical burst fizzling as they fell.

Base of the tower! (Open to any)

[trademark_skull]

The search so far had been fruitless, just the same old freaky landscape and sometimes the occasional pack of shadowy creatures. No door of any sort, no boss battles yet, while it wasn't quite as worrisome as Emizel thought it might be this didn't seem like it was going anywhere.

That is of course, before the signal hit the sky. Something must have happened. "... Huh?"

Emizel didn't bother checking the journal, as far as he knew the lights could have meant anything. It might have meant someone found the door, it might've been an attack, either way it was something that should be inspected.

"Something's happening up there," he was already not looking forward to climbing to the top of the tower but it wasn't like there much of another choice.