Scene #6345: OFF - Zone 1

Owner	Pose
Priscilla	When there is nothing, there is the Nothingness, and when there is something, it must be placed and categorized. Arranged into sectors of space, even on a graph. Zones you will. Like Zone 0. Like the flick of a switch, that's where you are. --------------- The end of a long route back through the Smoke Mines that you don't really remember taking, but most certainly did, takes you where the tram will not. Having emerged from the pitch black, you step into a room barely bigger than a walk-in closet, requiring you to pile together to fit into the cramped, square, spartan accommodations that lie at the end, deep purple under the feeble glow of a bare lamp. There's nothing here save for a square desk with nothing at all on it, the lamp, and a perfectly stereotypical and shiny office elevator, with its buttons and floors on display, just set into the wall of what might nebulously still be the mines. That, and a wheezy, nervous, pallid, tie-wearing, vaguely sickly-looking baldie between the empty desk and the elevator. Frankly, it's as 'at home' as any one of those identical creatures has looked this whole time. "What . . . How . . . Where did you come from?" he asks. "From the smoke mines." the Batter answers with the obvious. "But . . . How . . . What? But . . . but that's impossible . . . Not a single lamp works there, you . . . you can't have . . ." the worker trails off. "Faith guides my steps." the Batter asserts. "F- . . . Faith?" the office drone responds, clearly not comprehending. He looks to all of you assembled. "Which one of you is . . . Faith? I'm-" "My mission is to purify Zone 1. It seems the phantoms here are particularly numerous." says the Batter. "The . . . The spectres . . ." the worke trails off again. "Where are we?" the Batter asks almost rhetorically. "Uh . . . uh . . . Hhh . . ." "You're at the plastic administrations of Shachihata, the northern part of Zone 1. Our work consists of filling in forms. Afterwards, we wrap them up with string and send them to the courier service. There, they ship the packages, and in return, we receive parcels full of plastic. There is a lot of liquid plastic that forms lakes and oceans. There is also solid plastic, used to make various objects. As the first of four elements . . . It's an important element. Because without plastic, the world would have no boundaries. People would walk and walk and walk without ever stopping." "But . . . but . . . You hunt spectres? Really?" the worker asks. "Yes. I'm purifying this Zone." replies the Batter. "The . . . The spectres, I know where they come from . . ." the worker adds, with uncharacteristic usefulness. "They all come from the postal service. Where we send out the packaged forms. The problem is that . . . uh . . . nobody can remember which floor it's found on. My office is in the basement because there is no more space on the higher stories . . . I suppose." Indeed, examining the elevator keys shows you that you are at floor B, for basement. The ground floor must then be floor 1. The highest it goes to, likely being the roof access, is . . . Floor ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine. Floor 00000, Floor 00001, and Floor 99999. Three out of ten thousand figured out. 99997 to go.
Gilgamesh	Gilgamesh is just sort of here. He's drained of a lot of energy, so he's here fully in support mode today, using his numerous Mystic Codes rather than the overwhelming power of the Gate of Babylon. He's got his stone tablet in one hand, his staff-axe in the other, and he's just following along. He had actually meant to be elsewhere, but this was too interesting and too curious a place to pass up on. It seemed the Puppeteer had indeed provided a good enough trap to entertain the King of Heroes after all. "Well," he says, gesturing at Aoko, "Go ahead. All the buttons."
August Kohler	August should be frustrated that this happened again - that they're just travelling, without actually remembering it, that they've appeared in an office. But he seems...oddly relaxed. It's out of character for him how relaxed he seems, a certain sense of confidence in himself and what he can do, though he also appears exhausted. As the Batter talks with the office drone, the redhead stands near him, dressed in a thick grey winter coat with black gloves and a mirrored bracelet over his wrist. "Plastic, okay." August doesn't really care about their elements, because something about these people bugs him. "You don't know which floor...and I guess your faith's not going to answer that for us, is it, Batter?" When they climb into the elevator, though, August is betting on 666. Gilgamesh is betting on 1120, Aoko is...wanting to press every button. And in the end, after a thought, August pulls out his phone, loads up his gacha game about cats wearing hats, and prepares for the long haul. "Alright, then, let's press them all. The Batter will be able to tell us when we reach a floor if he senses spectres, I think." Partway through the ride, if it indeed takes forever to find anything interesting, August will swap his gacha game after he runs out of AP to an ebook. If anyone looks over his shoulder, he's reading 17th-century English.
Aoko Aozaki	Another trip to this weird place! Not that Aoko minds. It's all rather interesting and unpredictable here, and unpredictable is something that's ever underappreciated. Even if it crosses into slightly weird here, sometimes. But there are worse fates, really. "So plastic's the first element too, huh? Mister worker, out of curiosity, what do you think about smoke and metal, and what other elements are there out there exactly?" You know, this might be handy information. Or it might be worthless, if the worker's another one of those drones who can't think outside his box. Once that's been taken care of, Aoko suggests a method of handling the elevator, and once everyone is inside, she jams every last button down, having the King's permission. Including the emergency call button, if there's one! And various other utility buttons you probably shouldn't press. But more importantly, as many of the floor buttons as possible. This elevator is gonna be busy all day.
Starbound Flotilla	George wanders on in, chuckling several times. It's like he never left! "Just so you folks know," He says. "I'm gonna smoke on the way up. Won't smell great." Man, can you even hotbox whatever hospital-smelling weirdness he's always got in those cigarettes? It's certainly not tobacco or any other recognizable drug. "If you ever get bored of that though, maybe try halvsies. Stop at 5001 and 4999, see which has more ghosts. Then check halfway in that direction, and halfway in the next one, so on, y'know? Just an idea. You got the look of someone who's gonna get bored of this faster than I do." He takes a leaning position against one of the walls, his helmet folded away, already lighting up. He's watching August a bit, an eyebrow up but not judging negatively in the least.
Thomas Alva Edison	Edison, without realizing he was walking... Is now infront of the elevator. There is a look at the others, and then the door. "...I have a feeling this is going to be a tight squeeze. Edison, in the back nearly flat against the wall is now regreting the form taken because of his unique summoning. Arms crossed over his barrel chest as he sucks in a breath and is forced to breathe very little. "It is, however, a very nice...if not atypical elevator..." he comments, trying to make passing conversation. Finally let out, as they get /another/ explanation about solid plastic, it's importance as the first of the four elements... "I bet there is a special element. One that is also, somehow, first." Edison says, wondering if this is the mind of a child...or really bad memory. "However, now faced with...and then distracted by the Batter saying faith. He narrows his eyes...never trust men of Faith. Never. Of course, he coughs to interupt the converation, "Electricty was not made by faith, Good Batter, but rather by ME!" He does resit the urge to flex...Edison, if anything...is perhaps a LITTLE arrogant about his faith in science. Looking at the elevator again, he gives a number, "1879. Was always a special number to me. Failing that, 1231."
Tina Natsumi	The last time Tina was around to help the Batter on his quest, she was a little underprepared. She had her phone to call out her Persona, sure, but not every problem can be solved with the manifestation of one's inner flashy bullshit artist. This time, she's brought work gloves and a wide-brimmed cowboy hat. How did she know to bring it? When did she even think to bring it? Was it all part of a weird fever dream? No, this still made a little too much sense despite how utterly baffling it all was. Besides, there's plenty of brilliant minds around. Between their ingenuity and her own modern take on things, they'd surely figure it out quickly enough! Of course, problem solving is still going to be a bit tricky even with that kind of optimism. She mulls over the revelation that the spectres are coming from the postal service of all things, peering at the elevator buttons while trying not to push up against anyone too much. It's not working well. "Too bad we ain't at the top and headin' down. Otherwise, we could do what they do in the movies and rappel down 'til we get a hit from the ol' Batter here. Goin' halfway ain't bad, but..." But Aoko's going for EVERY BUTTON. Fumbling around in her pockets, Tina fishes out her own phone, then holds it overhead to take a picture of everyone on board. Luckily, she doesn't seem too bothered by the smoke, although she does wiggle around a bit to try and not breathe on anyone too much, too. "Say... Does this thing even have a hatch on top?" And then she looks up. If there is, she's going to try popping it open!
Gilgamesh	After a brief discussion, Gilgamesh trades George for one of his cigarettes, handing him off some bits of plant in a colorful cloth bag and trusting in George to have something to roll it in. The King lights up with a flick from his staff and takes a taste thoughtfully as the elevator ascends. Unconsciously he automatically adjusts himself to be primo photogenic. Even in photographs he is stupid pretty, but the effect is definitely stronger in person. The photograph just can't contain that golden soul, that golden body, that golden beauty. He watches Tina wiggle with fairly obvious lust. He's the King. He doesn't feel any need to hide his desires. But he also doesn't say anything; he just goes back to smoking. "Interesting. A very sterile taste. I don't much care for it, but you're right about the kick. Not unpleasant." "Not unpleasant at all." He discards the smoke into the Gate of Babylon with a ripple and produces a gold goblet full of sweet-smelling liquid. It pierces even the smell of the smoke, an overpowering delight of intoxicating alcohol. "If we've nothing to do but wait, then we wait in style. You are with the King. You lack for nothing while you travel with me. Not food, not drink, not entertainment. The Gate of Babylon holds everything worth calling a treasure under the sun."
Yuuki Kuran	Yuuki is here, again. She didn't think she'd be here, but she's here. Before, she was talking to August about books and eating a croissant. It wasn't filling or satisfying, but the texture was fun. Things that were filling and satisfying to Yuuki Kuran were certainly not Croissants, but nobody else tanked up on croissants either, so it was hard to feel too bad about that. Reflections on what would satisfy her led her to absentminded wandering, and her wandering brought her back... To the Zones. And an elevator! And-- "Oh, August. What's that on your phone?" She wonders, as people discuss how awful elevators are, and someone (someking) suggests just pushing all the buttons. "But why? Why not just press the top one? Is there some security feature? We could just go to the top, and then..." The Normal Girl makes a sour face. "It wouldn't be on that floor, would it? That seems too easy. Sacred mission or not, we're dealing with bureaucracy."
Priscilla	Oddly, the elevator itself is bigger than the poor worker's 'office' in the basement. It's enough for everyone to have arm room, though little else. The elevator doors close with a low rattle, and the light comes on with a bland little ding, before it begins smoothly ascending, at such a rate that one doesn't feel the drop or rise of their gut, but only a smooth ascent through space. Hitting every single button, the elevator stops on floor 00001 and its doors slowly slide open, revealing the administrative office space beyond. There are no windows; if there are any, they're so far away that they can no longer be seen past the absolutely and utterly endless rows of cubicles and desks stretching on forever, eerily identical in construction, placed at identical intervals, identically bland and undecorated, stretching identically on into forever like a mirror reflecting a mirror into gradually smaller and more distant infinity. There must be thousands of those equally identical office drones here as well --even just those visible from the elevator-- sitting in identical rows at their identical desks, pale and hunched and bleary-eyed, each with a stack of identical, plain forms, and piles and piles of stamps. Each one looks the same, is dressed the same, takes the forms in the same order, and applies stamps in the same way. Muttering feverishly under their breath, in the tone of a walking corpse who was politely granted leave to move around for another 60 odd years before rotting, each one repeats the form and stamp number over and over again, without saying a single word or expressing a single thought otherwise. "Form 1498, stamp 46363." "Form 0238, stamp 18592." "Form 9386, stamp 61873." "Form 2984, stamp 76771." "Form 5152, stamp 19282." "Form 6840, stamp 50139." "Form- . . ." Every voice has the same quiet, resigned defeat to it. Every string of numbers is memorized by rote, what must have taken thousands of hours of utterly meaningless training. Every shuffle of papers and every stick of each stamp is hypnotically timed to the ticking of office clocks in just the right places to stare at in silent desperation, clicking away like the drumbeat of a slave galley, yet perfectly quiet and insidious. There is nothing else. The basement worker spoke with no exaggeration; their work consists entirely of sticking stamps on forms based on rote memorization. Nothing else. Hours of this. Day in day out. Identical sad little men in identical sad little cubicles doing identical sad little work, breathing in the stale and stagnant air of an office of sprawling, endless, horribly drab and ugly proportions; nothing but function, nothing but work, without so much as a photo or a differently coloured pen holder at any given desk to indicate that any one of these people is even the slightest bit less than so much meat to fill the chair. The door closes, and the stamping fades into the distance, but the ticking does not. The incessant tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock of industry --not even that, but purely bureaucratic busywork-- keeps on. The elevator moves, the doors slowly open again, and the exact same thing is revealed once more. Floor 00002 is more of the same. The cubicles and desks are in slightly different places, and the sad little men are arranged slightly differently, but it's the exact same sight; the same stamps, the same forms, the same enormity of endless drudgework, the same ticking that spurs them on without even the dignity of an overseer with a whip at their back. The quiet fear of the clock is enough to keep them going on its own.
Priscilla	It goes on like this. Over and over and over again. Floor 00003. Floor 00004. Floor 00005. Floor 00006. Flor 00007. Floor 00008. Floor 00009. "Thank you for your invention of electricity." the Batter says to Thomas Edison at Floor 00066, watching the pallid and sickly drones toiling away under their fluorescent office lights. There is indeed a hatch in the top of the elevator, leading to cables that seem to stretch on up into infinity, and perhaps thank some god or another for that; at the rate they're going, it will be literally multiple weeks of being forced to watch this scenery, if not months of listening to that incessant, omnipresent tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, immersed in the quiet, despondent, cancerous pointlessness of this place.
Gilgamesh	Gilgamesh has Protection From Boredom EX. Once the banality of the place starts to settle in, the overwhelming, unmitigated blandness of bureaucracy hard at work, he just pulls out some interesting-looking toy that looks a lot like what a Babylonian child might imagine an airplane to look like. It has sweeping wings, a beak, eyes, a tail, and it is pulsating with powerful magic. Aoko can tell that it is probably a Noble Phantasm in its own right as Gilgamesh tosses it into the air. The bird starts flying around the elevator. It leaves a trail of color in its wake, painting the air with hanging lights. When Gilgamesh gets bored of that, he goes to stand between Tina and Aoko and Yuuki and play with another interesting-looking toy, some sort of flying disc that hovers above his hand and follows his motions, playing beautiful, harmonious music as it moves. It seems like some kind of magical musical instrument. "I really hate this place," the King says idly, "But at least the company is attractive and appealing."
Thomas Alva Edison	Edison watches the elevator go all of the way up. "Huh! These people are quite efficient! Hard working and very efficient..." Edison says, perhaps not seeing anything wrong with how things are going here. Even if it is comically bad. Large cities need strong beaucracies that run efficiently! Nodding once, but then looking to the Batter. "You are welcome. It took a great many years to get it just right...infact, the reveal on December thirty-first of eighteen seventy-nine was a good moment for me. I promised to make it so cheap that only the rich would burn candles. I am glad that came to pass.." he says, with a nod. Edison has entered story time, as they slowly go up administrative hell. It is, however, probably more entertaining than the actual process of pergitory itself. "So we started with Carbon filaments, but when you ran the electricty through them they burned out far too easily...Platinum was far too expensive..." More floors later, "And then we discovered Carbonized Bamboo could..." Then a bit later, "So during the eclipse, we decided to deploy the first example of the camera that could actually photograph it...let me tell you, Wyoming was not as fun as they made it out to be! Quiet though, but too far away from the city that I needed to make my inventing successful!"
Tina Natsumi	Noticing August's shitty rolls, Tina takes a moment to do some MENTAL MATH. If it had been three hours since last time, then she's got a good... Nine hours of wiggle room before hitting her stamina cap. No problem! Noticing Gilgamesh posing for the camera, meanwhile, the faux-American laughs and indulges, making sure to catch plenty of shots of him as well. His gaze doesn't go unnoticed, of course, and she winks at him playfully while leaning towards him for a moment just to add to the TENISON (and also snap another selfie). Holding her phone up that long is tiring on the arms, though. After she slips it back into her pocket, she cheers once the alcohol is brought out and coincides with her pushing that hatch open. "Ain't a great place to be waitin' around, but there could certainly be worse~ Alright, that should give us more room! And we can even see what's... Up." That's a lot of cables. She weighs her options, then hops once while throwing her arms up to catch the roof and haul herself out of that elevator. It's not a huge improvement, but it should help with the space issue inside the elevator! She even offers to haul anyone else out of there that needs a hand getting up, although she's pretty obvious about trying to get Gilgamesh on top of the elevator. "Whole lotta cables up there... Hmn. Hey, Edison. Y'think zappin' these could supercharge this elevator?" A beat. "Without killin' us all?"
August Kohler	August hates this. He absolutely now regrets the decision they made, as the droning goes on and on. But they can't 'undo' it, that's not how elevators work. As Yuuki asks about his phone, he's in the process of about to leave his app. "Oh, this? This is a game where you collect cats with hats who do little dances. I play it when I've got nothing else to do." He continues switching out of his app, towards an ebook reader. "After our chat, I've been reading more. Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes, is what I'm currently reading." And then, August looks over towards the wizards of the group, clearly kind of annoyed. "Do you have any ways to speed this up? Or make it way less boring?" He's not going to level the place. That'd probably endanger everyone. He will absolutely partake in alcohol in the process, though attempt not to get drunk because he needs his faculties.
Aoko Aozaki	Aoko's eyes lock on the toy, predictably. It's always interesting to see something loaded with Mystery even though it's /a toy/. Some magi work their entire lives to produce just a tiny bit of it, to infuse an object with Mystery that will be able to do something almost remarkable. Gilgamesh has toys worth more than a magus' lifetime of research. It's poetic, and very amusing. She looks up, when people start messing with the hatch. "Well, supercharging the elevator might not be so useful if we don't know where we're headed. At least this way we can check every floor, although so far it sure has been a lot of... busywork," she says, evidently not of the opinion this is great and efficient work. It's work certainly! It's also terribly boring to her, and not something people should lower themselves to. "Efficient or not, reducing people to worker ant status is pretty dull. You might as well make robots to handle that and find more interesting things for people to do, you know?"
Yuuki Kuran	Ding! Banality. Ding! Banality. Ding! Banality. Yuuki doesn't even favor the floors of drones with a glance. She knows what's there. She sees it whenever she goes into the offices, but at the Grand Dorado, she is surrounded by opulence, by excellence, by warm smiles at best, and by the trembling warmth of professionalism at worst. This is boring. Boring in a way even Gilgamesh's perfect hair and teeth and magical toys cannot fix. Morose and Extremely So Literally Cannot Even Into It, Yuuki Kuran offers a faint smile to the King before scrunching into the back corner and closing her eyes. "Tell me when we get there, then..." Shortly before people start getting up on to of the elevator to turbocharge it! And shoot it - like a rocket - up the floors! She cracks an eye. "Oh, well, that's probably a good plan. A hundred thousand floors would have taken forever anyway." "And forever is such a long time..."
Tina Natsumi	With the plan to turn the ship into a rocket or super elevator or something underway and the logistics of it becoming more apparent, Tina soon works on getting off the roof and back down into the elevator proper. She likes her head being a head and not a pancake.
Starbound Flotilla	George gratefully accepts the new cigarette contents. For his own part, he chatters just a little bit about what he sees about the nature of this office. George doesn't smoke /real/ cigarettes so it's a brief moment of unfamiliarity, but he gets into it after a moment. "So, we've decided the top floor is the real one? Or are we gonna build the second rocket real fast after the first one?" He glances to the Batter. "Hey, Bats, can you give me a Wide Angle just sort of in general? Maybe lock on to something here? Just give us a shout when. That'd be," He blows the divine smoke out to punctuate his sentence. "Just swell of ya." The he clamps his armor onto the side of the elevator and activates inertial dampeners, an engineer's safety rig designed to stay safe when a spaceship starts accelerating at hundreds of Gs. What a show of confidence!!
Gilgamesh	Gilgamesh, who had gone up to join Tina, comes back down, because he doesn't want to accidentally destroy the elevator when he's inevitably crashed into the ceiling at rocket speed.
Aoko Aozaki	Following RADIO CONVERSATIONS and ENTIRELY TOO MUCH TIME ON THEIR HANDS, Aoko finally breaks her gaze from Gilgamesh's toys, having settled on impressing him. Or at least, doing something ill-advised today, to make up for all this time in an elevator. She extends her hand towards Edison! "Well, then!" Magic flares up. And Magic flares up, too. "I announce! In my name representing order, I announce! A temporary contract be forged, and my stores yours to use until Order has fallen! One hour forward, ten years backwards. Do you accept?" Well, the words are meaningless, usually. It's all about intent! A temporary contract, to give Edison direct access to Aoko's mana for the next hour. But if he accepts, something else too. Ripples of blue light, tearing apart spacetime for a moment. Aoko's body loses a few inches, her hair shifts from dazzling red to brown, and her clothes... is that a school uniform? She laughs, evidently unbothered by it. And meanwhile, Edison might gain a few inches, as if he had gained the ability to age forward a bit! Look at all that skill, too! What if he spent ten years perfecting his craft, rather than being content with its static state as a Servant? Yes, this is FLAGRANT ABUSE OF FORBIDDEN MAGIC. But they're not on Gaia. NO CONSEQUENCES!!! probably.
Thomas Alva Edison	Edison, looks towards Aoko. "This is either going to be the best thing, or the worst thing to happen. There is no inbetween with you." He says, though at the same time /CURIOUS/ about what this would do. His natural inventor gets the best of him...and then he accepts the deal. "Alright, you live only once...twice if you're lucky!" he says, with a lionish grin. With a flash, the Lion becomes... https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/typemoon/images/6/6d/CasterEdisonStage3.png/revision/latest?cb=20160331053134 Now in full PRESIDENTIAL INVENTOR FORM, the rainbow of RED, WHITE, AND BLUE draped behind him like a light coat, he moves towards the elevator's electrical controls. Ripping off the plate, he unleashes his TERRITORY CREATION, turning the inside of the elvator into his personal lab, as he starts moving around the elevator like a madman. Imagine every sleepless night, every waking moment dedicated to a single persuit. Edison's item creation already one of his most prized clings to fame, now enhanced with nearly LIMITLESS POWER from Aoko. The elevator, soon more looks like a very comfy room, with DC POWERED LAMPS, DC POWERED CHAIRS, AND DC POWERED READING AND/OR ENTERTAINMENT MATERIAL! It is now propelled by DC POWERED THRUSTERS... AND GIVEN A DC POWERED SENSOR. Programmed to take them to the goal. "TO THE LEADER OF THESE LANDS! GO, THE EDISON ALL IN ONE COMFORT ELEVATION TRANSPORT!"
Priscilla	After thoroughly having enough with the unimaginably tedious and depressing hell of infinite cubicles that is the Plastic Administration, the elevator becomes a shoe closet of incredibly irresponsible science. The Batter waits patiently in one corner as the utter lunacy gets to work, slowly tapping his bat on his shoulder with distant, mildly interested look between Thomas and Aoko. "You're younger." he says to the latter. "Shouldn't you be in school?" follows all of a sudden, in an almost --surprisingly-- fatherly tone, before returning to his blank preacher tone. "You can't get a wide angle from inside an elevator. First you have to see the field." he says to George, in a way that is both metaphorical and also a literal description of baseball. When Thomas slams the fusebox behind the button set shut, the elevator sparks, the lights flicker out then on again, the cables grind and judder, and then after a moment's darkness and silence, the whole thing rockets off fast enough to flatten those unprepared for it against the floor. The old-timey floor ticker begins scrolling madly, wheeling from row to row to row in moments. Still, despite the whine of rockets, the clattering of the shaft all around them, and the rumbling of the vibrations through the building, the steady tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock is somehow even more loudly audible in your ears, neither speeding up nor slowing down, insisting on its drab pace. The elevator slams into the roof access cell with an abrupt and polite ding before disgorging you out from the door, left standing a good three hundred kilometers up in the air and completely unable to see the ground from any side of the bland, square, greenish exterior of the roof. It should be literally impossible to breathe up here, but that doesn't seem to matter much to this place anyways. There isn't much of consequence here, outside of a large set of outdated radio antenna, weather vanes, and lightning rods. Not much except a very large, very odd, very grinning house cat that purrs loudly between its massive, Cheshire smiling fangs as it turns its head almost completely around like an owl.
Priscilla	""Zounds! You again? You are decidedly everywhere. One could believe that you are following me." says the Judge. "Nonetheless, your steps have not deceived you, for you are here in a lieu that can certainly use a thorough round of violently confrontational pitching and a few stout blows from a holy bat. Perhaps you are already aware of this, but it appears that the storey housing the postal service is overrun by ectoplasm. It would probably be wise to find the storey with the intangible creatures post-haste in order to dispatch them." He glances past you and into the absurdly riced up elevator. "But could it be that the task is too difficult for your narrow minds? In that case, I may be able to provide you with some advice . . ." "No one remembers whereupon the postal services may be found, but the purpose of the administration is to send packaged forms; quite the paradoxical impossibility were the lack of remembering at all interfering with the surplus of sending. The forms must arrive at the post, waylaid by neither snow nor sleet nor hell nor high water nor something as trivial as a lack of knowing where it is, so what is it that every one of our pasty-faced cogs remembers like the back of their own stamping hand?" The Judge licks his paw, and then begins grooming his face, behind his ear. "Passed around and around and around, eventually all the forms must one day receive the stamp that consigns them to the particular sending tube you hope to find at some point before you grow old and gray and riddled with senility. The stamp that is used over and over again, repeated endlessly by those who finally approve it. I'd suggest to listen closely to the babbling brook of boundlessly binding bureaucracy." "And perhaps refrain from butting up against every blinking bauble on the way back down to ground, yes? There are many employees in need of a muscular wrist."
Tina Natsumi	Tina's cheering, whooping, and hollering as the mad scientists get to work, and she gets her phone back out to take pictures and record video of their work in action. It's a hectic thing, seeing the elevator become a workshop, but the spectacle is worth the minor terror in her gut! And then they reach the top. It's a little higher than reasonably possible considering how ELEVATORS WORK, but Tina doesn't let that bother her. After all, she's able to actually breathe out here! Somehow. Also, Cheshire's back! "Howdy! Yep, we're back~" Tina says with a bold grin despite her legs feeling a little more jelly-like than before. She listens to the cat's hints, mulling them over in her head and coming up sort. "So we're gonna... Need to figure out a pattern in those forms and stamps? Soundss..." She doesn't finish that sentence. She just starts tapping notes into her phone.
Gilgamesh	The King recalls his toys into the Gate with a snap of his fingers and simply sits himself in the elevator, reclining and taking up a fair bit of space. Sitting, his arms spread out, he does indeed look like the King he is - a natural, royally relaxed pose. When they arrive and the cat starts talking, Gilgamesh tunes out. 'Listen to bureaucracy.' There are some things the King simply won't do. Besides, that's what the rest of the party is for.
Thomas Alva Edison	Edison, frowning, as his elevator was only HALF successful. "Well! Not quite what I wanted, but at least now the elevator will be both comfortable and fast," he says, only to be met by the the cat! "Hello," Edison says more brightly, as the conversation happens. "Huh...so the clue is in their droning words, huh? Maybe we should go back to where the chain...probably starts, which I think would be the first floor. It might tell us where to go next, at the very least."
Yuuki Kuran	Yuuki tumbles out of the elevator, holding her lunch but not her shit as she tumbles out ungracefully from the elevator, landing splay-legged in her snow jeans and boots and coat on the ground, dazed. Her hair falls unkempt around both shoulders and down her back, and then she's lectured by a cat. Eventually she gets bored of the riddles - as she was never very good at them - and instead opens her smartphone's calculator app and starts tapping away. Which swiftly produces an exasperated sigh. "Four point three meters times nine nine nine nine nine is... divide by...-" She opens up a search engine to check something. "-...Fifty three meters, divided by sixty, divide by sixty again, and... Two hours?" Yuuki groans, flopping backwards onto her back. "I thought it'd be faster to just jump off the roof to get back to the bottom, but it'd take two whooooooole hooooours to fall back down!"
Aoko Aozaki	"Yeah! Been a while," Aoko answers the Batter, inspecting her somewhat shorter hair. "Kinda missed this color. I don't miss the school though. Or the family drama." That part was probably the least fun part. "Thankfully it's temporary. Funny thing about these kinds of transfers, they always try to right themselves. Worth it to see those weird wheel-wings, though!" She's not sure how historically accurate Edison is, but if the answer is anywhere near yes, history books sure are missing out on the chance to have some eye-catching art in them. Once the elevator stops, the younger Aoko grins, hands on her hips, and calls out to the King. "So! What do you think, King of Heroes? It's no Star of Creation but I like to think I can impress when I try." It's unclear if she means Magic or if she means looking younger. With the Judge's challenge, though, Aoko just pffts. "Of course it had to go right back to paperwork puzzles. Don't you have FUN puzzles around here? I guess we DO have a fast way around now, though..." This could have taken a long time otherwise.
August Kohler	As the group creates a magical rocket death elevator, August watches Edison with awe. He was an engineering student - he wants to see if he can understand the science between this, understand what Edison's doing. He can't, really, but it's still really impressive, and he probably understands any mundane basics. He barely manages to brace against the wall, skidding, but manages to stay upright with surprising strength. When they reach the top and the Judge is there, August crouches to greet the cat. "Hey, Judge. So,..." August is also not the best at riddles, he's realized. He's a direct person. But he can get the basic. "So they're the clue. Are we looking for where they're sending stuff, or where they're /not/?" When the group has the information they want, though, August will filter back into the team elevator. It's theirs, now, and no one can say otherwise.
Starbound Flotilla	"Yeah, cool, of course. Makes sense." George says, staring up at the ceiling as if the ceiling will give him better answers. He rattles in his ad-hoc harness all the way up, relaxed enough with the shenanigans afoot that he actually winds up taking another drag of the cigarette while he rises. When they come out of the elevator, he only stumbles a little. "That always has a kick." He mutters quietly. "We're following you? Eh. Maybe it's just that you're the first person I've met in years that'll say 'zounds' and I just gotta see what you're always up to, J." He spends time considering the hint. "Well, they don't know it individually, that's the idea. It's like how the cells in your brain don't remember things, it's the whole brain that remembers. But, huh... So they all do remember it, somehow. They just don't recognize it." He scratches at his beard a bit. "Feel like I'm looking at a magic-eye picture and I'm not seeing the castle. Anyone else got an idea?"
Priscilla	"The where, not the not. Why in the name of an opposite of a lack of common sense would you wish to go anywhere the post isn't sent? If that were your aim, you'd need only go to any floor. You would have an infinitismal fractional chance of ending up anywhere else. Otherwise, you could stay here; I see neither hide nor hair of a package from here, plastic, post, or otherwise!" Somehow, that grin actually widens at George. "Indeed, you may wish to call it ancestral memory! More than you realize about this place is deep inside its genes, both literal and metaphorical! Hereditary are its instincts, and its illness." Thomas insists on the ground floor, and so it's another stomach-churning rocket ride all the way back down, thankfully mere minutes instead of the multiple hours Yuuki has correctly surmised it'd take to go by falling. How this building exists, never mind just the part where it stays upright, is a mystery, almost as if it were possible to support it by the sheer weight and volume and stolid, stagnant, hard and unchanging routine within it. Having to really stop and listen and absorb the feverish, sleepless-eyed droning on the ground floor is far from pleasant. The ticking somehow feels even louder, each second seeming longer and longer. The urge to glance for the nearest clock and see how close it is to 5pm is intrusive and overwhelming. Those with the stomach for it do begin to notice a pattern, albeit just one, and a loose one at that. "Form 2584, stamp 10258." "Form 3988, stamp 10258." "Form 0945, stamp 10258." "Form 4590, stamp 10258."
Thomas Alva Edison	"I think I got it..." Edison says, after a moment. "The stamp is always the same number...but the form is different. I mean, the only clue we have is that number..." "Well, as that's the only thing we have to go on, why don't we go to floor 10258. At the very least we'll have a clue that might point us the right way, or go slightly bit more mad as it's the same floor." Edison says, after thinking about this for some time. Then again, Edison is fond if big complex systems and making them sing for him. "Really, this place would be better served to be fully automated. Some robots to do all of this, twenty four hours a day!"