[elevator] [sphinx]

[guillotineroom]

[ When you open your eyes again the first thing that you, and your teammates, may notice is that you are confined within an iron cage, rectangle in shape. Further inspection will reveal that outside of the cage is a large structure of sorts, reaching far above you. It kind of looks like an unfinished clock tower, really... there are spots that look finished and bolted tightly, and others that look like they had been left once and the work never thought of again.

Also, it's pretty chilly. You might get to notice that.

It's foggy and windy—the kind of wind that howls and roars, jostling your cage against the tall shaft, and every so often you feel as though you might have had the ghost of a raindrop on you. The tower-like build creaks horribly ominously in the wind, and you can see the rusted metals swaying slightly. But if you decide to look around...

Flapping above you (and not helping with the wind) is a harpy-like creature, iron chains wrapped around their talons. Though, maybe it's more like a lion? The chains are bolted to the top of your cage. There are also little indicators on the structure, the same distance apart, that seem to be declaring different levels or heights. They look horribly unhappy to be here, but they're also impressive at ignoring any call you might have for them.

There's a door to the cage, but it won't open, even if it's just a simple-looking locking mechanism. If you peer out, it's too foggy on the ground to make out very much, but you can make out nine other, tower-like structures with similarly flapping harpies. Each one, including your own, has an emblazoned emblem of every team's patron monster, so that you can see where everyone is—it's just difficult to make out exactly who may be in each one. Even more difficult to try and communicate like this.

Attached to the door is an aged metal panel with a screen and four buttons; two to choose between the team names that appear on the dark green and black screen, and two to choose whether you wish for that team to go up or down.

After a moment, a little speaker in the corner starts playing an incredibly bad quality version of this.]

Comments

[pagereturner]

Cerberus is the highest team, next to Nymph. Teams will rush to lower them, not to mention, they'll likely lower themselves. If we lower them, it's highly likely it'll be redundant.

The most correct play right now is to lower one of the teams on the bottom.

[davincible]

I honestly didn't believe Cerberus would be lifted so high in the first place. If I were one of the more pragmatic teams I would take advantage of that and try to lift the two highest teams even further to take them out of the competition.

There's no guarantee they won't be hoisted higher.

And to be frank, my Master is on that team. If anything happens to her...

[pagereturner]

If you expect me to care, you need to at least finish your sentence. Especially if this is like with Crow, where you'll spontaneously expire if she dies.

[davincible]

I don't expect you to care. But it's true that my life is tied to hers.

[pagereturner]

[Annoyed sigh. Why do so many of you have so many dead man's switches.]

They're only in serious danger once they're at 10 or higher. They would need to be raised twice and not lowered at all this round to reach that position.

If we were doing the scenarios from my world, yes, it's a guarantee that some bloodthirsty groups who only care about saving themselves would target the teams that are highest first.

This place is not my world. For better or worse, all of you care about each other.

[Not him, though. Never him.]

[davincible]

[ oh whatever, sir. You who vowed to throttle whoever dissed Echidna-- ]

Regardless. My vote is going to be to lower Cerberus. If I'm overruled, fine. But I'll prioritize what I need to.

[pagereturner]

That's extremely likely to waste our turn without meaningfully helping them anyway.

[davincible]

We have enough people. You can overrule me if you all decide otherwise.

[ But she ain't budging. ]

[pagereturner]

[Grunt.]

[Goes to talk to the others.]