[elevator] [cerberus]

[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

[cultfavorite]

. . . I don't know. I don't know if one team having already . . . if that implies that the highest team at the end still won't . . . I couldn't say. We don't know enough. And at this point, we don't know enough about how anyone else is going to act now that we've faced what happens, and this is the last anyone can do anything about it.

[moonlit_knight]

...Yeah. A sight like that might change how people act now. Now it's real.

We're flying blind as usual.

[cultfavorite]

We have to act under the assumption that everyone will lower themselves. I don't believe anyone will try to deliberately harm anyone else, but that also means spreading harm around. It means anything is possible.

[moonlit_knight]

...I think at least a few teams would try to harm someone, to save their own skin. Basilisk, Krake and Sphinx all need to push someone else above them to get out of the losing half. Yatagarasu and Bugbear are both on the cusp. And who knows what Unicorn are thinking right now.

It's not wrong of them to try and save themselves. I'm not judging anyone who'd think that way. But that's the reality, if people want to live they'd lower themselves... and push someone else above them.

[cultfavorite]

I don't know. I don't know how rational everyone is going to be after what just happened. I can be as logical as I like, and never really understand in practice how a group of people under pressure will act.

[moonlit_knight]

If this trial has shown us anything, it's that none of us are good at predicting that.