theairlock | Fifth Trial

[You get a little time after your investigation is over, but not too long. PAL gets bored easily and doesn't like to be kept waiting, after all.

When everyone has gathered at the elevators, the one going down turns on automatically. It...it looks like you're taking a leap of faith into an elevator shaft, not gonna lie. But the first person to step in finds that it's a carefully-balanced anti-gravity field made to just shoot you down and deposit you gently at the end of a long hallway. Like a walk-through aquarium, the walls and ceiling are all made of thick glass, giving you an even better view of the stars outside.

You're led to a wide-open area, empty except for a circle of podiums in its center. They've changed from last week, with the three previously empty podiums replaces with greyscale portraits of everyone you've lost this time around, including Ardyn and the Doctor. If anyone remembers where Jamie's portrait was in the simulation, however, that spot is now where Xander is meant to stand. The walls here are equally transparent, and they seem to have lines of large hatches going along them, as if this is where one might park one's small short-journey craft when getting ready to go on vacation to a galaxy far far away. Shame you don't know anything about those.

You already know what you're here to do. You'd best be getting along with it.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Xander is quiet, being at a podium for the first time in a long while.

...it wouldn't be so bad, if not for the fact that Jamie's portrait is still right there. He stares at it, then carefully moves it to the side enough to fit his boxy self in the space.]

Was this really... necessary, PAL?

PAL doesn't seem the type to be too nice.

[PAL doesn't answer but there is a familiar-looking Overseer platform overhead that rattles lightly with heavy footsteps as a hulking figure steps uo to the edge and peers down at them through a glowing blue visor.]

We ran out of space so...yes.