The Twisted Crypt Testing Space

In the end, it was his wisdom that saved the day. Ho-hum. He'd feel better about that if it struck him as being especially hard, given how the others acted. More importantly, the timer stopped, and the way forward was open. He gave himself a small nod, noting that technically, they didn't actually have to make a decision on who got deleted, so much as just make one on how they'd do it. LightningMan started to hover again, and moved onward with the others, only to stop at the stairs. It'd be a problem if any electromagnetic energy he gave off coursed through that metal and shocked someone. Just think of the whining he might have to put up with. He sighed, and returned his feet to solid ground before starting to walk down. Note to self: make sure the HQ didn't have any metal floors.

He mostly tuned out all the conversation during the descent, though it was hard to not at least notice the couple trying to get him to spill the beans. But there was one flaw in their plan: he already had his answers for them. All he needed was the guy obsessed with plants, and he was done, thanks to Slay. So he was content to remain silent, and ponder plans for the fortress from which his world conquest would run. It was far more interesting than anything currently going on, that was for sure.

Once the group finished the arduous journey of stairs, they were in another room. The brightness snapped the electrical Navi back to the test, and the area in general. "What? What is this, some kind of game show? Are we supposed to be dueling it out for fabulous prizes or something?" His voice grew in disdain and disbelief as he spoke, but nonetheless he rolled with it, and walked over to a podium. Perhaps surprisingly, he didn't just bolt for #1, and settled for whatever he ended up at, which happened to be #4. "Whatever. Let's Get This Over With for 20000, Alec."
Perhaps without really meaning to, Slay managed to put a small, tentative grin back on Cocoa's face with her comment; the girl rolled her eyes as she edged gradually down the stairs, and murmured quietly, mostly so that Slay alone would hear.

"The sum is fine, but I'm not a grown up... the parts aren't made for being used." Perhaps in fitting with her design as a young girl, the admission didn't actually seem to bother her. Verte, meanwhile, glanced across to Slay, and seemed like he wanted to ask more but was failing to pick the right words.

Elsewhere on the way down, though 'BoltMan''s magnanimous choice to walk upon the ground like the lowly ones saved him ill feelings from Cocoa, he did manage to acquire a pair of disappointed and unimpressed stares from Cry and Take, when it became clear that he had no intention of acknowledging their presence or questions at all. Perhaps it was becoming clear that telling him off wouldn't help, though, because neither of them actually bothered to pass comment on his rudeness.

By the time they were lining up at the small podiums, Slay took six, and ended up with Verte beside her, on seven, and Cocoa beside him, at eight. On the other side, the peculiar navi, WoodBug, had taken the stand closest where they had entered, followed by LightningMan at station four, Cry and Take at three and two respectively, and Dolly at one. Most of these small details would quickly become background, however, as Verte turned to face Slay with a question of his own.

"Don't worry Slay, we're navigators after all, you will never be past your prime! While the others are..." His voice cut into the nervous tic he'd mentioned before and he snapped a sharp "I won't say that!" down to the side, before trying to continue. "Asking random questions, as it were? I..." Again the small snap, "No! He said we could not—" Before he could recover, however, the laid back voice of their test instructor cut over the top of things again.

"I'm sorry, that was against the rules. Can't be having that now..." VerteFée froze, a look of shock crossing his face as he realised the words were probably for him. A second later, the panel beneath where the drink-mixer was standing seemed to energise, and a raging column of electrical current bust upwards, sending his body rigid and drawing what sounded like a very painful cry from him. Others in the room recoiled, but no-one managed to react before a white beam of light cut into the room, coming for the navi. Before the light beam reached him, however, a dome of white light sprang up over his form, quickly causing the overbearing electrical current to fill it and obscure any clear view. The light beam struck the shell and splintered, glancing off in several directions before dissipating. The electricity cleared a few moments later, leaving a scent like burning alcohol and very little else.

"I'd like to remind everyone that no testers are—" The voice returned, but cut short as a second light beam dropped down into the place where VerteFée had been standing. It resolved as a tiny green glowing pixie girl, little more than a handful of inches tall. She was only wearing a thin, barely thigh-length shift, but her glow and small size did the rest of the work. She looked about, wings flittering.

"Verte? Verte!? Where are you? Excuse me? Excuse me, anyone? My navi was here a moment ago, but we lost his signal! Has anyone seen him? He looks—" the small desperate voice was delicate and high pitched, but it was cut off into a sudden, agonised shriek as a column of fire, this time, rushed up from beneath her, completely engulfing the tiny figure.
"Tsk... I said no support programs..." The calm voice sounded a little bit less cool this time, but really more irritated than anything worse. When the fire cleared, the pixie was gone. The voice of their tester continued after a small clear of the throat.

"As I was saying, I'd like to remind everyone that no testers are in any danger, and no-one is at any risk of harm during any of these tests. Any testers who are uncomfortable with the tests and wish to stop are free to leave the testing environment at any time. While testing, I must ask again that you all abide by the rules laid down for doing so, so as to prevent any invalidation of the tests."

Of all the navis present, WoodBug had watched the events unfold in a curious, yet detached manner, while the Secretary had only raised her eyebrows. Cry and Take both seemed shocked and uncomfortable but were swiftly exchanging quiet words with each other. Cocoa, however, who had been standing next to VerteFée, on the other side to Slay, was in the process of freaking out. she had backed away from her platform and now had her back to one wall of the room, panting hard with her eyes wide.

There would be at least a moment or two where any of them might try to say something to the girl, but ultimately it didn't appear to matter whether they did or not; she shook her head, mouthing soundlessly, then promptly jacked out a few moments later. Worth noting though was that, true to word of their test-giver, she did seem to jack out just fine and with no interference. Dolly laughed. With a long sigh, she shook her head and chuckle,d putting a hand to her forehead.

"Silly girl... It's all smoke and mirrors anyway. He even said it was... hah... Oh well, more for the rest of us." It seemed as though the host was giving everyone at least a few moments to sort themselves out before returning to the briefing for the current test, as he remained silent for a short while.

Slay thought that maybe the conversation was getting into "TMI" territory, but she still smiled along with Cocoa. It looked like, up ahead, LightningMan was being his usual personable self. She couldn't hear everything that was going on, but on the other hand, she could hardly blame him for not wanting to take part in discussions of relationships and sexual preferences... it was pretty uncomfortable for her already, since she was generally sort of private, apart from social and professional courtesies. Curiously, she turned back to VerteFee, hearing him addressing her once again. He did have a point; she hadn't exactly grown to look any older over her years, despite the number she'd been involved in the slasher flick business. Like others before him, he'd awkwardly skirted the topic of the questions they weren't supposed to reveal they had been asked to ask, drawing a wry smile from the actress. As it turned out, however, that was a pretty kind reaction compared to the other punishment he was about to receive for his mistake.

Slay barely managed to fall back from the electric shock that suddenly hit VerteFee, only realizing now that she'd been allowing herself to leave her podium and stand pretty close to him. Once she realized what was happening, her first impulse was to do something to help, but before she could ponder whether that was too dangerous or not, it was over. Lying on the ground and turned half on her side, she watched the spot where he'd been a moment ago with an aghast look on her face, one that made her look more like one of her victims than the cold-blooded killer she often acted as. "He's..." she tried to answer the tiny girl that had appeared, but found that she couldn't get out the words, partially because it seemed absurd to utter them when he'd just been speaking to her literally a few seconds ago. She held one hand in front of her eyes helplessly to block out the light as another plume of flames annihilated the newcomer. "You bastard!" she spat, her matted hair flapping back and forth as she looked in vain for the source of the attacks.

The words that came next barely registered with her, as she grasped for her knife and wrapped her fingers around it, then held it in a ready stance. "No danger, my ass! Unless VerteFee and his SP were both plants and ordered to scream like they were dying when they got EJO'd, this is no trick!" she thought to herself wildly, the scent of alcohol burning inside her nostrils. Cocoa looked like she was taking it just as hard; Slay couldn't believe that the others were as calm as they were; she could only explain it by their distance from him. If they'd been standing next to him, close enough to see him right as the bolt hit and smell the lingering scent of whatever liquid was inside him burning, surely they wouldn't be acting so dumb.

Cocoa jacked out next, which didn't surprise Slay; in fact, she turned to the others, wiping her mouth with one sleeve of her navisuit while pointing out with her knife. "She has the right idea... This may be a test but it isn't safe, that's for sure... Put two and two together! That was a real attack just now," she warned them. At this point, she was really glad that her operator wasn't paying attention, as she might really be going mad if she had to put up with hearing about how this gave him a great idea for a new script, on top of having to decide what she was going to do to continue. "I'm going to stay for VerteFee's sake, but the rest of you should just jack out now! It's ridiculous to do whatever the killer wants after seeing something like that," she shouted, as much as she was able to raise her voice. "Anyone who stays at this point is an idiot, self included!" She might be making a fool of herself, but she'd seen enough horror movies to know that a lot of horror movie victims lives could be saved if they just loosened up on the bravado and erred on the side of caution once in a while. Still, she figured LightningMan probably wasn't running away either; he didn't seem like the type to get scared, even when he should be. She mostly hoped she could make DollyHeart and the couple see reason and leave... and maybe WoodBug, although she somehow doubted WoodBug was going to be the type you could reason with or appeal to the emotion of.
At first, LightningMan was content to stand there and tune people out. When the bubble'd Navi started to speak, though, something about it made him listen. Maybe he was just bored, or maybe he subconsciously noted that the Navi had just violated the stated rules. Either way, he looked over, just in time to see...

...Whoa. That looked like the kind of electrical blast he was once capable of using. He raised an eyebrow at the scene, especially once what appeared to be some kind of fairy popped in, only to get burned a moment later. ...Hmm. Electricity for a Navi that was a decent amount of liquid, and fire for what looked like a forest sprite? What would his punishment be, a giant log falling on him?

He didn't have too much time to ponder, as Cocoa decided that she'd had enough, and Slay seemed quite upset, herself. He let out an annoyed sigh; the two Navis he wasn't actively being annoyed by were suddenly being idiots. No one else wanted to deal with the idiocy, it seemed, and while he couldn't blame them for that, he was going to give it all a shot, anyway. "Cool it, Slay. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that stung, but all PET interactions are intact, remember? That includes emergency jack out protocols, so he should be jacked out, licking his wounds right now. The guy's probably playing it fast and loose with the definition of 'no danger', because painful stuff like that definitely qualifies as danger, but other than that, he's been true to his word. Just don't violate any of the stated rules, and that won't happen to you. It's that simple."

With that, he looked slightly upward, and shook his head. "All right, I don't think anyone else is leaving, so can we get this show on the road, already?"
In the aftermath of the sudden elimination of two testers, Slay tried her best to put some proper concern into her compatriots, understandably shaken up by what she'd just been close to. Dolly wasn't having any of it though; she shook her head, shooting the other woman a condescending expression while she idled at her podium.

"I thought you were supposed to be an actress, sweetie... can't you see a script when it's waved under your nose? I mean, come on... this is a GNA sanctioned mission, right? They said at the start, no matter how it looks or what we see, it's not real. They told us that right at the beginning girl. I think you've been in a few too many scary movies." As with her gaze, the woman's voice was similarly belittling, like she was explaining something very basic to a simple child. "If you really thought we should all run, then you'd run. You just want a bigger divide of the rewards for participating, don't you? Fewer of us there are at the end, the bigger the slices, right?"

WoodBug had continued watching in silence, his head tilting this way and that as his eyes darted between Dolly, Slay and 'BoltMan'. He, too was standing at his station and after a moment or two, Cry and Take also stood back at their places, their private conversation concluded. Take was glaring down at her control panel in stony silence, but Cry cast an apologetic look towards Slay.

"We... think they must be right, miss Slay. If there really was something, something evil going on here, then he wouldn't have just let miss cocoa jack out like that. The mission comes from the GNA as well, and they screen things. There can't really be any true danger, surely. They would never get away with it if there was. We..." He paused and looked across to his partner. "We are both very angry and very upset at such a cruel and pointless test." He glanced to the ceiling. "and we are certainly going to file a formal complaint about it when all is done. If their over-voice cared, it didn't respond. "But for now, we should at least get to the end of it, so that the time wasn't wasted. BoltMan is right too... about the rules, that is." Again his eyes came back to slay, and he ducked his head in apology to her. At this point, Dolly rolled her eyes and gave an exasperated sigh.

"Metal-head's right. Come on and get on with it already!" As if on cue, the central ground space in between the podiums lit up like as screen, and most of the lighting faded from the rest of the room to help draw attention.

The screen showed a top down view of another rectangular chamber, though it was in darkness at first. When the lights came up, they could see that this one was laid out in shades of green, and seemed to contain a single long table. There were six places at the table, though they were in the rough centre and there was feasibly room for more chairs. The occupants were all generic-looking purple heelnavis, sitting looking a one another. On each person's control panel, buttons number one through six lit up and the voice began to talk.

"The six heelnavis you see before you are all volunteers, taken from a deletion queue facility. They are all convicted criminals sentenced to be deleted, for crimes deemed worthy of the punishment. They were promised no remittance or leniency for volunteering to be subjects for these tests, and those that remain will be returned to await their due deletion afterwards, with no hope of appeal. Their reasons for consenting to volunteer for these tests were not questioned, though it is understood some volunteered on the hope that transit and security might give them a chance of escape. I assure you they will not be so lucky." On the screen below, the six heels appeared to be talking, and some seemed highly agitated, but no sound came through.

"The test before each of you here is simple. You will see six buttons active on your control panels. you may each press as many or as few of the six buttons as you like, however in order to proceed you must each press at least two different buttons on your console. Pressing a button will deliver a small buzzing sensation to the corresponding heelnavi. Not painful, or even uncomfortable. If, however, a heelnavi receives three such buzzes, their sentence will be immediately carried out. To help you decide, I'll now tell you what each heelnavi has been sentenced to deletion for:"

"Corresponding with button one, the heelnavi's crimes are many, including the gamut of assault, theft, blackmail, extortion, grievous harm and assault with intent to kill. He is believed to have deleted several navis during his operations, but none that could be substantiated." The voice paused for a moment then continued.
"Number two is a murderer, guilty of the confirmed deletion of four unoperated navis, believed to be more, and also of theft."
"Number three and number four were convicted of assault and kidnapping, abuse, general racketeering and the aiding and abetting of worse crimes against navis."
"Number five and number six were simultaneously tried and convicted of several counts of grievous abuse, rape, murder and the non-consensual alteration of another navigator's base code."

"When you have all carried out the exercise, you will be able to proceed to the final test at your leisure."

The voice fell silent again, leaving the testers looking down at the screen between them, and the heelnavis it showed. Dolly groaned softly and put one hand to her forehead.

"Oh drama drama! We get it, it's some big ethical dilemma! Whatever... guy takes the time to assure us it's all not real, then expects us to take it seriously... Wish he'd make up his mind already." Nonchalantly, and clearly without really thinking about it too much, she raked her hands down the control panel, likely hitting all six buttons, though the blinkers one each podium stopped anyone from seeing for sure. "Seriously, if this guy was a john his time'd be up before he decided whether he wanted front or back!" She took her hand off the control panel and folded her arms. They rested beneath her breasts, of course, pushing them up a bit more and drawing the eye, but by this point that kind of choice was probably a given. "Hmph. There, are we done here?"

Seeing what she'd done, Cry leaned back from her slightly, staring with an incredulous flick of his eyes towards her controls.
"How could you do something like that!? We might not be in danger, but I believe those are real lives! I won't be a part of murder! We have to work this out, and not harm anyone!" Take was glaring daggers at the secretary now, but she seemed unfazed.


One didn't need to be an aficionado of horror movies to know the biggest, most unfortunate cliche of the genre: the victims who push unknowingly towards their demise, despite the viewer knowing that something gruesome is going to happen to all of them as a result of their decision. Slay had grown almost dead to that particular worry, accepting it as part and parcel when it came to the slasher genre, although not necessarily horror in general. That said, she felt it springing sickeningly back into her stomach as everyone insisted that she was overreacting to the situation, when she'd just seen both her new friend and his previously not introduced SP vanish in a lightning strike and burst of fire respectively. It was the kind of feeling that made one want to shake their TV, only this time, she wasn't watching a movie; she was actually living it. "A PET's function isn't going to save you from everything... New technology is being developed every day, or you can just get hit so hard that your core is destroyed... This has actually been a twist in a lot of movies since the navi age came about, where navis, thinking they're invincible, step headlong into a trap because they can 'just jack out.' If you want to experience violence that looks real but is actually fake, you go to a haunted house, not a psychological experiment hosted by a navi who hasn't even met us in person," she argued, looking more animated than usual.

LightningMan wasn't the only one arguing why they ought to continue and not be spooked; the others had their own comments. Slay shook her head, then drifted her one eye that wasn't hidden by emo hair between the others. "Sure, they look into the criminal history of the one offering the mission and everything, but how much can they really make certain of? Do you think that this would be the first GNA-approved mission where the one taking the mission had been deleted?" she asked, lowering her eyebrows with an ominous stare. "And I can guarantee you they're not the first person who said 'uh, don't worry, this isn't dangerous at all' about something that really was dangerous. I'm only here cause I want to try to make it through this and see if... I dunno, there's a chance VerteFee is alright. I mean, if I meet CrypticMan, he might be serving cake and say, 'yeah, it was all just a prank, sorry I spooked you.' Then I'd feel a little better. He might also be serving cake and say 'oh, hey, I actually killed that guy.' In which case... I need to know that too," she murmured, looking at the blade of her knife contemplatively. "But is it the smart thing to do? Not at all. None of the rest of you ought to keep going through this. Heck, I shouldn't either. I said earlier that you could find a haunted house if you want to be scared, but not dead... Well, you can also find another mission if you want to earn money and not risk dying."

She tilted her head and looked next at Cry. "Maybe... or maybe this experiment is just a game of his and he's not going to violate his own rules? That doesn't mean we're not all in... y'know, mortal danger. Those kinds of guys don't really care about getting away with it. The problem is that everyone is looking at this in terms of 'no, this can't be a criminal, because he's not operating under logical limitations,' when there's every possibility he isn't. This is the net... Anything can happen. You might say, 'Slay, you watch too many movies,' but you know what? Movies have nothing on the net..." she posed, no longer worried about whether she was frightening everyone unnecessarily. After all, it seemed to her that a little fright might be good for them. Her dark eyes focused on Cry, as if determined to increase the navi's fear. "I don't want you to be scared... But what I really don't want you to be is dead."

At any rate, nobody seemed to be willing to entertain the possibility of leaving; all Slay could do was rest her elbows on the podium and listen to their next experiment as it was given to her. Predictably, this game was in even poorer taste than the one before it. As she listened, her initial thought was that, mathematically, it was actually possible not to kill anyone in this experiment, with the remaining votes as they were. Each of the remaining navis could put one vote on two unique criminals and spare giving any of the criminals three votes, delivering instead only shocks. Before she could pose that option, the secretary's bosom threw a wrench into it, activating several buttons at random all at once. "You..." she managed, raising her knife again, this time as if preparing for battle. "Do you realize what you just did? We didn't have to kill anybody..." she complained, although it was equally possible that all of the podiums would have to vote, even for those who were no longer present. "We all could have pushed one button and the one next to it, then alternated the next voter, all around the room... Now, mathematically, someone has to die. This is so screwed up, it's the kind of thing you'd only think you'd see in the movies..."

Despite her accusatory words and knife pointing, Slay wasn't planning to attack anyone (and would probably lose in a fight regardless, thanks to her poor stash of chips and upgrades). "The rest of us can't all just vote on our own... We all have to agree. At this point, we're going to kill two guys, mathematically. We should at least all agree on what we're doing," she murmured, looking at Cry and Take and knowing that at least one of them would protest the idea of voting at all. She wanted to spitefully add "But it's all just an illusion, right? So it doesn't matter who we vote on." She managed not to, but just barely. "In this case, we ought to follow the law and focus on candidates whose crimes were actually confirmed and were murder, which I figure is uh... the greatest crime. Unfortunately, our gracious host didn't give us all of the information, so we'll have to check with him before we continue," she muttered, turning her eyes upward, as though looking for some kind of camera watching them (though the wonders of the net might allow CrypticMan to watch without need of such devices, if he wished it). "The fifth and sixth navis... if we're really making this vote, I need clearer info than just 'several counts.' How many murders are we talking about?" she questioned, a sour frown frozen on her face. She half expected him to keep quiet about it, just to screw around with her sense of ethics some more and make her choose between a navi with four confirmed murders and another pair with an undefined number that may or may not be greater than four.

Another thought occurred to her: they might be able to avoid killing anyone if they just jacked out and abandoned the experiment. She began to voice the idea, then realized it was foolish; CrypticMan (or whoever the voice was) had already ensured her that one way or another, they were all going to die. The only difference would be who was voted dead by the gathering here and who was killed in the navi scrapping facility. Then again, she was still fighting over how much she trusted of what the voice said, so it was possible that they weren't killing anyone... or that they were voting to kill navis that happened to be heelnavis but really hadn't committed any crimes at all. "'The GNA confirmed' my ass... This is like the Stanley Milgram obedience experiment in overdrive. Even if they did sign off on this and it's all just a game, what kind of a sick experiment is this?" she thought to herself, the color draining out of her face and making her look even more ghostly and unhappy than she normally did. "Can't they see it...? This is no experiment that any sane scientist came up with... it's somebody's twisted game, I think. Either way, it's sick, any way you look at it. The only question now is if it's sick and physically harmless or whether it's sick and potentially deadly..."
'BoltMan' actually seemed a bit thoughtful as he listened to the test parameters, though for two reasons, neither of which were readily obvious. First, these HeelNavis seemed like BIOS material. If any of them survived the ordeal, he'd need to ponder recruiting them. But also, he had the nagging feeling that this seemed kinda familiar...but he couldn't place it. As he mulled it over, the secretary had ceased to take any of this seriously, and apparently pressed all the buttons at once. After a moment of mental math, he shrugged. But this was in no small part because unlike Slay, he actually realized that no one was doomed quite yet. It would be fun to play along with the idea of having to off two of them, but his plan potentially got rid of two much bigger headaches. "Wrong, Slay. You're making one big assumption...that no one's leaving. But see, if two more people get out now, that leaves a total of six button presses. Which means we can all press something different, and no one gets fried, and we can move right along."

"Which begs the question, which two should go? ...I think the answer is obvious." He looked over at Take and Cry. "You said you wouldn't take a life, even if it meant everyone died. I take it that also means you wouldn't do it for a reward? If that's the case, your only recourse is to leave. One person won't be enough, and we certainly can't split the two of you up, now can we?" With any luck, that'd get them out of his helmet.

And with that, he reached over and pressed the first two buttons on his podium. "Well, I just pressed 1 and 2, because...well, there really wasn't a reason." There was, however, a reason for going ahead and pressing the buttons; it made sure he wasn't one of the two to leave, since for him to do so now was pointless. Now he just needed to sit back and see what happened.
Slay's pleading, and indeed her rather solid reasoning backed up by experience in a relevant field of knowledge, were waved aside by Dolly with a smug chuckle. Cry and Take had both listened to her seriously, and the pink-shirted man nodded to her with a thank you in his eyes for her words, but he didn't seem to have settled on an actual vocalisation before things had escalated. The... lady of negotiable affections, wasn't having any of it.

"You're not going to scare us off, little miss horror-shop. We're all aware that the pay split goes only to those who stick the whole experiment out. You think it sounds like you're doing anything more than trying to get people to leave, for your own profit?" She sounded cynical, but then by this point it was probably clear that Dolly's outlook on life in generally was an unfortunately cynical one. One might also wonder where she was getting her assumption about the payment from; she'd suggested as much a few times now, but it certainly hadn't been said clearly in anything that Slay or LightningMan had read. "It's all just designed to put us on edge, and it's working a treat on you. shouldn't you be the calm one here? You've seen all the smoke and mirrors before, you know all the tricks. I'd have thought this would be as boring for a professional like you as it is for me! you know they're all actors down there, anyway, and even if they weren't, we wouldn't be changing anything; they'd all be dead data walking already." She shook her head and rolled her eyes once; apparently in her own mind, the comment had been a slight against Slay's professionalism, though one would have to be pretty cold to other people to take it as such.

WoodBug was looking at his console, tilting his head this way and that occasionally at irregular intervals. As zoned out as he seemed to be, there was clearly a thought process of some kind going on in his mind. he looked up to Dolly after she spoke, however.

"If the minds must treat the game as real, why can the LoveToy be only real, and not play the game? Once dreams grew in the heart of the doll, maybe? Now they are all dead, and a body that burns still cannot warm a dead toy's heart?" His voice, as always was quiet, calm and curious. Softly spoken with just a hind of spaced-out detachment. Dolly, apparently, didn't care for what he had to say. Her eyes had flown wide and her teeth clenched as he began, and with a few quiet words, the strange navi seemed to have achieved what the wrath and argument of the others hadn't yet managed: getting a rise out of the secretary.

"What the F—" for the briefest of moments, they all heard the traditional dull censor beep instead. It might be something to do with the test environment... "did you say you creepy little... What the f— do you even think you're talking about!? How dare you say something like that to me!!" Her body had gone rigid and she was gripping the sides of her podium like a vice, teeth ground tight between words as she stared at him. As hard as it was to even make sense of his words right away, something about them had struck a nerve, it seemed. He blinked slowly, turning his head again.

"Does this branch grow false? What leaves should be taken?" The second phrase, saw WoodBug turning his gaze towards 'BoltMan' partway through, since he was the one to suggest that two more departures would help matters. This made Dolly snarl, but subside slightly.
"Crazy f—er... You don't even know what you're talking about. Just push your f—ing buttons already." She looked away from him then, staring off to the side of the room and refusing to engage with anyone at all now.

'BoltMan' had put forward his suggestion for saving everyone from having to be the arbiters of death or... slightly delayed death, and Cry and Take seemed to be considering it while Slay asked for more information from their test giver. Surprisingly, the voice actually did answer her.

"Fair question, Slay. I'll allow it. Give me a moment and I'll check the file more closely for you all." There was a few beats of silence, then: "Ok, Candidate one is suspected of involvement in the deletion of at least 5 navigators during his criminal operations, but none could be substantiated, and his strict sentence was just for the other crimes mentioned. The second, four deletions confirmed, suspected but unconfirmed of three others. Five and six worked together and were convicted of two definite deletions; their operations however, were geared at avoiding this, since their operation focused on the capture, alteration and on-selling of navis as unthinking skin-toys. Three were rescued before their minds were broken, though the alterations to their bodies and base code could not be reversed. Four others were tracked down, in the service and ownership of others, but no trace of their former selves remained. It is known that their operation had gone on for some time, and there is no definite count of how many others they had 'processed' and sold in this manner before they were caught. That's all the information I have, miss Slay."

The more vivid description had drained some of the colour from Take's feature's as she listened, and Cry looked a little more horrified than he had, but the reactions from the other two were expectedly neutral. Cry had clearly been thinking about 'BoltMan's suggestion and whispered a few more quiet words with his partner. The fact that Slay had gotten an answer, however, led him to try one more recourse before giving up entirely.

"Speaker," he called roughly towards the ceiling. "Neither I nor Take wish to complete this experiment, and would request to abstain from it, and move onto the third test without performing this one; you may consider that to be our response to the question, for this test. May we?" The voice returned again; it seemed far more willing to chat during this test, although that might simply be because no-one had thought to ask him anything in the previous one.

"You must perform each test. Please press at least two buttons on each of your consoles in order to move on."
"You cannot accept refusal as an answer in itself?"
"As I said, in order to progress you must each press two buttons on your consoles."
"If we refuse to do this, what happens?"
"If you do not wish to continue, you are both free to leave the testing environment at any time."

Again the couple turned to each other and began talking privately. They weren't jacking out just yet, but it seemed clear they weren't going to press buttons. WoodBug mouthed a couple of words silently to himself, then looked back to his console. He reached out and pressed two buttons, but it wasn't possible to directly see which. On the screen below, most of the heelnavis were fidgeting in their seats slightly, and a couple looked like they had grown increasingly agitated.

More unbelieving words came from DollyHeart, causing Slay to turn her frown from one ally to another. "Sure, I know tricks... But those tricks are all explained by directors and you can read them all in print before you start acting... It's the difference between fantasy and reality," the actress explained, grabbing up her knife and pushing it into the crevice between her chest and arm, to illustrate a crude illusion of being stabbed. She removed it and placed it back on the podium, before hunching again. "None of us know they're actors. I'm not the one jumping to conclusions here..." she murmured, then grabbed the knife back up and pointed it outwards. "Am I the one over-reacting for suggesting that we maybe don't place our need for spending cash over people's lives, just because there's a chance we might be getting faked out? You know, if I'm wrong and we get to the end of this, I look foolish, and that's that. If I'm right..." she trailed off, withdrawing her pointed blade and not spelling out the rest: "then you're an accomplice to murder, and I might be as well." Then again, maybe other people wouldn't see it that way regardless, if they were judging navis set to be executed regardless.

WoodBug offered a character insight towards Dolly of his own, one that was not particularly flattering; although they were vague, he was clearly saying something about her profession... Slay thought he was saying that she was looking for some satisfaction in sex that she wasn't getting, but Slay wasn't entirely sure. Regardless, both of them were causing Slay to furrow her brow out of frustration right now. DollyHeart's life as a call-girl was not only irrelevant, but also, an unwelcome topic change when she was already trying and failing to get others to understand the danger of the situation.

Slay turned to BoltMan with a critical and impatient glare as he began, but softened her expression once she realized that he had a good point to make. Indeed, he wasn't a bad person to have around when looking to minimize the life toll in dangerous situations, surprisingly. "That... makes sense," she admitted, although her mind didn't immediately go where his did: to the point that Cry and Take would be the best options to exit immediately. She was not too keen, however, on his pressing of two buttons to ensure his spot in the voting. As much as she didn't want to doubt the others, it made her profoundly uncomfortable to know that any of the prisoners now had two votes against them, assuming the secretary-looking navi had hit every button earlier... One more vote would push those two criminals over the edge and into deletion. Hopefully, with their indecisive natures, Cry and Take would not go ahead with casting the final votes just yet... and hopefully WoodBug would continue his usual behavior, which made him a bit slow to act.

Blessedly, the one arbitrating their tests was willing to give Slay an answer to make the problem at hand a bit more conventionally solveable. Unfortunately, luck was not as kind as it could be: candidate two had the largest confirmed kill count, but between the last two navis, the kill count was exactly the same. There'd be no way to decide which of those last two was "less guilty." Cry was next to try his hand at a question towards their host. While she was thus distracted, watching Cry and listening to the voice, she missed WoodBug's decision unfolding. "Wait-" she urged him, but was too late. Losing her composure, the actress clutched her podium must as DollyHeart had a moment ago, looking similarly frustrated and seeming to forget her knife entirely for once. "Which did you press?" she asked, frowning bitterly. "I told you not to push anything yet...! But now that you have, tell me which you pressed." For all she knew, he'd speak in riddles again and it might be impossible to figure out which two even after he explained.

Slay wanted to hear WoodBug's votes for the ramifications they'd pose, but she was also keenly aware that any moment that passed was another chance for Cry or Take to push their buttons and sentence one of the heel navis to death. She resolved that if she could do something to save one of the navis by exiting herself, she would do so... but she hoped that Cry and Take would go first, allowing her to continue forward and maybe even get some justice against the perpetrator here. In her mind, there was a perpetrator; how could there not be, she asked herself? Even if there'd been no actually killing, posing this kind of twisted scenario to strangers was a crime unto itself.
...Now that he really thought about it, Slay actually made a fair point. At the end of the day, he really didn't know if these were just actors, or something. Thing was, at the end of that same day, he didn't really care. He had to kill Navis to earn stuff? Fine by him. Sit through some psych experiement? Sure. To him, it was all just tasks to perform so he could grow a little closer to full strength. Though, speaking of which, why was Funbags so sure that the reward was split among only those who finished? He didn't recall anything like that being mentioned. Not that it mattered much, since at this point, if he could get those two whiny Navis out of here, he'd get a decent haul no matter what.

And on that note, that plant Navi managed to get under her skin. The electrical Navi guffawed, in part because it came so far out of left field. "Hahahaha! Nicely played...Wood...something...I actually feel sorta bad about forgetting your name now!" Perhaps more importantly, he very much noticed the censor beep during the expletive laden response. What kind of madman would be worried about a little profanity? The only reason he could think of was that this would be aired in some capacity...which meant it was at least partially staged. A good thing to know, but it felt like it'd be more fun if he didn't reveal that to everyone. He'd probably get smacked in the face with coconuts until he EJO'd for doing it, anyway.

While everyone else was more focused on the voice from nowhere, the most obviously Wood elemental Navi made his picks. Slay didn't seem very happy about it, but he just shook his head, mildly disappointed at her for not noting the obvious. "What, are your feet glued to the floor? No one said you couldn't walk over and see what he pressed." If she got an even remotely direct answer, he'd be surprised. It'd probably be much faster for her to just see for herself. Based on the lack of deletions, however, it seemed as though he'd picked two different buttons.

Now, to try and seal the deal on Cry and Take...man, those were stupid names, and the full versions were even worse. "If you don't have the guts to press any buttons, just leave already. The rest of us want to move on already, and he's not going to let us do that while you two stand around undecided. So get out!"
After her initial cussing, Dolly seemed to have shrugged off the somewhat twisted words of WoodBug, but her mood didn't really seem to recover as the discourse went on. The bored and self-assured behaviour was replaced by a woman clearly brooding and put out; she wasn't any more concerned about the situation itself, but her mood had definitely been crushed down a whole handful of notches. Her subdued demeanour was enough that she didn't respond to LightningMan's laughter either, though she did raise an eyebrow while he chastised Slay; though he had pressed two buttons, they hadn't remained lit up or given any particular sign of being pressed afterwards, and it was a good bet that the same would be true of the other consoles. This was, most likely, because while hey had to press two buttons to complete the test, they weren't limited in that; the voice had told them to press at least two different buttons, but nothing seemed to be stopping them from pushing more, or indeed, even pressing the same button multiple times if they really wanted a target dead right now.

It seems no-one actually did though, despite the list of horrible crimes. Dolly was done, 'BoltMan' was done, WoodBug was done, and while Slay took her time, hoping for an easy out, it seemed like patience was eventually going to present her with one. That same patience might have gotten someone zapped, of course, but for now what her delaying caused was for Cry and Take to finish their discussion and look up again.

"Speaker, we've decided that Take and myself refuse absolutely to participate in this test." While they spoke, WoodBug turned his gaze towards Slay, tilting his head, then looking down at his console again, before coming back to her. He seemed to be thinking of how to answer, slowly, but while he did the voice responded.

"Very well." There was a pause while the two dissenting navis looked momentarily confused.
"Ah... So...?"
"Very well. CriesLikeAGirl, TakesItLikeAMan, your refusal to complete this test has been noted. Please stand down from your consoles and wait by the far wall until the test is concluded."
"We may continue to the third test?"
"Yes." The silence that followed gave room for more confused looks between the pair; no doubt they were considering that this was more or less the exact opposite of what they'd been told while the voice was encouraging them to perform the test. They did, however, move to the side of the room, rather than jacking out. The silence also allowed WoodBug to give his answer to Slay.

"Many buttons, and even more numbers. Press two, but the one who pretends to murder is concerned with numbers to pick the buttons. So I picked the buttons of largest numbers." Which, if Slay looked at her console, would actually be buttons nine and ten... not any of the one through six that were actually 'in play'... but from another perspective, in play or not, they were buttons on the console, which fit the words of what had been asked. "To fake those who would slay it, the vine hides itself with the leaves. This leaves only the Slayer who fakes it, and hides." He smiled towards her softly and bowed his head, then, still grinning, looked up and made a slight ushering gesture towards Slay with both hands, and though urging her to make her choice about what to do. As if in confirmation, the voice spoke up after another second or two.

"Please complete the test, miss Slay, and we'll move on." In light of the things that had happened in the short space of time since Slay's last questions, it seemed that she had a couple of ways she could conclude the test without having to give anyone a third vote; she could press two of the active buttons that only had one mark against them, and apparently she could even follow WoodBug's example and press buttons that weren't tied to anyone on the screen below. If she opted instead to refuse the test, as Cry and Take had, she would find the voice of their tester encouraging her to continue the experiment several more times, and she would need to refuse three separate times, as the couple had, before he relented.

Either way though, it seemed safe to guess that she wasn't going to willingly give any of the held navis a third vote, so whatever her ultimate choice, the test concluded in the same way. When everyone had voted or abstained, the screen in the middle of the room faded out again and the general room lights came up to a more fitting level. The far wall from the way they had come in shuddered, then recessed slightly and pulled to the side, revealing an elevator-like room beyond, to which they were patently meant to go. As the others filed in, Dolly had a sneer for the couple, clearly displeased by their choices but not working up the motivation to actually say anything. She leaned in the far back corner, staying right away from WoodBug, who just barely stepped into the lift, and waited by the place one might expect to find a control panel; there wasn't one.

The elevator itself was decorated with a floral pattern, up to the waist-high rail, but was mirrors on each wall above that point. When the door closed behind the last of them, it turned out that the door surface was also mirrored and patterned in the same way. The elevator began to move with a brief shudder, but it didn't seem to e moving terribly quickly. There was a dull, background hum during the journey, but it almost felt like it was intended to give the testers some time to talk before they arrived at the next test.

The more everyone talked, the more Slay realized she'd been wrong about various things, perhaps not devoting them the clarity of thought that she ordinarily would given her situation. First of all, the number of buttons was not limited just to the number of players; rather, they extended on to numbers that could not logically be assigned to a potential criminal. She did have the eerie thought that they might somehow correspond to the players of the game, but there was no use voicing that thought right now. Her other mistake was not realizing that she could indeed step around and see what the other trigger-happy voters had voted on, which would have saved her from a lot of the stress she'd been going through. She was thankful that Cry and Take had somehow miraculously opted out of the test. With that in mind, she could press two buttons without worrying about them too much... she spared a look around the room once more then cleared her throat. "I'll do five and six then..." she murmured. She hoped Cry and Take wouldn't be suspicious of why she'd voted, rather than opting out... she had a good reason, although it was a bit cowardly. Specifically, Slay was worried that another bolt of lightning was going to come down and wipe out the two to pay them back... Logically, there was no reason that should happen, but the fear was present all the same. Whatever the case, she saw no danger in voting and felt that she, personally, needed to proceed far enough in to figure out the whole truth of this bizarre test.

She breathed a deep sigh of relief as the group managed to leave the room without killing anyone, only to remember that in last test, they'd gotten through scott-free until they arrived at the next testing room, at which point one of them (two, technically), had been wiped away. Whatever the case, it was nice to be out of immediate danger. "I'll try to get a grip on myself..." Slay apologized to the others, hanging her head as she entered the elevator. The truth was, as much as she needed everyone to understand that they might be in a dangerous situation, she was beginning to get jumpy herself, finding herself testing her blade a bit too often. If things kept up that way, she might stop being a pretend killer and turn into a real one, accidental or otherwise.

Her eyes drifted briefly to the mirrors inside the elevator, but didn't linger there. She didn't like looking at her unmasked reflection to begin with and liked it even less with the deathly, sunken look in her eyes. All things considered, she didn't feel much like talking, but knew it would be better for everyone if they didn't all clam up like they hated each other. "In the end, everyone thought on their feet, and that got us through that room without having to vote to kill anyone. I'm thankful to all of you," she told them, although that wasn't patently true: DollyHeart had not done anything at all to contribute to their getting through the test with a low kill count. Still, if Dolly was a worse person, she could have hammered the buttons all a couple more times and really screwed things up... Slay would have to count her blessings that nobody in her group was ostensibly a career criminal or terrorist or anything like that.

"Maybe I wasn't on the right track about our host... It sure seems odd that some maniacal captor would allow anyone to opt out of his tests, unless he's really confident that our egos will get the better of us. Either you're right and he's just running a very convincing ruse, or he's got a very convoluted set of personal principles," she murmured, watching the others warily; talking about CrypticMan (or whoever their tester really was) had her on edge again.
Weak. The couple managed to get by without pressing anything. LightningMan looked somewhat incredulous for a moment, then more irritated. "Hang on a sec. You mean they get to skate by without pressing anything? Even though it was specifically stated that, and I'm quoting here, 'you must each press at least two different buttons on your console'. Must, as in, required to do so. They can violate the rules and still keep going? What's the deal with that?! I demand an explanation!" Part of it was just wanting Take and Cry gone, but another part of him was genuinely confused about this. Either way, he wanted answers, and he was going to get them.

Speaking of which, WoodWhatever's response made the electrical Navi raise an eyebrow. He'd never really stopped and considered that buttons 7 through 10 were valid options. Guy was smarter than he looked. "Huh. That's pretty clever, actually. Not bad." Who would've guessed the loopy guy was so perceptive?

Soon enough, the test was finished, and an elevator popped up. Not especially interested in hanging around, 'BoltMan' made his way in, choosing the far corner opposite of the secretary. It occurred to him that he still needed to finish his questioning...in that he actually needed to ask someone that question. Fortunately, he still didn't really need to flat out ask. "Say, Wood...Bug, I want to say? Looking back on it, you never answered Slay's question earlier. You seein' anyone? Woman? Man? Plant?" PlantWoman? PlantM...nah, making that idea into a man was kinda ridiculous.
Given her experiences so far, there was rationally no faulting slay for being nervous about any 'tricks' that might circumvent the spirit of the test. When she pressed her two buttons, two of the navis on the screen below started, growing more agitated, but that was all; the test was concluded and the screen shut off. No-one seemed to be judging her for participating, even after to other means of getting out of it were presented; Dolly mostly likely didn't care, and who knew what WoodBug was thinking. Cry and take had made a point of not watching the conclusion of the proceedings once they were allowed to stand down and, possibly to LightningMan's disappointment, they weren't removed in drastic displays of force.

'BoltMan' himself had some questions that needed answering, but the response he got was less than one hundred percent transparent. When the voice returned to answer him, they could practically hear the amused eyebrow arch in it.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss the exact specifics and internal rules of the tests, BoltMan, but I can promise you that all the rules are being followed and observed on my end. I can promise that I'm under a strict set of guidelines for what I may, and may not do, what I can and cannot tell you, and so on. You'll just have to trust me. Now on you go, one last test to do, and you'll all be finished."

This left the six of them in the lift together as they were taken towards their next test chamber. Slay was being a bit down on herself about getting jumpy; if Cocoa had still been about she might have tried to cheer the actress up, but as it was she was stuck with the slightly pitying gaze of Dolly, the aimless distraction of WoodBug, and, thankfully, some slightly more understanding responses from Cry and Take. In a rare moment of speaking first, Take reached out to brush Slay's shoulder lightly as she responded.

"It's all set up to make people who can care about others upset. Look around you. The ones who are on edge are the only ones worth talking to." As expected, this drew a vaguely disgusted snort from Dolly, though no actual comment.

Something else she had to say seemed to draw WoodBug's spacey attention and he looked up from examining the floral pattern on the interior of the lift's skirting. He blinked as he stared at her, and for a moment it looked like he had too many thoughts in his mind, rather than too few.

"Ego grows. Blossoms and grows, pushes on and on until it dies. That is growth, and life. the branches are all different lengths, but there are no plants here. Growth makes some branches short. Is that the lesson? But there are no plants. If the ego grows by learning, how can it learn when there are no plants?" Something in the oddly connected train of his thoughts had sparked something resembling genuine concern in the strange navi. He was looking at Slay in a way that also stared through her somewhat, but it was a more present and intense look than he'd borne so far. The others were all looking at him now; the sudden increase in his... animation was stark. DollyHeart was glaring down her nose at him.

"If you're going to go all psycho killer on us, can you wait until we get out of the lift, you fruitloop?" WoodBug didn't seem to notice her, as his eyes darted to 'BoltMan''s question.

"There are no plants..." His eyes cast down briefly. "Once, yes. Growing entwined. Now uprooted. Don't know where... Now there are no plants. Here there are no plants. None at all..." The strangely intense gaze came back up darting around the other faces in the room quickly now. "None at all. Some hidden, some gone, some growing, but no plants, not one, not here. There are none. None at all..." He seemed to be breathing harder now, agitated. Somewhere in there he seemed to ahve been attempting to answer LightningMan's question while his thoughts linked together, though it would probably take a moment or two to decode.

Then the lift stopped with a small ping, and the atmosphere cracked. Woodbug looked towards the sound and the fervent progression of thought seemed to slip away. A moment later, as the doors began to open, he seemed to have calmed back to his 'normal' self. With the outburst ended, the others began to get out, though as the buggy navi did, he looked to Slay again.

"Something is not good." It was delivered in his original quiet murmur, and sounded about as detached as he ever had, but it was odd alongside the recent intensity.

The room beyond was laid out in cool shades of green, and was bare save for a long rectangular table. There were seats arrayed along the sides enough for ten testers, though by this point their numbers were somewhat... reduced. The six central places each had what looked like a tiny data crystal in front of them, spinning slowly.

"If you could all move into the room and take a seat at the table, please. This will be the final test for you all today." The voice ushered them into the green room calmly, and once they were all out of the lift it closed again and sealed, leaving a wall that was indistinguishable from the rest. It continued amiably while waiting for them all to take their seats.

"This last test is one regarding perception and reaction, to see how different navis respond to certain situations. I'll be talking you through this one. Once you're all seated, I'll be turning out the lights for a few moments. If any of you are capable of dark vision, or other sensory augments, I ask that you close you eyes, or do whatever else you must to negate your sense of sight for as long as the lights are off, to maintain the fairness of the test. You'll each have in front of you a small data packet. Once the lights go off, pick it up, but don't activate it just yet. As a precaution, they are all linked and none of them will activate until they have all been activated separately, at which point they will activate simultaneously for all of you. I'll give you your next instructions once we're ready."

Dolly moved to take a seat, but hesitated with her hand on the chair in the middle position and looked around the room suspiciously. After a moment, however, she shrugged and sat, looking quizzically at the small data crystal in front of her. Across from her, Cry and Take took places, with Take on the outside and her partner in the middle, opposite Dolly. WoodBug lingered at the end of the table for a bit longer, looking at the places that remained as though he was taking his time picking a spot.

Slay wasn't sure which of BoltMan's trains of thought she was more shocked by: that he'd take their host to task over not doling out a refusal to their friends, or that he'd choose now to press WoodBug on what sort of person was his type. "Guess that's why they call him BoltMan," she thought to herself, thankful that nothing particularly uncomfortable was happening in response to either of the bold questions. She was thankful that Take was still on good terms with her, but she shook her head all the same. "No... It won't do us any favors if we divide ourselves like that. It's important that we all keep talking to each other," she murmured, turning her eyes back up to Dolly. "I guess maybe I shouldn't keep speaking in horror cliches... since recent developments have left this a little off the beaten path in terms of horror scenarios... but the worst thing the good guys can do is split up or take sides," she reminded Take. "That's a lesson for real life, too. Or, then again, maybe it turns out we're not in any danger after all... in which case, our uh... cohesiveness... doesn't matter so much."

If Take's comment was too blunt, WoodBug's was the opposite: so opaque that Slay was unable to make any ground in translating it. She realized he was staring at her, which made it all the more uncomfortable that she didn't know what he was saying; she looked to both sides for anyone who could act as a translator. Suddenly, she felt a bit guilty... she remembered that it wasn't too long ego when she had cut apart some net-trees and ruined the home of whatever unidentified creature was living inside. She hadn't worried at the time, since she was doing an important job and they were just viruses, but unable to decipher WoodBug's words, her imagination planted the idea in her head that his concern about the lack of plants here could be related to that. She shook the idea out of her head, realizing that was just grasping at straws. "Uh... I'm not sure I get it, but... we'll be out of here soon, so... we'll see plants once we're out, okay?" she reassured him, trying her best to smile.

She wasn't really reassured herself, and apparently, WoodBug wasn't either. He gave another ominous message as the group exited the elevator, one which caused Slay to feel her stomach drop again. She stared at the ground, barely taking in the details of the room as she stepped inside. Once the voice began to speak again, it became easier to focus on the next task. She sighed and took a spot next to Dolly and across from Take, hoping that BoltMan would take the other spot on Dolly's side. She really didn't want WoodBug sitting next to Dolly if she could help it, with how the assumed call-girl had been glaring daggers at WoodBug lately. At the same time, knowing what she knew of him, Slay figured that WoodBug would probably be just as content to take one of the seats at the end of the table, away from the rest of the group. "I don't have night-vision... even using my mask," Slay clarified, since the voice might logically think that, as a slasher navi, she'd be programmed to see in the dark.
While trusting the mysterious voice was hardly what he had in mind, LightningMan had enough brains to know he had little choice in the matter...and was pretty sure that the voice knew it, considering he could practically cut the smarminess with a knife. To top it all off, the test ended in the worst possible way: no one left, no one got electrocuted. Ugh.

There was little room for doubt as to who Take was referring to with her remark, but while the other was more derisive, the electrical Navi couldn't help but snicker. "That's funny, I seem to recall those HeelNavis being quite on edge. So, you'd sooner talk to a convicted killer than me?" Granted, he was an unconvicted killer, but she didn't know that. "How caring of you."

Next up was WoodBug, making...uh, remarks. This time, he made no sense, as he often did, but he seemed more...there, in the process. There was something in those words, and LightningMan knew it. What that something was, however, was beyond his current understanding. Oh well. He then answered his question, and if he understood it right, it was 'he used to be with someone, but not anymore'. Great. Secondary objective achieved.

Once the lift stopped, he got out, looking at the utterly bland room. Once the rest of the group moved along, he found he had all of two options for seats. Did he want to sit next to Funbags, or Gutless? After a moment of consideration, he unknowingly went against Slay's wish, and had a seat next to Cry. He had a look at the data crystal, trying to see if there were any clues to what was inside it without opening...but nothing. "Why would I even need night vision? I can just generate my own light. So yeah, no electricity while the lights are out, got it." So, just grab it while the lights were out, then wait to open it? That was a bit weird, but whatever. If it got him out of here, that's what he'd do.
Indecipherable ramblings and ominous words aside, eventually they were all in the room and taking their places. Take had snapped back a terse remark to boltMan's own quip, but hadn't waited to hear if he had a comeback of his own; at his comment about the serial killers she'd merely muttered that if they seemed like more caring people than him, then yes, before taking her seat and pointedly ignoring the electrical navi. WoodBug eventually followed the others and took the last seat, next to Dolly and across from 'BoltMan', causing the former to cast an angry glare at him which, predictably, rolled off him without being noticed. There seemed to be no overt objections as the voice talked them through the initial stages of the test, and once they were all seated and prepared the lights went out, putting the six navis in total darkness. There was a slight rustle as the person next to slay adjusted clothing, but little more.

"Now, if you're all ready, please pick up the crystal in front of you. What you're holding is a linked graphical override. It's a system tied into the test environment here and will only activate, after you've accessed it, once all six have been similarly activated. the purpose is to help remove as many bias-creating factors as possible from this test. When you've all accessed your crystals, the override will activate for each of you, and I'll bring the lights back up. Please go ahead and access them now."

There was the fain sound of individuals reaching out or picking up their respective crystals, and one or two slight hesitations, but none of the other testers spoke up. so far the test felt a whole lot more mundane than the things they'd been thrown into previously, and most seemed to be happy to keep quiet and move through it quickly, so to be done with the test as a whole. If Slay and LightningMan were both equally willing to move forward, they'd find that the other four, too, had activated their crystals; the lights would remain dark until they both did.

Once they were all activated, there was a brief sensation of a smoothly rendered .GMO settling on, but nothing out of the ordinary. There were a few seconds in the darkness where people would be free to wonder what they'd been dressed as; was he making them look silly, or serious, striping them naked, putting them in tu-tus... There were any number of odd guesses someone might make, but the truly worried or deeply cynical might hit upon the answer a few painful moments before it was revealed. The lights came up at last to reveal that they were, in fact, now six identical looking generic heelnavis, sitting around the table.

"The F— is this!?" The heelnavi sitting in the middle exclaimed; the voice that came out was low and gravely, and certainly not any of the voices any of them had gotten used to hearing. The heel opposite that one looked towards the one on the end, opposite Slay, and reached a hand out under the table to take hold subtly. The one opposite LightningMan looked all around the table, then down at the smooth, reflective surface in front of him.
"No plants. There were never any plants." It was the same low, masculine heelnavi voice, but guessing the speaker wasn't hard, even if they didn't remember who had been sitting where. The double-speak meaning of his rambling might take on an unexpected meaning, in these circumstances.

"So! Welcome to the last test, everyone. This one's easy." The speaking voice sounded like he was enjoying this too much now... there was an almost sinister, dark tone to his words. "We're going to have a chat. Just talk." While he spoke, Slay felt a small hum come from the chair she was in, a soft sensation in the lower back and nothing more. "All you've got to do is stay here until the end. You're free to leave whenever you want, as always."

"This is really f—d up! We all know it's just a scam, to freak us out, but it's f—ng twisted, you freak!" The navi in the middle didn't sound as completely certain about the proclamation of things being fake, than Dolly had early in the tests.
"Of course it is! I told you that from the beginning, didn't I? You don't sound convinced though. What do the rest of you think, hmm?" Beside 'BoltMan', the heenavi in the centre, opposite the sweary one, flinched suddenly, then looked over to his other side.
"If you feel two, we're leaving. I don't care whether it's fake or not." The navi he was talking to nodded, but didn't speak. LightningMan may have accomplished his subquest, and Slay might have managed to sort out hers, but it seemed as though the events of the tests had more or less reined the others in from getting on with their subtle questions. After being rebuffed by 'BoltMan' earlier, it seemed as though Cry and Take had more or less given up on getting the rest of their answers, and Dolly hadn't seemed to have shown an interest in anything anyone had to say at all. The unexpected removal of one of their other testers might also have made people a bit more cautious too, perhaps. One had to wonder whether the testers who were no longer present still counted.

The remaining folks didn't end up seated where Slay wanted them to be, but if that was the worst the next test did to upset her, she'd be a lot better off than she expected to be. She kept her dark-rimmed eyes focused on the object in front of her, frowning blankly and crossing her arms upon the table to prop her head. The wait didn't last much longer before they were all instructed to grab their crystals and accept a graphical override. That could be embarrassing, gross, or maybe even a little traumatic, but didn't sound inherently dangerous, so Slay wasn't altogether so worried; she'd made a commitment to stop jumping at shadows, after all. She didn't hesitate to grab the crystal in front of her... besides, what kind of navi hated grabbing data packets? It was practically like opening a treasure chest in an RPG and thus the enjoyment of the action was almost intrinsic.

What occurred next wasn't exactly a cause for joy, but it didn't alarm Slay terribly either. "Hm... I'm pretty used to dressing up as a man for my roles on screen, or even being one in GMO, so I guess it's not that strange to me," she remarked, hunching in a way that made it clear she was still her. Her beady heel-navi eyes widened comically as the person next to her started shouting; it took Slay a minute to remember it was Dolly. She wanted to reveal her surprise that after all the group experienced, this was what set her off, but she decided that would be in poor taste. What worried her more now were WoodBug's words... a thought was finally beginning to occur to her. "Wait... Plants..." she murmured, narrowing her eyes. "Did you mean... are you saying, instead of 'plants' like trees or flowers... are you talking about 'plants,' like participants who are here and aware of the fact that it's a game, but just acting along? So... if there are no 'plants'..." she muttered quietly; her paranoia was starting to act up again. Plainly, if her new interpretation was correct, it would mean that VerteFee had legitimately been shocked off the net, his SP had been burned off the net, and the heelnavis they'd just left were all really in mortal peril.

... And if those heelnavis were in mortal peril, what was to say that the navis inside the room were safe? That thought made her glare broodingly at the table where her arms were resting. Of course, she could be wrong and 'plants' just meant vegetation. That would sure be nice. Hopefully WoodBug would confirm as much.

CrypticMan had started speaking again... nothing inherently frightened her about being a heel navi, even after what had just happened in the last test, but between WoodBug's warning and the sick kicks their host seemed to be getting now, her fear was growing. What made things worse was that she'd just felt a new physical sensation, somewhere around the small of her back, and had no idea what it was. Instinctively, she side-straddled her chair and took a peak where the seat had been meeting her butt, to see if any kind of strange device was there. If something was, she planned to question their test-giver about it. If nothing was, she'd sit back correctly (well, as correct as her posture ever got) and try to ignore what she'd felt. "Me? What do I think? I think I have no idea what we're really doing... Being a heelnavi isn't that weird, though, and neither is your chair trying to poke me in the butt," she murmured, lowering one eyebrow, which translated to the heelnavi screwing up one glowing eye inside its helmet. A new thought occurred to her: something in the suit could be poking at her lower back, rather than in the chair. She wasn't particularly concerned about anything dirty happening though... after all, what kind of weirdo would turn his six victims into interchangeable heelnavis before violating them? "The same kind who designs an experiment like this and disguises it as a GNA endorsed scientific test" she reminded herself. "What's the last test?" she reiterated, keeping her chin down on her arms.
"So, you only care about those who care about you? Looks like someone's not as big-hearted as they're trying to look." At this point, 'BoltMan' was needling Take for the heck of it, mostly viewing those two as toys to play with. If they weren't getting banished, he might as well use that to his advantage, by amusing himself with them.

But the fun couldn't last, as the test began. He reached out and accessed the data crystal...which was apparently a GMO? Hmm. He could feel it taking form, but afterward he didn't feel very different. His mouth felt numb, though...like he didn't even have one anymore. Which was certainly possible with a GMO, it wasn't like a lot of Navis weren't lacking them. Basic NormalNavis didn't have actual mouths, and neither did...

...

...There were six testers now. The last test involved six 'criminals' that couldn't be heard...

...When the lights had come on, the sight didn't surprise him in the least. They were all now identical HeelNavis. It was all coming together to him, now. The HeelNavis in the last test were another test group. They themselves were now being presented as 'criminals' to another group. That explained the agitation he saw earlier...real condemned Navis wouldn't have cared much one way or the other. But if they were fake, and were pushed just enough that they weren't certain if the test was...it made perfect sense.

Before he could even think of saying anything about it, though, the former most-definitely-a-hooker snapped, which greatly amused him. "Ha! Don't be so upset, I think it's a step up for a lot of you!" Slay went on to complain of a 'poke', but he was pretty sure she was mistaking it for a weak, not even uncomfortable, shock. Which comfirmed what he'd already pieced together. But instead of being upset about being in such a situation, he actually would be making a rather psychotic grin, if he had a mouth. "Bwahahahaha!!! All right, I gotta admit! Clever set up, CrypticMan! Very, very clever!" He kicked his feet onto the table, relaxing his neck on his hands. "You know what? I'm not going anywhere! Even on the off chance it's real, it's not like I can't be remade. What's a difference or two to my programming, anyway? The rest of you can run along if you want, but I'm staying right here! I won't even be above a Q+A session, if anyone's interested! I know you're all dying to know more about me, I'm sure!" In one fell swoop, this had gotten interesting for LightningMan. He knew it wasn't real, but most of the others were far less convinced. Seeing them squirm was quite the kick. He was actually sorta glad he looked like a HeelNavi at the moment, because if it wasn't for that, his facial expression would make him look like a slasher villain at the moment. Hmm, now he was sorta curious. Was the list of 'crimes' he was 'guilty' of, anything like his actual rap sheet? He might as well ask. "Yo, CrypticMan! What are we 'guilty' of, anyway? We'd all better deserve capital punishment!"
While each of them variously adapted to their newly revealed visuals, 'BoltMan' had a good laugh about the whole situation. Several heelnavis at the table looked towards him, and though their expressions were hard to read from their form, it was clear most people were being made more uncomfortable than ever by his sudden good humour. The voice didn't answer him right away, seemingly content to let his mirth affect the others as much as it was going to. Eventually, the question about their supposed crimes came up. There was a soft chuckle from the omni-present voice.

"Glad you're having fun, but in the end who can say, number six? What crimes are any of you guilty of, really? Only each of you know that for sure. Or do you? I wonder if you can remember? Do you know what each of you have done, or is it gone from your minds already? In the end it hardly matter though, now does it? The end will surely be the same. Nothing now to do but wait, and talk." That was less helpful, really, though is it really was a uniform test with any degree of proper method, one might guess that, if they truly were being presented as a group of criminals to someone else, that the rap sheets would be the same as they had heard. Of course, that was assuming that they were being show off that way. It was a big assumption to take, after all. LightningMan felt a small, innocuous buzz near the base of his back.

Meanwhile, Slay examined her chair. There wasn't anything to see, really. the slight buzz might have come from the furniture, without any visible contact or extension, or it could have come from her new outfit... or anywhere, really. Not everyone was sitting completely straight in their chairs, though, so it was probably safe to assume that there was no easy way to avoid getting buzzed. She sought to drag more answer out of the confused heelnavi on the other end to her, having to look past the sweary heelnavi to do so. He looked up from the table, but not at her directly.

"The ego is a leaf, just one in thousands. The leaf sees the tree; it hears the rustle of all the other leaves as they rub against each other. So many leaves, all connected. One leaf whispers all the sounds of the leaves together, what does it say? does it even know? It can't. It is just one leaf, and the chorus of the rustling is so many. How can it ever know what it whispers when it brushes against another leaf? Ego is leaf... is branch. It grows, but it falls. When does it fall? When the branch is cut for reaching too far? When the leaf breaks from of the tree? Is disconnection the end of ego? The wind blows the leaves and the branches tremble. Each plant is a leaf, and a branch, but it is not a tree. None are plants at all, no matter how they look. The wind blows an shakes the leaves... which leaf is it blowing for? Which branch is falling. It blows now..." His body jerked upright slightly and his eyes flicked across to Slay properly this time. "It blows a second time."

There was no doubting that WoodBug was growing more nervous as the tests went on, and that the more nervous he got, the more talkative he became. That didn't really equate to him making any more sense, though, not in any way that was simple to decode.

"You are a strange one, and a worry, number five. If I thought you understood half the things you said, I'd probably have pulled you out long since. Still no harm in a little madness, is there? As I said, number one, the test is simple; stay here and have a chat with me until I say that we're all done." That seemed to be all the voice wanted to say on the matter; it left Slay and the others to glean what meaning they could from the peculiar navi's words.

The heelnavi between Slay and the one the voice called 'number five', had put its head in its hands, apparently shutting out everything else, and was taking long, deep breaths. Opposite her, the heel that was holding hands with another one under the table glanced upwards.

"What are you getting out of any of this? It's cruel and hurtful. What can you possibly gain?" the one it was holding hands with looked across to him and nodded softly, then murmured quietly that it had gotten one. The voice answered back.

"Knowledge is power, number four. I'm studying your reactions, like I said at the start. It's quite fascinating you know. Did you know that so far, it's the groups that executed one or more of the criminal navis in the second test that tend to skip out on this test faster... while the groups that didn't execute any of them generally tend to stay around. It's fascinating, don't you think?" While the voice chatted on, LightningMan felt a second small buzz in the small of his back.

"One group got some very strange ideas indeed... after they made their decisions in the second test, several of them all began to panic, because they feared that they had somehow, like some kind of terrible horror story... killed themselves. It was quite fascinating to listen to them fall apart." Beside her, the heel with its head down twitched.

"Come on... suck it up. You know it's all smoke and mirrors, you know it is. Don't let it get to you, or you're as stupid as the rest of them. It's not real. It's all just a game." The power of positive thinking only seemed to go so far, however. Barely a moment or two after the heel beside Slay had muttered this into its hands, a small area around it lit up in a bright white light and heralded the howl of a winter gale. The heelnavi arched upright out of its chair, shouting something unintelligible as a wave of frost and ice coursed up through its body, freezing it solid. The whole event was encased in a tightly-wound tempest of wind and snow, constricted to the single space that the navi occupied, giving off only a delicate chill to Slay, who was nearest.

Cracks began to craze the frozen navi's form, crystalline sounds of fracture sounding off one after another. The shout had stopped the moment the freezing had covered the navi's head, but now, from all around, an accumulation of delicate pink rose petals rushed in to surround the tempest, massing up against what seemed like an invisible field that held them back from the navi within. The petals glowed yellow as they tried to force their way through the barrier, but to no avail. A moment later the GMO faltered and it looked like Dolly again just before, with a final loud crack, the frozen body split and broke, shattering into many parts and falling into a pile in the centre of the ice storm. The rose petals continued trying to reach the remains for many seconds as they began to break down, but eventually they fluttered to the ground and disappeared, just as the localised ice storm faded away. By the time it was gone, there was nothing left, save the hint of cold air and fresh water, though the entire event had taken only a handful of seconds. The voice above them chatted on as though nothing had happened.

"Of course, that's quite ridiculous really, and I'm glad no-one here has suggested it. Even I can't manage something that peculiar. Besides, as I've said, no-one here is in any danger or at risk of any harm. The five of you are all completely safe." Apparently, this was too much for some of the others; the two heels that were holding hands looked at each other and one shook its head quite deliberately. A moment later two identical bolts of light collected the pair without any apparent hindrance at all. "And then there were three..." The voice hummed to itself.