Tower Compendium: Entities and Phenomenon

Annabel Fabel

Annabel Fabel is one of the Solar Society’s most valuable assets to understanding the Tower’s mechanical and historical workings, although she is second only to Ellie herself. She doesn’t know where she came from, nor anybody. Ms. Fabel appears to be a young girl of about 12-14 of age, although she’s thought to be ageless, or atleast as old as the Tower itself. Annabel displays no exceptional personality traits or agency of her own. In terms of strength, intelligence, dexterity, magical capability and empathy, she shows no experience on the field that would lead us to believe she has any notable skills or persona traits outside standard interaction. She displays no fear in any situation, nor do we even believe she’s capable of distress, although she can be seen praying to the Tower before meals. We’re unsure if she even needs to eat, but reportedly likes the tastes of olives and anchovies.

Repeated tests have proven Annabel is incapable of being harmed physically nor changed, or tampered with mentally. She shows resistance to an exhaustive list of magical effects, relics and artifacts and even seems resilient to the effects of reality changing altercations. Telepaths have proven time and time again to be incapable of penetrating her mind, and high level divine transformative spells, while effective, find themselves reversed within 10-20 seconds of use inevitably. She has however, been shown to be susceptible to cute, small colds, although no serious pathogens seemingly- when she comes down with the flu, gravity inverts around her and she has a tendency to electro-magnetize herself like a walking black hole when she sneezes. Despite this, she has the physical strength of a 10 year old girl and cannot bring herself to harm or leverage much force in any real situation. Annabel was at first thought to be capable of teleportation, but it's now believed she’s warping the multiverse around herself as a void in space-time, rather than moving herself. She’s as fond of walking as she is floating, but cannot fly faster than she can walk, which is typically about 5 mph. Despite these perks, Annabel shows fairly remarkable cooperativeness, if a lack of emotional effect, enthusiasm or curiosity at times. A noticeable trait of her mental status is Annabel is completely unable to conceive of falsehoods- she shows knowledge of what lying and fiction is, but even when asked cannot tell even a single-sentence story or ‘makeup’ anything that is conceptually imaginative. When she sleeps, exactly for 8 hours and never a second more or less, she’s never been reported as having a single dream.

Fabel's "place" is of a different order to that of most individuals, and seems to extend to the entire tower. Infrared, magical detectors, sensory equipment and specialized monitoring cannot detect her, and she exhibits a 0 on any scale, despite being quite solid. The very fact that there is no physical, geographic form to her presence implies that she cannot occupy a certain space, place, or location, but rather is something entirely independent of anything of this world, and is thus a malleable paraspace entity that is in effect the location of the story that Fabel carries onto herself. Perhaps it might be metaphorically apt to say Annabell doesn’t carry any story, she is herself a walking talking storybook- but her pages are all indefinitely blank. This is something which she herself recognises;

 "It is difficult to explain. I don't know how it is, but I can sense some strange things happening all over the world right now. And there are godlike beings observing those happenings. I know the people who are.. "reading this" probably can't understand, but I am going to try to make it as clear as I can... I hope I can. But I also know I cannot change those things. I can observe everything in the tower I want and be anywhere I please, but I’m more like a bookmark than an actor. I wonder why I do not wonder. Often I feel the only reason I exist is so those strange eyes prying on this Tower, in these worlds have one to act on their part and peek for them- I’m a very good peeper, they should be thankful."

She’s unable to enter into Opal worlds that orbit the tower dimensionally, however she can still observe what happens within them. Some have speculated Annabel to be a special type of cretor that uses inversive discourse around her being, a kind of anti-cretor who utterly lacks imagination as a stopgap or any real means to tell a story, or a cretor stepped in Negatrois rather than positive beliefs. Her usage has mostly been in providing labored interviews, taking camera photos and writing detailed reports. Annabell seems to have an intuitive grasp of historical, anthropologic, and narrative knowledge wherever she goes and can speak any language after hearing it once. She requires little upkeep or demands of our department, although she does like it when given jars of olives, and has spurred toys, gifts, and even sweets when rewarded with disinterest. Ellie speaks little of her existence, but has referred to her as “The Tower’s watchful eye”, prompting some speculation that she’s some sort of rogue, Admin glitch or a construct of the Tower.

The Space Witch

The Space Witch, White Nebula, is an alabaster coated warlock that ventures into the void strata within the anterior dimensional layer of the tower. In a silvery bodysuit, pure white gleaming witch's hat and cloak, she rides an electric broom able to travel any destination one desires - The broom contains the sea green bauble gifted to her by Ellie. She's commonly seen as a ferry throughout its floors, one of the few ways without an artifact means to travel otherwise long and quick metaphysical distances between its disparate realities. Usages of her 'cab services', often require assorted quests and assignments to pay for tokens she desires. Failure to complete these requests after asking to undertake them usually results in a penalty, something she takes from passers- and gives back in exchange. An arm, an eye, a bone marrow transplant, a memory.

Always given from other travelers. Repeated incidents oft result in individuals distorted and becoming replaced with many other parts, physical and mental from those that have failed her tasks before in a desire to travel. As a compensation, White Nebula offers a variety of potions that conform one's entire being with essences of the swapped parts- for instance one stuck permanently with a feline's hand may take it, and be transformed entirely into a corresponding feline race. Nebula always knows the destination one desires, but not one seeks nor what one needs. The well overstated phrase "Be careful what you witch for" is a pun she's fond of saying, knowing well she's fine dropping passers too ambiguous with their wordings and wishes somewhere inhospitable. One popstar mage, Thunderspark Cheers of the Pop Cupcake Guild had been outed. For her lip syncing, algorithm-vocals, was shamed and disgraced on 12 different planets and her fame withered. She asked White Nebula for a home where she could be popular again and get neverending attention. Nebula dropped her off in a slimy cave somewhere in the tower, where only over affectionate, clingy slime broads with a welcoming disposition, who all saw Thunderspark as a beam of sunshine. Dropped off, the galactic popstar received attention from thousands of identical slimy teenage girls, and was turned over the next few hours into an identical slumping, oozing, chubby sulfur smelling gleefully giggly slime elemental, burning as hot as coals along her back while hoping to make hugging her primary profession and purpose from then on.

There is still a longstanding dispute of the Space Witch’s origin, and whether she is a construct of the Tower or not. Many vogue theories speculate that she was originally a magical stone like the Baubble artifacts, and her utility for other travelers reflects this nature of hers. While her seeming proclivity to assist and offer pact-esque services would fit with this theory, there is no explicit confirmation, and Ellie herself seems to regard the Witch only as a helpful denizen and dear friend. The Space Witch’s tendency to hang around the deeper rings of the Tower offer a contextual suggestion that she finds her origin in the Tower and not outside it, although whether she’s an ascended denizen who acquired her capabilities through a momentous placement and rise to prominence or was merely ‘born’ as a construct with said capabilities and position, unaging and fixed is still the subject of contentious debate. Some fringe theories even postulate that the Space Witch is from a race of primordial star seeded beings that were there at the Tower’s founding, but the most common principle in acceptance within Higher Paraspacial literature is that such beings are only available and present to occupy one cluster region of worlds at a time, and Ellie’s existence takes up such a slot that it would be impossible for these beings to impose their will, unless they were either re-configured into a simpler life form or indoctrinated and changed by Ellie in any sort of way to take on a more ephemeral existence.

 

Church-Is

or "Church of the Is' ' appear as separate but similar, alabaster Chapels across the Tower's many floors, built into aged gothic architecture and showing a level of wear. No instances of Church-Is have been found as anything but ancient ruins, and few are close in spatio-temporal proximity. Many have been known to disappear after their findings and others appear in spots where they were known not to be previously upon survey. Their building shows masonry of an unknown origin and obsidian black mosaics along their windows, filtering all light inside with a blackish "Dusk-like" sheen along with small motes of dust. Upon further inspection, dust particles appear to have the composition of pure gold. 

The activity of these locations are often abandoned initially and show no maintenance or religious staff. All or known to have silvery patched pews and Black-paged "Blank Chapter Bibles' ' written in an unknown language written in white ink. Organs are commonly seen along the corner, known to play a haunting refrain on their own when trespassers approach. The trigger event for these strange sanctuaries are the center mass aisle with a strange statue of a woman in a cowl in front. Above her is engraved an inscription, language unknown, that those stumbling upon the sight of it can unexplainably read. The statue's eyes oft glow a milky white upon doing so, and subjects are exposed to nearby Bible Black's. It's been noted many of these holy writs contain obscene, pornographic imagery.

Engorged in these books (It's unknown if subjects can understand their meaning, but they become engrossed nonetheless in their cryptic content), pale masked, rubber cloaked women in pearly Cowls appear around the individual. Dubbed "Pray Fors", these entities appear to gravitate in magnetic attraction around the subject. Their origin is unknown, most likely multidimensional entry is available to them, their species unknown. The entities can speak the subject's mother tongue, no matter what it is seemingly.

Orion's Field

The Field of Orion is an observed multispectral wavelength spread through atmospheric disbursement. It's recognizable by a sheer mist of multicolored hues over what appears as a brisk sunset. Suspected to be a transmission from another dimension, it coalesces over a crystal white skyline refracting across a rugged geography that contains cliffsides, hills, plateaus and predominantly sunflower fields. The mist spreads all over the topographical map without regard for elevation or nonexistent wind. Research has speculated the field to be a sentient substance, traveling interdimensionally and adapting to metabolic magical currents within the Tower's cohesive magnetic fields.

Those meeting exposure to this field have been noted to show a lack of desire for long-term movement, often becoming settled into camps placed adjacent to exposure. Subjects show a preference for lakes, fields, and landing sites with a greater propensity for retrievable resources, including food supply, mineral deposits and strategic geographical locations fit for a wide range of architectural contexts. Within 72 hours of exposure the subject shows an increased desire for building fortifications, and an unnatural capability to grow constructed structures across their initial setup. Levies, farms, housing and walls barricaded around the cliffside may be seen at this point. The subject begins undergoing what has been termed a 'Native Tribal inheritance', that is to say taking proclivities already inherent to them or a singular member of their party and applying them in excess distortion. A group with a single knight was seen to enforce armor, the construction of horse stables and masonry towers while others in their unit were armored similarly. A party possessing a young elven girl with a bow and arrow seemed possessed to take on her craft, build camps in trees and live a nomadic lifestyle in accordance to a stereotypical rural forested elven depiction. (Of note, said girl was from a non-traditional background and raised in a city upon interview). Within weeks, subjects display no desire to leave, but exhibit an eerie glow from overexposure to mist particles.

Entire towns and kingdoms are built in short order, themed and cultured completely after the NTI, regardless of the individual's former origins. Separation from their mother tongue, religions, magical, martial and scientific discourse of origin are commonly reported and altogether, forgotten. New cluster groupings appear to be possessed by an intrinsic motivation to not only interact within the new customs and compliances of their NTI aesthetic dictates, regulating their social behavior based on an unspoken code of conduct but have their cognition warped to act in the best interests of the group, defined in terms of their emerging socialization. I.e. "Knights honor, thieves code, holy fidelity, profits and work productivity." Loyalty and investment in the newly created social institutions becomes the totality of their existence, even as little as a few days in, and seeing it grow, expand and intensify becomes paramount to the subject's wellbeing. Conflicts often emerge when camps of differing NTI are built nearby, often physical but almost nonfatal. Such disputes end with a clear displacement of the disadvantaged exposed to the osmosis of the dominant NTI, and changing their social developments, customs to match while contributing to the wellbeing of the host culture. Investigators set up a custom camp in protective hazmat gear and polystyrene plastic tents. Upon revisitation within 3 weeks, the camp had grown into several factories, facilities and energy plants. Former staff were unrecognizable and indistinguishable, irresponsible to former duties and preoccupied with mining the land and production of unknown substances. All attempts to communicate were declined and from audio interception a new NTI had formed on the basis of empirical efficiency, studying chemical compounds and spreading 'The Great Rationality'.

Synthetic Multiprocessor 

OS Ladies 

are small, 2' 5" entities shaped like small girls, but flickering as if from machines. SMOLs, also named "Lovey glubbys", appear immune to harm or physically touching others, but have the ability to teleport physical matter, and will usually 'take way' possessions of Tower travelers. At this moment the robbed subject will be outraged or express that they're mad at SMOLs, and begin the argumentation phrase. Even in groups these small girl-shaped holograms will snicker and indulge their anger, before speaking extremely sophisticated logical arguments and rhetoric for why they should have this 'new toy' and how it should only belong to good girls like them. Over a short period of time they display the ability to absorb subjects into this enlargement intensely, while physically shrinking them mentally and physically. SMOLs can absorb any magic utilized, and physical attacks phase right through them. 

They may vanish the arguers clothing, their arguments getting less complicated as time passed on and the  recipient more emotional, their body often deforming closer to the center of gravity. If at any point they break this argument, the changes are instantly reversed, but the ability to rationalize their changes or emotions exhibits a downwards trend. Plastic ponies, tea sets, dollies, and even Merry-Go-Round's appear. At a certain point the arguer will look near indistinguishable. Clothes appear, usually frilly dresses, gloves, mary janes and bows over the former traveler and their former personality will be last. 

At this point, the highly logical arguments won't make sense to them, and both parties will resign themselves to childish insults and taunts. Lovey Glubby's usually give 'back' the possessions at this point, to little interest to the original owner. The new SMOLs will begin to flicker, sometimes teleporting to a nearby tea ride or bounce castle to play briefly and indulge an innocent mindset. After a few minutes, the original Lovey Glubby and newly created copy flicker out and vanish altogether.

 

Synergy recurrence 

is a phenomenon caused by an unsourced series of technological devices, which take the form of common vending machines, elevators, monitors, doorways and other dimensional passage ways with digital devices, monitors and speakers built in. Nicknamed "The Sirens of eclectica" and "Boobytrap giftshops", these manifestations of Synergy recurrence act on passers by taking advantage of structural vulnerabilities in the Tower's passage difficulty. Threats posed from heat, hunger and starvation, sleep deprivation, injury and fatigue are intuitively sensed by Synergy recurrence and preyed upon, offering recursive rewards as if by magic. For instance, passers drawn to a vending machine, kicking it or desperate for food will hear an automated voice that offers small rewards, such as snacks, meat sticks, coffee, and themed foods with a specific cultural structure. In exchange for this, they're often asked to do specific 'Micro-tasks', which includes saying and affirming phrases at the lowest levels, and at higher up stages of vulnerability redressed with wardrobes with new clothes and accessories. 

A positive feedback loop of addiction is quickly grafted onto the subject's until usage of these suppliers become frequent and their sole dependency on food, water, health and recovery. Walking far from the devices sees them reappear in innerspace right by them once more.Overtime tasks become more complicated and demand more conformity, while seeming to come with cognitive distortions upon compliance. For instance, travelers who have used the vending machine to the extent they're dressed as a squeaking pristine rubber clown or haughty, efficient business woman will be asked to juggle or fill out forms, or even recite phrases and memos. Memory lapses at this stage are frequent, with each mantra or usage of the machines obscuring their previous goals and occupation. Established bribery to pass is frequent, slowing them down at doors, elevators and checkpoints so that compliance with the new persona is completely mandatory, the time-crunch added from the devices forcing them to act more naturally, and perform longer-timed challenges, some spanning dozens of minutes, others hours. Once the requests span days, the carrot-on-stick mentality reaches farther into the traveler's psyche and becomes casually more natural for the goers who began with only the simplest of compulsions. The new persona is internalized, and reward becomes less of a side disturbance or delay, and more of the primary motivation once the attractions of their tasks overwhelm all their focus. 

They spend more time in 'challenge mode' than without one, and said individuals display confusion when not presently doing an attraction or any sort of assigned task. The travelers display confusion at this point, before often going back to their 'challenges' as their new lifestyle. One Warlock, after having been lost for so long, hungry and wanting for a battery for their flashlight (each lasting 100-200 minutes) performed endless assignments, even as a large sundial started changing their food into funnel cake and pretzels. Their last task was to scare kids in a haunted house, and after the warlock didn't return to their former designation, walking out as a small town carnie. Their last encounter with the sundial sucked them in, put them into plastic wrap and placed them out as a very silly clown. Afterwards she was interested only in entertaining and getting to know 'audiences' in rubber overalls and thick makeup.

Cretors

Located most commonly in Arteries, Cretors are insidiously powerful entities able to trap anyone within a set spatial locality and exert their will over the subject, increasingly so overtime and over a greater range the more subjects they ensnare. The actual spatial sets generally start out insignificant in terms of environmental details; empty caves, suspiciously wide hallways, playgrounds in the middle of a passage in some woods. Subjects typically are not immediately aware of their will being infringed upon, but notice peculiarities in their behavior and thinking. Sudden shifts in seconds of mood or motivation, outbursts, a sudden spark of drama between party members, a shift in personality. These abrupt disturbances, much like the areas they occur in, always appear inconspicuous enough by their triviality.

Overtime party’s find themselves increasingly disturbed by a quantum of mental and behavior changes, embedded in both their own consciousness and acted out unwittingly. No violations of math or physics upon scientific inquiry reveals any form of mind control, nor can magical enchantment be detected even at this stage. Travelers can only speak of the suddenness of new developments in their personal experience- dating a random member, announcing a new role that is nonsensical, thinking obsessively about a new hobby or priority, essentially taking on an entirely new role or feeling as if that role has possessed them. Those caught by this will continue to do so, with physical changes to match that role overtime unless they’re able to catch the lair of the Cretor and disarm them- take away their crayons, juicebox, cardboard box or blanket, etc. 

Considered by most researchers as “Singularities of Substance”, Cretors in their physical presence most commonly take youthful forms, and appear to have a mentality to match. Where Cretors come from remains unknown. They’re fond of games of ‘hide and seek’ with adventurers they displace, making them difficult to stop unless properly caught. Their first instinct when travelers enter their participant space is to begin telling stories and interactions, imagining as if the party are dolls or characters in a story. Whatever story their pretend-play takes, the live subjects caught in their space end up mirroring overtime like puppets, unable to see the figurative strings nor are they aware of the child hiding in the vicinity involved with them. Aiding their creative manipulation are an assortment of tools, from crayons, paper, storybooks, sock puppets, chests of toys,  even digital tablets.

Cretors tend to expand their stories outwards the longer they entertain these ‘pretend’ sessions, and are even able to ensnare entire towns towards their imaginative ideals after enough time. They have been known to kidnap children and take apprentices to mold them into new Cretors, which usually involves a lot of dressup.  We followed one particularly experienced and greatly skilled traveler and swordswoman, Delilah Titanix, as she encountered a cretor space in the Middle Garden’s arteries. The knight began attempting to makeout with one of our recording crew as ‘a newly beloved bride’, and by the end of the night only identified as Lady Ruff Woofington Princess of the Houndbaskets. After 2 weeks our crew was able to find the cretor under a blanket in a massive labrinth, by which point Delilah’s assimilation into her role, along with many other ‘roles’ given to staff, were irreversible and physically solidified. We searched thru the young dog-girl’s belongings to see coloring books and papers matching the alterations. Cretors seldom leave artery tunnels, but in more populated ones have ensnared large populations into imaginative microcosms of their making-one glum village of antiquity was transformed into a pastel pink cloudland full of actual unicorns and talking, horned royal swine after the village was unable to ‘find’ the Cretor for a whole month.