imeeji_frontstage | Flowers of Heaven II: Star of Bethlehem

Who: lost(?) idols
Where: ???? a mysterious courtyard
When: day 490

[ You awaken to the feeling of cool stone at your back, and a night sky overhead.

All around is a courtyard—a wide circle of marble tile, alternating black and white, interspersed with stone benches and flowerbeds and ornamental trees, all lit by the lambent gleam of strangely vivid starlight.

It is beautiful. And it is decaying. The stone is cracked; the flowers wild and overflowing between the cracked stone; the trees bent and twisted with age, the ground around them littered with fallen fruit. There is a fountain in the center of this space, but it too is broken-down: the water sits stagnant, and nothing remains of the design except a basin and the shattered base of a once-golden sculpture.

—And surrounding it all are not walls, but dense mounds of kudzu, climbing over itself until it towers as high as any watchtower.

How did you get here?
The last thing you vaguely recall is a sudden fit of drowsiness. There’s no sign of any guide or host around, and your powers don’t currently work either. In fact, if you have any corruptions, whether mental or physical, they too are … gone? No, perhaps that's not quite it; you can still feel them—faint, like a phantom limb. Invisible, and unable to affect you.
But there is one notable exception to the rule: all wings, corruption-induced or not, remain in place, as natural as the starlight.

There are other idols around you, all waking up the same way. Is this meant to be some kind of game…? ]

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I know the basics? I am not overly religious. If anything, my family might pray to a local deity for good luck or fortune. Prior to winding up here, I was only interested in the symbolism you might find in Christianity.

I know the story of Adam and Eve though, and the apple that they were tempted with by the devil.

[ Trying to debate if he should climb up too or linger below just in case he might fall in order to catch him.]

Edited 2022-08-07 18:04 (UTC)

Did you know the fruit wasn't always an apple depending on the translation?

No- I never questioned that it was an apple. What is the alternative reading?

All kinds. Figs, grapes, pomegranate - even a banana in one.

. . . So was the word simply a stand-in for 'fruit'? And the translators have taken it to be whatever they find most delicious?

Not always. There were arguments for why it should be one kind of fruit over another, too.

But that part isn't too important. Just the fact that there's lots of possible options.

I am still a little confused though. Why does that matter, for example? Unless... the lesson is that there are many temptations that lead to sin?

The lesson is, if you see those fruits in this place, they might still be the fruit of knowledge.

So you're saying... we should eat them? Or keep hold of them?

Doesn't that depend on if you're willing to get kicked out of paradise or not?

...Just kidding. I'd like to keep some, though. I want to test something out later.

To be honest, I really wouldn't consider this my idea of paradise... would it be such a loss at the moment?

I can collect a few.

Thanks! I'm counting on you. As for this place, well...

Maybe it's a paradise that was no longer maintained. After all, Adam and Eve got kicked out, so who's even left to enjoy it?

Well, if we go by what hell has told us, God abandoned everyone, to begin with. Not even God seems to care much, so I suppose that wouldn't surprise me at all.

Do you think this is meant to be the Garden of Eden, then? Or at the very least a replica?

Or based on the concept, at any rate.

Have you found anything interesting?

[ A glance down at his fingers, which have leftover traces of some black coloring on them that didn't want to wipe off entirely. ]

I found some water in a broken fountain. But in the end, it was black... like tar? I... do not recommend touching it.

...I mean, I could have told you that.

[Tsukasa why are you touching tar.]

I- I didn't realize it was something like tar at first.

Did you find anything else?

Not yet. But I intend to keep searching. There seems to be a tower, and I'd like to take a peek at that.

What about you? Can you see anything from up there?

Mm-hm.

Looks like someone lost at chess.

A giant chess board...?

That's right. The tiles actually form a chessboard, down to the number of rows.

Just what is this place supposed to be? Giant chess? Fufu... well, I don't imagine it to be anything like wizard's chess.

My guess is something more like... angel versus demon chess.

Have you noticed how this place doesn't feel quite...

[ Hmm. How to explain. ]

How everything feels like a metaphor?

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

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