הניאל ([personal profile] rosetograce) wrote in [community profile] imeeji_frontstage2022-08-07 12:02 pm

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…?
]
threatmewted: ([Ugh] just bound)

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

[personal profile] threatmewted 2022-08-09 12:17 am (UTC)(link)
[Hmmm...

Following the golden blood(?) trail.
]
threatmewted: ([Um] I guess time flies)

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

[personal profile] threatmewted 2022-08-09 01:15 am (UTC)(link)
[Not great, but she'll keep going, footsteps becoming cautious.]
threatmewted: ([Shifty] Tell me what have I)

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

[personal profile] threatmewted 2022-08-09 03:15 am (UTC)(link)
[Concerning. But she'll continue anyway!]
threatmewted: ([Ugh] just bound to happen)

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

[personal profile] threatmewted 2022-08-09 07:36 am (UTC)(link)
[Hmmm. Probably bad to mess around with sharp things laying around, so she'll take note of them in case she needs to come running back for a weapon and proceed.]
threatmewted: ([Um] I guess time flies)

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

[personal profile] threatmewted 2022-08-10 12:11 am (UTC)(link)
[Ah she sees that something bad happened here.

Stepping around the broken pieces and proceeding!
]
threatmewted: ([Ugh] have I done now)

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

[personal profile] threatmewted 2022-08-10 01:40 am (UTC)(link)
[Oof. But she'll keep walking through it anyway because of sunk cost fallacy, what could possibly be at the end of this!!]
threatmewted: ([Ugh] wonderful uproar)

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

[personal profile] threatmewted 2022-08-10 02:05 am (UTC)(link)
[This sucks. This really sucks. But she also didn't get Oak for stubbornness by giving up easily, and she exemplifies that here, plodding onwards even as it grows darker and darker, hope fading with every step.

Even if it's a bad one, she'll see this to the end.
]
threatmewted: ([Fight] Do what you do)

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

[personal profile] threatmewted 2022-08-10 04:29 am (UTC)(link)
[Why is she here?]

C'mon... don't tell me this is all there is. That'd just be... super boring.

[She wants answers]
threatmewted: ([Ugh] have I done now)

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

[personal profile] threatmewted 2022-08-10 05:22 am (UTC)(link)
[A little scared and a lot over her head, is the most likely answer - but not the one she'd give.]

I'm X. A Reaper, and a member of AlcheME.

[Obviously. She has her doubts about her place as a Reaper, but she is what she is, no doubt about that in and of itself.]

Who - or what - the hell are you?
threatmewted: ([Ugh] just bound to happen)

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

[personal profile] threatmewted 2022-08-10 05:43 am (UTC)(link)
[.........

She grumbles about stupid cryptic walls as she tries to move ahead towards the water without, hopefully, stepping right into it.
]
threatmewted: ([Shifty] Tell me what have I)

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

[personal profile] threatmewted 2022-08-10 05:58 am (UTC)(link)
[She maybe stumbles a bit thanks to the sudden lightness - which also earns some indignant grumbles - but it stops when she notices the face in the water.

...

Approaching the water first to see if she can get a better look at that ?person?
]
threatmewted: ([Surprise] I just chill out now?)

1/2

[personal profile] threatmewted 2022-08-10 06:05 am (UTC)(link)
[!!]

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