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…?
]
at_heart: surprised, but hearing you out (huh :: i'm listening)

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

[personal profile] at_heart 2022-08-12 03:21 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Nodding along, until— ]

Sorry, you initiated... What do you mean, rite?
at_heart: (think :: i really don't know)

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

[personal profile] at_heart 2022-08-13 01:09 am (UTC)(link)
Whose heart are we fighting for?

[ Right to work. Just lil protagonist things. ]
at_heart: (huh :: well that's a thought)

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

[personal profile] at_heart 2022-08-13 07:26 pm (UTC)(link)
[ oooohkay ]

So you called us here because we helped you last time. Right?

Any, uh, tips?
at_heart: (chatty :: that's just how this works)

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

[personal profile] at_heart 2022-08-18 04:49 am (UTC)(link)
[ uhhhhhh ]

Okay, I stand corrected: that's ominous.

[ Small smile for her. ]

Do you have anything else to tell me, or should I get moving? I know not all [ don't say NPCs don't say NPCs ] people in these rites can help us much.
at_heart: (wtf :: you don't say)

Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?

[personal profile] at_heart 2022-08-18 05:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Wait, I—

[ WELP ] [ also just to confirm, end of exploradora? ]
Edited 2022-08-18 17:31 (UTC)