Stephanie's Heart: The Archive

[reading_rainstorm]

In your dreams you are in a thick and foggy forest. It could be mistaken for the woods around Tributary if you don’t know your plants. You are on a trail leading into a clearing, in the center of which is a simple, concrete structure with a single door. A chaos star has been spray painted on it with a stencil.

You approach the structure. Looking over your shoulder you see a large shape lurking in the fog, obscured by the foliage. Two shining Feline eyes peer at you from the brush. You feel your heart rate spike as you turn the knob and find an old fashioned elevator tucked neatly inside with an accordion grate standing between you and the ornate, gilded interior. It creaks open as the presence behind you steps into the clearing. It is a sphinx, an eight foot tall lioness with the face of a woman and the large brown wings of an eagle on her back . The feminine face and olive skin tone of a Greek woman from antiquity smiles as she readies herself to to pounce, the wings on her back stretching and give a few readying flaps.You back into the elevator and close the gate with shaking hands as the sphinx leaps at the elevator. Her claws twisting and shearing the metal of the grate slowly, but she is too late. The elevator springs to life and you descend.

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A small light above flickers on as it illuminates your view outside the exposed elevator as you sink into the concrete structure. You descend for a few moments before an opening in the concrete gives you the view of an observation deck on a hill, looking down on the sprawling suburbs and campus of a college town. The elevator continues downward. The concrete gives way to old, dusty marble as you continue sinking. You see a vast maze stretch far and away that gets nearer and nearer. This has to be it, right? Your destination? No. You plunge further down, past the walls of the maze and the marble is replaced again by well polished wood. Beautiful stained mahogany rises past you as your descent finally starts to slow. You are greeted by another grate that creaks open for you. Entreating you to enter.

Comments

[reading_rainstorm]

She looks a bit sad. "...Mrs. My husband should be around here too. I think he was tending to the Remembered Rooms."

[peccatore]

I see. Thank you.

[... He hesitates.]

I... should be looking for Stephanie, right?

[reading_rainstorm]

"Yes, the High Priestess. My daughter."

[peccatore]

... Just making sure. [He smiles courteously.] Thank you.

[Off to this Hall of Fate, then...?]

[reading_rainstorm]

The entrance to the hall of fate is a large arched double door. On closer inspection of the door you can see three unlit sconces. One on either side and one at the top of the arch. You try to to open the double doors...it's locked. Firmly shut. You do notice a table beside the wall with a velvet cloth atop it along with five unlit candles. One at each corner and one at the top center.

[peccatore]

[... Hmm. Now what does he do with this...?

He stares at the tarot card as if it might have an answer for him.]

[reading_rainstorm]

Could be good to hold on to it. Gotta be answer around here somewhere, right? There's also the Diorama Hall and Remembered Rooms to check out on the floor above.

[peccatore]

[He has a bad feeling about the Diorama Hall, which may be entirely because of the trick his eyes played on him earlier. The Remembered Rooms, though... The head librarian mentioned those. He'll check them out.]

[reading_rainstorm]

The hall of Remembered Rooms is well lit and has more of the bookcases like the main hall, but between the cases are doors that do not match with the rest of the decor of this place. There is an anxious looking man in a well pressed button down shirt stocking the shelves with books. Like the Harmony he is carved from wood and moves like he is being animated by stop motion. He looks at you as you enter but does not say anything, he has Stephanie's thick eyebrows.

There is a simple rectangular door with a cheery blue coat of paint on it, a simple wooden door that seems familiar somehow, a rotting, decrepit door that could easily be broken apart, and a plain metal door painted white with a small slit window in it.

[peccatore]

[He still really, really doesn't like the uncanny stop motion people, but hey, who is he to judge Stephanie's psyche.]

E... Excuse me. Do you mind me looking around?

[reading_rainstorm]

"Not at all, sir. The rooms are here to be visited and explored. Feel free. " He glances with a bit of worry at the rotting door, whatever is in there, he certainly doesn't like being near it

[peccatore]

[...

Well, he might as well ask.]

Should I start there?

[reading_rainstorm]

"Ah...I-I don't know if that's a good idea. That one is a little...intense. That and the hospital one. At least the hospital one isn't so damned spooky."

[peccatore]

I... can probably handle spooky.

[reading_rainstorm]

"...Feel free then, I suppose."

The rotting door waits for you Marco. Let's get Spooky.

Opening the door and stepping through, you are on the inside of a ruined cabin. There are three college age humans around the room. Moss grows on their limbs. Vines twist around their bodies, creeping from inside a stone circle in the center of the room. Behind the circle there's an altar built of discarded furniture. Scrawled pages of yellowing notebook paper are stapled to it all over. There's an open bag that looks to have some implements for a spell prepared.

[peccatore]

[How bad could it possibly be? He IS a spooky thing. What could be so baaaaaaaaaaa--]

Oh... Oh dear.

[Is there anything written on all that paper? He tries to take a look.]

[reading_rainstorm]

Entreaties to the "Lady of Pages" offerings for knowledge or odes to her in thanks.

[peccatore]

[... Seems bad.

He hesitantly looks inside the bag, too.]

[reading_rainstorm]

Inks of black and...the red one is ink right? Then there's bottles of fine iron filings and...silver filings as well. Along with a few folded documents. Stephanie seems to have written three faux contracts in duplicate. One in latin, one in olde english for each of the students trapped here.

[peccatore]

[......

He sniffs the red one.]

[reading_rainstorm]

It's...mostly ink. There is blood in there though.

[peccatore]

[Okay yeah he's putting it down. No sense risking... anything in a psyche where the rules DO apply.

But what to do, then...? He scans each contract.]

[reading_rainstorm]

Each student has promised equivalent time to the teaching it would have taken to learn a language, according to the contracts that have been written here...you see a set of brushes at the bottom of the bag and a lighter that seems to shine in the light.

[peccatore]

God, I really don't like this.

[He might as well take the rest of the stuff out of the bag. Hhhh.]

[reading_rainstorm]

You have a full set of ritual implements! Yay! Touching the brushes fills your head with sigils you could draw around the circle.