Stephanie's Heart: The Archive
Jan. 11th, 2025 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reading_rainstormIn 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.
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.
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Date: 2025-01-13 08:47 pm (UTC)It was all Metis could say for a moment as she watched the memory play out.
"That fills in the gaps, doesn't it?" Metis approached Stephanie and helped her pick up the tablets. "Can't say I fault you, though. It didn't look like you had a whole lot of choice in the matter. Do or die, right?"
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Date: 2025-01-13 08:53 pm (UTC)Stephanie wipes her blood from the front of the tablets. Three lines of text in ancient Greek. Riddles.
"Exactly...Found my way into another hopeless situation it seems."
The Stephanie in front of you is the High Priestess again, and you are standing in the true heart.
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Date: 2025-01-13 10:03 pm (UTC)Metis sucked air in between her teeth.
"I don't know if I have much magic knowledge or not, but whatever I can do to help, I'll do it."
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Date: 2025-01-13 10:42 pm (UTC)Even the more...interpersonal stuff."
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Date: 2025-01-13 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-13 11:03 pm (UTC)"You know...there is one thing I could use your help with. I won't ask you here...all this-"
Gesturing at the temple behind her and the headless winged lion sitting at the foot of a throne.
"It's a bit more I pressure than I'd like to put on you, ya know?"
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Date: 2025-01-13 11:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-13 11:20 pm (UTC)...
Also uh, sorry for giving you a crash course on my fucked up life I guess. I hope you believe me when I say as much as I don't like hiding shit from people, I also don't want to make them handle all my baggage."
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Date: 2025-01-13 11:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-13 11:32 pm (UTC)Usually just like hang out in the True Heart till I wake up. But maybe I can..."
Stephanie holds out her hand and snaps her fingers.
You wake up.
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Date: 2025-01-13 11:33 pm (UTC)Well, that was a strange experience.