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.

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[reading_rainstorm]

Stephanie's voice enters your head again.

"April 30, 2019 cont. When Florence said she had a surprise for me and made me wear a blindfold I figured she just was taking me to a restaurant or movie theater she rented out or something like that...I didn't think she was buying me a fucking house? My parents' house? The crystal lantern? I know it's a business investment technically. We will need a storefront to operate out of, this was beyond imagining though. I nearly died when she took the blindfold off me. I wanted to kiss her!...Well that's not exactly new, is it? I need to talk to her about it but the only times I can get her off the topic of starting our endeavors together is when she's with her boyfriend.

Maybe I just need to bite the bullet and try a fucking dating app to distract me from this stupid crush."

[maskformask]

Ohhhhhhh cutie. Oh no. Yeah, girl, that's above and beyond. I'd have a crush too and I'm gay. I'm not sure dating apps will cut it.

[laughing a little, before moving toward the last diorama, with the kissing cloaked women]

[reading_rainstorm]

There's an exhilarating energy to the scene. Stephanie is held tightly by the other cloaked woman. The hood on her cloak is up, and the face mostly obscured. The cloak itself is red and black wedges that converge at the neck like a roulette wheel, the woman seems to be wearing a leather catsuit beneath it.

The office is being lit by hovering orbs of light positioned in a circle near the ceiling making it so no shadows are cast in the room. You can spot a lit candle on the desk with sigils carved into it. The flame at the top is a lavender and you can tell, somehow, that it is about to be put out. Beside it a cooling pool of wax, another spell of some sort that must have just ended.

[maskformask]

[doing his best to give them... some privacy? Not that such a thing is possible. He checks the spell candle (and melted wax) to see if he can get a sense of what it is, though obviously his magic specifically is related to lovecraftian sorcery so he might well not have the background for it, up to you]

[reading_rainstorm]

The little candle is a high powered light spell.

The melted wax...has streaks of reddish brown in it focusing on it, you smell the scent of burnt hair in the air. What it is meant to do is lost on you though.

Stephanie's voice fills your head again


"December 12, 2020 cont.SHE KISSED ME? WHY THE FUCK DID SHE KISS ME!? I set a trap to catch her red handed, it goes off like a charm tossing her about like a rag doll and she congratulates me! Says she wants to be my rival and before I can pull answer as to what that means she kisses me and disappears."

[maskformask]

Oh holy shit. That's incredible. Sorry to get this delighted at this part of your life, girl, but holy shit.

[reading_rainstorm]

"She really is something else, isn't she?"

Ava's voice is more sarcastic than delighted.

[maskformask]

[blinks over at Ava] You don't get along?

[reading_rainstorm]

"...we had a falling out. She probably keeps it around here somewhere.

Far away from me."

[maskformask]

And yet she's put you here to guard some very personal and vulnerable memories. You must have remained very important to her, even after.

[reading_rainstorm]

Ava frowns. She sits back and stick her nose back in her book.

"Yeah, that's a nice thought. A bit too late for that now, isn't it?"

[maskformask]

Maybe so. Can I go past or is this the end of things here?

[reading_rainstorm]

"That's all there is here. The displays behind me aren't finished yet."

You can vaguely make out the figures in one of the dioramas behind her. Two figures at a workbench.

"Hey! No peeking."

[maskformask]

[raises his hands] I shan't pry into anything not on display! Thanks for your guidance.

[after this, will head to Remembered Rooms]

[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 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. Another wooden person is here, Stephanie's father from the diorama, shelving books. He pretends to not notice your arrival.

[maskformask]

[gives him a dirty look, forgetting that his face is visible now, and checks out the first door]

[reading_rainstorm]

He looks down, a sense of shame rolling off of him.

The nearest door is the ruined one, entering you find yourself inside 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

[maskformask]

[his hair stands up a little on his arms. This feels (normal) (familiar) unsettling. He goes over carefully to check the notebook pages]

[reading_rainstorm]

Entreaties for help from and odes of thanks to the "Lady of Pages". Looking closely at these, it doesn't seem like they are worshiping her like a god...but people are trying to make deals with her. And if the odes are to be believed, a few have succeeded.

[maskformask]

[squints at them briefly] The Sphinx, probably...

[goes to examine the bag for cards]

[reading_rainstorm]

No cards. Inks, brushes, iron and silver filings, three contracts in duplicate one set in old english and one in latin, and a lighter.

[maskformask]

[I can read latin and can more or less read old english. Sometimes forgets some of the grammar on OE tho. Checks out the terms]

[reading_rainstorm]

They are contracts between the lady of pages as supposed by Stephanie. Not the real deal, but effigy. They outline a deal in which each of the students traded away time in the mortal realm equivalent to the time it would take to learn a language. Each one had a different language in mind, Celtic, German and Japanese. In return they would receive the knowledge of that language as if they had learned it. It does not define "time in the mortal world" very clearly. It seems to you this was a deliberate choice by Stephanie. You hold her conclusion on how these kids got to be in the state they are in.

[maskformask]

Hmmm. Interesting.

[Checks the bodies, but if there's nothing of note, heading out and for the next door]

[reading_rainstorm]

One of the bodies here is the girl from the shop, Florence. Her hair isn't dyed yet.

You hear Stephanie's voice over your shoulder as you examine her.

"Think you could have saved them, cursebroken?"

The sphinx with Stephanie’s face watches you through a window.