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]

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.

[maskformask]

Would I have wanted to?

[turns to the window, lifting his brows]

[reading_rainstorm]

She shrugs.

"They were strangers to us."

[maskformask]

Were they...?

[shrugs back] I can ask Stephanie about it. There's no changing the past regardless, so there isn't much point in speculating on what I would or wouldn't have done.

[reading_rainstorm]

"They were. We still aren't sure why we saved them."

[maskformask]

Is the plural here "the sphinx" and "Stephanie?"

[reading_rainstorm]

"Yes...the lines are blurry sometimes.

The difference between me and her.

At least from my perspective."

[maskformask]

That's understandable. You've spent a lot of time seeing through her eyes, haven't you?

[reading_rainstorm]

"You have it backwards. She sees through mine."

[maskformask]

Fair enough. But wasn't at least one of them someone you did know?

[reading_rainstorm]

"This is how we met. Just another kid meddling with things they could not possibly understand.

Something Stephanie barely understood."

[maskformask]

Ahh. Well, many of us wouldn't be who we are without dabbling in the dark arts.

[reading_rainstorm]

The sphinx smiles.

"Very true, indeed.

You're at the start of our trailhead on that path, if you want to know how it all started."

The end lies at the beginning.

[maskformask]

I'll keep going, then. I'd like to know Stephanie better. And you better, I suppose.

[does that. I assume the implication is... the next room?]

[reading_rainstorm]

"Would it not be wise to walk a ritual in her shoes then?"

By all means, you can leave if you want. There's a feeling of something unfinished as you head to the door, though.

[maskformask]

[blankly, like a man from a canon where rituals regularly either summon abominations or drive people past all reason and understanding]




Why would I enact a ritual when I don't know what it does?

[reading_rainstorm]

The sphinx blinks a few times.

"You mean you couldn't figure out it summons an arch fae?

Really, I figured you were smarter than that."

[maskformask]

We don't have those where I'm from, except in misunderstood stories of other things. My understanding is that's still a poor idea.

So it wasn't you being summoned, then.

[reading_rainstorm]

"No, my origin is still unknown to us. In truth I have been stalking the border of this memory looking for a lead to that end.

Something to show Stephanie so she resists her fate less."