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 offers the figure for you to look at.It's an eagle. Nowhere near as good as the ones you've seen about this place, not even the ones on the store shelves. Around the base are little constellations.

"What do you think? It's a luck charm...I think this one will work. We've been working on it all summer. You think she'll like it?"

[morel_support]

Well, I don't know her, but I think it's lovely.

[reading_rainstorm]

"Oh it's for-" before she can say more rhe door to the shed you're in creaks open a crack, and then bursts wide as a teenaged Ava rushes past you, seemingly not able to even notice your presence. She takes Stephanie into a hug and kisses her cheek.

"I got your text! Is it really done?" Ava looks at the carved Eagle in Stephanie's hand, she tears up a little, looking at it. "Steph...it's beautiful. Let's test it out!" Stephanie smiles and takes Ava's hand and you are standing in the Hall of Fate again.

[morel_support]

[Aw, cute. Stephanie was right, this is a better note to move forward on.

Time to go try the High Priestess door again.]

[reading_rainstorm]

Passing by the door to The Tower, you are able to enter the High Priestess door.

Behind it you see the main chamber of a temple. A black and white pillar suspend a floral patterned cloth behind a throne. On which, is Stephanie adorned with fine red and gold robes, headdress with a Chaos star like a halo behind her head. There is no trace of her usual cat features about her, but she has a golden gorget around her neck that is chained to a headless winged lion that sits at the foot of her throne. She looks up from the book in her lap. Smiling.

"Much! You made it!"

[morel_support]

[Much grins, approaching the throne.]

Well, I did briefly consider disappearing into the stacks, never to be seen again...

[reading_rainstorm]

She steps down from it, the winged lion follows behind on the chain.

"I wouldn't blame you! I know I've been tempted by libraries I've found in hearts before. I just hope it wouldn't have disappointed, only containing everything I know."

[morel_support]

[He chuckles.] What, false modesty when you're dressed like that? Come on, Stephanie. Of course I wouldn't have been disappointed.

[reading_rainstorm]

"I know it's gonna be hard to believe, but I did not pick the outfit. I guess my subconscious has more of a flair for the dramatic than I would have expected."

[morel_support]

So, should I ask, high priestess of anything in particular?

[reading_rainstorm]

"The High Priestess as depicted by Tarot was connected to both the Egyptian gods and the Jewish religion. Not a priestess of one religion per se, but a woman of divine intuition and mystic knowledge."

[morel_support]

I can't say I'm familiar with either of those traditions anyway. Or the Tarot. I know a little about my world's Talis cards, which seem similar, but it was my friend Tervaround who was really into that... [He shrugs.]

[reading_rainstorm]

"My mother taught me about the Tarot as a child. It's really stuck with me because of that. In high school I consulted them quite often."

[morel_support]

Ah, yeah, that makes sense.

How are you feeling? I know all of this has got to be more intense for you than it is for me.

[reading_rainstorm]

"I am...tired. There has been some catharsis, which is nice, but before you came through that door it felt like I was broken into a hundred thousand pieces. Watching and talking to you through shattered mirrors."

[morel_support]

Yeah, that makes sense, I guess.

Do you... need something now? Or is this more of a debriefing?

[reading_rainstorm]

"I don't need anything. This is the true heart. You had to get enough pieces to make it.
...
I've been a bit...scattered recently."

[morel_support]

You'd have reason to be a million places at once even without the amnesia. If there's anything I can help with, you know you can ask any time, right?

[reading_rainstorm]

"Heheh. Yeah, I know Much. You've always been really good for advice...

I wasn't keeping this stuff secret I just...

You don't go telling everyone you were in a cult the second you find out ya know? It comes up if it comes up."

[morel_support]

...you know, I admire that you have enough presence of mind to make that distinction. You might be surprised by how much time I have spent in the past two centuries as a sounding board for "is this the fucked up thing normal or more Menzoberranyr Lolthite nonsense?" [He is so very long-suffering.]

[reading_rainstorm]

"God. Yeah I can imagine that beino a problem for drow expats.

[morel_support]

Yeah, exactly. Friends, students, on a few memorable occasions the Archmage Arcane, although I'm pretty sure he wasn't doing it on purpose...

[He shrugs.] Anyway. I won't press if you don't want me to. But my door's always open.

[reading_rainstorm]

"Press all you like, I'm an open book. The goings on of the cult were well documented in my world...There was a brief time I was a kind of macabre local celebrity."

[morel_support]

Stephanie, I know perfectly well that being willing - or honor-bound - to answer questions isn't the same thing as wanting to talk about it.

But yeah, wow. That had to be rough for a kid to deal with.

[reading_rainstorm]

"I thank you for your discretion, Much."

Giving a soft, genuine smile.

"Yeah I had to face a lot of pain. The fact I survived at all is...something of a miracle, I think."