reading_rainstorm | Stephanie's Heart: The Archive

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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From:

turntoash

Metis slouched towards the reception desk with her hands in her jacket pockets. The placard had perhaps the opposite effect on her than intended; on reading it, she stepped back from the desk and up the stairs instead, aiming for the Diorama Hall.

From:

reading_rainstorm

The Diorama Hall is a more dimly lit corridor, with the light mainly spilling out from alcoves which have a few scenes being portrayed by skillfully carved wooden figures. Only a velvet rope separates the hall from the dioramas. Three scenes are on display: two adult male figures in a dorm of some sort holding books in front of a drum with a fake fire glowing within it, a woman opening the door to an empty storefront with a model Stephanie standing at the center, and another model of Stephanie with a cloaked women embracing in a kiss in a brightly lit office. The last alcove doesn’t have a velvet rope. From here you can tell it seems contain a diorama of a landscape in a large glass case, instead of the scenes like the others. The path further into the hall is blocked by a velvet rope which seems to be guarded by a young woman with strawberry blonde hair sitting in a chair by the rope. She is reading a book on astronomy and barely looks up when you enter. There’s a pair of under arm crutches leaned against the wall beside her.

From:

turntoash

Not eager to disturb without more information, Metis took her time looking over the dioramas. She didn't much know what was going on, but any info was good info: now she knew that Stephanie was involved here.

After committing the dioramas to memory, she approached the woman in the chair. "Hey, 'scuse me. Mind if I ask you a few questions?"

From:

reading_rainstorm

Putting her book down, Metis can see that woman in the chair, like the models in the dioramas is carved from wood. She moves strangely as she straightens her posture and regards Metis, like she is a character in a stop-motion animation. Her voice is low, tinged with boredom.

"Sure. It is my job to assist guests in the archive, even if the High Priestess prefers to hide me away in the darkest corner. What can I do for you?"

From:

turntoash

Metis blinked. The list of questions she wanted to ask had just gotten longer.

What the hell, she asked herself. Let's start there.

"Who is the High Priestess? And why's she got it out for you?"

From:

reading_rainstorm

"High Priestess Stephanie Spiros." She gestures to one of the Stephanie models in the dioramas. "More humble moments on display today, it seems. Feel free to take a closer look at any if you want. I'm Ava. One of the caretakers of the archives, so assigned because the High Priestess, in all her benevolence, can't get me out of her head permanently. I'm her one and only ex."

From:

turntoash

That answered a number of questions and raised many more. Metis rifled through her mental log and made updates where necessary. Some sort of representation of Stephanie's psyche? Odd. This was surprisingly lucid for a dream.

She didn't usually know she was dreaming, for one, and her dreams usually involved way more unintentional nudity.

"Thanks. Am I right in thinking we're basically in Stephanie's head right now? Am I here for a reason, or is this just something that happens sometimes?"

From:

reading_rainstorm

"Head, heart, soul, however you want to say it. As to why you're here, probably says more about you than it does about her, frankly. She tends to attract certain types of people. It is something that happens sometimes but I know the High Priestess has been...neglecting some of her duties, which might be why the archive has suddenly opened its doors."

From:

turntoash

Metis grinned, carefully ignoring the jab but making a note that passive aggression may have explained why the woman in front of her was an ex.

"What's she been avoiding? And is this something that can happen to anyone, or is this a 'Stephanie' thing?"

From:

reading_rainstorm

"Taking memories, actually dealing with her memories. Great archivist she is, right? She's left a bunch just laying around as cards. One of her arcane organizational systems.

It's far from a 'Stephanie' thing. She's rooted around a few peoples heads in this way herself. Be careful, if you get too close she might end up in yours."

From:

turntoash

"Hold on a moment. Let me make sure I'm following. Her whole thing is archiving... memories?"

Metis thought about that for a moment.

"Is that meaningfully different from... remembering things? Or writing them down? There must be something here I have wrong."

From:

reading_rainstorm

Ava sighs and flips her hair over her shoulder. "No, the archive is the sum of all her knowledge. That, of course, includes her own memories. She has neglected filling and organizing her shelves by focusing on projects and all the other mess she gets up to while she isn't working."

From:

turntoash

"So her soul is an archive of her knowledge and she hasn't been keeping up with it. So I'm thinking that means she's not been doing the kind of self-reflection she needs to be, yeah? Unless you mean it more literally... hm."

Metis shook her head.

"No, I think I'm still lost on this one. So... let's say I want to help her. What would I need to do?"

From:

reading_rainstorm

"I think you got the gist of it. If you really want to help out, just see if you can find those fucking cards. I'm certainly not going to schlep all over this place looking for them." She nudges her crutches to make her point clearer.

"With my luck there's probably a few in here just out of sight. Do me a solid and don't tell the other librarians I wasn't looking for them, if there are, alright?"

From:

turntoash

"Hey, don't worry about it. No reason to rat you out."

Metis gave a quick two-fingered wave, then began her search for the cards - a once-over in this room, then to the hall past this one.

From:

reading_rainstorm

Is Metis taking any particular interest in the displays here in her search? The Office, The Dorms, The Storefront or The Landscape?

From:

turntoash

Metis started with the office scene, and it was definitely not because of the kiss - she just figured it looked the most recent.

Honest.

From:

reading_rainstorm

The diorama seems to expand beyond the bounds of the alcove as you focus on it. 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.

The velvet rope drops to the floor in front of you.

From:

turntoash

Metis enters the diorama, her footfalls making no noise. She circles the figures in the center slowly, thoughtfully, seeing if there are any other details she can eke out about them, before examining the desk.

From:

reading_rainstorm

The Stephanie model appears more lifelike as you approach it. She is blushing brightly as the other woman kisses her, her brows are knit together in frustration and surprise. The other woman has a pleased grin quirking on her lips. She actually looks a bit bruised and disheveled on closer inspection. Stephanie's voice fills your mind.

"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.

Note to self. The shadows under a person do count for her teleportation."

From:

turntoash

Metis smirked. Seemed pretty clear to her what was going on there. She may not have had her memories, but even she had figured it out.

The desk was next - scoping out any drawers before checking the candle more closely.

From:

reading_rainstorm

The desk is uncommonly empty. A brief flash of memory of Stephanie preparing her trap. All valuable documents and items being hidden away in a safe place in a different room. You also gleam that the item that was bait would be on the fourth wall of the diorama. A painting of considerable value but fitting within the theme of a spate of thefts that had been happening in town.

The candle has sigils carved on the side, with a good enough memory you might be able to recreate them back home. The spell is to fill a room entirely with light. The

From:

turntoash

Metis committed the sigils to memory. They were to create light, which made them likely the source of the orbs near the ceiling. The postscript in Stephanie's narration suddenly made sense - this woman, a thief, could teleport using shadows, and Stephanie had attempted to block that without realizing that she was casting one herself. Interesting...

She gave the diorama one more once-over to see if she'd missed anything.

From:

reading_rainstorm

Nothing more in this one. Just a glimpse into a woman's messy interpersonal life.

From:

turntoash

Not that that wasn't interesting enough, but Metis figured there was some sort of time limit. She couldn't stay asleep forever, after all.

Next up was the storefront. She approached the velvet rope and eyed the diorama.