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:

reading_rainstorm

She chuckles lightly.

"You are probably right. Truth be told, I have had quite a handful to deal with. Things have become a bit of a mess here and our High Priestess does not seem inclined to be helping with the matter, poor dear. We've lost a good number of the cards that open the Hall of Fate. Well, I say lost, but they must be around. I found one stuck in the card catalogue just a bit ago."

She presents Louis with The Tower, pulled from a drawer.

From:

maskformask

[takes it with a wince]

Oh, I always do this. How many are missing? Not all 22 trumps?

From:

reading_rainstorm

"No, no. Not nearly that many. Only five, minus that one. The Hermit, The Lovers, Death, Strength and The Emperor remain unfound."

From:

maskformask

And I just bring them here when that's done? I'll take a look around, then.

From:

reading_rainstorm

"If you could set them on that table there. That would be incredibly helpful. Thank you, Louis." She points to the table by the Hall of Fate with a cloth and some candles atop it.

Where's Louis headed now?

From:

maskformask

Of course.

[well first he's gonna go get the Hermit from where he left it, and then he'll take the spiral stairway to the upper area of the library]

From:

reading_rainstorm

The upper balcony gives a wonderful view of the library hall. Now that you're up here though...all the books and papers have been removed. Did Harmony clean up so quickly? The shelves around you are just as tightly packed with books as the one below. The signposted corridors stretch away beyond them at either end of the balcony.

From:

maskformask

[Frowns thoughtfully but like. heart stuff. either the hermit had to go or, uh, symbolically it looks clean from up here but up close is messy? Louis considers, then absently checks the book subject matter as he goes towards the Diorama Hall]

From:

reading_rainstorm

That does certainly ring a bell about Stephanie doesn't it? If the books are organized by any system it is not one you know. At a glance you can tell that most of the books here have been bound by hand. The titles on the spines are mostly unfamiliar, and without any author. Is there a specific topic Louis was hoping for? The ones closest to him seem to focus on theater, New England history and crafting.

From:

maskformask

[Oh I'M a new england theater boy. Sort of. Not normal theater. Will take one out and look at it.]

From:

reading_rainstorm

The book you take is on the theatrical traditions of Rome and Greece. Not only how the plays were run and performed but a few scripts as well! "Prometheus Bound" "Medea" "Oedipus Rex" Thinking on Not Normal Theater does make "The Great God Pan" appear on the shelf next to it.

From:

maskformask

Oh, classic. [Gives a thumb's up toward the middle of the library. Gets distracted reading the treatise on theatrical traditions for a little bit, sorry, but you'd do the same.]

[puts it back with a sigh and heads off to the Diorama Hall after he realizes what he's doing]

From:

reading_rainstorm

She would, in fact, do exactly the same.

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. Only 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 Stephanie standing st the center, and two 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 to be 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:

maskformask

[slowly examines the dioramas, a little unnerved, which is unusual for him. He doesn't cross the ropes unless he sees signs of a card, but circles them, looking them over.]

[followed by examining the glass case; is it Tributary or another place that the landscape represents?]

From:

reading_rainstorm

The more you focus on the dioramas the more they seem to fill with detail. There maybe was something sticking out of the journal in the diorama of the dorms?

The case has what you assumed, a large and impeccably detailed diorama of Tributary. All of its locations and cottages are lovingly carved from wood. Its many inhabitants are represented by wooden miniatures in the places they often can be found or by the houses in which they reside. There are two buttons on the diorama one of a sun with a needle and thread and one with a moon and a sword.

From:

maskformask

[he'll go back for that dorms image, but first he's pressing the sun house button]

From:

reading_rainstorm

The figures all spin around in place and the light changes, illuminating thin threads of different colors connecting all the figures to each other. The one between him and Stephanie is a pale yellow. A brighter yellow one to Much and Lark and a red...no purple, or is it red...to Mithrun. It seems most of Louis' relations are a mystery to Stephanie at this point.

From:

maskformask

Ohhh. Oh, Stephanie, this is incredibly sweet. [just makes a little sound back there behind his masks, looking at it for a second.]

Well, if that's bonds, what's...

[moon house button pressed]

From:

reading_rainstorm

Pressing the moon button makes figures all shake for a moment...but nothing happens. There is a sound of grinding machinery below the display.

From:

maskformask

[...ducks down to look under]

From:

reading_rainstorm

Below the diorama is a little sliding door that reveals the inner workings of the thing. Gears and spools of thread that connect irrationally. In a little box filled with soft fabric you can see some figures have been placed, people who have stayed at Tributary but are no longer there, tucked safely away.

The source of the problem seems to be some thread and a card caught up in the gears attached to a figure. It's Harriet, bound up in rosegold thread. Along with her is a card stuck in the gears. The card is The Lovers.

From:

maskformask

Ohh, sweetheart. [makes a little pained noise, trying to gently and carefully extract both Harriet and the card from the gears] It's hard to move past a loss. I know. I know. It sticks in you.

From:

reading_rainstorm

You're able to take them from the gears. There's a bittersweet feeling to it. Untangling all this. Once the figure and card are free, it feels like some tension has been relieved. You let out a breath you didn't know you'd been holding in.

From:

maskformask

Phew...

[hesitates, looking at harriet, then gently puts her in the box of people who have left. Better than in the gears, and it feels like putting her back up there would just be going against the arrangement here.]