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

"...Feel free then, I suppose."

The rotting door waits for you Marco. Let's get Spooky.

Opening the door and stepping through, you are on the inside of 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.

Edited Date: 2025-01-12 09:03 pm (UTC)

From:

peccatore

[How bad could it possibly be? He IS a spooky thing. What could be so baaaaaaaaaaa--]

Oh... Oh dear.

[Is there anything written on all that paper? He tries to take a look.]

From:

reading_rainstorm

Entreaties to the "Lady of Pages" offerings for knowledge or odes to her in thanks.

From:

peccatore

[... Seems bad.

He hesitantly looks inside the bag, too.]

From:

reading_rainstorm

Inks of black and...the red one is ink right? Then there's bottles of fine iron filings and...silver filings as well. Along with a few folded documents. Stephanie seems to have written three faux contracts in duplicate. One in latin, one in olde english for each of the students trapped here.

From:

peccatore

[......

He sniffs the red one.]

From:

reading_rainstorm

It's...mostly ink. There is blood in there though.

From:

peccatore

[Okay yeah he's putting it down. No sense risking... anything in a psyche where the rules DO apply.

But what to do, then...? He scans each contract.]

From:

reading_rainstorm

Each student has promised equivalent time to the teaching it would have taken to learn a language, according to the contracts that have been written here...you see a set of brushes at the bottom of the bag and a lighter that seems to shine in the light.

From:

peccatore

God, I really don't like this.

[He might as well take the rest of the stuff out of the bag. Hhhh.]

From:

reading_rainstorm

You have a full set of ritual implements! Yay! Touching the brushes fills your head with sigils you could draw around the circle.

From:

peccatore

St-- [He drops the brushes like they're a hot fucking potato.] Stop that. I am NOT performing a ritual.

From:

reading_rainstorm

Stephanie's face appears outside the window of the cabin. Except...it's attached to the body of a winged lion.

"You won't Marco? Not even to save those kids? That's what we did you, know? That's how this whole thing goes."

She gives Marco a wicked grin.

From:

peccatore

[OH HE REALLY DOESN'T LIKE THAT.]

Why should I trust you?

From:

reading_rainstorm

"Because we don't tell lies, obviously."

She rolls her eyes at Marco but continues smiling with those sharp teeth.

From:

peccatore

[Those teeth... They scare him.]

... And what guarantee do I have that that's true?

From:

reading_rainstorm

"Well it was written in our heart, wasn't it? Right in the entrance. Have we ever seemed the deceptive sort to you Marco, anything less than forthcoming?"

From:

peccatore

... No. But I don't trust that you're the real Stephanie.

From:

reading_rainstorm

"Tsk tsk tsk. I'm just as real as the one you know. She just has the run of the place, while I'm left out here to wait with the memories...I'll have my day though."

She smiles again.

From:

peccatore

... I see. I think I see. She's mentioned you, hasn't she?

From:

reading_rainstorm

"Oh, yes. She was terribly frightened by me a while ago I believe."

Checking the claws on her front paws like nails.

From:

peccatore

... Right.

[He takes a deep breath.]

I won't be saving any kids by performing this ritual. This is just a memory. What would this actually accomplish?