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.

Watch on YouTube

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

From:

reading_rainstorm

Did the puppet blush? This place is so weird...

"Thank you...You were looking around earlier. Are you missing something?"

From:

turntoash

Metis chose not to acknowledge the blush. No point in causing more embarrassment.

"As a matter of fact, yeah. You seen a Death tarot card floating around somewhere?"

From:

reading_rainstorm

"O-oh...that one...yes. I think I saw the Sphinx with it. She's been hanging out in the ritual room...the shack. "

From:

turntoash

Of course it would be in the last place she looked. She'd felt so confident about her guess, too.

"I oughta head that way, then. Good to see you, Rowan."

Out of one room, into the next: she put a foot into the final door, hoping to push it open.

From:

reading_rainstorm

The door swings wide, you nearly knock it off it's hinges with how decrepit it is. 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.

From:

turntoash

Hoo boy. Where to start with this one? Metis examines the people more closely. Does she know them? Aside from the plant life, does anything stand out about them?

From:

reading_rainstorm

Two males, you don't recognize them. The girl...that's Florence! From the shop. Her hair isn't dyed yet though.

From:

turntoash

Then that means these three are eventually okay. What about the altar and the paper? What's written there? What were these kids trying to do?

From:

reading_rainstorm

The pages on the altar appear to be entreaties for help from a "Lady of Pages" in their studies as well as odes to her in thanks. It seems possible they have ran afoul of this figure somehow.

From:

turntoash

Hmm. Certainly seems plausible. Does the backpack hold any further clues?

From:

reading_rainstorm

Red and black ink, brushes, two bottles of metal filings, one is silver, the other iron, there's a lighter in there, and six folded documents.

From:

turntoash

Metis examined the contents. The lighter was new - certainly a fair deal more advanced than the ones she had vague memories of - and she pocketed it while leafing through the folded documents.

From:

reading_rainstorm

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:

turntoash

Well, that ties Stephanie to this more directly. If there was nothing more to the contracts, the last thing to examine seemed to be the stone circle in the center.

From:

reading_rainstorm

Looking at it again you realize the stones were not placed in a circle. The shack was built around the stone circle. Incident the circle is pure exposed earth and grass.

From:

turntoash

Three competing lines thought went through Metis' head:

1. Step in the circle.
2. Burn the grass.
3. Wait for the memory to catch up to her.

She elected to do 3 while doing 1.

From:

reading_rainstorm

Metis steps into the circle and hears a peal of laughter coming from outside the window. A sphinx with Stephanie’s face is watching her.

"Do you know what you're doing in there? It's a very good thing this is just a memory."

From:

turntoash

"I'd say what I was doing worked - given I'm looking for you." Metis grinned, the light hitting her in just the right way to leave her face in shadow, save for her piercing golden eyes. "Mind if I ask you a few questions?"

From:

reading_rainstorm

"That is usually my line, so I am intrigued."

From:

turntoash

Metis pulled a cigarette from her pocket and lit it with the lighter she'd purloined from the backpack. "Need a smoke? No? Don't mind me, then. Been a long night so far. So what can you tell me about this curse?"

From:

reading_rainstorm

"I can tell you Stephanie is a fool to try to resist it. I can tell you that they still haven't a clue what causes me to grow. I can tell you that it isn't a curse."

From:

turntoash

Metis exhaled a slow stream of smoke. "Yeah, from your perspective I can see how it wouldn't be a curse. What the hell, I'm open to having my opinion changed. Hit me with your best shot - convince me."

From:

reading_rainstorm

"Well consider the fact that Stephanie is only able to use her little sigils and trinkets to do magic. At the height of our power, as me we are able to use regular magic freely. None of this endles carving and drawing and crafting. What's more we are stronger, immortal, and can fly. We are far more equipped to defend what is ours than she is."

From:

turntoash

"But what if she just doesn't want to be a sphinx? You're a separate entity from her, I take it? I expect having someone else in my head would be exhausting."