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

It's Stephanie. You can see it in the nose and the ears and the brow. They have bright green eyes. Following their gaze you can tell they are most focused on the other figure. Not the priest, their father.

From:

maskformask

[Louis assesses the following things when trying to decide what to do.

1. is there a button
2. is the journal built into the diorama or it can it also be moved
3. are the tears painted on or are they actually moving]

From:

reading_rainstorm

1: No button
2: The journal can be removed.
3: They are "Moving" in that stop motion way the npcs are moving. They aren't made of water though.

Edited Date: 2025-01-13 04:25 am (UTC)

From:

maskformask

[attempts to take the journal and give it to baby Stephanie. Being gentle, though, doesn't want to break anything.]

From:

reading_rainstorm

The journal is hand made, and leather bound. There is an owl embossed on the front. You're able to put it in Stephanie's hands and a feeling of a calm and contentment washes over you. The tears stop flowing.

From:

maskformask

[softly] Of course there's no way to change the past. But, well, all the things in here are of you. They're still with you, in the end.

From:

reading_rainstorm

There's a shifting and a clearing of her throat from the girl. Failing to pretend she isn't listening in. The child Stephanie's gaze seems to be focused on you. A smile at the corner of their lips. They get out. You know they get out.

From:

maskformask

[makes a gesture like he's ruffling the figure's hair, then gets away from the diorama. Makes a wry smile at the girl running this section] Sorry, sorry.

From:

reading_rainstorm

"A bit sappier than I expected...but nice."

You realize that with the three cards you have, you could open the way to the Hall of Fate. You have enough cards for a past, present, and future spread.

There are other cards to find, and other memories to see though.

From:

maskformask

I'm secretly a bit of a sappy person. Or, at least, I tend to say the things that I think need to be heard but are usually a bit cringe to say, I think.

[grins at her. He is not leaving with just three cards] What's your name, by the way?

From:

reading_rainstorm

She laughs a little at that.

"Ava Burnett. Junior Librarian. I'd get up to shake your hand but it's a bit of a hassle."

She nods to the crutches.

From:

maskformask

No worries. I'm Louis Castaigne. Nice to meet you.

[ambling toward the storefront diorama]

Edited Date: 2025-01-14 05:27 pm (UTC)

From:

reading_rainstorm

"Nice to meet ya. Careful with the other two, they're nicer."

Focusing on the storefront Fills you with a sense of warmth and security. Details filling in and expanding on the set the models stand in reveal this place to be the renovated entrance to a house made to operate as a place of business. There are bare shelves, recently cleaned, and some even looking brand new. The register on the desk is certainly brand new, with a tablet point of sale and contactless card reader atop a much older desk and a display case alongside it. the Stephanie model stands awestruck in the center of the room. She seems a similar age as she is now but her eyes are a bright, shining green instead of the strange yellow hue of her sphinx eyes. A woman in a star patterned blouse tucked into high waisted jeans with blonde hair dyed black at its ends.

The velvet rope falls entreating you to take a better look.

From:

maskformask

I'll be careful.

[walking around, examining details, not really touching things, just seeing this moment for Steph and looking for cards]

From:

reading_rainstorm

Stephanie's voice enters your head again.

"April 30, 2019 cont. When Florence said she had a surprise for me and made me wear a blindfold I figured she just was taking me to a restaurant or movie theater she rented out or something like that...I didn't think she was buying me a fucking house? My parents' house? The crystal lantern? I know it's a business investment technically. We will need a storefront to operate out of, this was beyond imagining though. I nearly died when she took the blindfold off me. I wanted to kiss her!...Well that's not exactly new, is it? I need to talk to her about it but the only times I can get her off the topic of starting our endeavors together is when she's with her boyfriend.

Maybe I just need to bite the bullet and try a fucking dating app to distract me from this stupid crush."

From:

maskformask

Ohhhhhhh cutie. Oh no. Yeah, girl, that's above and beyond. I'd have a crush too and I'm gay. I'm not sure dating apps will cut it.

[laughing a little, before moving toward the last diorama, with the kissing cloaked women]

From:

reading_rainstorm

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.

From:

maskformask

[doing his best to give them... some privacy? Not that such a thing is possible. He checks the spell candle (and melted wax) to see if he can get a sense of what it is, though obviously his magic specifically is related to lovecraftian sorcery so he might well not have the background for it, up to you]

From:

reading_rainstorm

The little candle is a high powered light spell.

The melted wax...has streaks of reddish brown in it focusing on it, you smell the scent of burnt hair in the air. What it is meant to do is lost on you though.

Stephanie's voice fills your head again

"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."