Flowers of Heaven 2: BAD END=DEAD END + Taisho Roman Revolution + BARiTONES

[idolpro]

There’s a quiet fluttering overhead; a papery rustle from around you; a nudge at your ankles.

Gathering around you all are strange creatures. Materializing around BARiTONES are shifting geometric patterns of red and black, which become owls with deep red eyes and a black-and-white zigzag pattern on their feathers. Another flock—of living origami animals of all kinds, each made from a unique square of colorful paper—gather around Taisho Roman Revolution. Then, clustering around BAD END=DEAD END are… bombs??? covered in spikes, with spiky little legs, vibrating and glowing as if on the verge of explosion.
None of the creatures speak, exactly, but they chitter and nudge at you like they're greeting old friends, and usher you towards a gap that's opened in the thick curtain of kudzu vines and onto a winding path beyond.

Once you cross through, the vines grow rapidly to cover the open space behind you, and the voices of your fellow idols fade from your ears. It seems as if you’re on your own, now.

❀ ❀ ❀

Here, the vines that surround your path have wine red leaves, sometimes wound through with barbed wire; it looks like someone's hung prayer strips along them, written in an indecipherable language.

The little creatures are carrying some things for you—the owls carry a wreath of Star of Bethlehem, wild rose, and alyssum flowers, the origami animals a wreath of vervain, aconite, and water lily, and the bombs a wreath of aconite, gorse, and hollyhock. As they approach you, the air shifts in a strange way, and suddenly they have one wreath between them—all those flowers woven together into one, which they offer to you. They also have for you a collection of sixteen different flowers, and a small lantern of blue flame.

---

Quick Links: Flowers | Status Effects | OOC Rules

Comments

IC RULES

[idolpro]

Characters will discover a scroll somewhere on their person, which may be unrolled to reveal words written in ornately flourished script in an unfamiliar language. The rules resonate in their minds when they look at them, despite the apparent language barrier.

Included, too, is a list of sixteen flowers, each with an associated meaning.

Look within yourself: you are connected to two Flowers of Heaven. You will find you know what they are.

You must make your way through the Garden, out to Freedom.
However, three Obstacles block your way.

The Blue Flame Pyre can burn past these obstacles, but its fire requires at least three Flowers of Heaven as fuel. A fire given more fuel may burn past more Obstacles, but at far greater cost to your Selves.

Express your collective desire to the Blue Flame Pyre, and it will burn the flowers that are willed. However, be warned: if the three most-desired flowers are unclear, the Pyre will burn all that seem to have been chosen, no matter how many that may be.

Your souls are tied to your personal Flowers; should one of your flowers be destroyed, so too will its nature within you be broken.
To lose both your flowers is to lose your Self.

You are not without protection, though: Your chancelfolk carry with them a symbol of your group’s unity. The one who wears the wreath will find their flowers preserved—for themselves and for any in your group who share them—regardless of how the Pyre burns. But be warned: for each person, the wreath’s protection will work but once.

The energy of Freedom will be powerful enough to heal those teams with the most Flowers remaining to their collective. All others must find their own way to becoming Whole.

THE FIRST OBSTACLE

[idolpro]

As you walk the path through the vines, you come to a place where the strands of some half-finished and abandoned spiderweb have meshed and twisted so fully across the path that it's too dense to pass through, too sticky to climb.

The owls, origami animals, and bombs go into a flurry of distressed activity at the sight... and then they pass you the collection of flowers, the lantern of blue flame, and the wreath.

Make your choices.

DECISION

[idolpro]

Re: DECISION

[carrionmywaywardsun]

Flowers:
Star of Bethlehem
Acacia
Oak

Wreath on Cosmo (protecting Star of Bethlehem, Vervain).

RESULTS

[idolpro]

Re: RESULTS

[idolpro]

[ Regardless of which flowers you placed in the lantern, the following flowers suddenly go up in vivid blue flame:

Lotus

and then

Wild Oats
Star of Bethlehem
Gorse
Water Lily
Oak

The fire has an unnatural feeling to it; when it leaps to the brambles blocking your path, they aren't so much burned as unmade.
And the path carries on. ]

@ SCARAMOUCHE

[idolpro]

[ A searing pain wracks your body, spreading white-hot from the center of your chest—perhaps you clutch at your chest, or double over, and there, over your heart, is a gout of flame, the same unnatural bright blue as the lantern. The faint image of GORSE can be seen within the flame, and the pain only intensifies as it curls in on itself, withers, and then catches alight, burning bright before charring and crumbling to ash.

And then it’s gone. ]

@ SAKURA

[idolpro]

[ A searing pain wracks your body, spreading white-hot from the center of your chest—perhaps you clutch at your chest, or double over, and there, over your heart, is a gout of flame, the same unnatural bright blue as the lantern. The faint image of WATER LILY can be seen within the flame, and the pain only intensifies as it curls in on itself, withers, and then catches alight, burning bright before charring and crumbling to ash.

And then it’s gone. ]

@ "VERGLI"

[idolpro]

[ A searing pain wracks your body, spreading white-hot from the center of your chest—perhaps you clutch at your chest, or double over, and there, over your heart, is a gout of flame, the same unnatural bright blue as the lantern. The faint image of GORSE can be seen within the flame, and the pain only intensifies as it curls in on itself, withers, and then catches alight, burning bright before charring and crumbling to ash.

And then it’s gone. ]

DISCUSSION

[idolpro]

THE SECOND OBSTACLE

[idolpro]

The path continues, the brilliance of the blue flame dying out with the last of the burnt flowers.

You're not sure how long you've been walking when you reach the iron doors. They have a heavy, defensive feel to them. At the center of the doors is what is probably a pair of massive handles... but the doors have been densely overgrown with vines to the point that they grow back faster than anyone can break them.

The bombs, owls, and origami animals look upon the doors mournfully, inspecting them for any way to pull away the vines, but it seems beyond their ability. Once again, they offer the blue-flame lantern, the collection of flowers, and the wreath: something must be sacrificed.

DECISION

[idolpro]

RESULTS

[idolpro]

DISCUSSION

[idolpro]

THE THIRD OBSTACLE

[idolpro]

After journeying a while longer—it’s unclear how long, and the way time passes here is… strange—you come upon a dense field of wooden and iron pikes jutting out from the ground, sharp points toward you, like a fortification. Here, thick as the kudzu is, it seems like it’s starting to wither. The leaves are brown at best and starting to liquefy into a kind of black tar at worst.

Can flame really take care of this…?

—actually, as you approach, fire is running along the sides of the path following you, and catches upon the stakes, setting them alight into a bright blaze and clearing your path.

DISCUSSION

[idolpro]

[ wow! so that happened! ]

PRE-ENDGAME

[idolpro]

[ You pass through the field of ominous pikes—and find yourself standing before three gates.

To your left is a gate of ivory, polished to a shine so bright that it refracts a brilliant rainbow of chaotic light.
To your right is a gate of twisting black horn, beautiful and unapologetically fierce-looking.
Between them and a bit further back is a gate of pure white flame. Even from here you can feel the searing, purifying heat of it.

Which gate do you take? Each of you may choose separately, if you wish; you feel instinctively that, whatever the significance of this choice, if indeed it means anything at all, it has no bearing on your connection with your unit. ]

Re: PRE-ENDGAME

[carrionmywaywardsun]

What in the fuck is this now.

Re: PRE-ENDGAME

[abovefate]

[ he will be attached to pentium so wherever he goes ]

Re: PRE-ENDGAME

[586]

[ this is barely a fucken choice... to him at least. ]

-> To your right is a gate of twisting black horn, beautiful and unapologetically fierce-looking. ( Dragging Scaramouche with him. )

Re: PRE-ENDGAME

[temperedinpride]

[Absolutely taking the edgy gate of black horn with Pentium, Scaramouche and probably Vergil lbr]

Re: PRE-ENDGAME

[gravitydefier]

[kind of seeing that most of this group is going into the black gate. hiss, crowds.]

Re: PRE-ENDGAME

[branchedout]

[ Following the grandpas through the edgy black horn gate, cause what else is he supposed to do??? ]

Re: PRE-ENDGAME

[auguryofinnocence]

[Black horn gate, obviously. That's his aesthetic. And anyway it's where Cosmo's going, most importantly.

Also going to steer Natsume along with him.]

don't respond, gonna need to edit.

[586]

II. Vervain: Sakura, Cosmo
III. Acacia:
IV. Clematis:
V. Aconite: Valor
IX. Honeysuckle: Pentium
X. Chamomile:
XI. Wild Rose: Natsume
XII. Hollyhock: Pentium, Natsume
XIII. Mimulus:
XVI. Alyssum: Scara