idolpro | Flowers of Heaven 2: future is now + ☆ZRAEL

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Flowers of Heaven 2: future is now + ☆ZRAEL

There’s a whirr and a series of quiet bleep-boops; an odd sound like stones grinding together.

Gathering around you all are strange creatures. Wheeling up to future is now are what seem to be friendly robots, almost like roombas, that have been given attachments of long, jointed arms with simple pincers at the ends, and hopping up to ☆ZRAEL are what look like a number of gargoyles, each no more than a few feet high and in the traditional gothic cathedral style—and all animate, their flesh made of living rock.
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 thick, velvety leaves, and the stems of the vines are traced with shifting, fiber-optic lines that cycle through the rainbow.

The little creatures are carrying some things for you—the roombas carry a wreath of vervain, honeysuckle, and oak flowers and leaves, and the gargoyles a wreath of lotus, clematis, and wild rose. 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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

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 robots and gargoyles 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.

Aliza will be burning her Hollyhock and Wild Rose and wearing the crown.

Edited (SORRY FOR THE EDITS, THIS IS IT) 2022-08-07 20:53 (UTC)

[ 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. ]

[ 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 LOTUS 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. ]

[ 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 STAR OF BETHLEHEM 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. ]

Re: @ CAUSALITY

numberedays - 2022-08-07 21:40 (UTC) - Expand

Ah... so a sacrifice will need to be made.

IC RULES

THE FIRST OBSTACLE

DECISION

Re: DECISION

RESULTS

Re: RESULTS

@ ARADIA

@ LUMINE

@ CAUSALITY

DISCUSSION

Re: DISCUSSION

Re: DISCUSSION

Re: DISCUSSION

Re: DISCUSSION

THE SECOND OBSTACLE

DECISION

RESULTS

DISCUSSION