idolpro | Shrike's Heart (#3)

Entry tags:

!heart games

Shrike's Heart (#3)

The woman before you is beautiful—fair of features, with lovely golden skin and luxurious long black hair, petite. You have the immediate and distinct impression that she's just let go of your hand, and she steps back, and smiles.

It's not quite a happy smile.

"I'm sorry," she says. "There's just nothing I can do, as things are. But the way is there; it just needs to be lit."

You open your mouth—maybe to say something, or to express confusion—but you have to cough, and taste something metallic, spattering black blood onto the ground in front of you. Then you realize—blood seeps from opening wounds in your arms, your chest, your stomach, your face. It rims your eyes and trails from your nose and you feel like you're dissolving—

—and you fall through the ground like it's the surface of a lake, and go down, down, down.

> Wake Up

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[ Approaching the town, the thatch roofs of most of the buildings are on fire, and a few civilian corpses lie in the main thoroughfare, disregarded.

There are a handful of buildings not on fire, but that's not likely to last forever. It seems to be more or less deserted, though. ]

Ah...

[ > Pay respect to the dead. ]

[ You gain +1 WILLPOWER.

It seems like they might have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, in the path of some war; the farm fields look like it was getting toward the end of the growing season.

There's one house nearby that has its door slightly ajar, like someone left from it in a hurry. ]

[ He glances around again, making sure there isn't anyone around, before heading into that house, slowly pushing open the door and keeping quiet as he looks inside. ]

[ From the outside, it looked ordinary, but—there's something odd going on inside this house. There's a handful of ink drawings on paper set out standing up, each with a sort of... strange little shrine with its own offerings.

The rest of the room is filled with artifacts—lost dolls, dried flowers, notebooks, keepsakes, roughly sorted into piles. Pinned to some of them are notes that seem like names, though most of them bear question marks. ]

[ Going over to those notes to see if he recognizes any of those names, is this a task for organizing, Gold can organize symbolism. ]

[ The names at least in this pile... well, none of them are familiar, and most of them are long strings of question marks. There's a stack of army decorations that are roughly sorted by fanciness, and the collector seems to be concerned about not being able to name who each goes to, by the franticness of the handwriting.

The shrines are... another matter; three are immediately familiar. The third has a drawing of avante en garde's Cardigan; laid out in front of it are a golden spear, a bottle of sake, and a bouquet of amaranth flowers. The fourth is of BARiTONES's Kohime, which seems to have received an offering that's just a stack of knives. And the fifth is that very tall man on BARiTONES, who has received a paper lantern that glows from being lit by a candle. ]

[ o fuck it's my immortal nemesis symbolism. ]

[ Probably... better if he doesn't mess with any of this. ]

[ it sure is something, anyway, but everything in here looks more cared for than you'd devote to someone you didn't like. weird and spooky. ]

[ A... little weird. ]

[ > Ask the advice of the Neverborn. ]

... Does someone have pointers here?

[ you ask the advice of THE NEVERBORN. the whispers rise around your ears.

sorrow, guilt, regret... all fade, past the end—let it fade.

let GO let GO let GO

mourning ends when you accept death.

You feel... at least, temporarily, somewhat fearless, after hearing that. ]

[ Mmmm, looking back towards the shrines... ]

[ What if. Gently try to partly disassemble the shrine of the Baritones man. ]

[ For science. ]

[ you do that!

...it doesn't seem to do anything apparent, but you do get +1 WILLPOWER for taking the advice of the Neverborn. And also now you have a cute paper lantern; it looks like the kind your boyfriend was getting people to launch by the seaside. ]

[ Hmm okay the world is not ruined somehow. ]

[ Going to do the same to each of the other shrines, only a partial disassembly, then look around for something to write a note with. ]

[ You disassemble them, a bit.

...you do note that the spear atop Cardigan's is, in fact The Avante Betrayal Spear(tm).

Next to the pile of unsorted objects is a roll of writing paper, a brush pen and a well of ink. ]

[ Picking up the paper and writing out a note then. ]

[ Please decide for yourself if you wish to truly keep this or not. But at least consider the potential and feeling of not. You will have support through either way. ]

[ ... Going to repeat and attach that note to each of the shrines he messed with, pausing to look at the spear, mmmmm. ]

[ Should this... be here... ]

[ You attach the note to each of the shrines and feel like you've done something... maybe helpful, at least.

And yeah. Should that be there? Interesting philosophical question. ]

[ What if... take away the weapons from each of the shrine with weapons and also place them in their own pile. Away from the shrines. ]

[ Only not-violent things now. ]

[ nice. giving peace a chance. you stack them in a pile away from the shrines, still tidily sorted, of course. ]

[ Okay that feels like enough meddling now, taking a moment to give a small, respectful bow to the room, looking over his work again before leaving and looking/listening for the next way to head. ]

and away you go.

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Shrike's Heart (#3)

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