Shrike's Heart (#4)

[idolpro]

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

Comments

Re: 2/2

[worthathousand]

...So that's how it is. I'll not stop looking.

[ She begins picking her way through the field of the dead: careful, deliberate, stopping to fold arms over chests and chanting a prayer for the fallen as she goes.

It's probably not enough. But she's also looking for a glaive. ]

Re: 2/2

[handpuppets]

[ You pray for the dead, and it seems that prayer is, somehow, respected; you feel a little more at peace, even here, and you gain +1 WILLPOWER.

There are the tools of war everywhere, here—knives and swords of every make and size, maces, shields, war fans, fist weapons. Even glaives, yes. If you want for something to defend yourself with, then none of these people will likely object, permanently silenced as they are. ]

Re: 2/2

[worthathousand]

[ A dead soldier's glaive will serve; she searches for some light bracers as well, if they are to be found.

She keeps moving—heading for the sound of the water. ]

Re: 2/2

[handpuppets]

[ Bracers, at least, are easy enough to find, since they're least likely to have been damaged by a lethal wound. You find a pair of serviceable leather ones, and buckle them on.

The voices grow louder as you attempt to follow the sound of the water, occasionally parsable as distinct words in a wide array of uncanny voices—the odd thing is, they feel different and memorable, but trying to describe what sets each one apart feels impossible.

running out of time—

from the seed grows the tree that grows the fruit that grows the poison that grows the seed that—

—would know if you were gone?

In the distance, you can make out the vague outline of... a building, maybe, or a cliff face. ]

Re: 2/2

[worthathousand]

[ She grits her teeth as the whispers go louder; for now, though, the best course seems simply to ignore them. Restless hungry ghosts, surely. No more than that.

The building(?) is the only thing she has to aim for, so—if that is where the sound of the water is coming from—she will go there. ]

Re: 2/2

[handpuppets]

[ You press onwards. The voices rise in an overwhelming crescendo, but the louder they get the more impossible it seems to turn from your path, as oppressive as it feels. And then you see the hole.

It's only the rush of water that gives it away, in the darkness—a wide, circular hole in the ground ahead, the dark water falling down the edges in sheets, the roar blending with the voices until it's overwhelming. Regardless of where you intended to go, you find your feet taking you there, right up to the edge—almost allured—until you stand frozen at the brink, looking down into a deep, infinite darkness from which neither sound nor light can escape. ]

Re: 2/2

[worthathousand]

[









...She hates this. She tries to turn away. ]

Re: 2/2

[handpuppets]

[ You cannot. Perhaps its the enormity of this place—the infinite darkness of the hole, the cacophony of the whispers, the unsettling visages—faces? of the impossible, incomprehensibly large buildings you realize were what you saw, that surround this place in a ring.

The voices rise, and rise, and rise, and then—for a moment, there's silence, and then there's only one. A woman's, or maybe a girl's.

Give your name. ]

Re: 2/2

[worthathousand]

[ oh, she has heard this one before, for all that it wasn't her memory. ]

No.

Re: 2/2

[handpuppets]

[ The pressure intensifies—like the crushing deep of the bottom of the ocean, where no light reaches. You could almost feel as if you'd been forced to your knees, but you're still frozen in place on the edge of the void.

Give your name.





You must pay twenty (20) willpower to resist the Neverborn in their place of power, thanks, ]

Re: 2/2

[worthathousand]

[ Her knees buckle, a moment, but she forces herself to stay upright. ]

Fucking piss-drinking motherless yeddim fucker, third whore to fifth daughter!

You can shove that the other place the light does not reach.

Re: 2/2

[handpuppets]

[ They can do this all day.

You must pay twenty (20) willpower to resist the Neverborn in their place of power. ]

Re: 2/2

[worthathousand]

Your children shit in your harvest!

[ SO CAN SHE ]

Re: 2/2

[handpuppets]

[ > Your children shit in your harvest

Invalid command. You must pay twenty (20) willpower to resist the Neverborn in their place of power. ]

1/2 the sequel

[worthathousand]

Greedy literal asshole of the underworld—

[ she's breathing a bit heavily now, what with all the yelling.

.
.
.
.
.

she lets out a final yell of frustration. ]

[worthathousand]

[ and a long exhale ]

Fine. But I'm doing this for Shrike, not you.
I am...

.....Amaranth.

[handpuppets]

[ Your voice emerges, but the words are muffled, garbled, warped, and swallowed into the nothingness that surrounds you.

What was your name? You don't remember, anymore.

But then... ]