fujimaru | Palace Game 6/3

Palace Game 6/3

The Dreamer In The Grand Temple
Humanity Foundation Value: ????

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

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There's nothing there!

Or rather, it's a black void, a sense of utter and completely nothing that lies behind the door. What light there is in this outer room just appear to fall into the darkness, completely swallowed out.

[well i'm not trying to open this anymore then

stepping back to take stock. are there any items in the room? interactables?]

He can see flashes of color among the broken rubble of all four ruined doors. The only one that is in immediate plain sight is the large--but broken--gem in front of the second door. It's like the size of a child's fist, but cracked nearly in two.

[picking up the halves of the broken gem and looking around to see if there's anywhere this . . . could go]

When he picks up the gem--

You see a young woman, one hand pressed to her eye. She looks so lonely, watching someone that you know she is too afraid to speak to, strangled in the expectations of her role. Regret is a sharp pain in one eye, the scent of water and flowers as she sinks below the surface.

It fades quietly, like bubbles rising to the surface. But in the base of the broken statue, there is a depression that seems like the gem would fit there.

[I DONT LIKE THIS

he places the gem in the depression and goes to look at the other flashes of color in the rubble.]

He can see them at the other three doors, if he looks. They're partially hidden, but in some cases some are more obvious than others: something bone-white at door one, a flash of crimson at door three, and something white at door four.

[checking out the bone-white at door one]

Edited 2022-09-04 18:40 (UTC)

The item appears to be a wolf fang, unbroken and gleaming. Picking it up triggers another memory:

You see young man, looking so, so tired. You want so much to reach out to him, when it looks like a strong breeze might knock him right over, but you know that he will certainly reject it. Regret is a knife in the back, a wolf's lonely howl in the distance.

[is there anywhere the fang looks like it should go?]

As with the gem, there is a depression in the broken statue that stands before the first door. He'll find a similar one for the other two, as he searches.

[COOL putting all the items where they belong.]

As with the fang and the gem, the items he finds will trigger more flashes: a delicate crimson poppy (a young woman, wreathed in flames, weeping beside the giant, broken body of her lover. Her grief is something older and more piercing than you can understand. Regret is the weight of millenia, born down upon her shoulders, an emptiness where love once existed and has been taken away.) and a neatly-folded handkerchief with a kissmark in the corner (a man laughing cheerfully, seated across a campfire from you, exuding a warmth that you feel has to be genuine. Regret is your own loneliness, the greater understanding of a camaraderie and team you could have had, but has been taken from you), but they each fit into their respective pedestal.

And then, behind him, a voice: "You're really looking to tidy this place up, huh?"

[jumps and whirls around, disoriented by the visions]

—I'm just trying things.

This handsome gentleman is there where he wasn't before, arms folded, watching him narrowly.

"Trying to see what sticks?"

[w

wolf]

Trying to find a ring.

Wolf! Though a very human wolf, at that. The answer has him raising an eyebrow, like it's one of the stranger things he's ever heard.

"A ring? Haven't seen anything like that here."

[sighs]

I was afraid of that. Do you know if any of these doors are operable and go somewhere . . . useful?

He shrugs, scratching at his cheek with one claw.

"I don't know a whole lot about this place as a whole. I'm stuck here. But if you're looking for a way through these doors? Don't."

His tone goes far more serious at that, his eyes narrowing. "There's nothing for you beyond 'em. There's nothing for anyone, on the other side."

[he softens with pity—everyone's stuck here, huh]

Then I should go back? Try a different place?

Unfortunately, there are a lot of up and at 'em dead people in this heart,

"You'll wanna go where the people are alive," he says. He's not exactly openly sympathetic, but there is something a bit softer in his voice. "Fujimaru remembers more than she should, but that isn't gonna help her."

Another door, then.

. . . I'm sorry. That you're stuck.

The wolf narrows his eyes further, and then he shrugs.

"We were never meant to exist in the first place," he says. "Nothing but a dead end that should have been cleared away long before anyone found us... but here we are."

[i wouldn't wish that on anyone, he does not say

it's a slight bow instead, a goodbye]

You have my sorrow, then. Forgive me that I can't stay long.

He blinks, his ears swiveling forward for a moment, then pinning slightly back.

"Yeah," he says, not unkindly. "Get out of here. This isn't a place for someone like you."

Re: THE CRYPT

eudaimoniac - 2022-09-04 23:07 (UTC) - Expand

Re: THE CRYPT

fujimaru - 2022-09-04 23:15 (UTC) - Expand

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