Palace Game 6/3

[fujimaru]

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.

Comments

[fujimaru]

There's another angry rush of voices, louder than the first time. The bloody water only comes up to about his ankles, but he can see something stretching out from under the surface nearby, as if coming from a far greater depth--a human hand, coated in gore, grasping blindly for the air before sinking down again.

[eggstinction]

[OH GEEZ

splashing over to where he saw the hand and grabbing down into the water, heedless of the muck and gore]

Hello? Come up, come up, you're okay!

[fujimaru]

When he grabs that hand, it grabs his wrist back, with a strength that is unexpected, a grip that's stronger than what a human should be able to manage. And for a second--

It's a battlefield, a slaughter, a confused clash of a ragtag army that is somehow managing to overcome the might of the knights of the kingdom. In life, he had been a soldier, proud to serve his king, determined to do whatever was necessary to honor the glory of this city, with its walls of white chalk--

Only to be cut down by an interloper, a monster in human form, dressed all in black, a half-skull mask over his face. The monster's arm is overly long, clearly inhuman despite the human shape of the rest of him.

And as he falls, he sees, standing just behind his murderer, a young girl with red hair, watching him as the world goes dark.

[eggstinction]

[jolts in a half-turn, teeth bared for the battlefield]

What—?

[fujimaru]

There's no one there, but the hand grasping his wrist tightens further and yanks, trying to pull him down under.

[eggstinction]

[hisses at the hand and yanks back petulantly, but he does follow it under]

[fujimaru]

When he goes under, there's a second where the screaming gets even louder--a deafening scream--and then it cuts off entirely, like something muffling has been draped over everything. It's not blood that he's under, but it doesn't really feel like it's air, either.

He appears to be in a city of some sort, but an odd one. Everything around him looks completely bleached clean--stark white as far as the eye can see in all directions. There are some ruined buildings that look like parts of them have simply been carved away, and some that look like they have just been destroyed, and a few that look like they might be intact.

The world is silent.

[eggstinction]

[pulls up short and turns around in a circle, tail whipping sharp behind his legs]

Where—?

[he waits for anymore grabby arms or sudden screams, then heads for the nearest intact building]

[fujimaru]

There is nothing. It's like he is the only one in this entire empty world.

The building itself appears to have once been an office building of some sort: floors of empty cubicles, and a surprisingly intact staircase that goes ever upwards. The elevators do not work.

[eggstinction]

[he doesn’t know what a cubicle is and he’s not 100% on elevators, but he knows empty worlds. he remembers what the earth was like before, he knows how his egg still is.

HURRYING UP STAIRS]

[fujimaru]

The stairs seem to go on endlessly--there are bits of broken wall where he can see out into the empty city and the bleached landscape beyond; no matter how far up he goes, and how far he can see, it looks the same. The whole world appears to have just been wiped away.

But at the top of the stairs, there is a door.