Illarion Albireo (
unsheathedfromreality) wrote in
deercountry2022-05-16 04:23 pm
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Real & Half-Real: Chapter 2 - Nephele-That-Isn't
Who: A brave party of rescuers and their intrepid support staff
What: Pocket dimension shenanigans to save a missing Sleeper
When: Two insane days in May
Where: Nephele-that-isn’t, which isn’t Deer Country either
All at once–one day, in early May–the portal’s finished, and the planning is as near to done as it will ever be. All at once, it’s time to venture into Nephele-that-isn’t, and retrieve not one but two Sleepers who’ve gone astray.
The team assembles in the clearing by Argonaut’s abandoned shrine, in a darkness lit by glowing CRTs and the green, green moon. The portal itself, and the world beyond it, casts a light all its own–and one by one they step over that rune-etched silver threshold, and one by one vanish into another story than Trench’s own.
What does it feel like, to journey to a dead reality?
Like being sieved through strands of glass and fire. Like being picked apart thread by narrative thread as the Words themselves that write the universe flash before stunned eyes in the seconds before they’re erased and something worse substituted. Moments of fleeting alignment between passager and host-creator come in stopped heartbeats and empty lungs, in the memory you’ve been dead for years and the cold slide of steel between ribs.
Then that second-that's-years is over and deposits its captives beneath an alien sky, with sun and ring and stars and moons foreign as any far-flung land. Some travelers wear skins and magic to suit those stranger heavens; some have been changed by the logic of the half-world half-story to better fit its weave.
With a changed nature come changed senses and abilities–and those in the skins of shrikes, with eyes to see, may notice much more if they look.
All can see one grim fact, however, on entering the world: Any clock, any watch, any Omni now displays 48:00:00 or its analogue equivalent... And begins at once to tick down.
[[ Part of the Real & Half-Real player plot! Navigate to other plot posts: [OOC] Interest Check | [IC] Prologue | [IC] Iskierka's Notes | [IC] The Portal & the Plan ]]
What: Pocket dimension shenanigans to save a missing Sleeper
When: Two insane days in May
Where: Nephele-that-isn’t, which isn’t Deer Country either
All at once–one day, in early May–the portal’s finished, and the planning is as near to done as it will ever be. All at once, it’s time to venture into Nephele-that-isn’t, and retrieve not one but two Sleepers who’ve gone astray.
The team assembles in the clearing by Argonaut’s abandoned shrine, in a darkness lit by glowing CRTs and the green, green moon. The portal itself, and the world beyond it, casts a light all its own–and one by one they step over that rune-etched silver threshold, and one by one vanish into another story than Trench’s own.
Like being sieved through strands of glass and fire. Like being picked apart thread by narrative thread as the Words themselves that write the universe flash before stunned eyes in the seconds before they’re erased and something worse substituted. Moments of fleeting alignment between passager and host-creator come in stopped heartbeats and empty lungs, in the memory you’ve been dead for years and the cold slide of steel between ribs.
Then that second-that's-years is over and deposits its captives beneath an alien sky, with sun and ring and stars and moons foreign as any far-flung land. Some travelers wear skins and magic to suit those stranger heavens; some have been changed by the logic of the half-world half-story to better fit its weave.
With a changed nature come changed senses and abilities–and those in the skins of shrikes, with eyes to see, may notice much more if they look.
All can see one grim fact, however, on entering the world: Any clock, any watch, any Omni now displays 48:00:00 or its analogue equivalent... And begins at once to tick down.
[[ Part of the Real & Half-Real player plot! Navigate to other plot posts: [OOC] Interest Check | [IC] Prologue | [IC] Iskierka's Notes | [IC] The Portal & the Plan ]]
The rooms (cw: unreality, horror themes, gore, dead bodies, potential harm to animals)
A well-lit library fills the bubble of a room beyond the door. Living shelves, espaliered up the walls to the curving ceiling, cradle at least a thousand books in their steady grasp. The shelves extend a little ways outward to provide resting places for more strangely proportioned tomes.
Low tables and perches of metal and stone provide places to sit and read. Thirty or more books of military history are scattered among them, leaving gaps on the shelves; some gaps much wider than others, with books shoved apart by a previous patron. Close examination of the gaps sometimes yields hair-fine traceries of enamel in one of three colors, outlining book-width slots. Here and there, a flash of echoing color can be seen in heraldry on an open page or worked into the spine of a book.
A desiccated elven corpse in livery of steel-gray and blood crimson is crushed between two wall panels at the far end of the room. Its talons clutch with rictus agony a book that has grown through its face. The title on the book's cover is barely discernible: An eyewitness description of Haefiltan's Final Stand, with especial attention to troop disposition, as recounted by Grand Marshall C———.
The door of the songbird
Unlike other rooms in the house, which have the rough-hewn natural shapes of caves, this room is a twelve-foot cube lined on every wall with minuscule, densely etched symbols illuminated in enamel and gold. At the far end of the room lies a door, protected by a three-foot-wide open pit filled with stakes that gleam with a faint sheen of liquid. Subtle lines on the walls around the pit resemble the visible tells of traps encountered before, suggesting that would-be jumpers will be caught by something worse than spikes during their leap.
Shining strings of silk and wool and gut hang from hooks at the beginning and end of each complicated phrase. Some attempt was made to connect strings across the room between different phrases--but to what end? The last elf tasked with that lies dead and crushed into the pit, appearing as if someone used its body as a bridge. It's too decayed for such use now, gray and crimson livery turned to rags.
Looking down deep into the pit shows a slot for a false floor that might cover the spikes, but no trigger mechanism visible.
The door of the Throne
This is a pretty little room with a broad skylight and fresh air blowing through it. A two-inch-wide line is etched deeply into the stone of its walls, encircling the central space and spiraling up toward the ceiling. It has been demarcated at regular intervals with an elven glyph for century at every demarcation. One end of the line, low to the ground, has a gorgeously carved sunburst around it. The far end, near the ceiling, fades into a black blotch so deep the actual line becomes invisible.
A hundred--or more--small sliding cabochons lie at the start of the carved line. It is possible to remove and examine them, if one wishes, or even put them in a new order. Each has a symbol etched and illuminated on its surface: A blade, a rose, a drop of blood, an eye, a locust--they all appear to be heraldic representations of Nephele's Monarchs. Setting two cabochons in the line at a distance from each other somehow causes the space between them to fill with color--most commonly a pale anemic red; sometimes, an eye-stunning blue.
Living branches adorn the walls above and below the timeline, host to thread-thin adders that are much larger than they appear, with many more mouths. They show no interest in the room's new occupants, content to sun themselves beneath the skylight instead... Though a tattered shrike corpse lies in the corner with fang-marks in its throat and great chunks gouged out of its out-self.
When anyone touches one of the cabochons, all the snakes lift their heads and regard that individual. They do not move immediately, but there is a sense they are waiting for a wrong move...and may begin a languid slither toward whoever makes too many mistakes in whatever task is needed to open the far door.
The door of the analemma
Beyond the door of the solar path, one steps into hell.
Reality is visibly corrupt at the edges in the first room, with
eyesand whispers peering from all corners. The walls are patchworks of a thousand materials, living and dead flesh among them. Looking down the hall that extends into the distance induces a sickening, sliding feeling of falling in some nameless direction. Proceeding in that direction results in a swift return to the same room--except the entry door is missing, and there's a corpse in steel-and-red in the corner. Taking a branching hall from that same room leads to an endless succession of same rooms, lit with dim and flickering light. Retreating leads to a different same room, that is not the one first exited.The corpse looks the same in every room. It is in a different position every time. Sometimes it is located by a switch on the wall--a switch marked with a skull, a flower, or a feather. In others of the same room, the corpse lies far from the skulls, flowers, and feathers on the floor. Taking the objects spreads a curse of
eyesand unintelligibility if a corresponding switch hasn't been flipped before they're touched.To one who can see outward, the hideous trick of the maze becomes clear. The rooms are stacked kata-ana of each other, separated somehow in one dimension but overlapping in the others. Nine of nineteen rooms have switches. Nine of nineteen have objects. All have one corpse--or is it the same corpse?--and two have doors. A shrine of offering with nine empty slots lies before the last door.
no subject
They're all waiting on the object that is the first safe step - except the one in the room of the Throne. It is waiting on the cabochon for Eyes.
Upon spotting a person, it will cheerfully take its correct position.