abardacttofollow | QUIET MOUNDS

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QUIET MOUNDS - STEF HEART

You find yourself in a stone room that looks like some sort of medieval dungeon. There are (thankfully), no torture instruments, but there is a man strung up here. One large manacle is around his neck, chaining him stiffly to the door. His hands are free, but each foot is manacled to the matching bottom corner of the doorframe. There is a visible lock on each of the three manacles.

It's Stefen, and there's a knife in his chest. Despite that, he's alive, apparently alert, and doesn't look to be in pain, perhaps due to the lulling, sense-dulling music that seems to be coming from nowhere at all—in fact, if you were in pain before you entered, it's gone here. His wound is bleeding, but only a little, and he smiles his usual bright smile at you.

Behind him, but in front of the closed door he's bound to, you can see three double sets of strings running vertically. Where they meet the floor, they are fastened, and then each runs across the floor to the three doors on the opposite wall, then under them.

There is nothing else in this room.

((OOC: Here's how this will work! Since we're doing individual runs, rather than me putting up individual top levels for areas, just jump the post itself, and I'll run everything for you within your one thread. If you're wanting to do a run with someone else, just stay in the same thread together.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[firmly]

:I think that would be a good idea.:

"All right," Stef agrees.

[nods to them... hesitates, but doesn't think of anything else she can do for them right this moment, so she just nuzzles them and goes on to the next room

the future has some bad situations :\]

The next is a bedroom. It is cozy despite how richly decorated it is, with a canopied bed that has two plush pillows on it, and rich, maroon heavy comforters piled up. Two well-cushioned wood chairs are pulled around a table that has a bottle of wine in it, half empty, the dregs sitting in two cups. A bookcase has a number of gorgeous, hand-bound books, along with sheafs of music on it, writing utensils, and even a few musical instruments on display.

A window is cracked, looking out over a beautiful garden, with peacocks wandering around; you can distantly see a group of women all gathered around and a man with long white hair performing in the middle. The scent of honeysuckle comes through the window. A travelling sack is behind the door you came in through, opened a little as though someone's been living out of it.

It looks like it's the blend between Vanyel's room at home in Forst Reach and some sort of quarters at court.

Nobody is in here. As before, the cord runs through the room and under a locked door with some sort of weighted platform next to it.

A sign on the door reads: "What is the weight of family? What of love?"

[...is the man with long white hair someone she recognizes...?]

Hard to tell at this distance, but if Vanyel were significantly older, maybe.

[wow, love

i dON'T SUPPOSE THERE'S A WAY TO GET OUT THERE since to be very honest hanging out in what's obviously her husband and his boyfriend's room physically rather than as an invited guest in Van's mind feels kind of intrusive and awkward

weird how that's a distinction. maybe because she's never "been" here]

It would be pretty difficult for you to fit out the window.

[THAT DOESN'T STOP ME IF I-- no she's not going to bust up walls in Stefen's heart. sigh. sigh!!!]

:So what's the thorn in this rose, my dear?:

[goes looking for it, idly scanning the titles of the books and then reaching out with her Othersenses]

Edited 2017-08-08 06:42 (UTC)

The books are a lot of historical works and similar. Your Othersenses indicate a sucking wound of some kind coming from the bed, something quite wrong.

[sighs and tugs the blankets back with her teeth...]

A sharp and twisted knife is stabbed into the mattress. With your Othersenses focused you can tell before touching it that it's a leech blade.

[...grabs a pillowcase to pull it off the mattress and dump it onto the floor.]

Ok, it's on the floor now.

[cool

thoughtfully spreads the pillowcase over it and then rears up a bit and SMASHES THE FUCK OUT OF IT WITH HER FRONT HOOVES]

You can probably bend/dent it, but it's a metal knife, so other than getting bent out of shape it doesn't sustain much damage.

[SHE CAN AT LEAST POUND IT WELL OUT OF TRUE :') before she slaps heavy shielding on it and takes it to the platform]

You bring that dented ass knife over. Click.

[fuck u, knife

HEADS THROUGH :'|]

The last room you enter is… well, not a room, but you're also not going to be leaving it, not safely.

You are on a cracked icy ledge about ten feet wide that extends about twenty feet forward. To your right is a sheer cliff face leading up, coated with ice and snow. To the right is a blackened crater. It looks less like the natural continuation of a cliff and more like a crevasse caused by a horrific explosion of some kind. At your feet are bodies, some humans dressed like bandits, others twisted, unnatural creatures wearing armor. They are armed, and unpleasantly so, but quite dead. You see also abandoned riding tack, horribly familiar, possibly blown off whatever poor creature might have been here. There is a lot of gear and there are a lot of bodies and if you wanted to look through everything it would take a while.

The cord winds forward, along the path, over a blackened patch that seems to have been the center of the explosion. Ash covers whatever might remain there, though you see a scrap of white cloth.

At the end, your way forward is blocked by a wall of fallen snow, like an avalanche. A man is standing there, quiet, holding the end of the cord in one hand and the key in the other. He looks like Vanyel, but not Vanyel as you know him. He's in his mid to late thirties, his hair almost fully white and whipping around him in the cold wind. He is also quite visibly transparent, the scenery seen through him.

Vanyel's brows crease. "Oh, 'Fandes," he says. "I'm supposed to ask people about what the weight of duty is, but you're the last person I could ask that...!"

[...she looks at the scene quietly for a moment... finally, softly]

:Oh, love.:

"You already know," Vanyel says.

[with something aching but gentle in her mind-voice]

:Dearest, I don't. Not here. Not in the way you mean.

This place would be the weight of love, for me.:

Edited 2017-08-08 18:17 (UTC)

Vanyel looks at her bleakly. "It's about Stefen," he says. "Is what this is to Stefen."

:I know. And you're a part of him, too. His duty. His love.

I'm sorry we put this weight on you, Stefen.:

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