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

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.:

"What do you understand, from this?" Vanyel gestures around.

:...I suppose, that to Stef, duty is something that may always outweigh security or love. For us, and for himself...:

"What duty?"

[it's the Herald's answer, after all.]

:To do what only you can.:

"I think there's something only he can do."

[nods; that was what she'd meant. they all have that]

He was confirming; he nods back tiredly and holds the key out.

[takes it. sadly]

:...perhaps this battlefield can be laid to rest. In time.:

"Sometimes things won't, sometimes they will. We'll have to find out."

[fair enough.

she stays with him for a while before she returns slowly to the gatekeeper]

[looks up as she enters]

Welcome back.

:Thank you, Stefen.:

[extends the key to him.]

[takes it and unfastens his neck.

As he drops to the ground, the cords that were across the door behind him snap with a discordant jangle]

Thanks for getting me down.

...I don't know what's back there, honestly, but I know that when you reach the last area, you can get out. I can't give you the key to that area, because it belongs to Vanyel, but you shouldn't need to get in, you only need to reach it.

:Why don't you know...?:

Well... because I don't know! I'm the Guard, I don't go everywhere.

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