hello (heart)gamers. im here w some special guest stars

[finalbows]

WHO: all who dare enter angie's literal mind palace. it's OPEN HOUSE! no invites needed!
WHERE: in front of miku's salad (and yours)
WHEN: evening 73.

[ in the middle of running a perfectly innocuous miniquest, Angel Devil falls down.
His clothes have twisted away into bone-white rags, leaving a body covered over with only thick swathes of red fur, and downy feathers. His long tail is curled into a tense arc, banded fur standing on end.

The air wavers like he’s a heat mirage, not a man. He’s boiling away with absolutely stupid amounts of arcane power… and, most frighteningly, he does not seem in control of the fact that it is there and being brought to bear. It’s impossible to get any closer to him.


When he speaks, it’s quite timid. ]

Oh.
Oops.
...Thought I had... a little more time.

[ (and in a blinding flash of light, there is the sound of something breaking.) ]

~KRRSHHK~

[any observers will see, strangely see-through and superimposed on the scene, some kind of vast tree, illusionary roots twisting over and around to frame a door.  the door itself is wrought of opaque stained glass in blacks and whites and greys; a stylized rendition of Angie in that strangely ragged, feathered form, curled in on himself, eyes closed.  Angie himself is nowhere to be seen. ]

instead, a shadow . . . steps into view from behind the door.  for a moment it looks like nothing so much as a second genome – then it turns, gaining features and definition with the movement.  The monkey tail separates into three plumes; a ponytail unfurls into wings that lift up from the sides of the head.  

Teleute(?) is here, dressed in her customary black, but there is colour in her skin, and her hair and eyes are blue.  she’s frowning.]

. . . well.  This is the least I can do before I go, in exchange for the safe harbor.

[she lifts her head, nodding to any observers, and gestures at the door.]

You’ll want to head in there now if you don’t wish to lose your flockmate, I think.  Even the false-death of this place won’t be much help to him, if his soul is left to finish pulling itself apart.

My sisters and I can maintain the way into and out of it for you, but we were not made to knit such wounds by ourselves.  Have a care.

Comments

THE SITUATION

[finalbows]

[ this isn't your REGULAR dying, this is Ultra Turbo Permadeath dying! c... cough.

okay the situation is that angie has had. a fatal festering soul wound, since way before he even got to sheep. various factors have bought time for this! you don't need to read them but i thought

writing it all up under this details tag would be neat.

- the curse on his brain was actually a load bearing clown curse on his brain. on the one hand: that's unraveled more and more over the course of sheep, and as of today, it's ready to snap forever. on the other hand, that was, again, a load bearing clown curse.
- charon weaved him a cool friendship(?) soul rope to help keep it together. this is why he is not heckin' dead.
- an evil god stitched him back to life to start with but uh. that evil god isn't here right now, now is he. even evil god powers need top ups now and then to keep the divine energies goin'.

so, ANYWAY! what anyone going in here intrinsically knows is:
1) you are being given a way in explicitly to help fix the wound, else angie's perma-toast, no revives, no do-overs. his body will be alive and aware but the guy will be gone.
2) breaking the curse is an optional but encouraged goal.
3) you have an instant escape button if you need it (kindly(???) provided by Teleute). it's a little puff of black phoenix down.
4) by entering, you are diving directly into this man's soul. ]

EXTERIOR SITE OF THE BULLSHIT (for rubbernecking / "what the fuck"ing / being a corpse)

[finalbows]

[ in addition to all that other shit, some red rose sheep are running around bleating in a panic, and for some reason there's crickets hopping around everywhere. ]

THE APPROACH: MEMORIA (feel free to share what you see.)

[finalbows]

[ behind the door,
at first, you find something beautiful:



A towering castle over an endless rolling field of houses, that builds itself eternally higher, to the heavens.
There is only one path to follow, so, that path is where you go.


But it's strange.
Those buildings down below... are familiar, aren't they?

That one.
Right there.
That's one you once stayed in. Years ago.

Those clouds, high up to the west,
are exactly the same as the ones up in the sky
on one of the happiest days of your life.
That window on a castle parapet, that just rose up before your eyes,
is to a room you could never forget.

It doesn't make sense. This is Angel Devil's soul. Why are you pieces of you in it? Pieces you certainly could never have purposefully shared, in their sheer minute intimacy of detail.

But no matter why it's happened, for some brief, painful moments, you can look down on scraps of home, lost in a patchwork. ]

THE APPROACH II - mingle spot / final save point.

[finalbows]

[ come here, once you're done taking in the nostalgic view. ]

[ if you stay the path, move on past the moving figures of people you miss out of the corner of your eye, the "door" of the castle soon awaits.

it looks like it was once a familiar barn door, but it's already fallen apart into rotten pieces.
Mist, whispering of death, anger, and despair, rolls out from the darkness beyond the empty frame.


do you want to take a moment to collect yourselves? speak to one another, if someone else real happens to show up while you make up your mind on how to proceed?

because, after this point, you can't turn back, short of using up your little black escape feather. ]

ONWARD

[finalbows]

when youre done talking to other people / staring at pieces of your canon visible from the road / collecting yourself at the door poke me here please with your character + anyone that's sticking together with them, i'll be running the bulk of your thread from this spot specifically

AFTERWORD: MOMENT OF JUDGMENT

[finalbows]

[ for after you're done adventuring :) this can be a mingle where you jump in on each other, or just a solo convo! Think of it as a conference table for the damned. Also if you want to jump in on this before calling your exploradora "done" that's fine, I am willing to still be threading this damn thing into May tbh as I am having a blast

Anyway.


the God of Destruction, though currently at a much more conversational size of 8 feet tall, sits at one end of a long table. Angel Devil's at the opposite end, with y'all on the sides.

There are chairs for each and every one of you. if you have seen The Bad Chair, they do in fact kinda look like the Bad Chair, but with rolly wheels.

There's also a whiteboard, with ROWS OF STATS written on it. ]

"Sit. And tell me. You have tread far through the halls of this castle... Clearly, there is something here you would care to see preserved.
Now, I desire to know.
For what purpose... should I, the God of Destruction, continue to grant my power... to give life to a man who no longer has the will to fight my war?"

[ everyone who dove into the heartgame has a seat; eight people, plus Chaos, and an increasingly embarrassed Whole & United Angie. everyone's masks are all gone; the ones you carried with you, safe, have made it back to the man they're part of. ]