Pavo Heart Game: Wednesday Session

[cryovision]

When you enter the light, you find yourself hovering weightless in a void, as if caught in a moment of falling inertia. In the distance, you hear a voice that seems to shift and twist, familiar and yet unfamiliar.

"You shouldn't be here. But since you already are, let's make a wager. If you can uncover the truth, you'll find me. If you can't, you may be hopelessly lost... What a shame that would be."

You begin falling, and your vision blacks out--

[OOC NOTE: your goals are "reveal the truth" to "find the true heart". All images in toplevels are for general inspo, please make sure you read the flavourtext cause things are not exactly as they are in the images.]

Comments

ICE MAZE

[cryovision]

You find yourself in a frozen wasteland. The exit you just came through stands as an ornate stone arch, but there are no walls or other manmade structures in this area. There's only a storm-dark sky and the endless, jagged maze of ice. The slight breeze is painfully cold and dry and the ice creaks ominously.

There is nothing immediately apparent to interact with, except your reflections in the ice immediately near you, which distort like in a funhouse mirror. You have a deep sense of foreboding, and yet the maze beckons.]

Re: ICE MAZE

[glidinglight]

Oh, lovely....

[ This is worse than Dragonspine, somehow. And she found the BEATING HEART OF A LONG DEAD DRAGON THERE....

With a dueling sense of foreboding resignation and stubborn determination, she steps deeper into the icy maze. ]

Re: ICE MAZE

[cryovision]

[The maze is deep and winding, and your reflections numerous and increasingly oddly shaped. You get the distinct sense you're being watched, and closely.]

Re: ICE MAZE

[glidinglight]

[ Well, presumably her reflections all have eyes, so it's not really that odd a sensation. But the whole place is odd. She continues on, slowing some to eye her bizarre, distorted reflections back. ]

Re: ICE MAZE

[cryovision]

[The watching feeling remains, but nothing seems to come of it. You round a corner -- and suddenly, you see a green, sunny piece of meadow. It's completely different from the ice around it. Peaceful. Beautiful.]

Re: ICE MAZE

[glidinglight]

What...

[ Is this an illusion? Or perhaps the cold nothingness was? She uses her Elemental Sight to see if this is, in fact, not real. ]

Re: ICE MAZE

[cryovision]

[with Elemental Sight, the room changes a bit-- wind blows all the harder and all the colder, chilling you to your bones. Other than that, it seems the same...

Except, are you hearing whispers? They're unintelligible and quiet, tickling at the back of your mind, making you feel watched and judged.

Something flickers at the edge of your vision, but if you turn to look you see nothing but your own reflection.

The meadow evaporates into nothing.]

Re: ICE MAZE

[glidinglight]

[ So it was a fake. ]

....

[ She strains her ears--or maybe it's more like trying to clear her mind--so she can hear those whispers better. Just what are they saying? ]

Re: ICE MAZE

[cryovision]

[The whispers grow louder.

"Why are you even trying? It's pointless. You can't win. You'll always be an outsider here."

They continue on in that vein, and as they do they take on the sounds of familiar voices -- people you know, people you love.

But maybe more immediately concerning is that your twisted, warped reflections are reaching out of the ice towards you.]

Re: ICE MAZE

[glidinglight]

[ Oh, shit. UH. Let's hope that cryo is effective against mirror monsters?! She attempts to cast a cryo--idk. She's not a catalyst user and idk if she was given a weapon??? how's this workin, is it workin ]

Re: ICE MAZE

[cryovision]

[There is in fact no weapon. But you do summon cryo! The landscape responds to you -- ice shattering ice as spikes erupt from the ground and break the reflective edges into rubble.

At least, they do in the immediate area around you. But there's an entire maze to go through.]

Re: ICE MAZE

[glidinglight]

[ That's fine. She can brute force as much of this as she needs to. And it seems she does--since these falsehoods intend to try to belay her and lie to her. ]

Of course it's not pointless. I've been very welcomed!

[ PEW PEW PEW EAT ICE BITCHES ]

Re: ICE MAZE

[cryovision]

[You keep fighting the reflections! The whispers don't let up, but you do eventually make it through to the center of the maze.

There, you find a tall, jagged, crystalline spire of ice, tinged a bit blue. It's a bit hard to see, but deep in the middle of it, there's a small figure frozen in stasis.

But if you want to address that you may have a problem, because now there is a veritable army of reflections doing everything they possibly can to get between you and that spire.]

Re: ICE MAZE

[feralshepherd]

[Oh fuck-]

[Why this, she doesn't wear SHOES, you dick-]

[She kneels down and gonna just CREATE A PATCH OF DIRT before her feet get frozen to the wasteland.]

[And then pull on the Elemental Sight again.]

Re: ICE MAZE

[cryovision]

[with Elemental Sight, the room changes a bit-- wind blows all the harder and all the colder, chilling you to your bones. Other than that, it seems the same...

Except, are you hearing whispers? They're unintelligible and quiet, tickling at the back of your mind, making you feel watched and judged.

Something flickers at the edge of your vision, but if you turn to look you see nothing but your own reflection.]

Re: ICE MAZE

[feralshepherd]

[...if this is weird reflection shit-]

[Okay, can she track the whispers?]

Re: ICE MAZE

[cryovision]

[About that...

You can't track them, but the whispers grow louder.

"Why are you even trying? It's pointless. You can't win. No matter how good your mask, you'll never belong."

They continue on in that vein, and as they do they take on the sounds of familiar voices -- people you know, people you love.

But maybe more immediately concerning is that your twisted, warped reflections are reaching out of the ice towards you.]

Re: ICE MAZE

[feralshepherd]

[Oh]

[She remembers reading the words, that Lan had given her. A memory she had shared. One of frustration.]

[How hard it had been to understand at the time. As she remembers more, she's starting to get it. Why she was frustrated. Her lack of understanding.]

[Wanting to belong.]

...maybe I won't.

But the few who accept me is worth it, isn't it?

[She looks at the reflection, sees it reaching, ready to pull up the Earth, but-]

Re: ICE MAZE

[cryovision]

[The whispers don't seem to respond. The reflections approach you, but it's not in a nice way. There's real maliciousness there. If you let them, they'll tear you apart.]

Re: ICE MAZE

[feralshepherd]

....

[She sighs.]

Its not myself I fear, you know. I rather like myself.

[And then she moves up a hand and pushes the Earth magic through the lens of erupting earth.]

[AKA just making a shit ton of rocks erupt from the ground under the mirror....and...probably a bit of the area BEHIND it.]

Re: ICE MAZE

[cryovision]

[You use the power of geo to break some ice! The jagged shards in the immediate area shatter, falling in to dust-covered piles.

The reflections shatter as well, fragile like glass. But the maze remains, large and imposing and full of seemingly infinite reflective formations of ice.

The whispers are roaring in your ears, hard to even make sense of, now. It's just an overwhelming din of rejection.]

Re: ICE MAZE

[feralshepherd]

[Well, time to make a WAVE OF EARTH, to ride up on top of this maze then.]

Re: ICE MAZE

[cryovision]

[You can do that! In the center of the maze is a great, imposing spire of ice. Do you go there, or do you head for the exit?]

Re: ICE MAZE

[feralshepherd]

[WE ARE ON A MISSION.]

[ICE SPIRE.]

Re: ICE MAZE

[cryovision]

[The spire is tall and crystalline, pure ice tinged a bit blue. It's a bit hard to see, but deep in the middle of it, there's a small figure frozen in stasis.]