[ENTER THE PALACE]

[warpweft]

[You find yourself with a sensation like floating in water.]

[Above, the sky is dark. You can occasionally see things shifting, like gusts of wind, or perhaps waves of water. Is it…even a sky above you? Or is it some kind of giant ocean? Whatever it is, you can’t make it out very well. All around you, you appear to be floating in what appears to be water. It looks like a great, wide ocean of…space in every direction around you, with stars and lights twinkling in the distance. It looks like water and feels like water, but it doesn’t make you wet. You can reach your hand into it and pull some out, the purple and violet water and the tiny points of light inside it will even rest in your hands if you cup them to carry it, but once you’re not trying to hold it anymore, it’ll flow off of you, not a single drop remaining behind. You feel something similar if you go underneath the surface. The “water” doesn’t touch your eyes, mouth or nose when give the chance, it merely drifts around you, allowing you to breathe and see unabated. And you can see for a great distance, the twinkling stars illuminating the ocean of space all around you. Though perhaps less dark and empty, it feels every bit as vast as the sky above. You feel like you could swim forever and never reach the edge.]

[It’s quiet, here, with little noise around you but the starry ocean’s waves crashing back into its surface. It’s peaceful. In another situation, it might even be comfortable.]

Comments

THE SPIRALING SEA

[voidhearts]

[ Eventually, when you cast your eyes downwards, you’ll see something else - beneath you. Resting in the ocean, far enough away that you can see it in its totality is a great building. A palace. It resembles an old British palace of red and brown brick. But…it’s upside down, floating facing downwards in this starry ocean….]

[You can feel the light tug of a current headed towards the palace. Do you touch the current?]

[messianic]

[ ... it's beautiful in here, he can't help but think. It feels familiar in a distant sort of way, but it's nothing he can really grasp--and also, he's here for a purpose and a reason, and so...!

Of course he's touching the current. take him to Nessa pls. ]

[cosplayed_out]

Wait, Minato-kun! Are you sure it's safe?

[messianic]

[ I MEAN... with his hand hovering very close to touching it-- ]

... Not really, no.

But... it's a start, right?

[cosplayed_out]

...Good point! --You go first, Minato-kun.

[voidhearts]

[You get closer to the current and it pulls you down towards the palace. You have little to no trouble breathing or seeing as you get closer. The current takes your further and further until it eventually releases you outside the front of the palace. Still upside down from your perspective, you see a great wooden door with a single metal handle in front of you.

[There’s a violet sphere of light, sitting on the handle, softly pulsing as it bobs up and down. You can’t touch the handle without touching the sphere.]

[messianic]

[ here we gooooo. If he gets a little closer to the sphere but doesn't touch it, does it feel warmer or cooler or anything like that? ]

[voidhearts]

[The orb pulses slightly every few seconds. You feel a slight heat touch your hand that gradually cools until a cold feeling briefly takes the tips of your fingers and then fades away.]

[cosplayed_out]

[She eventually touched it.]

/4

[voidhearts]

[Your hand reaches for the handle....]

---

[Your hand is on the handle of the door, pulling it closed. You were in such a hurry to leave the house that you almost forgot to close the door behind you. You take one last look at the cabin as you take a couple steps back from it, then you look at the other similar cabins nearby. Then you turn and run, as fast as your small legs will carry you, your feet kicking up dust on the dirt ground beneath you.]

…

[You’re standing in front of the door to the temple. You swallow once, look down at your hands and then you push the door open, slipping inside. You walk past the wide tables that everybody sits at for meals and up to a curtain dividing the common area from the rest of the temple.]

…

What are you doing here?

[voidhearts]

[You’re pulling back the curtain, revealing a pedestal. Sitting atop the pedestal is a small glass bubble. Violet light radiates off it. Dozens, hundreds, possible even thousands of lights twinkle inside it, forming a swirling spiral at the sphere’s center. It looks like space and stars and even galaxies all contained inside one small glass sphere, moving perfectly in concert with one another.

Your hand slowly reaches out for it. Then hesitates. Then hesitates.

Instead of grabbing it, you lightly touch two fingers to the top of it. You feel a pulse coming off of it.

A second later, you’re taking it in your hand and moving the curtain back into place.]

Oh, I get it. She brought you here.

[voidhearts]

[You’re on your hands and knees. You let out a wheezing noise. All of the air was knocked out of you by a strike to your stomach. You’re just trying to get air back into your lungs. You look up and see several figures nearby, talking to each other. You try to crawl towards one of them, but your arms and legs are like jelly and you just collapse and let out another weak, wheezy cry.]

Too bad for you….

[You’ve pulled yourself into a sitting position. You see her standing above you, her face spread into a wide, sadistic grin. She holds up the weapon in her hand and plunges it down towards you.]

done

[voidhearts]

You’re gonna end up just like her!

[You’re Nessa Houghton, staring up at your cousin as she stabs you in the chest.]

[You’re Tsumugi Shirogane staring up at a white-haired young woman as she stabs you in the chest.]

[The last thing you see before you lose consciousness is the grin on her face.]

[survivaltricks]

[someone else is touching him! his elbow, to be more precise; only to get his attention]

[messianic]

[ !! ]

Akira...

[ ... he just offers up Akira his other hand, the one not reaching for that current. ]

[survivaltricks]

[his fingers find their way to Minato's almost immediately, lacing together in a tight grip as he flashes the other wild card a smile]

[he doesn't say anything-- though that is perhaps because nothing needs to be said-- as he, too, reaches for the current]

[survivaltricks]

[with a deep breath to steel himself, chin lifted, he absolutely touches the current]

[voidhearts]

[You get closer to the current and it pulls you down towards the palace. You have little to no trouble breathing or seeing as you get closer. The current takes your further and further until it eventually releases you outside the front of the palace. Still upside down from your perspective, you see great wooden door with a single metal handle in front of you.

[There’s a violet sphere of light, sitting on the handle, softly pulsing as it bobs up and down. You can’t touch the handle without touching the sphere.]

[survivaltricks]

[WELL. MINATO TOUCHED IT, AND AKIRA WAS THERE WITH HIM AT THE TIME, SO. . . yeah he probably also, alongside Minato, reached out to push the door handle open, despite giving the strange sphere a suspicious sideways glance beforehand]

/4

[voidhearts]

[Your hand reaches for the handle....]

---

[Your hand is on the handle of the door, pulling it closed. You were in such a hurry to leave the house that you almost forgot to close the door behind you. You take one last look at the cabin as you take a couple steps back from it, then you look at the other similar cabins nearby. Then you turn and run, as fast as your small legs will carry you, your feet kicking up dust on the dirt ground beneath you.]

…

[You’re standing in front of the door to the temple. You swallow once, look down at your hands and then you push the door open, slipping inside. You walk past the wide tables that everybody sits at for meals and up to a curtain dividing the common area from the rest of the temple.]

…

What are you doing here?

[voidhearts]

[You’re pulling back the curtain, revealing a pedestal. Sitting atop the pedestal is a small glass bubble. Violet light radiates off it. Dozens, hundreds, possible even thousands of lights twinkle inside it, forming a swirling spiral at the sphere’s center. It looks like space and stars and even galaxies all contained inside one small glass sphere, moving perfectly in concert with one another.

Your hand slowly reaches out for it. Then hesitates. Then hesitates.

Instead of grabbing it, you lightly touch two fingers to the top of it. You feel a pulse coming off of it.

A second later, you’re taking it in your hand and moving the curtain back into place.]

Oh, I get it. She brought you here.

[voidhearts]

[You’re on your hands and knees. You let out a wheezing noise. All of the air was knocked out of you by a strike to your stomach. You’re just trying to get air back into your lungs. You look up and see several figures nearby, talking to each other. You try to crawl towards one of them, but your arms and legs are like jelly and you just collapse and let out another weak, wheezy cry.]

Too bad for you….

[velluminous]

[ actually, she wants to stay here for a little while. ]

[voidhearts]

[It's hard to voluntarily move away from something so peaceful. There's nothing to bother you, just the sound of winds above and waves crashing in the distance below. You could stay here as long as you like... ...

...

...

The water beneath you shakes, flipping you back and forth a bit.]

[Something underneath the water just shook rather demonstratively. It seems to have come from that palace below. Sigh.]

[velluminous]

[ not fifteen minutes and i'm being bullied by the setpieces.

she takes a ?breath?, abruptly guilty.

guiltier?

sticks her hand into the current in that unthinking, wizardly way ]