HEARTGAME DRESS REHEARSAL

[finalbows]

thank u rah u hero

tracking sheet
 

[ ..somewhere in the pasture, 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. ]

Ah,
I 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

[finalbows]

[ gonna be frank it WAS gonna be worse but luckily we just had a 100+ comment thread that removed Literally You as an unskippable miniboss of that segment. gg az

this version of the little red crystal doesn't have a 400+ word monologue in it,
but it does helpfully offer you knowledge of the spell Life in your time of need.

depressingly, it does not restore the dead back to life, but it does temporarily get the GRIEVOUSLY WOUNDED back on their feet enough to keep fighting through a moment of crisis so that they can be stabilized later.

which, y'know. is in fact exactly what you need right now...
...but you need to have a precise target for that to work.

_{also you've never cast a full mana-nomming spell on purpose outside of the confines of your own body before, are you ready???} ]

[wants_the_phd]

[Oh damn, she was almost a miniboss?! She would LOVE to know she crushed him that hard. Truly sublime.]

[But now that she has the crystal and the Life knowledge therein, we are plunging into the pool that marks the entrance of the obstacle course. we goin' in, bitches]

[finalbows]

[ splish splash!

without a mask on, the wails and moans and despair of the dense Mist begin to choke your throat once again.

...

remember how the obstacle course suppresses your magic (except for flock powers) while you're in it?
that seems to still be true inside of his heart.


maybe that's not surprising.
but there IS a part of the place where you CAN use magic, isn't there? very, very deep in. ]

[wants_the_phd]

[wait i just saw the edit. how much mana are we talking, exactly.]

[she's still going in, but. sweats.]

[finalbows]

[ "Life" is normally 8 MP, but...
You aren't... a naturally "giving" person, Azdaja...... and you're still a novice mage...



It's 24 MP a cast. ]

[wants_the_phd]

[wow. how dare you be correct about that]

[it's gross in here, for mysterious reasons we couldn't possibly be responsible for. what if she puts on the mask of tenderness?]

[finalbows]

[ well,
the music goes from this to

THIS,

and abruptly you can breathe again. you feel like gasping. the water goes from awfully cold to merely bracingly cold.

wearing this mask in this place makes you feel so, so vulnerable. weak. tender, as in raw and easy to harm.

but it also allows you to tolerate existing within it. ]

[wants_the_phd]

[Joke's on you, she always feels that way.]

[Grasping the crystal, she forges ahead to the scene of The Crime.]

[finalbows]

[ passing by the withered remains of the vines he'd planned and failed to use against her, it looks like any other spot. but she knows what it is. so does angel devil.

...but there's something different about this place beyond just the miasmic Mist.
the Mist hisses to your ear of death,
but there are lots... of different kinds of flowers, here, now. not just roses.

examining them...
it seems all these different flowers, with tens of different meanings between them, grow in concentric circles coming out from the point of 'impact.'

but that spot is completely bare. waiting, maybe. or cursed. ]

[wants_the_phd]

[shit. she doesn't know anything about flower meanings.

What flowers are here? She's going to commit them to memory and look them up later. Or maybe try looking it up on crystalpedia once the wifi is working again.]

[finalbows]

[ guess you'll have to forge forward to that sweet spot where powers work again, and check with the rock what there is to work with.

ready to move on? ]

[wants_the_phd]

[i GUESS]

[where are you, angie? is there another version of you in here someplace? is SHE in here? she doesn't know.]

1/2

[finalbows]

[ maybe you should check where you last left him.
anyway, it's wonderful that you say you're ready to move on! because someone else isn't.

remember how i said your miniboss doppelgagner used to be unskippable, azdaja?
that... doesn't necessarily mean it is always skipped, does it?

...as you leave that particular spot in the middle of the circles of flowers behind unremarked upon, you start to hear behind you the steps of something big. ]

2/2 this many comments in and she has hit the main gimmick of the heart game

[finalbows]

[ time takes a moment to sit down and have a breather. you can't move. neither can your all-too-familiar pursuer.
a commanding, bass voice of a faraway god asks of you a question that is, in reality, a command.

when you provide him an answer, you shall be free to act. ]

~ which mask to wear? ~

MASK OF RESIGNATION
"Bargain for your life."

MASK OF PERSEVERANCE
"Flee, relentlessly!"

[wants_the_phd]

Mask of Cruelty.

[finalbows]

[ you choose the MASK OF CRUELTY.

"Whatsoever I suffer, I will repay with even greater pain."

Magic doesn't work down here, but Rose's flock powers do.

You abandon your form for that of a gout of blood, and let the dragon's jaws close upon you.

You wrench control of them because they are your own. You own them. It is nothing for you to order: be afraid! heel, before me!

...you are now possessing NIGHTMARE AZDAJA!

Wow, confusing. ]

[wants_the_phd]

[She was this close to fucking herself on the floor of a dying man's soul. But you're right, we don't have time for that kind of temptation right now. For once in her life, she is actually trying to improve things. Why, exactly, she doesn't know. Objectively, she thinks it would be great to make him carry this hurt inside him, and never forget the day that she won. Never forget that he's not as bulletproof as he thinks he is. Never forget that even this wretched waste of life can destroy him if he lets his guard down.]

[She returns to the bullseye of flowers. What flowers are here? What does it look like?]

[finalbows]

[ a rainbow. so very many, if only you knew jack shit about flower meanings, you could compose as blatant or complex a message as you wanted.

well... there's always roses? ]

[wants_the_phd]

[if only she knew jack shit about flower meanings.]

[Well, there's a bare space in the middle. She carefully steps through the flowers, trying not to crush anything, and curls up on the cursed, empty spot.]

[Does anything happen?]

[finalbows]

[ she feels very small, loathsome, and afraid, but that's not precisely new, now, is it?



but some piece of her slowly aches less. the proximity of a flockmate? the mere fact of "closeness," her deep pressure weight upon this wounded piece of a person?

is it due to the rampaging dragon laying down like this field of obscured messages, meanings, feelings, is the epicenter of her very own hoard?

...kinda feels like there's a little mound in the earth beneath you, that you hadn't noticed before. ]

[wants_the_phd]

[Well. It turns out she's very good at digging. Can she root around like a truffle pig and see if she can excavate anything?]

[finalbows]

[ planted like a bulb in the ground beneath the site of their coupling is a red, horned mask.

Gained MASK OF DESIRE. ]


[ ... is the Mist getting thinner? ]

[wants_the_phd]

[Heuhuehuehue horny mask. Good.]

[She gently noses it out of the way so she can curl up in that bare spot again. But this time, she wills thornless vines to snake up from the ground around her. They twine across her back, and weave around her limbs, and wrap themselves tightly around her horns. It's not long before she's bound so tightly to this spot that she can't move, even when she strains against the vines to test them.]

[Satisfied, wild roses begin to bloom in clusters all over her. They're simple, five-petaled affairs, some of which immediately fade and turn to blood-red hips that match her spines.]

[Finally, she opens her mouth and lets herself pour out of this body's mouth and eyes, leaving it looking for all the world like the wretched, dying thing it is.]

[finalbows]

[ breaking my rule about piano only in the theatre because I am literally not going to get a better place to use THIS song, as Azdaja binds herself down to a forced rest.

you are now standing beside yourself. your nightmare doppelganger is slowly becoming more alert, starting to writhe and struggle pointlessly in the binds of the vines. ]

1/2

[wants_the_phd]

[The true Azdaja crouches beside herself, gently cups scaly cheeks in her small, delicate hands, and leans down to tenderly rest her forehead against the others.]

[She floods Nightmare Azdaja with calm satisfaction. Peace. The feeling of safety. The desire to keep this place safe.]



[Once her other self starts to settle, she places the mask of desire on its face, to give Future Angie something to think about.]