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Post by Èdan on Apr 11, 2020 10:16:22 GMT -6
Which is to say, if you only ever focus on the problem. The mind is a hungry beast and ever active, it will not be silenced so easy. So, if one were to work around the problem, they avoid it - rather than telling yourself to NOT think about something, give it everything else to think about.
And as the man rushes through a collection of furnitures towards the doorway, he lets his mind loose on finding every perceivable fault of design and aesthetics on each passing piece as possible, one after the other, each more scathing than the rest. And all the while, never once does he think about the ceiling.
Finally, he reaches the door and provides it with another introduction to his boot, before pausing to glance back. The room behind has grown dark, like a blanket of blackness seeping in and consuming any sense of light, at the heart of which glints back the oily humanoid, shambling towards the doorway.
. 14 .
April: 14 Tiken Tekai
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Post by Èdan on Apr 11, 2020 10:16:56 GMT -6
The situation is that much more concerning because of the aforementioned ability to not really be bothered by the darkness - even on moonless nights he has always been able to still tell shades and shapes, colourless though as they are. But here and now, as the curtain of black draws closer, what it swallows is just gone. No shape, no shade, just a vast, null, nothing.
The man ducks into the next room and slams the door closed behind him. He backs up, searching the new space for anything to stop the doorway with, but as soon as he glances back, it seems there is no necessity - the doorway itself is melding into the wall until no frame or handle is visible. As if there never had been one.
A silence follows as he half expect the shadow to bust through the wall all the same, but when nothing seems to follow, he finally breathes out, leaning onto the glaive. It is official - he rather hates this place.
. 15 .
April: 15 Tiken Tekai
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Renathan
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Post by Renathan on Apr 11, 2020 17:17:29 GMT -6
 A tiny vial sits nearby with swirling colors within, rather inconspicuous for such a magical-looking thing. |
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Post by Èdan on Apr 13, 2020 5:36:25 GMT -6
With the silence ensuing, he finally straightens again, beginning to take stock of the place. Almost immediately a piece of colour catches his attention off to the left and he spots a little vibrant vial on the ground. The immediate thought is that he has dropped the previous one in his rush to close the door, but when he picks it up to inspect closer, there’s a distinct difference of iridescence to this one, compared to the other.
So.. these are to be the new roses, eh?
He gives a rueful smirk beneath the helm and turns on the rest of the room.. Only to find it largely missing. There’s light emanating from somewhere, a pleasant pastel shade of yellow and blue, but the room itself is entirely empty of features. For a few seconds, he simply stares ahead, then quietly sighs, closes his eyes, and opens them again as his head raises.
Ah, there’s it is. The rest of the room - furniture and all - is above him, on the ceili--
Wait, sh-!
. 16 .
April: 16 Tiken Tekai
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Post by Èdan on Apr 13, 2020 5:37:04 GMT -6
Reality is only as strong as a person’s grasp on it, and in no place more so than here, it seems. The knight falls from the ceiling as reality ensues, landing in the middle of the room like a ton of bricks (and about as loudly, if bricks were made out of metal). The fall isn’t long, but it forces a painted grunt all the same, especially followed by a groan when the back of his head hits the floor - sure, the helmet blunts the worst of the blow, but the horns still strike the floor at entirely the wrong angle.
“Ghaaah,” he grumbles, rolling to the side and sitting up, rubbing the top of the helmet for all the good it does. A string of foreign curses follows, heedless for who might hear them just to get the satisfaction of cathartic swearing. The immediate pain passes quickly, but the dull throb of its memory lingers for longer still.
. 17 .
April: 17 Tiken Tekai
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Post by Èdan on Apr 13, 2020 5:37:36 GMT -6
He lets go of the helmet, picks up the glaive and uses it to pull himself up onto his feet, slowly and sorely, before shuffling over to a table and chair (at least these ones had the decency to be normal looking. They were painted bright pastel in all shades of the rainbow, but they wouldn’t slide your ass off at the merest thought of sitting down, which was a considerable plus in the situation.)
With an exhale, he slumps into the hair, rolling a sore shoulder (likewise a source of impact). Truly, this manor is looking more and more to be the death of him. And now there’s no more ‘rosy path’ to guide them (him) out. Letting the soreness settle for a little, he finally brings up the glass vial, turning it around in his hand.
No more roses (not that he ever really believed those to work).. But still plenty of these. Whatever they were. Someone was putting an awful lot of trouble into making this whole place work and he is beginning to wonder what said end goal was.
. 18 .
April: 18 Tiken Tekai
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Post by Èdan on Apr 13, 2020 5:38:07 GMT -6
He rests the glaive against the table and takes a closer look at the vial. A little tag dangles on the side, catching his attention, simply reading ‘dreams’. The man scoffs. Nightmares, more like.. At least if the tar monster was anything to measure by. Unbidden, his head turns to stare beside and slightly up, towards the spot on the wall where the door used to, as if fearing to see the black ooze drip through the very walls in silent pursuit.
For now, things are clear. For now.
His attention returns to the little vial and he flips it around again, eyes narrowing as he examines the neck. A firm grip and slight leverage pops the cork off the vial, a bit of multi-coloured dust speckling the mouth of the small container in an after draft. Upending the bottle into his palm, the small scroll (and a whole lot of something that awfully reminds him of glitter, good gods let it not be glitter) slides out.
. 19 .
April: 19 Tiken Tekai
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Post by Èdan on Apr 13, 2020 5:38:37 GMT -6
On its surface it doesn’t appear all that different to a regular scroll, but no sooner is the motion finished when the air is filled with a scent of summer roses and homemade cake. The man’s nose wrinkles briefly, though the scent itself is strangely pleasant. But this is new.. The roses certainly didn’t smell (glass wasn’t known to). He unfurls the scroll to read it, only to find there to be no real written text.
The effect is strange to describe, alien, and yet there’s a comfort in it - when he tries to read the scroll he is not seeing words and not comprehending language, but experiencing an emotion, a feeling, something far too abstract for words to really capture, a scene played out in his subconscious one moment and forgotten the next, like a memory come and gone.
It isn’t his memory (they never made cake themselves) that much he is certain, and the alien part is realizing he may be experiencing a dream of another.
. 20 . (added)
April: 20 Tiken Tekai
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Apr 13, 2020 10:13:14 GMT -6
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Post by Èdan on Apr 16, 2020 11:28:47 GMT -6
He lets the sensation endure a little while, before rolling up the paper and stuffing it back into the bottle. As if on cue, the glitter and rainbow dust from before returns to the bottle with a soft ‘swoosh’, leaving no trace of its being. Something tied to the magic of the dream-like effect? Who even knew. Regular dreams are hard enough to understand, much less this magical mind-bending waking dream nonsense.
But it does bring about one beneficial effect: whatever it had been about (something about family, about summers spent in the countryside and playfulness among the fields, perhaps?) there was a soothing, rejuvenating effect to it. The soreness of shoulder and head has abated, as if he himself has taken a nap in the interim. If this was the effect of all the bottles, he might as well stock up on them. They seem to be a far better remedy for half the small little troubles, sores, aches and other pains, both physical and in the mind.
. 21 .
April: 21 Tiken Tekai
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Post by Èdan on Apr 16, 2020 11:29:18 GMT -6
Which isn’t to say he completely trusts the place, but he’s willing to leave certain options.. Open.
What isn’t open is a way out of the room, however. The man glances around, first to the wall in the upper left corner, still too distrustful to play it off as a problem entirely solved. Then, to the surrounding walls, each looking about as distinct from the other in having a doorway as a blank piece of parchment.
No leaving, then. At least, not yet, according to the house.
A small noise catches his attention, the head whipping around and then slightly down, as the hazy blue glow of the small bear waddles forth in the relative dimness of the room. In the rush to escape the nightmare, he had entirely managed to forget about the beast, as well as..
A flutter sounded above him, then claws touching down on the metallic frame of an unlit light hanging from the ceiling.
..the bird, right.
. 22 .
April: 22 Tiken Tekai
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Post by Èdan on Apr 16, 2020 11:29:43 GMT -6
Although now that he thought about it, he hadn’t, not really. Forgotten, that is. He’d left them behind, which is a distinct difference, in that a part of him hoped they wouldn’t follow. They were much too slow to keep up with a humanoid running and definitely had no way of simply popping through a wall if even the nightmare couldn’t ooze its way in, so that meant they had to appear here.
The knight’s gaze levelled on the bear with narrowed eyes. The manor wasn’t letting him leave this room.. And neither was it letting him leave these beasts behind, it seems. There was deciding to play by the rules and then there was being forced to accept rules you rather would not. With the bear and the dove, he is stuck with the latter situation.
A suddenly rediscovered tiredness found its way into his voice, as the man got to his feet with an annoyed groan. He would let them tag along, but it didn’t mean he had to like it.
. 23 .
April: 23 Tiken Tekai
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Post by Èdan on Apr 16, 2020 11:30:26 GMT -6
Picking up the glaive, he begins to scope out he room, in part to search for clues to an exit, but in larger part because there is simply nothing else to do but wait if he doesn’t. He is a patient man, but bars and cages make for uncomfortable company, even if they’re simply imagined ones.
He find that one of the source of light come from the soft glow of a balloon, tucked between a few desks, strangely imprinted like the moon. He’d spent more than his share of time in the observatory back home (largely out of duress, the teachers had put such emphasis on the stars and the cosmos as something grandiose and powerful, future-telling even. A lot of those people are now dead, having failed to read their own fates so clearly.) He considers it a moment, then simply ties it around the bear and leaves it at that. If the thing has to waddle after him according to the house, he can at least make it easier to see where it is.
On another table he finds one more of those bright coloured bottles, next to a rather unassuming package.
. 24 .
April: 24 Tiken Tekai
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Post by Èdan on Apr 16, 2020 11:31:11 GMT -6
He gives the bottle a brief look-over, before tucking it into a bag on his belt, and focuses on the pack. Opening it up, it turns out to be a deck of cards, though the make and style seem alien at first. He flips through the pile and realizes half way through what they are - ah yes, another of the favoured ‘scientific’ tools of his early years, divination cards.
The man pulls up a chair and sits behind the table, a sense to humour this house with what he’s long since realized is just utter nonsense and parlour tricks. Good parlour tricks, admittedly, and definitely having given him many useful things to learn with each charlatan that he encountered, but still just that.
He shuffles the cards and draws out three, placing them beside each other, then three more below - the classical fortune drawing of most charlatans. The top for what once was, the bottom for what now is.
. 25 .
April: 25 Tiken Tekai
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Renathan
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Post by Renathan on Apr 16, 2020 15:00:48 GMT -6
A single vial seems to pop out of no-where, complete with a comical 'POP'! |
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