From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
broken promises and broken arches, phaetons and false hangings
Two souls awaken in strange vessels, in the dark as they had been when the dream began. The room they arise in is simple, no wider than two men laid across the floor and a ceiling just high enough to allow its occupants to stand. On the right wall rests a mirror, as if placed there only to inform the prisoners of their predicament, their new forms, and mock them for it.
The door in this room does not look particularly strong, but it does bare a heavy padlock keeping it shut, the thick chain wrapped several times around bolts and handles in the door to further secure it. On the padlock are four spinning parts, which allow someone to enter a 4 digit code. At the moment, the padlock is set to 0000.
On the right hand wall there are a series of paintings loosely nailed to the wall and hung by a piece of string, four in total. In order from left to right, these paintings depict:
1. An old man bent over a sack of grain, holding his back as if complaining about the weight of it. Others in the field look on, but do little to help despite his obvious pain.
2. A couple sat in a flowering orchard; the pastoral scene is beautiful, flowers and crops surrounding a teenage boy and his love, the two sharing a picnic of berries and cakes.
3. A soft crib with an adoring mother cocoons a baby, red-cheeked and smiling.
4. A family sit at the dinner table, a man dining with his wife and children, telling them tales of his rascally youth.
Ronin, you awaken in the body of Theo and Melita, you in the body of Luciana! You now possess all their abilities and stats; be sure to look at their profile to see what you have! However, your character still has their own mind and thoughts.
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For this to work, you need to reply quickly! Within 24 hours, please! If you miss your post, it will move on without you! You can post as many times as you like within the 24 hour time limit, so feel free for your characters to have long conversations, etc; keep in mind there will be no NPC replies during nighttime GMT, because Lam is sleeping, so if your characters attempt to do something large (eg come up with a solution to a puzzle, knock down a wall, punch something), please wait for a post from the NPC account.
First task: Wake up, discover your new body, your partner and the room around you.
I am my mother's child, I'll love you till my breathing stops I'll love you till you call the cops on me
Melita had dreamed a lot in her lifetime – cycles of broken webs, of people she wished she could reclaim from the heavens, of fogs and labyrinths, of cavalcades and processions damned.
This one was something else entirely.
A small room stretched before her, and she thought nothing of it until she started to rise. Eyes went to naught much else when she noticed her hands, her limbs, the feeling of another’s frame – for this wasn’t her. She had muscles, but not to this degree, and she felt smaller, stockier, broader, and glancing around at her frame yielded far darker hair, and the practical unknown settled before her.
She’d yet to notice anything else in the room, far too confused, perplexed, and confounded to do much else but utter a phrase, not even in her own voice. “What the fuck?”
M e l i t a
But in our darkest hours, I stumbled on a secret power I'll find a way to be without you, babe
”Shhh...” Ronin grumbles in a voice that doesn’t really sound like his own, but he puts it down to grogginess. The Star blinks his eyes open to see surroundings that are neither the wagon he shares with Remi or the house in Torchline, and it’s enough to have him bolting upright. A tiny room; a mirror; a door with a combination lock, and four paintings.
”What the fuck?” Unintentionally he echoes the person beside him, turning to look at the other occupant and recognising them not a single bit. Lifting a hand to run it through hair that’s a little shorter than he remembers, Ronin rubs at his eyes only to notice that his hands are missing very important rings. ”What’s happened? Is this a dream?” Instinctively he’s already getting to his feet to approach the mirror - because something is very wrong, though he glances every now and then to the woman in the room with him.
I am my mother's child, I'll love you till my breathing stops I'll love you till you call the cops on me
Noises alerted her that there was in fact someone else in there.
Her eyes slanted over, and no recognition could be found in the blonde hair, in the completely unknown frame.
Everything felt unknown.
“I have no idea, but this – this is not me.” Her hands fluttered back and forth over her form, eventually going to her hair, completely rattled, confused, and bewildered. “Does that make any sense?” No; of course it didn’t. Her gaze went to the mirror too, and couldn’t bother, didn’t want to know.
Melita was half-tempted to back into the wall, and eventually did when the stranger’s voice extended back to her, asking if she was all right. She banged hard against something behind her, but didn’t look yet. “I think so? Except not at all…” Maybe she’d bumped her head and was hallucinating. Or having one of the most bizarre dreams of her life. “You?”
Only then did she look at the painting she’d rammed into, an old man bent over some grain. “Where are we?”
M e l i t a
But in our darkest hours, I stumbled on a secret power I'll find a way to be without you, babe
It absolutely does, and Ronin's jaw drops as he stands before the mirror and stares at the man who is absolutely not him. In fact, it's not even his jaw that drops, but this stranger's. Rubbing at the scruff on his chin and passing a hand back through hair much lighter than he's used to, he sort of hears what the woman is saying, turning in time to see her bump into one of the paintings.
"I have definitely been better," he says, letting out a shaky sigh and glancing from the mirror to the paintings to the door, before his gaze finally lands on her again. "I have no idea where we are, sorry. And... well. I don't look like him right now, but I'm Ronin Taliesin. Nice to meet you."
I am my mother's child, I'll love you till my breathing stops I'll love you till you call the cops on me
Melita couldn’t help it; she laughed at the proclamation that this stranger was Ronin. It didn’t sound the same, it didn’t sound right at all; no merry chime, no rampant giggle, but the humor and hilarity in the ridiculous situation made her start snorting too, wiping a stray tear from her eye. At least they were amongst friends. “Sorry, this is all so stupid.” What a dream. “It’s Melita. Or, I’m usually Melita. I don’t know who this woman is.”
A shrug ambled through her shoulders, eyes finally pinpointing various things around the room, including the painting she’d bumped into. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I have no intentions of staying.” The youth, except not, wandered closer to the door, eyeballing the padlock, the handles, the chains, and the need for a code. “Any ideas on how to get out?”
M e l i t a
But in our darkest hours, I stumbled on a secret power I'll find a way to be without you, babe
To hear that it's Melita, of all people, should have been entirely unbelievable. And yet with Ronin in the body that he's in, looking at Mel in the body that she's in? Ronin is laughing too, the sound utterly foreign in this other man's form, and yet the hilarity is still there. "Well thank fuck for that. That makes this a lot easier, even if it still makes no sense," he says, straightening up and running a hand across his face (apparently, anyway).
Finally their combined attention moves to the room, and Ronin tilts his head at the paintings and the padlock, the code. "Four numbers, four paintings," he remarks, his eyes falling on each one. "It's a life, I think," he says suddenly, a crooked smile on his face. "Number 3 is birth. Then 2, first love. 4, the family, and 1 is old age. Try that, Melita. 3, 2, 4, 1."
I am my mother's child, I'll love you till my breathing stops I'll love you till you call the cops on me
Apparently someone had been paying attention to the paintings (and it hadn’t been her). Her brows arched at Ronin, or whoever this stranger’s body was, listening to the proclamations, and then tracing over the descriptions. A life; birth, love, family, age, a chaotic little semblance of disarray and cycles. “Okay, I’ll give it a go.” She had nothing else to offer; save for mere observations – not a head or mind built for riddles (impulsivity and action, sure), no matter whose body she inhabited.
The once-girl set about per the instruction, inputting the code into the lock, one right after the other: 3, 2, 4, 1. With any luck, they’d hear the lock click, and they’d be out of the room – and perhaps not drifting in such a weird space.
--
Melita attempts to enter the code: 3, 2, 4, 1.
M e l i t a
But in our darkest hours, I stumbled on a secret power I'll find a way to be without you, babe
11-02-2020, 09:24 PM (This post was last modified: 11-02-2020, 09:25 PM by NPC.)
Well, you both have the right idea, but not quite the right answer. The code does not do anything to the lock, but as Melita moves the paintings she, or perhaps Ronin, might notice that they bear numbers upon their backs, carved into the corners.
Baby Painting: 7
Teenagers: 0
Family: 3
Old Man: 5
Ronin rubs at the stubble not on his chin, but someone elses, and spies a script on the back on the paintings. "Oh," he says, flipping them over after putting them in the order he'd previously specified. "I think I get it now. So if they're still in order of a life, but we use these numbers, it would be 7, 0, 3, 5."
Glancing back up to the woman he knows is Melita but who looks nothing like her, he shrugs his shoulders and gives a sheepish smile. "What do you think? Should we give that another try?" he asks.
I am my mother's child, I'll love you till my breathing stops I'll love you till you call the cops on me
She pulled and twisted at the lock, but there was no satisfactory click, no relief in the hinge giving way. Instead, it remained bolted, fastened, and clasped, no end in sight. Her eyes, though…they weren’t really hers, were they, flickered back to the not-Ronin form, a sigh remarkably unlike her own forming in the bridges and bones of her chest. The paintings, however, seemed to give him an idea, and the soul in this stranger’s body nodded. She could try again. “Better than nothing,” she shrugged; if this didn’t work, they could always search the rest of the room, and see if there were any other clarifying factors.
Once more, she placed in the numbers, reciting them in the foreign voice. “7, 0, 3, 5.”
--
Melita puts in the code!
M e l i t a
But in our darkest hours, I stumbled on a secret power I'll find a way to be without you, babe
As soon as the correct code is entered, the padlock snaps open and the door is able to be moved.
--
Congratulations! This is not the end of the event, but you are out of your captivity. Stand by for a thread when others have escaped their rooms. Feel free to chat. When out of the door, they will find a large stone corridor.
