EVE'S HEART

[aprettygirl]

A dark veil slips over you, obscuring your vision; it’s cool and clinging, and blocks out all outside sensation. You drift downward . . . as you do, you grow more and more aware of the pulse of your own heartbeat, until it’s a ringing, unpleasant throb in your ears.

. . . after some time, it’s interrupted by a soft splash, and you feel solid rock underfoot.

((Please join #fleshbloodbone. All your character’s skills are on and uncapped; they will also have access to any items they carry normally!))

Comments

a calm place

[aprettygirl]

You’re in a vast and roughly circular cavern, pale and frozen needles of rock sheeting down the walls. The floor is covered in cool, clear blue-green water -- through some odd trick of heart physics you’ll find yourself only ankle-deep in it, no matter how tall you actually are.

In the middle of the cavern is the wreck of a crashed spaceship, come to rest in the water. Though the metal is still shining and untarnished, you can tell that the crash must have happened a long time ago, long enough that a multitude of strange plants and vines have grown up around the wreck from the floor of the cavern, anchoring it down. You can see a pair of sliding doors in the side of the ship underneath the vines (closed for now) but if you walk around it or explore the cave, you might be able to find other ways into the ship, or elsewhere.

Up above you -- high up above you, a rough hole has been blasted in the ceiling, showing where the ship must have smashed through. You can see the sky though it, painted in the soft golds and purples of sunset. Some light sheets down into the cavern through the hole, but most of it seems to come from the water itself. The whole place is glittering from it, strange cool rainbows reflecting off the walls.

Eve is here, standing in front of the wreck. She’s dressed in a sharp suit with a Jasper-red waistcoat -- though she’s barefoot, and the cuffs of her pants are rolled up to her knees in acknowledgement that she’s, well, standing in water. She surveys your group, unsmiling, and claps her hands once; the sharp sound echoes.

“Well, I certainly can’t say I didn’t expect this to happen at some point. Welcome to this heart, everyone.”

players

[aprettygirl]

wreckers

[aprettygirl]

Mogget gets a slightly different introduction; he is alone. The cave appears the same to him as it does to the others, but he'll find himself in Eve's arms rather than in the water.

"Hello there."

wreckers pt. ii

[aprettygirl]

The cave is awash in blood instead of water. The ship has fallen to pieces, surrounded by decayed flesh and torn-apart vines. There is a hole in the side of the cave; it is afire. The whole place is shaking itself apart.

a hard place

[aprettygirl]

flesh (court of veils)

[aprettygirl]

Lush is the first word that comes to mind, when you enter this area. You appear to be in the strangest bedroom you’ve ever seen: you’re in a clearing surrounded by what looks like lush, broad forest, but you can see walls in the far distance that enclose the space. This room is without a ceiling, open to the air, though the sky overhead is strange: the sunlight has a dimmed, rippling quality. You can hear the songs and buzzing of various types of birds and insects, and a good number of them are flying around the area, perfectly visible. There’s even a dark, liquid eye peering at you from the foliage at the edge of the clearing: a small deer?

The clearing itself is clean and more clearly manmade, the ground tiled in shining green with golden inlays. There’s a low, decorated tea table with a full tea service upon it, as well as a set of papers in black folders; a fancy chair; and a thronelike couch with the back fashioned into the shape of a stylized lotus flower.

A slender girl with Eve’s build is on the couch, sitting up but slumped to the side, apparently fast asleep. She’s dressed quite elaborately. There is a gauzy, pale-green veil draped over her, obscuring her features.

The air smells fresh and green, but there’s a disturbing hint of blood underneath.

blood (court of chains)

[aprettygirl]

Some things have changed.

The forest around you has been replaced with a thicket of green and gold curtains, velvety-thick. The smell of blood is very strong now, and it feels like your senses have sharpened. You can hear the heartbeats of every living thing in this enclosure -- even though the forest has changed, the animals are still here.

The girl on the throne does not have a heartbeat.

Her veil has disappeared. She looks quite like Eve, but there is a ceramic, artificial quality to her skin, you can see faint seams in her skin, and her eyes have been replaced with silver mirrors -- she’s a beautifully-made, jointed doll. Fine gold chains attached to her wrists, ankles, and the back of her neck are now visible; they lead up somewhere out of sight.

a flexible place

[aprettygirl]

flesh (by daylight)

[aprettygirl]

You're on a beach lit by a gorgeous sunset, the light so bright it's blinding if you don't shade your eyes. The sky is cloudless, the air warm and breezy, the sea rolling in with a quiet rush of water.

It's nice here, but not quite right . . . the beach seems to stretch on forever, and if you look directly out to sea, the sunset blinds you.

There's a pretty girl here, dressed in a light green sundress, Jasper tights, and sandals, with a basket on her arm; there are seven roses in it. Their petals are alternating layers of black and white.

"Ho! ♥ It's a visitor!"

blood (by nightlight)

[aprettygirl]

Some things have changed.

You're back on the beach, but the sun has set; it's dark here, cool, the moon and stars out. There's a sense of eyes watching from the shadows, and an uncomfortable tickle of emotion -- fear, but a fear so old it's accepted and almost comfortable now.

Out to sea, where the brightness of the sun obscured everything before, you can see lights and lanterns delineating the shapes of islands with buildings upon them, low and sprawling. The beach is also no longer endless: it's bordered by cliffs on both ends, forming an enclosed bay much like the one of Three's realm. If you turn around, you can also see the city you came from now, further inland.

The girl is still here; there is something in the basket on her arm you can't quite make out, but it chinks softly.

a bitter place

[aprettygirl]

flesh (a bright house)

[aprettygirl]

You're in a most curious sort of living room. There’s a round window that looks out onto a view of stars and space, a row of counters with six cabinets under them, and some uncomfortable-looking chairs. Everything is curving, mostly white or metal, clean and modern and sleekly utilitarian -- or it WOULD be, if someone hadn’t gone crazy with the paint in here. There are rainbow handprints everywhere, the size of a small child’s, in all colours and overlapping each other, turning the once-solemn room into a rainbow riot.

The only thing that appears relatively normal and clean is a heavy wooden table in the middle of the room: it looks like it might have been an ugly square thing once, but someone’s very industriously applied carving all over it: flowers and patterns over the surface, lions down the legs, and -- well, maybe more underneath, but you can’t see it from here. It’s very well done.

There are three wooden picture frames perched on one of the counters, but they are empty.

There's a faint, bitter smell of alkali; you can't immediately pinpoint its source.

You can also hear someone breathing.

blood (a dull house)

[aprettygirl]

Some things have changed.

There are photos in the three frames now, and three planets visible through the window, clumped together for some reason: Earth, Mars, and a small, slightly misshapen third planet that gleams with a spectrum of rainbow colours.

There is also now a door visible in the side of the room.

Most of the rainbow handprints are gone (though some remain in odd corners). Every surface is covered, instead, with a thin layer of dust. The smell of alkali is very thick now, burning your eyes and nose and throat.

a red place

[aprettygirl]

flesh (the kitchen)

[aprettygirl]

You're in what's obviously a congolmeration of a team's kitchen and their dining area -- Jasper's, easily recognizable by those on the team and those who have visited. There are steaming food on several coloured plates upon the counter; several of the plates are covered, while others are not. The table and Jasper's seven super fancy chairs are also here.

While there don't seem to be exits to the rest of the cabin, and everything feels a little crowded since the room's not that large, the place is brightly-lit, cheery, welcoming. The only things particularly out of place are a thorny black, somehow organic-looking vine growing in a pot in the corner, and the fact that one of the items on the counter is a glass bowl clearly filled with blood.

Eve, dressed in Jasper uniform, is stirring a pot on the stove; she looks up as you come in. There's something a little strange about her features...

"Oh, hi!"

a grey place

[aprettygirl]

flesh (a fogged road)

[aprettygirl]

You're on a cobbled road. This area contains fog, so thick you can barely see two feet in front of you. You can see at least one lamp burning -- this road must be lined with them -- but it's not really strong enough to cut through the fog.

A girl who looks like Eve is in front of you, dressed in white and silver garb that looks military in nature. She's streaked and spattered with blood, most of it dry, and her eyes seem oddly blank.

She springs directly at you.

blood (a clear road)

[aprettygirl]

Some things have changed.

The fog has lifted and the road has disappeared. You are knee-deep in blood, under a blank grey sky.

The only things here are two doors -- one white metal, one red and bloodily organic -- directly parallel to each other. You are standing right in the middle of them.

a bright place

[aprettygirl]

flesh (laboratory)

[aprettygirl]

You’re in a messy, messy laboratory. Tables and racks full of equipment have been pushed higgledy-piggledy; most of it looks like it’s for chemistry experiments, but the labels on things are blurred and unreadable and the numerous bottles of liquids all hold red fluid. One side of the room is devoted entirely to cramped shelves full of books; many of them have fallen out and form large heaps between those shelves.

You might be distracted by the windows running all around the room, however: they’re floor-to-ceiling, and display a gorgeous view of space and stars, all around you.

blood (starfields)

[aprettygirl]

Some things have changed.

The laboratory has disappeared entirely: you and Eve are standing in space, amongst the stars.

There are three planets visible from here: Earth, Mars, and a small, slightly misshapen third planet that gleams with a spectrum of rainbow colours.

veins of the matter

[aprettygirl]

b l

[aprettygirl]

You're at the mouth of a tight, cramped tunnel that positively reeks of blood, meat and hot metal. The light is dim and red. The walls all around you are fleshy, pulsing and throbbing; you can hear the loud rush of blood through them. The skin on them also seems to writhe, if you look at it out of the corners of your eye: never still, in a process of constant change.

A wave of primal, animal fear rolls over you, thick, making it even harder to breathe: this is what a prey animal might feel, looking into the eyes of a predator. This is not safe.

o o

[aprettygirl]

It's a charnel house down here: a sort of structure built half of blood and bone and viscera and half of black metal veins and wires and flashing red lights. There's something about it that calls a grand cathedral to mind, if you've ever been in one -- though that impression's mostly from the scale of it, the sense of echoing space. All the shapes are twisted, however; shifting, alien, and very, very wrong.

You are assailed not physically here, but with wholly sensory and emotional things: you want to sink your teeth into fresh meat; you want to feel something shudder itself apart under your claws, you want to you want to you want to tear and kill and eat and kill and eat and tear there is not enough there is never enough you are starved and enclosed and so you will grow and grow and grow and grow --

There's a black, wrong joy in it all.

bones of the matter

[aprettygirl]

This room is --

You can make out details of the room around you here and there; flickers of red and green; glimpses of strange, pale twisting columns; echoes of rooms you were in earlier, interspersed with an impression of somewhere familiar and simple and warm and welcoming . . . but nothing concrete you can really focus on. You get the sense that those details aren’t particularly important.

What is important is that in this room there is a small, lighted table, and seated at that table is a woman who’s clearly Eve, but grown into her thirties or so. Her hair is very long, pulled into a plait over her shoulder, and has a little white in it; she has the beginnings of laugh lines around her mouth and eyes as well. She's dressed in neutral colours, except for a bracelet of jade beads on her right wrist and the red Jasper key at her throat.

There’s a chair for you pulled up across from her, and a notepad that matches yours facedown on the table.

“Time's nearly up. . .sorry to cut things short.”

Re: bones of the matter

[rebells]

[WOW RUDE I WAS HOLDING THIS SAD NPC'S HAND

. . . looking around him, obviously trying to get his bearings]

Eve?