soldieronwards | heart and soul

1. Get on IRC and in the channel if possible! If you can't, let me know and I'll make a plurk for you.
2. This heart has two halves. The upper half has more NPC interaction, and the lower half has more exploration.
3. Each half has a potential boss fight lurking somewhere in it. I will warn players in IRC or on plurk when someone is approaching one of them, so that anyone interested can find a way to join in.
4. Your powers and skills are on, and you have your items. If you think any of them would let you bypass too many puzzles or fun things, let me know and I'll work something out.
5. This heart depends somewhat on cooperation between characters; a single character cannot get to the true heart alone in any reasonable amount of time. So feel free to collaborate with others. But since this is the unscored version, if you want a longer solo run, let me know. Otherwise, it might be a good idea to pick groups you'll try to coordinate with to cover things.

Edited 2014-10-06 00:23 (UTC)

You land hard on a metal floor that rattles faintly all around you. The noise of an engine far below masks the sound of your fall. It's dark here, save for light filtering in through a nearby grating.

Don't move yet. Shadows flicker past that grate, the shadows of booted feet walking heavily on metal. With them comes the voice of the host of this whole place, of this entire heart, but it's different. Gone is his usual warmth and spirit. He's all business.

"Yes, sir. I'm the only one who has the device to defuse it, and they'd need the passwords too." A pause; you feel heavy, frozen in place by the need to hear this out. "Intruders, sir?" The footsteps stop, and when they resume again a second later they're lighter, more cautious. "I'll take care of that..." Another pause in the one-sided conversation, and he starts walking away. But when he speaks next, it's still perfectly clear. "No, you don't need to worry, sir. Feelings won't come into it. I follow orders, sir. I'll deal with them."

And the footsteps recede, then fade. It's impossible to tell where he went, but you're safe now--for the moment.

A plain hallway, well lit from above, stretches out to either side of you. The sense of motion is a little more muted here. There's nothing to be found here except two exits: a clearly-marked ladder leading up at one end of the hall, and a closed hatch leading down at the other.

No lights come on when you make your way through the hatch and land on the floor not far below it. You're left in the smothering darkness. It feels heavy, and every time you try to take a step, there's the faintest pressure back towards the hatch. A short ladder hangs down from it if you reach up, allowing you an easy escape back to the hallway if you wish to take it.

You can explore every inch of this small room in the dark if you wish--it's not very large. There's nothing here, though.

But the floor crackles and crinkles faintly beneath you.

You're in a large circular room with a faintly rattling metal floor. Despite the red lights high above around the ladder, it's still dim and dark here for now. Much of what little light there is comes from three large portholes on one side of the room. They offer a view onto a shifting, turbulent landscape of grey clouds. The light that filters in through them is just as mercurial and flickering as the clouds beyond, and it somehow fills the room with a deep unease full of mingled bad feelings: fear and shame, regret and loneliness, rage and guilt.

Opposite each window on the other side of the room is a door.

For a room labeled "the living quarters," this place is rather small. It's very inviting, though--quite the change from the uneasy, roiling atmosphere in the room outside. The air is faintly perfumed with a mix of scents--roses, chocolate, fresh dew…

It's sweet. It's very nice in here.

The lighting is soft and golden-white; it comes from a plain glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling, since the windows (normal square windows, not portholes) are heavily curtained with deep red brocade. There's also a king-sized bed with white and pink blankets and pillows on it, a plain nightstand next to the bed, a rack with some clothing draped over it, and a closet with the door closed.

The noise here hits you the moment you step in. This is where it's all been coming from: that mechanical rumbling that's permeated the whole place. But the muted nature of it is gone, because right before you, taking up most of the room, is a great contraption of gears and pulleys constantly turning, clattering, cranking, rumbling. The energy from it heats up the entire room--it's not intolerable, but it is vaguely uncomfortable, and gets more so the closer you get to the machinery.

Aside from the engine itself, there is little to be seen here. A sign hangs from the ceiling with letters emblazoned on it in red, "WARNING: MOTIVATION IN PROGRESS." The floor shakes beneath you.

The deep chill in this room hits you as soon as you step through the door; it's almost like a walk-in refrigerator of some kind. Food is not what's stored here, though. Hanging on the shining metal walls are weapons, weapons, and more weapons, gleaming under the sterile glow of the bare lights above. Only a handful of shelves seem to contain anything other than weapons.

The room continues on, longer than it is wide, for quite a ways, but towards the far end, a cold mist springs up, obscuring the rest of the room from view.

Despite the chill, the air in this room feels musty and heavy with dread. Maybe all the blood has something to do with that.

Bodies hang from chains on the wall, cut open and mutilated; none of them seem to be alive, yet they still drip a steady stream of blood onto the hard floor. Tables dot the room--some have more bodies laid open upon them, trickling yet more blood down, and others are strewn with nasty metal implements. At the center of the room, the blood drains into a large metal grating set in the floor.

Where the armory behind it was only as large as it needed to be in order to store weapons, this room is tall and spacious, yet still feels cramped with bad energy. Red light spills over it from above, making the already crimson-stained scene even redder.

Narrow metal catwalks circle the room above, thin flights of stairs leading up to them. Atop one, calmly checking a rifle, stands a familiar-looking man. He looks exactly like the owner of this heart, save that his hair is longer, and the star on his left shoulder is plain red.

Where the corridor before was fairly narrow and plain, this one is broad and lavish. The soft carpet beneath your feet is blue and white, and the walls shine with reddish wooden paneling. That's when you can see the walls, anyway--because there's other stuff here diverting your attention.

On the left side of the hallway, a series of white marble statues stand. All six of them wear masks of some kind. On the right side of the hallway, opposite the statues, hang cloth wall-scrolls as if they were flags or tapestries.

At the far side of the hall, an elegant-looking wooden double door stands.

You're in the sky.

More accurately, you're on a ship flying in the sky. A polished wooden deck spreads out beneath your feet, with golden railings off to the sides. Incongruously, in front of you a large building rises out of the deck: a golden-accented theater with a glittering marquee and a ticket-taker's booth out in front.

Aside from the theater and the hall behind you, there doesn't seem to be anything else on this ship.

An open space sprawls out around you, carpeted lushly in red, white, and blue. The ceiling is high but flat and painted with some kind of mural, and the walls sport flashy posters for upcoming shows. A few potted plants stand in the corners, and along one wall is a bank of arcade games and vending machines.

Beyond all of this, three hallways disappear into the back.

Despite the lack of a concession stand, the faint smell of popcorn lingers in the air here as you make your way down the aisle. The seats around you look very plush and comfortable, but it's hard to take your attention away from the screen for some reason...

Yet the screen seems oddly flimsy. Shadows move behind it.

Light envelops you as you step through the door, and as you stand there blinded, a feeling of touching down rattles through your feet and legs. Somewhere in the distance, the everpresent engine of the airship shifts into a lower gear.

The light subsides, and you step forward again, and down; there is solid ground at last beneath your feet.

Around you a field of dirt stretches, with a scattering of distant cabins and brown tents in the background. Much closer to you, a flagpole rises out of the ground, with the American flag flying high in the air at its top.

Bucky stands at the base of the flagpole, leaning on it a little, holding a domino mask in his right hand, but not wearing it.

[okay but can i get out now because she is trying]

Edited 2014-10-06 00:30 (UTC)

[...that certainly didn't sound good.]

[looking up through the grating to see if he can make out anything]

[bucky no]

[moving as soon as he can, to go look through that grate]

The grate near the floor is not too heavy and is a little loose. It could easily be removed, and a person of any size could fit through the opening.

The grating is actually near the floor; you're in a kind of large crawlspace between walls. You can only make out another floor and a nearby wall through the grate--it looks like it lets out into a corridor of some kind.

[lands on his feet, crouched and still as he waits, listens.

this feels more like a mission than anything else he's experienced in Aather thus far.]

[well, she's going to get out then!]

There's no more sound. The man with Bucky's voice has left. You're now in some kind of large crawlspace between walls.

To the corridor, then.

[ well I'm used to falling at this point ]

Hmm...

[ after listening closely, let's peek through that grate?? ]

heart and soul

GROUND RULES

START

CORRIDOR

IN THE DARKNESS

BELOW DECKS

THE LIVING QUARTERS

THE ENGINE ROOM

THE ARMORY

THE TORTURE CHAMBER

THE HALL OF MASKS

THE UPPER DECK

THE THEATER LOBBY

THEATER EAST

TRUE HEART

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