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6/29/2025, 5:03:06 PM
Your visit to the town of Walpurgis, while not exactly an unmitigated disaster, certainly seemed close to one. Despite Alex’s best attempts at cheering you up, it feels as if you’ve gained nothing but lost some intangible thing. Even if someone was to put a gun to your head, you’re not sure if you could put a name to that ephemeral feeling, but you know that something has changed. Can something exist only as an absence?
Perhaps it’s Gratia. Despite your best attempts at convincing yourself that the apparition had spoken only lies, the doubt remains. If Gratia truly was no more, consumed by the Stryx and inseparably merged with them, how could you prove it? If the new being had inherited her personality, all of her memories, even it might think itself to be her.
All the way home, you wrestle with the idea. You feel torn between two opposites – to hurry out into the forest and visit Gratia within the depths of the Demesne, or to shy away from seeing her again. You can’t avoid her forever, of course, but you can always make it tomorrow’s problem. Given enough distractions, it might ALWAYS be tomorrow’s problem.
-
The estate feels cold and hostile when you return back home, sheets of cold rain crashing down against the barren soil. Raising the collar of your coat in a puny attempt at warding off the foul weather, you hurry up to the front door and jab your key into the lock like a dagger. It’s drier inside, but the bitter chill remains. Alex hurries off into the depths of the house to start a fire, while you take a slow, aimless wander as if reminding yourself of the place. It feels as if you’ve been gone for far longer than you really have.
In the main dining room, you find the package. It’s not hidden at all, in fact laid out in such a way as to ensure that it catches your attention. A simple thing really, loosely wrapped in crumpled newspaper. Slowly opening it, you find a broken fragment of stone nestled within the wrapping. A short letter accompanies the package, and you waste no time in reading it over.
[Axis Mundi Fragment – Solitude: +1 Solitude Attunement.]
“Dear brother,” the note begins, “I found this within the depths of the labyrinth. There are other fragments down there, I’m sure of it. Come back soon, and we can look for them together. I confess, I’ve been missing you terribly. I dream of you when I sleep, but my dreams are troubled – in them, I see you sinking beneath a great black ocean. They concern me greatly, these dreams.”
And the note, of course, is signed with Gratia’s name.
[1/2]
Perhaps it’s Gratia. Despite your best attempts at convincing yourself that the apparition had spoken only lies, the doubt remains. If Gratia truly was no more, consumed by the Stryx and inseparably merged with them, how could you prove it? If the new being had inherited her personality, all of her memories, even it might think itself to be her.
All the way home, you wrestle with the idea. You feel torn between two opposites – to hurry out into the forest and visit Gratia within the depths of the Demesne, or to shy away from seeing her again. You can’t avoid her forever, of course, but you can always make it tomorrow’s problem. Given enough distractions, it might ALWAYS be tomorrow’s problem.
-
The estate feels cold and hostile when you return back home, sheets of cold rain crashing down against the barren soil. Raising the collar of your coat in a puny attempt at warding off the foul weather, you hurry up to the front door and jab your key into the lock like a dagger. It’s drier inside, but the bitter chill remains. Alex hurries off into the depths of the house to start a fire, while you take a slow, aimless wander as if reminding yourself of the place. It feels as if you’ve been gone for far longer than you really have.
In the main dining room, you find the package. It’s not hidden at all, in fact laid out in such a way as to ensure that it catches your attention. A simple thing really, loosely wrapped in crumpled newspaper. Slowly opening it, you find a broken fragment of stone nestled within the wrapping. A short letter accompanies the package, and you waste no time in reading it over.
[Axis Mundi Fragment – Solitude: +1 Solitude Attunement.]
“Dear brother,” the note begins, “I found this within the depths of the labyrinth. There are other fragments down there, I’m sure of it. Come back soon, and we can look for them together. I confess, I’ve been missing you terribly. I dream of you when I sleep, but my dreams are troubled – in them, I see you sinking beneath a great black ocean. They concern me greatly, these dreams.”
And the note, of course, is signed with Gratia’s name.
[1/2]
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