blessed cursed trillium: Lisaera

Roughly 2/11/2022:

Your soft voice reaches out to Xiran Stormcrow, Scribe of the Woodbine, tickling their ear, "Do you fare well?"

You feel a fleeting curiosity brush your senses, silvered and bright, there and gone.

The pointed tips of your ears twitch to hear an errant sound.

You have emoted: Esei lifts their head, warily scanning the darkened woods.

There is nothing to disturb your study. The shadows of the Glomdoring are a comfort, concealing anything which might - or might not - tread therein.

Like a peal of chimes, Xiran's voice echoes in your ear, "** a sense of unforced calm and contentment as silvery aethers hover like a low mist **."

You have emoted: Esei's ears twitch once more as their lips thin into a flat line, but they look away from their careful observations.


Present day:

You resolve yourself to enter the waterfall, and step into its cool waters. You see myriad strange images, each as fleeting as the last before you emerge on the other side.
The Fulcrux of Lisaera.
At the foot of a towering precipice, an otherworldly fog conceals a silvery lake and its expansive banks, making ghosts of the trees which loom around it. Diffuse moonlight paints the surrounding woodland thicket with soft luminescence, infusing it with a quality at times mystical, at others uncanny. Both the bark of oak trees and the frothing fronds of lady ferns enjoy its touch, but so too do the shadows which stretch across the labyrinthine pathways leading further and deeper into the verdant tangle, their shifting silhouettes long, dark - bewildering and mysterious. Bracing and clean, the air tastes of evergreen sap dampened by the petrichor that follows a late summer's rain. An ethereal waterfall falls silently from overhead. Thrumming softly, a shimmering silver offering bowl stands upon a rounded pedestal here. Wreathed about in vines, an elegant altar shaped from shining silver stands here, bathed by moonlight. A large elegant compendium lies here.
There are no obvious exits.

You incline your head politely to those around you.

You drop a blackthorn bottle.

You murmur softly to yourself.

You scoop up a blackthorn bottle.

You put a blackthorn bottle into a shimmering silver offering bowl.
The flames within a shimmering silver offering bowl roar silently, obscuring a blackthorn bottle. When the fire dies down, it is nowhere to be seen.

You have emoted: Esei gives the master shrine of Lisaera a polite, respectful bow.

You resolve yourself to enter the waterfall, and step into its cool waters. You see myriad strange images, each as fleeting as the last before you emerge on the other side.

A stone bridge.
The shadows violently writhe and twist along the ground here, indicating a war shrine of Nocht nearby. There is a very light rain shower. This small bridge provides a crossing point over the Glomdoring River. Constructed of grey stone, its edges are built up to form a low wall, whilst the centre is a well-trod path from south to north. Small symbols of birds and stars are carved deeply into the stone, some barely visible below the lichen and moss, others still clear and vibrant. Along the river, it is possible to see some distance to the west and northeast, as the ashes and willows drop back from the murky waters. To the south, a dirt track leads away into a dense ash forest, whilst the way to the north is dark and shadowy, bordered by blackened, twisted trees. A sedge of galingale is firmly planted in the forest floor. A marjoram bush flourishes here, spreading its delicate scent. Lovely coltsfoot carpets the forest floor. Sprays of chervil cover the forest floor. A mature rowan tree stands proudly here. A solstice stocking has been hung here. Casting darkness all around, a shadow totem thrusts up from the ground, chilling the air.
You see exits leading south and northwest.

You feel a curious brush of silver awareness through the gloom of the nearby river's murmuring. Its touch is light, like twinkling starlight or the glittering of the waxing moon which ascends high overhead.

The pointed tips of your ears twitch to hear an errant sound.

You have emoted: Esei's wings shiver as they straighten, staring down into the water.

The pulsing beam from New Celest's lighthouse surges brilliantly, a shining beacon of hope that cuts through the night sky across the entirety of the Basin of Life.

You think to yourself: ** echoing, unintelligible murmurs, looping in on themselves. **.

Across the heavens, the stars and moon challenge night's dark reign, revealing familiar constellations that tell the tales of myth and legend.

The moonlight shimmers across the river's ever-churning surface, nearly a perfect globe. An ominous time for a child of the Wyrd. A wind brushes through the trees at either end of the bridge, carrying through their twisting limbs to meet you, and it is mild with the sweetness of melting snow.

You have emoted: Esei's cheek twitches slightly, and their grip on their athame tightens.

You think to yourself: ** The murmurs shift and twist, falling into a dozen half-started litanies, echoing senselessly. **.

Shadows swirl around your arm as the Fingerblade of dha'Wyrden-cree digs itself more painfully into your finger.

The brisk wind's touch is gossamer-light against your braid and dark faeling wings. "Shadowed one," murmurs a silken voice, its meaning made clear in the trickle of riverwater, in the rustling of foliage - and for the wyrden power that seeps throughout your surroundings, it is somehow off-key for it. "You have made pilgrimage to and made offering unto My altar. What do you think of My mists? My woodlands?"

The screeching of a crow echoes through the dark woods, sounding almost like harsh laughter.

Midnight shadows coalesce around a new day, and Mother Night embraces the land in utter darkness.
It is now the 12th of Kiani, 612 years after the Coming of Estarra.
There are 19 days until the New Moon

You have emoted: Esei's wings shiver. "With all due respect, it is not something I terribly admire, Lady Silver," they say softly, lifting their gaze. "But I believe I felt Your gaze once upon me, and felt, perhaps, a gift may be... polite."

Many small, glowing red eyes peer out at you from beneath the trees, only to vanish moments later.

"You do not admire them?" The voice is like owl feathers against your senses, tickling them into bright clarity and awareness against the baleful forest surrounding you. A leaf drifts along the river, carried below the bridge and onward, and onward, and it is a curious shade of green, a wrong shade of green - a green tinted silver. "Why?"

You have emoted: Esei's lip twitches downward for a moment.

You think to yourself: ** the whispering ceases, shadows parting to a memory of mist and wood, dew and silver-green leaves. a deep sense of distrust, distaste, and apprehension. **.

The screeching of a crow echoes through the dark woods, sounding almost like harsh laughter.

The mists in your thoughts stir, their caress, even in your memory, gentle and alive with the scent of tree sap and petrichor.

You have emoted: Esei gives a full-body shiver, and the thumb of their free hand comes to rest lightly on the tip of their athame.

The ever-present sense of your heartbeat thrums, beating to the rhythmic pulse of the Drums of the Dead.

You think to yourself: ** they want to cleanse you, to -fix- you, but you're not dirty and you're not broken, you just want to stay where your heart-home is-- **.

You shake your head.

"Not broken," the voice agrees softly with the thoughts which patter through your mind like ferocious storm. More delicate notes, shimmering with wistfulness, dew upon the next few words with emotion swift to evaporate in the oppressive darkness which presses in, ever presses in - a comfort, perhaps. Or a snare. "Only chained."

A large shadow flits across the edge of your vision for a bare instant, vanishing between the trees.

You have emoted: Now, Esei takes a physical step back, from something that isn't truly there. "Do not- touch me," they rasp. "You and others always say that. But no one ever seems to consider that I -choose- to stay."

The silver-green leaf drifts further, and further, until it is out of sight. Perhaps to bank upon the river's shore downstream, or perhaps to find its escape from the forest completely. Its disappearance does not mark the silver presence's departure, however. It whispers sadly to you, "You could be so much more. Your spirit burns so fiercely, shadowed one. Why would you smother that light completely...?"

"Could you not be more dangerous still? Were you to embrace the light as well as the dark?"

You shake your head.

Lilting in an atramentous, ethereal voice, you whisper, "I do not want it."

"And yet," the voice muses, its tone a glitter of silver glancing off the ever-present shadows of the wyrd, "you are drawn to the light and the darkness of My Xiran..."

You have emoted: Esei's thumb digs into the point of their athame, blood beading on the tip. They remain silent, wings shivering open and closed.

You close your eyes and inhale deeply, absorbing the scent of your surroundings.
You let loose a long breath from your lungs, exhaling slowly.

The wind sighs, trailing coruscating motes of light as it brushes past you, like starlight, like something ethereal. As it meanders past, it leaves behind something upon the bridge below you that glitters with the same sheen as the blood you draw from yourself, pulsing with a heartbeat's drumming. "I answer offerings with offerings," the blessed - cursed - voice murmurs to you, "and so I offer this for you. Thank you for your gift, shadowed one. May We meet again."

A ball of ghostly darkness catches a trillium of sanguine moonlight in a twisting shadow and draws it up into your hands.

You have emoted: Esei's ears bounce as they stare at a trillium of sanguine moonlight.

PROBE TRILLIUM
Radiating warmth that drums throughout its being like a heartbeat, bursts of sanguine colour bloom across this gossamer trillium like veins strumming beneath translucent skin. Spun from wisps of tender moonlight, its three fleshy petals frill and crimp into lacy edges, encompassing a spray of anthers that perfume the air with the curious musk of evergreen. Conjured by the innate humidity of cold moonlight meeting vital heat, dew gathers upon the flushed blossom - beading like rubescent blood.
It has 30 months of usefulness left.
It is strangely weightless.
This item is ephemeral and may not be prevented from decaying.
It has the following aliases: trillium, flower.

The silvered presence recedes, allowing the shadows of the Glomdoring to reclaim you fully once more.

You shiver violently.

Dipping your hand into a shadow cauldron, you pull out a long shadow and release it into the air. The room darkens with the churning darkness.
You dip your hands into the surging shadows around you, letting your soul bond with the darkness so that you may drink deeply of its essence.

The swirling shadows heal your body and mind.