pc: jiaoqiu

[sacredpath]

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saturday zero

[sacredpath]

[by saturday evening, shadowheart can be found at the outdoor hotspring. she's sitting in one of the shallower pools in the water, still wearing her sexy angel costume white dress, but sitting hunched so she's sinking in the shallow water up to her neck. she has a glass of mixed drink from the bar here with her.

also, the owlbear cub is playing in the foliage nearby, doing cute things like hunting the lack of animals that are here.

shadowheart waves]

Oh, hello. It's not quite scalding enough to distract, but it's pleasant.

w0, MONDAY

[fried]

[ good afternoon shadowheart, jiaoqiu is out at the boardwalk today! he's dressed like this, sniffing at a box of fries curiously. he puts one in his mouth, and raises an eyebrow.

and then his ears swivel and he pauses, glancing over his shoulder. ]

Hello, Miss Shadowheart. [ ear flicky. ] How are you enjoying the beach? Meow.

[ .................... ]

Hm.

week 0; saturday

[sacredpath]

[well. fuck. let's void, but she will seek him out.]

...Why would he?

week 1; monday

[sacredpath]

[she's out here at night wearing a cheap wig while being menaced by spider skeletons.]

But spiders don't have bones!

w1, FRIDAY

[fried]

[ we're at the library today, hanging out.

jiaoqiu has a book in hand but he's not reading it, really. he's just kind of staring out into space, lost in thought. ]

week 1; saturday

[sacredpath]

[after trial, she's just outside the church, sitting against one of the outside walls. she looks exhausted, her face drawn and pale like she's not feeling very well.]

...I hope, after all that, she's not a violent murderer.

w2, MONDAY

[fried]

[ this is a nonstarter but tell me if you want baby jiaoqiu (of various ages), random backstory changes jiaoqiu, or unaffected jiaoqiu for your straight man needs and i will give you this thing ]

week 2; thursday

[sacredpath]

[what a week! there's bloody people to chase, unless you're on cyoa 2 and this is before that, but afterwards, she's just sitting and having a drink. come join.]

week 2; friday

[sacredpath]

[okay well she's a little bit hungover looking but sorry to everyone who doubted her and told her drinking on thursday is a bad idea, i lived, bitch.

where are we, the void? she's here in the void.]

A room to myself at last.

[wait...]

Um, awful joke. I find it hard to believe anyone would have hurt her.

week 2; saturday

[sacredpath]

[okay. comes and looks for.

she just wants to make sure he's okay, after.]

week 3; monday

[sacredpath]

[hello i'm throwing us right into the thick of it. cw: for eye stuff but the video that's linked censors it.

The funhouse mirrors take you down a path that seems to grow darker as you walk. What is reflected in the mirrors is a hazy landscape, all in grays, with swirling thick darkness that looks like smoke all around. Everything in this land is dead, everything. The ground is cracked and patched. No plants grow here, except for the odd glowing foliage of the underdark, which is adapted to darkness. There are no living animals, but there are beings in the dark. Undead corpses of animals with glowing eyes animated by some evil power, dark shadow shapes, even the corpses of people from time to time, ones who wandered in here and fell.

Other mirrors show flickers of the story of this land. A century ago, this was a thriving and lush landscape ruled over from the nearby castle, Moonrise Towers. There was a market town and many people who lived in the rural areas. But a curse was placed on this land by the goddess Shar. Everyone who once lived here either died or fled, because no life can thrive in the shadows. The shadow curse eats away at anyone who travels through it before they join the armies of undead.

Shadowheart is traveling through this land with her companions, Gale, Karlach, and Astarion. A blessing protects all of them from the worst of the shadows, allowing them to explore, to look for others who have wandered out into the shadows and become lost or missing.

By an abandoned cemetery, they find a little tiefling girl named Arabella. She’s found some magic in her that also offers her protection, even lets her control the shadows - the only reason why she could be out here and still be alive. There’s an inn, not far away, that would offer protection, and many of the other tieflings have taken refuge there, but she refuses to go.

Arabella is looking for her parents, who went missing during an ambush on the group they were traveling with. She recognizes Shadowheart and the party as people who have helped her before and asks that they help her again to find her missing parents. Shadowheart asks Arabella to go to the campsite where the rest of the party is; even if she does have magic of her own, it’s dangerous out here, and she’ll be protected there. Arabella agrees, as long as Shadowheart and the others promise to help.

(Another memory appears on another wall; a cruel woman threatening the girl with a poisonous snake, before Shadowheart intervened; a man and woman who look much like the little girl crying and holding her, expressing gratitude for her safe return, gifting one of their only possessions, a small magical locket, as thanks.)

The path through the mirrors leads to the town’s hospital. The “House of Healing,” a Sharran house of worship. Unlike the rest of the town, it hasn’t been completely abandoned. Inside, undead nurses with headdresses covering their eyes still attend their duties.

Inside one of the hospital rooms, Shadowheart and the others find one of the nurses tending to corpses, gently sponging their heads and feeding them medicine. In the operating theater, the party finds the undead doctor in charge Malus Thorne, who performs surgery on patients who seem to have been kept alive just for this purpose with the help of the nurses.

(Here is video, it’s kind of fucked up but the worst part is censored on Youtube. The dialogue at the end is a little different.)

“Step forward, sister” Thorne gestures to Shadowheart, over the body he’s operating on. “I can see the love of Shar darken your eyes. Be welcome.”

Shadowheart greets him politely, praises how gracefully he speaks the words of Shar.

“Long have I basked in her embrace. A vessel of Shar I will become. Tell me,” he says, his tone teacherly. “What is the guiding principle of the goddess?”

“Absence,” Shadowheart answers, as easily as if she’s attending a lecture.

“Precisely! No other word captures her essence so completely. It is the scalpel led journey that leads from pain to peace.” He begins to stab his scalpel into the skull of the body lying prone on the table, again and again, blood splattering in his wake, and then gestures to show that he has cut out the patient’s eyes. “See? What is the light of eyes but the cancer that causes one to witness the curse of being? If light is the symptom, then darkness is the cure, for in light there is presence, but in darkness there is absence.”

Shadowheart’s companions react to this appropriately, as though something very fucked up is happening here, but Shadowheart just watches, angry.

(Another path has opened up, one that journeys deeper into the hall of mirrors. But it’s pitch black, and whatever ugliness is plain before them in this place of healing, there’s something much uglier down that way.)

The doctor smiles at Shadowheart. “But you, look how the succor of Shar eludes even you. One who walks faithfully in her shadow. See how painfully present you remain.” His voice becomes sympathetic. “Oh sister, we do not wish to see you suffer. Let us cure you.”

Shadowheart responds calmly. “Your nurses are not ready for that. They have been insufficiently trained. How can I trust them to deliver Lady Shar’s mercy?”

“Their incisions are, as yet, streaked with imperfections, I admit,” Thorne says. “How to steady their hands, I wonder?”

“Perhaps they need a better subject to practice on,” Shadowheart suggests. “Not a student, but rather the master.”

He watches Shadowheart for a long moment, and then nods. “...I see now. By example, I must edify and quell the light that blinds us.”

He stabs the patient on the table through the heart with one messy stroke of his scalpel, and shoves the body off the table. In the body’s place, he lies down on the operating table himself.

“Come, sisters. Soothe me!”

The nurses surround Thorne, take their scalpels, and all at once begin to drive the blades into his body, again and again, until there is nothing left but an unrecognizable bloodied husk. Once this is done, the nurses, with no one else to tend to, turn on them, but Thorne was the most dangerous entity here, and without him, the party makes quick work of the nurses.

The undead doctors and nurses are no more, but in one of the hospital rooms, they find bodies that belong to Arabella’s mother and father. There’s no way to recover them; they’ve been operated on and were being tended to by the nurses.

That night, Shadowheart finds Arabella, waiting near their campfire. She tries to tell her that they were unable to save her mother and father, but the girl screams at her that she’s lying and flees into the dark.

(Another dark path opens, down another hallway, something shrouded so that it’s impossible to know what lies there, but you don’t have to take it. This memory can be over now, if you want it to be.)

w3, WEDNESDAY

[fried]

[ i wrote this pregame so it's not really made for the mirror mechanics BUT. walking in through a door and right into a narrow hallway of mirrors, the following plays - his thoughts scrawl across the glass, narrating the scene.

if you can, watch the video clips to go with it because the voice acting does really make it so much better.

The ship is deathly quiet.

You have good hearing - so much that sometimes it hurts to stand in the middle of a crowd of people. You have never heard this ship, or any of the Xianzhou ships, fall this silent. A bad omen.

You have a good sense of smell, too. You could smell the borisin that crept their way onto the ship like vermin, digging their claws into the metal and peeling it away to release their leader. There was not much you could do. You told Feixiao. You led the young ones, too young, the children with swords and no dreams of anything but serving in battle - you led them to the right conclusion, and you hate yourself for it, but what don't you hate yourself for? That doesn't matter. What does matter is you've laid the groundwork. They will do the rest. Your General, and the future you both want.

Ah, right. Your good sense of smell. You can't smell anything other than blood. It's a good thing you lost most of your taste a long time ago. You imagine the taste of iron would be unbearable, here on the ground in this back alley.

You can't breathe right. It hurts so badly - you've never been very good at suppressing pain, and it blares like the loudest of alarms in your heart. You're a healer, you know what the body's limits are, and you know you're stretching them. You know you don't have long.

You look up at the hulking beast in front of you. He looks a little like you - not you, but your species. He's not. Hoolay is a borisin, but somehow, they've managed to all hide their true visages. He grins down at you, teeth and claws stained red with blood. The blood on his claws is yours, but you don't want to think about why his teeth are stained.

"Secrets are a weapon that a hunter cannot live without," Hoolay is saying. "Those who have no secrets are no more than prey, cut open and waiting for death."

You drag in a breath. Choke on it a little.

"What you’re saying is, in your eyes, I am not more than prey that has exhausted all of its secrets, and is simply awaiting its death?" You ask, staring down at the floor rather than Hoolay. Already, there's darkness curling at the edges of your sight, and you know that isn't because you're dying. A side effect.

"Do you think you have some other escape route? Jiaoqiu, I have already peeled back your disguises and defenses layer by layer. I know all the secrets that you and your general have buried so deep," Hoolay growls, voice amused. He thinks he knows. You told him nothing that would hurt your people. You told him things that could sound like secrets, but weren't. That is what you're good for - a clever tongue, quick to lie and persuade. It's all you're good for.

Well. There's one other thing.

"But you have told me all of your secrets too, Warhead," You murmur, eyes still on the floor. Not out of any sense of submissiveness. You simply don't want the borisin to be the last thing you see.

Hoolay laughs. "But you will never have a chance to use them. You will be buried with them right here. Although, you are a fortunate one... After all, you will avoid having to see the tragic future that awaits your general. I'm sure she understands her fate far better than you ever will. One day on the battlefield, she will be overpowered by her ever-intensifying Moon Rage, and finally be torn apart by her own fury and transformation."

He talks too much, you think. But that's alright. That's what you want. You want time. The longer he is here, gloating over you, the longer your General has time to come up with a plan.

"Not even your God can save her from this fate. Although... THEY can lead her to liberation. And the only way to save her is here, in my hands."

Another bloody grin. You huff, and cough, just a little.

"Are you the healer or am I? Are you really that certain of your own judgement?" You ask, idly. Your voice is starting to fail you. It feels like gravel, like trying to enunciate around marbles in your mouth. Gingerly, you rest a hand on your torso, where the worst of the claw wounds are, and turn your head a little, looking out over the wall. Past Hoolay. To the sky, to the world outside this alley, to the sister-ship of your people. You look at the sky.

"I must leave, foxian," Hoolay says, shifting his weight. "But before I go, you know what I must do, don't you?"

And weakly, you reply: "Drink bloodwine... I hear it is a borisin custom to kill prisoners and drink their blood before battle to stir up their madness."

"You really did put hard work into researching us. It is a shame that this is where your journey ends."

And he moves forward. You flinch, knowing what's coming, but it's okay, it's alright, this is your plan. He's right, you did do your research. You knew, since telling Moze to run in the prison, that this might be the outcome, and you are at peace. It's going to hurt, though.

And it does. Hoolay rips into you. Tears flesh from your neck, your torso, like a wild animal. Frenzied, with razor sharp teeth and claws that dig into your arms to keep you still, to stop you from reflexively trying to get away. You can't help yourself - it hurts, you're being mauled, and you cry out, voice ragged and raw, breaking on your screams. Nobody can hear you. Nobody comes to help you.

Hoolay eats and drinks his fill, and tosses you to the ground, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. He must figure there's no point to killing you outright, or perhaps he doesn't even realize you're still alive. He's driven mad by the smell of blood, the taste of blood, and he lets out a roar of laughter before bounding off towards battle - towards Feixiao, your General.

You are left alone, in an alleyway full of bodies.

Clinically, you know you're seconds from death. You can almost see the autopsy report. Bite wounds that extend over a large area, from the patient's neck to his chest. Fractured clavicle. Toxins in the wounds caused flesh to decay and atrophy. Disturbed blood circulation, massive internal bleeding, neurological atrophy, optic neuropathy. Damage to the liver and kidney, impaired lymphatic and immune system. The only part of that report that was Hoolay's fault are the bites, though. The rest was your own doing.

You smile, weakly, opening your eyes to look at the sky one more time.

Enjoy the taste of my fresh blood... Hoolay. Unfortunately, I am not a man without secrets. I still have one little secret hidden up my sleeve.

Your vision is nearly gone. The sky is a smear of pristine blue.

Tumbledust... I drank it a while ago, and the poison is already flowing through my veins. Sooner or later, you will begin to feel the effects. If the most lethal poison known to this world is able to save innocent lives... then it can also be called a great medicine.

You close your eyes for the last time.

I will do my best to cure you... Feixiao, I kept my promise. At the cost of this insignificant life. Bring victory to the Yaoqing.

the memory doesn't end - just peters off, as he bleeds to death alone in an alleyway. the real jiaoqiu stands at the end of the hallway, staring at his body in the glass. ]

w3; thursday

[sacredpath]

[hopefully he is in the hospital. coming to the hospital to see him. actually maybe she helped carry him here. i don't know.]

...Jiaoqiu?

week 3; saturday

[sacredpath]

[it's a great day to be sad. she's less of a crying person and more of an "i literally haven't cried in years" person, but elysia wrote a pretty damn devastating note for her and here, after trial, she will give it the courtesy of some teary-eyed post-trial misery.]

Part of me wishes I had simply cut his throat the moment he started giving attitude about his damned gun.

[scornful is a better mood than sad, at least?]

week 4; monday

[sacredpath]

[picking out a peppermint morningstar and testing its weight in her hands.

anyway, the mood today is sad, but doing a little better than she was over the weekend.]

You would not believe how poorly these hold up against skeletons.

week 4; wednesday

[sacredpath]

[after the party! she's a little bit tipsy and disheveled now, but in a good mood.]

What fun that was.

w4, THURSDAY

[fried]

[ the Blaring Worry continues as he finds her a little later, after he's presumably taken a break from helping to stabilize the three that came out of cyoa - he'll be sitting at her bedside, cleaning his hands with a stressed expression.

he's usually so very good at being level headed, but wow this one was a gutpunch. shadowheart as a baby crawling on her arms and screaming is a mental image he cannot scrub from his brain. ]

week 4; saturday

[sacredpath]

[she's not going far. he can find her probably in the mansion, resting in the lobby. exhausted.]

That was our most action packed yet...

w5, MONDAY

[fried]

[ he is checking out the train today - he's most interested in the italy car, but he's also happy to check out the other ones except for the dogs. they jump on him and he doesn't like it.

he's just finished eating something and is taking a stroll around the colosseum, though he's very sure to not walk into it. we don't need to be fighting lions, unless you want to, but in that case it's going to be jiaoqiu running from the lions and you fighting them.

there's a hint of something green peeking out from his turtleneck, also. ]

week 5; friday

[sacredpath]

[she's hanging around the neighborhood, sitting outside somewhere near the gazebo, phone in her hands, fiddling with the phone charm.]

...I can't believe it.

w5, SATURDAY

[fried]

[ he's somewhere, idk. lounge! somewhere soft, with pillows, just sitting there picking at his tail, staring at nothing. ]

week 6; monday

[sacredpath]

[this can be before or after he is bald if he would absolutely not appear... anyway, she is at the cat cafe, petting some kitties. and also working on trying to form some memory bubbles.]

...Hello, Jiaoqiu. Care to sit?

week 6; thursday

[sacredpath]

[she has been bandaged up, she still looks beat to shit but she's awake. rolling over to look at him.]

Jiaoqiu? Are you awake?

w6, SATURDAY

[fried]

[ he's just in the kitchen, sitting at a table, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. his tail is swishing angrily behind him. ]

week 7; monday

[sacredpath]

[sometime after deda return, probably.]

...Good to see all of their faces again, isn't it?

[or. well. oh. wait.]