You are standing on a hill in a vast expanse of green. Far out in the distance, you see two things moving toward you. You feel compelled to approach them. As you get closer, you can see they are horses, but that is some weird fucking horse. Their legs are blocky, their bodies are stocky, and they have wings and horns! And their colors! One is a very pristine white, as if it is bathed in bleach daily. It has a yellow sun on its flank. The other one is a dark blue, like the night sky. It has a black spot and a crescent moon on its flank. That’s just not natural.
Suddenly, the world starts fading away. You realize you’re not standing up at all, but rather lying down on a hard and chilly surface. You try to roll over to get comfortable, but it just makes you more aware of how uninviting the surface is.
Opening your eyes, you have a look around. You find yourself in a large stone room with partially collapsed walls and no ceiling. It's pretty large, and vaguely oval. The ceiling is gone, giving you a great view of the sky. It looks like there used to be several pillars supporting the ceiling, but some of them are broken and the rest have nothing to support.
There are several large windows, through which you can see a large forest surrounding the building. There are large wooden double doors on one of the narrow parts of the oval. The doors are closed. Opposite the doors, through the nonexistent ceiling, you can see a large castle connected to this room through a tower. The castle obscures your view of the sun, though you can still see the sky painted red by its glow. The air is chilly and humid. You find yourself glad to be wearing socks; cold stone is not pleasant to walk on barefoot.
In the middle of the room is a structure with a large stone orb on the top, and five arms each holding a smaller stone orb. The large stone is mossy, but the smaller ones look pristine, with symbols carved on them. It looks like the symbols are meant to represent some geometric shapes; you see a triangle, a square, a diamond, a pentagon, and an octagon.
Fortunately, you’re not naked. Unfortunately, this is not really your style of clothing. Your legs are covered by comfortable black cargo pants. Your torso is covered by a white v-neck t-shirt and a brown tweed jacket, reminding you of your grandfather. He thought it was great formal wear, and even wore it to your uncle’s wedding. Your feet are covered by a pair of socks. You are somewhat thirsty and slightly hungry, but not tired.
Now knowing the basics of your situation, you look out the windows to get a better sense of your surroundings. A large ravine surrounds you on all sides, with a rickety-looking rope bridge crossing it. There is a path leading from the bridge to where you are, but it is mostly overgrown. The forest around this place starts on the other side of the ravine.
Obviously, you’re in an unfamiliar location. The best way to make sense of the situation would be to find other people. With that in mind, you push one of the large wooden doors open, and walk outside.
It would appear that you are in the entryway to a large castle. The main part of the castle is severely damaged, looking like a large meteor struck it in the center and brought most of it down.
You walk around the castle once, coming full circle. It looks like the ravine goes all the way around. There is a set of stairs winding down into darkness on the other side of the ravine, a couple hundred meters counterclockwise from the bridge. Some of the castle towers are still standing, but you don’t know if you’d be able to get into them. Maybe if you had a rope and a grappling hook you could climb up to a tower window, but there’s no telling if the stone would hold your weight. The same would of course apply to free climbing.
Not having seen any obvious entrances to the castle, you make the decision to see where the stairs lead. You make your way across the bridge, carefully to start, but it seems to support your weight… at first. A little after the halfway mark, one of the ropes on the castle side comes off its support, almost sending you plummeting to your doom. Fortunately, you were already holding on to the ropes for balance, and catch yourself before anything bad happens.
Grabbing onto the remaining ropes with your legs, you carefully shimmy the rest of the way. It takes a little effort to get up onto the edge of the ravine, but you manage it without falling, which is a definite plus.
That was a close brush with death. You take a couple minutes of deep breaths to calm your pulse to reasonable levels. Then, you resolve yourself to be more careful with decaying ropes in the future.
Having collected your thoughts, you attempt to see where the path leads in the forest. However, you find that it’s far too dark to make out any details. Instead, you turn and head toward the stairs as originally planned.
Your descent is long and time-consuming. As you get further down, it starts getting darker, but slowly enough that your vision adjusts naturally. Down in the darkness there is no significant flora except for a small bunch of yellowish brown mushrooms with inverted umbrella-shaped caps.
A vague path leads you through the ravine to a crystalline tree-shaped in a small cave. It is about twice your height and has some strangely shaped slots on it. On the trunk is a sun and a moon, and on five of its branches are hexagons. In the center is a star.
What do you do?
Chapter 3: Investigation and Further Events
examine the fur
The fur is long, you’d guess around 30cm. It’s blue and slightly transparent, and if you hold several up together there are distinct white dots spread pretty evenly. As you shift the strands around, you notice that the white dots stay in a fixed location, even if you twist or fold the fur. You can’t tell what kind of animal it’s from.
look for tracks
Looking around, you see two distinct sets of tracks. One is huge - you couldn’t possibly have missed it unless you were blind. It has a pad and five claws, and is about 60cm wide. The other is smaller, about 15cm wide, with a pad and four toes. This one is missing claw marks, suggesting it might be a large cat of some sort.
The large tracks follow the path of knocked-down trees, both into and out of the clearing. The smaller ones also follow the path, but end in the clearing.
make a note in my notebook: "Castle trail contains large beast trail. Must lead to large supply of water eventually. Follow if desperate."
make another couple of notes; "Castle has shelter, but cannot be accessed. Cave near castle has shelter."
You make some notes in your notebook about your findings and deductions.
Check the skies. Sun sets in west and rises in east. Wait a few hours later and check it. Based on where it went, you can judge where you could go and what direction is where, so you hopefully don't need landmarks as often.
You remember where the sun was when you woke up, it having been in the process of rising. Base on that, you deduce that direction to be east. It now being at its zenith means that it is directly to your south - or north, if you’re in the southern hemisphere.
Look for cat tail if you get hungry.
follow the path
You get back to following the path, keeping an eye out for cat tail - even though you don’t expect it to grow in a forest, as it prefers wet environments.
After some further walking, your feet are starting to hurt, so you sit down on a rock for a quick break. As you are resting, you notice something move through the trees, about the size of a large dog.
The sun is about a third of the way down to the horizon from its zenith. You are rather thirsty. You are somewhat hungry. You are slightly tired. You could go for some nicotine right now.
Chapter 2: Trekking the Forest
look around for sign of any entryways, perhaps obscured from sight
You do not see any kind of entrances in any part of the cave.
Go deeper if possible, otherwise memorize this place's location (as shelter) and leave
You commit the location to memory, making sure you’ll be able to find your way back here in the future. It shouldn’t be too difficult, considering there’s a large landmark to show you the way.
Take a good look around the local area at the bottom of the stairs too, just in case.
At the bottom of the stairs, there is a faint path leading up to the cave. The bottom of the ravine is dirt and small rocks. There are several clusters of mushrooms, presumably the only things capable of growing in the darkness.
check our pockets.
In your pockets, you have:
*An android phone (no reception, two days of battery presuming minimal use)
*A pair of earbuds
*A coin (one ounce, 99.9% silver)
*A lighter (about half full)
*A pack of cigarettes (18 left)
*Two condoms
*A wallet (containing a debit card, a driver’s license, twenty Euro, and several receipts dated between 14. March 2023 and 5. April 2023)
*A pack of tissues
*A keyring (three keys, bottle opener)
*A ballpoint pen (black)
*A small notebook (10x20cm, millimeter paper, 48 pages)
These being items you're used to carrying in your pockets, you reckon you wouldn't have noticed the weight of them, but rather the absence thereof.
Check for any paths other than the one we already know about. Unless we find a path and have a reason to choose it over the one we know about, start walking down that path.
You know there is a path leading from the bridge into the forest, as well as one from the bottom of the stairs to the cave. You can not see any other paths.
You climb back up the stairs and start following the path to the forest. It’s a rough path, and you have to climb at times, but you manage to follow the path reasonably well. You come to a spot where it looks like a lot of trees have been knocked over. The cleared area is vaguely circular, with a path of knocked down trees leading away to the left of the path. Scattered around the clearing are tufts of transparent blue fur.
The sun has reached its zenith. It has been at your back for most of your trip, though it was to your right for parts of it. You are thirsty. You are slightly hungry. You are slightly tired.
