THE WRITTEN WYRD

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<h1 class="tt">[[THE WRITTEN WYRD|walk the path]]</h1> //a fate, (un)sealed// <details><summary>credits</summary><a href="https://codepen.io/georGEO1989/pen/DzBmqw">shuffled paper background</a> <a href="https://codepen.io/aitchiss/pen/QWKmPqx">folded paper background</a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11288587363/in/album-72157639585298964">damask pattern background</a> <a href="https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/skarsvag/">coast near skarsvag, norway</a> <a href="https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/natural-cylinders/">natural granite cylinders</a> <a href="https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/york-crypt/">york cathedral, crypt under the altar</a> <a href="https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/palace-mughal-emperor/">palace of the mughal emperor</a> </details>

<<link '<span class="menu back" title="previous passage" tabindex="0"></span>'>><<run Engine.backward()>><</link>> <<link '<span class="menu settings" title="settings" tabindex="0"></span>'>><<run UI.settings()>><</link>> <<link '<span class="menu restart" title="restart game" tabindex="0"></span>'>><<run UI.restart()>><</link>> <<link '<span class="menu next" title="next passage" tabindex="0"></span>'>><<run Engine.forward()>><</link>>

stacked letter backgrounds: https://codepen.io/georGEO1989/pen/DzBmqw?editors=1100 color palette: https://lospec.com/palette-list/treasure-map-paper-color

You set the unopened letter down and turn away. This is a fate you wish to leave unsealed. You knew it the moment you smoothed a hand over the seal. Felt the rigid wax against your unwelcome fingers. This is not your story to unearth. ✷ ✷ ✷ Not your history, its players far removed from your life and those you know. There is a story here that you leave unread. There are questions here that you leave unanswered. You walk away satisfied with what you know—[[and what you don’t.|title]]

This happened. It happened. It has to happen. /* [[intro]] */<<link "But //how// did it happen?" "intro">><</link>>

You found the letter in the same place it began all that time ago—or perhaps, just the other day, last week, a century from now. It doesn’t matter when. All that matters is where. ✷✷✷ [[go to HER BEDROOM|bedroom]] or [[leave it|pre-title]]

<<linkreplace "This is the day before it happened. They weren’t happy—but they had each other.">> <<cycle "_b1">> <<option "My beloved">> <<option "My heart">> <<option "My love">> <<option "My life">> <</cycle>>, I’ve left this for you in a place we both know best—your—well, our—bedroom. A little crude, I know, but I had to ensure you’d get it. You can be a bird sometimes: flighty. It’s not an insult. It’s one of the many things I <<cycle "_b2">> <<option "love">> <<option "adore">> <<option "find comforting">> <</cycle>> about you. Unlike that filthy crown we call husband. And unlike that corpse of a crown, <<linkappend "I love the feeling of you that still lingers within me.">> Your scent, your essence, your secretions.<</linkappend>> Now //that’s// more than a little crude. I won’t apologise—<<linkappend "you know what you signed up for when you decided to love me.">> I wish we could leave each other outside the shadow of the corpsecrown. I wish we could leave with our children. But I know they wouldn’t want to leave. Not with how deep their roots are latched to this lifeless rock.<</linkappend>> And I think, well at least I hope, I have a way for us to love out loud. I’ll find your response along the path to freedom. Find me in the garden. <span id="g">--Grey</span> ✷✷✷ [[go to BONE GARDEN|garden1]] or [[leave it|pre-title]] <</linkreplace>>

<<linkreplace "This is the night they met in the bone garden. Amid those pale, porous obelisks through which wind whistled in eerie song. They met in a copse of ribs, bleached from time.">> <<cycle "_g1">> <<option "Darling">> <<option "Lover">> <<option "Sky">> <<option "Adoration">> <</cycle>>, You should be more careful, dear heart. You are immensely lucky I found your letter before the children did. Regardless... It warmed me to read your words—<<linkappend "as crude as they are sometimes.">> And I know this is not as crude as you can be. Alas.<</linkappend>> I implore you even, in writing not to speak of our husband. It seeps into the mind, it corrupts our children, and transforms this lifeless land. I do not want it to taint what we have. Even more so, I <<cycle "_g2">> <<option "am afraid">> <<option "am unsure">> <<option "think they know">> <</cycle>>. My family loves me as much as they watch me—the two are the same to them, I think. They know little else. But our meetings have become so much more <<cycle "_g3">> <<option "frequent">> <<option "pleasurable">> <<option "dangerous">> <</cycle>> that I fear I am being watched by more than just the corpsecrown. It was never like this back in Nok... I wish you were with me. I also you wish you were far away from here so you would not have to fear as I do. I want to see you, but not too soon. Meet me in the catacomb chapel and find this letter where we take His sacrament. <span id="w">--White</span> ✷✷✷ [[go to CATACOMB CHAPEL|chapel]] or [[leave it|pre-title]] <</linkreplace>>

<<linkreplace "The chapel is, was, wrought black iron grotesqueries and ochre ceramic walls, an opulence second only to the original in Nok. They met where the Palace of the Stranger’s tendrils connect, and it’s heartbeat is strongest. They were playing a dangerous game. Where they blinded by love—or testing the very idea of destiny?">> <<cycle "_c1">> <<option "Love of my life">> <<option "Moon to my sun">> <<option "My dark flower">> <<option "My bird">> <</cycle>>, The allogene is dead—and //you// are my lover now. We blaspheme in the face of God’s Writ so near the innermost sanctum of the allogene’s holiness by writing these letters. And yet you left your message in the place where we take His—//its//sacrament. There is nothing more noble than that. <<linkappend "I hope you still feel my appreciation for the rest of the day.">> I can still taste your sweetness on my tongue as it warm my loins and heart.<</linkappend>> I long to lie once more in your bed without the threat of the corpsecrown lingering over us in this accursed place. But our foul husband aside: be strong. The Hypsithrone are children, <<cycle "_c2">> <<option "the oldest">> <<option "Daumhint">> <</cycle>> is only fifteen this year. And they love us as much as they do that thing they call father. You have nothing to fear from babes. They shall understand that we deserve to be happy. <<linkappend "We deserve to live beyond the shadow of this barren rock for which we are bred to birth life to. ">> We deserve to love freely, out loud.<</linkappend>> A return to Nok is closer than you think, and I promise—I will do //anything// to take you back home. If you’re still afraid, find this letter in the garden, and I shall tell you everything. Otherwise... meet me where there is freedom and bondage. On the shore. <span id="g">--Grey</span> ✷✷✷ [[go to BONE GARDEN|garden2]], [[go to SHORE|shore]], or [[leave it|pre-title]] <</linkreplace>>

<<linkreplace "There was still indecision, obvious in the choice to double back. But it’s clear the decision had been made. It was going to happen.">> <<cycle "_g1">> <<option "Sun to my moon">> <<option "Fire to my shadow">> <<option "Sweetest light">> <<option "My sole delight">> <</cycle>>, I must admit, my nerves are water. I wish I was with you more. These hours we are apart, time turns to molasses and I fear that everyone in the palace—everyone on the island—knows what we are doing. You call me bird, sweetness, but you are the one who is going to set us free. I am wingless and weepy. I am sorry you had to comfort me in the shade of bones once again. Do not take my hesitations as anything more than the effluvial fears they are: you //do// matter more than that sick <<cycle "_g2">> <<option "dead">> <<option "dying">> <</cycle>> crown. <<linkappend "You matter more than whatever it put in me and whatever I pushed out for it.">> I just hope the Hypsithrone, when they learn of our escape, will see why we had to do this. They are still children yet.<</linkappend>> Though I am cautious of who may or not know, I have made my decision. I will meet you by the shore, where <<linkreplace "our future">>our certain future<</linkreplace>> awaits. <span id="w">--White</span> ✷✷✷ [[go to SHORE|shore]] or [[leave it|pre-title]] <</linkreplace>>

This is the night it happened. Hours before the end, they met on the scoured beach where pale bones sat amid grey sand as water lapped at windswept shores. The shoreline is much further south than it used to be then. Or maybe it will be. ✷✷✷ <span id="w">[[White]]</span> | <span id="g">[[Grey]]</span> or [[leave it|pre-title]]

<<cycle "_w1">> <<option "My everything">> <<option "My all">> <<option "My world">> <</cycle>>, <<linkappend "I am uneasy. But I am still here.">> I love you too.<</linkappend>> <span id="w">--White</span> ✷✷✷ [[go to LUMINOUS HOSUE|house]] or [[leave it|pre-title]]

<<cycle "_g1">> <<option "My dear">> <<option "My dream">> <<option "My doe">> <</cycle>>, <<linkappend "If you’re prepared. I am too.">> I love you.<</linkappend>> <span id="g">--Grey</span> ✷✷✷ [[go to LUMINOUS HOSUE|house]] or [[leave it|pre-title]]

6.Arahnisanu, 15 <<linkreplace "A.S.">>After Settling.<</linkreplace>> Journal, today my siblings and I <<cycle "_h1">> <<option "killed">> <<option "disposed of">> <<option "removed">> <</cycle>> my mother and her <<cycle "_h2">> <<option "friend">> <<option "lover">> <</cycle>>. They were kissing when we found them. <<cycle "_h3">> <<option "It looked like they really loved each other">> <<option "It looked like what Tuonelda and I do sometimes">> <</cycle>>. <<linkappend "They weren’t kissing for long because Maxikatus shot them through.">> I hate that I’m envious of her skills. Skills //I// should have—//I’m// the oldest, I deserve them.<</linkappend>> As the oldest it was my job to tell the <<cycle "_h4">> <<option "mothers">> <<option "concubines">> <<option "traitors">> <</cycle>> that they’d committed heresy against the corpsethrone. Father told me most of what to say as I’m not really clear on the details of exactly what their heresy was—I know it was really bad, though. Then one of them, I can’t remember who, they’re one now, asked us what sin they committed. I <<cycle "_h5">> <<option "said">> <<option "was told to say">> <<option "was commanded to say">> <</cycle>> that they defied their concubinal purpose by thinking they had a choice. They looked really sad to hear that. Anyway, after searching them, we found they had something father’s mind-voice called a <<linkappend "Cor, a tool lesser alchemists created for spacial travel.">> But it felt powerful; how can something created by these lesser mystics feel so //powerful//?<</linkappend>> Dulcidyri showed me how to use the Cor to punish them. First we used it on <<cycle "_h6">> <<option "the brave one">> <<option "Grey">> <<option "<span id='blk'>.</span>">> <</cycle>> and hammered her hand into the ground. Then we used it on <<cycle "_h6">> <<option "the nervous one">> <<option "White">> <<option "<span id='blk'>.</span>">> <</cycle>> and pinned her hand over the other’s. When I activated the Cor it was really bloody, and looked even more painful. Two became one like a red whirlpool, or a marbled cut of meat. <<linkappend "One moment they were whole">>, holding each other<</linkappend>>, and the next they were half-slabs of people. The cleaving wasn’t neat //at all//. It stained the shore in gristle and offal—thank spirits, I didn’t have to clean all that up. I took my mother to the bone garden and buried her in the cartilage soil. She probably won’t fertilize anything there since I don’t think the island has ever grown anything on it, but it’s better than tossing her in the Arbour and clogging up the trees. Journal, I’m not sure if I miss my mother. When I looked into her eyes before she died, <<linkappend "I didn’t really see anything of the woman who raised me.">> Tuonelda tells me that when someone loves you, you can see it in their eyes. I think I see it in Tuonelda’s eyes when we kiss. I think.<</linkappend>> I’m not sure if I’ll miss her. But she was a heretic, so I suppose the island is far better off. I’m going to the bone garden tomorrow. I want to see if anything’s bloomed. ✷✷✷ [[go to PALACE OF THE STRANGER|palace]] or [[leave it|pre-title]]

<<cycle "_p1">> <<option "Holy father god-king">> <<option "Allogene most almighty">> <<option "Supreme corpsecrown, the flesh to which we Sacrifice">> <</cycle>>: the blaspheming whores have been dealt with, your grace. Daumhint and the Falesskarr children buried what remains of their mothers beneath the bone garden. <<linkappend "We were unable to clean up the shore, your grace, so the Cor-pinned hands still remain.">> Last night, when I went to try and remove them again, I found their fingers entangled with each other like flowers. I think, your grace, they are the only things that will ever grow on this island. Perhaps heretics do have some use, in that regard.<</linkappend>> We shall do better to monitor the concubine’s palaces, as by your will and word passed down to the hypsithrone. <<linkappend "This happened.">> [[But it shall never happen again.|title]]<</linkappend>>