ninth house

[Bexley]

" 

If Bexley was a little more level-headed she might think twice before entering the maze. As she is, though - tenacious and overconfident at the least - she sets off to find it as soon as word reaches her ears, the light, unconfirmed whisperings of people asking, was that there before? Do you think there’s anything inside? As far as she knows, Tempus’ relic was never found, which means this… event probably has something do with that. And even if it doesn’t, and Bexley is simply, once again, leaping to conclusions, she wants to see it. Huge hedges sprung up over night? An entire forest, birthed so newly that the leaves are still bristling-fresh? The mystery of it all is right up her alley. 

So here she is, poised just outside the entrance of the labyrinth, enticingly close. If she moved a front leg just a little closer she’d be crossing the border. The temptation is incredible, but Bexley forces herself to peer inside first, just in case; all that stares back at her is a wall of brackish green leaves that fade to shadowed black many feet down, the dirt path unmarred by any footsteps, the sunlight not quite reaching as far as Bexley wants it to go. For a moment she hesitates. There is an undeniable magic around her, and Bexley is no traditional witch child. She’s out of her element. But then again, every moment in Novus has made her feel out of her element, and here she is, precocious, unbruised, and as godly as ever. 

Thus she steps onto the path. Her bleached hooves are soundless in the soft dirt, that svelte frame winding easily between the brush. The sun begins to fade away behind her as she moves deeper into the maze, forcing herself to take slow steps, to look around as she moves, to not act rashly, for once: this is important, she can feel it. And Bexley does not mess up.

@Random Events

love, space

[Random Events]

The Shaman Has Appeared!

As you enter the maze, the world around you seem to dampen and grow darker, the tall hedges casting shadows from every direction as they seem to lean in towards you. The air cools the further you venture in, crystals of ice covering a few delicate leaves on the hedges, the ground hardened under hoof. Each breath of air you take is cold, and small puffs of frost are emitted with every exhale. From somewhere up ahead comes a high pitched cackle, disembodied in the mist.

Rounding the next corner will show a lone figure standing there, his skin as pale and thin as stone, tangled locks obscuring a good portion of his face. Across his body is draped the skin of some animal you don’t recognize, covering frail shoulders.

”Is it the relic of almighty Tempus you seek, Bexley?” he asks, his voice youthful despite his aged appearance, carrying a lilt you cannot place into any of the Courts. You do not know how he knows your name, for he is a figure you have never seen before, and you can only wonder what more he knows about you. ”You will have to follow me to find it.” And with that, he turns and takes off further into the maze, ever leading you northwards. His speed belies his age, for he is constantly just ahead of you, sometimes disappearing into the dim but never venturing far. As he disappears around the next corner, you become aware of another creature lurking somewhere behind you, one of the many beasts to have make the maze its home.

---

@Bexley you’ve found the Shaman! However he is not one to stay and chat, and has already taken off into the brambles. It is up to you to hunt him down or not, but be warned: the maze contains many hidden dangers and beasts lurking within it that you might just get caught up in!

Feel free to write in your own obstacles or beasts, or tag the Random Events account if you would like one given to you! You have until Wednesday, July 19th to get your next reply in, at which point the Shaman will again respond.

Happy writing!

[Bexley]

" 

The maze gets darker and darker until Bexley is half nauseous. She can still see okay, but it catches her off guard, how quickly the weather is changing in here: every ten steps or so she notices more frost on the leaves, a harder crunch of ice under her bleached hooves, the air getting damper and colder. She almost shivers. With each exhale comes a cloud of white air that Bexley watches with fascination, focused on each tendril, the curls it makes in the wet air, how it dissipates within seconds but is replaced just as quickly. Frost may be starting to form over her skin. But nothing compares to the chill that rushes up Bexley’s spine when she hears that noise: an unreal shriek, a laugh, a witch’s cackle, reverberating from somewhere up ahead.

Bex almost stumbles, and forces herself to pause. The hair on the back of her neck is standing up, and her heart is thrashing inside her chest, beating so deep she can feel it in her mouth. Blood rushes to her head in dark waves. What the fuck was that? She strains but can’t see anything ahead; the laugh echoes but belies no more information. For a moment she's frozen with a sickly-cold rush of uncertainty. Then a horrendous, glowing smile splits itself across the girl’s face, her nostrils flare with genuine amusement, and for a short moment she dances in place, hips wriggling, those huge white curls swaying as she prances. In her head, the thought saturated with affection, she thanks Solis. How long has it been since I had a really good adventure? Too long for an idiot adrenaline junkie like her, for someone so hellbent on getting intro trouble. Bexley barks a laugh and bolts forward. 

Winding around the next corner brings her face to face with what must be the source of the laugh: someone ghostly and gaunt, dark eyes, draped in fur. His bones are the loudest part of his body - ribs and hips shouting their presence from each corner of that pale frame. Bexley frowns at him, and draws to a stop. His face is shrouded by hair, his body overwhelmed by the pelts, and he smells foreign as far as Bexley can tell, leaving her utterly confused as to what, exactly, he is, and what he’s doing here. She leaves a respectable distance between them out of caution as much as politeness. And when he speaks, it’s so young, so confident, that Bexley is both pleased and startled to hear the sound of his voice, feeling it’s almost homely in the strangeness of the maze.

Is it the relic of almighty Tempus you seek, Bexley? You will have to follow me to find it. Only a little off put, excitement flares in Bexley’s chest again. The name thing is unsettling but not surprising. Why wouldn’t he know?  She doesn’t even really think he’s of this earth - maybe an off brand version of her own gods - besides, the more people know her name, the better. This situation is both terrifying and right up Bex’s alley. She loves the hot rush of adrenaline that’s coursing through her body, loves the thought that she’s on the edge of something, death or fame, doesn’t matter. Her brain is hazy with gold. The creature takes off, and Bexley darts right after him.

Tempus’ relic! Tempus’ relic! Bexley is away from home, and she’s strong from traveling, strong from putting up with that Day Court nonsense, she’s ready, for whatever bullshit this maze will try to pull on her. She has the love of Solis behind her. That has to be enough.

Deeper and deeper into the maze they go, the man always just ahead of her, the walls of the brambles getting narrower until they scratch at Bexley’s silky flanks, but she pushes harder, slinking through the undergrowth, tugging her hair from the knots of the foliage, refusing to give up when she knows that there is something here. She’s so invested in keeping up that at first she doesn’t notice the sounds behind her. The cooing of something avian, the shadows of that start to move at her sides. She only takes notice when it becomes impossible to ignore: something flying overhead, the beating of huge wings moving cold air toward her, the flapping of birdlike movement making noise just above her head.

Bexley’s step almost, almost falters. She hates things that fly. Absolutely fucking hates them. It’s why she doesn’t trust Maxence, it’s why she was wary of Camdis, it’s the reason she loves the desert, for its lack of all things living. Her whole body crawls with incomprehensible disgust. Keep moving, she tells herself, watching the flash of white that is her guide here. The air is now swirling with multiple pairs of wings, their horrible caws scratching deep into Bexley’s ears. Keep moving. They won’t bother you if you don’t bother them. 

It’s something Laszlo told her, a long time ago - that birds, like most creatures, will stick to their own unless provoked. But this place does not adhere to the Briar family rules. It probably does not even adhere to the rules of common sense. This place is black with the sudden oncoming of night, white with a winter that shouldn’t be here. These birds are huge and black and gory, not like the sparrows that Bex used to jump at. There are two - she thinks - and they’re moving closer to her with every swoop, drifting low, low, until she swears those wings are touching her. She jumps forward with a startled yelp, and now they’re really coming after her. Dark feathers painted in some places with iridescent purple, thick ivory claws, the biggest wingspan she’s ever seen, their eyes yellow-gold with huge, catty pupils. One dives at her side, and Bexley jumps sideways into the brambles. An almost gentle pain blossoms over the shallow cuts that she knows are now lining her ribs.

One of the things lands near the other side of the lane. It’s three feet tall at least, its bony head cocked at her in curiosity, coat shining iridescently even in the near-blackness of the maze. “Fuck you,” she snarls at it, baring every tooth she has; it chatters at her condescendingly. Experimentally she lashes out a hoof, but it takes an easy jump back and misses the blow completely. The chatter is growing louder now. She feels it like a pulse in the back of her brain, chalky and insistent. “Where’s your little buddy,” she mocks it, venomous, but then the reality of the situation sets in, and when she repeats it, the words are laced with genuine fear: “Where’s your little - “

The chain around her neck is pulled upward so hard Bexley screams. The gold is too strong to be broken easily, and the bird is too stubborn to let go, and  she can feel that last breath of air as it’s crushed out of her windpipe. Her legs flail, panic ensues. Then the pressure shifts - the bird has realized the chain won't snap and is now floating right in front of her, trying to pull the necklace over her head. Its wings are endlessly huge, its beak incredibly sharp. Bexley is filled with so much fear she’s not sure if she can move, but in the moment she realizes it’s trying to take her necklace - the last thing on this godforsaken planet she has left of her family - the terror is replaced by a rage so intense that she loses all the feeling in her limbs. Another tug. The chain starts to slips over her ears. Bexley lets out a huge snarl, plants her legs firmly in the wet earth, and then lunges forward with all the force she can muster.

Her head smashes directly into the bird’s abdomen; it lets out a guttural shriek, and a cloud of pearly feathers spatters on either side of her. The creature is blown forward out of view. When Bex looks up, she realizes the hedge across from her now has a bird-shaped hole where her attacker was thrown through it. But she’s pissed off its companion. The one on the ground has its wings outstretched and is cackling wildly, walking toward her in a strange, slow shuffle. “Piece-of-shit knockoff magpie,” she flares, head still fuzzy-black from the impact. 

Then she turns on her heel and bolts as fast she can after the shaman, praying to Solis that it won’t follow.

@Random Events

love, space

[Random Events]

As you take off from the birds, the hedges seem to close in around you, the aisle you run through gradually becoming narrower and narrower until you are squeezing through the brambles, but forward remains the only way to go. Just through the tight space it opens up once more, revealing a black pond of water. Its waters are clear, beckoning you to quench your thirst from fighting within the maze, but its eerie stillness seems off-putting, as though its intentions may be mixed.

Behind you the monster bird continues to cry, forcing its way through the hedges as it tries to reach you.

---

@Bexley

You now have until Wednesday, July 26th at 11:59pm PST to get one last reply in before the Shaman reappears, so please reply accordingly!

Happy writing!

[Bexley]

" BEXLEY BRIAR "

Bexley almost trembles when the maze begins to close around her: for a minute the omnipresence of the bushes escaped her notice, blocked out by the sound of the bird catching up to her, and the frenetic whirling of her legs, and the intensity with which her heart is pounding in her chest, but now as she turns another corner she is forced to face the reality of the situation. All her paths are narrowing. Leaves whistle against her side, silky and damp before they turn to brambles - and then Bexley winces, feeling the toothy scrape of thorns across her skin as she wriggles through the tunnel. Her shoulders go damp with dribbling blood. 

She pulls her chin to her chest and tries to move head-first through the bushes. Bexley feels the cold, chunky gold chain pressed flat to her throat and tries to breathe deep, to calm the wild thrashing of her heart, but instead her brain trips over itself, back to the cawing of the bird that’s getting louder and louder. The maze is filled with laughter and screams. A visceral shudder crawls its way up and down Bexley’s spine, all the way, every way, until her teeth itch. 

Still she presses forward, disgusted but persistent, whorls of hair getting gently torn from the nape of her neck, the bird cackling behind her, slender body wriggling with the effort is takes to push her way through the foliage, hooves digging up huge clumps of dirt wet with rain and ice. A cold sweat frosts her golden skin; eyes shift desperately over the path to find some shred of light but fail. Her blood thrums loudly through each vein. With a last unsteady step her shoulders break through a chunk of undergrowth, and Bexley trips forward into an open clearing. 

Cold air blasts her in the face, whips her white hair into a frenzy. A shiver wracks her slender body as the temperature drops at least five degrees, freezing wind whipping off the surface on the pond, sending the leaves into a cloud of dark-green movement that whistles almost carnally. A guttural, growling caw sounds through the air above her head - closer, now, than it has been in a long time. Bexley startles and leaps forward. The pond water is black as night and utterly still, its bank edged with brackish moss. Her throat is starchy with thirst, but something about the water is entirely off-putting, almost ethereal. 

The moon glints high overhead, but not a trace of it is reflected in the water; another shriek sounds behind her, and Bexley. twitching slightly, moves toward the edge of the pond. After a moment of contemplation her hoof grazes the water. The bottom of the lake is lined with round pebbles that roll as Bexley puts her weight down on them, and then she’s tilting forward all at once, unbalanced, face-first, towards the surface of the water that’s still entirely inanimate, scrabbling for a foothold: by the time she finds a steady way to stand she’s up to her chest in freezing black water, gasping for breath, shocked by the cold that’s descending over her whole body. Her eyes water blindly.

She turns back toward the bank, attempting to move out of the water, and stops short. The bird has reappeared. Glowering, horrific, a shining purple shape against the blackness of the maze, cackling, chattering, those cat-eyes huge and sharp. Bexley’s heart stutters deep in her ribs. She’s started to lose feeling in the lowest parts of her legs, the water so frigid her head is going almost-black. The bird snickers. Bexley takes in a painful inhale and with incredible effort takes a step toward the bank, ignoring the part of her brain that’s begging her not to go towards the bird, but knowing she’ll freeze if she stays in here even a few minutes longer: talk about a rock and a fucking hard place. Yet still her heart thrums with a wild purpose, with a Biblically intense need to win, no matter what happens in these few feet between her and the manifestation of what she hates most.

The bird seems to grin. Sloughing through the tar-like pond, Bexley forces herself to take another step with a tingling leg, and bares her teeth, the only slash of light visible in a nightmarish, impending darkness. 

@Random Events

love, space

[Random Events]

The Shaman Has Appeared!

The bird begins to hop and chatter in excitement, pacing back and forth along the bank as you approach. Its bright eyes glint menacingly, but it keeps its distance as you make your way out of the water. For a moment it stills, eyes locked upon your own as its jabbering fades and its frenzied movements come to a halt.

In the spacing between two heartbeats, it disappears, leaving behind nothing but mist in its wake.

“So, you’ve made it to the center of the maze,” the Shaman says in his lilting voice from behind you, seemingly unaffected by the frigid water as he stands fetlocks-deep. “You’ve made it past my friends and their tricks. All that remains is for you to answer my riddle. Get it right, and what once was lost may again be found—get it wrong, and I will leave you here to face the Maze once again, without my guidance.

“Answer me this:

“This thing repeats, no man ever yet did see,
it never was but is always to be.
From Orien’s first breath to Caligo’s great dark,
Birthed from nothing and returning thenceforth.
It leaves behind a single sign:
the passing of the sun across the sky.”

---

@Bexley

You may write your character interacting with the Shaman, but please pm your response to the Random Events account! Title the pm as “RIDDLE—Character Name.” You have until Sunday, August 6th to get your answer pm sent! Your IC may be made during that time or after the winner is selected. If multiple correct answers are received, a dice roll may be used to decide who the winner is.

Happy writing!

[Random Events]

The Shaman Has Spoken!

The Shaman's sneer deepens, a jagged line across his face as he arches his serpentine neck back to peer down at you. A long pause stretches between the two of you, your answer hanging heavy on the air.

"Wrong."

With that the mist returns, crawling up his legs and over his spine, thickening until his entire body is obscured. When it again clears the Shaman is gone, in his wake a strange darkness falling across the maze.

Leaving you alone.

---

Bexley

Your answer was incorrect; the correct answer was time. It is up to you whether you decide to roleplay your character finding their way out of the maze or not; you no longer need to tag the Random Events account in your reply unless you want to continue writing to the prompts. There is no longer a time limit on these threads!

Happy writing!