Destiny City is a large place, with a large population. It’s not uncommon to find a lost item here or there. Maybe a keychain, an earring, a book.
But, a six sided die? That’s different.
While traveling through Destiny City, you find a strange little object. It looks like old, stained wood, but something shiny in it catches your eye. How could you resist picking it up? But then, maybe you've found one of these dice before. Maybe you remember the Gameboard, already.
That's okay.
Even if you know better than to pick it up, all you have to do is look at it, and it's ensnared you. Again.
It looks like a normal die in terms of shape, and each side has a gilded number, one through six, carved into it. The most interesting part of it all is that the dice seems to be made of old, stained wood with fossilized opal throughout the whole piece. Something about it called to you, and now that it has your attention, a harsh wind slams into you. Darkness falls all around you–and then, slowly, a path illuminates. It’s black all around you; there’s no light, but you can see clearly marked spaces.
A line of squares unwind in front of you, each clearly marked.
You can’t see anything around you, can’t feel anything else–just the gameboard. And the die. Whether its in your hand or on the ground where you left it, it's there with you.
Even if you don’t recognize the game, you don’t really need instructions to know how to play–you have a die, and you have a path. In the distance, you can barely make out a dark wooden platform at the end of the path, but it seems to have the same fossilized opal inlay as the die–and pretty golden symbols along the rim.
You can’t step out of your square. Trying to leave the gameboard results in you walking to an invisible barrier and it feels like slamming into a glass wall. You cannot leave your space–unless the die says you can. If you want to get out of here, you’re going to have to roll your way there–but it isn’t so easy.
Strange gold markings differ from one square to the next. There’s no telling what they mean–you’re going to have to land on them to find out.
Though, judging by the tension in the air, it’s probably not going to be anything good.
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Space 0: You have arrived here; nothing happens until you roll your die.
While she didn't know much about what was happening in the city, Celadon understood enough to know that she should avoid the graveyards. At first, she thought that was where she was supposed to be, as someone gifted with a sliver of power and the price of a conscience. But, between Cybele's lessons on Negaverse structure and her run-in with the girl adorned with bat wings, she learned that discretion had some value to it. That there were people more powerful than her with the ability to stand up to adversity more overtly.
This did not bother her as much as she thought it would. Celadon expected to be more sorely disappointed that she could not wade into the deep end of the war proper and acclimate herself there. Perhaps it was that she already had her hands full.
Celadon left the house with the intention of learning a little bit more. She had reached the exhausting point of sorting her best friend's affairs where she couldn't decide where to begin next, and the remaining projects on hand were overwhelming to even consider. She always took those times as a cue to leave and clear her head — take a walk among the autumn leaves, go for a hike, maybe walk the neighborhood as Celadon. Given how dark it was outside, she opted for the last option.
She liked the narrow old streets and alleys a little better, as she would occasionally find youma there. She was still learning about what to do with them, that they couldn't be negotiated with like they were people, and that there wasn't evidence of a fight left over once they were gone. With the coming holiday, she expected she would find one.
What she found was something shiny, sitting just within the cusp of a floodlight in the foggy night. She got close, stooped, picked it up — a die, carved of wood, with numbers rather than pips. She let out a small huh at the curiosity of the thing, and when she was about to set it down, she noticed the sprawl of tiles before her.
Space 4: Something smells rotten. You can’t see very far into the darkness, but if you squint closely a dark form seems to be dragging itself along the ground. Sometimes you see a pale hand almost close enough to grab you–or, maybe something does grab you. It’s cold, and frightening, and it’s trying to drag you out of bounds.
Celadon knew the game board — if that's what it was — wasn't there before. She walked this alley enough times to know that with certainty. And nothing about the board suggested kids had a hand in it; she didn't know anyone who could design something so intricate, and so sensitive as to know when someone picked up its die.
There was a mystery to it, certainly. Then there was the stirred remains of her girlhood when she used to look forward to playing games. She wasn't sure if she would care for this one, or if it would turn out to be a trap, but she told herself to be aware regardless.
On the ground, the die had glowed with the number 4. She picked it up, then, and began strolling down the game board tiles. One, two, three, four spaces. She halted on the fourth tile. It was then that Celadon realized the darkness had thickened, and with it came an acrid stench. It smelled of rot, but not the vegetable rot that she would occasionally catch a whiff of in the back of the fridge. Her nose wrinkled; she felt that if she was made to stomach it for much longer, she would vomit.
A shuffling, shambling sound swept all around her, and Celadon couldn't make out any shapes in the darkness. Having had enough of the smell, she made to roll the die, but a putrified hand seized her angle as soon as she stooped to throw. She clutched the die then, her breath caught in her throat, as she used that wooden block to bludgeon the hand that seized her. It tried to drag her off, but she resisted with all the strength she could muster, going so far as to kick the hand with her free foot. Finally it fell away, and Celadon scrambled back up to her feet.
Having had enough, she tossed the die ahead of her. It landed on a 6.
Space 10: A swampy smell fills the air. You take a step, and you seem to sink into it. Mud creeps over your feet, and you sink rapidly. Ankle deep, knee deep. Whether or not you squirm and fight against it, you are sinking. The mud is crushing and painful, and if you sink too deep it steals the breath from your lungs. There’s nothing to grab onto; you have to roll your dice quickly before that too gets sucked into the muddy quicksand.
This — this was vegetable rot. This was that back-of-the-fridge smell that taught her to be more careful about what she purchased and when she purchased it. And, as her foot reached the final tile of her roll, it sank with a squelch into some kind of mud.
Celadon grimaced. It wasn't the mud itself — she'd stepped in plenty of it while hiking. Some trails simply never dried out, and any hiker using them learned to adapt and move on, or they used nearby stones or fallen logs. She had no problem marching straight through. The difference was, when she was Kaðlín, she was always wearing shoes. Nothing open toed, nothing that would easily get soaked with the weather.
Out here, as Celadon, she was stuck in sandals. Sandals that let every square inch of mud roll over her toes and squelch between them, cold and wet and viscous and textured like stones and twigs were stirred into the gritty mess.
She tried to pull her foot out, but the vacuum caused by the mud was so great that it pulled her further in. With a yelp, Celadon felt herself lurch forward, and soon her other foot was stuck in the mud. With another squelching slurp, she was up to her knees. Then her waist. All the while, she was casting about for the edge of the game board or even a toppled trash can she might use to push herself closer to the edge, but she only found more mud.
As she paddled, as she tried to swim in it, Celadon felt the mud closing around her chest. As panic set in, and with little else she could do, she threw the die that she kept so clutched in her hand. It landed just atop the next tile and rolled to a 4.
Space 14: The ground is sticky. You land on this and immediately dip, as though you’ve stepped on a trampoline. Close inspection reveals that you are standing on an intricately woven web–and your shoes are stuck. And something is skittering just on the horizon.
Once the die had landed, it was as if the patch of swampy mud never existed. Celadon found herself lying face-down on a benign game board tile, though she was still covered in the rotten, muddy mess. She found that somehow reassuring, for it was a guarantee that she did, in fact, experience that loathsome endeavor.
Celadon gathered herself up, steeled herself, then took the next four spaces slowly while she racked her brain for what might come next. First, there was the smell of rot, then a corpse hand that grabbed her. Then there was a tile full of mud that wanted to suck her down into the depths. They seemed, for lack of a better phrase, seasonally appropriate. Still, they seemed too dangerous for any prank that a normal person might pull off. But, if the third space she landed on followed the same trend, she might expect more Halloween-themed occurrences.
Like rows of corn and a revving chainsaw. Howling wolves. Witches on broomsticks. Haunted pumpkins. But, even as she thought about them, they seemed too benign compared to the first two spaces.
Then her foot touched the final space. The ground gave and she almost bounced, save for the fact that she was stuck fast. As she wondered what she was facing now, she leaned over to find that thick white ropes interlaced across the tile. Her foot had landed squarely on one of them, and now her other foot was held fast. They looked like spider webs — if spiders could produce webs as thick as her thumb.
Slowly letting out a breath, she squinted into the distance. While it was still dark, and she made out no shapes, she heard the telltale tick-tick-tick of something thin and delicate tapping at concrete.
There was no chance, she decided. She had no interest in finding out to what that sound belonged, nor was she allowing herself to try to imagine it. Celadon flung herself as far across the webs as her stuck feet would take her, and landed across the ropes with that same springy unpleasantness as before. Barely could she reach the dice, which was curiously unbothered by the webs, and she used her very fingernails to edge it slowly within her grasp. That ticking sounded ubiquitous now, so she shut her eyes and told herself that she just had to throw the die.
Once a corner of it bit into her palm, Celadon hurled it forward. The sounds stopped. Too nervous to open her eyes, she lay there catching her breath.
Space 19: You’re so close! Almost at the end! But the space you’re standing on shifts and shakes and seems to crumble beneath you. You have to hold on; there’s nowhere to fall but down into the deep abyss. If you manage to hang on for long enough, you find some invisible purchase and can pull yourself back up, but it’s quite the ordeal. Make sure you don’t get cut on falling spaces! The ground restores itself once you roll again.
By the time she opened her eyes again, the webs were gone. Celadon gathered her muddied self up, dusted herself off, and heaved another breath into her system. Further ahead, she saw a 5 glittering on the die's surface. If nothing else, her rolls seemed decent.
That was, decidedly, an abysmal consolation for the number of heart attacks she had to endure thus far. Having now dealt with eight-legged fiends, Celadon was imagining that werewolves and vampires were waiting to ambush her on the next space. Maybe the Swamp Thing and Frankenstein, too. Every classic horror tale was coming to mind as she crossed a number of game tiles with trepidation. She was so close to the end now; what if youma were waiting for her too? Or worse yet, Negaverse agents?
Finally, she stood on the last tile without a squelch or the smell of curdled flesh assaulting her nose. It seemed too good for her to trust it. Surely something would be jumping out at her shortly, or she'd find herself standing in a grave or having to sift through a rotten pumpkin patch to find that die again. Instead, it lay untouched in the center of a benign game tile. Wood on wood. Beckoning for her to make that last roll. She wouldn't have to care about her roll, either, for the very next platform was the last.
Celadon took a step forward. Her platform shook, then splintered, then great swaths of it began to plummet into a darkness so impenetrable that it looked like a flat surface of black to her. But they were each gone, swallowed up, and Celadon was fast running out of places to stand. The platform with the die fell, and soon, she was falling too.
She didn't have time to scream. She didn't have the thought to scream as she was immediately clawing at all sides of the growing darkness for any kind of purchase. She didn't care if she was falling fast enough to break her arms if she caught onto something, so long as the ground didn't catch her first. And after an eternity of feeling wind rushing up to greet her, feeling her heart thud heavily in her chest, she caught something. While she couldn't make out what it was, it seemed firm enough to hold her weight.
So she climbed it, slowly, foothold by foothold. There were times that she slipped, when she couldn't see herself or the ground to know where to place her foot, and feeling it out granted her few viable options. It was a slow, grueling journey, but if she spared a glance skyward, she could see a single distant street light.
After what seemed like an hour and felt like an age, Celadon clawed her way out of the endless hole with her arms and legs trembling from exertion. The platform was restored and she rolled onto it with a few gasping breaths. It was then that she realized the matter of the die might leave her stuck there, and with a small curse, she rolled onto her stomach. She'd have to — what? Break the platform again? Climb her way back down?
But there it was, waiting for her, just inches away from her arm. And after clawing her muddy, exhausted way to it, she struck it with the back of her hand and sent it rolling again. Not that she cared what it landed on anymore.
Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2023 7:12 am
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Space 20: The end; once you have arrived here you are free to leave. You will see be basked in the glow of a beautiful, opalescent aura that will take you back home. If you arrived with a guest, you can leave without them or choose to stay until they make it to the end as well. When you arrive back in Destiny City, you may choose to keep the six sided die–if nothing else, it’s pretty! Though, it doesn’t seem to have any magical qualities, that might be for the best.
The last tile. Once she caught her breath and could trust her feet to hold her weight again, Celadon got up and stared at it. She doubted she would be able to withstand another scare without having a heart attack, but if that's what it took to leave? She would endure it. She would have that heart attack, she would feel like she was dying, but she would claw her way out and head straight to a hospital. She promised herself that. She even granted herself permission to ask for an extra jello cup when the hospital invariably admitted her.
Once she was ready, she stepped forward. As her foot reached the last platform, she flinched, half-expecting it to transform like the rest. Yet, there was nothing of the sort — only a soft, iridescent glow that played around her feet.
Then she was in the alley again. Looking behind her, in front of her, around her, she saw no hints of the game board. Then she remembered she had held onto the die, and as she looked, it still remained clutched in her hand.
It was evidence, she supposed. Evidence of what she went through. It was a starting point for talking about it with people like Cybele, who might know more about what exactly she just endured. After mentally warning it against causing her any more trouble, Celadon decided that she'd had enough for the night, and that it was time to return home for a shower and a long, hopefully dreamless, sleep.
