Scene #7304: CI DkS: Forgotten City of Light-3

Owner	Pose
Priscilla	When the level of light between the focused Elites ceases increasing, the state of the area once again becomes static. The 'process', as it were, seems to halt completely, now the picture of however many centuries ago, putting some perspective to the sheer amount of time it takes for a place like this to succumb to age. The effect isn't isolated. If anything, it looks to be additive. Even from the outside, in the fields where Moonfin talking to Yuuki and Eryl first are, the gradual change is visible all around, like layers being carefully scrubbed from a painting under restoration, but the same effect occurs inside where Tomoe and George are as well, in a way that compounds on the initial displacement. Again, viewing the room from outside, the mural just now stands out from the wall as intelligible lines and grooves, but only up close is there any sign of coloured glass. Putting the bits back together doesn't appear to factor into the combined effect, limited to light and spatial proximity, but the pieces are mostly there, and some patience (and reconstruction by Original Face) affords Eryl a look at what was there regardless. The mural does indeed depict Gwyn, especially notable for the relative accuracy of the piece now that Eryl has seen the (sort of) real thing's face. However, Gwyn isn't the one wearing the crown. His visage is like a mountain in the background, his shape providing the dark field for a figure dressed in white to stand before and beneath him, scaled to the other beings in the picture instead of being more of a landscape. The detail made possible through a mosaic isn't nearly enough to put any fine details to him, but the figure appears to be a man with pale skin and long black hair, wearing unfamiliar clothes sashed with purple and gold, actual gemstones used for eyes the same colour as Lordran's royal family, and the five lights that are arranged in an arc over his head. There is a procession of other figures dressed in princely white robes moving 'below' him, and from there, many dull black and brown human shapes of no real distinction beneath there, 'climbing up' the mural. The man with the crown is holding a smaller one in his hands, as if to offer it to the faceless mob. There are more than a few recurring motifs with the enormous chiseled slab they'd found underground, but this one is far more artistic, more comprehensible, and less grotesque and menacing to look at. 'Sanitized' by a few hundred years, perhaps. The fact that most of the procession are carrying white twigs, and the purple-sashed man has a white bow, are more notably relevant now.
Priscilla	On Pavo's part, stripping away more of the wayward greenery appears to do little except vaguely please the shambling husks of clattering wood and mossy bronze, who divert themselves to other areas when they dimly see that stones are being uncovered by someone else. Their role is very obvious now as that of groundskeepers. Possibly even farmers or gardeners, given the troughs that might have been irrigated once. A magically animated workforce for basic physical tasks. Importantly, using a kind of 'technology' that degrades into nothing after all this time, leaving behind only 'primitive' stone buildings instead of fancy artifacts. It feels like a theme that might hold general relevance elsewhere. The more they examine the iron cross however, the more it doesn't just stand out, but definitely looks and feels to have come from somewhere else. Outside of the material and the aesthetics, it looks completely cold forged, pounded together with thousands and thousands of powerful hammer blows over a long period of time into that warped and organic shape. It'd aged differently from the rest, so it would have been moved here long after the rest of the structure was built. Probably around the same time as the most recent mural was put up, just going off the figures for how fast iron, glass, ceramic, mortar, and stone fall to pieces relatively. Getting up to it physically is the wildest process there is though. Tomoe buckles down to parkouring her way across the ruins straight to the top of the central tower, and finds the experience of doing so to be far more difficult than she initially anticipated. As she runs towards the dead center of the clearing, aiming for the uppermost peak of the central tower, nothing moves around her, but everything changes. Moving at high speed, the gradual, cumulative difference of each inch adds up fast enough for her to notice in real time. More importantly, enough to get in the way. There are no pieces of rubble flying around in reverse, nor bits of architecture regenerating in rewind, but running the bridge is a process of finding it sturdier, clearer, more complete, as she charges its length. Hopping from one broken section suddenly endangers her as a pillar that used to be ten meters taller is all but primed to hit her in the face. She has to avoid having her ankles stuck in a floor that used to exist and now does in the same place she wants to land. Walls that weren't there before both cut her off from behind and get in her way. She can see elaborate zigzags and intersections of stairs leading up to the same tower from all around the area, much of which is now floored like a major plaza, with bricks arranged to suggest circular spokes below. The windows of the chamber below the steeple are glowing. She is also party to the same sight that Yuuki gets by moving forward via her own means. The foliage retreats into the trenches, the wild and menacing and old being replaced with things that were probably green and beautiful several generations ago. The entities tending to them shed more of their mass as well, revealing decorative bronze exteriors over articulated, puppet-like wooden frames, straightening their backs and their strides as they go about their work with enormous tools. However, attempting to approach them again is impossible. When one turns away from the steeple and heads towards the fields again, the area falls back to ruins, and the servitors are mounds in the dirt once again. The perception of time appears to be completely individual, but the tangibility of it is objective and tied to where one is standing.
Tomoe	The effect that has befallen this ruin does show Tomoe how long it would take for a place like this to fall into ruin. It says something about how it was built. Such thought doesn't have many places in what they are here to do, to unlock hopefully the last piece to this mysterious puzzle. The place seems to be continuing to restore itself and that is causing the terrain to change in ways she could not expect. It's very wild it might be one of the wildest bits of parkour she's ever done. She things change with little sign of it until it's often nearly too late. She nearly faceplants into some of the changed terrain, worse are the points where her feet nearly end up stuck in the floor as things keep being restored. Her course changes several times to deal with suddenly appearing walls that were not there a moment before. All of this slows down her progress noticeably. She's having to be far more careful given the changing landscape or she could end up in a wall. As she makes her slow progress up she does catch sight of what Yuuki has also beheld, plants growing backwards into a younger state and things that worked this place becoming more apparent. She does not go to investigate the goings-on below, she's trying to figure out how to push on at this point she will attempt to get a second to breath pull out a smartphone to get some images for the rest of the team. She will be on her way again being far warier then when she first started trying to guess at patterns of what will be ahead from the sections as they restore themselves.
Starbound Flotilla	"Apologetic. It's looking like the plant life is a symptom, not a cause." "I don't get the logic here. Sometimes it's trees, sometimes it's not." "How human of you, not to recognize the obvious patterns." "Oh? And what isss pattern? Tell in detail." "Ah, ahem, well... That is rather too complex to explain, I think." "It's about centers. It's about the top spreading power out." "Explain." "Look at it. The time effect spreads from the tower. The illusion spreads from the tree. The locks and security spread from the inside out in the building. It's about radiating out." The Flotilla seem to come to their conclusion fairly quickly. This is about the center radiating out. What if they... bring the sun right above. Bring the light down from the top straight down into the tower. If they use that wrought-iron thing as the "pole" along which it should all run, maybe they can blast light straight down this way? Would that work? It seems to be reacting just to the light? Maybe if they combine the light with the way it reacts to the middle. That, at least, is what Pavo and the others are doing. George is just going to try to examine the interior while Tomoe does what she does, by walking inside and taking a look around. Eyes out for anything more that indicates those crowns.
Yuuki Kuran	A world lost to time. Strange and different! And confusing. Yuuki expects the 'revived' spaces - the fields, the upright golems, the city - to remain as such, a snowglobe in reverse. She sees things returning to a live state and does not believe that such would fall to ruin as soon as she stops paying attention to it. And yet, that's the occurance. Like the worst nightmares of any Totally Normal Girl, the second her attention turns, the effect is gone. Tomoe can even catch her practically 'skipping' along time. > Trying to stare at a specific flower intensely, in a crouch. > Appearing on a waveringly-certain rooftop trying to behold as much as possible simultaneously. > Standing in the middle of a field, wiping her nose with the back of her wrist. Eventually, Yuuki visibly 'gives up', lingering near George and treating the 'old man' like a fainting couch. It's extremely on-brand, at least. While light, her depression has a weight all its own. "This place is too much. I want it to be realer than it is. But it's not. Is this 'half light'? Is this finding what doesn't belong?" "I could watch all of it, forever. But it wouldn't bring it back. Everything, gone in the blink of an eye." "Literally."
Priscilla	Approaching the tower at the most center of the distortion, from all angles together, intensifies the mismatch of the world all around at a geometric pace. Small dissimilarities across large distances become more and more common, packed into less and less space, until the small, lost oasis of sunlight in the pitch black Darkroot is changing with every step. The disconnect of it all, broken up across so many points of view, moment to moment, is like a fairy tale, interpreted slightly differently from person to person, the image of it morphing and modifying as new details are added on as it goes. The compound effect of the light being brought to its central locus, and everyone bearing it approaching as one, reaches even the sky above, peeling back that atmospheric haze that is the colour of charred bark, and allowing through rays of bright, summer gold sunlight that haven't existed in a long time. The artificial light is subsumed entirely into the natural, though extinguishing any of it lowers the joint distortion to the point that the sun 'goes out' as well, making the both of them necessary. Approaching the chamber at the top floor of the towering 'chapel', it is found with elaborately framed -- and certainly fragile -- panes of interlocked crystal set into its previously empty windows. Thick banners of purple patterned with gold hang from its corners, the roofs now set with waves of deep blue tiles. The walls are covered with intentionally cultivated plant growth, studding the beige stone with white and violet blossoms up to a height not even vines can usually support. There is a limit to how far it can all go, however. Not even those are perfectly kept. And there is no sign of a single other person. With the growth of derelict centuries ephemerally kept at bay, you're able to see the centimeters of dust that coat the fine construction behind doors that look like still-living oak. It's been abandoned only semi-deliberately, by looking around the interior. There are signs that important things were taken, but there are plenty of odds and ends still left, around surprisingly baroque furniture that had turned to dust an age ago, and an unusually large number of sizable and seemingly purely decorative mirrors. The three things being sought have their own presence all in roughly the same place. The warped cross at the peak of the building looks brand new, and the fittings show that it has been installed in place of something that was originally there. It also appears to be one improbable piece of solid metal, perhaps never having seen a fire at all. Regardless of how close the light is brought to it, the iron never clearly reflects it, only absorbing the glow into the refractions of a million hair-fine etchings that twist all around its surface, collectively rendering it a slightly oily black. More saliently, its shape is completely absent from those cast by the artificial light, appearing only with that of 'somewhere after noon' in this time frame, showing a single 'true' shadow of the tower. The glow within the apex of the parkour run comes from what would usually be the 'treasure room' at the top of an eastern pagoda, where delicate writings and valuable artworks would be kept. The air within that particular partition of the greater chamber literally glitters. More tangible than the golden motes of light from previous anomalies, there are actual flakes of some unnaturally reflective, super-gold substance, like fine dust raised by the commotion of new entries. It loosely scatters from a rod of white birch suspending a baroque silver bell hung from its axel, itself bearing something of a crown motif around its axel. A faint ringing tone can be heard from it at all times, though there appears to no longer be a clapper.
Priscilla	The stories told by murals remain obscurely cultural, but thematic. Only the opposite wall to the bell in its room is decorated as such here, and it's done in such a way that the processions of white figures that are presumably from each of the other three side-towers, as well as the one that had been examined, naturally lead across the bridges and converge into this point, like an unbroken line of hieroglyphics. The shape of Gwyn is present once again, but his form is even more of a vague, towering suggestion than before, more of a depiction of some distant Olympus than a person, and certainly intentionally 'at great distance'. The sun is very small, behind him and focused down on a different central figure. This time, it's a woman, dressed in grey-white and silver, with extremely long and similarly hued hair, and the same colour of tile used for a sort of crown-adjacent adornment --a tiara?-- on her brow. Though far smaller than Gwyn, she is several times the size of the other human figures on the wall. The white-clad figures form up around her, where emerald grass seems to spring up in the wake of her steps. The vague, blackened silhouettes instead form up around a throne she is facing towards, still with that 'crawling from below' motif. The man from before is present ahead of her, and a taller, more defined, human-shadow-shape is directly across from him, each holding out a crown towards the other. The throne is ornamented with a shape that is obviously identical to the cross above. Lastly, a jarring detail is that, looking outside the window, Goughs arrow is still there. Worse, there is a considerable hole blasted through multiple meters of layered stone midway down the tower, showing its passage straight through a fortified medieval building. That's exactly what should be there in the present, normal view of things.
Starbound Flotilla	"Light and sun are pushing this back. See?" "Yeah, yeah, I'm seeing it. It's real distorting." "Fascinated. Looking at this from everyone's helmet-camera is... surreal." "Isss dissstorted. Many kind of quantum effectsss, Floran think." "It snaps us back to stability when we leave. Fine enough." "We must locate the source, and find the mechanism of its interaction." "Workin' on it." George, working from the bottom of the tower up, wants to join up with Tomoe. She's already well ahead of the group. But he has suspicions about how this is working. If he can get up there in the fully-formed tower, he thinks, he can solve a most crucial aspect of this. Can he make it to the top? He'll do his best to, of course, whether it be knee-straining stair-climbing or more exotic navigation with air-dashes, grappling hooks, and double jumps. And if he can, he'll give a long, thorough look at the murals, and a peek outside. Plenty of photos, because he should find out who all these people are. A reation of Gwyn? Does she have those jewel-eyes? Does the man from before still have them? What about his counterpart, and what's the deal with the crowns they exchange? George knows basically nothing about local politics, so all three of these weirdos are beyond his understanding! Unless someone else does, he's going to walk up and give a tap to that bell with the finger of his gauntlet's hardsuit. DING! Ringing bells in weird places is how you progress around here. But maybe he needs to take the branch too? He'll go with the flow. Assuming he got there, anyway.
Tomoe	Things are getting like a fairy tail somewhat with how the ruins look to Tomoe as she's pressed further in the good news is she doesn't end up with herself in a wall. For the moment at the very least, she's made some progress and she's going to keep pushing for what she can get. She reaches the top after a good deal of effort and will finally stop moving for the moment. She will start to carefully look around the apex of the tower. She makes note of the golden substance for a moment. After that, the white birch rod catches her attention. She notices the bell and pauses for a moment as she sees there is no clapper yet she's getting a faint tone from it. "Well." She will reach out and attempt to gently tap the bell to see what happens. It seems she's not the only one who has the same idea as the Starbounders arrive around the same time.
Eryl Fairfax	Eryl has been lurking in the background for the most part, taking in the murals and what they might represent. Gwyn is obvious. No mere central figure anymore. This story is after he has established his divine reign. He is the wall, the background. Far too grand a figure to play a direct role. The figure in purple is the bigger question. He notes the white branches they clutch, akin to the tree. Those are more than a local curiosity. They were a central part of this land's culture, to be brandished and given their distinct color in mural like this, very important to take note of that. He moves on to a part further down the timeline, evidenced by Gwyn retreating even further into the background. His light directly shining upon a towering woman in the foreground. "Light mattered much to them. This is significant," he murmurs to himself. Is this who they are now looking for? She is being guided to a throne by two crown-carrying figures. But the crowns are not offered to her, but to each other. Princes of this land in a succession dispute perhaps? Sent to guide her to wherever she had been sent. To take a throne, but not a crown... not an arranged marriage then. The resemblance between the throne and the cross catches his attention, and again he looks up at it. "Someone. I need someone to shine light through that cross up there," he calls.
Yuuki Kuran	Taking in the strange history is difficult when Yuuki takes great pain to aggressively not look at the muralry when any sign of Gwyn is shown. The specific sort of childish 'peeking through her fingers with her hands over her eyes' that visors her sight from... Most things. "Pavo, you're the only one I can trust to tell me if there's a part with no Gwyn." She seems weirdly insistent on it. It makes her rather unhelpful at most things, as mostly she bumbles around running into corners and being anxiously apologetic.
Tomoe	Tomoe pauses for a moment at the request Erylk has made and calls back. "Sure." She'll have to head out and get a bit higher up she's careful given the nature of this place seeming to restore itself without warning. She'll pull out her phone and set it into flashlight mode, aiming it where Eryl requested though she may not be able to hang on for too long.
Starbound Flotilla	Pavo keeps her light-array on the thing from above and facilitates Tomoe's shining on the ultra-defined version. Maybe multiple light-sources will make a shadow? "I wasn't seeing a shadow before, Fairfax. Not sure we'll see one now. This thing records time, and time was in its sunlight angle."
Priscilla	At the general apex of the surreal weirdness going around, light is focused on the cross and hands are focused on the bell. Aimed with intent directly through the loop of the grotesque -- in the classical sense -- iron ornament, and looking to the horizon beyond it as with a flashlight, one catches two things. One is that the improbable collection of mountains that house Anor Londo at their peak are both clearly visible from a great distance, and also definitely further away than they are in reality, having the combined effect of looking almost like the set of a stage or the skybox of a diorama. The other is that the shadow cast by the direct lighting still doesn't fall opposite of the source, but falls specifically away from Anor Londo, dragged and stretched long, pointed far off to some distant place in the southwest. Fiddling with the bell, though, is a recipe for one of two things to happen, always. This time, despite the drama of it, it doesn't seem to be 'assailed by a terrible foe'. Touching the bell to get it to make a noise has the opposite effect. When jostled, the ceaseless sound of a faint, background ringing is canceled out, leaving the room silent. The way it lightly rocks back and forth without making any noise is reminder enough that the bell has no clapper. The motion itself seems to have scattered the gold dust, swirling away and falling limp and heavy to the ground, now resembling glittery, useless sand, rather than anything ethereal. The light goes out. The sun and the distant skyline fade behind drab, char-grey clouds again. The furnishings and drapings disappear from the room, leaving behind only cold and weather-scarred stone, and the insatiable flora that has grown over it. The small bell remains, however, on its rod of white birch. Same as the wooden mounting it is atop. An area a few feet around it seems relatively unworn. Untouched enough, even, to be thick with dust. Finally, once the bell comes back to a rest through the simple work of gravity, the sound of ringing slowly returns. Not much seems to have changed, besides dispelling the 'magic' about the place, save for just one particular fact: There is a gaping hole torn right through the central tower where a giant arrow had fallen from above and pierced right through it. The whole structure owes part of its stability due to the sheer amount of dirt that has piled into it over centuries and the gnarled tree that has sprouted out of the damage and grown old and thick.
Tomoe	Tomoe takes note of where the shadow and where it points that could be useful later. It doesn't last long though as the bell is fiddled with. Thankfully no angry guardian shows up but the magic seems to end with it's being meddled with. It doesn't take long as the ruins have the flow of time reverse and resume a decayed form. The fairy tale has now ended and there is a sense of sadness for a moment in her heart. She would soon take note of the massive hole from the arrow as well. That would do it and it's a lucky thing the place it still stable enough to take their weight she'll flare out her wings for a brief flight down. "I think the shadow may have pointed to where we need to go, I could be wrong though." She would note to the party.