Unrest

<div class="start">In the beginning there is always (text-style: "blur") [ darkness. ]</div> ###[[🜁|start1]] (set: $elements to 0) (set: $fire to 1) (set: $earth to 1) (set: $water to 1) (set: $wind to 1)

<div class="start">(if: $fire is 1)[ Choose your [[element]] ] (if: $fire is 2)[ Choose your [[element|elementcomplete]]. ]</div>

<div class="start">Choose your element. </div> { (set: $Vdialogue to (a: "Basalt", "Charcoal", "Seabreeze", "Depth")) (link-repeat: "[(print: $Vdialogue's 1st)]<Vdialogue|")[{ (set: $Vdialogue to (rotated: -1, ...$Vdialogue))\ (replace: ?Vdialogue)[(print: $Vdialogue's 1st)]\ (if: $Vdialogue's 1st is "Basalt")[ (replace: ?output)[ [[Yes|Earth1]] ] ] (else-if: $Vdialogue's 1st is "Charcoal")[ (replace: ?output)[ [[Yes|Fire1]] ] ] (else-if: $Vdialogue's 1st is "Seabreeze")[ (replace: ?output)[ [[Yes|Wind1]] ] ] (else-if: $Vdialogue's 1st is "Depth")[ (replace: ?output)[ [[Yes|Water1]] ] ] }] } []<output|

<div class="earth">(if: $wind is 1)[ Something is [[wrong|earthdeath]].] (if: $wind is 2)[ A piercing pain, peculiar in its persistence to those who have known nothing but the endless dark of stone and abyssal waters, strikes through the earth below the sea. The nexus of torment that resides so nearby has birthed a monster, and the colorless rock has been given thought through sudden nearness of its [[mother.|Earth2]] ]</div>

(if: $water is 1)[ Something is [[wrong|firedeath]].] (if: $water is 2)[ Destroyer, Devourer, Devastator, Deliverer of the dogma of the True Gods. Hammers, the symbol of our faith. Elementium, the body of the world's spirits bent to the will of its masters. The blood of the Black King, molten and pure as it scatters to the stone. Faith made flesh, soon to bring ash and ruin to the faithless who doubted the [[path|Fire2]] you follow.]

Wood creaks as you move upon the waves. Innocuous indigo iris in iridescent sky inflaming, illustrious, the blue child watching above. Silkwaves of fragrant blue echo beneath you. They rise with ebb and flow, lashing like [[tongues.|Wind2]]

(if: $earth is 1)[ Something is [[wrong|waterdeath]].] (if: $earth is 2)[ A pitched cry siren-like. A rising, exalted day. An agony ascends as anger amplifies. You wait patiently here, for the crowned one to rise like a pillar of ash and fire. You slither through corals and kelp, peering closer, [[reverent.|Water2]] ]

{ (set: $Vdialogue to (a: "Earth", "Fire", "Wind", "Water", "Spirit." )) (link-repeat: "[(print: $Vdialogue's 1st)]<Vdialogue|")[{ (set: $Vdialogue to (rotated: -1, ...$Vdialogue))\ (replace: ?Vdialogue)[(print: $Vdialogue's 1st)]\ (if: $Vdialogue's 1st is "Earth")[ (replace: ?output)[ Seen ] ] (else-if: $Vdialogue's 1st is "Fire")[ (replace: ?output)[ Seen ] ] (else-if: $Vdialogue's 1st is "Wind")[ (replace: ?output)[ Seen ] ] (else-if: $Vdialogue's 1st is "Water")[ (replace: ?output)[ Seen ] ] (else-if: $Vdialogue's 1st is "Spirit.")[ (replace: ?output)[ [[Yes.|Spirit1]] ] ] }] } []<output|

Latent, long lashes of luminous light litter the clouds of glittering fog surrounding you. A voice speaks. Smooth, soft, a woman looking at you. Her eyes shine like opals. Skin once shining purple, now crystallized amethyst. ###[[∞|spirit2]]

Thought given to basalt spires so deep beneath the sea, flashes of light and waves so far above, stars to the sky, leaves to those on the forest floor. Yearning in forms that have known nothing before. Down in depthless deeps drown desolate earth. Yearning to bury the sky in endless [[rock.|Earth3]]

Hungry to escape the pressure of the cruel sea, desperate to end the tyranny of the sky that lords so proudly above everything else under the empty void. The grinding ire of iron, immortality in inert stone and metal and gems to smother the world. A wholeness earned through the [[destruction|earth4]] of every Other.

Anointed in the blood of mad prophets, you grip the hammer with which you will force your worth upon the world. Sanctified steel strikes the sacred spikes aligning elementium to molten flesh. Your soul is purified with each blow, burning blood spatters across your form and the [[agony|Fire3]] is release.

The form of the Destroyer nears completion. The hulking plates, several feet thick, the last of his armor needed to defy an ignorant world full of the craven unwilling to see truth. The pain of their adhesion brings forth bellows of agony from even the great leviathan. Terror and turmoil will together take their tithe once more from a world grown fat on complacency, on the lies of the Light, of Elune, of all false [[gods.|fire4]]

You stay the course. Wind on your face, heavenly. Seabreeze washing through light linen, ribbons of sun. Sweeping smooth as spun silk spinners, susurrus salt and seaspray sifting upon the waves. Suddenly the sky begins to darken. The lilting light grows to deep shadow upon your [[sails.|Wind3]]

The waves rise like a maw, devouring sail and wood with salted teeth. The crunching of your bow breaking. The fireplace in the captain’s quarters cracks, spelling your death blow. An acute air almost aches as abscess of ash descends upon woodflesh. A hole burned within, collecting water like [[tears.|wind4]]

Flame begins to rise like a pillar of fire from salt. You feel the same as the being of iron and fire. Nebulous needs, nature-nurture never near. One with the dark, the salt, the pearls, the coral. The waves murmur in the [[rhythm|Water3]] of your cold blood.

Chanting. Gilded stones and pearls in coral and woven kelp, strung with the jagged fragments of shells. The jagged shards are dragged against scaly flesh, blood in the water an offering to the ascendence. [[The tall, tiered throne takes time, you are told.|water4]]

The light of the surface sinks suddenly yet slowly, shadows subsume the spires that reached so eagerly towards that tenuous thin line that separates the sky and sea. A blackness once as familiar as the eons now alien, stirring something besides yearning in the stone. [[Fear.|earth5]]

Bursting forth, a meteor breaching the firmament. Fire and heat. Magma and malice meeting in monstrous rage as death itself murders the sky. The repercussions of the birth of the monster reach the spires at last and they are brought low. The earth, sea, and sky all bow to the fury of flame. Basalt is bent by heat, the sea boils in agony, the air itself is rent to atoms by the blaze loosed by black wings. [[Nothing can be done.|element]] (set: $earth to 2)

Sweat and blood from both your own body and others coat your form as you stand back and marvel in the magnificence. Death personified will return to the world and you the exultant heralds have made it so. Intrusive ideas, ironic in their idiosyncrasy to this realm of crazed exiles, gives the last fluttering doubts of the [[righteousness|fire5]] of your mission.

A god in flesh and metal has been birthed by the hands of its believers. A living idol of the belief of the chosen that will rip the throat from a world doomed to die long ago, now fulfilled. All thoughts of doubt are purged in the fires of your belief as great wings stretch wide. At long last the labors of lauded, latent disciples has come to completion, and its beauty is [[terrible.|start2]] (set: $fire to 2)

A breaking. Wood snapping like brittle bones. The screaming and shouting is drowned out by the thunderous roaring of the rain, the waves, the storm. Plunging into the deep feels easy, like easing into warm bathwater. Sinking, sailing seamlessly, strung stranglekelp and seawater sloshing. A quiet, deep, cold peace [[descends|wind5]] upon you.

As you fall, you begin to fragment. Hulls hollowed husks, hanging, heaving heavy. Some float, others sink. Hands cling to you, silver hair and purple skin drying in the sun. Half of you, a raft for your people. The other half, the bottom of an endless [[depth.|wind6]]

In an instant, the water grows warm, almost boiling. Iron and searing metal sends broken kelp fragmenting into the tides like fireworks. Little leaves litter like lustrous lashes of luminance. The warmth is good, it is of the dark, the gift the [[queen|water5]] gave you long ago.

Earth eases easily, encroached and enhanced, each element bowing to the flame. Strands of liquid flame pierce the grey and deep blue of the depths with gilded embers. He is [[reborn.|element]] (set: $water to 2)

In injuries intrudes inflows of salene, imbibing ironwood, invoking igneous in just a few years time, here. Calcifying wood to stone by means found only here, in the depths, water and [[stone.|element]] (set: $wind to 2)

In her eyes you see fire. Wind. Water. Air. An aura, aloneness, apart, although an ache overtakes, the aura is peace, tranquil, quiet longing. So many emotions juxtaposed. They should be impossible to feel at once, yet you [[do.|spirit3]]

You see yourself rising from water. Crushed by flame. Imbued with darkness. With a wood skeleton, creaking and breaking to bits on the waves. She speaks softly, silent sleep, susurrus slumber in silent shroud. You listen through her [[eyes.|spirit4]]

You feel wood under your feet. Under wood, ocean churning. You sway back and forth. Heaving husk of hardwood held hardly whole. Hostile, home, haunting, haunted. She is part of the ocean now, she says. She says she can see all things there that have happened, or have not [[happened|spirit5]] yet.

She said the idols injured her, injecting inky, insidious dark into ivylike veins of igneous stone, petrifying all it touched. The ocean there washed all things to stone. Including flesh and wood. Including [[her.|spirit6]]

In her calcified hand she holds a pearl. Her hands turn over, revealing a barnacled hand and a pink pearl resting on a finger. You have seen it before. The item from the grove you study, you hold, is part of her. She has become part of the depth, the dark, the ship. As you hold the petrified piece in your hand, you take her hand in your own. Pale petrichor scent as pink pearls [[pierce|spirit7]] you.

She says the memories tell a story, whispered in her own tongues, a pattern. A question she cannot tell, only beg for you to [[ask.|spirit8]]

(set: $password to (prompt: "What does the spirit ask?", "(no caps or punctuation please.)") ) (if: $password is "is a ship dismantled still a ship")[ #[[∞|spirit9]] ](else:)[Not correct. [[try again|spirit8]], or go [[back|element]] and see all oncemore.]

Is(click-replace: "Is")[ ] å(click-replace: "å")[ ] ship(click-replace: "ship")[ ] dismantled(click-replace: "dismantled")[ ] still(click-replace: "still")[ ] ā(click-replace: "ā")[ ] šhįp?(click-replace: "šhįp?")[ #[[🜔|spirit10]] ]

<div class="start">They had only just been given the gift of self, the eager yearning of a foundling the only taste of emotion to grace their thoughts. As the steel prow crashed upon their brows, sorrow and pain blotted what little niceties they had ever experienced. As their forms were reduced to rubble, so slowly yet so fast, they could hold only one thought: [[Why?|start]] </div>

<div class="start">The resolution of the timeless war beckoned you here, but you have come too soon... or perhaps too close. As the vortex delivered judgement unto the world you and yours found yourself within fatal distance. As the water around you is flash boiled, your body does not have enough time to even emit a scream. You only have enough time to register the unbearable pain before it all [[ends.|start]]</div>

<div class="start">Agony beyond possibility wracks your form, the physical sensation a mirror of your Masters' displeasure with your surface as the molten blood sears away all there is. Your soul is delivered enough pain as to be torn asunder. You choke on the blood from a throat torn to tatters by the screams. As the heat and fury overtakes you, you are [[undone.|start]]</div>

The land whispers throught spirits mouth as she fades. So much of me lies on the other side, scattered where the winding spine of stone stretches across marshes of silver. Will I ever be whole again? Would it truly be me, if so? Will it matter? #[[🜔|spirit11]]

<div class="start">The petrified object lies in your hands. The pearl begins to change hues, shapes, forms. You feel compelled to stare, mezmerized. You have much to learn from what the object holds. </div> [[Begin.|start2]]

Your answer lies through the world's eye, at the bottom of the ocean. The [[end]] of all things.

"Unrest" written by Wallace and Greaves ♥ [[play again|start]]

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In the beginning there is always

darkness.