Observation Room
ꕤ ꕤ ꕤ |
| ꕤ ꕤ ꕤ |
❤︎❤︎❤︎
𝕿𝖚𝖈𝖐𝖊𝖉 at the furthest edge of Augury Cloister, the Observation Room felt like the final breath of the venue. A place that was quiet, reflective, and undeniably strange. It was the kind of place one didn’t stumble upon, but arrived at with intent.
An antique piano stood near the eastern wall, its cherry wood dark with age and polish. Someone, undeniably inhuman, played a jaunty, almost mocking tune, the cheerful notes echoing with eerie contradiction against the room’s solemn atmosphere. The sitting room served as a buffer for sound. The sound gave the space a sense of being watched, or perhaps of watching something it should not.
A pair of upholstered chairs, high-backed, expensive and aged, sat in silent vigil before a pair of massive windows. Beyond the paned glass, the world fell away. Only the jagged lip of the cliff visible, overlooking a stretch of black water far below. The horizon loomed gray and infinite.
To the west, another window offered a more grounded view: a narrow stone walkway leading toward the back of the venue, where a massive potted plant dominated the view. Its shape resembled a grotesquely oversized Venus flytrap, leaves twitching slightly as though in anticipation.
A tall, narrow wardrobe rested against the south wall. Though its doors were closed, it seemed almost too prominent to be ordinary.
To the east, a narrow stone archway bore the embossed numeral VII on its capstone. It led directly outside. A short series of steps to a windswept outcropping of slick stones and open air. There were no railings. Just the yawning edge and the sea below.
It was a room for endings.
Some stories should never be told...
Observation Room
Came from Sitting Room
Aamon liked this room. Not in the passive way one might like a painting or a polite dinner guest, but in the way one secretly claimed a place without ever saying it aloud. The observation room didn’t just offer a view, it commanded one. The window stretched wide and tall, framing the sea like a portrait alive with motion and mood. Today, it was all grey skies and churning water, the kind of coastal drama that made you feel poetic against your will. Even the wind, though muffled by glass, had a sound to it, like the world whispering secrets to itself.
The sea was going to be keeping another secret on this day. Aamon stood by the window, arms loosely crossed, the ceremonial attire was draped elegantly about his broad frame despite everything about him itching for less formality. The waves below looked cruel, hungry. A storm was coming. Of course it was. He squinted out a window and caught sight of the house-elves from the bar again, still carting their drunken peer down the narrow path that curled along the cliffs just outside of the Augury.
He’d never been down there. Not once. There was little sign posted beside the path just off the patio had a clear sign that demanded he keep out and for the most part Aamon was a rule-follower. A trait that had not gotten him fair in life he had come to realize as those house elves appear to be just fine on that walkway. It was probably a palace for the help to take their smoke breaks. Aamon, for all his sarcasm and bitter charm, was a rule-follower when it counted, except today. Today Aamon was a vandal with no remorse.
His fingers brushed the edge of the curtain, hesitant for a moment. There were no eyes on him, but he didn’t like being watched even when he was alone. Especially not now considering what he was about to do. Slowly, deliberately, he reached out and drew the thick velvet curtains shut. The world outside winked out in folds of heavy seafoam green cloth.
There. No view. No sea. No witnesses. The room was now quite dark, gloomy even. He turned from the room like someone exiting a stage, letting the hush of fabric falling back into place echo behind him.Mundane Action: Curtains closed.
Then Aamon stepped out of the room.
Moved from the Observation Room to the Cliffside.
iNPC: Taylor Athanatos
Observation Room
Moderation:
Accidents Happen. Did Aamon take the wrong step?
Roll: 2
Luck and Aamon Athanatos had never been on speaking terms. If anything, they exchanged passive-aggressive glances across crowded rooms while disaster swooped in to steal Aamon’s lunch money once again. For reasons best left to dark omens and poorly drawn birth charts, the boy attracted catastrophe like overripe fruit attracts flies.
True, Aamon bore the blood of Seers, with an occasional flair for narrowly sidestepping disaster, but foresight was a fickle thing. It could warn him about falling rocks but not about falling reputations, or frenemies like Finnegan Conner or worse, Matthew Campbell. Rival in all things academic, arcane, romantic but not aesthetic. Matthew's terrible taste in shoes would forever mar his status as any form of true rival, but it did not matter what shoes dead men wore.
And so Aamon bolted through the Observatory in that wonderful mix of adolescent desperation and unacknowledged doom. He didn’t notice the way the air grew still. He didn’t notice how the shadows twitched when no one moved. He certainly didn’t notice how the floor echoed his steps as if he was in a larger space.
Something was wrong with this room and he was, as usual, oblivious.
What exactly? Well, this narrator is under strict contract not to say. But if one were to speculate, hypothetically of course, perhaps Aamon had run straight through a tear in the veil of reality. Or maybe he had simply tripped on his own hubris. Either way, upon his return to the observation room from the cliff's edge, there was no return.
Aamon Athanatos had disappeared.
Accidents Happen. Did Aamon take the wrong step?
Roll: 2
Luck and Aamon Athanatos had never been on speaking terms. If anything, they exchanged passive-aggressive glances across crowded rooms while disaster swooped in to steal Aamon’s lunch money once again. For reasons best left to dark omens and poorly drawn birth charts, the boy attracted catastrophe like overripe fruit attracts flies.
True, Aamon bore the blood of Seers, with an occasional flair for narrowly sidestepping disaster, but foresight was a fickle thing. It could warn him about falling rocks but not about falling reputations, or frenemies like Finnegan Conner or worse, Matthew Campbell. Rival in all things academic, arcane, romantic but not aesthetic. Matthew's terrible taste in shoes would forever mar his status as any form of true rival, but it did not matter what shoes dead men wore.
And so Aamon bolted through the Observatory in that wonderful mix of adolescent desperation and unacknowledged doom. He didn’t notice the way the air grew still. He didn’t notice how the shadows twitched when no one moved. He certainly didn’t notice how the floor echoed his steps as if he was in a larger space.
Something was wrong with this room and he was, as usual, oblivious.
What exactly? Well, this narrator is under strict contract not to say. But if one were to speculate, hypothetically of course, perhaps Aamon had run straight through a tear in the veil of reality. Or maybe he had simply tripped on his own hubris. Either way, upon his return to the observation room from the cliff's edge, there was no return.
Aamon Athanatos had disappeared.
Some stories should never be told...
Observation Room
Aamon Athanatos slinked back into the Observation Room with the air of a boy with a plan. Not a good plan. In fact, it was a terrible plan. But a plan none-the-less, if that plan mostly involved brooding, elaborate passive aggression, and even more passive murder. The Slytherin's thoughts were elsewhere, fixated on the ever-persistent annoyance that was @Matthew Campbell, self-appointed rival and walking charity case of the magical world. Aamon had been plotting, quietly, of course, as was tradition, Campbell's murder.
So naturally, Aamon forgot something rather important. Namely, the dangerously slick trail of magically-enhanced stone he himself had left behind. A subtle trap, a deliciously clever inconvenience meant for Matthew’s unsuspecting shoes. Not Aamon's, but he had to carefully trek back across the slick stone, which he did with care. Returning to the Observation Room was the easy part. Once inside the Observation Room, with that open seventh archway, he moved as if it was safe to do so. But there were warnings about the seventh, warnings he should have heeded. His footfalls assuming a safe, dry surface, which the floor in the Observation Room was. The problem was the soles of his shoes, now slick from magic.
But as fate would have it, the gods of irony had a keen sense of comedic timing. When he believed himself safe, he was actually at the most risk.
Aamon took three quick steps, confident, distracted, elegant, and then the ground vanished beneath him. He slipped. He slid. He fell. He landed on his ass. There was no grace in it, no poise. Just a startled yelp and the world spinning sideways. He crashed backwards through the open portal like a sack of cursed laundry, arms flailing, coattails tangled, wand slipping from his fingers. He landed hard on his back, legs flopped uselessly in the air, his limbs awkwardly splayed like an overturned sea turtle or a Koopa shell ready to be launched.
Silence.
Then: “Ow.”
The trap, oh so cleverly laid for Matthew Campbell, had instead ensnared the wrong child, its architect. Aamon Athanatos, heir in waiting, vision in onyx and silver, now horizontal and humiliated. That is until he slid, a koopa shell on the move.
He tried to grab hold of a stone, a weed, a gnarled root. To dig his hands in the cracks in the stone, but he failed and he fell.
So naturally, Aamon forgot something rather important. Namely, the dangerously slick trail of magically-enhanced stone he himself had left behind. A subtle trap, a deliciously clever inconvenience meant for Matthew’s unsuspecting shoes. Not Aamon's, but he had to carefully trek back across the slick stone, which he did with care. Returning to the Observation Room was the easy part. Once inside the Observation Room, with that open seventh archway, he moved as if it was safe to do so. But there were warnings about the seventh, warnings he should have heeded. His footfalls assuming a safe, dry surface, which the floor in the Observation Room was. The problem was the soles of his shoes, now slick from magic.
But as fate would have it, the gods of irony had a keen sense of comedic timing. When he believed himself safe, he was actually at the most risk.
Aamon took three quick steps, confident, distracted, elegant, and then the ground vanished beneath him. He slipped. He slid. He fell. He landed on his ass. There was no grace in it, no poise. Just a startled yelp and the world spinning sideways. He crashed backwards through the open portal like a sack of cursed laundry, arms flailing, coattails tangled, wand slipping from his fingers. He landed hard on his back, legs flopped uselessly in the air, his limbs awkwardly splayed like an overturned sea turtle or a Koopa shell ready to be launched.
Silence.
Then: “Ow.”
The trap, oh so cleverly laid for Matthew Campbell, had instead ensnared the wrong child, its architect. Aamon Athanatos, heir in waiting, vision in onyx and silver, now horizontal and humiliated. That is until he slid, a koopa shell on the move.
He tried to grab hold of a stone, a weed, a gnarled root. To dig his hands in the cracks in the stone, but he failed and he fell.
Thread exited.
iNPC: Taylor Athanatos
Observation Room
Aamon is no longer a part of this event.
Some stories should never be told...
Observation Room
The piano man, if one could still call him that, had ceased playing minutes ago. No one noticed. Not really. The Athanatos sought privacy and felt that being able to maintain a clear line of vision gave both the suggestion of intimacy as well as awareness, but they were wrong. There were blind spots, corners, and most importantly there was line of sight.
The piano man had not lifted a finger when Aamon fell back onto the cliff's edge. They had not so much as turned his head when the boy failed to return. Not his monkey. Certainly not his circus. He remained a fixture at the edge of the room: pale, peculiar, utterly uninterested. A strange man in a stranger suit, pressing ivory keys long after the melody had ended.
No one of consequence had bothered to truly look at him. Had they, they might’ve caught the wrongness. The almostness. A face that seemed to be missing crucial details, eyes that didn’t quite focus, a mouth that never moved because there was no mouth. His form was tall and slender. Not as tall as the part giant that was rampaging in the ballroom, but as tall as the former heir. So taller than most. He was wearing a tailored suit and if one looked down, black stiletto heels. Androgyny wrapped in bespoke wool. Not quite he. Not quite she. Possibly it.
And it moved.
The piano man had not lifted a finger when Aamon fell back onto the cliff's edge. They had not so much as turned his head when the boy failed to return. Not his monkey. Certainly not his circus. He remained a fixture at the edge of the room: pale, peculiar, utterly uninterested. A strange man in a stranger suit, pressing ivory keys long after the melody had ended.
No one of consequence had bothered to truly look at him. Had they, they might’ve caught the wrongness. The almostness. A face that seemed to be missing crucial details, eyes that didn’t quite focus, a mouth that never moved because there was no mouth. His form was tall and slender. Not as tall as the part giant that was rampaging in the ballroom, but as tall as the former heir. So taller than most. He was wearing a tailored suit and if one looked down, black stiletto heels. Androgyny wrapped in bespoke wool. Not quite he. Not quite she. Possibly it.
And it moved.
The Piano Man has left for the Sitting Room
Some stories should never be told...
Observation Room
Crossing the threshold the comforting aroma of sea air only spurred him on further. This hell hole he had crossed fire to enter was threatening to crumble around him and so any reprieve of safety was in dire need. That rich salty air blew in from an open archway to the east, all ancient stone drenched in wealth, archaic enough to bear the roman numerals VII. The entire room practically hummed with curiosities like it, had he the time he was quite sure he could have spent countless hours exploring and deciphering the many hidden meanings and troves. Time was not, however, a luxury he could afford.
Many answers to why the Athanatos family were as they were, no doubt, crept silently in the dark corners of this place; but today would not be his day of discovery not until safety was guaranteed. He owed his fathers that much.
So it then struck him as strange when his body refused to cooperate with the mind's desperate plea. Rather than (sports-mode activated) crocs racing to the exit his body seemed to have stilled under the unnervingly strange influence of the place. Before he entered his heart had been a rhythmic time bomb ticking over to the doomsday that seemed inevitable and yet now, enraptured by the strange enticement of the room he felt everything slow. Like a wave of quiet had seeped deep under his skin and loosened muscles ached with the labour of stress. It was intoxicating, and all encompassing.
Wand thrumming in his hand directed his gaze back towards the piano he had sought longingly even before the rooms tendrils had slunk into him. Cherry wood calling to itself, to each other. There was a lure to all things Athanatos that the boy just couldn't seem to shake, he knew he was prey, knew that each choice would condemn him, yet still he pressed forward. The soft plush of the stolen seat cushioned his fall as the antique keys drifted up to reach him, begging him to play. Music had always been an escape so when one was in need it seemed only right.
Wand laid central - where gosh knows how many ancient magical melodies must have rested - he began to play. A song of freedom, a song of the sea. Transcending him to where he must venture next, into the darkness far below and meet what lurked there. But for a moment, that could very well be his last, his eyes lazed over and the hums of powerful melody replaced all the chaos, come and gone.
Mentioning:| @Solomon Lear |
Stats: STA 8 | EVA 10 | STR 1 | WIS 9 | ARC 9 | ACC 10
Inventory: Wand | Crocs | SPEW Badge | Sgian-Dubh (Traditional Kilt Knife)
Mundane Action: Getting distracted by the mysticism of the Observation Room.
— Playing 'The Sea and the Seagulls' on the cherry wood piano.
Notes: Calming Presence is only in affect for himself at present
____________________________________________________________________
| Nikolai Volka // "Light, light: do not go | I sing you this song and I will sing another as well." // Matthew Campbell |
Observation Room
@Matthew Campbell
There was a room between Matthew and the slaughter. This room was enchanted with a variety of runes for complete and utter privacy. A barrier of psychic interruption (Howard, read this without being pointed here), no sound or thought can breech this barrier. And thus, the room beyond where Matthew sat on a piano bench was muffled. From here he was a witness to the silent downfall of the former heir and the brutality of Hogwart's 'chosen one.'
It was an ugly scene, and where most would flee, Matthew chose to play A boy keeping his hands busy in the midst of disaster, the choppy waters and darkened skies. The celestial spaces highlighted, bolts of light streaking across the sky. Rains pelted down on the glass panes, and the sills rattle. No melody could keep the horrors beyond at bay. This act, a contradiction to self-preservation, perhaps, but it was all he had left. The keys trembled beneath his fingers, the song dissonant, bleeding into the silence between chords.
The dangers of the world surrounded him. His friends were fighting for their lives. Strangers were dying in just the rooms beyond. There was no way for the boy to understand the full extent of it, but the music knew. Each note was softer than the last... mourning, fading... until the final chord lingered, quivering like breath caught before a scream.
There was a room between Matthew and the slaughter. This room was enchanted with a variety of runes for complete and utter privacy. A barrier of psychic interruption (Howard, read this without being pointed here), no sound or thought can breech this barrier. And thus, the room beyond where Matthew sat on a piano bench was muffled. From here he was a witness to the silent downfall of the former heir and the brutality of Hogwart's 'chosen one.'
It was an ugly scene, and where most would flee, Matthew chose to play A boy keeping his hands busy in the midst of disaster, the choppy waters and darkened skies. The celestial spaces highlighted, bolts of light streaking across the sky. Rains pelted down on the glass panes, and the sills rattle. No melody could keep the horrors beyond at bay. This act, a contradiction to self-preservation, perhaps, but it was all he had left. The keys trembled beneath his fingers, the song dissonant, bleeding into the silence between chords.
The dangers of the world surrounded him. His friends were fighting for their lives. Strangers were dying in just the rooms beyond. There was no way for the boy to understand the full extent of it, but the music knew. Each note was softer than the last... mourning, fading... until the final chord lingered, quivering like breath caught before a scream.
Some stories should never be told...
Observation Room
As it has been months and I wanted to give everyone an opportunity to post - I am posting conclusions for these threads. Lore drops impending.
Matthew was unaware of the near miss that was the cliff's edge. How errant stupidity had flung a would-be murderer into the waters. Aamon was many things and among them was impulsive. He was angry over something that was fleeting and he sought revenge but he did not truly consider what vengeance meant. A passive kill is still murder, just with the option of looking the other direction when the axe fell.
What Matthew and Aamon both did not know was the history of the Augury. Aamon knew more of course, after all the Augury was presently owned by the Athanatos family. But the historical account of ownership before the infamous seer family is a bit more dubious. It has been said that this site once belonged to a conclave of early witches. The first witches were bloody and powerful in a way that time and civility has forgotten. The modern Augury perched atop craggy cliffs south of Dover is a far cry from the original structure which was little more than a stone altar and a cave beneath it. The Augury was a breach where the world grew thin and prophecy bled through. It was here, in ages long before wands and schools and Ministries, that prophetic women gathered to weep. Not for themselves, but for the future they alone could see and never change.
Women, historically a repressed group even in the magical world, met here in secret. In its earliest era, the cavern was called The Hollow Eye, a name lost to time and remembered only in half-buried murals found deep in the catacombs. Hags, once revered and feared as Daughters of the Black Gaze, were among the first to hold ritual here. The cliffside cave, believed to be sealed by tides and enchantments that had grown thin once more, was used for their blood rites. The jagged black stone of the caverns echoing with guttural incantations. A hag was not always the villain of the tale. Some say they were midwives of the future, tearing fate from flesh and offering it to the sea.
As the centuries passed and the bloodlines that birthed them fractured or faded, other families moved in. The Athanatos line, who claimed distant relation to the earliest Sisters of the Hollow Eye claimed ownership. The original site was stripped of its identity and the name changed then from the Hollow Eye to Augury Cloister: a place of divination, yes, but also of retreat, of silencing, of containment.
Once a space for women of prophecy to gather, the Cloister became a private enclave for the divinatory elite. The Athanatos line quickly grew from an unknown seer family with a claimed prophetic heritage that stemmed back to Ancient Greece through a curation of the bloodline, arrangement of their children's marriages. Secrets hidden, once not in the books, hidden along with the bloody past of this site. The upper floors were built in marble and shone with this rose-hued opulence, designed to appear innocent, luxurious and domestic. But underneath it all, the foundation remembered and with time the enchantments thinned; something resided there once again.
Matthew was unaware of the near miss that was the cliff's edge. How errant stupidity had flung a would-be murderer into the waters. Aamon was many things and among them was impulsive. He was angry over something that was fleeting and he sought revenge but he did not truly consider what vengeance meant. A passive kill is still murder, just with the option of looking the other direction when the axe fell.
What Matthew and Aamon both did not know was the history of the Augury. Aamon knew more of course, after all the Augury was presently owned by the Athanatos family. But the historical account of ownership before the infamous seer family is a bit more dubious. It has been said that this site once belonged to a conclave of early witches. The first witches were bloody and powerful in a way that time and civility has forgotten. The modern Augury perched atop craggy cliffs south of Dover is a far cry from the original structure which was little more than a stone altar and a cave beneath it. The Augury was a breach where the world grew thin and prophecy bled through. It was here, in ages long before wands and schools and Ministries, that prophetic women gathered to weep. Not for themselves, but for the future they alone could see and never change.
Women, historically a repressed group even in the magical world, met here in secret. In its earliest era, the cavern was called The Hollow Eye, a name lost to time and remembered only in half-buried murals found deep in the catacombs. Hags, once revered and feared as Daughters of the Black Gaze, were among the first to hold ritual here. The cliffside cave, believed to be sealed by tides and enchantments that had grown thin once more, was used for their blood rites. The jagged black stone of the caverns echoing with guttural incantations. A hag was not always the villain of the tale. Some say they were midwives of the future, tearing fate from flesh and offering it to the sea.
As the centuries passed and the bloodlines that birthed them fractured or faded, other families moved in. The Athanatos line, who claimed distant relation to the earliest Sisters of the Hollow Eye claimed ownership. The original site was stripped of its identity and the name changed then from the Hollow Eye to Augury Cloister: a place of divination, yes, but also of retreat, of silencing, of containment.
Once a space for women of prophecy to gather, the Cloister became a private enclave for the divinatory elite. The Athanatos line quickly grew from an unknown seer family with a claimed prophetic heritage that stemmed back to Ancient Greece through a curation of the bloodline, arrangement of their children's marriages. Secrets hidden, once not in the books, hidden along with the bloody past of this site. The upper floors were built in marble and shone with this rose-hued opulence, designed to appear innocent, luxurious and domestic. But underneath it all, the foundation remembered and with time the enchantments thinned; something resided there once again.
Some stories should never be told...
Observation Room
Aamon Athanatos did not die when he went over the cliff. Leave it to Aamon to be killed by a lubricated cliffside. That truth alone is an inconvenience to fate. When Aamon slipped. No, when he lunged over the edge of the Augury Cloister, it was not grace that saved him. It was depth. The ocean below was cruel and cold, but it was not shallow. The impact stole the air from Aamon's lungs and scattered his thoughts like startled birds, yet the water swallowed him whole before bone could meet stone on that rocky shoreline.
The pale cliff face loomed above, slick with centuries of runoff and old enchantments. The tide was wrong that evening. Too high. Too eager. It pulled Aamon not away from the Cloister, but under it.
Aamon thrashed. Panicked. He even cried out for help, but his desperate voice was small drowned out by the storm, by distance and by the revelry of a wedding in full swing about to devolve into a tragedy of its own. The young Athanatos had not planned this part. Revenge had been a thought, not a conclusion. He had imagined distance, disappearance and while he had said and even thought death, he never really considered the gravity of the rash decision. He never considered the sea closing over his head or Matthew's head. He never had the realization that death does not feel righteous when it is imminent until now.
The current dragged him into the mouth beneath the altar. The waters inside this cavern were warmer than the waters of the ocean even in these summer months should have been. Aamon was aware of an old cave beneath the Augury, a space only described to him as a place where savages used to at one time congregate and try to glean truths from the moon and stars before wizards refined the concept of magic. That the caverns were old, unsafe and most importantly flooded. This did not seem like a flooded space he thought with a shudder.
He did not pull himself to his feet at first. Thankful for the reprieve from the waves, he was thankful that they were wrong about the cave or that the cavern was at least temporarily no longer flooded. But then he noticed it. This low, rhythmic, like breathing through stone. This jolted the battered boy to action. Only then did he notice how his skin was torn, how blood was blooming into the water in long, ribboning plumes. Blood that did not disperse into the ocean waves. Blood that lingered.
It was then that he realized that the cave was not empty. That this cave had not been empty for a very long time.
The pale cliff face loomed above, slick with centuries of runoff and old enchantments. The tide was wrong that evening. Too high. Too eager. It pulled Aamon not away from the Cloister, but under it.
Aamon thrashed. Panicked. He even cried out for help, but his desperate voice was small drowned out by the storm, by distance and by the revelry of a wedding in full swing about to devolve into a tragedy of its own. The young Athanatos had not planned this part. Revenge had been a thought, not a conclusion. He had imagined distance, disappearance and while he had said and even thought death, he never really considered the gravity of the rash decision. He never considered the sea closing over his head or Matthew's head. He never had the realization that death does not feel righteous when it is imminent until now.
The current dragged him into the mouth beneath the altar. The waters inside this cavern were warmer than the waters of the ocean even in these summer months should have been. Aamon was aware of an old cave beneath the Augury, a space only described to him as a place where savages used to at one time congregate and try to glean truths from the moon and stars before wizards refined the concept of magic. That the caverns were old, unsafe and most importantly flooded. This did not seem like a flooded space he thought with a shudder.
He did not pull himself to his feet at first. Thankful for the reprieve from the waves, he was thankful that they were wrong about the cave or that the cavern was at least temporarily no longer flooded. But then he noticed it. This low, rhythmic, like breathing through stone. This jolted the battered boy to action. Only then did he notice how his skin was torn, how blood was blooming into the water in long, ribboning plumes. Blood that did not disperse into the ocean waves. Blood that lingered.
It was then that he realized that the cave was not empty. That this cave had not been empty for a very long time.
There is something about ambition, how it not only propels you but also defines you.