2022-11-06: Rosarium Philosophorum
- Cutscene: Rosarium Philosophorum
- Cast: Seraph Harmaus, K.K., Elise Riesdale
- Where: The Great Works
- Date: November 6th 2022
- Summary: Everything is in place for the garden of darkness Harmaus has sought..
BGM: (Shoujo Kakumei Utena ~ Mitsumune Shinkichi - Mitsu no Naifu [Honeyed Knife]) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6TSYnEUgr4
The descent is a long one.
It takes them down into the depths of the mining tunnels, long-abandoned before even the rise of Meria. There are some that say that these mines were used by ancient Zeboim, though formal analysis has turned up but little in favor of the theory. Whoever had plumbed their depths once, little was now left for Meria to claim, though it had tried.
But it isn't the contents of the mine shafts that interest the Seraph Harmaus or his compatriots. Rather, it is what lies beneath them.
They have been dubbed in the modern era 'the Great Works'.
And they have earned their name.
Great shards of crystal jut from ceiling and floor. Swirling expanses of mineral deposits line the walls and floors, adding splashes of unexpected color to the rock faces. Deceptively delicate-seeming overhangs of stone drape as if in mimicry of cloth. Here and there again, pools filled with water that seems as clear as glass, their nature betrayed only when water drips from the field of stalactites overhead.
There are wonders to behold wherever one might travel within this place.
But there is one more. One more wonder, in the furthest part of the Great Works.
The figure is studded with blue turquoise and lapis lazuli, with green variscite and clear crystal. Half-submerged in the stone below the overhang, the outline rather suggests that of a sleeping humanoid figure, hands outstretched at either side.
The official scholarly works argue about this figure, called 'Odziozo' after a personage from local folklore. Some say that it is a natural formation that merely resembles a person. Others claim it was carved, that the hard lines have been eroded by time and water.
Harmaus knows better. This is none other than the still-sleeping Primarch of Geo, Odziozo. The name has tumbled down through time as an echo of who it had been when it had been awake and walking the world. How fitting that the name finds its way home.
"Ah... I sees it at last. Primarch Odziozo of Geo!"
The stone figure does not so much as stir. This suits Harmaus quite well.
"Well, Trial Knight? This, my lady's garden soil. Sows now it the seed?"
First, he must have the suitable soil. The Primarch will do. Then there must be the seed--
K.K., the Trial Knight, but nods in assent at Harmaus' request.
Yes. The seed.
It peels itself forth from the portal that tears open behind K.K., pulling itself forth into reality one pale reaching hand at a time. It has so very many of them; it takes its time to birth itself fully into the world.
The Malevolent pressure in the chamber is palpable in its presence. A very vigorous seed indeed, as Elise had put it. Harmaus, given his nature, cannot help but shudder and tremble under its weight. Truth is a painful thing, as he has so often learned.
Why should this be any different?
"-Go thou, you seed! Bear life to this blighted land!-" he calls in the Ancient Tongue, driven nearly to his belly by the force of the Malevolence here. So close, so close now--
From here, all his desires will take root and spread.
The pale seed flies forth on many-fingered wings, descending over the ledge towards the form that slumbers below. It hovers there for but a moment, and in the pale glow that clings to the creature, one might even mistake movement from the face of the being beneath it.
Slowly, with methodical care, the seed begins to peel itself apart. It drops itself like rain onto the form of Odziozo, until it is no more.
Nothing has changed. This place is as it was.
Everything has changed. This place has transcended itself.
"My... my lady," Harmaus manages, struggling against the pressure that has only doubled in the air. "Your garden... is ready! Sow now you... all your desires!"
For Elise, the Rose Queen, there can be only one answer.