The attic is littered with trunks, boxes, books, and old clothes. But the far end of the room has been cleaned up and curtains hide that space from the rest of the attic. Behind the curtains is an advanced shadow theater and chairs for a in audience. The theater consists of lanterns, paper figures on sticks, and cloth screens that can be replaced to show different backgrounds. Everything is connected to rails and clockwork mechanisms, and it appears that by turning a crank, the light sources and the figures can be moved around and the background replaced.
As she gestures for you to take your seats, Sophie stands before you. Thunder continues to peel outside, and the rain dances its own mad rhythm on the roof.
"The ideas for the theater came to me in dreams I started having at the beginning of this year," she begins.
Once you're seated, no doubt uncomfortable in the ghostly blue light of the lanterns, she cranks up the clockwork mechanism and starts telling her story from memory.
"A young man wanders through Europe, seeing things few people are fortunate enough to witness. He dances with queens and visits Versailles and the Palais-Royal. There people perform his plays and praise his name, and life dances along like a dream. But the people’s revolution sweeps the land with grenades and fire, and those who were playing and singing end up dead by the side of the road. The young man flees the song of the guillotine.
Our hero returns home to a city in the north – he walks through its gates without shoes, poor and mute. The house where he was born is burnt to ashes and his family is missing. He kneels by the side of the road, begging for coin, and no one knows that his name was once sung in the palaces of Europe."
Her voice grows increasingly strong and deep, until it becomes clear that it is not her voice at all, but the voice of a man, echoing as if it comes from the bottom of a hole. Sophia’s gaze is fixed on a certain part of the ceiling and her body loses all tension, except for the arm turning the crank, which seems to be moving by itself as if suspended with invisible wires from the ceiling.
"Suddenly he sees things no one else does – creatures creeping, flying, and crawling – as the Invisibles reveal themselves to him. When he points them out to others, he is mocked and beaten.
A man picks him up from the street and has him bathed and clothed. The man’s name is Albert, and his mansion is a place of love and song. Our young hero performs his plays and sings to him for days and nights, and they eat fruit and drink wine.
Albert introduces his friends. In the young man’s dreams they are all dancing together.
But the dreams lie.
It was you. You brought me here. You asked me to sit down and talk. We spoke of the future of the world.
I have the right to refuse, you said so and smiled, and then you butchered me like a pig one hangs from the ceiling. You buried my body in unholy ground, without priest or consecration.
Now, dreams are all I have left – I gaze out over the audience at the Palais-Royal, I dance with a princess, I eat cake, I look up into your eyes, Albert, and I let you take my dirty hand. You summon me to Pyri’s inn. You make me a villainous proposition, and I decline.
You cut me up. I scream, not wanting to die.
At last you are back.
Welcome."
As Sophia finishes her story, a monstrous figure with sharp teeth and claws emerges from the shadow theater. His undead body stinks of decay, and the entire building starts to shake as if hit by an earthquake. It whispers "
welcome," and the word vibrates in the room, lingering like a bad taste in the mouth. Then the revenant howls and launches itself at you all.
Please make a test against Fear 2.[ +- ] Fear test
Choose whether to tackle the situation with Logic or Empathy. The attribute value indicates how many dice you may roll. Add additional dice equal to the number of player characters present in the scene (maximum +3 dice).
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