Tumuldine

"You, Obrin, have just returned from your brief but productive stint in the bathroom to discover your good friend is nowhere to be found. You are alone in one of the many Outer Halls of your twisted and inhumane prison complex. The walls are lined with the common grotesque statues of former faculty. Each one a narcisistic display of hubris celebrating a fool who, in life, fancied themselves God. 'It appears I have been misplaced from my compatriot Ezdel on this cursed Day of the Dance. Oooh when shall these horrible tribulations end!' You shriek hideously, hoping there is no one around the corner to hear your embarassing wails. 'There isn't much time left. If I don't have my precious, beautiful friend to go to the dance with I'll be the laughing stock of the entire Level. Quickly I must find her and secure my pride!' You look up over the ceilingless walls of the maze-like outer halls. DESTROMELOS' head looms imperiously, drifting in the ether gravity between the level in which you currently reside. Tumuldine. And the level above you. Alterodine. The clouds above drift dark and solemn here in the tumult of the lowest level. [[I shall have to strike out alone through these accursed halls in search of my dear friend.]]

In these corridors, lined with wallpaper and carpeted of colors that make you ill simply to think of them, let alone cast your glance toward, you strive out. As all know, you possess such an immense cowardice, and such a lacking of social ability, that you frequently hold the ire of faculty and pupil alike, and so greatly fear moving between these vaunted halls while not accompanied by one of the scant peers you would dare consider "friends". Best of these being Ezdel, whom during your time, seemingly your infinitely long and arduous lifespan spent here within this inescapable prison that has been and perhaps shall remain all you know for all time, you have grown such a strong fondness for that you shudder to truly accept how strong your feelings towards her have grown. Filled with anxiety, your mind concocts several potentialities as to why Ezdel has left you prematurely even though you told her to wait for you as you did your business inside the bathroom. [[Obviously Ezdel hates you and wishes to be rid of you]] [[Of course Ezdel probably had some more worthwhile business to tend to]] [[You should not have made Ezdel wait for you you disgusting fool!]]

Could such a possibility truly be? When you think of it it makes perhaps more sense than the idea of her desiring to stay in your company. Why would such a radiant being as she, with no lacking in friendship and those who would desire her company, choose you to spend time with? Could it be, even, that she truly seeks some sort of ruse. Some sort of horrific betrayal upon you that would annihilate you so thoroughly and so humerously to the populous that she would be forever ingratiated into a much higher social standing? The sheer depths of depravity required of a mind to think of that truly angelic being to stoop to such foul machinations. However seemingly in this hell as low as tartarus, or lower, we do not often rise in status through acts of kindness. At least that is how it appears so often to you. [[You round a corner and come upon a strange scene]]

A person of such standing as Ezdel surely would have some more pressing, and more enriching activity to engage her important personal time with than simply wait for such a lowly being outside of a bathroom. You imagine that she may have been called forth to some social gathering, elite students of these cursed halls pooling sharpened minds together to some great purpose that faculty and pupil will both delight in. Some true feat of teaching or learning that would make all here better for its creation. Castrel was among those Ezdel kept in contact with. That one was a favored pupil whom had brought upon many great achievements and ensured a swift ascension for themselves. Many a pupil looked to that burning soul, with hair like golden fire, and eyes that could turn any unworthy soul to stone with a mere glance, and skin that was as dark as night and too so full of stars. Whenever you have been in their presence, even momentarily, you felt such a weight upon you that you might nearly lose consciousness. [[You round a corner and come upon a strange scene]]

How could you be such a fool to want someone such as she to wait on you? How could you even entertain such an unbecoming activity for her of all people? There is a great shame within you. You often overstep your bounds due to your lack of social practice. It's one of your worst habits and one that gets you into no end of strife and misconduct. It is time again to retreat into internal punishment, no misdeed shall ever be done without a intense and prolonged mental lashing. Sorrow grips your being. Sorrow and Shame you know are your only true friends and are the only people you can truly rely on. A creature so base, so foul as you should look to no other but Sorrow and Shame as lasting companions. Thus it should always be for the unenlightened of the lowest level. [[You round a corner and come upon a strange scene]]

Before you the hall ends and widens into a large atrium. Several twisted trees rise from geometric enclosures among the bricks filled with sediment of some unknown origin. It is the Period of Waning, when things that were bright and alive, become dull and morose. In the center of the atrium, a crowd has formed around a short stage erected therein. As the Day of the Dance is finally upon us, many such displays can be found throughout the halls. For soon after The Dance, the Ascension ceremony will take place, where all who have proven themselves beholden to a higher purpose shed their plebian form and ascend the winding stair under the watch of DESTROMELOS, and enter the level above, Alterodine. Surely you will not join them this time, as you have not countless times before. [[Join the crowd around the stage]] [[Keep searching the halls]]

A press of bodies has never looked inviting to you, but you sidle up to the edge of the throng. Upon the stage towers Altzimelos. They are wreathed in gold and silver latticed together like a web of pure light and fire, they hold in jewel encrusted fingers a mock display of the form of The Sceptor of Repose which they are shouting to the audience of this banal play, that they will be rewarded with come the conclusion of The Dance, where one exhaulted pupil shall be crowned Bearer of Truths. Several of the more popular students have made plays to the wider populous that they should be the one to earn such a prestigious honor. The Bearer of Truths shall ascend first and most brightly to the next echelon come the Ascension. You think all of this pomp and circumstance to be quite dull and uninteresting. The Popular have spent their entire lives in the good graces of all, why do they cling to such trivial tokens of approval given all they have been blessed with? Altzimelos' typically smoothed skin, which on a common day shone like polished glass or marble, now gleamed almost too brightly to behold as they glided across that small stage. You look to your own hands which hold not a gleam, not a glisten or glamor. And clench a fist in imputent frustration. [[Keep searching the halls]]

You leave the atrium as gold leaf sparks and flutters along the brick at your feet. Heading down another hallway lined with countless foul odes to former faculty. You wonder what it must be like as a faculty member, given the chance to ascend or remain among Tumult and squalor, and choosing the latter. The voices of these spiteful denizens of the halls whisper silently to themselves. At times you can hear their wayward criticisms of yourself drift into your mind. All eyes cast down like those of DESTROMELOS himself, always judging and infinitely vigilant. You pass under a ceiling. The halls are now lit by lights hung or mounted upon the walls or ceiling. You descend a large staircase guilding on every edge. You find yourself within a circle. Opulent carpet displays a lush and painstakingly rendered scene of Ultimate Triumph, as you tread upon it with your feet. Although above you hangs a chandelier too massive, glistening like the trillion stars of Ether and chained to a ceiling too impossibly distant above, you are in an area of darkness. Many staircases surround with beginning and terminus below and above the platform you stand on, and crossing so that they may cause a vision like that of some evil divine geometry. To look at it makes you sick, and dizzy, so you keep your gaze locked to the vulgar and profane scene below you. A heroic form like that of the time of DESTROMELOS himself, perhaps a fellow pupil, locked in a trial so perilous that their victory should warrant the image you see to stand forever as a testament to virtue. You don't like being in these places. The criss crossing staircases always make you nauseous. You know, though as you have been here countless times, that your own dormitory is nearby. As well as one garden and eating hall. Perhaps it is time to proverbially give up the search and return to your room. Or perhaps, your stomach growls and you feel a particular pang of hunger, or intrigue, at what new delicacies await. [[Go to your Dorm]] [[Go to the Dining Hall]]

You decide to return to the only place you can exist without worry, your room. From beneath the chandelier illuminating that scene of triumph you descend the wide and long flight of stairs downwards which comes out into a darkened ballroom that feels as if it has not seen a dance in a thousand years. Exiting the large and opulent front doors you come into an outer courtyard. The ether is visible above, a few of the choir of stars are here, shining like silver nails through a nebula of blood. Trees like black snakes coiling line the passageway from the ballroom which is held within an immense black fortress which stretches upward behind you, of no interest to you. You keep your eyes to the stones below, almost as black as the trees about you. Entering and exiting the dorm always prepares you for the day. From dorm to school, you see this image in reverse, with the black fortress like a rip in the universe rising evermore in front of you. Now you go the opposite way, over battlements of this fortress complex. Wide pathways over ebon ramparts, made into a mockery of a place of living. If you were to walk to the side of those ramparts, and were tall enough to look over them, you would see, some infinte distance below, an expansive waste. The iron and niter stained ruin of unlimited strife stretching beyond into a past so distant the keeping of time, and of history, is nigh impossible. [[You are upon the Dorm]]

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