lesmodsalouette | Graveyard

Graveyard

The garden is still sprawling and green – despite having entirely lost all its riotous flowers and colors, along with any sign of wildlife or birdsong – though one thing stands out more than anything else: from Monday to Thursday, you can’t see the castle anymore. All that remains where it once stood (or perhaps, usually stands) is an incongruously large tree that towers over everything else and somehow looks larger and more imposing than the castle ever did. The tree’s branches are bare, without any hint of life nor leaf – however, on the weekends (that is to say, Friday through Sunday) a faint projection of the castle appears around it, cradling the only things that the denizens of this alternate garden can see in detail from the other side: the flurry of activity around the investigation, the circus-like dimension that holds the trial, and the mirrors and the grassy dimension that display the execution.

For those curious what the land of the living are up to, a mirage-like and upside-down reflection of the castle garden in its original arrangement can be spotted occasionally overlaying the sky. This strange illusion may sometimes show those in the garden on the other side, flitting in and out of view like stray clouds; but much like the weather, their appearance is mercurial – they cannot be reached and cannot be heard.

Water, Flower, Everywhere

The fountains remain active somehow, though their features seem to have eroded, obscuring the identities of the deities and the wings of the birds, cracking pottery down into nothing but worn shards and handles. At night, only maybe half the lights work (and here they are real candlelight, rather than magical), plunging most of the garden into crepuscular darkness. The trellis walkway looks quite overgrown (mysteriously, bamboo is taking over), entirely covering some statues and other features along its length, and it’s no longer walkable – a miniature canal runs the whole length underneath the arches, feeding into other new waterways around the garden that cut off footpaths seemingly at random. There are small footbridges here and there, but the lack of logic to the whole arrangement makes falling into one of the streams or canals a real hazard.

The waterways do all manage to converge at the pond by the pavilion – neither of which are all that soothing or classical anymore. The pond is only half-full, and entirely lacks water lilies or any dragonflies; its banks sit jagged above the dark waters, and perhaps that’s why the pavilion, too, is half collapsed down into it all. Gone are the curtains and ivies; only dead curling vines and half-collapsed columns are left, but there’s still someplace to sit if you put your mind to it.

Most of the flowerbeds sit fallow or overtaken by weeds – there’s signs here and there that someone might have tried to clear them out, but the bulk of the effort seems to have gone to the orchard by the gardener’s cottage. It might be more accurate to say cottages, given that there are a few of them dotted around that area for some reason. None of them are locked, but all of them have only minimal furnishings apart from the original; they’re also all provided with the full complement of gardener’s tools. Next to them, there are new saplings and half-grown flowering trees: some pear and apple, but also some not. There are new shoots in the kitchen orchard that have just barely taken root, the dirt recently turned.

Hedge Maze(?)

The other most eye-catching feature is what once was an ornamental hedge maze: instead of being a tame height here, it has seemingly grown wild and completely unchecked, towering above the rest of the garden almost like its own overgrown mountain. The hedge walls go up and up and up, making it entirely impossible to see the center or even how far it goes despite the fact that sections of the hedges have also died, reduced to the branches underneath, bristling with interlocked thorns.

Part of it had even spilled over into the garden itself, huge gnarled branches spreading out like burnt-blackened fingers all the way to the edge of the pond – wherever the branches touch, even the greenery is withered, and any statues look more ruined than those in the rest of the area. As of the end of Week 3, however, the branches have retracted entirely and the way into the hedge maze has opened even more. However, there is now a storm brewing over what might be the center or the general area of it. Getting close to the hedge maze or any of the hedge(?) branches is... unpleasant, though it doesn’t usually go beyond a buzz of wrongness and a slight headache.

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[Over the beginning of this week, the snow has melted entirely and new shoots have sprung up, growing unnaturally fast to sprout, to bud and flower and even to fruit; the saplings and plants that already existed and have been tended to, which have occasionally cycled confusingly through different growth stages not necessarily in order, have all reached blooming at once; and finally, the large tree that takes the place of the Château Ambregris on this side of the garden has absolutely and sudden burst into flower.

They’re cherry blossoms, so brilliantly colorful and ethereal that they look like little ghosts dancing on the wind themselves, softly blanketing both the wild and tended parts of the aged garden like a much gentler snow cover.

Less gentle by magnitudes is what’s happening at the hedge maze: the storm is growing ever bigger, lightning occasionally lashing down into the hedge maze and outside of it – though not far enough to cause significant damage – and the entire maze has turned black. The leaves are dead but not falling; instead they look somewhat twisted, distorted as though burnt. There are unnaturally large branches and thorns bulging out of them, especially at the periphery of the maze like grasping fingers that want to re-enter the garden… but something is stopping them.

They stop just before the blanket of cherry blossoms begins, like they’ve hit some kind of invisible wall.

It seems like whatever is happening inside the hedge maze is progressing, but at an impasse for now. You probably have a little time, still, to consider your options and scare up new ones.]

Edited 2025-04-02 17:30 (UTC)

[You have quite a lot ahead of you, but there's one thing that might need to come first: having a good talk with your now-former host, the Witch of Ruin Ish. You have so very much to discuss, after all.]

[OOC: For this first bit, the characters will be speaking to Ish as their items on the other side for negotiations.]

[It's been a much, much too exciting Wednesday at the Château Ambregris, and those of you who lost your lives in the gardens like a chain of daisies are only just now waking up here, in the ruined garden on the other side.

Surely everything will be more peaceful here, now that your lives are presumably over, along with any ambitions, dreams or (some of you additional) plans of murder you might have had.

Alas, the best-laid plans of mice and men -- you open your eyes to a storm on the horizon and a storm of flowers. The gardener's cottage seems quite crowded today.]

[ ...

You know, being dead is annoyingly still like being alive. He's still cold and tired for one. And disgustingly crowded.

He's still looks severely unamused to be here, but it's not like he's having a fit or anything. ]

So, what have you all been doing about whatever the problem is?

[ hi hello he has no shame ]

Ahh, I knew you would stab me back.

[ as he thought, yoonhee was the best choice. ]

Week 4: Wednesday - Graveyard Endgame P1

ISH & THE ITEM CONFERENCE

NEW ARRIVALS: WEDNESDAY MASSACRE EDITION

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SWORD BRIEFING

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