[Journey] Parasite Eve

Deep in thought, you find yourself wandering through the silent streets of the now forgotten city. Every step you take kicks up a little cloud of dust and debris, a hollow sound in the otherworldly silence that has fallen over this place. You find yourself not scared, yet intrigued by this place, wondering what it is that make others so scared of a place that was once inhabited by a civilisation.

Even in the creeping silence of your surroundings, it is your pokémon that notices different things. His ears following different strings of sounds, one that you are unable to distinguish. A low growl follows from Grymm, as the Houndoom stands still a decrepit building. Still, you're not sure what it is that has agitated your pokémon like this.  

From the corner of your eye, a flash gets your attention. Not even the flash of a light, but a reflection of some sort, coming from what looks like a town hall on the other side of the street. The door is open, broken and hangs in its hinged, but it is a clear way inside. The reflection coming from the second floor, but once you focus on it, it seems to have disappeared.

When setting a step forward, a wave of nausea washes over you, combined with a sharp pain of a starting headache. Your vision goes blurry for a moment and you feel like something is trying to pry into your mind. The feeling disappears when you set a step back.

As you turn around and walk into the direction of the Town Hall, you can't shake the feeling that you might have missed something in the other, not explored options that had presented themselves to you. But a choice has been made and you have turned your back towards those options. Walking towards the building that once stood proud in the city, big and looming. A sign of power that was found within the Shadowfell.

Your cane taps rhythmically on the stones as you walk towards the building, your pokémon at your side, keeping an eye out for everything that wasn't normal. But a lot of thins aren't normal in this place and you start to feel that jittery feeling deep within you, that something is not right.

The moment you step in the Town Hall, you can see that either a whirlwind or a big fight has once taken place here. With the benches destroyed, doors hanging in their hinges and splinters of wood scattered everywhere.



As you walk towards the centre, your senses pick up a few things. In the far back a door creaks softly as if a gust of wind blows through the town hall. The creaking almost beckoning you to come closer. On your left stands the remain of a bookcase, holding different kinds of books and scrolls. But you also remember that reflection that seem to have come from the second floor.

As you walk over to the bookcase, leaving the thought of the mirror and the door creaking as an afterthought, you eyes quickly fall on the scattered scrolls. All of them looking old, thorn and withered, as if they have tried to escape time itself. Some are clearly partially destroyed, probably around the same time as that the building got ransacked. As you take a good look over the scrolls, none of them in particular catches your attention.

However, what you do notice, is the wax seals that some of them have. Eight of these scrolls have these seals, all of them unbroken, however the scrolls are damaged and you can see parts of the written word peak through.

Will you take a look at one of these eight scrolls, find something else of interest within the bookcase, or leave it for now?

The scrolls with the seals catch your attention, unbroken seals sometimes mean that there is something of worth written within these scrolls. You decide to take a gamble, picking out a scroll at random to break the seal and read what is written inside.



The parchment feels heavy in your hands and with a soft plopping sound, the seal comes off, revealing it's context. The text written inside is vague, some of the words are missing, it is clearly worn out by time and the destruction that took place here. The text reads as followed.

"...residents started reporting unexplained...and strange...Flickering lights, shadows...without a source, and whispers in the...night became common...The council dismissed these accounts as mere..., products of overactive...However, fear quietly spread among the..., growing with each new...An unsettling sense of...settled over the city, casting long shadows of...and suspicion on what was once a...community. People began to avoid certain..., and a once-thriving...started to feel like a...place where...was uncertain..."

The information is vague, it doesn't give you a clear picture of what happened within these walls. But you also feel a chill going over your body while reading this scroll.

What will you do next, pick out another scroll or try to make out what this one is telling you?

The text on the scroll is only confusing you more, not sketching a full picture, but in stead giving you vague bits of information. Yet, you have the feeling that it is important and you decide to remember what has been written. Meanwhile, wondering if the story continues in the other scrolls. Picking up the scroll next to the one you just read, you once again plop open the wax seal and unroll the parchment. From a first glance, you notice that this scroll also has been worn by time and destruction, but the story does seem to be continuing.

"...council meetings devolved into chaos as accusations of...and...flew. Trust...rapidly among the members, and Mayor Thalmar's...grew. The once...council began to...under the pressure of their conflicting...and mounting fears. Heated arguments...commonplace, with...sides forming, each accusing the other of...The city's leadership...fragile, and the foundations of the...began to crack. Amidst the turmoil, the mysterious...on the upper floor...a focal point of contention. Some believed it held...to their problems, while others...it brought nothing but...The unity that once... was now a...of the past..."

The story is very much still incomplete, but it is giving you a bit more insight in what was going on within this place. The only thing that seem to be missing, is a date and you're still unsure how long ago this all happened. But the story eludes towards chaos and something that happened to the mayor. Will you investigate further?

The scrolls are giving you frustratingly little information. This second one making the story even more confusing, without providing any new information. Something has befallen this place, something that spread chaos through the people and somehow ended up with this town hall destroyed.

Giving your pokémon the command to keep the watch, you decide to skip most of the remaining scrolls and go straight to the last one, itching to find out what it is that happened to the town hall. Plopping open the wax seal, you let your gaze fall on the written word.

"...the town hall now lies in..., a silent testament to the events that led to the city's...Echoes of the past...in the desolate...The mirror's presence remains, a haunting...of the...and folly that once brought...and ultimately led to...Survivors speak in hushed...about the final days, when...descended upon the city. The air...heavy with...and the streets...with the memories of those lost. Buildings stand as hollow...of what once was, their...faded and broken. The...that filled the city is now replaced with an...silence, broken only by the occasional...of the wind..."

While you have been looking for what happened to the town hall, you in stead found the aftermath of what it was what had befallen this place. Making you seem that you have missed parts of the story, yet you do figure out that what was on the second floor is the mirror that this scroll had been talking about.

Will you investigate the other scrolls still, or do you think you have enough information to go look somewhere else?

While reading the last scroll, you figure out that the mirror is indeed the reflection that you have seen from the second floor. Armed with the information that you have gathered, you decide that now is a good moment as ever to move to the second floor and see for yourself what this mirror has been. Calling your pokémon to you, you turn around and take a good moment to look around.



Now that you focus on finding something, you can actually see how badly beaten this building is. Whatever happened to it had to be either very powerful or in large quantities. However, what you don't see is a save way to get up to the second floor.

As you look over your options, you see that all of them are about equally bad. Maybe for someone with a better working physique it might have worked out, but for you it is almost an impossible task. Yet, unable to give up on the task before you, you decide to take the path that you think might be the best with the limitations that you have.

Calling upon your pokémon, who easily jumps over the debris, while you yourself try to find a path through it.



Looking over the debris, you can see a small path, just big enough to squeeze yourself through. But with every careful step, you can see the debris underneath you shift and roll. Confident in your own abilities, you continue on, squeezing through and climbing over the debris to scale the stairs that might hold the secrets to the reflection you saw before.



Confidence can be a silent killer and while you move, you miss one shift in the debris underneath you. And before you know it, you can feel and see a lose rock on your left move. It moves towards you, giving you a few moments to decide to either carry on and hurt yourself, or go back and maybe lose this path.

With the sound made by your Houndoom, you just get enough of a warning to notice that something is wrong. The rock that shifts, making the spot you're standing on feel unstable under your feet. Looking up at the danger coming at you with a surprisingly rapid pace, you decide that going back would be futile, as this is the only way to the second floor that you could find.

Bracing yourself with the help of your cane, you look at the rock coming at you. Your pokémon standing a few feet away, only watching to see what was going to happen, yet not helping unless a command is given. Certain about your own situation and strength, you stand still.



With your cane safely planted on the ground and your feet steadily on either side, you look the danger in the eyes. As it rolls towards you, it is stopped by your cane, although you feel the vibrations going through the cane and your body, almost making you lose your grip. Stepping aside to make the rock move to the side, the path in front of you is now free of obstacles for you to reach the second floor.

What will you do next?