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Cornucopia Every story has a beginning. And what a beautiful, strange place you have found yourself in! Green and purple roots twist across the grass-sown ground, snaking up and around a curious archway made of stone that stands tall above the wealth of loot in the middle of the arena. Something like water, like air, like smoke fills the space between the stone arches, translucent and strange.
When all is quiet you swear you can hear soft voices singing wordless, breathy melodies from beyond the arch’s veil - or was that music on the wind? From below the earth your feet stand on, littered with daisies? Or is it the ghosts of those whose journeys have ended too soon? Their stories cut short by your blade - by others? And how strange, you think, strangest of all, that the earth seems to soak up their blood like rain - birthing a red rose for each fallen tribute the very next day. |
20 | 196 |
control | lillybird iii. by D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza] Jul 25, 2023 15:22:36 GMT -5 |
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Canopy Forest The forest is lovely, dark, and deep. Rendered in the most verdant greens and textured as if by a skilled painter’s brush, the canopy forest offers a shaded sanctuary to all who wander into it, whether it be tribute or beast. The trees are of many species and numbers, and if their latticed roots should suggest anything, it is that these are ancient lands you are traversing. Tread lightly, keep to the path.
Should you choose to stray, however, and wander off, you find elements of the forest to have once been lived in: tiny birdhouses between the boughs of each tree and dark yawning burrows staring at you from the rich earth. A sharp eye may even spot strange, glowing symbols engraved onto a few trees. But the longer you remain here, the more aware you become of tinkling laughter heard from a distance, and a gentle yet ominous rustling from the canopy overhead. Where is the path again? Where are you? These trees are not the ones you encountered before. Where are you? |
29 | 185 |
The Wild Beyond The Trees | 94th Finale by Python Aug 28, 2023 22:24:39 GMT -5 |
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Blighted Wood More often than not tributes will smell the Blighted Woods before they see them. Towering before you, dark and wondrous, is a place where secrets go to hide.
The trees reek of death, and they weep a black, tar-like substance that coats their trunks and seeps into the ground with a foulness. Blight has eaten away at any signs of life that once flourished, but every once in a while, a shadow moves through to feed off whatever they can catch. The putrid stench of decay from rotting wood and undergrowth is overwhelming and unescapable. The foul smell from rotting fruit and fungus littered under trees is enough to have tributes gagging. There is an unsettling silence that lingers in the depths of the woods, a quiet amplified by the low-rolling mist underfoot. Tributes are warned to not linger in the Blighted Woods, or risk the blight feeding off of them, corrupting them as it grows. To stray down this neck of the woods is to wander into a hungry stomach born out of its need to feed. |
22 | 108 |
witness [magi, day 6] by marguerite harvard d2a (zori) Aug 1, 2023 16:56:40 GMT -5 |
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Fungal Grove Blight has yet to fully consume this land - instead, it has mutated it. The mushrooms and other fungi that scatter the area range in size. Some are as small as the garden mushrooms back home, whereas others are so large that they tower over tributes. The smell of decay is thick here, binding to cloth and skin alike, and yet there is a sickly sweetness from what appears to be fairy dust at first, but turns out to be clouds of spores drifting through the air. A few topiaries adorn the place as well, overgrown with blue-green moss and all eerily humanoid. In fact, each one wears a unique expression of anguish on their faces.
When night falls, the Fungal Grove blooms. Bioluminescent mushrooms light up, glowing in a galaxy of colors, and technicolor roots of strange mycelia pulse gleefully. The human-shaped topiaries, posing in various forms, stand like mannequins lit from within and, as best as you try, you cannot seem to escape their tortured eyes. |
9 | 25 |
the seven circles of girlhood / perry, day 7 by tick 12a / calla Aug 6, 2023 23:30:51 GMT -5 |
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Lilypad Lagoon Nestled cozily behind the canopy forest, far from the reaches of the blight, is a lagoon with starry, jewel-toned flowers floating placidly in a few places that are not overrun by giant, boat-sized lily pads. It is a collection of tiny green islets, adjoined at the edges to each other, and they densely populate the lagoon to an extent where light can barely reach its cool, azure depths.
The air here smells of daylight and honeysuckle, speckled by the occasional firefly, but the real magic takes place after dark. Once the sun sets, the waters of the lagoon glow and winged fairy-like creatures crawl out from under the lily pads. Frogs, dressed in their finest livery, gather in groups to croak and make a lavish feast of nearby mosquitoes. These creatures love to play, but be always wary of the fey: what you see is not always what it truly is. |
6 | 40 |
take it slow // torian, day 8 by Python Aug 18, 2023 21:35:32 GMT -5 |
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Fruit Orchard How hungry you are. And how delicious those fruits look, ripe and ready to be plucked from the dozens of trees that litter the orchard. But taking a bite is a gamble in this place, for many of the tree trunks and fruits hide a rotten core.
At the edge of the arena, if one is brave enough to trek through the thick dangers of the Canopy Forest, tall trees give way to a beautiful Fruit Orchard. It seems so peaceful compared to the dark of the forest, sunlight trickling through the dance of leaf-shaped shadows. The air is deceptively sweet, a gentle hum of insects buzzing through leaves and around your heads. And oh, how your stomach grumbles at the sight of peaches, pears, apples and oranges. Surely one bite won’t hurt? Just one? Go on…. |
6 | 30 |
forbidden fruit | ulysses (death) by mat Aug 7, 2023 17:54:56 GMT -5 |
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Crumbling Cenote This place was beautiful - once. That you are sure of. Everything else in the arena seems of this lifetime, but the cenote reeks of decay and memories lost to time.
What was once a deep, gleaming pool of transparent water now lies a murky puddle that only comes up to your ankles. Overgrown vines stretch down into the cenote, as if desperate to drink the last remains of the water that once gave them eternal life. Clay and rock crumbles and breaks at random times, scuttering down to the ground below. If you speak, even a whisper, your words bounce around the circular space as eerie echoes.. Be careful upon your descent into the cenote. You may never make it back up to high ground… |
15 | 84 |
choir so heartfelt / krueger, day 8 by pogue Aug 17, 2023 18:09:47 GMT -5 |
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