Journey to the abandoned temple

You come to the temple. Yes you. There is noone else here now is there?

You could almost miss it, the way the Moss Clutch has grown all around it, and your legs, protected by Greshire pants can almost feel the scratch of the teeth, tearing your skin, but you are safe and you are here. Quickly, while we are here, save in your mind knowledge of what you are - foliad, troll... human in disguise? I don't think you're Nocturne this far from the oceans, but you are brave if you are. Either way, the howls and yips of the maned menaces echo behind you, a pack you disturbed with your careless steps in search of this place.

A membrane covers the area before you, and you see a pressure pad connected to it, ready to read the heat of your palm. Your hand slides over the panel and the mebrane curls up and over itself, wound at the top to reveal a heavy stone door set on hidden hinges. You only know it is a door because someone told you, and for the weird metal handle set into, curled and shaped like a vine, but why not just use one if that is the case.

You set your shoulder into the door and push, working it until it is flush against the stacked stone walls - if getting inside was easy for you, you'll have to stoop to get inside; if the going was hard, the door resisting you - well it just is taller than your head now isn't it? Either way, the way down seems dark and foreboding.

If not for the plant membrane you would guess this is a shrine to the god who must not be named, but you know better, even as you make your way inside, activating the light circuit that was painted onto your wrist this morning. The sand coating the stone crunches beneath your bare feet, scratched slightly from before, and you head on your way down the narrow corridor.

Step by step you take and your bones ache in this forbidden press of stone on stone. Maybe you are human and you remember the press of tight human quarters, or maybe you are from Whencis and the step through stone doesn't bother you. But I doubt it. I think you are probably from one of the central Levis towns, sent here to worship a god or goddess long forgotten.

Soon you descend stairs, hard and rough on your feet as the sand is replaced by the thinnest layer of dust. You must me miles away from where you started, as the stacked stone walls have twisted into something carved from the very earth itself.

And then there is air, light too, a pinprick fanned through lenses to illuminate the massive cave around you. Bioluminescent fungi sprout in reds and oranges around the place to pick up the light, and before you swims a massive subterranean pool with waterfalls pouring in from the edges of the cave, and a massive vinular floating walkway coasting out to a massive grown cathedral.

The roof of the cathedral is almost pushing at the stone ceiling of the cave, and the air is musky from disuse, though you cannot see a place a circuit might open to bring fresh air to the temple. Root after root grows from the stone platform, the sides pushing up from somewhere deep in the core of the planet. The roots pulse with energy power you can feel from here, nomatter what species you are and your teeth itch with the potential deep in the cave below.

You are probably unfamiliar with all the sharp edges of the stone steps, and part of you wishes you traded for sandals, even though the trade would mark you as strange to those that know you, or those that would see you wear them on the path here. And walking along the vinular float is awkward, one stray step likely to send you into the drink - which appears only water at least.

Coming across the walkway the light catches across walls in the shrine you had not seen, parsing a myriad of colours. A sap window spirals before you, fractals on fractals in endless possibilities. 'Hairs' of wood push from the roots making up the walls of the shrine, curling over the sap patterns, in beauty that seems almost impossible to be constructed by mortal hands. Your hands brush the surface of the shrine and it feels cool to the touch, the temperature of the cave keeping everything chilled.

A shiver may go through you, both from the cold and from the sheer scale of this covert place. A swelling of emotion pools at the base of your stomach (or stomachs), circling the shrine in search for the entrance. Light finds you and you finally see a way inside - roots coming from every wall to provide a carpet for you to walk on, the spiral of the glass matching the spiral of the roots beneath your bare feet, even as the lay of the land draws you deeper.

Growing impossibly from the carpet is a being in green, detailed as if grown overtop a living being, except for the face that looks like a axe has carved through, revealing rings of wood beneath, long dried and desiccated into an ugly stump. Long thin fingers raise in offering from the statue, thick and practical robes inscribed with vines . The more you stare at the statue the more your mind would start to spiral, those fractals spinning in visions in your mind.

Sap Possibilities by Asmo via www.visnos.com

Check your will here. Do you think you have the presence of mind to resist?

You could next come to yourself outside, full of promise and life - ailments healed, mind cleared and soul refreshed. Your return to your life is joyful and the next year of your life is likely to be prosperous, but part of you will always wonder - what would happen had you resisted?