impacter: (150)
Solomon ([personal profile] impacter) wrote2025-09-15 12:09 am

THE ROSE WITCH - SOLOMON

[You're not sure when you received the envelope.

It slides into your belongings when you're not looking. Small, quaint, the seal of a rose in blue rather than red.

The same rose as before. The same request as before.

The writing is done by hand. But the pen seems unsteady.

---

Would you tell me?

Tell me, please, what would you give for a wish?

Dear Troupe, are you like all the rest? Or are you different now? Were you ever different? Will you ever be different?

Can you find a path forward when the world says you can only go left or right?

Show me. Find me. I want to build a path together.

Okay?
]


-------------------------------------

[For those of you who have known of the tower, you know when you last heard from its Witch. The doors, forced open, but one left behind. Coated in black roses. Unable to be freed, unable to progress. And as the way of escape closed to the rainbow roads leading into the stars, only the Witch was left behind. Only the Witch, always the Witch, smothered until nothing was left but petals of black in the silent creaking of doors.

---

If your character follows the written note, they will find their entry much the same as before. The subway greets them like a stranger, though they find their space occupied now. Filled with shadowy silhouettes. They are not like the Extras. They do not talk, they do not interact. They do not see you.

You are you. The rest are the rest.

And even before you step into the halls of the tower, there is an odd malaise that settles over you. An odd sense of separation, as though every way you look, there is glass between yourself and your surroundings. The roses are no longer red, but a deep, deep blue. Blue, blue, blue, like

the bottom of the ocean






All school roles are the same, and Extras still wander the halls, though they seem far more like apparitions. Though you can speak to Extras, and they will interact to you if prompted, you find you cannot touch them. You find their gossip is far more muted. They still speak of you, but they never seem to notice you're standing right there. They do realize it's you they're talking about, right?

Right?

--

The longer your character stays in the school, multiple things will start to happen:
- They will feel a deep loneliness sinking into their bones. Interacting with others will alleviate it slightly, but it will take effort to feel like a team. The longer they are there, the harder it is to fight.
- All characters have their memories intact on arrival, but it seems for every day spent, random memories from their past start to shed away. The oldest are at the most risk. The details grow fuzzier and fuzzier. What was important to you once? What is important to you now? Will you remember, from day to day? Does it matter?

Your character may recognize others from their previous troupe, or they may be surrounded by strangers. The school's layout has not changed much, outside some key exceptions:

- The go-karts are missing entirely. The room has been replaced with an observatory similar to the one once found in the chapel. The constellations change every time you look into the skybox, but are never quite familiar enough. At random points in the day, you might see the sky in the observatory flicker to a brilliantly unnatural white, or to a deep and unforgiving purple, before returning to normal. Sorry about your eyes.
- The chapel is back to the way it had originally started. It does not change. If you stay too long, the windows that show your sins will start to move for everyone in the space, and you can swear you hear voices calling from the glass, echoing the sounds of your memories.
- Reading through the library, you will find that in many books, regardless of subject or location, you find stories about yourself. Details stripped and greatly exaggerated, if you didn't remember yourself so well it would seem like a cruel joke. But every story you find in succession seems to twist more and more, further and further into something monstrous, filled with malice and fear. The Extras gossip will change to match the stories found in the Library, no matter how cruel they turn.
- Spending too much time near or inside the pool will have a negative effect. It may start as general unease, slowly increasing to a mental and physical pain that's hard to place, as though an unfathomable weight is pressing against you on all sides. You will have an urge to run as far as possible, to the nearest available light source, where you must stay for the effect to diminish.
- Every ingredient in the kitchen is unrecognizable. You will have to trial and error your way through your cooking.
- The elevator to the Backrooms will take you down, but every hallway loops in on itself. Waterfalls flip upside down, walkways that were dry one moment are wet the next. Disorienting, frustrating, and leading nowhere. Every once in a while, a star can be found grooved into the tiles, as though something might fit. Maybe it's just decoration.

---

The rules of your engagement for Father are presented, not by your Dramaturge, but by a sheep. A bell around its neck and a pink ribbon tied to one horn, it seems to always be roaming around the school, and its bell is all you hear when it herds you into the chapel. Staring, as a sheep does, unable to talk, as the same set of rules descends in writing to plaster permanently into the main altar area. There is no one there to answer your questions this time (the sheep certainly isn't going to!), though perhaps you might be kind enough to explain to the panicked strangers among your midst.

It is only when you leave the chapel that your phone pings. A username only called STAR.]


Oh no!

I missed everyone again?? I'm really sorry.

I hope Father wasn't too mad. He's good at that.

But don't worry! I'll find a way to meet all of you. :)

Why don't you tell me your favorite spot, and I'll come find you? You're probably confused. Unless you're certain people who aren't!

Isn't it interesting that way? I wonder if they remember why they remember! I wonder if they'll tell. Or will we pinky promise to take it to our graves?

Anyway! You're not gonna be able to respond, but you can tell Ibuki, and Ibuki will tell me, okay?

They remember a lot for being a sheep. But maybe it's better to ask a sheep than to ask a person!

:)

-☆


----

[OOC: Please use this as an AU space for Rose Witch!Solomon. I'm sorry in advance. You may prompt however you'd like, or you can come DM me on discord if you want something a little more unique. I will treat everyone as the same Troupe instance unless you specifically request to be alone in a separate Troupe.]
trollophoroi: credit: <user name=apocalypsios> (024;)

[personal profile] trollophoroi 2025-09-16 12:10 am (UTC)(link)
[ Miserable, this is miserable, but a little water is hardly going to disuade someone like Amon. Upon seeing the water and knowing what's to come, he's at least taken his shoes and socks off to carry instead of making it worse, although it feels ridiculous to be sloshing about holding them aloft as he goes. It makes sense, though, that the hope of the little star would be well-hidden like this.

Hiding away, or more like forced to hide away, not unlike Sika Madu. Strange that he lacked a more direct route. Was that, too, a punishment? A change that Father forced upon his new witch?

Regardless, the divot is found, and he fishes the little star out to press into the slot.
]
trollophoroi: (pic#18017988)

[personal profile] trollophoroi 2025-09-16 04:12 am (UTC)(link)
[ For Amon, there is no despair, nor panic, as he sinks deeper and deeper in the darkness of the ocean. He is a man already steeped in despair; this place cannot instill any more of it in him. It goes deeper and deeper until he settles on the ocean floor, feeling a mild irritation that his attempt to keep his shoes and socks dry was for nothing.

Even like this, Solomon finds ways to annoy him...
]

Why wouldn't I, Solomon? You are the only reason I return to this wretched place.
trollophoroi: credit: <user name=bloodcrazed> (051;)

[personal profile] trollophoroi 2025-09-16 04:23 am (UTC)(link)
[ Excuse him while he sets the shoes down. He isn't going to hold onto these like a dumbass while talking to this guy. ]

Oh, you did a fine job. I do applaud you for it, even if it didn't stick, but you see, because you did this for me, you were trapped here.

[ He straightens up again and offers Solomon a shrug. ]

Thus, I feel obligated to see if I can't drag you out of here all the same. Do not mistake this for an emotional connection; it is merely one sorcerer owing a debt to another.
trollophoroi: credit: <user name=apocalypsios> (018;)

cw: suicidal ideation con't.

[personal profile] trollophoroi 2025-09-18 12:59 am (UTC)(link)
Guilt doesn't enter into the equation.

[ Does it? No. Surely not. He's just annoyed that Solomon being stuck here was a snag in what would have been a perfect escape. That has to be it. He strolls over to the child, joining him at the edge of the cliff. ]

No one was ever getting a wish out of this place, Solomon. We agreed to that deal because it made it simple to decide who the final death would be, not because you wanted anything out of it.

[ Fandaniel was expendable in the end, a man wanting to die, needing to die, even in the face of the people who tried to convince him otherwise. ]

Have you really not regained a lick of your senses after all this time?
trollophoroi: credit: <user name=apocalypsios> (019;)

[personal profile] trollophoroi 2025-09-18 04:09 am (UTC)(link)
...I wonder if I'd be able to pull all those roses out of you were I to cut you open.

[ If only. ]

Maybe you would actually say something sensible then. Tell me, Solomon, how many of your little Troupes have actually gotten away with a Beatitude from Father?
trollophoroi: credit: <user name=bloodcrazed> (045;)

[personal profile] trollophoroi 2025-09-19 07:22 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He watches the rose float away, out of sight. A few, huh? Only a few. Somehow, Amon still doubts they actually got what they wished for. Nonetheless... ]

Then I suppose I will just have to get to your real body and do it.
trollophoroi: credit: <user name=apocalypsios> (015;)

[personal profile] trollophoroi 2025-09-19 10:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Mm, no. I have other ideas.

[ Does he share them? Of course not. Solomon should be considered as much of a threat as Sika Madu had been, no matter what kind of aid he suspiciously offers. Funny enough, that Fandaniel would return here at all, but would he really fall for the same nonsense a second time?

Well...

It would depend, but share what's on his mind? No.
]

What of you? You can't want to remain here. You must have some scheme or another in the works. You already mentioned wanted as many of us alive as possible.