>>5896809Here, the animals begin to grow more fearsome, at least outwardly. In actuality, they're just as gentle, just LARGER. The 'squirrels' are the size of men here, and glide from tree to tree, or follow you with curious eyes as the sole creature which seems out-of-place here. You see whole herds of those gorgeous, intelligent-eyes white deer—deer you cannot help but thing of now as ‘sacrificial deer’, and flinch at the sight of them. On Earth, they are found only in Sylvan woodland, and are rare to the point of holy reverence; here, though no less wondrous, they are in their element, as common as any other deer. So too do you behold all manner of strange animals for which your only reference-points are books of exotic biota perused in the Mages’ Tower during your childhood education: capybara, quagga, okapi, gazelle, animals you don't even have words for…
And there, amidst them all, the keeper of this sacred place, of this great garden-and-menagerie. Sitting cross-legged, face streaked with white makeup in stripes and spots across rich, dark-grey skin, with the same black eyes of the goddess and the Unseelie Fey, clad in furs and white-and-gold flowers, and atop his head an antler-crown. He reaches out a hand as your <Faerie Fire> looses your aura’s leash and settled upon his hand like a trained bird. He looks to it with amusement, and then to you and to your attendants, who bow deeply.
“You’re the groundskeeper, then?” you ask.
“You could call me such,” the figure chuckles.
Even seated, you are a little cowed by this Groundskeeper who—if not so bright or radiant as the Goddess Miannie—is even larger than her, taller even than the great deer of this place. You bow slightly, fix your cap, and when you look back you see that he is still staring at you… And not only him. The sacrificial deer have gathered here. As they approach several of them seem to subtly shift in form and feature. It is gradual, almost imperceptible in its fluidity, but you find you are now surrounded by not only deer but deer-men and deer-women—deer-FEY—and by figures in cloaks and robes of fur holding wooden masks in effigy of deer but otherwise quite humanoid.
“You have spent long in my woods,” the Groundskeeper notes. “We have been observing you, as you observed our work. Tell me, what do you think?”
>It’s beautiful, wonderful… You wish your own world could be like this>It’s odd… The absence of predators, of conflict altogether, of rot and decay… it feels WEIRD>You hate it... This isn't right, this isn't NATURE not the way it's MEANT to be!>Write-in[Feel free to ask any questions you have as well.]
