>>5542540It's unusually quiet. Not silent, you can still hear noise outside - distance cries, the frantic pounding of running feet – but something is missing.
After a moment you pin it down.
The telltale rustling of the people moving around in the rooms immediately around you is gone.
Flakes of soot drift down from above. You try not to let your imagination run wild.
With a jolt of realization, you frantically begin patting yourself down. Searching for…
Ah, good. Your other treasures are still there – safely stowed in your inventory. Hugging them tightly against your frame, you breathe a long sigh.
Rolling onto your back, you are filled with instant regret. Wincing as the hateable form of the Spotlight stares impassively down at you - ever indecipherable and untouchably distant.
Abruptly, a streak of light bursts from the baleful, cutting through the static cosmic backdrop like a scratch on a record. Several other shooting stars follow the first, careening in all directions, then veering, gradually vanishing into a glimmering point of light.
Moments pass quietly, specks of light forming in the mangled skies falling away from the Spotlight – descend upon Serenade like, well, meteorites.
The tense peace that had settled over Serenade is immediately shattered as those fallen stars made landfall
For the second time tonight, explosive impacts rattle the Stage, and while a mere string of firecrackers compared to the wave of devastation caused by the Curtainfall, it still eliciting an decidedly negative - and extremely vocal - response for the surviving citizens of downtown Serenade.
Following the bombardment, the Spotlight menaces with phosphorescent intensity until it becomes impossible to directly observe gilded in a multi-ringed corona. The Spotlight sank closer to the stage until its visage dominated the sky, the rate of its oscillating transformations growing sluggish for some reason.
At this point a message is conveyed, not through the crudity of language but through an inescapable tidal wave of intent – projected conceptualization forcibly inundating consciousness with dire portents.
= ASPIRANTS, HEED =
= CAST AWAY EARTHLY MOORS AND ASCEND =
= TREAD UPON THE WORTHY AND FAULTLESS AND ASCEND =
= ASCEND, FOR PERSISTENCE, FOR PRINCIPLE, FOR PERNICIOUS AMBITION =
= REACH HEAVEN THROUGH VIOLENCE =
After this proclamation, a leaden silence hung over the city.
