Act 2/side2

## [Side Plot] the labyrinth

**Participants: Brie** | Antony, Bernice, Daniel, JC, Quinn, Reyes, Theodore

> **TLDR;** *A few humans find themselves drawn to a door, when they go through- they all find themselves in an empty amusement park. There they find a guide/medium who reads their fortune and draws The Magician in reversed form. They all follow her to a pirate ship ride that takes them to an island. After following some footprints, they are lead to a circus tent (finding the guide's dead body in a bush), and in the tent there is a cottage where Brie and a younger, immaterial version of him attacks them. Rey is blinded by the specter. After the fight. Brie leads them to the bottom of a spire, and they go up its spiraling staircase where Brie explains that he'd been traveling to the desert in search of Felise. He theorizes that he was dragged into a labyrinth, and had experienced the same pull as the humans did.*
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> *He thought he'd only been gone for an hour, but when they returned to Astrum, they learned that the group of humans had been missing for two weeks, and Brie, for a month.*
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* Brie’s been missing for a while, but that fact isn’t common knowledge.
* A feeling of unease plagues the participants for days, like they’re forgetting something. Like a cry for help. And the feeling remains, incessant, until they all find a door that they know they have to go inside.
* Entering their respective doors, they all end up in the same place: an empty amusement park. Its rides look well-kept and new, but nothing runs. The characters split up to search.
* Bernice finds a key at the end of the fun house, sitting on a plush purple pillow. Theo finds a keyhole at the bottom of the ball-pit. The group eventually reconvenes and puts the key into the hole. A lever pops up out of the ground, and upon pulling it they find that the amusement park rides have begun to run again.
* They eventually get on the Ferris wheel, hoping to see the entirety of the park; the property’s circular in shape, with nothing beyond its perimeter besides a pale desert. When their carriage starts to come back down, they see a black tent off to the side of the ride that wasn’t there before. When they leave the carriage, they enter the tent and find a hooded woman who calls herself a guide/medium.
* She offers to read their fortune, and the card she draws is The Magician in the reversed position.
* *“The reversed magician symbolizes deceit, lack of communication, confusion, or ill intentions. In your case... it seems you've already begun to act toward your goals, but you struggle to see signs of progress. You desire to manifest your ideals, but your haste encourages you to jump into situations without proper planning....The magician, when reversed, also represents untapped talents, boundless potential. But, because he is out of touch with his Higher Self, he acts only out of personal gain, without consideration for others."*
* The guide claims to know someone who could better help them, and leads them to a pirate ship ride called the ‘S.S. Destroyer.’ A specter is aboard, and ushers everyone on. When the ride begins to swing, it builds enough moment to take off into the sky. The ship eventually changes form, looking exactly like the ship that the humans rebuilt, Elle.
* After hours in the sky, the ship lands on an island that seems oddly similar to Eden. It can’t be the same, as there are obvious differences, but it still reminds them of the old island. When the humans descend from the boat, it becomes obvious that the specter--who seemed familiar at first, for some reason--appears to be Felise. But then she and the ship are gone, leaving them alone. Only the remains of a shipwreck are left on the edge of the island.
* Following footprints in the dust, the characters eventually come across a red-and-white circus tent and the body of the guide in a bush, though the claw marks and state of her suggest she’d been out here for a few hours already.
* Theo takes the body with him and they enter the tent, which gives way to the inside of a cottage. There they find Brie and a younger, immaterial version of himself that immediately attacks.
* The group takes to fighting specter!Brie, and in the commotion Rey is blinded by the specter.
* When the specter dies, its body disappears, as well as the body of the guide. Theo asks Brie about the guide, and he answers that if he knew a woman like that, she’d be long dead. After some convincing/arguing, though, he guides the humans up to a second floor in the cottage; opening the panel to the attic, it leads to the bottom of a dark, sandy spire. It seems to be the remnants of some desert ruin, and the only way up seems to be the ancient, spiraling stone staircase.
* As the group walks, Brie explains that he’d been travelling through the desert occasionally to try and search for any sign of Felise; on the latest occasion, he theorizes that he was dragged into a labyrinth--and he, too, felt the same pull that the humans did.
* He thought he’d only been gone for a few hours, but when they arrive back at the borders of Astrum they learn that the group had been missing for two weeks, and Brie had been missing for a month.