CRAZY dream last night
It's like my brain just writes its own fantasy novels in its spare time.
So.
The setting is a medieval city, with roads and alleyways dense and labyrinth-like. The people of the city believe that in order for them to remain safe from some unnamed evil or to keep the gods appeased, they must follow the very peculiar and elaborate protocol of some age old rituals. The exact meaning and workings of this ritual were lost to time.
The ritual necessitated a young woman being strapped into a mask (which looked like some crazy steampunk version of the mask from the Dumas novel) and locked into a massive vault-like structure via an elaborate system of chains. While imprisoned so, she was also magically kept alive by some means. The entire populace was invested in the ritual and it formed the core of their spiritual beliefs. And while they knew what the mask looked like, the didn't know the face or the actual identity of the person in the mask.
The young King of the city was secretly in love with the woman in the mask. I, being the King's adviser and personal assistant, was the only person who knew the truth of this. On a few occasions the King managed to devise a temporary method of fooling the vault's chain apparatus by replacing the woman with a masked corpse, allowing him to spend a few hours with her in the middle of the night. The King eventually started spending all his energy into researching the rituals in an effort to find a way to release his love. In the end, he wasn't able to really find a solution, but was able to discern that he could replace her with someone else. I volunteered. And so, masked and chained, I went into the vault to replaced the King's love without anyone knowing.
The King and his love fled the country to points unknown.
In the following weeks, I was able to somehow escape the vault and started living a hidden existence, being assisted by a young woman who was a priestess who had become disillusioned by the church taking control of the city in the King's absence. Though I had escaped the vault, I could not escape the mask, and I still had chains hanging from both wrists. I was in the process of starting an underground revolution to overthrow the church when I woke up.
So.
The setting is a medieval city, with roads and alleyways dense and labyrinth-like. The people of the city believe that in order for them to remain safe from some unnamed evil or to keep the gods appeased, they must follow the very peculiar and elaborate protocol of some age old rituals. The exact meaning and workings of this ritual were lost to time.
The ritual necessitated a young woman being strapped into a mask (which looked like some crazy steampunk version of the mask from the Dumas novel) and locked into a massive vault-like structure via an elaborate system of chains. While imprisoned so, she was also magically kept alive by some means. The entire populace was invested in the ritual and it formed the core of their spiritual beliefs. And while they knew what the mask looked like, the didn't know the face or the actual identity of the person in the mask.
The young King of the city was secretly in love with the woman in the mask. I, being the King's adviser and personal assistant, was the only person who knew the truth of this. On a few occasions the King managed to devise a temporary method of fooling the vault's chain apparatus by replacing the woman with a masked corpse, allowing him to spend a few hours with her in the middle of the night. The King eventually started spending all his energy into researching the rituals in an effort to find a way to release his love. In the end, he wasn't able to really find a solution, but was able to discern that he could replace her with someone else. I volunteered. And so, masked and chained, I went into the vault to replaced the King's love without anyone knowing.
The King and his love fled the country to points unknown.
In the following weeks, I was able to somehow escape the vault and started living a hidden existence, being assisted by a young woman who was a priestess who had become disillusioned by the church taking control of the city in the King's absence. Though I had escaped the vault, I could not escape the mask, and I still had chains hanging from both wrists. I was in the process of starting an underground revolution to overthrow the church when I woke up.