"Wait, what? ...I don't like the heart rate thing- What heart rate you sit at depends on general fitness quite a lot! What does it even mean 'as represented by a heartrate of', this is just a fancy way of saying 'go with your gut'. Is a flat sprint 180? 200? Ugh."

Deep breath. 

"I will let the griping pass over and through me."

I feel proud and straightforwardly happy in the moment about my sure movement. Something tells me that I am a deep enjoyer of muscle, motion, exercise.

I say to Dapple, "I'd love to learn tree-surfing. And about weird gravity. But first, where is everyone else? You have this whole mushroom forest home all to yourself? And new Butterflies like me, I guess?"

"If you must I suppose we can ignore the specific rules and just do it classic style? It says in the Advanced book that 8 is peak-human without any magic, so anything that would require super-human abilities has a DC above eight, and anything that doesn't has a DC below eight?"

"Yeah... Not gonna promise I won't be doing that."

Dapple's smile turns a bit melancholy. "It's unfortunately rare, for souls to arrive in this reality. It takes a rather specific kind of soul, to make it to us. In the legends, this place had thousands of Flowers in a constant orgy of welcome. That was before my time. I wish I could have seen it."

She pauses.

"We're not alone, though. There are dozens of us in the greeting club, who hang around the Polypore to lend ourselves to newlings. We nap a lot when we're not playing guide, though. Look over there." 

Dapple points to a large splash of color upon the side of a giant mushroom stem about fifty feet away. Vibrant red petals surrounding a pale center. But as you look closer, you realize... this giant flower's center, is a Flower. That pale center is a naked girl-butt rather than anything botanical. And you can also just barely make out feet peaking out between the red petals. And the petals themselves... they look oddly fleshy, more like glistening tentacles bunched together than mere sheets of plant-tissue.

"Oh, that's Mistbloom, I think. Yeah, there are a fair few of us," Dapple says cheerfully.

As you pass out of the central clearing, the web of vine and silk fades into a mound of cyan moss, cool and soft and springy under your feet, with the solidity of wood beneath it. Ahead, you see that this path of moss slopes downward and then extends beyond your sight into a tunnel of pink leaves.

"That's pretty wicked. Looks comfy. And easy access, huh...?"

I feel a mischievous urge to go slap Mistbloom on the ass and then skedaddle away, leaving her not knowing who it was... Depends how fast she can get out of that thing, whether I'd get away with it. And that might be a bit rude...

I spend a few moments staring contemplatively at the embedded Flower, and look to Dapple pretty obviously like I'm considering doing something to Mistbloom, but I don't actually set her down, pausing on the mossy threshold, tentacle tongue flicking in thought.

Dapple giggles fondly.

"Whatever you're thinking of doing..." She gives you an encouraging smile. "Mistbloom and I... we're Flowers. I know you don't know what that means, yet, but the important part is that you don't have be afraid of yourself anymore. I know a lot of newlings, especially Butterflies like you, have a hard time letting go of the fear. Many have lived with it for so long that they don't even realize they're afraid."

Dapple gives you a peck on the cheek.

"The thing you have to understand, is that every single person you meet from now on is here for the same reason you are. All of us, in one way or another, longed for a world where fear has no power over our sexuality. We wanted it so badly, and so deeply, that an entire plane of existence heard us, and saved us from the timeless void, or worse, so that we could exist here. So... you don't need to heal all at once. But I do want you to know that the way you had a joyful thought but then hesitated just now... I've seen it thousands of times, and it is a wound, in you, a wound that you are now finally free to let heal, if you want to."

This speech that Dapple is giving Lisara is based on the rulebook, but this aspect of the setting was in many ways what sold Vanessa on the idea of running scenes in this game in the first place, so now that she gets to explain it in-character, she's going kind of hard with it. Hard enough that she's maybe accidentally saying this to Lenora, just a tiny little bit.

"Hmmmm."

"...Alright, I'll do it if you say so, so earnestly."

I gently set Dapple down, then sloooowly creep up to Mistbloom's position embedded on the side of the mushroom stalk. I give her one good slap, not hard enough to be too painful, wait just a moment to appreciate the jiggle, then turn and try to sprint for the exit, giggling like mad and dashing down the mossy down-slope towards the leaf tunnel, scooping Dapple up again along the way.

The mysterious Mistbloom makes a muffled sound that starts as a startled squeak and fades into a lewd moan. As you run away, you hear a sleepy voice call out, "Tease!"

Dapple giggles again, riding happily in your arms.

The cyan moss is very smooth. Not slippery, exactly, but you definitely get the sense that your feet could slide on it, and without catching or losing skin. It has a texture with a high initial resistance, but a smoother and smoother glide the faster you slide. You can't quite tell if its magical or just very advanced biology, and that probably isn't your main concern at the moment either. You are sprinting off the top of something like the drop of a very large roller-coaster, and your footing feels solid for only a moment before you realize: you do not have the traction necessary to slow down.

"So, okay, you're princess-carrying Dapple and sprinting when you get to the part where your footing stops being level? I'm going to need you to give me a Grace Check with disadvantage."

She rolls twice... "Oh no~ Okay, I have five grace and I rolled nine and two, so... Seven?"

"...I'll let you pick. On a seven, you are Equal To The Task, seven was the DC, so either you drop Dapple, or you fail to stay on your feet."

"I'm not gonna drop her!"

I feel myself start to lose balance and fall and instinctually react, shifting my weight so I take the brunt of the hit, cushioning Dapple from it.

Dapple shrieks, but it doesn't sound afraid. She's laughing.

The two of you, entwined, bounce and tumble over each other a few times before you pick up enough speed from gravity that the moss starts feeling truly slick. Your entwined bodies rocket down the slope, picking up more and more speed, and still Dapple doesn't seem afraid.

The wind roars at you, too loud to speak, and the sensation of the moss sliding under your skin almost blends into the feeling of the air tearing at you. You see light ahead. Not sunlight, but something almost like it.

The moss-covered branch gently slopes upward as it emerges from the leaves of the world tree, but because you are sliding out of control, you don't go up the slope. You go off the side, picking up only a little lift before hurtling out into empty space.

Bright. Not day-bright, but lit. A piece of the world tree is flat here, perhaps cut, perhaps just growing that way. It forms the foundation of a vibrant meadow of gently rolling hills, miles across. And...

"Give me a Sanity Check to see if you notice more than that while you're tumbling through the sky."

"Cool description. The place feels like... Something." The sound of a die... "Six."

Vanessa is using the actual rule in the book for this one. A six means that Lisara can notice a thing if she has less than six other things competing for her attention. The fall, holding on to Dapple, the meadow itself, the brightness, and the impending impact? She could stretch it to six if she wanted to or maybe count each limb separately, but... nah.

In flashes, glimpsed as you slowly tumble, you notice two things.

First, you notice a small number of winged figures flying over the meadow.

Second, you notice that beyond, and from your perspective behind, the meadow is a black tower the size of a skyscraper, with a crown of clear crystal coming to three points.

Third, you notice that you don't have time to notice anything else because you're about to hit the ground.

Vanessa glances at the Basic Competencies section again.

"Right, okay, you need to roll seventeen Fitness or Grace. I don't think you can, right? You'd need at least seven in either ability score."

Vanessa rolls Grace for Dapple. 14. Vanessa bursts out giggling.

"So, uh, ha-ha-hold on."

The rules about Injury were... on this page. There they are.

"So, I think you both get knocked the fuck out before waking up whole and healthy twenty-four hours later?"

"Technically they would only lose consciousness if their injuries make it so they can't breathe," Eelesia points out. "If you have an Ichor point to spend before you pass out, which both of them do, you can pop back to full health immediately."

"-I think in character I'm panicking hard enough at the crippling injury that I absolutely would find the heal thyself button? And then freak out and fuss over Dapple apologetically."

Vanessa nods. "You expend an Ichor point."

It hasn't been that long since you felt that moment when your body and soul became one, and a part of you recognizes the injuries, even before the pain hits, as a disjunction in that same feeling. Your body is askew from you soul. And, on raw reflex, you yank it back.

Your body is suddenly drenched in crystalline slime... and the pain that was about to hit never arrives. Your flesh blurs into the Ichor slime as reality shifts, and then you are once more whole.

Soft blue grass, golden flowers, and cyan moss. Dapple lays beside you, skin shiny from her own Ichor-healing. She looks at you and giggles wildly. "That was so silly..."

I'm gasping for breath and shoot to my feet, looking over Dapple and muttering panicked apologies. Slowly, I stop, progressively realizing that everything is... Fine, somehow?

Then I groan and sit on the moss, head between my knees and hands on my ears. "I thought I'd fucked up and killed you!"

I'm maybe gonna cry a bit.

Dapple's giggles trail into a soft, gentle smile as she gets up and drapes herself over you, hugging you, her face next to yours. She runs her fingers through your hair while you cry.

"You've already died once. If you want to do it a second time, you're going to have to try a lot harder than that. Unlike your Azathoth, the Starheart Lodge would never punish you just for being silly. And, you know, you could've asked, about that, or other stuff, and been less silly, if you wanted to be less silly, but you really are safe either way. I don't mind if you're silly."

"It's really hard to just... Actually believe that."

I'll hug back.

"I mean... If I accept that this is true, it opens up all sorts of cool things I'd never dare to do... But..."

Deep breath.

"I think I'm much more action than words. It was fun, that sudden dare, but the fall - and the crash... I don't know."

...Hmm

".......Can I get wings?"

Dapple grins.

"Of course! What's a Butterfly without wings? I'm sure it won't take you long to earn yours."

At that moment, nearby, one of the person-sized flowers dotting the meadow blooms open, and then retracts, vanishing into the ground to reveal a nude figure very similar to Dapple but with brilliantly blue hair and concerned golden eyes. This other Flower comes over and joins your hug without a word, snuggling into you opposite Dapple. The stranger is soft and cute and curvy and fey-beautiful, just like Dapple. Basically a palette-swap.

Dapple, at least, takes this addition in stride. "Should I explain how that works?"

I wiggle a bit in the hug, increasingly reassured. "Hi! -Yes, please. I wanna fly! Oh, it's going to be so fun."

"In this realm, lust is a physical force. Power. Fuel. You've already experienced what its like to draw out the power of your soul by converting all the lust within you into pleasure at once. Any time someone achieves that state of true satisfaction, they generate a bit of Ichor. That's the power that healed you just now."

And indeed, if you look inward, now that you know to look, you can feel your reserve of Ichor.

"Ichor is the power of the soul-body connection, distilled. It's pretty awesome. The even more awesome part, though, is that any time you get someone else to generate Ichor by... expressing your Butterfly-ness at them... usually by fucking them into a satisfied puddle of submissive bliss, your connection to your Butterfly-ness also strengthens. Euphoria is the power of the connection between gender and sexuality, distilled. That is the power that can grant you supernatural Butterfly abilities, including magical wings that let you fly."

"...Ooh. And I imagine Flowers like you hardly mind such treatment, hm?"

Seeing that the other Flower has embraced being a silent cuddle partner, I keep addressing Dapple. Though I do give her a friendly rub.

"I still need to return the pleasure you brought me here with..."

"Above table, I think that when you get an Ichor its like your soul has a refractory period, or something?" Vanessa shakes her head, holding up a hand to stop Eelesia speculating. "However that works, I think you've got an in-game hour left, still."

Then Vanessa glances at Eelesia again and has an idea.

Dapple nuzzles you and then looks at you in a way you haven't seen her look at you before. A heavy, evaluating gaze. It only lasts a moment before it's gone. The stranger, meanwhile, doesn't attempt to participate in the conversation.

"I've had lifetimes upon lifetimes of pleasure," Dapple tells you earnestly. "And so will you. Nobody here owes anyone anything. But if you want to contribute, even if there's nothing to pay back, you can always pay forward instead. How would you like to visit one of the places where new Flowers incarnate?"