Venturi Muromachi at large

I always have images in my head to music, sometimes telling an independent story and sometimes complementing an existing roleplay if I’m heavily engaged in one. This is a particularly powerful scene sequence for me, especially with the end of the Harry Potter/magic roleplays with Venturi Muromachi that I’d been engaged in. The imagery goes along with a music selection that can be found on YouTube; kudos to Christopher Tin for writing and Corner Stone Cues for doing the arrangement of this version.

SPRING

A small caravan slides through a field of short grasses, led by a young Mistress Witch, the young V.Muromachi in her twenties. Detracting from her mixed asian beauty is a sense of fierce determination on her face as she leads, drawing archaic casting symbols on the ground as she seeks the last convergence of the magical ley lines in the realm. The cloudy sky is dark, threatening, and foreboding, bracketing the caravan — a mixture of fearful adherent hangers-on, desperate older witches, and a hard core of younger followers, all trailing in V.Muromachi’s wake.

She drives a stake in the ground at a certain point then gestures, circling her caravan about the marking. “Here.” she declares.

The members scurry quickly to begin construction of a primitive palisade and moat, their gaze fitful out over the plains as the clouds slowly roil. Venturi works just as feverishly, drawing a complex alchemical circle around the chosen point; with a sharp crack the first magical perimeter ward goes up, flashing softly blue on the last phrase of music.

SUMMER

The base alchemical circle is now protected by a basic tower, characteristic asian in architecture with eight sides, delineating the magical powers of the bagua. Followers work, expanding the perimeter, the scene shifting to ever growing diameter and height of towers, sides, and walls. V.Muromachi is seen aging; her fierceness though never relenting and she works just as hard aside them, with the tower magics pressing back the oppressive darkness surrounding to expose a bit of blue sky.

AUTUMN

Worshippers bow and bob, a large flock within the growing temple. The council chamber is shown, V.Muromachi arguing, directing, haranguing, cajoling said flock, working against odds to establish the temple before the dark enemies organize to fight back the magical wards.

BRIDGE

V.Muromachi in her 50’s, hair streaked in grey. Looking down from a tower window, a tear runs down her cheek as she looks over the flock and the construction, the work never fast enough for her satisfaction as she struggles to complete the mission that defines her life. The sky above the temple shows blue sky above surrounded by roiling black, the power of the temple further pushing back the night creatures and bounding evil.

As the music rises, small armies fight outside and along the temple walls, dire creatures versus bands of wizards engaged in fierce battles. V.Muromachi leads amongst them, the final refrain and bell tolling where she sags to her knees over a corpse and cries to the heavens with said in her arms, the death of her lover.

WINTER

Wreathed in black a few old witches surround V. Muromachi’s bed in the temple, the latter old grey, and withered. On the last bell tolling she expels her last breath, fresh rose petals falling from her fingertips. She’s buried in a crypt just astride the center of the temple, next to the original alchemical circle she drew herself so long ago. On sealing of the crypt a green fire flares, shocking the procession.

CHORUS

The scenes shift, temple power expanding and the circle of blue sky above the temple grows. Witches and mages fight amongst themselves over V. Muromachi’s legacy; students are taught the way, and struggle to follow in V. Muromachi's footsteps; traitors are found and expelled; a vast host of deranged creatures gather at the outside of the temple wall.

The last series of bars show the temple tower itself wreathed in blue wizards’ fire as a titanic battle rages at the temples’ foot. The scene fades to black on the final refrain, leaving to question whether the temple fell or not.

SPRING (REPRISE)

The scene cuts to a girl-child picking flowers and scattering them on a worn crypt. She slowly arranges them, the camera taking in more of the crypt face to show Muromachi's name worn in the face, surrounded by the same short grasses as in the first frame.

On the last refrain of harp the girl trots across the field to her waiting mother, the camera cutting to show the base of the temple tower, new old and burned out, but the sky is fully blue above them all. The camera scrolls up into the blue and fades.