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Elliptical writing about an encounter between a sorceress and others, January 21, 2024This is a Texture game entered into Shufflecomp.
In it, you see a variety of characters in a fantasy setting, talking about witches, wards, dragons, and rangers.
I had a great deal of difficulty understanding what was going on. That's not necessarily bad; a lot of games use metaphor or surreal settings to convey a specific emotion.
But I was at a loss for most of this story. I'll show an example from the first page. I'll put it in spoilers because it's long and my analysis may not be interesting to most people:
(Spoiler - click to show)"The sorceress picked a stone from the fire and put it in the pitcher. She poured the hot water over Strider's cup of leaves, who wrinkled their nose in rote protest.
Over the course of tea, a design uncoiled across her red skin, all imbrication and tedium. The flick of a wrist described this creature's forked tongue.
Strider watched Rahel work until the cone went dry. Was she afraid her right hand would spoil the work of her left?"
The first paragraph mostly makes sense; picking up a stone from a fire would burn someone, but presumably this is her magical power, which is cool, and it seems she has a friend with a goofy relationship.
But in the second paragraph, what does 'over the course of tea' mean? Does it mean the meal 'tea' that British people have? Over the course of brewing the tea? Over the course of Strider drinking?
This is a magical setting. Is the design literally uncoiling over her skin? Is her skin red from picking up the stone, or bright red as a fantasy setting, or is it a callback to older racist notions about native Americans?
'Imbrication' is a scale like pattern. So the design is scalelike and tedious. So is she bored making this? It's a weird contrast with the luxurious metaphor of a dragon uncoiling itself. 'The flick of a wrist'--does this mean she's drawing this? Someone else? What is the cone that goes dry? And 'worried the right hand would spoil the work of her left'--what does that mean? If she's using one hand to draw on the other, then it sounds like she's drawing on the right with her left. So how would her right hand spoil anything if that's what she's drawing on?
The whole story was like this to me. I never knew what was going on, wasn't certain how many people were present or what their roles are or if they're aware of each other.
I think there's interesting worldbuilding here, I just hit a brick wall with my personal interaction. It might just be my own personal reaction, it'd be interesting to see how other people felt after reading.