The rain in Weaverville never truly stops. It’s a persistent, melancholic drizzle that clings to the slate roofs and seeps into the very bones of the town. It began, according to the fragmented diaries recovered from the crypt beneath the Blackwood Manor, with the arrival of Marpessa. She wasn't a visitor, not exactly. More like a resonance, a distortion in the fabric of reality manifested as a woman of unsettling beauty and an unnerving obsession with charting the unseen. Her maps weren't of land, but of echoes—of moments, of emotions, of the psychic residue left behind by events. She claimed to be recording the ‘chronicles’ of Weaverville, a town built upon layers of forgotten tragedies and submerged desires. The locals whispered that she was feeding on them, growing stronger with each meticulously drawn line on her parchment.
“Every shadow holds a story. Every stone remembers a sorrow. It is my duty to translate them, to make them legible to a world that has forgotten how to listen.” - Marpessa Weaverville
The source of Marpessa’s power, it is believed, was the Obsidian Bloom. A single, pulsating flower that grew in the heart of the Blackwood Manor’s ruined gardens. Legend says the Bloom was created when a local alchemist, Silas Blackwood, attempted to distill the essence of grief into a tangible form. He succeeded, but the resulting substance warped reality, creating pockets of temporal instability and amplifying the town’s inherent melancholia. The Bloom fed on this energy, radiating a subtle, hypnotic influence that drove the townsfolk to obsessive behaviors and ultimately, to madness. Marpessa, initially, sought to contain the Bloom, but her attempts only deepened her connection to it, transforming her into a living conduit for its power.
“The Bloom is not a source of power, but a mirror. It reflects what is already within us—the darkness, the longing, the unfulfilled potential. To control it is to confront ourselves.” - Marpessa Weaverville
The rain intensified, mimicking the tremor in Marpessa’s hands. She was working on a new chart, a particularly complex one depicting the ‘weave’ of the Blackwood family’s lineage. It was astonishingly detailed, capturing not just their physical descendants, but also their emotional connections, their unspoken resentments, their suppressed dreams. I witnessed her speaking to the chart as if it were a living entity, her voice a low, rhythmic hum. The air around her shimmered, and I experienced a fleeting sensation of drowning in a sea of memories—not my own, but belonging to generations past. Old Man Hemlock, the town’s historian, claims that the Bloom is creating a temporal loop, trapping fragments of the past within Weaverville. We are becoming a living echo chamber.
This card details Silas Blackwood’s descent into obsession. It charts his experiments with temporal manipulation, his attempts to resurrect his deceased wife, and his eventual realization that he had created a monster—both within himself and within Weaverville. The card’s edges are frayed, as if it has been repeatedly handled, consulted, and ultimately, ignored. It ends abruptly, with a single, chilling phrase scrawled across the bottom: “The Bloom demands a sacrifice.”
This card focuses on Elias Thorne, a young cartographer who vanished without a trace in 1892. The card doesn’t offer any concrete clues, but it does reveal a disturbing pattern: Thorne was obsessed with Marpessa, frequently sketching her in his journals. The final entry depicts Thorne attempting to ‘map’ her emotions, using a strange, intricate device made of gears and crystal. The card is stained with what appears to be dried blood.
The truth of Marpessa Weaverville remains elusive, shrouded in layers of myth and madness. Is she a guardian, a destroyer, or simply a reflection of Weaverville’s darkest desires? The rain continues to fall, and the echoes of the Obsidian Bloom persist, a constant reminder that some secrets are best left undisturbed.