FYOP/Scenario Chamber/A Night at the Opera/0203
With as much stagecraft as you can muster, you say the line, “My Lady, I swear on my love that she will be returned to you, safe and sound.”
The attendants titter and clasp their hands while the imperious Queen allows her cold lips a slight smile, singing her reply. “Go to the temple of Isis and Osiris where the wicked Sarastra keeps my daughter prisoner. Bring her back to me and she shall be yours!”
The curtain closes and the stage lights switch off, plunging you into darkness. You can hear movement all around you, scraping and grinding sounds. You reflexively take a step back from an awful squealing sound from where the fallen dragon lay, but a pair of hands take hold of your shoulders, the voice that instructed you to put on the clothes whispering tartly, “Stand still!”
A moment later, you are released, the curtain lifts, and the lights flare to life. You now stand before a grand stone temple, a painted reflecting pool and obelisk set as a backdrop with a statue of a serene and rather pert sphinx overlooking the scene.
A crystalline note pierces the air, delicate, lovely and laced with sorrow. From the temple emerges a woman who could be no other than Pamina. You can see her mother in her exquisite features, but where the Queen was cold and imperious, Pamina is the embodiment of youth and vigor – her round, rosy cheeks flushed pink against a peach complexion, hair falling in blazing ringlets of gold. A simple white gown hangs from her bared, freckled shoulders, its loose form slipping over her bountiful curves.
She slowly descends the temple with graceful steps, singing of a compulsion to flee from this cruel palace, but with no one for her to run to – at that moment, she glances down and sees you. Her hand flies to her breast as she squeaks a note of shock.
From the projector, you see the prompt, This beauty that I see, unequaled on Earth or in Heaven…