Seer: Descend

The Seer descends.

Lalondiabound, titled in Homestuck as [S] Seer: Descend is a Flash segment in Act 5 Act 2, posted on 03/29/11, that stars Rose tracking down Jack Noir through a Prospitian castle on the Battlefield.

• Walkhrough/Transcript (or pastebin)

Information of Note

The only playable character is Rose Lalonde. Before handing controls over to the MSPA Reader, an animation plays with the music Black Rose/ Green Sun while Rose descends to the scene of Mom and Dad's murder on the Battlefield at the hands of Jack Noir. Her arrival is tinged with the fabled grimdark energies set upon her by The Noble Circle of Horrorterrors from the Furthest Ring. Rose then proceeds to explore the castle in search of Jack Noir, running across many dead Dersites and Prospitians with no reaction. Many of the items she finds belong to the now dead Guardians, but her reaction is also impassive to these discoveries. She also finds many bookshelves containing vague prophecies about things that may or may not have/will occurred/occur. Her search leads her to the hiding place of several survivors, most of whom are too frightened or awed to speak.

After discovering the departing flicker of Bec Noir's silhouette, Rose comes to a corridor, where she encounters the following:

• Four pairs of closed red curtains, representing Acts 1-4
• A close-together pair of blue and then red curtains, representing Act 5 Acts 1 and 2
• A transportalizer on top of a copy of the Beat Mesa, representing the Scratch & Cascade
• Five open pairs and one closed pair of green curtains, representing Act 6 Acts 1-6
• A set of Jack's footprints, which cut off at the edge of a model of Skaia with an untouched golden frog idol on top of it, representing Act 7.

Statues of the White King and Queen in [S] Seer: Descend

Rose then finds John near the frog idol; this is their first meeting in person (unless you count when John rifled through Rose's belongings while she was asleep). Beyond this is a gold room with a statue of the White King and White Queen. This may represent the epilogue.

Rose can only speak in a strange Eldritch language, which John finds mildly amusing. Rose, in turn, finds John's mild amusement mildly frustrating, and buries her face in Mom's pillow to display this. Through their conversation, it is evident that many of Rose's behavioral quirks are still intact. Her descent into grimdarkness is still quite troubling, though, especially if it means she is unable to speak clearly. However, John is able to deduce that their parents have run astray of Jack Noir, so Rose leads him to the scene of the murder. She takes him back through the castle where the remaining survivors have been slain, much to John's dismay.

Just before reaching the top of the castle where the bodies of Mom and Dad lie (and the end of the Flash), John awkwardly brings up Karkat's declaration of John and Rose's eventual marriage. Rose's response is predictably unintelligible, but she does not appear to shirk away from the suggestion. (Examining the statue of the WHITE KING and WHITE QUEEN teases the player about John and Rose being a cute couple.)

Items

• 3 Trophies (Dad's hat, Mom's scarf, Bro's shades)
• A slain Beast (White Knight)
• A flaming meteor chunk
• The banner of the Villein
• A beheaded frog statue
• A golden statue of the White King and White Queen
• Some Books

Trivia

• During the intro animation the Green Sun can be seen during a rapid flash of pictures. Shortly afterwards the same picture appears but tinted in Rose's trademark color.
• Four banners can be investigated. The series is called "They Wait" and the banners bear the symbols of the four Kids. The four banners bear descriptions as the natives of Skaia see the Kids:
  • John: "They wait for he who would extinguish candles whilst fanning a fire."
  • Jade: "They wait for she who would thaw solid flesh and resolve it into a dew."
  • Rose: "They wait for she who would breed lilacs out of the dead land."
  • Dave: "They wait for he who would drop it like it's hot whilst the pimp's in the crib."
    • Later, when Rose is leading John back through the castle, the banners have been cut through by Jack, with the exception of Jade's, since Jack cannot attack her. Dave's has been slashed diagonally in half, like his record symbol.
• Some of the bookshelves read:
  • “You find an ancient, unlabeled tome, and read an excerpt. 'Though we adore him, we shall never enjoy His beauteous Croak. We spill our blood on acres of black and white so they may cross the yellow yard. At last in Skaia's reflection through broken glass He may find the pond in which He's meant to squat.”
  • “'Journey to the Centre of the Battlefield.' Looks to be a fairy tale for youngsters. The hero is a dashing young man in a blue hood. He heals the planet from within, but can do nothing to stop its annihilation from above, nor its soon to follow eradication from reality. It must be sad growing up in a culture whose mythology is centred almost completely around futility.”
  • “This is a book on theoretical physics, and complex spatial geometries based on the hypothetical addition of orbs to the queen's ring. The shapes in the diagrams are very complex. This sort of nonsense is regarded as crackpottery at best. Why would the queen ever wear more than four orbs? Four towers, four orbs, four heroes; it is a sacred truth.”
  • “Maimed Clown. Undead Cat. Impaled Crow. Omnipotent Dog. These four shall be held in reverence for the eternity they serve to cut short.”
  • “'Problem Sooth.' You have been meaning to read this one. Absolutely required reading for any promising young seer who has blundered into entanglement with the occult through an absurd sequence of events.”
  • “A Foot Soldier's Guide to Combat. Most of the diagrams in this book involve a soldier advancing by a single tile, either straight ahead, or diagonally when lunging with a weapon. No wonder these guys are so easy to kill.”
  • “Her hands are in my service but they still shake. They unfasten the first button at my royal gown's waist, clumsily.” - mirroring Vriska's ancestor's journal entry. It is described as "erotic fanfiction written about The Queen", and it's stated that it doesn't belong anywhere.
  • “Data Structures for Assholes 2: Now Written to Accommodate the Shortcomings of the Mentally Retarded”. It seems like these are destined to exist in every universe.
  • “'Grimoire for Summoning the Zoologically Dubious.' This is apparently on loan from the Dersite Library. It seems unlikely to be returned at this point.”
  • “Rise of the Slayer” probably tells about Jack Noir's ascending.
  • “'Advanced Frog Breeding for Beginners: Difficulty Level - EXTREME; For Idiots!'”
• There is no response to the Trickster Mode command this time. Not even a dismissive remark. The only way to reach the music room is using the "Forward" Flash menu command, and no one is inside.

Glitches

• If the help screen button is pressed at the end when the "Start Over" option pops up, the text box that pops up will have no text and it will become impossible to choose "Start Over" or to click the triangle button in the corner.
• When the help screen button is pressed twice in a row John's profile will appear.
• If the spacebar is pressed rapidly while standing upon a transportalizer (specifically performed after John has joined the party, the transportalizer which was previously beneath the golden frog statue), the game essentially breaks. Rose ends up in either an inescapable version of the room John was met in, where the transportalizer is not functional, the door does not work, and the curtains are inexplicably gone, or a version of the other transportalizer room where everything has been reduced to collision masks. The help text and "restart" triangle are still functional, and seem to be the only means of escape.
• If you rapidly press the spacebar on the Beat Mesa transportalizer (before getting John) it will take you to a room where you can't move off the transportalizer.
• If you right click and select "Play," the music begins to loop over itself and the floor and wall elements all blank out. Also, Rose can slide across the floor, and John still follows behind her. The camera no longer follows them. Pressing the help button in this state renders your game unable to be controlled. These effects are highly unpredictable.
• In the area of the blue and red curtains Rose can stand in the pillars that hold the curtains when she approaches them from behind. It only works with the red curtain right in front of the blue one and the right side of the blue one.
• You can skip the intro by right clicking and pressing play. This also causes the game to glitch out to a white screen when you are normally supposed to start. Clicking the help button from here will make it uncontrollable. The music button works, however the restart triangle has the same result as the help button.
• If you repeatedly click the teleportalizer on the record, aka Scratch, then walk ahead towards John's location, the game will glitch as to not let you continue your way, nor let you teleportalize back, yet the help screen is the only way to help you out or start over.

Sprites

Profiles

John's Profile

Rose's Profile

Dersite Soldier Profile

Prospitian Soldier Profile

Walksprites

Rose Sprite

John Sprite

Dersite Sprite

Prospitian Sprite

Bec Noir Sprite

Bec Noir Teleport

Gallery

EoA5; the scratch

Act 7

Credits

• Programming - Aria "Gankra" Beingessner
• Music - "Black Rose / Green Sun" by Malcolm Brown
• Art assets - Eyes5, Lexxy, Rebecca Harding, Paige Turner, SaffronScarf, Sockpuppy, and Vivus