Dog Game - Group 3

[dramatispersonae]

[You're in a small, dark room with no doors. The walls and floor are made of something like cement, though the floor is spread out with brightly-colored towels to make it a little softer (it doesn't help much.) The only light comes from one small window — you can maybe stand on your tiptoes, to see that it shows nothing but a view of a chainlink fence outside. It does not open or break. Despite the uncomfortable surroundings, the atmosphere is peaceful, if a little claustrophobic.

In the center of the floor there's a wide drain. The grate over it has been broken open and there's room for you to fit both hands in, but you feel a crawling apprehension about touching it, which makes sense if you know anything about Aather at all: up to an inch from the floor level it's filled with liquid darkness.

There are bowls next to each of you filled with tiny animal skeletons (they're kind of mousy?) If you touch the bowl, you know instinctively that they contain some of your memories of Aather and which skeleton is which memory. ♥

The Dog's voice in your head is less uncertain than before:]

Hello, hello! We're supposed to — retrieve your memories back from the darkness, right? It was bad darkness to take them! But to get there we have to run and jump with all our other memories and thoughts! Help me get a scent, please—? If you let them loose in the darkness right, I'll be able to follow!

Comments

Round 1

[dramatispersonae]

You need at least eight memories from the whole group — one at a time and not too many, because there'll be more after this—! First, memories of trying to jump a fence! You need to take your memory in your hands and explain why it's a memory of that for it to come alive for everyone, and then everyone else has to convince it to lead me there!

[if you take the "skeleton" of your memory and describe why that time in your life was like trying to jump a fence, the little skeletal mouse-thing will glow and play the memory for everyone to experience. once the other people in your group have commented on or discussed your memory and why it is appropriate for this round's theme, the skeleton will come alive, chittering, and leap into the darkness in the grate.]

Discussion

[dramatispersonae]

Re: Discussion

[brotagonist]

Creepy... why'd they have to be skeletons?!

Re: Discussion

[fraternaldevotion]

[. . . touching his bowl and frowning]

Presentation

[dramatispersonae]

[Present each of your memories in separate comments, and let all the others in your group who are going get their first memories down before putting up your second, second memories down before putting up your third, and so on. Please include a link to your miniregistry comment and a note on which memory you're presenting from there (sigpos, trivneu, etc.) with each memory.]

Re: Presentation

[brotagonist]

Fair warning, this one's really hard! It's about about when we played in the second bad game Aather ever had. We were trying to figure out a way to beat it, and we couldn't manage. A lot of people died. But we still succeeded in keeping everything almost perfectly tied the first round, so we knew that if we did better, we could beat the hard ones. And we have since then, so there!

[grips the little mouse skeleton tightly for a moment. (sig-neu)]

[crusthatecean]

Yeah. Okay. This is just stupid, but. I can't fight yet. I know I will be able to, but I'm not there yet, so I did this instead. So this guy taught me first aid, and I made it a quest to not be a completely useless shit, and it made me think that the knight system can be used to gradually build up skill sets, which would be at least something useful for people to do.

[Turning pretty red, ugh, feelings. (trivial positive]

Sasuke | Neutral - Neutral

[fraternaldevotion]

[he's tense as fuck as he grabs his memory and it takes him a moment to speak about this neutral-neutral one]

That sadistic lion and the Sea Witch ran one of those bad games. The girl in this memory is a former teammate from the ninja village I grew up in, someone I remember hurting more than once. She basically remembers nothing about me at that point and she's too stubborn to give up on me.

I end up giving her that quest because that's the only thing I could do while keeping her away.

Re: Presentation

[brotagonist]

...man, is anyone going to punch me if I share another one that's full of depressing stuff...

[crusthatecean]

Yeah, I hope this meets the growing standard, no one dies. This is just a memory of someone I know from home really pissing me off. The thing is he'd been an asshole from day one, and I've kept my distance, it's not like I wanted to fight this colossal testament to achievements in shitstickery, it just seemed what was being geared up to.

Anyway, his stupid sunglasses are apparently his version of a wiggler toy and he can't go on without them, which I didn't know, but I still crossed a line here and probably deserved to be punched as much as he deserved it back.

[(Wild Card)]

[fraternaldevotion]

[it's hilarious when the ones you don't want to share are the positive ones. Tensing his grip on this neutral negative as he talks]

I tried to kill Three by going inside her heart with a douchebag just to fail. He had a secret agenda and I lost an eye because of him. Maleficent healed me, and that prompted the quest to heal me.

Re: Presentation

[brotagonist]

[sighs]

At least this one is a good one. Neither of you were here way back then, but when Mal showed up and started recruiting for Onyx, we all thought that Sterling and Onyx were gonna end up fighting or whatever. Some stuff happened that made it seem like — well. We had good reasons for being nervous. But all of us — Sterling, the new Onyxes, Mal — kind of all sat down and went, no way, this isn't how it's gonna go. And it didn't. I was really mad at Mal back then, we used to not be friends at all, but I knew that in the end, I didn't want there to be a fence! And I don't think she wanted one either. So I think we both tried there.

[neu-pos]

Re: Presentation

[fraternaldevotion]

[. . . fuck. Okay. Sharing the significant neutral. Why not. HE'S SO TENSE HE LOOKS LIKE HE'S GOING TO HURT HIS HANDS.]

A confrontation with my brother a while after the last one. It was long overdue. The reason it fits is because we . . . had a lot to deal with.

[and looking at Karkat while he says the rest] And if anything leaves this place I will kill you.

Result

[dramatispersonae]

[the dark bubbles a little, briefly veined through with thin streamers of light before it goes quiescent again.]

Round 2

[dramatispersonae]

Yes, good job! Now — at least eight memories of digging a hole!

Discussion

[dramatispersonae]

Re: Discussion

[brotagonist]

Right — not done yet! I don't have as many that work for this, though.

Presentation

[dramatispersonae]

[crusthatecean]

All right, I'll start with this one, where we are actually fucking exploring an underground hole. There's not much more to say about it, I hope that satisfies.

[Sharing ((Double Neutral)]

[fraternaldevotion]

During Mother's first game we had roles to play. We were supposed to "marry off" with someone of higher status in order to win and we obviously had to act. I tried to act in front of Itachi only to . . . stop half-away because it was just too stupid.

I won the game by getting him to accept my offer anyway.

[IT'S THE WILD CARD]

Result

[dramatispersonae]

[the darkness... is glittering...]

Round 3

[dramatispersonae]

Almost there... this is the most important part. I need at least eight memories from all of you about finding your way home.

Discussion

[dramatispersonae]

Presentation

[dramatispersonae]

Result

[dramatispersonae]

[the darkness drains away down the hole, whatever blockage was stopping it removed. about a foot down, there's an unbroken grate — and sitting on top of the grate are three fused bone statues, each one shaped like whatever animal you oocly want your character to have. when you pick them up you realize that they're memory share items; you can put any memory in one and share it once, three times over.

a moment later, you're at the ring.]