PERIDOT

[dramatispersonae]

You find yourself in an unassuming room. It's spacious, though it's fairly empty except for the furniture in the center. There, a collection of chairs are gathered around a large table. ...Or, at least, they're chair- and table-like things. The chairs are made all of one piece, of an unidentifiable plasticky substance, and they're fairly uncomfortable. The table is made of the same substance, and is just a round platform on a pedestal.

On the table, however, are pens and paper, and in the center of the table there's an opaque cloud, spinning slowly in swirls of mist.

Instructions come both as a voice and as words in the mist, and you instinctively know you can answer either by speaking back or by writing down your answer and throwing it into the cloud.

Comments

PART 1

[dramatispersonae]

Please choose a number between 1 and 100.

No answer is more correct than any other answer.

DISCUSSION

[dramatispersonae]

Re: DISCUSSION

[snakeeyed]

It sounds as though any number will do. Does anyone have a preference?

[hamptonsbatman]

Not at all. Do we want to go high, or low?

ANSWER

[dramatispersonae]

Re: ANSWER

[crueltobekind]

Ninety-three

RESULT

[dramatispersonae]

Re: RESULT

[dramatispersonae]

Your number appears in the clouds for a second, then vanishes as another number appears, counting quickly up to 364.6.

PART 2

[dramatispersonae]

Please specify one small action that at least one person on your team would like to do. It should be simple, generic, possible, and take no more than 3-5 words to describe. For example: "eat a cookie", "pick a flower", "jump off a cliff"

No answer is more correct than any other answer.

DISCUSSION

[dramatispersonae]

[hamptonsbatman]

I suppose we have to wait to find out the significance of 364.6.

Any ideas?

[crueltobekind]

Give a makeover?

ANSWER

[dramatispersonae]

[hamptonsbatman]

Give a makeover.

PART 3

[dramatispersonae]

Please describe an event—something you experienced together, something one of you experienced alone, or even something entirely fictional.

No answer is more correct than any other answer, but details may be to your advantage later.

((All teams need to be finished with this part before anyone can move on to part 4 - which is the final and most important part—so please try to be as expeditious as possible! Aim for a story around 100-300 words.))

DISCUSSION

[dramatispersonae]

Re: DISCUSSION

[crueltobekind]

. . . Maybe a happy memory one of us had?

ANSWER

[dramatispersonae]

Re: ANSWER

[hamptonsbatman]

When I was a child, I found a bird that couldn't fly on the front porch of the beach house my father and I lived in. Distressed, I begged him to help me do something, anything to save it. He very patiently agreed. So we took the bird inside, found him a little box to stay in, and spent the next week learning everything we could about birds. Eventually, despite my clumsy attempts at nursing, my father told me he could hear the bird fluttering its wings in the box at night. I was sad—I’d grown attached to it, but agreed to take the bird down to the beach to let him go free anyway.

When my father opened the box and let the bird go, though, I… wasn’t sad anymore, at all. We’d saved his life, after all. My father told me he was proud of me, and I was very proud of myself as well.

PART 4

[dramatispersonae]

Please describe how the event you detailed in the previous section would have occurred if someone had unexpectedly watched a movie.

DISCUSSION

[dramatispersonae]

[hamptonsbatman]

[laughs]

So that's what's going on.

ANSWER

[dramatispersonae]

Re: ANSWER

[crueltobekind]

Before letting the bird go, Lily decides to watch a movie with it. The bird is so pleased with the movie and touched by Lily's kindness in nursing it back to health that it decides to keep visiting each week to see its new friend and watch more movies with her. Lily didn't have any reason to be sad after that since she was able to keep her new friend.

RESULT

[dramatispersonae]

You submit your answer, and then see a different scene play out in the mist...

When it's done, you exit to endgame.