♫ coral ♫

[dramatispersonae]

You're in a sumptuous room, with rich brocade in your team colors and fine appointments in copper and marble that should look bright and beautiful -- but everything is dusty and grey, with a furtive, abandoned air. This is a place that's been locked away for a long time. It feels as if it would be sad to linger here for long.

Fortunately (perhaps), after one good look at the room, you catch a brief, pained snatch of melody. Your vision goes dark, and you immediately find your mind somewhere else-- ♫

Comments

♪ instructions ♪

[dramatispersonae]

For the first round, your character will be locked into a vivid waking nightmare (with which they can hopefully identify) for three comments! Your character will know to some extent that it's a dream, as one does sometimes in lucid dreams -- however, this shouldn't prevent the character from being affected by and reacting to the scenario. Our goal is a deeply unpleasant experience rather than outright trauma, so please use your judgment on how much immersion versus a sense of unreality from being in a dream you need to play with to get that outcome!

You can play with characters reacting to the scenario any way you want - have them interact with each other as if they're all going through what's being described together as a group, or have each person interact with it separately, or whatever - as you and your team prefer. (If you’re coming in late, you can just react individually to the scenario comments and then jump in wherever your team is playing! The rest of the game won’t make much sense otherwise.) After your team has finished reacting to each comment, let your gamerunner know that you're done so the next one (and then the next round, when the dream is over) can be unscreened.

Once the nightmare is over, teams will be free to discuss and answer a series of questions.

Teams will be running at their own pace without inter-team interactions, so please pace yourselves accordingly as a group to make sure you don’t run overtime! We’ll be cutting off all teams at the 5-hour mark (9:30 PM PST/12:30 AM EST).

round 1 ♩

[dramatispersonae]

first

[dramatispersonae]

Your teammate (is it Canary? Fawn? The person you'd least want to fall? There's a sharp visceral stab of fear to your gut -- don't let them go) is clinging to the edge of a long drop into a deep dark shaft. Light limns their features, but inky deadly Darkness is closing in, welling up from the ground around you and reaching up hungrily from the bottom of the pit. The rest of the team is already gone, lost to it; their twisted stone statues surround you.

You try and try to pull them up, but their eyes widen in fear when they look at you, and you see a stranger (a monster -- your own features darkened and distorted) reflected in their eyes. “Get away from me!” they tell you.

Re: first

[eglantinecrown]

W-what...

[THIS IS SO MANY SHADES OF NOT OKAY]

Re: first

[digitalemperor]

[Wow this is not what he wanted to deal with ever. So so many bad pings all at once. An elevator shaft? Darkness. Falling. His own reflection a stranger... None of this is easy to deal with. His heart races and his first instinct is to reach for his falling teammate despite the drop, and their fear and rejection.]

No, hang on!

Re: first

[pitching]

[screeeeeeching halt in brain]

No . . . no! We can't just leave you alone!

Re: first

[blackjacked]

[freezing right the fuck up. elevator shafts]

This isn't--

[NOT LETTING GO OF TEAMMATE, NOPE]

second

[dramatispersonae]

Your pleading is to no avail -- when you call or reach for them their disgust and terror of you continues to be apparent -- they try to push your hands away and nearly fall in the process. Your hands are already slick with sweat, and you can feel yourself breathing faster with terror, your feathers flaring in panicked defiance. The Darkness is here--

You feel cold despair coil in your gut. You make one last grab, but tendrils of feathery shadow wind around their heels and inexorably drag them down.

Re: second

[digitalemperor]

[No no no no no no no no no no Shark screams that, reaching after the falling teammate, yelling and crying...]

[Feathers? He has feathers and wings? Does he have wings? If he has wings he's jumping after the falling teammate learning how to use wings can come later.]

Re: second

[blackjacked]

No--!

[crying out as he extends his hand over the ledge, nearly tumbling in himself]

Re: second

[eglantinecrown]

--no!

third

[dramatispersonae]

The point of view shifts as they fall and it’s you taking that long horrible drop, looking up into your teammate’s face. (Where did your reflection in their eyes go? It's gone.) You spread your arms, but try as you might, you can't fly -- and before the darkness closes in you realize with the last sick dull throb of your heartbeat in your own ears that you have failed your teammate, you have failed Coral, you have failed Aather and yourself.

Re: third

[pitching]

[Wow, wow, WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW, THIS IS NOT OKAY]

[WOW NO]

[He tries to choke out words, but nope, they aren't coming out.]

Re: third

[eglantinecrown]

[aaaah?! AAAAAH?!!?! NO?!?!?!?!]

round 2 ♩

[dramatispersonae]

You wake up sitting securely in one of the luxurious abandoned chairs. You're feeling sore and ill, pained from the affereffects of whatever happened -- but it's all the ghost of a reaction, fading slowly.

Firebird's voice floats through the air on another brief melody. She sounds exhausted, as tired and sick as you are.

"So what would you do, if such a thing came to pass? After all of your fears came true?"

discussion

[dramatispersonae]

decision

[dramatispersonae]

round 3 ♩

[dramatispersonae]

Firebird's voice filters to your ears again.

"I thank you for your thought on this matter so far... what do you think bravery is? How is it different from foolhardiness? When is it the right decision to be brave?"

discussion

[dramatispersonae]

decision

[dramatispersonae]

round 4 ♩

[dramatispersonae]

Firebird sighs. Her voice is almost inaudible this time.

"And how do you face your fears while they are happening? If you could... how would you change the dream of fear so that a different future came true?"

discussion

[dramatispersonae]

decision

[dramatispersonae]

result ♮

[dramatispersonae]

...

[dramatispersonae]

The scenario plays again, but on the walls around you this time, instead of you living it. The shifting light of it plays on your faces, and the scene itself changes. This time you see the monster in your teammate, and you take their hand anyway, tugging them out of the pit. And the two of you turn to defend your frozen teammates from the Dark, your hands clasped, a light shining from your keys . . .

You don't see how this ends. The light seems to slide down from the walls into a pool on the floor, steadily shrinking away until all that is left is a copper mirror pendant on a fine copper chain. On the back of the pendant is a design a bit like this, finely engraved and with pink enamel embellishments.

(To endgame!)