dramatispersonae | ♫ carnelian ♫

♫ carnelian ♫

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-- ♫

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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).

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?"

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?"

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?"

You’re racing through the halls of an empty castle, grand stone and crystal carpeted in red, heart fluttering faster and faster towards panic in your breast. You’re looking for someone, anyone -- friends, teammates, those whose faces linger in your memory, moving faster and faster, throwing open doors on empty rooms and abandoned furniture. Everything seems distorted. Shadows creep in at the edges of your vision; and you can’t catch your breath around the lump in your throat.

You’re still running, still searching. Even the rooms are unfamiliar now as you run on, dark and windowless, full of threatening shapes and shades; you begin to recoil back when you throw them open. Questions crowd into your mind, blurring and overlapping: Where are they? Did they leave you? Why? You could have guided them! Did they not trust you to guide them? Will they remember you?

No, they didn’t trust you. They didn’t want you to stay with them when they left. That much rings true in the hollow pit of your stomach. But why? You can’t remember. Why can’t you remember? Your thoughts are jumbled; you feel pulled in multiple directions, dread roaring in your ears. Why is your own voice in your head unfamiliar? Why are you here? Who are you? Who are you?

Who are you? What will you do now? What will you do? You twitter and fret but to no result; the castle fades and darkens, and so does your memory. Their faces and names are already fading; your own is already gone. In a moment the memories will slip away entirely. You sink down onto the floor of the hallway, any brightness left in you and the scene fading. You are alone. You do not even know who you are now. It does not matter. You do not matter. You will stay here until you turn to dust and ash and small, dull, yellow feathers.

[She thinks any second now she might trip on that carpet, and yet she can't stop running, because there has to be someone, just inside one of these doors, and then it will be- what?

She leaves the doors open as she runs, to keep track of all the places that they're not.]

[ it's a running party, I guess. He's slower, or trying to be slower, even though they're racing through the halls -- craning his neck to try and catch better looks at the shadows.

Someone will have to be there, eventually. ]

[ Why. . .

He tries to slow down -- because it's too confusing. Too many whys and not enough answers. Who what when why -- it was too confusing. ]

[Panic and confusion makes Leah run faster, as though she could outrun that. That moment where she suddenly feels as though she's going to fall to literal pieces, and then be nothing again. She's not really a person, she was never really a person-

But when he slows down, her mad-cap dash allows her to catch up.]

Where have you been? Where did you go?

[Seizing onto his clothes, trying to pull him up. She can't remember his name (does she even know his name?) But he's somebody, he should be here, there's no one else.]

[ He reels back from her, shoving hands towards her face ]

Stop -- get out -- stop that!

[ this isn't right, this isn't right at all and it makes him sick, there's a sinking pit in his stomach, everything's wrong and he doesn't know why ]

[Why is he fighting? Why doesn't he want her around? What did she do? It's easier to focus on this than her own uncertainty- she's going to fall to pieces, she isn't anybody, she isn't a person, she isn't real-]

You didn't have to hide! What did you think I was going to do?

I don't -- [ his breath catches, what did he want again? He just wanted. . . he did want someone to stay? Did he? Who? ] -- where were you going!?

I had to find-

[What? Someone? Something? It's all gone wrong, though, they shouldn't be here, it shouldn't be like this.]

We have to go. Don't we?

. . . we could go together. . .

[ but he doesn't believe that, right? That's not right, or is it? What's going on, everything's wrong, it's not right at all . . . ]

Do we have any choice?

[If he'll trust her enough to stay with her. She's sure he won't, she's sure he shouldn't, she's destroyed everything just for a grudge...

...but is there even anything left to find here?]

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Page 1 of 4

♫ carnelian ♫

♪ instructions ♪

round 1 ♩

round 2 ♩

round 3 ♩

round 4 ♩

result ♮

discussion

decision

discussion

decision

discussion

decision

first

second

third

Re: first

Re: first

Re: second

Re: second

Re: second

Re: second

Re: second

Re: second

Re: second

Re: second