♫ peridot ♫

[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]

CONTENT WARNING: parental abandonment, kidnapping

first

[dramatispersonae]

You’re in the woods when you shouldn’t be when a stranger clad all in black comes to you. He and the woods are both dark and distorted in your vision; confusing -- nothing about this scene is right. You were away on your own for the day, to lighten your heart, and he lays a bony hand on your shoulder and tells you calmly and with utmost confidence, you came to me, and thus you belong to me now.

You didn’t know. You open your mouth to deny him, but before you can speak you hear your parent’s voices, hear the two of them crashing through the brush, and your heart sinks. You hope, a little, that they’ll help you (that hope never quite died out over the years, even as they made it very clear that they would not, in fact, help, even as you learned to try and not make those mistakes, to keep pleasing them -- but today you left your home alone to lighten your heart, thinking you would be careful and everything would turn out all right, which is the worst mistake of all.)

Re: first

[buryinghatchets]

[tensing up, only stiffening further when the parents arrive, somewhat stunned as she looks between them]

Ah...

second

[dramatispersonae]

Your parents appear, and look you up and down, and see the stranger with you and the hand he has on your shoulder. He smiles at them and tells them the same thing: this youth belongs to me now.

Your hope that they will protest for you dies, then. They look at you and then each other with empty eyes, and turn to go with their faces cold and stony with fear. If you weren't out when you shouldn't have been you wouldn't have made them look like that. You wouldn’t have made them look at you like that. You wouldn’t have made them look at each other like that.

(You don’t hear this from them, of course. They’re too afraid to speak. Your fault, as well.)

Re: second

[fragmentedimago]

... [reaches for Rena's hand. To comfort her or himself? Not speaking up again though]

third

[dramatispersonae]

You are led away into the dark woods by the stranger all in black. You know this is not right, and even in your fear of him you dare to twist away, to look back, to call out to your parents, but . . .

You made this bed, so lie in it, you think you hear them answer, soft and distant. You don’t see them say it: they never turn to look at you. They only walk away all the faster.

Re: third

[fragmentedimago]

[well they're not wrong]

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]

Re: discussion

[fragmentedimago]

It's more like "what have I done", isn't it...

decision

[dramatispersonae]

Re: decision

[buryinghatchets]

Find something new and rebuild things from there.

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]

Re: discussion

[buryinghatchets]

Oh, this question's a bit different... Bravery is about doing what you know you have to do, even if it's hard. Foolhardiness is about acting without thinking things through.

Maybe something like that.

decision

[dramatispersonae]

Re: decision

[buryinghatchets]

Bravery is doing what you know you have to do when you're afraid, and foolhardiness is taking action without considering the risks or thinking things through. It's the right decision to be brave when someone's counting on you, or when something important of yours is on the line.

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]

Re: discussion

[fragmentedimago]

I'm not sure I understand this question. You?

decision

[dramatispersonae]

Re: decision

[fragmentedimago]

We, at least, face our fears poorly. I'd suspect there's both an element of avoidance, and an element of simply not realizing that it's a time where we could face our fears.

People can't always take action. Expecting people to always be in a situation where they can take action is uneralistic; even expecting people to always expect they can take action is. But if we are in a position where change is a real possibility, where we can start to see those chances, perhaps we can learn to identify them. One thing at a time, like they say.

result ♮

[dramatispersonae]

...

[dramatispersonae]

The scene begins to play out again on the walls and ceiling around you, a vision rather than something relived — but it stutters out almost immediately, going fuzzy and confused. Perhaps you can't see it clearly...? It continues to the end like that, nearly invisible, before the static flakes from the bare walls in a shower of irregularly sized and shaped Peridot-tinted crystal beads. They skitter across the floor, rolling across a very long, thin copper chain that would fit them perfectly, if one wanted to string them on. They give a little under your fingers; perhaps they could be shaped...

(To endgame!)