dramatispersonae | ♫ turquoise ♫

♫ turquoise ♫

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-- ♫

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

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 feel torn, conflicted. The person who (helped you? loved you as a teammate? received your favor? all three?) stands below you. Once upon a time, they stretched out their hand to you, and helped you in a way that fulfilled your nature. You knew you owed them something in return then, but you didn't think that they'd ask you for something so… different. So unlike you. Necessity breeds terrible choices.

There is a cage. There is someone in the cage. Your (teammate? friend?) is asking you to release them, by taking their place. It is the only way, and yet. You love them, and yet. Why are they asking this sacrifice of you?

You enter the cage with fear clogging your throat; the person in the cage steps out at the same moment, not looking at you. They cross the floor away from the cage, to your loved one. You feel a sick, tearing, violent sense of disappointment: you thought (or at least hoped) that they loved you too. That they loved you more than the person in the cage -- or at least loved you both enough to find another way.

The bars seem to close in around you, cramped and claustrophobic, cutting off your air. You cannot bear this. You literally can't; that is who you are. Your loved one has asked too much. You have to get out of here or die -- and will you die like this, even if it is them? When they are trying to sacrifice you?

The cage door isn’t all the way closed yet. It’s not too late.

The sick wrong feeling of being caged spikes in your gut, suddenly unbearable, and you lunge for the door. Your loved one (and their loved one) turn at your shout, their faces twisting into expressions of horror as everything goes wrong, as Darkness begins to race up their limbs, immobilizing them, turning them into cold dead stone. What have you done? those expressions say. You know your own says, only what you tried to do to me.

And who are you? Is this really you, who has done this terrible thing? Even if you could not bear what they tried to do to you, there is nothing to be found in what you have done but despair. You feel the hot painful burn of tears on your face, a dragging sense of dislocation and loss. You are left standing, and free, but they are gone.