♫ sapphire ♫

[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]

You’re observing the rest of Sapphire from somewhere high above. A cool dispassion fills you (it’s not a human emotion at all; it’s the visceral pitilessness a hawk would feel as it dove down upon a hapless fieldmouse) but underneath it some part of you is present and human, struggling with the hawklike part, to no avail.

You are running a game; you are the Persona. Sapphire is playing your game, with a girl from Citrine as their 'knight.' Sapphire is standing in a small, enclosed stone room, talking softly. A golden sword lies on the floor. You are aware that when one of them picks up the sword they will experience a single memory over and over again, until the game is over for everyone, until you can finally make it stop...

Re: first

[exchanged]

Oh... this...

Re: first

[appleofhiseye]

This was...

[rubbing her forehead a little, confused :/]

Re: first

[telepathetically]

[oh it's that one...]

second

[dramatispersonae]

The girl from Citrine picks up the sword. She is newly come with few memories and no bad ones. You will her to relive her own, but something of yours floods into her instead -- something terrible, something terrible, she will know what it is like to be burned to death . . . (is that your memory? The story’s? Neither? Both? Does it matter? It is hurting the girl, no matter what it might be.) You throw yourself against your bonds, hardly knowing what you are doing, but the game goes on.

The game always goes on.

Re: second

[exchanged]

[his hands tighten into fists at his side.]

... we're changing that.

Re: second

[glorious]

[...this somehow feels incredibly pointed and I don't think I like it.]

Re: second

[appleofhiseye]

[watching quietly...]

Re: second

[telepathetically]

That's... weird?

third

[dramatispersonae]

You feel deep helplessness, watching Sapphire trudge back into endgame, bowed under the pain you have laid on them. Your thoughts are a whirl of confusion.

You are too newly aware of what you are, that you are bound at all, oh yes. You have made so little headway. You did not kill them; the struggle and their influence gained you that much. But the bonds cannot, will not give more than that; you have not had enough strength or time. How, oh how, can you be so tightly bound, when you are meant to represent freedom? How can you throw the heroes’ gifts and help back in their face like this? What a farce this test is! What a farce you are!

You want to weep, even if it will turn your own flesh to ash and coals; to take a little of that pain upon yourself. But you should not -- will not. Instead you will need to explain yourself to them, as best as you are able, as best as you are allowed. It is all you can do, for now. Your cold fear of facing them - a test so much less than what they've just suffered! - makes you want to flee again, and you despair.

Re: third

[glorious]

. . . And that's how being trapped in a Role feels.

Re: third

[exchanged]

... Firebird...

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 floor this time instead of you living it. The light of it shines up on you, as if you're standing on a giant glowing soft-edged marble television screen - the scene itself has the sense of something boxed away, an unwanted memory, that grows smaller and smaller (as if with distance) till it's a single point of light on the floor.

After a moment, a crystalline copper flower that's strangely reminiscient of one of the hope flowers you're more familiar with sprouts from that spot.

(To endgame!)