♫ iolite ♫

[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]

There’s a strange, numbing sense of distance to the start of this scene. Your team is fighting a massive serpent of Darkness and you are only watching; you are not there. They asked you to stay back, ‘just in case.’ Iolite throws themselves at the serpent with all the weapons at their disposal, but it will not die. They try to at least bind it in place, but it sweeps them off their feet with a lash of its tail, and coils around them in a deadly embrace. They begin to freeze in place, their limbs going the merciless cold grey of stone.

One of them yells your name. “Now! Now! Kill it!”

Re: first

[thatsmycue]

[-- what]

[never one to stop and think about things before he acts, Gold is already yanking a pokeball from his belt]

Hey! Hey! Hang in there!

second

[dramatispersonae]

You burst onto the scene. You ran here so fast you taste raw blood in your throat; your lungs are afire. But your teammates are already mostly frozen statues. Why didn’t you go sooner? Why did you wait when it was obvious they already needed help? The reason seemed important then but it doesn’t now. Not in the face of the expression on your teammates’ faces, the panic in their eyes.

You can’t help them until the Darkness is gone, so you throw yourself at it. You attack it, you drive it back; under your ferocity it retreats.

But you weren’t fast enough. Your team stopped calling or speaking at some point in your fight and they are completely stone, now.

Re: second

[whereismypie]

Damnit!

[he'll go straight up to them and reach out, running a hand over each of them. he doesn't quite believe that they've been turned to stone]

Hey, kid?

third

[dramatispersonae]

You've won, so you should be able to save them, right? You were the chosen one, the strongest, the boldest. You try everything you possibly can. In the end, you think, hope will free them (pray, really -- what other option do you have now?) and you grip your key, remember all the moments you shared with Iolite, call up all the feeling inside you that you can . . .

But it’s not enough. You’re not enough. You don’t have enough of that warmth and strength and belief inside you, not all by yourself -- they believed you did, they relied on you, and that was their undoing. You can feel it dawn on you, and you sink to your knees.

Their statues crumble to dust.

Re: third

[thatsmycue]

[. . . NO THIS IS NOT HOW THINGS WERE SUPPOSED TO END]

-- no! We were able to save 'em before!

Re: third

[shipwithwings]

No! No, that is not right!

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

[thatsmycue]

[sitting in his chair grumpily]

We don't let it come true. Duh.

Re: discussion

[shipwithwings]

[hisssssssssing, hackles up and slithering out of his chair to coil defensively around Dean's chair]

The Darkness has taken my teammates into the Book and I have idled by, because they are not dead there, but the Darkness did this much— if it took them from me, if it killed them, then I would turn myself against it with more ferocity and loathing than I have ever pit against it; my hate would be endless, my fury undying until it is stripped and torn and gone.

decision

[dramatispersonae]

Re: decision

[whereismypie]

If it were too late and the worst's already come to pass? We'd go for the head of whatever did our people in. We'd stop it from causing more death, and we'd lay it to bloody waste, to make it pay for the damage it's already done.

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

[thatsmycue]

Bravery. . .

Bravery is when you keep goin' even though you're afraid.

Re: discussion

[whereismypie]

It's a fine line, I guess.

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 scene plays out again on the floor, light shining up at you like a strange television screen made of marble — you're not inside it this time, but you can see clearly that it's going far more vigorously. "Tactics" and "strategy" don't begin to cover it, and it looks like the serpent may well be regretting your looking its way after all.

The last slash of a sword flares so bright that it blinds you, and when it clears, the image is gone — but a scattering of broad, darkly faceted snake scales litters the floor. They're warm to pick up and seem to glow internally a bit if there's any light around.

(To endgame!)