buttrinthum | TDM #9

Entry tags:

!tdm

TDM #9

Arrival / Enchanted Garden

Whether it be sleep or death, you feel your eyes close, and as your body begins to let go, you see a barn owl that is flying through the darkness, soon sweeping you across the clouded sky. You feel yourself mouth the words, “I wish, I wish..” and utter your deepest and darkest desire.

When you regain consciousness, you’ll find you are in an unfamiliar place with no recognition of how you arrived here. You have the clothes on your back, but nothing else. No weapons and if you had a particular superpower, you’ll notice it is missing. All you have is a satchel with a piece of bread, a vial of water, and a potion. The potion could be red, blue or golden. There are no instructions about these potions other than two words: Drink Me.

Will you drink it or not?

There is a parchment, handwritten in scrawling, jagged lettering that seems a bit... ominous:

“Welcome to my LABYRINTH where your wish, you wish you wish youwishyouwish– Your CONTRACT is SEALED.”

You’re in a garden, surrounded by flowers and plants– most of which you cannot identify. However, there are a few that you can make out: Larkspur and Anemone You’ll soon find out that being around the Larkspur makes you almost overwhelmingly tired, to the point you might even feel sluggish and in desperate need of a comfy place to rest. Why not lie down right in the garden? Or better yet, find someone to snuggle up with and sleep your worries away. The only truly strange part? You don’t seem to dream. At all. Straying too close to the Anemones, meanwhile, grants an entirely different effect. One second you’ll be walking through the garden and then suddenly you’re twenty feet away and facing the wrong direction. Even worse, whatever those flowers have done to you will sometimes make it so you “glitch” through solid objects – your leg might suddenly be lodged in the ground despite it being perfectly solid a moment before, or your arm could be shoved halfway into a wall that… actually, was that wall even there before? Nevermind that. The effects only last for a few minutes at worst, so at least you’re not stuck there forever, right?

Liminal Spaces and Worn Out Faces

Thanks to the combined efforts of dreamers and dragons, Vaeros is asleep. No one knows for how long. The locals aren’t particularly pleased with this turn of events and the village is a mess, but at least the moon is high in the sky again and everything is back to normal… relatively speaking. Things start to change... morph into something more dreamy, more surreal. It's subtle at first but after a few days…

The aftermath of the overgrowth, animal attacks, and the overall chaos of Vaeros' tantrum has left the village a little worse for wear. While most of the damages are cosmetic and could be fixed by the local's efforts alone, maybe a little help would be appreciated? If nothing else, it might help alleviate a little bit of the tension still lingering in the air after the events at the castle.

That, and the locals seem to be acting kind of strange. Leaving them to their own devices might not be the best idea. The Gelfling you are aiding in repairing a half-broken wall has been hammering for what seems like hours and when you look to see what they're doing, they haven't actually made any progress - they're just hitting the same spot over and over again, potentially making the hole even bigger. Did the goblin you just passed have a completely blank face for a moment? Others might walk into things, off of things (Starlight Cliff might be a hazard zone), or suddenly and inexplicably become aggressive toward dreamers, grabbing anything they can get their hands on (kitchenware, vegetables, a goose??) to use as a weapon. It's a very bizarre scene and the villagers don't seem to notice there is anything wrong with the people around them.

It’s not just the locals either. The animals have been acting equally strange. There's a wolf inside the clothing shop trying on suits, a goat standing (or trying to stand) on its hind legs, bleating out random words like a town crier while jingling a bell around its neck to get everyone's attention. Where you should find the local baker, suddenly they're replaced with a deer holding a paddle in its mouth to stir up a batch of brownies.

To top it all off, there's an eerie sense of deja vu no matter where you go or what you do. Didn't you just help that goblin with the wheelbarrow an hour ago? So why is it halfway across town again? You could have sworn you had to go and grab groceries, but your pantry is full like someone already had.

Up is Down, In is Out

Days pass and the oddities continue to make themselves more and more apparent. The sidewalks seem uneven and wobbly at times, threatening to toss people walking across them to the ground or even fling them into the air with a sudden violent ripple. Walking through the forest sees the leaves of the trees melting into green goo that sticks to your clothes, your hair, and your skin - potentially staining them green and leaving you in dire need of a bath. You can always wash off in the lake, of course, but even that is not free of the strangeness occurring in Visium. The water of Lake Omen has turned to lava, at least in color; although there is no heat radiating from it when one approaches. That, and the locals are still fishing in it without issue, save the fact that they keep pulling up fish with tophats on.

Speaking of fish - they're raining from the sky now (tophats or not) in all sorts of different colors, shapes, and sizes. Good news! They're still edible. Bad news, they're probably trying to sell you something.

If you do decide to try the fish or any other meal in town, especially those served by the locals, you'll find that it doesn't taste like much of anything and most certainly doesn't fill you up, at least not at first. Everything is bland and unappealing until left in the presence of dreamers - and the more you share the meal with, the faster the taste returns.

Dream Within a Dream Within a Dream Within a Dream Within

Even with Vaeros asleep, only a small portion of the labyrinth is still accessible. Those that attempt to explore will find sections made up of pillows and cushions, and no matter what time of day it is elsewhere, this portion of the labyrinth seems to be stuck in perpetual twilight. Explorers will also immediately feel drowsy, then lulled to sleep by the quiet singing whispered through the air like a lullaby. Anyone brave enough to try and rescue those poor souls from their impromptu naps would be wise to plug their noses and cover their ears with earmuffs to block out the sound.

At night, dreamers dream. They will be visited by the same melody heard in the labyrinth, though it is distant. They will also hear a woman telling them to spend more time together, to bond and create things together in order to soothe the effects of Vaeros' magic growing wild in his dreams. Dreamers will also have the ability to visit other's dreams, meeting in a dreamy light liminal space that will not feel so real when they awaken.

OOC

Welcome to the labyrinthum TDM! Characters will arrive depowered and with only their clothing, and will be given a satchel with a crystal pendant, a communication device, some water and bread and a magic potion. If they drink the potion, they will manifest an elemental, healing or animal transformation ability.

With the exception of Castle Vaeros, characters are free to go as they please, so feel free to place them in any of the locations available on the map. Yes, this includes the Labyrinth - though characters will not be able to clear the maze.

You can find more information about the game here. Any questions regarding the TDM can go under the comment below.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

ARRIVAL: cw drug mentions

The last thing he remembers is an explosion.

But now there’s no pain anymore, only this dreamy, half-awake state.

“I wish… I wish… Katniss…”

As he eventually blinks his eyes open, he sees sunshine and flowers. He’s in some kind of walled garden. It must be a dream… Morphling again. He checks the satchel. The parchment is weird, but the rest of it seems useful. He stares at the blue potion for a minute, wondering if Haymitch was the one to write “DRINK ME.” It definitely sounds like him, so Peeta drinks the potion.

He gets up and begins to wander, but there doesn’t seem to be an obvious way out. He starts to feel sleepy again, very sleepy, and his feet drag on the ground. Yeah, this must be a morphling dream. His body feels so slow, like walking through deep water, and he can hardly resist collapsing to the ground again… But then he sees someone. Someone he doesn’t recognize. He stares at them, blinking heavily, swaying in place.

LIMINAL SPACES

Peeta eventually finds the town. He still thinks he’s dreaming, but he might as well explore. He passes by a bakery and goes in, curious about what kinds of bread and baked goods they might have in this sort of place. He lingers by the counter, looking intently into the glass case of pastries and breads. The shopkeep comes to the counter, and as Peeta looks up to say something to them, the words die on his tongue and his mouth simply hangs open.

The baker is… A deer… ?!?!?!?!??

He does a double take, then looks around for help from other patrons with a distressed look on his face.

UP IS DOWN

Peeta thinks a walk in the woods might clear his mind from all the strangeness happening in town. It’s all been a bit overwhelming, and some quiet time alone should help.

Wrong.

The trees start to melt- actually melt, their leaves turning to goo, all the slime piling up around him, beginning to stick to his shoes, his pants. It almost seems to crawl up his body as though alive, and he starts to panic. He frantically tries to brush it off of him, but that only serves to get it stuck to his hands as well. Small, terrified whimpers escape him as he continues rubbing at the slime and it only spreads more. It must be dangerous, something designed by the Capitol to kill painfully- either it’s poisonous, or it’s going to envelop him and fill his lungs, or digest him like stomach acid, or--

He tries to run, but trips and falls in the goop, which only increases his distress. If you come upon him here, good luck calming him down.

[Newbies, man.]

Alright, alright - hey, hey. [Just trying to get his attention. Eren drops into a squat by Peeta on the ground, raising an eyebrow.]

Calm down. That stuff won't hurt you. It's just goop.

[Suddenly he becomes aware of a person next to him, close to him, and he instinctually raises a fist as though to punch them before stopping himself.

Hijacking has made him aggressive at times when he's worked up like this, but he's been able to get it a bit more under control. He forces his hand to the ground and instead attempts to scramble backward away from the boy, half out of instinctual fear and half to make sure he doesn't actually try to hurt him.

At this point he can't really speak because he's having a small panic attack, hyperventilating.]

[Aw, man. This guy is really messed up. When Peeta raises his fist, Eren merely lays a hand on top of it, and then the boy is scrambling away. Eren sits down in the grass, cross-legged. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, chin on his fists.]

Hey. Listen. You're alright. Just take a deep breath. [He demonstrates; he's been learning - with Maruki, and with Commander Erwin; it helps more than he wanted to believe at first. He continues, breathing loudly enough, he hopes, for Peeta to hear - slow and calm.]

It's fucked, I know. You probably have no idea what the Hell is going on right now. I'll explain it to you. Just catch your breath.

[Then, after a moment:]

Tell me your name.

[He wants nothing more than to escape this, but the longer he sits in the goo, the more he realizes it's not hurting him or doing anything obviously nefarious. It... Might just be goo.

But his heart is still pounding a mile a minute, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He wraps his arms around his knees, trying to slow his breathing as Eren demonstrates.

He looks at Eren as his breathing gradually slows enough that he can speak.]

Peeta.

Peeta. [Does...hearing one's own name help to ground them? Eren's not sure.]

My name's Eren. I've been here a while now. [He considers telling Peeta that "it's not always like this," but...it can honestly get a lot worse, and Eren's not sure if the world he knew will ever be the same again. There's no use lying to the guy.

[Well, when in doubt...]

When's the last time you ate? Are you hungry?

Peeta Mellark | The Hunger Games | New player/character

up is down

I knew you'd throw Eren at this one

no subject

no subject

no subject

ARRIVAL BABEY LET'S GO

no subject

no subject

cw vague ref to child murder

no subject

liminal spaces

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

arrival

HAYMITCH... CRIES

I had to, after the news today

what news?? :(

see below

Up is down

no subject

no subject

cw mild self harm