buttrinthum | TDM #9

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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

That's what I've been told, yes. If he's here, then we'll keep looking until we find him.

[Luz hoped that if AJ was here, they would find out soon. If not, Luz could at least help Clementine adjust to being here].

We'll keep looking, and if we have to, put out an alert on the network just in case we missed someplace.

I just want to be sure. Before I stop looking. If there is some way to confirm. I just want to know, either way. Then I can figure things from there, I guess.

[It isn't like she hasn't had periods where she had been alone. It's been years though at this point. So Clementine might be kind of rusty about that. Not having AJ to focus on caring for if he isn't here. She just wants to be sure regardless. Then she can focus either way on settling in and figuring this place out more.]

Of course. We'll keep looking now, and then I'll spend the next day combing the woods in daylight. I'll ask around too, see if anyone's spotted AJ by his description. If he IS here, we make sure we get to him as soon as we can.

[She was hoping they did find him, if only so Clementine could start to assess now that she was here. Luz figured she'd also offer Clementine a place to say in the spare room of the house, at least until she found a place for herself].

Alright. Thank you. Even if he might still be back home, I just want to be sure. I appreciate the help. Just want to know if he is alright after the crash, if he is here.

[To check on him. To know either way. And of course then regardless which result, she would figure things from there. Settling in. A place to stay and all. Maybe a job? She's still figuring it all out yet. Not being used to having so many others around. A comparatively normal setting compared to back home with the walkers.]

No, I get it. You have a responsibility. I know what that feeling is like.

[Luz did look a little quiet about that, thinking about the "responsibilities" she had. No wonder Clementine wanted to find her family so much. Luz resolved to look as much as she could. They'd take care of that question before Clementine found her own answers to everything that she had to figure out here].

If you need light, let me know, ok? I can conjure that up.

Thank you.

[Clementine had been caring for AJ since she was eleven. Five years. She's been responsible for the boy. So of course she wants to be sure if he was here, if he was alright. That being her initial priority. She pauses in glancing down to raise an eyebrow to the other.]

Conjure?

No problem. If someone I cared about was missing, I'd appreciate help too.

[Luz had to hold back a chuckle. They were on a flying staff and Clementine still wasn't sure what Luz would have meant? Fair enough. Luz brought out an already scribbled light glyph, and tapped it gently. It turned into a ball of light, moving around them in slow succession].

Yup! My light glyph.

Oh?

[She had only read about this sort of thing in books. Or video games or movies. So it is still so new and novel to Clementine, making her curious as she tries to watch as best she can from sitting behind Luz when she scribbles the glyph.]

It's like those things with the Egyptians? Their writing as pictures? That's pretty amazing.

What they did was hieroglyphics. A little similar, but not quite.

You have to know your intention and be ready to perform it when you can.

But the symbols will help with what you conjure up!

Oh. I guess that sort of makes sense in some sort of way? I only did manage three years of school back home, so I'm sure there's a lot I didn't get to.

[She was eight. When the outbreak happened. So, of course her education hasn't been the best even if she is sixteen now. Even if she is older and in theory knows more, has more experience and knowledge at this point in comparison. She tries to keep an eye out below as they fly.]

There is a school here, if you want to try your hand at it. Honestly, I'm sixteen, I really should be in it myself!

[But she wasn't: she still had her own magical journey to continue with, she needed a job for the house and there was still trying to help defend this place. There was literally no time for school, and she knew that].

But if you're not inclined to do that? There are still jobs you can find here.

There is? Lee talked about school, maybe figuring something so he could teach me. He taught History, back before the outbreak. I suppose if I can get used to the crowds, being around that many people, it's probably not a bad idea. To try. Maybe figure a job part time to help out and get some money at least?

[She should be able to figure that? Right? She's sixteen? Sixteen year olds had part time jobs back before the outbreak didn't they? She thinks so. It's just kind of wild to consider jobs and school again after half her life has been spent without that sort of thing, feeling like that was another lifetime that such concepts were a thing.]

[It helped that Luz was also sixteen and had similar concerns, though in her case she opted to go straight for the job and nix school, mostly because she needed to spend what time she didn't have working on developing her magic and sword fighting skills.

But she certainly could identify with the idea of starting fresh in a new world. That was pretty much every day in Somnius].

Is it that bad for you, being around a crowd of people?

I was okay with it. Before. Now, crowds usually mean lots of walkers. There aren't so many survivors anymore. Not after eight years of this.

[So. It will take her a while. To adjust. To be used to so many people being around again. To things like school again. After so long feeling like that sort of thing was a lifetime ago she only vaguely recalls at this point after so many years just trying to stay alive.]

So it'll probably take some time to get used to a lot of people that aren't Walkers then. All right then. Take the time you need then. It'll hopefully get better in time.

[How long, no one could really tell. They'd have to play that part by ear].

Something like that. This is not going to be something I get used to overnight. I don't think. I've been dealing with the outbreak for eight years now. So. It's been a while.

[Half her life. She got a little of her childhood. Some memories. Before everything changed. She isn't sure if that is better or worse that she knows what it was like before. That she has that to miss and compare to. In comparison to AJ who grew up never knowing any different.]

I understand. Just...look, you'll be getting an Oracle device soon. Keep in contact with me there if you need absolutely anything. There might be some times I'm not available, but I will see that you hit me up an I'll respond as soon as I can.

This place is confusing enough, and with all you've been through, you shouldn't have to do it alone.

Oracle? Okay. I'll use that. Like a walkie talkie or something? Or a phone?

[She hasn't used one of either in years. But she gets the idea? She isn't from that far back that she is oblivious to that sort of idea of technology at the least. Clementine is still from relatively recent times even if she might be rusty about the technology side of things.]

More like a phone.

[Man, it must have been a while for this poor girl. It was less about her not using a phone and more about what kind of world it must have been if she hadn't been able TO use one in a while.

Dystopias were really rough worlds, and Clementine had her sympathy].

A phone. Alright. I might be a little rusty using one but I think I remember the basics at least. More or less. Dial the number you want to call and speak. Simple enough.

[Given she had been all of eight at the time of the outbreak she only knew of cellphones from her parents having them sort of thing. Not that she had her own. To have experience with texts or the like but even that seems simple enough if she needed it explained.]

I can help you with that too, if you want. I don't want to assume your world knows something that might be...basically not even important with what's happening in it now. It's a little difficult at first, but it'll get better when you get the hang of it.

[Luz pulled out her Oracle to give Clementine a demonstration].

I used a phone back home. I mean. It was just one you know, basic, talking into it, answering machine. My parents were the ones that had those personal phones. Cellphones?

[She was eight when it all went down so of course she only knows of a landline sort of thing more like. Not so much that she was used to cellphones. But she at least understands the basics in regards to using them to speak to someone farther away. Or if someone explained texts as like an instant letter sort of thing. Something like that.]

Whoa. Ok, no, definitely have to show you how to use these then. It's more of a handheld computer that we can use around here.

[It must be a very different world, where there was no cellphone invention, and then bad stuff just happened somehow that plunged her world into further troubles. That was her guess then].

Don't worry though. I'll show you how they work.

A handheld computer? I guess I never really paid much attention to the phones. Aside from that my parents had theirs that they would sometimes talk or type on to message people. Or the landline, the one we had in the house that I used. I'm not sure how much like a computer the cellphones were.

[Still. She is grateful for the other offering to show her, to help. She's still learning all this yet, even as she tries to keep an eye out and not get too distracted from searching for AJ. He's probably hiding somewhere if he is here, given the noise, the crowds he wouldn't be used to dealing with. She knows that. But even so she can't help hoping.]

That's what they're like in my time, and the interface is pretty similar. I'll run down some of the stuff you can do with it though. It's a pain at first, but once you pick it up it's pretty useful.

[Luz hoped that if AJ WAS around, they'd find him soon. It would be easier to help them get acclimated if they were together. If they weren't...well. That would be sad, and she'd try to be there for Clementine if she was in this world alone. That was a pretty scary feeling].

TDM #9

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