TDM #2

[labyrinmods]

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, and it simply gives you a welcoming:

“Welcome to my Labyrinth. Per our agreement, you have consented to live your life here for an undetermined amount of time. In exchange, I will grant you the wish that you desire the most.”

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: bluebells and daffodils. When characters wander near the bluebells, they will suddenly feel their body shrinking, becoming small enough to fit into a palm. The daffodils offer less dramatic effects - standing too close to blooming daffodils will encourage a strong desire to be impulsive or try out something they never would have otherwise tried (whether it’s a wild new hobby, or shaving their entire head, or something else). It is said that witnessing a daffodil droop is an omen of death, however. Any dreamer that sees one wilt or droop is slated for death. Whether it’s within the next few days, in a few months, or in a few years - nobody knows when. They will be met with pitiful glances when they finally reach the town and will need to live with the knowledge they are cursed.

It looks like there are plenty of others who are just now waking up from their dream-state as well.. why not go ahead and say hello?

[ The arrival aspect of this prompt is reserved for new characters, but anyone can interact with the garden flowers. The effects will last for a few hours or days. For players that choose for their characters to be cursed to die, there will be many opportunities within the game to traumatize and kill off your character, so feel free to play it out when you want to (or not at all). ]

Clean-up Crew / The Mailmice

Somnius, with its weathered cottages and rustic shops, was never a sight to behold, but the effects of the blood moon has left the humble town worse for wear. Houses and shops have been torn down, locals and dreamers alike have been injured, and the makeshift relief area in the church is packed full with survivors being frantically tended to by the limited amount of healers and medical personnel available, their agonized groaning echoing through the town as they recover from their injuries. Who can blame them? The direwolves were trying to eat them alive. If it’s any consolation, all characters have been cured and returned to their original forms, and all direwolves have been wiped out. The damage is done, but the danger is over (for now).

The calls for help continue. All hands are needed to clean up and rebuild the town, heal the injured, keep an account for all the residents, and bury the locals who have perished. A mass grave and funeral has been organised and anyone may attend. Anyone with the capacity to sing, dance or entertain (bards, essentially) would be especially valued in this time, given the low morale.

Despite the clear chaos in the street, the Overseer Vaeros is nowhere to be found, almost like he has abandoned his people in their time of need. If asked about him, the people stay devoted, believing wholeheartedly that their ruler must have had more important matters to attend to.

As spring approaches, the ice and snow finally starts to melt away, and some creatures begin to emerge out of hibernation. The most notable (and cutest) would be the mailmice, a group of small creatures - led by their leader Sir Matthew Mousefield - who manage the mail delivery in Somnius. How they do it is through using an intricate system of underground burrows, ranging across the city and feeding into some homes (in classic ‘mouse hole’ fashion). How did the townsfolk manage their mail before these mice emerged from hibernation? The answer is not effectively.

There is one problem, however. Climbing out of the earth only to be met with a giant direwolf is definitely a stressful experience. The mailmice have lost a few of the early risers, and they are terrified, choosing to hide from perceived threats within the bulbs of flowers.

As cute as the image is, they need to be coaxed out to get the postal system working again. There are several ways to do this:

✿ Gentle handling, soothing words and face nuzzles.
✿Telling the mice an interesting riddle or calming story. Reading a book to them helps also.
✿Entertaining them with a performance. They enjoy a duet or lovely waltz between two.
✿Enticing them with a shiny object or food. They can be quite specific about what object or food they want, so several attempts will be needed.

Characters who have been shrunken down by the bluebell’s effects will be even more successful at coaxing the mice, as they are less of a perceived threat. While yanking them out of the flowers is possible, they will squeal and bite. Any cat-like being is also likely to be bitten. Mousebites are slightly poisonous and will compel the victim to be subservient and people-pleasing for a few hours to a few days.

Characters may choose to fill in as mailmen if they wish. Sir Matthew Mousefield will reward them with a generous wheel of cheese and the tiniest thank you letter (with a seal!).

Fireys

There’s one group of creatures particularly unbothered by all the mayhem. With the weather warming up, the Fireys have started to party within the forest, their carefree song echoing through the trees. While the gelflings have been devastated by the wolf attacks, the Fireys are completely fine. With their immortal bodies and the awful taste to their flesh, the direwolves took no interest in them, and the ones that did learned quickly that trying to eat a Firey is futile (and more of a funny game to them, than anything). The gelflings are not too fond of those party-loving, untroubled creatures, warning any dreamer to avoid them if possible. They would be right. Anyone who stumbles upon their little party will witness first hand the way they pull out their own eyes and eat them, the way they behead themselves and dismember their limbs and kick those body parts around like playing football. It’s all a game, and no one seems to get hurt, until they decide to force any onlookers to join in.

”Hey, your head don’t come off? What’s with that?!” “I know what we gotta do! Take off that head!”

They will chase any unwilling participants through the forest and try to grab for heads, limbs, noses, eyes and whatever they can get their hands on. The interesting part? When touched by a Firey, body parts do come off, much like dismantling the limbs of a doll. For most people, it’s painless, but for the unlucky few, it’s as excruciating as having it cut off. The Fireys, though? They have no concern for the well-being of others. They will run off with their loot, kicking it around and hiding it, forcing that unlucky soul to go on a morbid scavenger hunt.

It gets to a point the Fireys decide it might be a great idea to spread their idea of fun to the rest of the town (as if Somnius hasn’t been hit with enough already). There is no actual way to kill them, but they can be dismembered and trapped somewhere, and they get bored if their victim evades them for too long.

They will get bored and return to the forest after they’ve had their fill, but not before leaving some chaos in their wake, with this person’s eyes being left on the countertop of that person’s home, or that person’s head being left on the tavern mantle.

OOC

Welcome to the labyrinthum TDM! All events are game canon. New characters (invited or not) and old characters alike are welcome to play in it. Existing characters can start their own logs or network posts for the event if they wish to.

New 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.

You can find more information about the game here. Any questions regarding the TDM can go under the comment below. There is an ATP/EMP here for those interested.

Comments

[xploud]

[A break is a break, maybe a few minutes, just to rest his eyes a while. But Katsuki is still doing his job well, and has to remove his hand from the young Gelfling's (much to their dismay and minor complaint) to finish what he was doing - bandaging up their back after the healing salve was applied to it. Once he's finished washing off his palms, he tucks the kid back into their bed and nods his head toward a more quiet corner. Best to let the youngster take a break, too.]

Not magic. Not like how most people think of it, anyway...but I guess it's got its similarities. It's more a trait people get from bloodlines. [Yet no one knows the origins of quirks, despite multiple studies being done and still on-going from the time the so-called "glowing baby" was born in their world a long time ago.] Think of it more like a superpower, since in my world there's way more science involved than fucking...hocus pocus. Each quirk is individual to its user, even if the quirk in question closely mimics that of their parent, or parents.

And yeah, explosions. [He breathes in slowly, evening, feeling that fatigue starting to set in now that he's not doing something. Honestly, Elsa's lucky to have caught him like this - he would otherwise not be so chatty.] Won't demonstrate here...but fuckin'...boom.

Canons. Fireworks. Dynamite.

[liberee]

[She doesn't mind waiting, stepping to the side to let Bakugou finish tending to the child after reaching and passing the supplies he had asked for in finding some for him. It's only once the child is lying back down again, that he seems finished that she speaks again as she goes over the supplies immediately on hand she has in front of her.]

A trait from bloodlines.....Back home. It's only me. At least, as far as I know. Nobody else has any abilities. And mine would I suppose be the opposite of yours. Ice. And making it come to life.

[That. Hadn't been intentional. Olaf was not something she expected to happen. Marshmallow was on purpose, but not the Snowgies. So it's debatable how much of that is really intentional when even Marshmallow was more created on instinct.]

[xploud]

[He's taking a seat now that he's "resting", pinching at his tired eyes to try and force alertness and focus into them. Katsuki knows he needs the break, but he'd have preferred to do it in his own way. Or at least...had something to occupy his hands with, even if it's just tea or water. He doesn't like not doing anything, it means his mind starts to wander. At least this woman is distracting enough that he's not settling on the past events.]

Haah? Well, you wouldn't be the only one to make ice back in my world - far from it. Plenty of people can do it in some way, and I know an as--... [Katsuki makes a face, pausing before cussing out his two-tone classmate, then just groans. Fuck, he's even starting to miss that damn bastard, too.] ...One of my classmates at school. He could create ice from his right side, and fire from his left.

From what I remember...fire was from his shitty dad, ice from his mom. And yeah, you can sometimes get two, depending how the blood, and quirks, mix together. Mine is technically two as well, if you wanna get scientific about it...but I can only create the one thing.

[His mom's quirk was glycerin - it kept her skin clean, clear, and youthful looking. It's why she looks a lot younger and prettier than her pisspoor attitude (which Katsuki also inherited, along with being her fucking clone, pretty much) suggests. His dad, funnily enough, considering his mousey and pacifistic nature...was the one who could create explosions. He'd have to rub his hands together to generate the heat and friction to do so, and they weren't near as big or as powerful as Katsuki's, but...that's what it was.]

...What do you mean "come to life"?

[liberee]

Really? That's...very different to back home. I suppose both of yours combine for your explosions?

[She assumes at least. From what he says about his friend being able to have two abilities. Fire and ice. Elsa is at least glad he is having a break, resting, sitting. At least as best as he can considering the situation. Even just for a moment. It's something. She does at least figure getting them both a hot chocolate, handing him one and sipping at her own as she listens. As she considers his question to her.]

I mean....the snowman I created, Olaf, he came to life. I didn't intend for it, but. He was walking around, talking and everything.

[xploud]

[He nods with a hum. Yup, right on the money - his parents two quirks mixed and gave him his own - which is the ability to create explosions. He doesn't go into the specifics of it, because that's a little too much info-sharing with a stranger, and Katsuki doesn't trust so easily, but she's got the gist of it and that's all that matters.

He takes the drink and sips, then wrinkles his nose a bit at the sickeningly sweet taste. It'll do, but...not his flavor profile. Katsuki can only stomach so much sweetness, and this is just cloyingly so. Maybe if it were Mexican hot chocolate? Oh yeah...that's the shit right there. But he'll drink, just not all of it.]

Huh... [That's weird. Like, actual Magic weird.] Will of his own? I mean...you weren't pulling the strings kind of thing? That's freaky.

[Siiiiip...]

[liberee]

It was....unexpected. But we have all grown rather fond of him. He's sort of like how Anna and I were when we were little. When I used to make snowmen with her, before the accident. I sort of....accidentally hit her with my powers when we were playing. Kind of a long story. But she forgot. About my powers. That's why I shut everyone out. For years. Up until my coronation, anyway. That's when everyone found out, and I fled. And made Olaf.

[It's. Complicated. But she tries to explain, about Olaf. As she drinks, noting that perhaps he isn't as much a sweet tooth as she and Anna might be with the way he wrinkles his nose. Maybe she should have made him something else but this is what she defaults to for a hot drink and figured he might need one for a break.]

[xploud]

[Katsuki raises a brow, tired, but still relatively alert as he listens and peers over the rim of his mug at this young woman. ...Is this normal? To just open up about shit to a stranger? He assumes yes, especially with those who have some kind of trauma, or are lonely, like this person is. But man...it makes things extremely weird, because Katsuki is far from the type to be sympathetic about stuff like that. He's not good with the whole "sharing feelings" crap.

So he focuses mostly on the latter part of that deluge and sighs. He can't be sure it's the same, but it sounds like how it was when quirks first emerged in the past - way back before he was even born. How people saw those with them as monsters or freaks, and factions started to form within society itself.]

...There's no easy answer to what you should've done, if that's what you're looking for, lady. [He sips again, makes a face, then sets the half finished mug away.] Honesty is a blessing and a curse - you never know how people can or will react. Quirks weren't always praised in my world, either. When they first started to show up in history, there were people who hated those who had them, and those who hated having them. Shit, there are still people who hate quirks of a specific type out there.

...But I'll tell you something - there isn't a damn place on this fucking hunk of rock, and this goes for any damn place, that you can escape to that someone, somehow, someway, won't find you. Especially if they care.

[liberee]

[Well, given how sheltered she was and how used she was to hiding her powers, it is something different to be told it is almost normal elsewhere. So of course Elsa is more open about it. More given to opening up to Katsuki about her abilities. She is more open about it in general now, since her coronation, but even so. She doesn't expect him to fix everything. To know the full context based just on the bare basics she tells him.]

I suppose in that sense, it isn't so different. Depending on the Quirk, the power, some might be scared. Of what they might do, what others might do with it. How they might use it. How it might impact others. But....it's alright. I'm not running away any longer. It was just my first instinct, when my powers were revealed, to flee. But it turned out alright in the end.

[More or less. Sans the whole issue regarding her fears manifesting and all. She knows she can't just run off and expect Anna not to follow. Though here, with this place, it isn't like she exactly remembers giving permission for all this. Of course, that is, assuming Anna is here somewhere. Elsa hasn't come across her yet.]