Enchantment Under the Sea

[applesaucemod]

Tonight, the dreamers of Manhattan will find themselves transported to what is unmistakably a high school gymnasium. Granted, it's lavishly decorated in blues, greens, and violets. There are jellyfish made of tissue paper and streamers, painted cardboard fish are dangling from ceiling, and an abundance of transparent balloons serve as substitute bubbles. Tables and chairs are clustered around the periphery for those who'd like to sit, but the majority of the floor is open for dancing. Along one wall, folding tables hold snacks and bowls of punch. There's no DJ to be seen, but a sound system is playing a steady stream of classic dance songs.

It's impressive work for a nonexistent prom committee, all things considered.

But the setting is not the only thing that hearkens back to one's teenage years. The dreamers will find, regardless of age or species, that they're now saddled with the hormones of an average sixteen-year-old human being… and with the delightful mood fluctuations and bouts of irrationality that come with the package. (Dreamers who are already teenagers might be said to be getting a reprieve… but dealing with adults in such a state will be trying enough on its own. Someone has to chaperone, right?)

The good news for dreamers who aren't into dances is that there's an entire high school to explore, though the hallways will only be half-lit and many of the classrooms will be locked up. Even the parking lot and athletic fields are accessible, but dreamers may find themselves getting mysteriously turned around if they try to actually leave school property.


[ooc: you all know the drill. Any and all characters are welcome, regardless of whether or not they're in the game. Dreamers may remember or forget the events of the party at the player's discretion.]

Comments

[eliotwaugh]

"Whoa." Eliot goggles at the glowing tie, looking back and forth between it and Sunshine. "That was awesome though! Seriously that's a sweet technique you've got there, wow."

He has got to try this. Eliot takes a swig of schnapps, screws the cap back on the bottle and stuffs it into a pants pocket. He crouches down to look at the pile of coat with a serious business frown, considering. "I mean I know it's not real, it's not really there, but dream carbon, dream incantations...I don't even know what this thing is made of, cotton velvet? polyester?" If Eliot were awake he'd be able to tell at a glance, and cast sneering judgment upon this sartorial mistake. "And it's not like making it glow could make it any worse."

So he clears his throat and cracks his knuckles. With a quick sharp gesture and a guttural command in archaic Armenian, he encourages the coat to change from velvet to a more sedate weave. Just rearranging the fibers a little. Eliot feels pretty stupid when nothing happens, no cool glowy thing. "Well shit," he grumbles, "guess that's a bust."

The coat chooses this moment to start smoking slowly, char eating away at the sleeves until one of them catches alight in a bright plume of flame.

[rae_of_sun]

Was it? She's really not sure 'glowing tie' is much of an improvement over 'unfortunate cravat' (and it'll be even more unfortunate if she tries to change it back, because then it'll be the cravat that's glowing). As far as hideous botches go, it might rank lower than her grandmother's ring, but, well… not by much. So, her "thanks" is a bit more dry than genuine. Oh, well. At least he wasn't emotionally attached before she got to it.

And hey, she gets to see some of Eliot's brand of magic handling. She'd sort of gotten the impression that his is a bit more heavy on the mental math than hers, so she's a little surprised by how quickly he goes for it. And, perhaps, not as surprised as she should be when nothing seems to happen.

"Well," she starts, intending to go somewhere encouraging with it, but then the thing bursts into flames. "Oh, shit!" She twitches her voluminous skirts back instinctively and steps back a pace. Then, to her slight surprise, she laughs. Okay, so it's not as if the jacket deserved better, but she should probably be more alarmed about a fire, right? Especially when her brand of magic handling is good for precisely nothing in the firefighting department. Maybe she could transmute the tie into water, sure, but then she'd just have a handful of water spilling uselessly onto her dress.

So, this is bad news. And it's friggin hilarious.

[eliotwaugh]

Okay so maybe Eliot can't manipulate things in dreams, but it was worth a shot. And good for future reference! But now there is a very small fire, and it's hilarious but also a cause for concern, and Eliot lets out a slightly hysterical laugh.

"Shit I should, hah, I should do something," he babbles, and his first thought is to try and reverse the spell, which, no you idiot. What do people do to put out fires? He doesn't have anything to pour on the coat but his little bottle of schnapps, and that would only make the situation worse. "Don't people like, smother fires with blankets? or coats?" This only sets off another round of giggles, and Eliot doubles over, unable to do anything but halfheartedly try to stomp out the flames. It's not very effective.

[rae_of_sun]

"Yeah, if only we had a coat," Sunshine says, going for deadpan but giggling too much to get there. She has to lean against the wall for support as Eliot makes a half-assed attempt to stomp out the fire. But, okay, this really is a bad situation. The rift doesn't seem inclined to help them out, here, and she doesn't want to find out the hard way that it's totally okay with the entire gymnasium going up in flames.

"Um." She looks down at the glowing tie again, and then figures: why the hell not. She balls the fabric back up between her hands, cupping them together as tightly as she can. Water. She wants water. She gives the bundled fabric a good, magical shove, then sort of throws the resulting mess at the flaming coat sleeve with a ridiculous little, "Hyah!" of encouragement.

To her credit, she did manage to make water (glowing golden, but still liquid), and it does land on or around the sleeve. But even a perfect shot wouldn't have been enough to douse the flames, so now there's just a blazing coat and a few small puddles of sunshine-infused water on the floor. "Well, fuck," she concludes.

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot stops trying to kick the fire to death when it becomes clear all he's going to get for his trouble is singed shoes. He leans back against the wall, laughing breathlessly.

He actually snorts when Sunshine gives a little kung-fu yell, but who knows, maybe that's part of magical working where she's from. And to her credit, she totally did turn the tie into water! Beautiful luminiscent water! Water is a thing that is happening here. Only they need more of it, and how.

"Okay okay," he says, starting to recover himself. "Screw it, this is worth a shot." He pulls out the bottle of schnapps and unscrews it, squinting seriously at the clear syrupy horror. "It'll be just basic chemistry. The old Reverse Jesus. Not like it can get any worse." Gonna pull out some carbon molecules, encourage the hydrogen to bond to the oxygen, it's babytown frolics. Concentrating hard on the bottle between his hands, he mutters a brief chant, and it definitely feels like something happened, like the glass is thicker, maybe. Awesome!

"All right," Eliot announces, dramatic flair mixing with oh-shit-fire-panic. "Fucking, submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society--" And he tosses what was schnapps onto the fire with actually pretty good aim!

The following epic -FWOOSH- and tongue of blue flame that leaps up from the much more serious fire causes Eliot to shriek like a mandroid tiny tiny child and subsequently fall back, flailing, right onto his ass. He sniffs the bottle. Yeah that's...that's butane. Shit.

"So...." he turns to Sunshine, trying to sound casual. "You have any ideas, or should we run away screaming?"