Tender Lumplings Everywhere, Life's No Fun Without A Good Scare [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

The woods are dark and deep, but not particularly lovely. If anything, they feel dangerous, as if something terrible might come lurching out from behind any given tree and tear into the nearest warm body. What that terrible thing might be is anyone's guess. A cat with hands? Slenderman? Stegosaurus? Actual cannibal Shia LaBeouf? All of the above in a horrible mob? It's anyone's guess. But every dreamer will be absolutely convinced that there is something unspeakable out there, and that it's after them.

The dreamers have two things on their side. The first is that there is actually nothing dangerous lurking in these woods (with the possible exception of other dreamers). The pervasive terror the dreamers are feeling is just that: a rift-given feeling, nothing more and nothing less. That snapping twig or rustle in the undergrowth is almost certainly just a squirrel or something else equally harmless.

The second is that no dreamer is alone. They all will be reunited with - or introduced to - their dæmons, a source of comfort in this dark, intimidating wilderness. However frightened the dreamers might be, at least they have someone with them who definitely doesn't want them dead.

[OOC: as ever, any and all are welcome! You don't have to be in the game to join the fun. Dreamers can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion. And the party only stops when you want it to; feel free to backtag forever.]

Comments

[antitimelord]

For a moment it looks like Zagreus means to follow through on his fact-checking, reaching for Johnny like he means to comb through his thoughts yet again. But for all he'd threatened it, he only brushes Johnny's hair away from his temple, still feigning sympathy, like he's feverish instead of venomously petrified. Johnny isn't lying, but that doesn't mean Zagreus doesn't want to see him flinch. His cooperation is of course appreciated, but it wouldn't even necessarily guarantee forbearance, if the forest weren't just enough of a distrusted unknown to keep all mental limbs safely inside the vehicle. Nothing in the rules says cooperation has to guarantee anything, not in this circumstance and not for Johnny.

"Good. You'll need that. Any houses?" Because Zagreus knows specifics are important. The devil's in the details. Johnny isn't clever or mythically fickle enough to need such attention to detail, but the Rift, and its power-granting logic, is a different story altogether.

[johnny_truant]

Johnny does flinch, scraping his shoulder through the dirt in an effort to pull back from the hand that, regardless, manages to brush through his hair. Catching Zagreus' wrist is a reflexive motion as well as a stupid one, but once it's happened it's too late. He's frozen, half sprawled and curled in the dirt, propped up on his shoulder, holding the predator's wrist like he means to push his hand away. He doesn't; he doesn't release his grip either. Just stares into Zagreus' eyes, his expression shifting fluidly from fear to defiance and back again. Everything he does in these interactions is like finding the book: he regrets everything but he won't put it back.

"So far," he says through his teeth, ignoring the dissonance of answering his questions like a good boy during this half-expressed act of physical repulsion. "Anything... constructed."