The House was Awake with Shadows and Monsters [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

This might not be the first time a given dreamer has found themselves at a fancy party in a large mansion, and dressed in something they wouldn't typically wear. If the architecture is more gothic than usual, well, that could just be a coincidence… but it's probably no coincidence that the dreamers are all wearing Halloween costumes that they decidedly did not pick themselves. 'Tis the season! They might look fancy, they might look slapdash; either way, it shouldn't be too difficult for the dreamers to figure out who - or what - they're supposed to be.

The evening's festivities are centered around a grand ballroom. Music is emanating from somewhere or other, and numerous chandeliers are aglow with warm candlelight. Tables line the perimeter, and they're piled with seasonal snacks and bowls of punch. If dancing isn't your thing, there's a whole mansion and extensive grounds to explore.

Those who venture forth will notice that the farther they wander from the party, the less friendly things seem. Tidy rooms with fires in the hearths will give way to dark, dusty corridors and neglected spaces. Manicured lawns grow into tangled hedges. As the music fades out of earshot, the house's settling groans and the hiss of the wind through the ivy will be impossible to ignore.

(It was just the house, wasn't it? Sure it was. It was probably your own footsteps that made that floorboard creak, too. And that rustle on the other side of the hedge was just a rabbit.)

All things considered, it might be more comfortable to just stay in the ballroom, where it's warm and cheerful and there are plenty of snacks. A note about the snacks, though: the dreamers will find that the more punch they consume, the more their own identities seem to fade away in favor of a persona more in line with their costumes. A dreamer dressed as a tiger might find themselves inclined to hide behind a curtain and pounce on passersby. A dreamer dressed as a mummy might adopt a stiff-legged gait and dole out a curse or two. A dreamer dressed as a robot might start speaking binary.

At least no one will actually turn into anything. That would just be embarrassing.

The good news is that eating any of the available food will counteract the punch's effects, so it's possible to have a fine time and still keep ahold of yourself. But what's the fun in that?


[ooc: the usual dream party rules apply. All are welcome, whether they've been apped to the game or not. Characters can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion. Any punch-drinking dreamers will take on the personality characteristics - and potentially the magical/supernatural capabilities - of whatever or whoever they're dressed as, though their physical appearance will remain the same.]

Comments

[wildmage_daine]

If Daine had her druthers - not that she ever expects to, in dreams like this - she might keep the clothes she's wearing, but she'd definitely lose all the paint. The breeches are a bit tight, almost like hose, but at least they're thick enough to be warm in the drafty hallways. Her shirt is sleeveless, though, even if it is pretty - a deep, thunderous grey around the back and fading to a lighter, pearly sheen in the front. Her arms are done up like a player's, painted the same deep grey as her shirt, with subtle highlights giving her skin a pebbly look. The first mirror she passes reveals that her face and neck are painted the same way, and when she carefully cranes her neck around to look behind her, she can see a lightweight, false tail pinned to the back of her breeches.

This is stupid. She's too short to be a basilisk. But it seems the rift has seen fit to dress her like one, anyway. If Tkaa could see her now, he'd probably be speechless.

Daine sighs, then wanders towards the faint strains of music she can hear coming from around a corner. She'll see whatever it is the dream wants to show off so badly. Then, maybe she'll try to find a bathroom where she can scrape some of this paint off. She's certain she'll smudge it horribly even if she tries to be careful.

Bee's coming off the tail end of her thread with Tim

[apidae]

Bee had no destination in mind when she used her Glinda-the-Good-Witch powers to escape Tim. She just needed to get away. She finds herself, somewhat appropriately, in a bathroom. She doesn't pause to note the other presence there, just slides immediately to the floor and buries her face in her hands, trembling and whimpering softly. Pathetic. She left him behind, to contend with whatever that is he's becoming. He might still be in there, fighting, frightened, and she left him.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine's managed to remove most of the paint from her face and hands. Her arms and neck are still covered, but she figures she's less likely to muss those areas, anyway, and she doesn't want to spend the whole dream off in some corner, scrubbing at herself. Besides, the pipes keep making unpleasant noises, and the water only comes out in fitful spurts.

She's dabbing at her face with a somewhat musty-smelling towel when someone else arrives. It takes Daine a moment to place her in that atypical dress, but once she realizes it's Bee, and that she's upset, she drops the towel and hurries over.

"Bee?" Daine crouches beside her, tentatively resting a hand on her shoulder. "What happened?"

[apidae]

"Oh!" she gasps, looking up with a startled jerk. She's relieved that it's Daine, all painted over and in an unusual costume, just like all of them, but Daine's still Daine at least. She hides her face, embarrassed, even moreso because of her ridiculous getup. "I - I'm sorry, I didn't know you were here," she babbles through her fingers, hiccuping slightly. "I'm okay. I just - this dream is messing everyone up. Tim's not right inside and I couldn't help him. I just wanted to help him."

She's not making sense. She curls inward, not pulling from Daine's touch but not leaning into it either.

[wildmage_daine]

Oh, dear. She wishes she could say it was a surprise that Tim wasn't himself, but she's seen that sort of thing before.

"No need to say sorry," she says, taking her hand from Bee's shoulder and shifting around to sit beside her. "I know Tim can get scary sometimes." She turns down the corners of her mouth in a frown. "Did he try to hurt you?" she asks. Her tone is gentle, but her gaze is sharp. "Is he going after folk?"

[apidae]

Bee sniffs and nods quickly, nervous, as if she did something wrong by letting him get that bad. "He would have done something terrible if I hadn't - but it's not his fault, it's not the thing that usually happens to him, it's this dream. It made him into something else. It's making us all into other things. I don't know what sets it off but he wasn't - I - I should have-"

Her voice gives out and she huddles against Daine for support, trying to settle herself down. Just be still. Calm water. Nothing was ever fixed in a mood like this.

[wildmage_daine]

"Is it?" Daine checks her arm again, as if half-expecting her skin to have really shifted into scales without her say-so. Her skin still looks normal beneath the paint. Maybe that isn't what Bee meant. Even if it was, she supposes there are worse things to be than a basilisk.

She's still not sure what, exactly, has happened to Tim. She'd thought it was just his masked self coming out to play, but Bee made it sound as if it was something else. Maybe it doesn't matter. What matters is that Tim's dangerous, and Bee's terrified.

Daine reaches for Bee's hand and presses it gently between her own. "It's all right. You're safe. Tim will have to get through me if he wants to hurt you - or anyone else." Brave words - that's all they are while she's sitting in here, not stopping him at all. But she's not just going to leave Bee while she's all shaken up like this.

[apidae]

"It's not his fault," she insists quietly, but she goes silent after that, letting Daine comfort her a little. Gradually her breathing slows and the panic dies down; she draws herself into back into calm. She wipes her eyes and looks at her friend.

"What are you dressed as?" she asks curiously, looking at the paint on her arms. Eager to move on, away from the issue of Tim.

[wildmage_daine]

"I know," Daine replies mildly. It's nothing Tim can help or control - certainly not outside the dream, and she doubts there's much to be done about whatever is happening inside of it, either. At least she assumes any harm Tim does here won't actually stick, which makes it easier to excuse not rushing right off to try and put a stop to it.

She looks back down at her arm when Bee asks after her costume, turning it a little to examine the paint job more closely. Her nails are still painted silver - repeated washings hadn't been able to remove it. "I think I'm supposed to be a basilisk," she says with a one-shouldered shrug. "We have them in my realm, but the one I'm friends with is a lot taller. He'd probably think I look silly."

[apidae]

"Ooh." Bee sits up a little straighter, examining the costume more closely. "That's really cool though. I've never seen one, we only have them in stories where I'm from." She looks down at her ridiculously floofy gown and lets out a little nervous giggle. "I'm a character from a movie... it was one of my favorites when I was a little kid. Glinda the Good Witch." She smiles faintly at Daine, starting to feel a little more stable. "I just did one of the things she can do in the movie. That's how I got away from Tim, got here. It was weird."

She digs her fingers slowly into the scratchy fabric of her skirts. "That's happening to everyone, but it's different. I still know who I am. So do you. I don't know what's different for us."

[wildmage_daine]

Daine smiles faintly. Not many folk back home would use 'witch' in a way that meant 'good' (though hedgewitches are considered harmless enough). "You look fair pretty," she says, "though this is a lot of dress."

Bee's explanation isn't exactly encouraging. "So it's not just happening to Tim?" Similar things have happened in dreams before, but it might be a problem if this dream is making people dangerous on top of making them forget themselves.

Daine purses her lips for a moment, then gets to her feet. "Why don't we both go back together? If it's just in the air or something, and one of us starts feeling off, the other can get us out. And if it's more complicated than that, maybe we can figure out how it works." She holds out a hand to help Bee up.

[apidae]

"Oh, thanks." She grins, embarrassed by the compliment as well as the dress, and takes Daine's hand, hoisting herself up to follow Daine. "My power is working better than it usually does in dreams and... I can feel everyone's identities getting all mixed up."

She doesn't let go of Daine's hand even as they walk out of the bathroom together, back toward the ballroom.

"Everyone's... fluctuating," she whispers, looking around at them all with big eyes.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine gives Bee's hand a comforting squeeze, then scans the ballroom, brow furrowed. As far as she can tell, everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. She can't see anyone acting noticeably out of character. "Can you tell if it's especially bad for anyone?" she asks. "Maybe it's only affecting folk in a certain spot, or ones who are doing a certain thing...?"