It's a Waste of Time, Chasing in the Dark

[applesaucemod]

Tonight, the dreamers will find themselves in a forest. Or an office. Or a suburban living room. Or a castle tower. Or a grocery store. The dream is a patchwork of assorted settings, each one blurring inelegantly into the next, most of them only claiming half an acre or so. The hodgepodge makes for quite a sight.

Or it would, if the dreamers could see anything. Natural light is in short supply. In fact, there isn't any light at all, not even a faint twinkle of starlight; you might as well be deep inside a cave. No matter how good their eyes might be, the dreamers won't be able to see their own hands in front of their faces - not unless they can fashion some sort of light source out of whatever they might manage to find. The dream isn't inclined to make things easy; any appliances or electrical light sources the dreamers stumble over won't be plugged in, and any walls, however solid they might seem, won't contain any wiring. A small fire might be the best bet - presuming you can find any means of lighting one.

But there's good news. Each of the dreamers will find themselves with a second set of dubiously useful eyes, because they'll be joined - again, or for the first time - by their dæmons. Granted, said dæmons won't have much more luck seeing in the total darkness than anyone else, but at least no one will have to feel alone.

Just… move carefully. You wouldn't want to trip over someone else's dæmon by mistake. Imagine how awkward that would be.

[ooc: y'all know the drill. Characters don't have to be apped or in the game to show up, and dreamers can remember or forget the events of the dream at the player's discretion. This particular dream isn't a power nerf - a character with the ability to create light could still do so - but the range will be extremely localized, as if the darkness is a solid thing that doesn't want to be pushed back.]

Comments

[spiritofwinter]

The glow from Jack's staff is enough to light the ground in front of them as he holds it low, Mary trotting along just ahead of his own bare feet. This library seems to have gone on forever without any sign of other people...at least, until he catches sight of a little golden glow ahead and hears soft voices.

"Think they'll see us?" he murmurs.

"Only one way to find out," the fox replies.

Jack nods, and brightens his glow. "Hello?" he calls.

[rae_of_sun]

They've been wandering the stacks for a while, not heading in any particular direction. Sunshine knows enough about the dewey decimal system and library layouts - at least broadly speaking - that she could make an educated guess as to where the exits are, but then what? They have no way of knowing if outside the library is any better than inside, and she likes libraries. Hell, her knife is giving her enough light to read by. She could find a book and settle in with Dom until she wakes up. It would be uneventful - and part of her thinks it would be a shame to not at least try to find Spike so she can manhandle his adorable dog - but 'uneventful' is pretty sheer when measured against things like 'terrible.' Not that anything bad has happened (yet), but the whole pitch black thing isn't inspiring much confidence.

Might be best to just quit while they're ahead. To whatever extent quitting is allowed.

She spies the blue glow a few moments before she hears the voice, and then she starts in surprise. Dom lets out a fatalistic tsk, but she ignores him in favor of squinting at the figures standing at the end of the row. They're harder to make out than they should be, and if her vampire vision was personified enough to talk, she suspects it would be bitching about the darkness cheating. But it's just a kid with a fox, and while the glowing isn't normal, it isn't necessarily dangerous, either. She's glowing, and all it means in her case is that she has an incredibly competent landlady.

She'll just... try to stay out of reach of that stick.

She can feel Dom's disapproval, but she calls back, anyway. "Hey." Ugh, meeting new people in dreams is always so weird. She edges down the aisle, holding her knife down low lest she step on any fallen books. "Um. Are you guys... okay?" She might be asking if they're uninjured, or she might be asking if they're decent people.

[spiritofwinter]

"It's her," breathes Mary in surprise. "She's what's glowing!"

"More importantly," says Jack just as quietly, "she can see us."

It's less surprising than it should be, somehow. Something about being with Mary makes Jack feel more present, like he should be more visible. He lets the woman approach, a little wary though he's excited as he always is when he meets someone new.

"Uh, yeah," he replies out loud, glancing down at his fox, then back up at the woman. He doesn't see an animal with her, and though he can't say why, it worries him. "I'm -- I mean, we're a little lost, I guess. Are you okay?"

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine eases to a halt outside stick-swinging range. It's hard to read shadows, here, but she's not getting any creepy vibes off this kid. She's not exactly getting human vibes, either, but her dark vision didn't come with an illustrated user guide, so she can't say anything for certain.

"Yeah, we're fine," she says. Modomnoc trundles out from beneath her hair with palpable reluctance, antennae waving dubiously. Unlike Sunshine, he doesn't seem to have been gifted with a light-web, but his fuzzy body takes on a bit of her glow thanks to proximity. "We haven't been outside, yet, but it seems safe in here." She gives the word 'safe' a little distance, as if not wanting to jinx things.

She gives the pair a considering look, then tips her chin in her bee's direction. "This is Dom. I'm Sunshine."

[spiritofwinter]

A bee! Jack's face lights up at the sight of the little guy, like the missing piece of the puzzle has been found. His gaze flicks back up to the woman's face, though.

"My name's Jack," he says, "Jack Frost, and this is Mary."

[rae_of_sun]

"Jack Frost," she repeats. That sounds made-up, but she's in no position to criticize. If someone else is on the same 'names have power' page as she is, good for them. It's sort of refreshing, the though of another rifty taking the same kind of precautions people might make back home.

... Or maybe he's being more literal. The whirled patterns on his hoodie don't look like they're made of glitter.

Okay. Some kind of wintery affinity. She can roll with this. "Nice to meet you." Or as nice as it can be, considering she can't administer the food test. "Have you been outside? Because it seems darker than it should be."

[spiritofwinter]

"It's pretty dark everywhere," replies Jack with a shrug. "Alright, make that really dark. Can't see your hand in front of your face dark. I must have been outside before I found my way in here, but it's the same out there."

He smiles, as though he doesn't hate the dark. "I'm guessing you don't know where we are, either," he adds.

[rae_of_sun]

"Spartan," Dom sighs from her shoulder.

Sunshine lifts her hand to give him a gentle stroke with her fingertip. "We're dreaming, if that helps." Has he caught on to the whole weird dream phenomenon, yet? She hasn't met him, yet, but she doesn't exactly keep her finger on the pulse of any and all Rift-related comings and goings. He could have arrived weeks ago. Hell, maybe he hasn't technically arrived at all. Isn't that a thing - people showing up in the dreams before showing up in reality?

Well, she's not going to launch into all that unless she has to. "Have you, uh... are you familiar with the weird group dreams? If not," she lifts her hands in an intentionally unimpressive gesture, "welcome."

[spiritofwinter]

"I've had weird dreams before, if that's what you mean." It's obvious that it's not, though, and Jack suddenly frowns. She could be a spirit, or something magical -- she glows, after all -- but if it's a dream, that changes things a lot...and explains why he wasn't so surprised she and her bee could see him.

"Don't you remember?" Mary chimes in, attracting Jack's gaze downward. "There were dreams like that before we came here."

[rae_of_sun]

Okay, well, that answers those unspoken questions. At least she doesn't have the unenviable honor of explaining the situation to him. Sunshine relaxes a little, as if an actual burden had been lifted off her shoulders.

"Yeah, they happen a lot," she says. "The lighting is usually better."

Dom eyes Jack's staff. Speaking of. "What kind of magic is that?" he asks, lifting a foreleg and pointing it at the staff. "Cold affinity?"

[spiritofwinter]

Mary stifles a laugh -- poorly -- and Jack raises an amused eyebrow at the little bee. "Uh, yeah," he says, completely failing to hide his amusement at the question. "Kind of. What's yours?"

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine raises an eyebrow. It was a fair question, but okay, slang doesn't always translate across universes. She's not sure it qualifies as funny, but the kid appears to be a teenager, and teenagers are categorically the worst. She makes a mental adjustment to her expectations.

"Sunlight," she says. Given the circumstances, it could almost go without saying. "There's something off about this darkness, though. It's a bit... thicker than normal." She wrinkles her nose in general displeasure. "I can normally see in the dark, but not this stuff."

[spiritofwinter]

As far as Jack is concerned, this conversation is delightful. Someone seeing him without knowing who he is might be the weirdest thing that's happened to him since he fell through the Rift, but it's weird in a funny way.

"Like I said, I was outside and it was the same out there," shrugs Jack. "No moon, no stars. But if it's a dream it doesn't have to follow the same rules, right?"