Paper Faces on Parade

[applesaucemod]

The residents of Manhattan will once again find themselves drawn into the currents of the rift when they sleep tonight. Once again, too, the rift is drawing in people from other worlds, both those who might one day find themselves pulled through in waking life and those who might yet escape its grasp.

Tonight, it seems, a celebration is in order. The ballroom of a country manor is the setting for tonight's gathering. Wood and marble gleam in the gas lighting, and a bar at one end of the room provides the, ahem, social lubricant some guests may require. At the other end, a staircase leads to a walkway that runs the entire parameter of the room, allowing guests to watch the dancing from above. While the party is localized in the ballroom, who knows what secret passages and hidden ways a grand old house like this one might conceal?

Those who appear here will find themselves wearing a disguise on arrival. Should the rift cause one to appear in a costume not of their liking (as it is fairly likely to do), an enormous wardrobe can be found through a door near the bar. In it, guests will find a seemingly infinite assortment of costumes and masks of all sizes and varieties ready for their use.


[Mod note: Usual dream-party rules apply. Both members and non-members are welcome to use any character, be they already in the game or no, and players can choose whether to have their characters remember this in the morning.]

Comments

[antitimelord]

"You seem very experienced with the mechanics of the dream world." Ample imagination, eh? Zagreus has doubts about that. And is feeling oddly challenged by this strange offer. But an opportunity to put someone through their paces with respect to the dream world should be appreciated and put to good use. Not that that's what he's going to do in the slightest. "Can you make the floor lava? I've always wanted that to happen. Just from the edges in."

[has_a_horn]

"The floor is lava? What next, are we going to play Red Rover with the class?" Zagreus, Gabe doesn't approve of your idea. Even if he does like the childishness of it, in practice he knows it's going to be less than fun for all involved. "What does lava do? It's hot and uncomfortable and then boring. Nah."

Gabe hops up to sit on the banister, and then immediately alters the room. It's only for Zagreus at the moment, so no worries about the rest of the party being disturbed by suddenly sinking up to their waists in a warm mass of cotton candy.

[antitimelord]

Hey, don't blame Zagreus for childishness when this is essentially a glorified slumber party.

He is quite horrified by the cotton candy, naturally. Obviously he hadn't meant for any changes to be made up here, where he is. Though at least it isn't the requested lava. Still, it's sticky, which is worse. For a moment he's too busy frowning in disgust to notice the illusory nature of the mess, or the fact that Gabriel has actually interfered with his senses, for him to perceive this. It's an upsettingly good illusion, and nothing about the illusion itself is giving it away. But Zagreus is too psychically aware to have the wool (or in this case cotton candy) pulled over his eyes so easily. Even knowing it for what it is, he can't choose to see through it, and that's frustrating beyond belief. In a rage he reaches out mentally to lash at the illusion and Gabriel's mind both, but he draws up short, in a rare moment of restraint. It's infuriating, and he can't stand the thought of his senses being interfered with, but it's not actually harmful at the moment and he is ostensibly learning something. He reaches for the candy instead, touching it experimentally and then actually tasting a piece, almost defiantly. "This isn't normal dreaming ability at all, is it. Is this your power?"

[has_a_horn]

"One of them." Around Zagreus, the cotton candy starts acting less like quicksand and more like a sea, undulating slowly around him in easy waves. If he cares to notice, a school of Swedish Fish pass him by just under the surface.

And Gabriel himself, instead of sitting on the banister, is sitting at the end of a dock, offering Zagreus a hand up. "Like it?"

[antitimelord]

Well this is surreal, which he usually doesn't mind, but he'd never quite been taunted with it before. The presence of candy fish when he can't eat them unconflictedly is just insult to injury.

Whatever, being in cotton candy seas is unappealing, and he very begrudgingly accepts the hand up. He would have made a pointed refusal, but his spatial perceptions, without the confirmation of sight, aren't likely to be the best. The idea of overbalancing and falling off a banister he can't actually perceive is even less appealing than being gently lapped by cotton candy. "One of them? Native, or rift?" He's holding out for rift to be the answer.

[has_a_horn]

To be fair, the banister doesn't actually exist to either of them at the moment. Dreams are a little more flexible than reality- so they really are sitting at a dock and the rest of the party goers will see them sitting on a banister. Simple really. Also Zagreus will find that he's no longer covered in cotton candy detritus. You're welcome.

"The rift didn't do me any favors. What about you?" Because if he's talking about rift powers, chances are he's got one or two.

[antitimelord]

Gabriel is too kind, really. If Zagreus had woken up covered in cotton candy there'd probably have been a killing spree.

For once Zagreus isn't eager for the conversation to turn to himself. Gabriel's phrasing had suggested the rift had inconvenienced him, if anything--but then, who hadn't been negatively effected? Not that this is a being who screams trustworthiness in the first place.

"Well, just between you and me, I don't think I made it through completely unscathed, no. I'm still hammering out the details." Which is technically true. "But nothing for you, hm? This isn't just the regular dreaming malleability."

[has_a_horn]

The rift has done a lot more than inconvenience him, but he's not all that willing to discuss it with someone he's just met, especially when he's not sure if that person is trustworthy or not. "Nope." And that extends to being more interested in talking about Zagreus. Sorry. "Hammering out what sort of details?"

[antitimelord]

How shockingly forthcoming. Seriously Gabe don't talk anyone's ear off. "All sorts. Mostly about the dreaming, though. It's not like there's an instruction manual, is there." It's not like he'd read it if there were, anyway.

"So this is a particular skill of yours then? Since it's not just the dreaming, and it's not a rift handout." Zagreus is no stranger to being evasive and uncooperative. So perhaps the same strategies can be applied here that would work on him. "It's a very well crafted bit of work."

[has_a_horn]

He nods to Zagreus' question. Yes, a bit of flattery does tend to go a long way with Gabriel. "There are others here with dream-powers, but I haven't met anyone that can match mine yet." Well, the TARDIS nearly could, but he's very resolutely not thinking about her at the moment.

He grins smugly over at Zagreus. "And this? It's nothing."

[antitimelord]

"Nothing? And what is it when it isn't 'nothing' in a dream?" And what manner of thing exactly does it belong to? He has to mentally sit on his hands, or he'd reach for the illusion and the mind behind it, this time in curiosity rather than rage. "What can you do in the waking world?" Forgive him if he seems a bit apprehensive about the possibility of stuffed into an illusion while he's awake.

[has_a_horn]

"Most people seem to be impressed by the big stuff." At which point the little stretch of pink sticky "water" is suddenly an ocean that surrounds their little dock on all sides, endless until the horizon.

Gabriel leans back onto the dock and pulls his legs away from the sea of candy into a cross-legged position. If there really was still a banister there for him, he'd have fallen off of it by now. To Zagreus' second question, he shrugs. "This is a dream. Do your powers work in the waking world?" Which is a very clever way of not answering at all. He's rather hoping that Zagreus doesn't notice.

[antitimelord]

Zagreus doesn't like the ocean. Or the horizon. Or that vaguely unsettling numb feeling that he can't actually see his legitimate surroundings. Just an inchoate and slightly mixed up distress, like wearing headphones when you're trying to focus on reading a map; the sense he's trying to use shouldn't be being interfered with, and yet it is. Which happens often in dreams, but this douchebag still won't give a straight answer as to whether he can do the same thing while awake.

"That's a little hard to say. But the ones that are actually mine, certainly. So I guess that answers my question." Only by implication, but that's enough to go on. "What does that make you, then?"

[has_a_horn]

Well, if Zagreus thinks that answers his question, he's free to think that.

"Dream lord of the most transcendent beauty and skill?" He chuckles. "Clever, maybe. Or were you looking for something in particular?"

[antitimelord]

Ok, that's entirely enough of all of that. Zagreus has had enough of unexpected changes to his dreams, even if they're not, strictly speaking, his at the moment, and he's had enough of evasive responses to his questions.

He's also done keeping his hands to himself, mentally speaking. He reaches for Gabriel and the dreaming, pulling the plug on the dream ocean, literally. Complete with drain sounds and Charybdis-esque swirling. It's petulant and retaliatory in the extreme, perhaps even more so than when Zagreus is awake. If Gabriel won't communicate properly, Zagreus will just try to give his mind the discount-box-at-a-yardsale rummage. "How about a straight answer?"

[has_a_horn]

Okay, well that's gotten his attention. Found sitting on a dock in the middle of a non-ocean, he turns an unamused look on Zagreus and pushes off. When he comes to his feet, he's standing on the floor of the raised walkway again.

He leans against the banister and looks up at Zagreus. "Just hammering out a few details, hm?" Which is to say that he's not particularly impressed at Zagreus' forthrightness, either.

[antitimelord]

"That is what I said, yes. I don't remember being any more specific than that." What? It's the dreaming. These things happen. Zagreus wasn't being disingenuous about his ability to effect the dreaming; he just hadn't thought it was the most noteworthy part of the rift deal. It's the potential for his dreaming to effect reality that he wants to map out, with understanding the dreaming more fully being just a starting point.

He hasn't given up on figuring Gabe out, either, still sniffing curiously at the edges of his mind. That gross numbing feeling isn't limited to Gabriel's dreaming illusiony powers. "Are you always so defensive about yourself? It's very unbecoming."

[has_a_horn]

Hey, no mind-sniffing, creeper. Gabe's just going to throw a few of the deadbolts, in case Zagreus gets any funny ideas about coming in for a look around. His mind isn't open for tourists, sorry. If that cements the whole defensive image that Zagreus is painting, he can deal with it.

"Are you always such a barrel of laughs?" So, yeah, sorry, not giving out details at the moment. He'll take a few, though, if Zagreus is willing. "Your dream skills, they come from the rift?"

[antitimelord]

Rude! What is with all these people not wanting to let an off-putting stranger riffle through their mind under extremely flimsy pretexts? Zagreus responds with an annoyed little 'tch' sound, but doesn't escalate things.

Fine. To prove his limitless good will and trustworthiness, he's willing to hand out a detail or two. With the utmost of good grace. "Some of them, certainly. I would imagine most of it's just my own natural affinities, though. It's not like I had a dream-world to play in, before."

[has_a_horn]

"No dream world, or just not one so..." He waves a hand at the collected partygoers. "Communal?" He can't quite imagine a world where people don't dream, though he's incredibly familiar with creatures that don't dream. Outside of a human vessel, angels don't sleep. In the old days before he'd had a vessel, his only experience of dreams had been through human minds. He knows that Zagreus isn't human, that's for sure.

[antitimelord]

The latter, obviously. Don't be needlessly obtuse, Gabriel. "There were dreams. But no, nothing shared like this, as a general rule. No influencing other peoples' dreams, unless, I suppose, you were physically present and psychically able." So that was a thing. Not to mention... "I never slept much, anyway. I sleep more here."

There. Zagreus has been miraculously cooperative. Surely that has to be worth something in the sharing game. He still has no idea what he's dealing with here. Not human, not time sensitive, not anything he recognises; that's the trouble with other universes. "So. What are you when you're at home?"

[has_a_horn]

"Demi-God." He shrugs. He's not going to give the whole Trickster explanation unless Zagreus presses. Demi-God seems to satisfy most people out of their curiosity. It doesn't sound powerful enough to pose too much of a problem, specific enough that there doesn't sound like more to tell. "And you?"

[antitimelord]

Well that doesn't put too fine a point on it. Shouldn't a demi-god be doing something more demi-godly? Though upon further mental inspection, Zagreus has no idea what that would be. He makes a note to think about it more later. Maybe he can offer helpful pointers.

"I'm..." How to answer that? "A personified force. I wasn't from the last universe any more than I'm from this one." Zagreus was from a different universe before it was cool. He'd take it as a point of pride, but that might entail talking about Rassilon, and nobody wants that. "What are you the demi-god of? Is there a particular deity you can claim as progenitor?" He knows mythology, there's a trick to this, there's affinities and associations and probably special colours, preferred sacrifices, that kind of thing. Maybe this one likes rum, or honey, or dove hearts held under the tongue.

[has_a_horn]

The whole personified force thing is a little confusing, but he has met one or two things similar before. He'll have to prod Zagreus more about it later.

"No particular force. I'm more of a free agent." But fiiine since he's prodding. "They used to call me Loki. You might be familiar with that name?" People did used to leave him jars of honey. It was pretty awesome.

[antitimelord]

For the real fun, Gabriel should prod someone else from Zagreus' universe about it. It's bound to be more enlightening than anything Zagreus would ever say himself.

Well then. Zagreus looks a little incredulous, but only a little. "I guess I expected Loki to be taller and more northerly." Maybe that only goes for Lokis in some universes. Hang on, does every universe have a Loki? That's gotta be obnoxious for somebody to sort out. "I see why you went with 'Gabriel' instead." He doesn't at all.