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

[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.

[has_a_horn]

Gabriel rolls his eyes at him. You're supposed to be impressed, not insult his height. "Introducing myself as 'Loki: god of mischief and disorder' tends to undermine the whole incognito thing. Makes asking people out for coffee seem like I'm orchestrating schemes."

"Sometimes I am, but...y'know. Sometimes it's just coffee. Then people get disappointed when the coffee isn't made of magic beans."

[antitimelord]

Hey, sometimes the body you end up making your own doesn't live up to the hype of the legend you steal your name from/self-fulfill. It happens to the best of us. We've all been there.

"And let me guess, if you did orchestrate a scheme with your name right on it, they'd probably still have the nerve to get upset, right?" There's probably a sliver of commiseration. Somewhere. Under the sarcasm. Actually somewhere along the line those all became the same thing anyway. "Names can be so difficult."

[has_a_horn]

"Schemes usually leave someone upset. It is the nature of the scheme." He smirks and focuses in on Zagreus, studying him visually while prodding a bit at the essence of him. "So what's Zagreus where you're from? What's the luggage on that name?"

[antitimelord]

Zagreus' essence is prone to prodding back, and not very clean about it, all thorns and tar and things you can't get off your skin without losing a layer or breaking out the turpentine. He doesn't think much of the contact either; it's cloying and clove-y in ways meant to teach things like him to be more careful what they try to ingest; not something he'd encountered before, and it makes him defensive. Maybe it's the mental equivalent of drooling that has his eponymous rhyme on the tip of his tongue, but he refuses to spit that out as an answer to Gabriel's questions.

Not that he has a great answer lined up anyway. "A debatably mythical harbinger. A consequence. The inevitable destruction of Time." And something someone else made and lost control of, and a scary story to keep time-sensitives' feet under the covers, and a metaphysical infection. Etc. "There's a lot of luggage."

[has_a_horn]

Okay, fine. He'll pull away from the prodding if that'll make him more comfortable. Prickly asshole, isn't he?

He raises his eyebrows at the description. Sounds an awful lot like Zagreus is calling himself a personification of entropy. "And how much of it is true?"

[antitimelord]

The prickliest, actually. Zagreus is of course curious to tangle with any metaphysically minded being, but he's just the slightest bit relieved not to have to wade through this particular influence any more than he has. He just hopes Gabriel found it equally offputting.

"Enough to be getting on with." He shrugs, faux-modest. It's complicated, really. Is he still obligated to eat through the universe if it's a different universe from the one he doesn't belong in in the first place? How much of his nature is inevitable, anyway? "You know how it is with archetypal existence."