The Tomato in the Mirror

[applesaucemod]

Spring is in the air, and monsters are in your head. It will be hard to run from your fears tonight, though -- for you see, you are the thing lurking in your nightmares. Whether it's something that goes bump in the night, a ferocious animal, or even a person you find intimidating, you have become that which frightens you. Anyone who encounters you in this dreamscape will see the shape of you nightmares, and should you look into a mirror, well....

Dreamers will find themselves in an oversized funhouse whose twists, turns, and intersections turn it into a maze. There is no entrance and there is no exit, only branching hallways, tunnels, and ladders that divide and rejoin in baffling combinations. By the look of it, the funhouse has been here for years, slowly falling into decay as its lights burn out one by one and the bright paint chips and fades. The machinery, however, is still working, still ready to surprise these new guests. Hallways end suddenly in long, steep slides back down into the depths, floors lurch under dreamers' feet, and entire corridors spin horizontally. Elsewhere, dreamers might become lost in the mirror maze or get dropped into a vast ball pit.


[Mod note: Usual dream party rules are a go: apply the dream's transformation to your character(s) as you see fit, and decide for yourself whether they will remember these experiences in the morning. Both members and non-members are welcome to play all characters on this post, including those which are not currently part of the game's cast. Have at!]

Comments

[has_a_horn]

He seems to be in a back room somewhere. He can see the ends of several different mechanisms that occasionally activate with a pneumatic whoosh or the grind of gears. Not much to rave about. He's definitely not liking the trend of the last few group dreams. There's definitely been a lot of spooky goin on.

When he first arrives, Gabriel immediately knows that something is up. His hands, when he looks at them, are older. His frame is a little bit taller, narrower. Curious about what form the dream has thrust upon him, he adds a mirror to the room. He starts back for a brief moment, his heel bumping into discarded papers covered in dust and grime. It's not everyday that you see Death itself. After getting used to the idea of seeing Death in the mirror, he leans in to examine himself.

[watchesthebeans]

If there's a back way to be found, a Borrower will find it. Aglet has emerged from his sojourn in the mirror maze more than a little shaken up, and he crams himself through the first crack in the wall he finds, not even realizing that it's a formerly hidden door that has fallen halfway off its hinges. He pauses in the reassuring darkness for a moment to get his bearings, then lets out another yowl of panic as something moves nearby. Bolting forward, he emerges into a room full of moving machinery and runs headlong into the man standing there. Flailing in incoherent fear, he sinks his claws into the man's leg.

[has_a_horn]

Ow. That's...yeah, that's definitely hurting. "Fucking ow. Can we....lets take the claws out of my leg, if you don't mind." He reaches down and picks up the cat, gently pulling it away from his leg. Only, now that he's got his hands on the thing, the mind behind it doesn't feel like a cat at all. "It's okay," he adds, in case whatever it is can understand him. "You're fine. Cat shaped, but fine."

[watchesthebeans]

Cat-shaped. He'd sort of gathered once he'd stopped having a panic attack amongst the mirrors...or, okay, cornered himself and been too exhausted to go on trying to escape his own reflection, and been forced to realize that the illusory cat wasn't actually attacking him. Still, hearing someone else say it sends a shudder through him, and he lets out a plaintive meow. It doesn't occur to him that it should be strange that this Bean knows it's unusual for him to be cat-shaped, and for the moment he's shaken enough by everything that being picked up by a Bean is actually not the worst thing he can imagine happening to him.

[has_a_horn]

He was going to set the cat down, but it seems to have stopped with the clawing and yowling, so he holds it a little more comfortably instead. He gives whatever or whoever it an idle head scratch as he thinks this over. He's afraid of using his powers too much in this situation, so he puts off searching the cat-thing's mind for the moment. "I look different too, in this dream. The name's Gabriel. Maybe we've met?"

[watchesthebeans]

Remarkable what a calm voice can do, isn't it? Aglet doesn't start up screaming and clawing again, but he does grab on to the sleeve he can reach, wrapping his arms front legs around it...and, incidentally, putting his claws into the fabric. He's still breathing hard, but his eyes go wide and he twists his head to look up at the man. A dream? Gabriel? He's not sure if he should remember that name; it sounds a little familiar, but so do a lot of weird Bean names.

I'm Aglet, he tries to say, but it comes out as "mrrrrreeeow."

[has_a_horn]

"What I wouldn't give for Daine around right now. She'd be all over the cat-talking." For a brief moment, he thinks that maybe this is Daine, but these dreams tend to have common threads. Why would Daine end up as a cat if he showed up as Death?

[watchesthebeans]

No, see, Aglet also showed up as Death. Beans always fail to realize what terrible menaces common house cats really are.

And who's Daine? If she talks to cats, Aglet's pretty sure he doesn't want to know her. It's bad enough he's got Jennifer insisting on treating the Quarkbeast like it's not dangerous without meeting a cat-lover as well. Aglet lets out a sigh of frustration that the man can't seem to understand him, and lashes a tail he doesn't realize is poofed out to double size.