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

[wildmage_daine]

"What??" Perhaps it should have occurred to her that the strange blue light is an eye, and it definitely should have occurred to her that she's in a far better position than Andrew to notice anyone else in the ball pit. She really ought to have guessed that it's her he's talking about. But her nerves are already frayed, and she finds herself retreating up the net without even meaning to. As it turns out, her movements are far more coordinated when she doesn't think about them. They're also fast, and she lets out a very un-spidren-like squeak of surprise as she jerks backward.

"Where?" she asks, eyes darting around the space as she clings to the netting near the ceiling. "I don't see anything."

[bluesuit_handy]

"Up near the ceiling!" he hisses, balls shifting around him as he tries again to move, alarmed at the way the creature so quickly repositioned itself. It has to have heard him; the only question is whether it's intelligent enough to understand his words. Looking around sharply, afraid to take his eyes off the creature for more than a second or two, he tries to locate Daine. "Where are you??"

[wildmage_daine]

"... Oh." Of course. A wave of self-pity swamps her, and she curls up again. "It's, um. Me. Up here. I'm a spidren." She has to force out that last word, but once it's out, more follow in a little torrent of backed-up anxieties. "I don't know how it happened - I'd never take this shape a-purpose - but it did, and now I'm stuck this way. That's how it works: if you take an immortal shape, you can't change back."

[bluesuit_handy]

There's a long pause as Andrew stares in silence, interrupted only by the slight whirr of his eye refocusing and zooming in on her. Now that she's said it -- yes, that's Daine's face on a giant spider's body. "I'm sorry," he says, ultimately taking it at face value. "Daine, I'm so sorry."

[wildmage_daine]

That long pause is a torment, but it's the apology that almost does her in. What, now he's not going to argue with her about magic or the rules of her own universe? She wants him to insist that she must be wrong and that there must be some way to fix this, not say that he's sorry. What's even worse is how much he seems to mean it, beneath all the gargling. Her face crumples, and she presses her forehead against the weave of the net for a moment, trying to get ahold of herself. Crying isn't going to get her anywhere, and for all she knows, a spidren's tears could do some damage to anyone below her. She's familiar enough with how their blood can burn.

She sniffs, then looks back down at Andrew. "What about you?" she asks, leaning forward a little. When she leans forward, she can't see the rest of herself. "How'd you get in that thing?"

[bluesuit_handy]

If he still had arms (and if Daine wasn't clinging to the ceiling), this is the point at which he would pull her into a hug. The truth is, he doesn't know if she's somehow wrong. For all that he doubts Daine's understanding of the root nature and cause of 'magic,' he doesn't doubt that she understands its rules.

There's another lengthy pause as Andrew finds himself reluctant to face what he's suspected for a minute or two now. "Tell me," he says at last. "What do I look like? What am I in?"

[wildmage_daine]

Another unsettling pause. Huzzah. It hadn't occurred to Daine that this might be a touchy subject, but then again, she's never seen a dalek before. While his outer armor is small enough that she guesses it must be a tight fit for him, it's large enough for her to assume that Andrew is in there, like a cat trapped in a bin. It must be unpleasant for him, but at least he's only stuck in a strange machine, not changed like she is.

She sniffs again. "You're mostly buried, but you're in some sort of machine. Looks a little like a turtle from up here." And turtle shape, there's one she's only tried a couple of times and will never get to try again. Stop thinking about it. She focuses back on Andrew's prison, looking for other helpful details that aren't hidden beneath plastic. "There are two little lights on top that flash whenever you say something," she offers. "And another blue light at the end of a stick, but that one glows all the time."

[bluesuit_handy]

"A turtle." Not something he'd used to describe a Dalek before, but with only the domed 'head' above the balls....

Yes, a Dalek. He'd suspected from the moment he first had enough of his wits about him to piece together the hints provided by his altered voice and tendency to roll rather than walk, but Daine's description clinches it. Taking a deep breath -- which he doesn't need, to his dismay -- he tries to draw his consciousness inward. From the start, he's acted and reacted like the shell is his body, which implies that it's connected to his brain like it would be for a true Dalek, but maybe, just maybe, he can pull his focus back to his own body within the machine, and he'll find himself hunched over, back no doubt aching and perfectly humanoid body all sweaty from the experience.

He finds nothing of the sort. Within the casing, the Dalek's single eye blinks open and stares about at the glowing secondary controls. He reaches up to touch a blinking button, and recoils in disgust as a slimy tentacle enters his field of vision. "No," he whispers in horror. "No, that can't -- I can't be!"

But he can. There are ways, he knows, and he's not the first to face this fate.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine flinches, and the net sways. She has a bad feeling about this - maybe because his reaction to finding out he's... whatever he is... reminds her of her own reaction when she realized what she'd become. "What is it?" she asks, his distress compelling her to crawl down the net towards the wall nearest him. Every time one of her own forelegs swings into view, she has to fight back a shudder of revulsion - and the urge to whirl around to look for another spidren behind her.

She stops once she reaches the balls, torn between wanting to go to Andrew and not wanting to get swamped. "Can I help? Maybe I could get you out." She's yet to use her limbs for anything more than climbing, but she knows they're strong.

[bluesuit_handy]

"Out?" For a moment he thinks she means out of the ball pit, which would be fairly handy but feels sort of pointless given the fact that he has become a Dalek. What difference does it make whether he's in the ball pit or out in those hallways when he's never going to hold James in his arms again?

Then it occurs to him that she might mean out of the casing, and he gives a violent jerk of the eye stalk. "No!" Forcing himself to calm down, he repeats less forcefully but no less firmly, "No. I don't -- I'm not -- I'm not myself in here. Not anymore. I'm...a Dalek." Disgust fills his voice when he speaks the word, the mechanical filter unable to disguise it.

[wildmage_daine]

"Oh. Oh, dear. I'm sorry." It seems he's in much the same sort of fix she's in. She squashes the urge to ask what a Dalek is. It's not as if she's keen on talking about spidrens. Instead, she reaches forward with one of her forelegs and gives the balls a half-hearted stir. "Why is this happening?" she asks, an undercurrent of anger in her tone. First her, and now Andrew? It's not right. "How is this happening?"

[bluesuit_handy]

Does she know what a Dalek is, then? Andrew's surprised she doesn't press for more information, but he's too agitated to question her in turn about it.

"I don't know," he admits. "I was like this when I...woke up? That doesn't seem right."

[wildmage_daine]

Daine draws her leg back; she doesn't like looking at it, and she certainly doesn't want to get used to it, even if that would be the most sensible course of action. There's nothing sensible about any of this.

"It's all just... mad," she says, frustrated. "I know better than to take an immortal shape, and even if I didn't, I wouldn't pick this. And how can you not be you anymore?" Shapeshifting has never been one of Andrew's abilities.

[bluesuit_handy]

"The Daleks developed technology to convert other races -- to convert humans to be like them, once their numbers got low enough to make them desperate. They weren't so dissimilar themselves, once upon a time." Can you hear that bitterness, Daine? There's a lot of bitterness. "It shouldn't be like this, though. I shouldn't...feel. Not anything but hate, anyway. That's more or less the point of a Dalek."

He draws in another breath, and the eyestalk droops and dims slightly as he shuts his eye inside the casing. "I'm inside, but my body is...it's...."

The sentence tapers off, unfinished. It's not something he really wants to analyze.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine frowns down at the balls clustered below her. "Spidrens aren't very pleasant, either," she says quietly. "They're intelligent, but just... nasty. There's no living with them."

But, like Andrew, she seems to have retained her personality. Granted, she's only seen one other person turn themselves into an immortal, and Ozorne wasn't a very nice man to begin with. There wasn't much goodness to sour when he became a stormwing, so she doesn't know if it's normal or not to still be yourself if you become one of the more unpleasant immortals.

"I don't know if changing into one should've changed me or not," she admits, "but I still feel like myself. Except for all the legs." She can't help making a little noise of disgust at that.

[bluesuit_handy]

He looks up at her again, taking in the full appearance. She certainly doesn't look like a friendly sort of creature, but appearances can be deceiving. "It's tentacles in here," he replies quietly. "But this is -- it shouldn't be possible. Or, alright, it's possible, but it's not probable, is it? It takes ages to turn a person into a Dalek, and you said yourself that you'd never take that form. You can't be forced to transform, can you?"

[wildmage_daine]

Tentacles? No wonder he didn't want her to try and crack open his armor. If she had the option of not letting Andrew see her like this, Goddess knows she'd've taken it.

She considers his question, then slowly shakes her head. "One of the gods could probably do it, back home, but none of them are here. I changed a bit by accident when I was first learning, but I have to think like whatever creature I'm trying to change into, and I don't know how spidrens think." More accurately: she doesn't want to know how spidrens think.

[bluesuit_handy]

"And where are we?" asks Andrew, not actually ignoring what she's just said, just sounding like he is. "I know you're probably not the one to ask, but I sort of doubt Manhattan is chockablock with deserted funhouses. The realtors would descend like vultures."

[wildmage_daine]

Daine sniffs - it's a very Andrew-like sniff, actually; he must be rubbing off on her. "I don't know. I just found myself down here a little while ago."

It's second nature for her to use her magic to orient herself when she's lost, and she does it without thinking: canting her head to one side, she listens for any nearby People. It isn't until after she's found the familiar minds of Sarge and Molly that it occurs to her that she shouldn't be able to do any such thing.

"Wait," she says, tensing. "My magic - it's still there." She lifts her head to look at the blue light that seems to be serving for Andrew's eyes. "I should've lost it all, but I didn't. I can hear the dogs!"

[bluesuit_handy]

"You can?" Andrew perks up, though it doesn't really show on the outside. "Spidren don't have tele -- don't have magic, then?" Look, he's being nice and using your preferred term, Daine. He knows you're already having a rough enough time here.

"Where are they?" he asks. "Close by?" Not that finding the dogs will likely help them in their predicament, but it hardly seems right to leave them wandering in the darkness.

[wildmage_daine]

"Not wild magic," she confirms. They're too human for that, despite being mostly spider.

They are, in fact, very close by, from the feel of it. "Yes - they're practically on top of us." She glances up at the ceiling, then crawls over to the foot of the slide that leads into the ball pit. "Sarge?" she shouts, her voice tinny in the metal tube. "Molly!"

There's no response, and she frowns. They must have heard that; they're too close to have missed it. "I don't--" 'understand' was where she'd been planning on going with that, but then suddenly, she thinks she does. "Oh. Oh!" She turns back to Andrew, eyes wide. "Are we dreaming?"

[bluesuit_handy]

Andrew blinks -- that is to say, he shows absolutely no outward sign of surprise or interest. "It has been more than a week since the last one," he says, hardly daring to hope. "If there are others around -- Rassilon, but I need to work on my lucid dreaming. Hang on, I'm going to try to get out of here."

'Here' being the ball pit, not the shell. Andrew has been thinking about Daleks and their abilities, and now he tries to imagine what circuit must command the shell to turn on its thrusters and levitate. The balls are dimly lit from below by his efforts (some will no doubt melt), and he slowly starts to rise...only to lose his balance and pitch over sideways just before clearing the surface. He lays there on his side on top of the balls, waving his gun in useless reflex.

[wildmage_daine]

"Goddess," Daine breathes as most of his outer armor is finally revealed to her. Of course, she only has a few moments to be impressed before he keels over. "Oh, dear. I can help you up, but give me a moment, first."

She shuts her eyes, listening for the dogs again. This time, instead of shouting aloud, she tries a more concentrated, Sarge! Molly!

... Daine? comes a distinctly sleepy response.

I'm still a two-legger, right? she asks, her tone urgent.

Yes, Molly replies, sounding puzzled.

Daine sags a little, immensely relieved. If either of you notice me starting to change, bite me, she orders them.

Bite you? Sarge repeats, sounding distressed by the thought.

Whatever you have to do to wake me up, okay? It's important.

The dogs agree, albeit reluctantly. It'll have to do. Daine raises her head, grinning. "We're dreaming," she informs Andrew. "We're definitely dreaming."

[bluesuit_handy]

Not knowing what she's doing, Andrew anxiously swivels his eyestalk to watch her. Does he have side thrusters? It seems like he should have side thrusters. No amount of mental prodding at the different circuits governing his shell result in anything like that going off, though, and when he experimentally fires his main thrusters again, it just makes him skid sideways a bit and melts a few more balls into slag.

"I thought they would have fixed this issue by now," he muses to himself. He perks up at Daine's exclamation, waving his rod-like 'arms' and firing the thrusters again despite knowing that neither will do him any good. "How do you know?" he asks, hopeful but wary.

[wildmage_daine]

"Molly says I'm still in my human shape," she says, relief evident in her tone. "The reason they feel so close is because they are - to me, anyway. We're all in bed. I told them to wake me up if I start to shift." Not that shifting in her sleep is something she does, but considering the present circumstances, she doesn't want to take any chances. Waking up from this nightmare to find that she had actually turned herself to a spidren somehow would be... ugh. Well, it's not happening.

With that issue out of the way, she can focus on getting Andrew out of the awkward position he's currently in. She can imagine a few ways of righting him, but hurriedly dismisses any that involve producing web. She isn't entirely sure how, and more to the point, she has absolutely no desire to try. Instead, she resolutely plunges into the ball pit and flounders over to where Andrew is lying. Positioning herself opposite the thrusters, she uses her forelegs to grip the casing near his armored head. The rest of her numerous limbs are planted against the slightly springy floor at the bottom of the pit, and she commences pushing.