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]

"Sorry." She ducks her head sheepishly. "These legs are stronger than they look."

Daine scoots backwards as he heads for the door, giving him plenty of time to get through before following him. One dubious perk of having so many limbs is that she's managed to keep hold of the door itself, and once she's made it up into the corridor, she sets it over the hole. She has to put it down sideways to stop it from just dropping right back into the pit, so the hole isn't covered completely, but she figures that's a better solution than just leaving the hole wide open.

She glances up and down the hallway, then looks to Andrew. "I don't suppose it matters which way we go next."

[bluesuit_handy]

"As long as it's not down, it's likely an improvement," replies Andrew, the shrug evident in his voice if not his body language. "Come on, I didn't get to see anything before I fell in."

Time to explore! He trundles off down the hall, the lights on his armor making the shadows shift as he passes.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine, meanwhile, wasn't aware that there was so much to see besides the ball pit. She's still not convinced, actually; this hallway isn't too impressive so far. Mindful of other trapdoors, she moves up onto the wall, then crosses the ceiling and down the wall opposite in a slow spiral. It's still a surprise when she doesn't find herself feeling dizzy from the spinning. Odd's bobs, spidren shape is strange.

"Well, I'm not sure where we are, but it hasn't been cleaned in a while," she comments as she follows Andrew along. If she was in her human shape, she'd probably be trying to avoid touching the walls - or anything, really. As it is, she can't help touching everything with her superfluous limbs. Ugh.

[bluesuit_handy]

"And here I am in a hermetically sealed micro-environment," says Handrew with a breathy, wistful little sigh like he wishes he could be out in the dirt with her. "It's a dream, remember? Dream dirt don't hurt."

And then a burst of compressed air blasts against his armor and about fifteen alarms go off inside his casing. Flailing on the inside, Andrew drifts sideways and bangs into the wall.

[wildmage_daine]

"A what?" Why can't he talk like a normal person? Anyway, just because it's a dream doesn't mean she has to enjoy herself, especially if she's stuck in spidren shape in a nasty old building.

Daine's reaction to the compressed air is a good deal more outwardly dramatic than Andrew's, but that's only to be expected. She tries to leap away instinctively, which just results in her slamming into the opposite wall. In the same moment, also instinctively (because you couldn't have paid her to do it on purpose), she shoots a blast of sticky web material at the source of the air. It lands on the wall with a splat, and the part of Daine that isn't completely horrified notes that it must be the stinging web she shot instead of the sort spidrens use to actually spin webs. Her suspicions are confirmed when another shot of compressed air attempts to make it through the web: there's a muffled hiss, and a bulge appears before slowly deflating.

Ugh, ugh, ugh. Daine turns away with a shudder and focuses on Andrew, instead. "Are you okay?"

[bluesuit_handy]

Andrew quickly swivels his eye stalk to peer at the source of the air, so he's treated to the sight of something gooey and generally unpleasant-looking splatting on the wall.

"What was that?" This calls for spinning his dome in alarm to try to see where the projectile came from, and he's mildly embarrassed when all he sees is a spidren Daine. "...Ah. Right. Well. I'm -- oh!"

Light has finally dawned! "It's a funhouse! Why didn't I see it before? But that's brilliant!"

[wildmage_daine]

Yeah, Daine is definitely not going to want to talk about the mess on the wall. She's not sure if spidrens blush, but she seems to have retained that ability. Huzzah.

"This is meant to be fun?" she asks, brow furrowed dubiously.

[bluesuit_handy]

"Well, it's probably not meant to be quite like this. Not if it was a real funhouse. Humans make them; you run about inside and it blows air at you or the floor moves. That sort of thing. There's usually less, ah...grime. Unless you go to one of the carnival ones, maybe."