luxflowmemes | + TDM 001.

Welcome to Luxflow's first TDM.

Let's get into it.

ARRIVAL

— You wake up encased.

It’s dark, naturally, but a few tendrils of light slip past the — vines? Why are you tangled up in vines? It gives you panic — why can’t you remember — breath quickening, in and in and in again. Your frenzied movements against the vines let in more light, more air.

And you breathe.

As you exhale, a shaky but sure breath against the rough foliage, a light flows out of you. It’s just a little orb that pours out, past the greenery and into that unknown.

The vines melt away into ash, and you’re left standing in a clearing, trees impossibly tall and swaying in the night breeze. Your breath comes in deep and steady, now, and it occurs to you that you should be panicking still … But then as you look around the clearing, you see more vine cocoons, like yours, and others climbing out of them …

There’s people in the center of the clearing. They’re armed but they’re friendly, and they tell you in short and sweet sentences about the place you’re in now …

“ You’re in the Feeding Forest. ” says one, “ This place’ll eat you alive if you can’t break out of the vines. You must be special, huh? ”

Special?

“ C'mon, we’ll take you back to the city. You’re probably here for a while. We’ll fill you in … ”

SPIT SHINE YOUR BLACK CLOUDS

You're trying to get your bearings, but this City stops for no one.

On the next morning after your arrival, there's a festival! It's near the hole, Heart and Center, in the middle of the place. When you arrive there, you're fooled for a moment, and the place doesn't seem so scary; the colors are bright and the citizens are so cheerful as they dance and cheer on the new arrivals to strange music.

No one really knows why they're celebrating, but the arrival of the strange ones feels like it's heralding something good. Maybe there's unheard prayers that are being answered! Maybe their prayers will be answered! There's drinks and food and song, so why not join in? You can get drunk or high or just chill and take it all in.

Yet as the festivities burn on, the locals all hush at some point late in the evening. Words ripple through the throngs, and it reaches you fast. They're going to heave prayers up to the Setting Sun. But first, the great chasm needs an offering from those praying.

They throw in valuables and invaluables alike; drinks and food and clothes and jewelry and weapons and boomboxes are thrown in without a second thought.

What will you offer? If you choose to at all, you'll feel bereft; if it's a memory or power, a light will flow from your mouth and down into the chasm ...

They're silent thereafter in their prayer. Do you pray, too? If you do or you don't, you can't help but feel intense shame, like someone is laughing at you ... Still, after all that, the party continues on.

You're just a little more unsettled, now, a little more uncertain.

SILHOUETTE SALOON

The Silhouette Saloon is open! Or so the signage around town says. Excessive and garish, these signs point characters down a winding path into a place called the Silhouette Saloon. When you enter, everything goes white and everyone appears merely as shadows ... Pretty on the nose, but it provides a strange anonymity.

The fixtures of the saloon are all shadowed out too, stark black against the misty backdrop of white. You can drink here and be free to tell your secrets to anyone who'll listen. The bartender or maybe one of the dancers just finishing their set will tell you that this place keeps secrets.

If you were to tell someone a secret, or hear one, you wouldn't remember it exactly. You would, however, feel a strange nagging sensation about the person who told it to you. Once on the outside, you might not be able to get through a conversation with them without thinking they're hiding something ...

If you don't tell someone a secret, you'll feel compelled to tell someone one once you're out of the Saloon, where the secret won't be so hidden ... It might be better to tell one in the safety of anonymity then, hm?

But the longer you're in there, the more you lose of yourself. You'll forget your name, your purpose, everything about yourself until you pass out on the dance floor. You'll wake up outside the Saloon, stricken with amnesia. It'll wear off after a few hours, though.

PITY'S GOT AN UGLY PRICE TAG

Besides the Drifters and Givers, a new group has popped up. They're called the Pleading, or called plain annoying. They beg for anything you've got from the roadside, calling you over. If you hear them out, they'll hypnotize you in a way; they plead for anything you can possibly spare their poor soul -- the shirt off your back, a memory, an ability. Their sob story goes from believable to something horrifying and personal to you. They'll tell you your mother won't forgive you if you don't, or they'll tell you that the fate of your very best friend hinges on you giving them your wallet.

What do you do?

If someone breaks you out of the grasp of the Pleading's hypnosis, you'll be free.

If you give in, they'll take, and you'll be bereft of what you gave and that will be that.

If you don't, you'll feel immeasurable guilt, mounting more and more with each step ... You might have to be talked out of that guilt, or you might throw yourself into the chasm, inconsolable ...

DIGITAL VEIL ( network )

A question appears on the network. There's no handle attached.

BRUISES OR ROSES OR CRADLES OR COFFINS? WHY WHY WHY? :'D

Answers to this 'question' will be displayed to all; feel free to comment on others, try to gain some sense of what this could mean ... You can also post to the network freely.

QUESTIONS?

Ask below. Have fun.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

CLOUDS.

[ It's never advisable to lose something valuable--even more when everything has a price. There's always some kind of intrinsic benefit, some of practicality and some of pleasure; he can remember things being taken away from him for this very reason, possessions lost to the whims of his own tantrums and his father's nasty punishments, and maybe that's why he declares everything within the realm of his power as his own things: people and items alike. There's not an item he owns that he is not entirely unwilling to part with, and as his icy eyes scan the people around him, tossing in clocks and flowers and precious jewelry, he almost thinks them mad.

Who would do such a thing merely for some festival? Who would be that ridiculous?

He stands, stubbornly resistant, refusing to even level his shotgun with the width of the darkness there, refusing to even waste one bullet on it--but some things are taken as involuntarily as the stuffed bear he'd lost once he'd "outgrown" it, and a memory of this toy, of that one particular instance of his father's cool rage and cruelty, wrapped into one, comes past his lips like icy breath; it falls, a light that goes dark into the chasm, and Rufus has no idea how it happens or why he's suddenly without it.

Just that the first person he sees staring at him will be met with the snap of a mirror of that cool anger--] Can I help you?

SALOON.

[ It's the taste of dirt in his mouth. Dirt or sand, he can't quite tell--but he hates it all the same, hates that when he pushes himself up onto his elbows, he can't quite remember why he's there in the first place.

His white clothes are sufficiently scuffed, coat unbuttoned and hair a wild blonde mess around his temples; and he can't remember why he's wearing them, either. He can't remember where he is, or why when he gets up onto his knees, there's the sign of some garish bar or something similar--what even is a saloon, his mind spits at him--in front of him, of doors he can't remember being tossed out of, and the frustration of it all makes his lips press together, pursed and angry and a tiny, tiny pinch afraid. Amnesia?

He tries to dust himself off the best he can. There's a gun at his feet, and he doesn't know that he wants to touch it; guns are dangerous things, especially when wielded by someone unworthy of them. He nudges it faintly with the toe of his boot and then, with a sigh, bends again to haul it up.]

Excuse me. [ He asks, of the first person he manages to see.] I'm sorry to have to ask this, but do you... know who I am?

PITY.

For your trouble.

[ He's used to those that beg--even enjoys it, in a sense, especially when he's comfortably laced into a thick leather chair, listening to some hopeless employee prattle on about how they'll do anything to spare the reprimand.

The ones at his feet now are not so dissimilar, though they crave attention as much as they crave money and whatever else they may glaze their eyes on--he doesn't much care. Better to give them something before they take advantage of much more; and his pocket is full of his coins, silver enameled things meticulously carved, enough that he only feels a jolt of displeasure when he thumbs one out and flicks it in the direction of the beggars.

And what do they want? Well, of course--they want the rest of them.

Rufus takes an immediate step back, a firm line of irritation settling in, and shakes his head. He needs a decoy, and fast: so he reaches for the first person he sees, passing by, and hooks his arm in through with this stranger's to offer them a demanding sort of smile. ]

You. Yes. Walk with me. Away from here.

NETWORK.

Bruises, in the right places. Why choose anything else?

ooc:
( got a different idea? feel free to hit me up via PM or just post it below, i'll roll with anything! )

[She's not one much for being grabbed, but these beggars, she's got nothing to give, and they're not getting her guitar. So while she offers to help in another way, they don't seem keen on it. They want something.

She can't help them. And when she's grabbed, she's almost thankful for it, though she can't help the quick fight she puts up before she manages to still her nerves, though she's not too fond of this stranger's tone.

She's not being put on the end of a meat hook. It'll be alright.]

You got it, darlin'. Though asking nicely would suit you far better.

[... All in all, not the worst way she's ever been asked on a walk.]

[ hisirdoux briefly runs through the famous figures of history — never hurts — before giving up and carelessly shrugging. the gun doesn't draw much notice from him. ]

Should I?

[ Cal hasn't yet been accosted by the begging people yet, which is really all the better for him. A couple have started to come towards him. He's wary of them, because he's wary of everything in this place. He's survived as long as he has by not trusting, and as far as he can tell, nothing is trustworthy in this place. Still, he's willing to give them a chance...

But then Rufus hooks an arm through his and pulls him away before they can say anything scathing or harmful to him. ]

H-hey, do you mind?

[ But he stumbles into step beside Rufus for a few feet anyway. ]

You could warn a guy.

[ He's aware there's some kind of irony here, with him being a Jedi and still being caught off guard. Sometimes things are just like that. This is a strange place, after all. ]

+ TDM 001.