+ TDM 001.

[luxflowmod]

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.

Comments

Secrets in the Saloon

[notathreat]

[Something's so fucked up about all the whispering here, but it's so... easy to listen. To get caught up in problems that aren't hers, to hear about the lives of others, the things that they don't want to say.

Ellie's secrets are still so stuck to her tongue, but a couple more drinks could wriggle them free. Nobody knows anybody here, nobody has any stakes. But she's so used to playing everything so close to her chest, even this place is gonna have to work on her.

So she's been sitting there a while, working up the will to leave, some deep part of her knowing that if she stays, the compulsion of confession will get to her.

The girl saves her, though -- young and with that familiar scrappy survivor-air to her, and Ellie looks up from her drink. She's barely out of her teens herself, and has the scars of something war-torn, too. Like knows like.]

People're complicated as fuck.

[Ellie says it with an old hurt, an old understanding, but nods at Rey. There's some reason she needs this off her chest. Ellie's fine with being faceless. Just ears. Her voice is quiet, no judgment here.]

What kind of connection are you talking about?

[reydacted]

[ It's not the shell-shocked face of disbelief that she had come to expect as she plays the eventual confession of this secret over in her mind. No accusations of how she's a monster, or how she's jeopardized the effort and safety of her friends, or questions if she's been manipulated. There's no chastising about how it was foolish to let herself believe that anything but hurt could come from it.

No, this other girl just offers empathy and understanding. There's a balm in that kindness that Rey couldn't have anticipated. She relaxes a little in her chair, finger tracing idly around the rim of her glass. ]

It's probably going to sound mad.

[ No, it's definitely going to sound mad. Not even Rey had been able to find anything about it her ancient texts. ]

It's like... a mental connection. But more. He could be across the stars and we could talk like we were in the same room. We could see each other.

[ Reach out and touch each other, but the compulsion to share more seems to be curbed for now. ]

[notathreat]

Try me.

[The ghost of a smile settles on Ellie's lips, can't quite reach her eyes, but she can see the way the other girl relaxes, the way the weight just falls off his shoulders, like this secret is one that's been eating her alive.

A million impossible things have already happened today. Nobody can agree what color the sky is. The idea of a telepathic connection across "the stars" sounds up there with the rest, but there comes a point where acceptance is a form of survival. Ellie lets her drink coat her tongue while Rey talks, listening.]

... so, how d'you feel about it?

[No questions about how it works. Ellie gets the feeling that asking would be beyond useless, along with why them. The hows and whys aren't always the most important thing. Not when it's people, and not when it's a secret that can only be unloaded in a place like this.]

[reydacted]

[ There are a thousand different questions Rey has expected to answer if she ever had to come clean about it, but explaining her feelings on the matter apparently didn't make the list.

She wants to say that she hated it. That it scared her. And while those things were true at first they quickly became not so true. It had been a source of confusion and comfort but also pain. She considers what she wants to say at first before she looks back down at her glass and shrugs. ]

I don't know. Not sure it matters.

[ Because ultimately doesn't the objective fact of how utterly unwise it was overrule the fact that it made her feel a little less alone in the universe? ]

It's strange to say these things aloud.

[notathreat]

[Seems to Ellie that that's what she needs to say aloud, but she doesn't say so. Ellie's beyond twisted up when it comes to feeling things, even more twisted up when it comes to saying them out loud.

Some things are just too sad; sadder than she wants to put on others. Even if this place keeps secrets, there's a terror that comes with being seen.]

Someone I know says it's good to get your thoughts out, that when they're all out, you feel better. I think that makes them sound like they're food poisoning.

[Ellie presses both her palms to her glass, pain flickering across her eyes. She wants to, and she knows it's more than this place, pressing her to talk.]

I love somebody who did something awful. Doom-the-world levels of awful. And he did to save me.

Sorry the weekend got away from me

[reydacted]

[ Rey's a patient listener, especially now that the overwhelming urge to spill her own secrets has been satisfied. And suddenly it seems even more clear why her companion was so understanding. That's quite the secret.

Rey drums her fingers lightly on her glass, silent for just a moment before she speaks. She's not the most physically affectionate person, but it seems right to reach out, to gently touch the other woman's arm. ]

When you're trying to save someone, it can make everything else seem so unimportant. That isn't on you.

[ Why do men have such a bad habit of deciding they know the best course of action despite who it might bulldoze in the process? ]