Player Event: "Imbalance" [OPEN]

[songbird_slayer]

Who: Everyone! Even the newcomers! What a time to jump in, huh?
Which: OPEN Dreamscape
What: On the night of the 10th a strange dreamscape appears, dividing some dreamers into two, each bearing just half of themselves... how will they pull themselves together?
Warnings: Probably a lot. I trust you fine people to please mark your content appropriately should your threads make mention of anything triggering. I'm watching you.


Quiet nights never seem to stay quiet. It began with the slightest flicker within the crystal lanterns, a ripple, perhaps the sound of coins clinking together.

Then, with a distant scream, there was a torrent of blue and orange flame. It's hot but it doesn't burn, swirling and dancing with the frenzy of a desperate dancer. It blinds to familiar surroundings, twin colors that seemingly never end...




Until one's feet touches sand-dusted stone and marble. The air is hot and arid, ripe with burning kindling in myriad torches that line walkways. The flames rhythmically sway, catching the glimmer of golden archways and decor that embed the city... palace...? That lay before you.

Something is wrong. Really wrong. Something in you feels... different. Blank. But before you can comprehend it much further, something is running down the pathway in the distance to enter the palace like the devil was on its heels. That something looks just like you...

---

You pursue this weird other you... or, you don't. Perhaps you were drawn to the palace's splendor and decided to explore, maybe find some sweet treasure while you're here. Whatever the case, nothing about this place smells dusty or aged. It feels brand new... lined with statues and tapestries of what appeared to be great warriors, all humanoid and bearing twisted horns atop their heads and long, craggy tails covered in scales. But some of them have been altered in some way... some are missing their heads, and one or two "lucky" ones have simply had large claw marks ripped across their face. What would put claw marks in stone was anyone's guess.

Those who tire of the architecture may find some doors are unlocked. Yes, such a lavish place seems all too eager to lay itself bare for you, perhaps bearing a sparkly trinket or two to your liking. (Note: Unfortunately, any treasures obtained in the palace will only come back with you in the form of candies shaped as said jewels, crowns made of shortbread, tapestries spun from candy floss, etc. It's all food. Enjoy!)

---

Deeper and deeper you delve, either arms full of treasure or having bumped into friends who don't exactly act like your friends normally would, you find more motifs of the warriors, more intact the further you head through this weird city-palace. Near the center are statues depicting two... figures... each holding a pair of scales.

Yet no matter how much you wait and watch them, the scales continue to sway from one side to the other. There's nothing on their respective plates, however... what could be throwing them off?

If you place anything on the plates and mend the swaying scales, you are given a single shard of a strange crystal rife with dreamotion energy with a sense of wholeness and connection. It shifts colors as you turn it this way and that in your hand. Maybe that'll help put some of these people back together if fighting or talking to them won't do it...



[ooc: Information and Plotting post is here for easy review. The shards are meant to simplify putting people back together if needed, but are the only thing that can be taken into the semi-waking world as a pretty bauble. Also, a reminder that this is optional. Enjoy!]

Comments

1. 𝒲𝒽𝓎, 𝒾𝓉’𝓈 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝒶 𝒹𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓂. (Kasumi)

[feale]

[ She's heard of this happening before, of the lanterns awakening of their own accord and pulling people into someone's personal dreamscape, of fancies and nightmares both awaiting the dreamers on the other side. In the short time she's been here though, it hasn't happened to her— until now.

It's a quiet night, at least until the screaming and the twisting of the flames, and before Sumire realizes what is happening, her feet are sinking into soft sand, the world around her hot and bright and flaming. Her heart skips a beat in her chest, and she twirls to look around... realizing as she does that the movement feels more graceful than any she has made in years. There are footsteps disappearing down a marble-floored corridor, a curtain of red hair in their wake that looks much like her own, and something feels out of place.

Something feels...

Her eyes widen.

The knowledge of what happened to her just recently, the loss of an identity she'd chosen for herself, is fresh in her mind. And yet, none of the feelings of inadequacy are there anymore. The feelings from which she ran for so long, the fear and the guilt, the self-hatred... all of those things, gone. It's how she felt when she believed, under Dr. Maruki's spell, that she was Kasumi.

But... she is Sumire. She knows this in her heart.

Has this dream somehow taken away the negative feelings buried deep in her heart, the feelings she is still working every day to reconcile? Surely it can't be that easy... right? And so, determination set on her features, the newly-confident Sumire Yoshizawa sets out for the palace in the near distance, following the curtain of red hair that tore ahead of her mere moments before.

If she bumps into anyone on the way, she'll greet them with a polite, friendly smile: ]

Oh, excuse me! I don't suppose you saw someone go running past just now?

[masqueraid]

Ah...?

( it's an unfamiliar landscape, but a familiar face. ren is dressed in casual clothing, the palace in the distance making him question his status in this landscape... dreamscape? sometimes it was hard to discern between the two. either way, once recognition set in, the relieved look he sported melted into something a bit more... concerned. )

Ka— sumi?

( Sumire, in reality. So why had that name slipped out, first? He knew, he'd witnessed... and yet— )

No one, yet. You're the first one I've seen.

[feale]

[ She knows Ren is here. Akechi already told her, after all. She's still not entirely expecting him to appear out of nowhere in this new place, speaking her name— No, her sister's name. Despite the knowledge she has of who she is, the confidence is new, confusing enough without its countering insecurity that it's almost easy to slip into habits that have followed her for the better part of a year now.

She shakes her head. ]

It's me, senpai. Sumire. I'm really glad to see you! Akechi-san told me you were here too, but—

[ Well, it's obviously her first time meeting with him. And to think it's like this. What must he think of her? Akechi said he arrived from a time earlier than both of them, but still late enough that he knows who she is. ]

I'm different, right senpai? I feel different, too. I'm not exactly sure what's wrong yet, but... there's another me. Me as you know me, I suppose. Hair down, glasses... She ran away from me, but I feel like I have to find her.

[ At that, she can't help but laugh a little. ]

I'm sure that sounds strange. I'm not really used to this place yet, so I don't know how normal something like this is!

i'm so so sorry for the lateness here, work got me strugglin ;;

[masqueraid]

( a visible tension seems to ease from his shoulders as she asserts herself, as herself. as far as what he might think of the sight of her, like this or not, it was nothing short of relief— and even a hint of a smile still, to ease any fears she might have on the matter, too. )

Not too strange to believe, at least.

( cognitive doubles had always been a... sensitive subject, not to mention now mixed with the power of dreams and dreamotion. )

It's not exactly the most ideal way of meeting up, but... If you saw which way she went, we should hurry after her quickly. Maybe I can explain more on the way, too.