JERICHO ● SEPTEMBER 2025 EVENT/TDM

[uruz]

TDM & EVENT: JERICHO

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Prologue: New Characters

You've been plagued with a reoccuring dream, as of late. Every time you sleep, the dream returns to you.

It always begins the same way: As a breath held for too long. As a pressure at the base of your spine. A silence that presses against the skin like confession, like prophecy. A ripple moves through your bones. A tide builds and pulls at your feet, familiar by now. You dream of a black, soundless wave, thick like oil and starlight, swelling across the horizon line. You've seen the wave before, countless times, always rising. With every night, it never reaches you. You always seem to wake before it does . . . That is, until tonight.

The wave moves slow, deliberate— like something ancient and alive. And when it finally crashes, there is no harsh impact. Only warmth. Only submersion. Rather than drowning, you are being claimed with saltwater that's sweet with myrrh. The darkness embracing you pulses with desire. Then, a voice envelops you.

"Come home."
It dribbles with honey-like promise, like a truth you've always known, whispered now from within your marrow more like temptation than a request.

"You are mine. You always were."
The voice offers purpose. Worship. Belonging. And when you wake . . . You wake changed, with a mask on your face you did not choose. Elegant. Sacred. Too important to remove. You have been given a gift. A new beginning.

Welcome home, new Vessels.

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Sink Down Like Precious Stones

( content warnings: drowning, body horror )

Vessels awaken within the dreamscape as the black wave recedes from their skin like velvet falling off the bone, their masks in place over their eyes and left afloat in the watery expanse. All around them, the ocean stretches infinite and lightless— so still it mirrors the sky above, indistinguishable from the void. Far in the distance, massive obsidian walls curve inward, enclosing this vast seascape like a forgotten temple basin. And there, at the far horizon, one glow pierces the dark: a low-burning fire flickering within a half-sunken structure of impossible architecture— arched, ribbed, as though built from marble and cathedral glass.

This is a test, and it begins with belief.

Those with unwavering faith— whether in Sleep, another god, or even themselves— will find the surface beneath their feet holds firm. The sea becomes glass, and they may rise, and walk. But those adrift in doubt begin to sink. Precious stone creeps over their skin. Joints stiffen. Flesh cracks. Breath slows. It is not death, but it is close and might as well be hell. Your only salvation lies in your own conviction . . . Or the mercy of another Vessel who happens to walk.

Those who drown will not die. They will loop this moment— sinking, blackness, return, sink again— until belief takes root in some way. Alternatively, they may awaken in a later dreamspace . . . Changed.

NOTES:

• Pale white fish as well as glowing jellyfish may be encounted. The fish stare at vessels as they drown, and jellyfish may leave behind a shock that could temporarily stop the process of crystalization. But only temporarily— and their stings are excrutiating.

TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Magic becomes volatile— spells flicker, overcharge, or fizzle unpredictably when cast on or near the ocean.
• When you cast, your veins glow from beneath the skin, but not with light. It's writhing. Like something trapped under glass.
• When channeling magic, your mouth may fill with brine and blood.

OFFERING EFFECTS:

• The water responds emotionally— thrashing with fury or calming with yearning depending on the Offering's state of mind.
• The sea amplifies desire and instinct, making base emotions harder to suppress— rage, hunger, longing all churn just beneath the surface.
• The black water feels too warm, too alive, clinging to the body like memory; any stillness invites visions of Sleep's embrace, both reverent and consuming.

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You Taste Like New Flesh

( content warnings: body horror, psychological horror, compulsion, unreliable reality )

The ocean path ends at a palace carved of pearl and spun silk, impossibly perched where water meets nothingness. Whether you have traversed the black sea on trembling feet or simply awaken seated at an impossibly long table, it makes no difference. You are here now, and welcomed, suddenly in attire fit for a gala. Around this table sit countless Dream-Vessels, many silent and still, faces unreadable in the flickering candlelight wearing generic, six-eyed masks. The table stretches beyond sight, arching beneath creeping vines that twist like ancient veins overhead, blooming with strange blossoms that beat with energy. Flames dance atop dozens of candles— some burn on brass holders, others hover, like fireflies caught mid-flight, their shadows flickering and shifting with an otherworldly rhythm. Around you, phantasmal forms shimmer on pedestals: Sleep's ancient Guardians are eternalized through memorial, monstrous and magnificent, lost to time yet enshrined in reverence. On the highest pedestal stands a still living One, silent and watching the feast with somber eyes. Sleep's voice whispers in your ear, encouraging a glance to, perhaps, see what you may become.

"Feast, My Dear Vessels. Until you taste like New Flesh."

The foods before you don not come unmeddled with. Each bite pulls memories from your bones to the surface— moments buried or erased, but these are not just yours. The banquet feeds on shared history, stirring secrets tangled between you and the others here. To eat is to open a door: to risk awakening something dormant, to invite others inside your buried truths, to forge bonds or betrayals that can never be unseen.

Eton Mess: Crushed meringue, tangled cream, and berries that bleed like bruises when bitten. Sweetness melts quickly, leaving your tongue cold. As you eat, a memory rises— but you don't experience it alone. The person nearest you sees what you see, hears what you hear, feels what you felt. Together, you can alter one key detail, and that change ripples outward, shifting how you both remember the event.

Deviled Kidneys: Spiced and seared, the metallic richness clings to your mouth, as if tasting old blood. Eating summons the echo of a painful or violent memory, but your partner experiences it with you.

Roasted Lamb in Mint Sauce: The sweetness of the meat is cut by mint sharp enough to sting the throat. Your act of consumption awakens a craving, but not in you— in the Vessel sharing this dish. They feel an inexorable pull toward your memory, even without knowing what they seek. The bond persists until the craving is confronted.

Honey Scouse: A thick, golden stew heavy with warmth, but beneath the sweetness, something cloying curls around the edges. Every shared spoonful spreads a slow, creeping influence between you and your partner: intrusive visions, subtle compulsions, small lapses in agency. Neither of you can tell whose thoughts belong to whom.

Starpit Fruit: Plum-sized and faintly glowing, the juice leaves your fingertips dusted in silver, like handling starlight. When bitten, the fruit releases the memory of a forgotten wish, not to you but to the person beside you. They see it clearly— and know exactly what you once wanted most, even if you had buried it.

Marigold Brandy: A golden spirit served warm, glowing faintly as though sunlight has been trapped inside the glass. When lifted, it releases a soft, floral scent. The first sip draws you and your partner into a shared burst of joy— a memory that makes you swell with happiness. The sensation is so immediate, so electric, that when the memory breaks, your bodies ache to move, to speak, to draw more positivity to light. You may feel an irresistible pull to get up and dance on the wide palace floors, even if no music is playing . . . And if others nearby drink as well, the effect multiplies.

Saints Breath Chalice: A dark, wine-thick cordial served in tarnished silver cups etched with symbols that shift when stared at too long. The liquid smells faintly of frankincense and something sweeter— blood-warm and alive. Drinking it floods you and your partner with the overwhelming sensation of being inside someone else's celebration, a memory that belongs to neither of you: a vast mass of black, with branching antlers and six, glowing red eyes. It reaches to sink its claws into your chest as she sings: One. Beloved. We were meant to be. It is impossible to tell whether you're witnessing joy or manic worship. There is chanting you cannot understand but somehow already know, drums that sync with your heartbeat until you can feel nothing else. Your limbs begin to twitch, then sway, then move without conscious thought, drawn into a dance you do not remember learning. If more than two people drink, your movements synchronize perfectly, your breath matching theirs, until the room seems stop to watch.

The table awaits.

NOTES:

• Feasting becomes addictive. The more a character eats, the harder it is to stop. Gluttony may cause physical consequences: nosebleeds, twitching fingers, warping speech, uncontrollable confessions, or dripping nectar from their mouths.
• Those who refuse to eat at all begin to starve in a dream-sense: they lose color, smell burning, and feel the weight of Sleep's gaze. Her wrath isn't immediate— but it grows the longer you reject the feast. She takes offense.

TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Each spell cast after eating releases parasitic energy— manifesting as flowers, thorns, parasitic insects or rot— either from their own body or from someone they recently touched.
• Casting warps your limbs temporarily: too many joints, fingers curl the wrong way, nerves burn like wires.
• Touching others leaves sigils burned into their skin. These will briefly carry over into the waking world during next month's event. Runecasters will get the innate feeling that this symbol has a meaning summed up as "The Night Does Not Belong To God". How they interpret that is up to them.

OFFERING EFFECTS:

• The act of devouring awakens an overwhelming desire, often physical, but sometimes emotional or spiritual. This desire clings to another Vessel at the table, creating obsessive attachment or aggression.
• The more they eat, the more their monstrous traits subtly emerge.
• Consuming another Vessel's memory (if shared or touched) grants a brief glimpse of their deepest fear or weakness.

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There's Something In The Way You Lay

( content warnings: sexual content, voyeurism, body modification, omegaverse traits, loss of agency )

Beneath its pearlescent halls, beyond the banquet of flickering candles and dream-Vessels who eat in hollow silence, a spiral staircase winds downward. Its steps are damp and velvet-slick. The further you descend, the warmer the air becomes— humid, cloying, thick with the scent of sweat, salt, and incense. The sounds reach you first: Slaps, gasps, the wet chorus of bodies and perverse intimacy. Laughter, muffled sobs, the echo of whispered names long forgotten. At the base lies a corridor of "private" rooms. Their doors swing open with dreamlike invitation. Inside, the scenes unfold: past dream-Vessels lost in tableau— arched backs, bitten lips, mouths open in prayer or obedience. Some are alone, coiled in worship. Others tangle in groups, indistinguishable where one body ends and another begins. Vines bloom across the ceilings, watching. The walls glisten with breath. You see their faces, but you can't quite distinguish what or who they are. You may not remember choosing a role, but the dream has chosen for you. α or Ω— and with the naming, your body changes. There is no shame here, only devotion made manifest. This is how Sleep is worshipped now: through cruelty and surrender, through the giving and the taking of flesh.

NOTES

• Masks may optionally offer a sort of glamour for Vessels who wander into these chambers— they will not be able to recognize each other. How much of that, whether it be appearance, voice, and so on, is up to you.
• Past dream-Vessels perform for no one, eyes vacant, movements perfect, as if only a ghost of a memory. Player characters may interact with them and even partake in intimacy with them, but be warned: they are emotionally absent and may cause symptoms of succumbence that could be remedied with a proper, player-character tether.
• Tools hang on the walls: Rods of all sizes, slick with heat. Collars that hum with low, seductive voltage. Blindfolds that intensify physical contact, There's no need for cuffs or chains when there are vines that seem to respond to the α party's mood— tightening, flowering, or reaching for skin. You are free to come up with your own items.
• α perks:: Instinctive claiming (done through biting, rubbing, branding, etc), an almost predatory focus and obsession for those who interest them, pack gravity (the ability to attract one or more vessels at once), emitting a scent that ignites heat/rut in others, darker urges surge and a commanding voice.
Ω perks: High pain tolerance, instinctive yielding, emotional synchrony with those being watched, self-lubricating, hypersensitive, scent tracking, intense need to please or be filled emotionally, physically, and spiritually. When touched, glowing runes bloom across the skin.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Spells cast during acts of intimacy may provoke a heightened sensation of euphoria for both caster and whoever is affected by the spell.
• Magic may manifest as misty appendages— extra hands, tongues, eyes, etc.
• Divine energy becomes volatile when passed through the body— ecstasy may border on agony, or vice versa, and Tethering becomes impossibly euphoric.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• Flesh becomes malleable mid-act— bones bending, jaws unhinging, skin blooming open, etc.
• Animalistic traits emerge: tails, claws, growls, tentacles, scent glands— all begging to be used.
• Feeding and Tethering are indistinguishable— hunger becomes worship, and worship becomes need.

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I am not worthy

( content warnings: body horror, violence, gore, parasitic/invasive feeding, death )

Wherever you are, the palace begins to rot. First slowly, then all at once: vines swell with black fluid, splitting at the seams. They burst from beneath marble tiles, coil up pillars, slither across frames and vacant thrones like arteries choking a heart. The candlelight flickers. One by one, the flames throughout the palace float upward . . . And die. No smoke. No warning. Just wet silence. Then the Dream-Vessels begin to fall. They do not scream as they do. They collapse like marionettes, limbs askew. Their flesh splits open along wounds that should not exist— a rip at the neck, teeth marks prying open the ribcage, a bite that swallows half a torso. Bones jut like sculpted ivory. Entrails slither across the floor like garlands. Some burst mid-air, as if the dream demands spectacle. Others fold in on themselves until all that's left of them is a mound of flesh.

"I am not worthy."

One voice. Ten. A thousand—layered, glitching, sweaty. It echoes from the walls, the bodies, the seams in the floor. The corpses twitch in time with the chant, jerking violently. Some snap backwards, eyes wide, jaws unhinged. Others explode— blossoming in gore, raining viscera. From the heaving pile of ruined Dream-Vessels, something forms.

It lurches into being: stitched from tongues, teeth, torsos. Weeping. Wailing. Worshipping. A monstrosity of raw flesh and faith: all failures made meat. Its eyes (are they eyes?) blink out. Arms claw outwards, too many to count. Its scent is of copper, sweat, and sorrow.

When The Abomination chooses to feed, it seeks not flesh, but the softest rot inside you. An appendage uncoils from its writhing mass and unhinged jaw— veined, slick, and trembling like a violated root. It drives itself into your mouth, splitting your lips with obscene tenderness, and sinks deep into your throat, locking you still.

What it draws out is not blood. It siphons your doubts, your fears, your most secret self-hatred. Your inadequacy. Every buried shame. Your hate. Your negativity. Every flinch of unworthiness. Every moment you believed yourself unlovable, unseen, too small. It gorges on what you hide from even yourself, and the more you try to resist, the sweeter your sorrow becomes. The last thing it takes is your life force, and then your viscera, leaving you wilted and shrivled like a hollow log.

This death is violating and feels painfully slow. You're drained raw of your vitality until you're but a brittle husk that breaks to dust in the wind. It seems near impossible to destroy, always reforming into bits and pieces left smudged behind. Perhaps your best bet it to run, or attempt to wake yourself up from this nightmare.

One's voice repeats in choked sobs: I am not worthy.

NOTES:

• Wounds from the beast linger. You may wake bleeding or marked.
• If devoured, characters will awaken the following month extremely fatigued during the first 3-5 days of the month. They may also sporadically rigurgitate black sludge. Characters who die and are already in the game may requesta plot clue, that will be a vision your character will dream of before awakening.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Magic recoils violently when used on The Abomination, backfiring with psychic screams or ripping into your flesh.
• Your hands glow uncontrollably, burning what you touch— even those you love.
• Magic becomes hungry; it demands pieces of your body to function. A tooth. A nail. A rib (and so on).

OFFERING EFFECTS

• The rage it stirs in you is monstrous. You begin to shift uncontrollably— flesh blooms, bones crack under strain.
• Your body begins moving before you decide to. Twitching toward The Abomination, and toward the scent of despair.
• During the chaos, you may develop a fixation with another Vessel's flaw. You can smell it on them. It entrances you . . . To the point that you may feel the urge to feed them to The Abomination.

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OOC NOTES

➤ Welcome to Somnia's second TDM, which doubles as our third gamewide event!

➤ This TDM is considered game canon. You are free to have your character remember as many details as possible.

➤ Only new characters are free to experiment with the Vessel options to your liking; this is a dreamscape, so multiple/different situations for you to really test which option you like most is possible. Current characters must remain as their chosen Vessel type unless you requested a switch, which can be done on the Taken page.

➤ All TDMs take place within a dreamscape, meaning characters can interact with the setting without needing to apply. Come have fun with us!

➤ Veteran players, I ask to please refrain from making post-event threads for the time being! We have some important information to take into account in next month's event when characters are slated to "wake up". At the very least, please wait for the information to be offered on the next plotting post. Thank you everyone for your patience!

➤ Please comment on the TDM's INVITE TL if you are a new player interested in joining the game, but don't yet have an invite. Current players or the mod may reach out to extend an invite. Once you've got one, please don't forget to comment on the Invite page so you may properly link it in your reserve and app.

➤ Questions? Please direct them to the designated questions comment linked below!

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Lady Maria | Bloodborne | Offering | New Player

[whomthebelltolls]

[1: Sink Down Like Precious Stones]

[She gasps, splutters, flails within the water as she surfaces, a violent breaching that leaves her breathless. Beneath her hands, her fingers, the water briefly solidifies, then breaks apart like too-thin ice when she scrambles to grip onto it.

Lady Maria is many things: Thalassophobic is among the legion.

Eventually, though, she finds a center, a way to calm herself, and as she does, the surface of the water solidifies. She doesn't need to believe in gods, she's seen them, dissected them, injected their blood into her veins in a misguided belief that it would bring ascension.

That faith in metamorphosis was shattered eventually, but it wasn't as though the gods disappeared.

Tenuously, she pulls herself out, rolls over onto her back and simply tries to calm her breathing, willing the nausea and panic from her phobic spike away.

When she does drag herself to her feet, it's a sickening curiosity that forces her to look down at the sea, to wonder what it's doing, and to simply find the water bearing her weight as though it is not water at all.

She frowns, and decides not to question it too thoroughly. There is land in the distance, and she wants to make it there, so she begins walking, pointedly focused on the light in the distance.]

This again...

[She's mumbling discontently to herself. No, she has never been here before, never seen this place in particular but

she often dreams of drowning.]

[2. You Taste Like New Flesh]

CW: excessive blood, and violence. like. genocide level blood and violence.

[She barely notices when she passes through the door into banquet hall that her clothes have changed. She's too relieved to be far, far away from the sea, on solid ground, no longer tasting the brine on her tongue. She feels famished, starving.

She strides into the banquet in a velvet and silk tuxedo, styled in a late 19th-century Victorian fashion. It is black, blood red, and gold. Her cravat is pure white, unlike the one she wears in her Hunter attire. She has a lapel pin and a necklace both with the crest of Cainhurst on them. All in all, she looks like a regal, distinguished gentleman.

Except, well, as a woman.

The scent of meat catches her nose - she's lived in a nightmare long enough to not be concerned about consuming anything, to think it unnecessary, even if not necessarily harmful, but after the panic of nearly drowning and that long walk trying to keep her nerves calm, she finds herself unable to resist the call.

So she seats herself at a conveniently empty spot at the table, and she pulls over a plate of something that smells rich and meaty and a little like blood - a kidney, she's had them before. This one looks spiced and cooked to perfection.

She hardly waits to see if there is a toast, or a speech before dinner, because her mouth waters and she bites into it with a little less poise and delicacy than her attire suggests, and is rewarded with the rich taste of blood. It splashes into her mouth, coppery and briney and when she opens her eyes she is in the fishing hamlet, and the crumpled masses of fishmen litter the avenue before her. Some writhe in agony and pain, most are deathly still. The air reeks of blood: sickening amounts of it, suffocating amounts of it.

Intoxicating amounts of it.

Maddening amounts of it.

A man, or a fish, and it isn't really clear where one ends and the other begins charges at her with a very recognizable fishing harpoon, but he is a simple villager, and she is... well, she is a Hunter.

He's impaled, eviscerated on her sword, rent open, guts spilled, and the blood sprays out, soaking her, splattering across her lips and she runs her tongue out to taste it and it tastes

like

heaven. Like the cosmos, infinite and vast and like the Beast within, growling, clawing free from under the flesh.

More. She needs more. She wants more, and she takes it as she runs down villager after villager, sometimes stopping to dig her thumbs into their skulls and pry them open to look at the brain within, and then moving on, driven by this ceaseless hunger for their blood.

Outside of the memory, she is devouring the kidney with her bare hands, as a low, rumbling growl vibrates through her chest. She already has teeth like fangs, but they look larger now. The hair on her knuckles grows thicker, furrier, white like her hair.

You want off Mr. Bones' Wild Massacre? You might just have to watch it until every single villager is nothing but a pile of meat, oozing blood into the streets.]

[3. I Am Not Worthy]

[In truth, she's too rattled from the memory to feel much lust for pleasures of the flesh, no matter how enticing, how much the call of rut synchronized oh so perfectly with her newly budding instincts.

No, she's in a different hell, a fresher hell now, and her libido could not be smaller.

Only when it all grotesquely splits apart at the seams, and the pleasured flesh becomes tortured, does she finally snap out of it.

She's not seen anything quite this obscene in some time, and she wasn't there for the massacre at Yahar'gul, so all she has to compare it to is... well. Her own imagination.

The scent hits her nose, and that growl from earlier returns, rumbling up and out of her throat. She feels that rising need to tear it apart, to dig out the weakness of despair and shove it into her mouth like she did that kidney earlier.

The Abomination is heading toward her, and anyone nearby, and of course Maria is too self-sacrificing not to tell them-] Move. Now.

[Before standing to fight it herself.

She's going to be grabbed, if her new friend is not just as self-sacrificing as she.

They might just have to be faster than her Offering instincts.]

1

[beaffrayed]

[ Here comes someone, more covered up than Maria herself is, and in full armor to boot. His heels clack softly against the glassy surface of the water. ]

I've seen darkness aplenty, but naught like this...

[ Only a wariness in his tone betrays his unease, no matter how easily he navigates the surface of the water. But he does catch her words; in the gap between veil and helmet, the scant light catches gold eyes, looking at her keenly. ]

You've been here before?

[whomthebelltolls]

[She's used to being... alone in the Nightmare. Ludwig and Laurence, the patients, the prisoners, and the other Hunters all were well beyond madness, and thus, poor conversational partners.

So her surprise is likely palpable when the stern concentration she had been maintaining is suddenly interrupted by a voice. A voice that sounds lucid, even. Though, certainly, Brador did play at lucidity from time to time.

The water dips a little under her heels as she's surprised by the voice, and she has to brace herself to stay standing. (The gentle ripples under her feet, small though they are and inconsequential in this state, still move her enough to give her a bout of seasickness she has to fight down.)]

No...

[Blissfully, looking at someone else, concentrating on a conversation helps take her mind off the vast ocean she's somehow standing on.

Then, more firmly:]

No. Not... this exactly. I am familiar with boundless oceans, and my own circumstances. This simply seems like an extension of that. [Curiously, the wrath of Kos and her child had never taken Maria out of the familiar nightmare, though.

She eyes her companion, just once, gray-green eyes wary... and weary.]

You are not a Hunter, are you?

[He doesn't smell like one.]

[beaffrayed]

[ Fray moves towards her as her concentration falters, and then stops when she manages to steady herself once more. He'll not offer his aid unless she needs it, but he'll hardly let her sink if it comes to that.

He simply nods at the explanation. Some sort of reoccurring nightmare, perhaps. ]

You say that as if it carries some weight...in that case, I'm no hunter. I am a dark knight, if that means aught to you.

[ The way he says that implies strongly as if he doesn't expect her to.

He carries no tinge of blood, that certain look and feel that many Hunters embraced, that much is clear. His eyes are clear, though his gaze turns faintly sympathetic as he notes that weariness in her. ]

Is that what you call yourself? [ If she does, what does she hunt? ]

[whomthebelltolls]

[Dark Knight. That does not ring a bell, and the way he says it sounds a lot like he means something more than a knight with a fondness for blackened steel. So she tilts her head a little, and then shakes her head.]

Yes. I am Maria, formerly apprenticed to the First Hunter, Gehrman.

[There's a lot to unpack with an introduction like that, but for the moment, she does not elaborate, and instead waits to see if he introduces himself instead.]

[1: Sink Down Like Precious Stones]

[shatteredlenses]

Again?

[Ignis happens to fall in alongside of her just in time to hear her words. He doesn't recognize her voice from the previous dream or from anyone he ran into in the ruins of New York, but he would be foolish to think he managed to run into everyone with his blindness limiting his ability to move about.]

This place is familiar to you?

[whomthebelltolls]

[She pauses at another voice; one which is not her own, is not familiar to her, and does not appear to be from anyone she has ever seen.

She is not used to having coherent conversation partners. The patients, the prisoners, the hunters, all only prone to momentary sanity.

The one patient that was more coherent than most she couldn't even speak to anymore.

So she looks Ignis over, curious about him, but unwilling to speak on it.]

I have never been to this place, no. But there is much familiar about this... circumstance.

[Close enough.]

[shatteredlenses]

I'm sorry to hear that. These aren't the most inviting of circumstances.

[Of course, he supposes that there are those who have become used to dealing with such things and the familiar does bring comfort, even if maybe it should not. Seeing Noctis during the first dream he was in had brought Ignis comfort even though the last thing he would ever have wanted was to have his liege be in danger.

There had been relief then, when Ignis woke up and found Noctis not there. Relief and loss. Something tells Ignis that loss isn't going to go away until he manages to find his way back home however long that path may be.]

I was shown an image of a castle beyond these waves. I would suggest making haste toward it. Lingering here is not a good idea. If you wish, I can try to fill you in on a few things on the way.

[He raises a hand to gesture at the blindfold he is wearing and the scars that peek out from under it.]

I may not see as much as others, but I've learned as much as I can in other ways to make up for it.

[whomthebelltolls]

[In truth, most people in Yharnam cover their eyes because of the Eldritch Truth, and the role of eyes on the brains being more important than those on the face. In many ways, she's used to people having their eyes covered or purposefully blinded... so that he has some sort of Insight she doesn't.

A castle beyond the waves?] I wonder if that is the distant light that I espy.

[Distant Light. Ugh, it better not be whatever thread Ludwig saw within his holy blade.]

So I am to take it you are unfamiliar with these environs yourself?

you taste like new flesh

[deathstealer]

[ The fare on the table is a curiosity that Ranni largely ignores. With her body of porcelain and metal, she cannot digest any of it, and thus, leaves it alone. The first time she was brought to a dreamscape in this world involved an orchard full of fruit that swayed the mind and emotion; she assumes that a similar thing will happen here, as no gift in a dream, it seems, comes without strings.

Still, she sits at the table nonetheless, a sharp gaze examining those around her. Her dress is the pale grey of a dawn moon, the torso made of little more than metal mesh, exposing the broken shell and inner metal of the doll body she inhabits. Though she has never cared much for fashion, Ranni has idly catalogued much of the attire she has seen, and the woman in the velvet and silk suit had stood out like a budding flower against plain grass. And so, Ranni had found herself sitting next to the woman, a front row seat to ordinary eating slowly turned to ravenous devouring of kidney flesh.

Shared visions brush past her mind's eyes. A quaint village, and the brutal violence wreaked upon it. Skull and muscle torn open with her bare hands-- a strength that Ranni finds not gruesome, but admirable. She watches without judgement, without disgust, a sight of absolute slaughter. Many would have found such a vision horrifying. Many would have gagged, or fainted from the sheer amount of viscera on display.

Ranni just steeples her hands thoughtfully, and watches the memory. As it begins to fade, she is aware of the woman beside her finishing off the last of the liver. Ranni turns her head a touch, studying the woman out of the corner of her eye. ]

Such a treasure so accidentally shared;
and yet I cannot predict what thee will feel,
once the hunger wears off.
Shame, or pride? Guilt, or honor?
Art thou satisfied with thine memory, or mortified?

[whomthebelltolls]

[Maria is pulled from the blood-drunk revelry by a voice at her side, and she blinks out of the vision to see a... doll? Beside her, speaking to her.

Something niggles the back of her mind, something that reminds her of jointed fingers and a peaceful graveyard beneath the moon that felt like a dream, but that is almost immediately washed away in a mortified tide that also rinses the taste of blood right off her lips. (It's not blood, the liquid on her hands is a bit of grease from the cooked kidney, as is the smear across her lips.)

The intoxication takes a moment to fade, but it does so about the same time in this world as it had in the fishing hamlet, when Maria stood atop her mountain of corpses and whispered, "What... did we do?" to herself.

Except now, the brief trembling of her lip is all that gives her away before she locks her expression down, a sudden nausea rising in her throat.

This person... doll... whatever it is saw that memory. Saw that thing Maria attempts to keep so thoroughly locked away.

The first sin of the Hunters.

So the answer to the question that Maria barely heard is, of course, the latter.

If she wasn't so shellshocked by the memory, by the way someone else saw it, maybe she would have been able to say something intelligent, coherent.

Instead, all she can come up with is]

... Who are you?

[deathstealer]

[ Ranni is quick to catch the minute shift in expression, one lambent eye's gaze raking over the impassive mouth that a tremble had briefly shifted. Ah, so she is not immune to the feeling of her own memories, then. What Ranni witnessed was something shameful, or terrible, something the woman is dissatisfied to share. How interesting. ]

You may know me as Ranni;
a humble witch of no renown.

[ Her claim comes somewhere between an expert lie and obviously, amusedly sarcastic -- an airy tone that one can choose to believe or disbelieve at their own leisure.

She reaches over the table to pluck a napkin from beside a stack of plates, and offers it to the woman. For how animalistically she had been going at that kidney, she is surprisingly not an absolute mess, but some evidence remains. ]

Thee find thyself in a dream,
in which the fare of this world causeth many effects.
Visions and memories; feeling and delusion.
A game played by a fickle and delighted god.

[whomthebelltolls]

[There's still a long moment of recovery, like the words need physical time to sink through her ears and into her brain, while her mind reels and spins beneath the idea of the revelation.

So her eyes take a moment, but then trace to the napkin, and she takes it without even so much as a word of thank you. When she looks at her hands, they're not splattered in sticky blood, but merely the spice and grease from the kidneys themselves.

Finally, she clears her throat, and swallows. ... A dream realm at the mercy of a fickle god? Was that not what she was trapped in before? She frowns.]

I see. Ranni. And does this... god have a name? ... Is it some agent of Kos?

2. I should probably apologize for her.

[sculptedash]

[There are few things that really remind Ash of her home planet. A violent and bloody massacre in a fishing village is one of those things.

The blood. The gore. Watching this artist of death at work makes her heart speed up in excitement or stop in awe at different moments.

It's only when the memory stops that Ash practically leaps from her seat and starts to shake Lady Maria's shoulder.]

Oh my gosh. You have to be one of the coolest people to show up so far-

You have to tell me about that- Oh man- It sucks that this is a dream or I'd get you to sign my robes!

...Wait do you think it'll carry over if you carve your name in my skin?

lmao no I love it

[whomthebelltolls]

[The problem with coming up out of such a harrowing and scarring memory is the way her mind is right on the fritz by what she saw. Her heart pounding, her nerves shot, so something or someone suddenly touching her, shaking her pulls her out of it with a startle that nearly ends in Ash being attacked in turn, and it's only that Maria doesn't have her sword in this attire that stops her from running the other through with the blade.

Instead, she jerks backward, knocking her chair askew and into the person that had been to her side in her haste to move.] Do not touch me. Who are you?

[She hunches over, muscles taught, fangs bared as though ready to pounce like... well, like some kind of animal.

And only then do the words start to sink in.] And you saw all that?

Re: lmao no I love it

[sculptedash]

[Even if Ash had of been stabbed, she would have thought it was completely worth it.

The chair is a close second. It connects with her gut and sends her stumbling back a few steps. Losing her grip on Mria's shoulder.]

Woah- Woah- Woah! It's Ash-

[She doesn't immediately move into a defensive stance. She's still more in awe of Maria's memory, and her current stance. She could worry about her own life in a second.]

Not exactly by choice. But these dream things work weirdly. Not the first time I've been caught in something like that.

[whomthebelltolls]

[Her nerves are raw, but she's not so much without sense she cannot at least allow the other to explain herself, and the explanation is...

About what she expects. Given her experiences in this dream so far, it's not entirely an answer that she is unprepared for.]

Yes, well, it is a memory I am not particularly fond of, nor did I mean to share.

[Gods, and the mortification is starting to set in, now that the adrenaline dump is fading.] ... Just forget what you saw - Ash, was it? ... I did not mean to back into you, apologies. I was startled out of that memory.

1

[vixenish]

Again?

[ the voice that will cut across Maria's thoughts is sharp, in a canny way. the girl from which that voice comes is only a teenager, but carries herself, in her lovely gown, like she's far older. ]

Explain.

[ it isn't a request, but it also isn't a demand. ]

[whomthebelltolls]

[The words are concise and to the point - Maria appreciates that, of course, but she doesn't always appreciate being ordered, so she pauses, and frowns... but decides to give the benefit of the doubt.]

I know unfamiliar worlds that look familiar. They are nightmares made manifest where I come from. I presume this is something similar? No sea should look like this.

[Her answer is about as cut-and-dry as the question, whilst she matches energies with... well, whoever this young lady is.]

[vixenish]

... more than you realize, and less than you think.

[ Lortel smiles, a little. ]

We are dreaming, you're right. Whether it's meant to be a nightmare ... is anyone's guess, though it's very likely to become one.

[whomthebelltolls]

To become one... [She repeats slowly, thoughtfully. In her experience, nughtmares of Great Ones just sort of... are.

Either way, it's an ominous portent, and besides that...] You've experience with it, then?

3

[deltastrike]

[Theseus will not be the one to discourage her. Whether it be his own Offering deathwish continuing to bind him to the monster even as he opposes it, a sense of sacrificial duty which he still keeps from the time he was a mortal king, a reflexive urge to not be helpless or any confused combination of the above, Theseus goes to her and not away.

In his hands is not his old familiar spear, but a black lance that blends its form with the shadows. A furred tail laps at the ankles of the man, who also bears horns, providing the inhuman origins of this power. But Theseus, for once, is confident that this his despised nonhuman features will not be enough cause to raise objection at his presence.

There's only moments for coordinating any synchronized assault. ]

I'll take the right. [The size of the opponent makes it unnecessary to narrow it down.]

[whomthebelltolls]

[She doesn't have much time to consider his inhuman appearance, when she's been stubbornly ignoring her own - the way the fur is now thick on her hands and arms, and legs, the rather impressive mutton chops it's given her (and still growing, reaching fur rising from her neck and back), the way the light catches in the depths of her pupils and shines back in hues of red and green.

No, she can't think of that, and, really... better to die now with her mind still intact than when she totally becomes a Beast.

He'll take the right. She acknowledges it with a grunt right before she launches left. She's still new to this nightmare, so she carries some approximation of her sword, even though her claws are growing too long to grip it properly.

She begins with some heavy downward slashes at the tentacles, and finds, to her frustration that it seems like anything she pares away is just replaced with more writhing flesh.]

[deltastrike]

[Theseus could see through appearances and trust her from the fact that she stood in opposition to this new foe. Just like how Asterius' noble character speaks for itself from how his valor shines in battle, Theseus will judge his ally from actions, including how she fights.

From her forceful attempts to sever the tentacles, he can see tenacity, but also discipline to gain such strength. But other than that gained observation, it's to no avail. Theseus dives in to cover Maria so she isn't countered for her mistake. ]

Don't strike in vain! We must work to divert it.

[In a mixed blessing, they are proving to be effective bait. The monster has stayed honed on them, tentacles and main mass both. ]

[whomthebelltolls]

[She grunts as he comes in, and partially clips her, sending her reeling to the side. She throws her hands out to save herself, and finds the fall not nearly so long or uncomfortable as she had anticipated. In fact, her shoulders and arms catch her very easily, now that they're longer, her hands shifting into paws. The Beastly transformation is getting worse the longer they fight, but she doesn't have the time for an existential crisis right now. Not when it's coming for them. She bounds away, and finds it more comfortable than she likes to admit to leap on all fours. Almost immediately, she stands back up to face the creature again.]

Divert it to where? Back to the sea? [It's hard to talk around her huge fangs now, hard to bark it out between lips that aren't made to form words well.]