JAWS • DECEMBER 2025 EVENT/TDM

[uruz]

TDM & EVENT: JAWS

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Show Me Those Pretty White Jaws

The dream has been coming in waves for those new to Sleep's touch, as a shoreline that never stays still. As a sky that never remembers to include its stars. Beneath it all, there is a voice. Her voice: silk-sweet, coaxing from just beyond the approaching wave that towers like a moving mountain. She tells you to come home. She promises it won't hurt, even if she never tells you what waits beneath. You see the shape just before the dream ends: a massive black tidal wave, yawning wide and black until it looks like a pair of jaws breaking upon you. You don't have time to resist.

You and your veteran Vessels will awaken in water.

There is no surface. No bottom. No sky. No sound but your own heartbeat and the echoes of water being slashed though, dull and endless in the still, frigid dark. You are suspended, weightless— Some may have difficulty to breathe without inhaling water the first few times, while those aligned with the waves will feel it come like second nature. Once you acclimate yourself, you'll notice that around you drift glowing filaments; thin, pulsing threads that coil like jellyfish tendrils, softly luminescent. They curl and twist through the water, and when you look closer, you realize: they show you things. Memories, maybe. Dreams, maybe. Each one unique to your gaze: a hand reaching for yours in the dark, a goodbye that never finished, a face you haven't seen in years. They are what you think love looks like. What you once needed it to be. And when you touch them, they wrap around you, gently, warmly . . . Hungrily— and begin to pull you down.

To ascend into the next level, you must let go. But not everything that binds you wants to be released. The filaments drifting through the water show you what you think love looks like— what you've built it into. They are gentle at first, beautiful even, but the longer you cling, the more they pull.

There are ways to escape them: You may bind your filament with another's and together speak aloud a shared truth: what you believe love really is. If your hearts align or at the very least come to an agreement, the threads dissolve into light and lift you upward. If your beliefs clash or contradict, the threads knot tighter, and something . . . May take interest in you.

Beneath you, something moves. Huge, silent and almost regal. It glides through the deep like a phantom, almost too large to be real. You feel its presence before you see its flash of pearl white and glowing red eyes, three on each side of its face: a shark.

The shark is here to choose its next meal. It smells grief, fear and seeks out trauma most of all. It is drawn to the most unspoken parts of you, the very parts you thought were buried, roused from the tightened ropes of what you crave in your heart. And when it chooses you, it does not bite immediately. It invites, with its jaws opening like a sanctuary and slow towards you.

Inside is I, whispers Sleep. Allow Me to have you whole, and you will be at peace. Show Me love.

Fight against her, or even with your current partner about what love is, and Sleep will open her maw, spilling tendrils from her throat and begin to stalk you. Best be prepared to fight the possessed Megalodon— She will laugh, amused as you do, like a great cat playing with its food. And if you were to be caught, well. You'll wake in the dream's next level with an undeniable prey drive, whether Token or Offering.

She will do anything to keep you here.

NOTES:

• There is no surface visible at first. Light only comes from the filaments. As characters resist, act, or ascend, a faint stained-glass shimmer begins to pulse upward, hinting at the dream's next layer.
• Sound is muffled— speech emerges as bubbles, but meaning travels regardless. Words feel heavy here. Some phrases may literally change the water (turn to light, birth dream-objects, or ripple with tension). You will do better using The Murmur as a means of communication. Luckily you have your mask on!
• The Shark always circles once it senses trouble within you. Sometimes close, sometimes far, but always felt. If characters listen closely, they can hear the echo of One's voice coming from inside it: pleading with a haunted, at times screaming melody.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• The dream bends subtly around Tokens, especially at the whims of an Aquamancer. Walls of pressure open before them, and filaments shift course as if expecting them. This can make their path easier, unless they start to doubt their purpose.
• Tokens perceive emotional resonance as currents in the water such as subtle flows of energy. These can guide them (or others) toward escape paths, or signal when the shark is near.
• When a Token speaks or acts with strong intent, the dream sometimes translates it into a symbolic structure: A word might become a floating glyph. A gesture might alter the filament's shape. A moment of clarity might reveal a hidden path. Other characters can interact with these dream-objects, but they're fragile, unstable, and prone to distortion by doubt.
• The deeper Tokens go, the more they feel themselves pulling apart and begin to experience dual awareness: one part dreaming, one part watching— some may even see flashes of within the shark's belly, and One's voice much louder. The deeper they go, the more detached they become, and the more they lack the ability to act at all.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• The shark is more fascinated by Offerings. It circles them often, sensing kinship— or potential. The more monstrous the Offering, the more the shark "pauses' near them, almost curious.
• Offerings feel "the pull" more clearly, particularly Merrows and other aquatic-based Offerings—they can sense where the surface might be, and where the shark intends to strike next. They may even see pulses in the water that others miss, similar to Spider Man's "spidey senses".
• An Offering may experience rapid body changes submerged. Fins may appear, bones may shift, teeth may lengthen without warning and so on. This makes their movement easier or harder, depending on how much of themselves they're holding back or how apt their monstrous forms are at swimming.
• Some Offerings may feel drawn to the shark— not in fear, but in understanding. They may see themselves in it, and vice versa— One's song in particular is hypnotic, and for split moments you may understand his pain through his words. This might make you more prone to being consumed, though, so hopefully your partner can help you out of it—?.

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Watching Me With Eyes Of A Predator

The surface you breach is not water— it's glass.

You strike it with the force of falling sky. It fractures beneath you in a bloom of painted light. For one weightless moment, the dream hesitates, sputters. Then the world shatters, and you fall with the cascade.

Water pours through the crack in the ceiling, carrying you down in ribbons of color and a shattering splash. Stained glass shards drift like petals through the now collapsing roof, and you eventually land not in sand, but upon a cathedral floor, slick with tide. Around you, the water spreads, pooling across the stone and swallowing the walls in a rising hush as it finds escape through the doors.

The cathedral is vast, impossibly so. Its architecture towers, crooked and immaculate, built more from longing than stone. No altar awaits you. No congregation. Only the sensation of having trespassed into something meant to be private. Veteran Vessels may recognize this cathedral as St. Patrick's— before it was drenched in One's blood sacrifice.

High above and surrounding you, the stained-glass mosaics churn with captured light. f you linger beneath one of the window's rays, your appearance may begin to change under the light. You appear as someone else sees you. Be it a hero. A monster. A disappointment. A god. A weakness. A temptation. Even a burden. That version of you clings to your dream-body like a second skin; uncomfortable, intimate, and undeniable. For some, it may be beautiful. For others, unbearable.

If you and another stand beneath the same window, you may each appear as the other secretly imagines. There is no control and no negotiation. Only truth twisted through the lens of want, resentment, fear, or love. And it doesn't go away until you leave the light.

Eventually, the cathedral doors open by dream's will. Beyond them lies a cloister garden: narrow paths, pale trees, and wild flowers that bloom in stillness. At the far end, behind the overgrowth and ruined arches, you see a hollow.

It is a corridor where the dream collapses inward, twisting, warped, half-swallowed in fog and dread. Its stones pulse faintly beneath a shallow film of water. Black tendrils reach from its depths like roots, veins, twitching toward sound, warmth, and movement. You see them dragging matter into the earth, and between them lie bones, contorted and fresh, half-consumed.

And farther still, a body that still breathes. Glimpsed only briefly, A masked man's form is stretched by the hollow's gravity, arms pinned behind the veil. He does not move, or speak. Or perhaps, he cannot. The hollow does not let him go and will not, should you make your attempts. If you step foot in the hollows that have consumed him, you too will be consumed. A three eyed Tod sits at the hollow's edge, a single bushy tail splitting into three, as its body plays with illusion like smoke put to dance over fire. It says, as its head floats up and its maw splits into a grin too cheshire to ignore: Wearing shoes, yet no feet in sight. You'll hear steps pound in the death of night. What is it that you need, to cross this narrow blight?

It disappears and only leaves you the riddle to chew on.

Nothing living can cross the hollow, you'll soon find. Nothing except . . . The Nightmares.

Just outside the garden's boundary, you'll find horses built from wind and shadow, flickering at the edge of your vision. Their bodies are black— not the color, but the absence, swallowing all light. Some of their craniums cound be seen, others have a jutting horn of bone from their foreheads. Where eyes should be, there are six: three stacked on each side of the skull, glowing dimly red like distant embers beneath ice. Their manes flow like torn fabric, like drifting vapor that trails behind them like the smoke from a snuffed candle. Their maws are too damn wide to be herbivorous, yet they seem to enjoy the act of grazing. They wait, unchained and wild in a herd.

This is the only way forward. Only they can pass through the hollow untouched. But how to ride one—? You may chase them. You may plead, command, kneel. You may offer them all your need and all your love, promises that you will provide if they become your steed. But they were not made to answer it. For every Vessel, there is one single Nightmare that will choose them, and thus you will choose each other. They have their own personalities, some more aggressive or shyer than others. The harder you reach, the faster they vanish or harshed they will attack if unready. Try to mount one through force, and you'll regret ever trying. Try to bind one, and it will break you.

But if you are patient, if you figure out its nature and how to please it— your Nightmare may come closer. One may circle you. It may bow its head. Their snort is warm and real against your palm. If successful, it will lower itself to its knees. If you've got the height, they will simply wait, patiently, for you to get on their backs (Or not; there are plenty of sassy mares out there).

If you accept, you might not be taken somewhere safe, but you will be taken somewhere true, away from here. And if you force your want upon them, if you cannot let go— you will be left with something else.

In the distance, across the flooded cathedral floor, you may see One again. Flashes, glimpses. Always chasing a mare he never reaches, or the opposite— the mare chases after him.

NOTES:

• If a character successfully forms a bond with their Nightmare, it will return with them in the form of a waking world steed, officially introduced in the next event. You're free to give it the personality you wish.
• If a character attempts to force a connection with a Nightmare at any point (tries to catch, mount, command, etc.), the mare will bite or kick, which Vessels will suffer as a persistent dream-mark that will carry into the waking world.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Light clings unnaturally to Tokens in the cathedral, especially near the stained glass. It bends around their bodies like a false halo, casting them in divine or monstrous outlines depending on who watches.
• If a Token casts or channels any magic within the cathedral or near a Nightmare, the spell does not manifest, but instead, a cold mist escapes their mouth, and the Nightmare turns to look. The dream rejects force.
• When a Nightmare looks directly at a Token, their eyes eclipse, pupils vanishing into rings of shadow. In that moment, a fragmented vision floods the Token's mind . . . not from the Nightmare, but from another character nearby. It shows the Token how that character once dreamed of them, what they feared, needed, or hoped they would become.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• The stained glass causes a subtle change in scent and physical appearance turning into a more grotesque version of this— Offerings begin to smell or look like what others most want from them.
• Offerings may always know where the Nightmares are, even when hidden. But the more they try to act on this knowledge, the harder the Nightmares are to reach.
• An Offering's body will react before they realize it, flinching from lies, bristling in moments of emotional pressure, pulling away from contact, and so on. They may startle even at gentle contact, as if something inside them is as reactive as they are.

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Where The Delicate Stops

As your Nightmare takes you through the misty hollow, you may begin to notice the empty city of Manhattan as veterans remember. There is no warning but the eerie silence that surrounds you like impossible weights. The cathedral once behind you folds inward— wrong, deep and full of pressure. It bursts through the hollow's path, through the city's street, and then— The dream ruptures.

Stone peels backward like paper. Glass liquefies mid-air. The sky above the city pulls itself inside out. Time bends sideways. And from the edges of the dream, something, someone, begins to hunt. Sleep's presence moves like the very shark she chose as a vision of her physical manifestation. She does not speak or rage. But you feel Her, rising like fever beneath the skin of Her world as the hairs at the back of your neck do. She does not want you this deep, and neither does One.

Somewhere within the collapse, you may see them— entwined, shifting, trembling. One's face is turned toward you, screaming something that doesn't reach your ears. Sleep's hands are tangled in his body. She pulls him back with a gentleness that breaks the sky, and he screams, reaching for you with his last breath before consumption. The dream convulses.

The Nightmares bolt with you still on them.

The city rises to meet you from the shadows, but it's not the city you know. Skyscrapers twist at unnatural angles. Streets flood, then dry, then flood again. Tendrils burst from subway grates and gutters, slashing upward like tongues. Streetlights spin like compass needles. Cars levitate, crash, freeze midair. You move through it all at breakneck speed, but the exit keeps shifting— a hole in the world that flickers just beyond reach where you see your body, fast asleep.

Somewhere in the chaos, a few Nightmares are caught. Sleep strikes like lightning— she coils like a viper and tightens like a vice. One touch from Her, and your Nightmare collapses mid-gallop, its body unraveling into smoke and light. No sound. No scream. Just absence. And you fall right off it like a ragdoll.

Others fall beneath impact, too— a wrong turn, a shattered wall, a burst of heat from One's grief. A broken leg. A crash. A wound too deep to ride through. If your steed is lost, you fall. And if no one reaches for you, you stay fallen. Others are near, and their Nightmares still run. All of you have a terrible dread in your bones— if you are caught or left behind, the consequences will be dire. You might not even wake up. So, call out. Cling. Climb. Share. Two Vessels on one mount. Anything to survive and flee as the dreamscape tightens its wrathful grip around you.

Sleep calls inside your spine. You can't make out what She says. One answers, the same blur of garbled words in your marrow. And then, just before the dream can take you, just before you reach an exit— you rise.

Your body lifts from the Nightmare as it paddles the air with desperation, it too rising. You're pulled upward, weightless, as if a thread inside your heart has been yanked by a furious god. You float, twist in the air. Your vision glows white.

We've got you.

And then you wake up— mid-air in the waking world.

Your body slams into your bed, floor, street, soil, wherever it was that you had slept. Reality greets you with terrible impact.

NOTES

• If a character does not find a mount in time, they may be caught in the dream collapse. They still wake— but they wake broken. These characters may wake up bruised, disoriented, or emotionally fragmented, and this can be explored in the next waking world event.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Any Tether they feel becomes unstable—splintered. For brief moments, they feel it breaking and re-forming again and again, with slight differences each time.
• The more emotionally charged they are, the more the dream pulls toward them; tendrils snap faster, debris veers unnaturally close.
• Their body flickers with signs of their own magic—sigils, symbols, runes— burning just beneath the surface of their skin like constellations. These glow brighter as the dream collapses, as if trying to tear free.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• Where Offerings are grazed or injured, they bleed light, not red. It floats up like mist.
• They hear One's heartbeat, not theirs, and it speeds in panic. It affects their own pulse, the mare under them . . .
• The Nightmare no longer follows the Offering's will—it will respond to their fear instead.

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OOC NOTES

➤ Welcome to Somnia's third TDM, which doubles as the month's gamewide event!
➤ This TDM is considered game canon. You are free to have your character remember as many details as possible when they wake up.
➤ Only new characters are free to experiment with the Vessel options, Token or Offering 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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silco | arcane | new player

[zauns]

a: pretty white jaws

[Dreams of drowning are nothing new. But usually, Silco thinks as his consciousness washes in with the tide, they are more violent. Usually there are hands holding him down.

This is - peaceful. He takes a breath and it comes easily, without fuss, even though he's quite aware that he's breathing water. And when he moves, that's easy too, slipping through the water as if made for it. Odd. But a welcome variation on a familiar dream, Silco thinks, until a gently glowing filament twines around his wrist.

Until he looks closely at it and sees - chairs and tables nearly empty, just a few familiar faces. Laughter, fellow-feeling, a half-drunk rendition of an old Undercity song. A glass of whiskey he doesn't need to ask for - and Silco tears the thing off him, lip curling over sharper-than-normal teeth. A trap, that's all this is. Those memories come with the nightmare, sometimes, but he didn't expect them like this.

It's not the only one, though. And the next is different. A desk scattered with papers and books, an ashtray with garish drawings, a presence above - something dropped on his desk, something that might explode, but doesn't. Chaos, peace, teetering on the edge somewhere in between. There's no love in Silco's life without pain - a body under rubble, hands around his throat, bullets in his flesh - but that only makes it more appealing, because anything that comes without a catch can't be trusted.

But he struggles, because that's who he is, Silco has always fought. So he does, tearing at the tendrils, until he goes still. Not in defeat, but because he feels the presence of a greater predator, and he's not a fool. When he catches sight of another, more humanlike form nearby, his first thought is -

I don't need to swim fast, just faster than them.

It won't save him, but he doesn't know that, and so he swims toward them, as if to help.]


b: eyes of a predator - cathedral

[Beneath the stained glass of the cathedral, Silco pauses for a moment, searching for his bearings. He can't say he likes any of this, the unsteady world, the dangers and the temptations. But he's nothing if not adaptable. What he needs, ideally, is someone who knows more. Naturally, he can't trust anyone, but one must start somewhere.

Collect what information he can - if there is any to be had, which he truly isn't certain of at the moment - find resources, create a strategy for survival. Whatever those things look like here.

He's out of his depth, but he has been before. He stays still, surveying the cathedral, until movement catches his attention. Silco is quite aware that he doesn't look welcoming at the best of times, and certainly not now. So he makes his voice - gentle. Somewhat.]

Hello? [A pause. Another attempt to seem nonthreatening.] I could use your help.

[Or, he could use you. At least.]


c: eyes of a predator - nightmares

[Silco watches the creatures with a wary, calculating eye. He has never ridden a horse. He thinks they probably are not meant to look quite like this, but after everything else that's happened, that seems like a trivial detail. He cards through his scattered thoughts, turning over what he knows of animals, of these sorts in particular.

Not much. What animals exist in the Undercity are nothing like this.

So, start with what he does know. No one will do anything for you without a reason, without a reward or a threat or the possibility of either. A threat won't get him anywhere, a threat is something he can't back up right now. A reward, then. He retreats from the edge of the garden, from where he was watching the horses, back to the bushes heavy with flowers. And Silco begins to pluck off blossoms, caring little for their loveliness or their lives. If they have them.

When he hears a footstep, he turns toward it, eyes sharp, hands full of flowers.]


d: wildcard

[OOC: Happy to roll with any starter, or to come up with something new if you'd like! Just PM this journal.]

c.

[cantilevers]

[Vander had a way with people, animals and especially children. He'd always been that way, a gravitational pull of charms, emotional intelligence and a willingness to reduce himself to some form of silliness if the situation called for it. He'd been the first to befriend rats or cats in the streets; he'd been the first to welcome children as much as he'd been the first to put their tormentors on their asses.

Horses? He had no idea how to deal with horses, though he'd read books to pass the time. He knew they were often skittish herd animals, though these didn't seem to fit the mold of pictures and even the few he had spied from a distance in his lifetime. He'd never been close to one, but hey, friendship came with basic needs: food, trust and being useful.

He emerged unaware that there was already another person here. He walked forward with a quiet confidence, nickering softly in what he imagined were sounds horses made. The herd as a whole regarded him with curious aloofness, but they didn't move away from him either. He noted the types of grasses that they were eating and dropped to grasp a handful, offering out a hand towards the nearest mare. While her ears flicked forward, she made no move to approach.

Hmmm. Something better then. He turned, intending to look for something of higher value and then froze when he spotted the other person.]

...you're not real. [This was a dream after all. Or a nightmare if the horses were any indication.]

[zauns]

[Silco goes very still.

It would only be too convenient if Vander were right, if one of them weren't real. But Silco can't count on something like that. This whole thing might be just a dream, but even in a dream Silco can't let down his guard. Especially not now. He doesn't even have a knife to defend himself with.]

You certainly would like it if I weren't, I'm sure. I'll have to disappoint you.

[Just act confident. Do that, while trying to figure out what's going on - and what to do about it. Last time Silco saw Vander, he was very dead. Because of Silco. If this is real, than Silco might expect anger. A desire for revenge.

But then, this is Vander. So perhaps not. He does have a backbone under there still, somewhere - but for once, Silco would prefer to avoid seeing it. Not right now, when he has no real way to defend himself.]

What are you doing here?

[He sidles away from Vander, just a step or two. So he can make a run for it if needed.]

[cantilevers]

[Well, it wouldn't be the first time either of them disappointed each other, but he was thankful it wasn't him this time. Of course, if Silco was going to claim to be real, present, and interactive, it also meant that the other man was potentially a danger to him. Of course, without that little purple-veined monster, Vander liked to feel he had the advantage physically if it came to that.

However, he had learned over the years that never, ever underestimate Silco. The other man hardly engaged unless the deck was stacked in his favour, a fact that he would hold true even here in a foreign world surrounded by creatures neither of them had much interactions with even as boys.]

Considering the last time that I saw you... [He shook his head, rallying himself from his shock to walk until he found a different type of forage.] You're lucky I had other priorities so you could scurry away off that gangplank otherwise, I would have ended you.

[His tone did not indicate that, at present, he was willing to endeavor to change that narrative right now. This place was confusing and strange and the fact there was grass and clean air and horses. He was still young enough to be enamored at times with what it was to be in this kind of nature, a novelty.]

Feeding demonic horses, obviously. What does it look like I'm doing? Want to be fed to one? Maybe they like jerky.

[He thought he shouldn't be snide, but oh it was too easy right now. Confusion and anxiety about all of this made it easy to focus on the one thing he could control: Silco's retreat.]

B

[licensetotrill]

[ Jaskier looks like he might know what's going on - or at least, he has that kind of mournful look on his face as he looks around the cathedral that says this is not the first time he's seen it, and the last time he was here wasn't pleasant.

Even so, the world reflected for Jaskier is brighter, more vibrant. He's a poet, and one used to seeing the best in people. So while he does startle at Silco calling out, it's just because he was lost in his own thoughts. In a way it's a boon that Jaskier has come from a world being overtaken by war on all sides- such scars are sadly commonplace. So that first impression reflects this - Silco's sharp edges showing capability, or at least the potential of it. Ready to see the best in people, Jaskier is. ]

Apologies, I was lost in my thoughts- I'm not sure how much help I can be, but we are all in this together here. What do you need?

[zauns]

[Silco is, on the other hand, not at all inclined to see the best in people. But he doesn't look for the worst, either, at least not immediately. He looks for how he can use them, whether they can be used at all, what worth they might have. He's suspicious as well, wary, but it doesn't show on his face.

He doesn't know Jaskier at all, but what Silco wants to see from anyone at all in that moment is an opportunity, and that's what Jaskier looks like. A man who knows things Silco needs to know.

He smiles. It pulls a bit grotesquely at his scars.]

When you say 'here' - I'm afraid I don't know exactly what you mean. This feels like a dream, but a bit too real.

[licensetotrill]

Ah, yes, about that. It.... kind of is?

[ Jaskier winces a little. Okay, not helpful. Deep breath as he spreads his palms, the ever-present performer. Bear with me here.]

This is a dream. But it's also more than that. With any luck we wake up with a minimal amount of suffering first. This is the second time I've been in such a dream. I suppose I'm about to find out how much they have in common.

a.

[opheliac]

[ jinx had noticed the vicious sea creature creeping along the black sea, but unlike probably most, fear doesn't swell her veins but dulls it. the power to manipulate water was a gift Sleep gave her when she arrived in this strange universe, and while she is still learning in the waking world, in the dreamscape, however, she is able to do so many things. one being to have massive wings made of some of the sea she's currently in, with the hextech gemstone fused onto her back, glistening as radiant as ever. she doesn't need to display them, but navigating through the ocean with an extra push had been easier than using her limbs. so, if the shark decides to strike, she is confident that she can deal with the threat appropriately.

the zaunite doesn't seem to notice someone swimming her way; her attention is far too fixated by the feelers squeezing at her ankles—playing sweet memories of her loved ones. her mother, felicia, is on her right anklebone, her face a blur, but the aroma of axle grease swirls over her nostrils.

the left contains a moment of herself when she was younger, holding a doodle masterpiece at silco while waiting impatiently for recognition. and as always, her father is buried in his work, which she used to think a lot of times was his way of testing her patience. a man filled and ready to twist anything into a life lesson. she hated them back then, but now... she'd give anything to just to hear him ramble. ]

[zauns]

[Silco was looking for bait, nothing more. Something - someone - to throw to the shark, distract it from him so that he can make a quick escape. He doesn't know yet that's not possible, that escape will take more than he expects. But it doesn't make much difference what he knows or doesn't know.

He slips through the water easily. He doesn't know that it could be difficult, can't see that his skin has taken on a bluer sheen, his scars more scalelike than usual. Focused on survival, he does his best to ignore the gentle tug of the filaments wrapping around him, the dangerously familiar scenes they show. It's more difficult than he would like.

Which is why, as he gets close enough to make out the features of the figure in the water, for a moment he thinks it's simply another vision. And why wouldn't it be? This is all no more than a dream, a vivid one. And if he's dreaming in the moments before death, which seems likely, who else would he dream of?

Dream or not, in that moment it doesn't seem to matter. All thoughts of bait disappear.]

Jinx?

[It comes out muffled in the water, uneasy, a strain of emotion that hardly anything else in the world evokes.]

[opheliac]

[ even with his voice being mostly muted by the ocean, it reaches her still, and she twists her head to whoever is calling out to her. he can't see her eyes due to the blindfold, but the way her physique becomes stone—it's apparent she is just as surprised to see him.

two months ago, she was on a long search to find him (and vander), and asked everyone via murmur if they had seen her father(s). some replied that they had in a dreamscape, but not in the waking world, and it left her heart sore with mixed emotions. disappointed, but weirdly relieved because they both deserved peace, in which, Sleep assured her that the two men ended up somewhere else resting, but they desired to see her again. so to come across silco once more, there's absolutely no hesitation on her part as she kicks away the tentacles to swim/fly straight into his arms. jinx doesn't speak, not verbally, but she speaks telepathically instead. ]

You're here. I've looked everywhere for you...

c

[justification]

[This is how she knows she's dreaming: seeing a dead man holding flowers, as if he is attending his own funeral. Caitlyn doesn't make any attempt to close the distance between them, nor does she immediately escalate to violence. Silco is dead, and this land, these horses - there's something about them too, that reminds her of death.

She thinks that she would remember dying. And if she did, she likes to think that she'd see her mother, or the soldiers she's fought beside, rather than him. Which means that this can only be a dream.

Her dreams aren't usually this on the nose, but she's also not about to let the symbolism of her subconsciousness go unrecognized. Death is all around her - maybe it makes a certain kind of sense that she'd see it like this in her mind.]

Are those for the horses?

[She asks, her voice clipped. Cait's arms are folded in front of her stomach as she watches him carefully. There's a sort of strangeness to this whole thing that makes her feel a bit unmoored, curious to engage him rather than simply walk away.]

[zauns]

[He recognizes her. Silco has a good eye for faces, it's useful in his line of work, and - after all - it's hard to forget the face of someone who was there when you died. Even if they share nothing else, they shared that.

But he remembers her face, and he knows who it belongs to. A young scion of Piltover, brave enough to wander into the Undercity, foolish enough to set her sights (metaphorical) on Vander's child, even more foolish to set her sights (literal) on Silco's.

There's no need for animosity, though. Not yet.]

Indeed. [A simple answer for a simple question.] I've no idea what horses like. It seemed like a start.

[Silco sees her wariness. It's impossible not to. And so he acts - as casual as anyone might, meeting a half-known stranger in an odd place. Taking a little power by acting as though they're the sort of people who could have a nice chat with one another.]

[justification]

[It's so strange that it feels almost comical, to have a conversation with Silco here, in what seems like the end of all things. He has a way of enforcing a normalcy on the situation, something that Caitlyn is still trying to grasp at. He's better at this than she is, acting cordial, as if this is nothing more than a simple conversation. She always wears her heart on her sleeve.

Still. The absurdity of it lowers her guard, just a hair.]

...carrots, probably.

[A stupid thing to say. But they're past the realm of anything else, and she thinks that fighting here would just be wasted effort, a lost cause. Might as well... tame a horse with him. Sure.]

They don't seem to respond to being direct. A bribe, [she says the word, disparaging, as if she's passing judgement on him for what's a relatively simple act,] is probably the right call.

b

[merged]

[ His voice draws her attention, brushing against something half remembered in the back of her mind. It finally clicks when she spots him, blue eyes going wide with recognition. Silco. What she knows of him comes in pieces, scraps Jinx has let slip: that he's been broken, that he's protective of her, and that it's abundantly clear he's a skilled manipulator. For all his wiry posture, he still manages to carve out a dangerous shape against the stone surroundings—or is what she knows of him twisting his form? ]

Silco, right? [ There's no point pretending she doesn't know who he is, though she doesn't leave him time to confirm it. ] I'm a friend of your daughter's. I can't work miracles, but... what kind of help do you need?

[ Whether he's injured, disoriented, or just searching for answers, she's here for the moment. And given that he's important to someone she cares about, she'll give him more of her time than she would someone else. ]

[zauns]

[He doesn't know her, but she knows him, and that makes him wary. It wasn't uncommon, back in the Undercity - nearly everyone knew his name, and there was no possible way for him to know all of them. But this isn't the Undercity. He doesn't have the power he held there. He doesn't have any power at all.

And that instantly puts him on his guard. That she's Jinx's friend doesn't change that. He doesn't know if it's true, and even if it is, that doesn't mean she's any less of a threat. More, perhaps. It makes her look suspicious, possibly dangerous, possibly even a threat.]

I don't expect miracles. [He watches her closely, but stays carefully neutral, even a touch friendly. With so little power, Silco has to be cautious.] I only want to know more about this place.

[Though now that's a secondary concern, because -] You're Jinx's friend?

[merged]

[ Sharon casually walks toward him, glass crunching beneath her boots, water seeping from the seams. She looks like a drowned cat, bleached hair plastered to her scalp, masking the frizz that normally defies containment. She carries no obvious weapon, her clothes fitting too snugly to hide much, though something might be tucked in the pockets of her white leather vest. She makes no move for the pockets, though. ]

Yep, Jinx's friend. Sharon da Silva. I'd offer a handshake, but— [ A quick show of the speckles of blood on her palms, then wipes them on her soaked leggings. ] Should've known better than to land like that. Lucky for us, it's just a dream. Even dying isn't a big deal.

[ That's a lie. You might not truly die in the real world, but the memory lingers like tar, impossible to scrub away. ]

b

[tequila_sunset]

It’s good to be wanted. Harry sees the stranger, sickly and needing. Underfed, small framed the way people are sometimes in Jamrock. Like Kim. Someone like him, disfigured. He knows what it’s like to have a scary face, and he’s lived his whole life with a rasping voice that frightens people, a jaw that likes to jut oddly off his face.

EMPATHY - (He wasn’t born like this. One day something happened, and no one ever looked at him the same way again. It’s not his fault. People make harsh judgements about damaged faces.)

PAIN THRESHOLD - (You can read the shapes of the scars across his face. It was painful. This is the aftermath of a severe infection.)

He’s a broad man in a muzzle-like mask that hides the bottom of his face, and he likes to help. He knows the cathedral, knows Sleep. The dream doesn’t scare him. He holds out a hand, and to him it’s a grim looking thing. Rough talons.

“Is this your first dream? I’m Harry.”

VOLITION - (You know it is, but it’s polite to ask questions like this. Normal people don’t read people the way you do.)

[zauns]

[Silco looks this stranger over. He's wary, in this unfamiliar place, but when he looks at Harry he doesn't see a threat. Zaun is a place where all different sorts of the dregs of society find themselves, and physical appearance has very little to do with how dangerous they are. Plenty aren't human, a fact Silco takes for granted, having grown up there.

Instead, he sees an opportunity. He'll be cautious, of course, with so little in the way of power currently - but Silco has a lot of things he'd like to know, and someone so willing to approach, someone who seems ready to help, is an excellent chance to find a few of those answers.]

Silco. [He reaches out a hand - thin, long-fingered - to shake Harry's.] A dream, then. That makes more sense.

[More real than he would expect, but it all does feel like dream-logic.]

We are sharing this dream, I assume. If you were some sort of figment, I would expect you to seem more familiar.

[tequila_sunset]

PERCEPTION - (You see long well kept fingers that betray a rougher history.)

Harry's own hands are big mitts, thick fingers, scarred from things he can’t remember. His eyes flick down to his hand, clasped around the stranger's. He's relieved when it doesn’t do anything unseemly like turn back into tentacles. Sometimes that happens when he picks things up now or tries to open things…

“Yeah. This is only my second time here. It was super different last time, there was a banquet.”

He’s almost always a little hungry now, he can’t keep the disappointment out of his voice.

“Anyway, the goddess Sleep brings us here. I don’t really know how, but I owe her. I was a dead man.”

c!

[hexrot]

[ Jayce has been having a difficult time with earning the horse's favor, not because he doesn't try— something else gets in the way, even when he goes through plans in his head and sets either of them in motion. The minute he sees the creature, any of them, the instinct to hunt it down is much greater than reason to tame it.

He'll have to troubleshoot, again, but Jayce does not trek uncharted waters in the sea of failures. He knows what it's like to flounder more than succeed, although it doesn't make it any less frustrating— Just makes him awfully adamant. So, he sits. The less elevation the better, he'd pace if he could even do such— but not with his bones, snapped in two terrible places. His brace is a chimera of scrap metal and hammer parts, he smells of scum, decay and infection— and he looks just as he had when he'd crawled right out of Zaun.

And when he approaches with heavy steps, metal clanks and the clicks of cogs turning into place to keep him upright— Jayce goes stone still. The bright, mad gold of his eyes flit from petals to the other man's mismatching gaze. He huffs just to move at all. Just to stand. And he'll keep doing it. ]

Decided to wake up?

[ "Here" goes unsaid. ]

[zauns]

[For a moment, he doesn't recognize Jayce. He's used to the well-groomed specimen of topsider perfection, tall and strong and so very righteous. He knows all the Council members on sight, of course, and had his people collecting information on Jayce the moment he ascended. All the better to advance Silco's own agenda.

But none of that matters here, and it takes him longer to place Jayce than he would have expected. He looks like the sad wreckage one might find in the gutters of Zaun, the scum that Piltover likes to pretend doesn't exist. The scum that Silco reigned over.

Silco must have missed quite a bit, after he died.]

Councilor Talis.

[His eyes flit to the brace. Not judgemental, but assessing. He would have said he knew what to expect from Jayce Talis, thanks to the information he had, their brief meeting. Now he isn't sure. The man seems very changed, and Silco will have to discover what that means.]

One can't dream forever.

c

[ar_cane]

[ Feeling like a drowned rat spat up on the shore, Viktor stumbles out of the cathedral and down its stone stairs. His steps are heavy from fatigue, louder than he would have liked if he were paying more attention to the situation rather than dwelling on the ordeal he'd just gone through. The dreams have a fondness for water, for tricking the mind into believe it will drown, and for washing everyone out to sea before the next trial appears. He has no idea what to expect, whether it will be a nightmare disguised by a thin veneer of frivolity or something more sinister from the start. He should find Jayce, maybe try to check on Jinx through mutual friends, make sure that no one is stranded alone for too long.

Sudden movement, not from a monster but from a man. Viktor freezes on instinct before noting the flowers clutched to a waistcoat, gaze drawn upward by the multicolored blooms, freezing on a half scarred face and distinctive eye that peers back at him just as startled. Viktor had never met Silco the Industrialist, the Eye of Zaun, but their lives were too interwoven to not recognize him immediately, aided by that certainty that comes with a dream that you know a person you've never set eyes on before. ]

Preparing for a date? [ He nods to the flowers, curiosity getting the better of him. ] Our hostess might be jealous.

[zauns]

[He doesn't recognize Viktor immediately, though something about him does seem familiar. Perhaps it's just the dream - but Silco doesn't discount it so quickly. He knew of Viktor, of course, as he knew something of every Zaunite who brought themselves to Piltover's attention. And Viktor more than most, so truly talented that even Piltover couldn't deny it.

But they never met, and Silco has only seen Viktor's face in still images, attached to files that would end up stacked on his desk: information that couldn't be used yet, but might someday.]

Something like that. [He studies Viktor, trying to place that feeling.] If our hostess created the horses, she has nothing to be jealous of. Though I'm not certain my offerings will be welcome.

[Not a lot of horses to befriend in Zaun.]

➥ B

[nestingdevil]

[To say that the landing hadn't been graceful would be an understatement. He'd been at the surface one moment (upside down, right side up, he's not entirely sure) with his feet firmly planted on the surface. And the next? The next, the ocean around him simply shattered. A million pieces scattering, falling, like the slow-motion aftermath of a car crash trying to catch up with itself.]

[As such, it'd taken him some time to find his bearings again. The weight of the cathedral had been suffocating in the beginning; its hallowed ground pressing down, down, down to remind him of what he truly is. And while churches have never been a problem before, here? Well. There's a phrase, isn't there?]

[Bring the waters to wash away the sin.]

[It may be why he's found himself wandering. Every brick of this place feels like it wants to cast him out. It makes him slower, dizzy. And as the Sin slinks through one of the halls leading to the main congregation, it wouldn't be hard to miss: the soft brush of ash, twirling. The way his tail bounces and sways like a broken pendulum, ticking in the dark. And the noise. The constant clp of his heels followed by the dull, haunted clanging of chains chasing them with an echo.]

[The former homunculus opens his eyes and in the dim, they shine back. Red, solid.] Oi, oi, oi - [He drawls, the lantern noosed between his horns swinging cold.] - yeah, yeah. Give me a second. [Talking, Greed reaches out to wrap his claws around the frame of the archway separating the hall from the nave. Point by point, he sinks them in for a bit of leverage; their grind, whiny and tense.]

[>i>Srrrch, and he pulls himself forward, leaving behind four-line scratches as a reminder.] Came through the same way the rest of us did, I'm guessing. [The Sin slowly lifts his head as he drops his arm to his side. He hadn't gotten a good look at whoever it was before, but now that they're both out in the open - oh, is it a face he knows. Not familiarly, not intimately, not even as an acquaintance, but by association. Of a young crow who had asked for an open door, a place to stay, and for anyone to keep an eye out just in case - ]

[Greed's expression goes blank. For a second, it's vacant. Still. A cold-blooded examination waiting to see which way this will go. Then, with shrug, he forces out a thin smile.] You're one of Jinx's pops, aren't you. [Not a question, but a statement.] Sorry, haven't seen her yet. But that doesn't mean very much.

[He takes another haggard step, and what little is left of his internal heat fizzles under his boots. Fzzt.] Eh, I'm sure you've got your own tricks up your sleeve, but the one runnin' this place is full of surprises. You good to walk on your own?

[zauns]

[The Undercity is full of people who don't look particularly normal. Whether because of Shimmer, their own choice of body modifications, or simply because they were never human to begin with - Silco has seen all different sorts, and as such, physical appearance alone isn't likely to startle him.

What does put him on alert is the sense of menace that emanates from Greed. The way he moves reads to Silco as deliberate, calculated. The way he looks at Silco, with the cold gaze of a predator, is a warning. Silco isn't easy to intimidate, and he isn't now, but he is on guard. He has none of his defenses - his men, Sevika, Jinx. Not even his knives.

Only his mind, which, of course, did manage to keep him alive for some time.]

I'm not quite so elderly that I can't walk.

[Sore, a bit, from falling to the stone - but he can stand, and he can move. And he's taking careful note of what Greed says.]

You know my daughter. [It puts him more on his guard, reminding him of what Jinx said. She does make enemies easily, but her enemies are his enemies. Is this one of them?] And myself, it seems. Then you have the advantage here, since I'm afraid I don't know you at all.